By Pastor Stephen Hess –
There is a problem in the world today. The problem could be described in many ways, but everyone—whether Christian or non-Christian—seems to agree that things are not the way they are supposed to be. In fact, I’ve never met a single person who would deny the reality that something seems to have gone terribly wrong in our world. Creation is filled with pain, suffering, and evil. We turn on our televisions and see images of wars, famines, and natural disasters. We look at our communities and see continual addiction, disease, and crime. We look within our own families and friendships and we are often faced with brokenness in our bodies and in our relationships. The question is: Where did all of this come from? When it comes to answering that question, there is widespread confusion and disagreement.
The answer can be found by going back to the beginning of the Bible. The book of Genesis shows us that when God first created the heavens and the earth it was perfect. This reveals that pain, suffering, evil, and death were not originally present in the beginning—they are foreign to God’s creation. How did they get here? The answer is a simple three-letter word that is not popular today: sin. Adam and Eve were told that they could eat of any tree in the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and that if they ate of that tree they would die (Gen. 2:17). They chose to disobey God’s command and the results were catastrophic: sin and death entered God’s creation and have caused exponential damage ever since.
Sin is fundamentally a desire to be autonomous and live independently of our Creator. It is the desire to live for ourselves rather than for God. Ever since the fall, human beings have all been born with a sinful nature. Sin is the reason why we see so much evil in the world today. Sin is the reason why we experience so much brokenness. Sin is the reason why the creation no longer functions the way it was designed, and we experience natural disasters, disease, and ultimately death. Each one of us refuses to submit to our Creator and we suffer the consequences.
Properly diagnosing the human problem is essential if we are going to discover the solution. Many of the world’s “solutions” to our problems fail because they misunderstand the problem. For example, some people think that if we just put humans in the right environment they will become better people (a sociological solution). Others suggest that if we just give people the right financial resources and advantages they will become better people (an economic solution). Still others believe that if we just train people intellectually they will elevate themselves to become better people (an educational solution). Ultimately all of these solutions fail because they misdiagnose the problem. Our problem is not the lack of a good environment, finances, or education. Our problem is that we have sinful hearts. As we read in the prophet Jeremiah, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jer. 17:9).
When we understand that the fundamental problem is sin then it becomes clear that the only solution is a Savior. As author Paul David Tripp says, “Jesus came on a radical mission of moral rescue. He came to rescue us because he knew that we couldn’t rescue ourselves.” Or to quote from the Apostle Paul, “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15). The good news of the Gospel is that there is a rescuer and he has come to provide salvation from the mess we have made. There is hope in the midst of our broken world, and that hope is found through Jesus alone.