FROM THE PASTOR’S DESK: I filled up my gas tank yesterday and could not believe the “bargain” I got as it only cost me $3.53 a gallon when I paid cash at Swifty’s. Now who would have ever thought a year ago that we would be calling gas at that price a bargain? When I was out in Idaho a few weeks ago I know they would consider it a bargain because there the cheapest I saw was $4.09 a gallon with some as high as $4.29.

Obviously something has happened to make us think this way. It’s the same thing that happened when gas hit $2.00 and $3.00 a gallon (and wouldn’t we love to have those days back again!). The term I use for it is desensitization. And it’s something that we see happening all the time.

For example, when I was attending the seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana, back in the Stone Age, I worked as a waiter at a very fine restaurant called Mountain Jack’s. Back then you could buy a good New York strip steak or a filet mignon dinner for under $10. And I distinctly remember our manager telling us that within a year the escalation in beef prices was going to make some of our steak dinners go up to as much as $14. Now, of course, that sounds like a bargain because you can go to some places when you’re really in a mood to splurge and, if you have the funds to do it, you can easily spend $40 or more on a good steak dinner.

Or let me give you another example of desensitization. Many of you have at some time or another seen the 1939 movie Gone with the Wind. Well, there is a line in that movie that, believe it or not, was voted the #1 movie line of all time by the American Film Institute in 2005. It was spoken by Clark Gable in his role as Rhett Butler and consisted of the last words he spoke to Scarlet O’Hara. It occurs at the end of the film when Scarlett asks Rhett, "Where shall I go? What shall I do?" if he were to leave her. His response is: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a _______.” (I think you know what word he used there.)

That one use of a four-letter word on the big screen caused quite a stir. Censors wanted it removed, but because of an amendment that was passed by the Motion Picture Association’s board a month before the release of Gone with the Wind, it was allowed to remain. And yet today, the use of that word or any other four-letter word hardly evokes any kind of reaction from the average movie go-er, much less makes headline news.

Again, this is desensitization. People get used to things that once shocked them. And that’s not always a good or healthy thing, especially when it comes to the whole arena of sin. In fact, many in the church today have become so desensitized to the word sin that it’s rarely heard in Christian pulpits these days and if anything it’s laughed at or joked about.

But do you really think that God chuckles at sin? I don’t. Rather, I think He views sin as a major offense to His holiness, for that is exactly what it is. In fact, I would go so far as to say that He hates sin. He detests sin. He hated it so much in the days of Noah that he wiped out the vast majority of sinful humanity from the face of the earth and started all over again with righteous Noah and his family. He hated sin so much in the book of Judges where we’re told “everyone did as he saw fit,” that He allowed foreign nations to come into the land of Israel and subjugate His chosen people for extended periods of time. He hated sin so much in the days of the kings of Israel that he allowed the powerful Assyrian army to invade the land and take a large number of His people into captivity where they were never heard from again.

And let us not forget that God hated sin so much that He put His own Son to death on a Roman cross, not because of sins that He had committed for He was the sinless Lamb of God, but for all the sins you and I have committed. So if you ever want to know how seriously God regards sin (and that includes your sin), just look at the cross where Jesus died as your sin-bearing, sin-paying substitute.

But I also want to encourage you to examine your own life to see how seriously you’re taking sin these days. You see, many Christians today want to live their lives with one foot in the world and one foot in God’s kingdom. And yet Jesus made it very clear to us the night before he was put to death that though His followers are in the world, they are not to be of the world. In other words, they are to live by a different standard than the rest of the world. There should be something distinctive about them that people are able to notice when they observe them in their everyday lives. Like Jesus said in His Sermon on the Mount: “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”

When I read that verse about letting your light shine, I was reminded of something that happened to me on one of the days of my vacation a few weeks ago. I spent 10 hours with Glenn Wegener of our congregation fishing on Carlyle Lake. Knowing that I was going to be in the sun all day, I did remember to put sunscreen on the exposed parts of my body. However, I forgot one part: my face. So with the sun reflecting off the water all day, by the time I got home my face was bright red, except where my sunglasses were. There I had little white circles around my eyes. But otherwise, my face was a living, visual reflection of the sun.

And that’s what we are to be as followers of Christ, isn’t it? Living reflections, not of the s-u-n, but of the S-o-n. So when people look at us, when they listen to us, when they observe us in the work place or on the softball field or the basketball court, they’ll hear and see and observe Jesus in us. I thought people saw a good example of this the last Saturday of July when Vicar Josh did his Helping Hands evangelism module where a number of our members went to non-members’ homes and did odd jobs for them that they weren’t able to do on their own, like cleaning out gutters, washing windows, spreading mulch, weed-eating, and mowing. When those we helped asked why we did it, the standard reply was: “We love because He first loved us.” Just another way of saying that we’re reflectors of the Son.

So I challenge you to do a good and honest evaluation of yourself that would consist of only two questions: 1. How seriously do I take sin, especially the sin in my own life? 2. How well am I reflecting the Son in my life? Understand that we’ll never be perfect this side of heaven and we’re always going to need to fall back on God’s grace and forgiveness. But I think you’ll agree with me that the One who gave His best for us definitely deserves our best in return.

Glad to still be your shepherd!