The Curse of Complacency

I’ve been thinking about how things go from bad to worse. Not really thinking about how that’s true . . . but more thinking about the how it happens. The mechanism, the process by which things go from a bad situation into a very, very bad situation.
This is actually the theme to one of my favorite books. Chinua Achebe, an African author, wrote a classic of modern literature called Things Fall Apart. It’s the story of an African tribal leader by the name of Okwonko who rose from poverty to a position of great standing in his tribe. Okwonko has great wealth, he has great power, but then tragic circumstances force him to be exiled from his village for seven years. And while he is gone, things begin to fall apart. White men move into the area, and with them they bring their culture . . . their law . . . their religion. The strong African culture is changed, bit by bit, until the point when Okwonko is finally able to return that he can barely recognize it. Okwonko strives to return to the life of wealth and influence that he once knew, he tries to get back to the way things used to be, but the forces at work are so strong and so subtle that he is unable to overcome them. The story ends with Okwonko’s dreams and life collapsing around him . . . and his spirit is broken. He is powerless against the forces that seemingly conspire against him . . . the forces that cause things to fall apart, the forces that cause things to go from bad to worse.
What I’ve come to realize is that the reason things fall apart has little to do with mere circumstances, but it has everything to do with attitude and action. Things fall apart because of complacency. When people get complacent, things go from bad to worse. People settle into a routine, they think that things are good enough where they stand right now, and they get complacent. Sometimes they think that things will always be the way they are currently, so they get complacent, and things start to fall apart.
I think that you know what I mean by complacent. When people get complacent they get a little soft, a little too comfortable. They lose that edge that they used to have, the driving force that used to propel them forward. They sit back on their accomplishments and expect the past to carry them into the future.
We’ve all seen people get complacent. The Republicans will hold office for a while and then forget that they have to keep working on it, so the Democrats take over . . . only to have the same thing happen to them a few years later. Or take a guy who’s never had much money, so he watches where every single penny goes. Scrimps by for years . . . and then one day hits big with the lottery. Suddenly the guy who’s never had two nickels to rub together is the proud owner of 100 million dollars, and he gets complacent. Doesn’t watch where his money goes, because he figures he doesn’t have to any more. And you know what happens to him? A few years later the money’s gone and he’s in worse shape than he was to begin with. Or how about this: when people get complacent, a little ol’ team called Appalachian State comes along and whups your rear end for you! Complacent people forget that the other team didn’t show up to get beat, but to play . . . and play hard.
Which is what makes spiritual complacency such a scary thing! People who get spiritually complacent forget that the other team came to play hardball. They think they’re tight with God, so they don’t take spiritual things as seriously as they did just a few months ago. Sleeping in on Sunday suddenly becomes more important than it used to be. Sunday morning Bible study gets put on the back burner. Prayer grinds to a halt. But since the other team is still playing hard, the complacent folks are hearing and believing the lie that they’re still spiritually okay. Sure, they might have missed a Sunday or two (well, let’s call it eight, but who’s counting?), but in the end they’re still pretty good, right?
This is the problem that the ancient Israelites had in our Old Testament reading for today. They had it so good that they got complacent in their relationship with God.
Last week we talked about the rich exploiting the poor. The reason for that was because in Amos’ day the Israelites had a thriving economy. They were fat and happy. But their financial success had made them so spiritually complacent that they couldn’t see what was happening around them. They couldn’t see that they were living in a spiritual wasteland. Amos says in Amos 6:4-6, “4 You lie on beds inlaid with ivory and lounge on your couches. You dine on choice lambs and fattened calves. 5 You strum away on your harps like David and improvise on musical instruments. 6 You drink wine by the bowlful and use the finest lotions, but you do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph”
The country was going to pot before their very eyes, but they couldn’t see it! The poor were languishing in the streets, unable to even buy bread! Worship at the temple of Holy God –instead of being the focal point of their lives, the very thing that their entire lives revolved around—had become something they did when they felt like it. They should have been grieving and mourning over the spiritual death that surrounded them on every side! But instead, they tended to have the attitude that everything was okay. “We’re happy, we’re wealthy, we’ve got a good life . . . heck, we’re God’s chosen people, what could happen to us?”
What could happen? They could forget that they were in a covenant with God. A covenant in which God said, “Honor Me above all else. Follow my decrees. Be about My business.” The covenant clearly stated that if they honored God by following Him, they would enjoy a life of prosperity and peace. They had prosperity, they had peace . . . but they forgot the God who gave it. And so God—in His mercy—took it all away from them. “You will be the first to go into exile,” He promised . . . and they were.
In 606 B.C. Jerusalem was overthrown. And the Scriptures record in 2 Kings 24:13-14, “13 As the LORD had declared, Nebuchadnezzar removed all the treasures from the temple of the LORD and from the royal palace, and took away all the gold articles that Solomon king of Israel had made for the temple of the LORD. 14 He carried into exile all Jerusalem: all the officers and fighting men, and all the craftsmen and artisans-- a total of ten thousand. Only the poorest people of the land were left.” The people had sinned the sin of complacency . . . and God kept His word. Only the poor—the people who couldn’t afford to be complacent—were left.
You might be thinking, “Well, I’ll never get complacent! That will never happen to me!” But complacency isn’t something that happens all at once; it sneaks up on you over time. You have to actively fight complacency. You have to be constantly vigilant.
The Apostle Peter warns us in 1 Peter 5:8, “8 Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” On the surface, that sounds pretty easy to avoid, because it sounds pretty easy to spot. After all, all we have to do is be on the lookout for a ravenous beast named Satan. Once you see him, you avoid him.
But it’s not quite that easy. If it were, none of us would be spiritually complacent. You might feel like you’re not complacent.
You know how a lion eats an elephant? One bite at a time.
That’s how Satan works on you. It’s how he devours you. One . . . little . . . bite . . . at a time. He doesn’t pull us away from God all at once. That would be too obvious. I like to point out that our spiritual lives are like a compass. When we’re in tune with God, we’re facing true north. But then Satan comes in and sneaks us a little lie. Just a little lie. It still sounds like the truth, and if you’re feeling a bit complacent you’ll believe it and get taken just a few degrees off true north. Then another little lie and you’re still feeling pretty good, and now you’re a few more degrees off. And another lie. And some more complacency. And another lie. And another. And before you know it, in your complacency you’ve allowed Satan to turn you 180 degrees away from God!
One bite at a time. That’s all it takes. And if you’re not vigilant, if you’re not keeping one eye open all the time, if you’re not self-controlled and alert to the Enemy’s schemes, you’re going to get devoured . . . because you’ve allowed yourself to become spiritually complacent. The opposite of spiritual complacency is being spiritually vigilant.
Helen Hanna—a lot of you know her—has a little cross-stitched saying on her wall, and it says something to the effect of, “If you don’t feel close to God anymore . . . guess who moved?” Guess who moved? God didn’t. You got complacent . . . and so you moved. You moved away from God.
Let’s be honest, now . . . how many of us have failed to be vigilant . . . have gotten complacent. How many of us have moved? How many of us have felt far away from God?

Ephesians 2:12-13, “remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.”
We don’t need to feel far away from God. But the answer isn’t in doing more, in working harder . . . but in looking. The answer isn’t in what we can do, but in what He has done. The answer to spiritual complacency is in looking to the cross, because there we see the thing that has taken us from complacent people who are far away to redeemed people who have been brought near: the blood of Jesus Christ.
The blood of Jesus Christ keeps us near to God even when we feel far away! We get complacent, we start to move away from God, and the blood of Christ steps in and says, “No, that’s not you . . . you’re not far away. I’ve brought you close.” The blood of Christ stands as the eternal witness to the world, to the roaring lion, and to our complacency that we are close to God.
Things fall apart, they go from bad to worse because in our complacency we allow ourselves to be deceived, to turn away from God. But even when we are spiritually complacent, the blood of Christ is vigilant . . . bringing us to repentance . . . bringing us to the cross . . . bringing us back close to God.

“I will never forget anything they have done.”

Good morning. I want to talk about something today that I’ve kind of understood for some time now, but have never really had to put it into words. This is kind of uncharted territory for me. Frankly, this is a sermon that I’ve really had to struggle with. Martin Luther used to use a profound Latin phrase, “Oratio, meditation, tentatio faciunt theologum.” Translated, it means, “Prayer, meditation, and struggle make one a theologian.” By that he means that the more a pastor prays over the text, the more he meditates over the text, and the more he agonizes over the meaning and application of the text, the more a pastor really wrestles with the text, the more the theology of God sinks deep, deep into the fiber of his being. That’s true for me, and it’s true for you. Prayer, meditation, and struggle make us theologians.
It’s that struggling part that’s really gotten a hold of me this week. I’ve wrestled with this text, questioning every possible angle I thought I might take on preaching it. It’s been the sort of thing that has caused me to question so many things that I’ve previously taken for granted. It’s not been easy! But I hope and pray that my struggles may result in good fruit for you, something for you to take home and ponder over. Something to sink deep, deep into the fiber of your being.
I guess part of my struggle with developing this sermon is because I’ve had to refine my understanding of what God truly cares about. I mean, the things He’s truly passionate over . . . the things that just get His heart racing. The things that are immensely pleasing to Him and the things that just make Him furious.
What’s the number one thing that God is just incredibly passionate about? It’s about people getting saved, right? It’s about the Gospel. And for the longest time I just kind of naively assumed that if the Gospel was getting out there, that if people were getting saved, then no matter what else happened God was cool with that. I guess that I just kind of assumed that if the Gospel was the thing that God cared about the most, the thing that topped His list, then that’s the only thing we really needed to be worried about. But I was wrong.
Now, it’s still true that God’s first and foremost concern is about getting people saved through the work of Jesus Christ. But just because that’s His biggest concern it doesn’t mean it’s His only concern. He’s also concerned about justice . . . about fair play. He’s concerned about the poor.
You can hear God’s heart, His passion, His driving concern for the poor of the land in these words from the Old Testament reading: Amos 8:4-7, “4 Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land, 5 saying, "When will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat?"-- skimping the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales, 6 buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the sweepings with the wheat.”
The rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer. And it wasn’t just due to circumstances, but it was because the rich were getting richer by exploiting the poor. Everything they could do to put a little more back into their own pockets, that’s what they were doing. Scales that measured out just a little bit less than they said they did. Prices that were inflated because they knew people couldn’t get their goods anywhere else. Shoddy products: mixing the dry husk—the useless chaff—back in with the good wheat. Treating people like cattle . . . no, not like cattle . . . like property, like things. Lowering the value of human beings to the cost of a cheap pair of cruddy sandals.
This is what they were doing. Why? Because they thought they could get away with it. Because greed had taken over their lives. Because they thought that all God really cared about was their sacrifice at the Temple and their offerings that they made. They had remade God in their own image, but they forgot that God isn’t like us. They forgot that He doesn’t care about things at all, but what He truly cares about is people. They forgot that God wants us to use things and love people . . . and instead they loved things and used people.
And this using of people, this trampling of the poor and needy, this infuriates God so much that He says something so harsh that I can’t find the equivalent of it anywhere else in Scripture. This God that is a God of love and mercy and grace and second chances is so offended by the way that the rich are treating the poor that He swears—God swears—“I will never forget anything they have done.”

Now why is this so troubling? I mean, it’s not as though we’re an incredibly wealthy congregation. If anything we probably lean a little more towards the “poor” side of the spectrum. We’re mostly working class folks, and if anyone’s getting exploited around here it’s us. Corporate America exploits the working class. We’re the ones who deserve a break, right?
That’s what I used to think . . . until one day that I ate a chocolate bar.
Now in my house we love chocolate! When someone’s feeling down or they get a scraped knee, what do I say? “Chocolate fixes everything.” I love chocolate so much that I scoured the internet to figure out how to eat more of it and still be healthy. And I found out that the darker the chocolate the better it is for your brain. But if you don’t like the dark chocolate I also found out that the regular milk chocolate can also be good for you, too! You just have to take your chocolate bar and break it in half and shake all the calories out. Or if you don’t want to do that, all you have to do is put your chocolate on top of the refrigerator. Calories don’t like height, so they’ll jump off before your chocolate bar gets up there. In our house we strictly adhere to the two main food groups: chocolate and cheesecake . . . and if you put them both together you’ve got a complete meal!
But did you know that according to Lutheran World Relief that ninety percent—ninety percent—of the world’s cocoa is grown by families. Families that own small farms of twelve acres or less. West African countries in particular are critically dependent on cocoa for money.
And these families that grow cocoa for my chocolate bar don’t sell directly to Hershey. Instead, they are often forced to sell to a middleman who makes the real money. The farmers oftentimes have to sell their crops for less than it cost to produce them. If they make a profit at all it will be minimal. And somehow they still have to feed their families on next to no money at all.
The result is that these families live in poverty. As a matter of fact, in a recent sermon by pastor Rob Bell he reported that eighty percent of the people of the world live in sub-standard housing. Half of all the people in the world live on less than two dollars per day. 1 billion children live in poverty. And one billion people don’t have decent drinking water. In West Africa the prices for the cocoa crops are so low that it has resulted in severe poverty and even child slavery . . . all so that I can enjoy a chocolate bar for less than a dollar. Add in a soda with that and I’ve just spent more on a snack than half the people in the world have to live on every day.
Suddenly chocolate doesn’t taste so good. It tastes like starving children. It tastes like exploitation.
And this isn’t just true of chocolate, but of coffee and crafts and a thousand other things! Everywhere we go we are faced with choices of where to spend our money, and the fact is that very often the money you and I spend is on little comforts that come from the back-breaking toil and exploitation of the poor. We get richer . . . they get poorer . . . and God swears, “I will never forget what you have done.”
Amos prophesied against the ancient Israelites for their contemptible treatment of the poor. He spoke against them, and I think it’s more than fair to say that he speaks against us. God cares about the poor . . . He is passionate about the people of the world who live in poverty. And all too often we fail to use the blessings He gives us to bring them out of poverty.
The Old Testament prophets frequently use judicial language to describe the distance sin caused between God and His people. The message was clear: Israel had broken God’s covenant. They had failed to do what God commanded; they had failed to worship Him and Him alone. They had failed to speak on behalf of those who could not speak for themselves: the widow . . . the orphan . . . the poor. Israel had broken God’s covenant, and so God divorced Himself from them. In His anger, they were ripped from their homes in the Promised Land and cast from His presence into exile. No longer were they His people.
No one could deny God that right . . . because He was absolutely justified in His actions. They deserved it and, in many ways, should have expected God’s justice. But what they didn’t expect was God’s mercy.
As the book of Amos closes we hear something amazing. After the destruction of Israel that was brought about by their own sin, the Lord says in Amos 9:13-15, “13 "The days are coming," declares the LORD, "when the reaper will be overtaken by the plowman and the planter by the one treading grapes. New wine will drip from the mountains and flow from all the hills. 14 I will bring back my exiled people Israel; they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit. 15 I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them," says the LORD your God.”
Did you hear those amazing words? They came right at the end . . . “the Lord your God.” He’s still their God. In spite of their sin . . . He’s still their God. He’s still the God of mercy . . . of love . . . and of second chances. And God does not change.
God doesn’t change! That means despite our sin, He’s still our God, as well! He looks at us and knows that we’re just as guilty as Israel, and yet He says, “I’m going to go the cross and bring you back from exile . . . I’m going to rebuild your lives and make you whole once again. I’m going to redeem you . . . because I am your God . . . and you are my people.” Jesus Christ is our God, and His blood gives us forgiveness . . . even when we’ve eaten a chocolate bar.
And in this forgiveness that Jesus offers us, He also guides into a new life! He gives us the power to leave our old lives behind. He gives us new eyes to see things as He sees them! He opens our eyes to the needs of the poor and He gives us hearts of compassion and hands that willingly work not only to bring justice and equity back into the world, but to carry His offer of salvation to those who are not only poor in life, but poor in spirit.
Proverbs 14:31 says, “He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God.” You and I live in a state of unprecedented wealth. God has seen fit to bless us with wealth that is unimaginable to half of the world. Not only do we have physical blessings that others do not have, but we also have the spiritual blessing of forgiveness and eternal life in Christ. He has blessed us beyond imagination, and in that blessing He grants that we may use our wealth to honor God by showing kindness to the needy.

A Balancing Act

Both the Law and the Gospel must be kept in balance for us to be spiritually healthy.

Remember when playgrounds still had teeter-totters? You know, when you had one big board that sat on a center pivot point, and you’d get on one side and your best friend would get on the other? You’d push up and they’d go down. They’d hit bottom and then push up, and you’d go down. Up, down, up down. Lot of fun, right?
But what was the most fun on a teeter-totter? When you got down to the bottom and stayed there, right? And your friend is there, hanging in mid-air, little legs kicking. And you’d look right at them and their eyes would get all big and round, because they knew what you were about to do . . . and they’d say, “Don’t you do it!” and you’d say, “Oh, I’m gonna do it!” And they’d say, “Don’t do it!” and you’d say, “Oh, I’m gonna do it!” And then suddenly you’d jump off and they’d rocket to the ground, crashing their rear end down on that board when it hit. Probably breaking their tailbone . . . oh yeah, good times . . . goooood times. Teeter-totters were fun!
Well, I take that back. Teeter-totters need balance to work properly. And while it was fun as long as you were the one causing the imbalance, it wasn’t fun at all when someone else did it to you! Then it wasn’t fair!
See, I never thought that it would be possible to learn an important spiritual lesson from a teeter-totter, but I did. And the lesson is this: if you don’t want to get hurt, balance is important.
We meet people all the time whose lives seem out of balance. It’s pretty easy to tell. I met a guy once who bought his dream car: a tricked-out Corvette. Wouldn’t even park normally; the car was so valuable that he was one of those guys who always ate up four parking spots just so no one else could park near his precious Corvette and scratch it all up. He had this great car, but he couldn’t afford anything else. Not rent. Not heat. Not food. His life was out of balance.
Or maybe you know someone who spends all their time on one particular passion of theirs. Could be a hobby or maybe even a worthwhile cause. But they spend so much time on that one thing that they don’t have time for relationships anymore. No friends, no family . . . just that one, all-consuming passion of theirs. Their lives are out of balance.
Now that’s sad to see, isn’t it? We just want to grab them and tell them, “Look, I understand where you’re coming from and all . . . but you’ve got to get some balance back in your life!” It’s hard to see a person with their life out of balance.
But as sad as it is when a person’s physical life is out of balance, it’s especially bad when a person’s spiritual life is out of balance. As Lutherans we often talk about two spiritual concepts that are equally important; two concepts that need to be kept in balance. Those concepts are called Law and Gospel, and they need to be kept in balance. If we get too far to one side or the other we’re missing something. We’ve upset the balance, and we’re going to be spiritually hurt.
This is what the Apostle Paul is trying to tell Timothy in the opening verses in our reading from I Timothy. Timothy is pastoring a church in the city of Ephesus, and there were apparently some supposed teachers there who were getting the message out of balance. From the reading, it sounds like what they were doing was preaching all Gospel and no Law.
We use the words “the Law” as a spiritual shorthand that basically means, “God’s commands.” The Law is what He has set down as being His requirements upon people. It’s His will for mankind. If you think of the Ten Commandments you’re pretty much on track. The Law of God are those things in which God looks to us and says, “This is what I expect of you.”
Now a lot of times we might be tempted to think of the Law in a negative fashion; a bunch of “thou shalt not” rules. Lines that we’re not supposed to cross. Things about which God says, “Do not do this!” But Paul says that the Law is good, if it’s used properly. How is this so?
The Scriptures show that the Law has three uses: three ways in which God uses His rules and expectations in our lives. The first is general: the Law restrains sin in the world. Now that’s good, isn’t it? I often like to say that a world in which everybody understands “Thou shalt not kill” is a pretty good place. That’s good, but it’s not what Paul’s talking about. He’s talking about the second use of the Law.
The second use of the Law is like this: it’s a mirror. This particular mirror was left in the church after Dale and Erin’s wedding. I’ve been wondering why that was . . . but now I understand! It was left here so that I can use it in a sermon illustration!
A little over a week ago a young bride used this mirror to make sure that she was beautiful for her wedding day. Every imperfection was looked at closely in this mirror, and it was covered up or fixed.
But what if the imperfections that show up in this mirror are so deep . . . so horrifying . . . that they can’t be fixed? What if this was like the magic mirror from Snow White? The wicked queen looks into the mirror and says, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall . . . who is the most beautiful of all?” She expects the mirror to say, “You are, of course.” But the mirror tells her the truth: she’s not the most beautiful. She’s flawed. She’s imperfect. There’s a new standard by which the queen is now being judged . . . and she doesn’t measure up.
In the second use of the Law God holds up a mirror to our lives. Here God shows His demands for us and the Law clearly reveals that we don’t live up to it. We haven’t kept the Law completely, and so we’re lawbreakers. We’re sinners. We can look in this mirror and feel pretty good about ourselves . . . but when we look in the mirror of the Law we can only come to the conclusion that the only thing we are worthy of is God’s condemnation.
The mirror of the Law is a mirror of death. It shows us for what we truly are, and we can’t escape its awful truth. It’s hard to look at a mirror like that . . . but it is necessary.
It’s necessary because until you take a long, hard look into that mirror you can never realize—and thus never believe in—the wondrous beauty of the Gospel. What the Law kills, the Gospel makes alive. What the Law condemns, the Gospel forgives. When the Law says, “Guilty!” . . . the Gospel pronounces “Forgiven.”
See, that’s what the Gospel of Jesus Christ does. Through His death on the cross, Jesus Christ won forgiveness and redemption for any who would believe and trust in that Gospel. It is beautiful not because it denies the claims of the Law—the claims that says, “sinner!”—but because it affirms that claim. Jesus Christ looks at each of us, knowing the full extent of our sin, and yet He says, “I give my life for you.” He does not love us because we are beautiful, but instead we are beautiful because He loves us.
This is the beautiful truth that the so-called teachers in Ephesus were trying to subvert! They were trying to do away with the Law, saying that the believer had no use for the Law, because the grace of Jesus Christ had been applied to them! But if you take away the Law . . . if you take away the mirror . . . then you can no longer see the cross. The old rugged cross loses its beauty . . . it’s majesty . . . and it becomes just another tragic death of a good teacher instead of the final triumph of the Son of God over sin, death, and the devil.
How does this play out for you in your life? Have you been shying away from calling a sin what it clearly is: a sin? You can say anything you like . . . you might say, “Well, this is just the way I am.” Or maybe, “You just don’t understand what I’ve been through . . . if you’d understand that, then you’d understand why I act the way I do.” Or even—and this is my favorite—“I believe God understands.” You can say any of that, and it still won’t change the fact that the mirror of God’s Law shows sin in your life. You’re not fooling God . . . you’re probably not even fooling any of the rest of us . . . the only one you’re fooling is yourself. And that’s tragic . . . because by saying you have no sin is saying that God—and His Law—is a liar. By hiding from God’s mirror you’ve also hidden from His cross, and the cross is the only place where you can really get rid of your sin.
When I was little there was one time when I spilled a glass of milk on the kitchen floor. No one saw me do it, so I tried to cover it up. I grabbed a rug that was in the kitchen and threw it over the spilled milk and walked away, secure in my knowledge that my spill was hidden away.
But after some time went by, do you know what began to happen? The milk soaked into the rug and stained it. The milk went sour. It stank up the kitchen. And when someone finally pulled the rug up, peeling it up off of the floor that it had gotten stuck to, they got a big whiff of the sour stink of what I thought had been hidden away.
Hiding from the mirror of the Law doesn’t remove your sin . . . it just lets it fester and rot until the stink of it permeates everything else in your life. There is no balance of Law and Gospel in your life, because you have cast away the Law . . . but in the process you’ve also hidden away the Gospel . . . and you’re going to be spiritually hurt.
Instead of letting that happen, why not just learn to look honestly into the mirror? But not in an imbalanced way; looking only at the Law. Instead, learn to look at it this way: through the cross. Look at the mirror: do you still see yourself? Is your sin still there? Yes, of course . . . but what stands in front of it? The cross.
This is where we find balance between Law and Gospel: the cross. It’s where we can humbly say “I am a poor miserable sinner” in the very same breath that we say, “I am a forgiven and redeemed child of God.” Nothing taken away from the demands of the Law, and nothing hiding the beautiful Gospel. Just the cross, holding both Law and Gospel in perfect balance. That’s spiritually healthy.