Have I mentioned that the wristband is purple? Purple is a royal color and represents the fact that Jesus Christ is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. As such He reigns over all things and all people. Philippians tells us, “God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9-10).
Inscribed on one side of this purple wristband, the side I consider the top, are the letters WDJD that ask the question, “What Did Jesus Do?” The answer to this question constitutes the Gospel, the good news regarding the love, grace, mercy, person and work of Jesus, work that makes salvation possible. Any Christian who can articulate the answer to this question is capable of sharing that good news with others.
On the bottom, the underside of the wristband, are three letters: S – S – S. These three further explain the Gospel message. In today’s post I’ll deal with the first “S” which stands for Sin. We have a Sin Problem and Jesus is the Sin Solution. In Romans 3:23 the Apostle Paul warns, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
We are tempted to compare ourselves horizontally with other people when it comes to our apparent goodness, and when we do so we tend to see ourselves as near the top of the goodness food chain. Maybe we don’t compare well with a Mother Teresa or some other renown selfless follower of Christ, but there are plenty of people who are worse than we are. There are the infamous Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein, for instance, and an untold multitude of murderers, rapists, child molesters, thieves, liars, adulterers – you get the idea. Surely I’m in the upper percentile of good people, probably deserving a grade of A or A+ if God grades on a curve.
The problem is that God doesn’t grade on a curve and that the goodness grid is not a horizontal grid but a vertical grid. The one to whom we are compared is God himself, not other people. Scripture instructs, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). But nobody’s perfect, right? Bingo! We are all sinners, and deeper into the Book of Romans Paul reveals, “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23a). In other words, the consequence of our sin is our death. When Adam first sinned in the garden, one consequence was that mortality entered creation such that all who biologically live would biologically die (Genesis 3:19). Another consequence was the spiritual death we have seen in Romans as captured by Paul. We have a Sin Problem. We sin and we are going to die both a biological and a spiritual death unless someone intervenes – a Savior.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). The good news is that there is more to Paul’s instruction in Romans 6:23. Yes, the wages of sin is death, “but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23b). We have a Sin Problem, but Jesus is the Sin Solution. Hallelujah!
