Although we are a Christian people, we still have a tendency to hide from the sheer goodness of the gospel. One of the ways we have of doing this is to turn the word sinner into a technical theological one, meaning that no one is perfect, and despite this, any one can call on God through Christ. All of which is quite proper and correct.
But let us be more specific. We are gathered here in the name of Jesus Christ. As an assembly this size, we may say that we are not just here under the general term sinners—we are here as adulterers, thieves, liars, blasphemers, procurers of abortions, biters, devourers, Sabbath-breakers, committers of incest, Pharisees, homosexuals, pedophiles, cheats, jerks and creeps. Not only are such biographical items present here, we may safely say this sanctuary is crammed with them.
Now here is the good news. When it comes to receiving you in Jesus Christ, God is absolutely uninterested in whether such things have occurred. If one did not occur, then a bunch of the others did. But God couldn’t care less. Let me restate the key phrase that makes this such good news. Through what Jesus has done for us, God is absolutely uninterested in that part of your history.
Grace takes the breath away. As the Corinthians heard it, “Such were some of you.” But the safety-minded rush into to make this message safe for religious consumption—such were some of you. And rightly understood, this is quite proper, and so St. Paul himself emphasizes it. But the safety-minded don’t emphasize the same way Paul did.
We are God’s saints, holy and beloved. As such, we must always remember the ground of this, which is the biography of Jesus Christ, our good news. As for our biographies, every one of them has a host of pretty grimy chapters, which God found to be so boring that He skipped over them. Absolutely uninterested.