Light Shines in the Darkness – Sin Abounds, and Grace Much More Abounds

Light Shines in the Darkness – Sin Abounds, and Grace Much More Abounds.

Be a Light, Spread My Grace! “Enough! You’re here to defend the defenseless, to give justice to the weak and fatherless, to maintain the rights of the oppressed and the needy. Your job is to rescue the powerless and stand up for them, to deliver them from all who exploit them!” (Psalm 82:2-4).

There’s A Lot Of Pain (Outrageous Grace) – Robin Mark

Darkness and Light, Sin and Grace. In the Word was life, and His life brought light to all mankind. His light of grace and truth continues to blaze in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it. His light pouring forth, His grace will abound as sin increases. Whenever wickedness spreads, His grace spreads in greater measure. Whenever darkness seems to deepen, the Light will intensify and become even brighter. Darkness will never overpower the Light of the world, for there will always be more than enough of grace to triumph over sin. God’s grace will always surpass mankind’s sin. In the scales of the universe, one ounce of grace infinitely outweighs all the sins of the world. Because of the Light, darkness has been weighed and found wanting. As Eugene Peterson once put it… “Sin doesn’t have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it’s sin versus grace, grace wins hands down.” 

Blind Boys of Alabama – Amazing Grace (Live on KEXP)

“Where sin has superabounded, grace has hyper-superabounded!” (Romans 5:20).

‘SIN’ = In the New Testament, to sin means to miss the target, like an archer missing the bulls-eye; to make the mistake of failing to do what is expected; to swerve away from what is right; to fall short of gaining the prize; to stray from God’s character and standard. In the Hebrew Bible, “sin” means much the same as the Greek, but also there are Hebrew words like “iniquity,” which means twisted behavior that makes crooked what should be straight and corrupts what should be wholesome; and “transgression,” which is deliberately betraying a relationship of trust or breaking a covenant of loyalty whether with God or another person; and “wickedness,” which is a pervasive and habitual state of moral corruption or rebellion against God’s moral authority.

Not Dark Yet (Smith & Gascho) – Listen with headphones and hear it for the very first time!

When sin “superabounds,” it looks like this in our society. Some examples of sin in the US:

1. Abortion, Neonaticide, and Infanticide: As of 2024, there are a million murders of unborn babies a year (400,000 in abortion centers and 600,00 chemical abortions at home), and 70 million abortions since 1973; 13,000 deaths of infants in late-term abortions; untold numbers of newborns left to die soon after birth.
2. IVF: At least 1.8 million embryos conceived in reproductive technology this year will never be born, and will be either discarded with the trash, left frozen, or used for research. Only 7% of embryos, conceived and thus containing the full complement of human DNA, will eventually survive the process. There have been untold millions of conceived embryos that have been destroyed, with more deaths to preborn children each year through IVF than abortion.
3. Surrogacy: This rent-a-womb industry treats children like commodities. It cruelly deprives the newborn of his/her natural mother and in the process leaves what scientists call a “primal wound” in the child’s brain development. There are around 2,000 surrogate births each year.
4. Mistreatment of Children: 7,000 children abandoned yearly; 7,000 pedophilia/sex abuse cases yearly; child sex trafficking which results in 500,000 men sharing child sex videos on-line, each of those men averaging 13 children; 17.7 million fatherless children in U.S.; 43,000 gender surgeries on minors between 2016-2000; 8,500 minors received puberty blockers and hormones between 2019-2023, with 62,700 minors receiving sex change prescriptions during those years.
5. Mistreatment of Women: 2,400 women were murdered by men in 2022 in US, and 87% knew their killer; 29% of women in US have recently experienced rape, physical violence or stalking by an intimate partner, and 35% of women have experienced those forms of abuse in their lifetime; 4 in 5 victims of domestic violence were female; 35% of women who were raped as minors were also raped as adults; the medical establishment continues to hide from women information that would be helpful to their welfare, such as the much higher rates of breast cancer after an abortion, and the distressing rate of pregnant women being seriously harmed by chemical abortions at home.
6. Our American Death Wish: In 2024, there were over 50,000 suicides, 25,000 homicides, and 107,000 drug overdoses; there have been over 5,300 assisted suicides in the US, and the number of acts of euthanasia is swiftly climbing since more states are signing “Medical Aid in Dying” into law.
7. Human Trafficking: It includes forced labor, sexual exploitation and organ removal, and is the fastest growing form of commerce in the world, making $245 billion every year as of 2021; the forced labor aspect is a modern slavery business worth $150 billion yearly in the US; 50,000 women and children are forced into sexual slavery every year in the US; 90% of the females trafficked are for sexual exploitation, while 82% of males trafficked are for organ removal and sales. Human trafficking is reported in every state in the US, and is a component of prostitution, live sex shows, stripping, pornographic videos, and sexual tourism; 71% of all trafficking victims globally are women and children. In the past, the first words one hears if a ship is sinking are “women and children first!” And now, it appears that those words are instead, “women and children last!”
8. Appetite for Drugs: The American urge to abuse drugs is a billion-dollar industry and creates a thriving business for cartels foreign and domestic, rogue countries, and any group or nation hungry to make a profit from America’s drug addiction. Over half of people in US aged 12 and over have used illegal drugs, and there are 47.7 million drug users as of 2023; there have been 1.15 million overdose deaths since 1999, with over 107,000 in 2022 alone; over 70 million people in the US have used illegal drugs or abused prescription drugs within the last year; 39% of persons between 18-25 use drugs, and 24% of persons aged 26 years and over abuse drugs.
9. Pornography: It is a $13 billion/year business in the US, since it exploded with the onset of the internet. One pornographic site reports it gets 81 million visits a day. One-in-five teens have a porn habit, while 60% of adults are regular users of porn. Now with smartphones in particular, we find that 97% of teens have been exposed to porn before the age of 18, with first-time usage as young as 12 years old.  In 2023, over 500,000 men shared child sex videos, with the majority of those offenders averaging 13 victims each. All this for a temporary and unsatisfying addiction to an activity that rewires one’s brain towards selfishness and depression, perverts one’s view of women and wholesome sexuality, warps one’s views of manhood and masculinity, impedes a healthy romantic experience, and blinds one’s view of the dignity and sacred nature of every human being.
10. Breakdown of Fatherhood, Marriage, and Home Life:5 million children are now fatherless, which comes to one-in-four kids in the US; boys without fathers are four times more likely to live in poverty, 4 times more likely to commit a crime, two times more likely to drop out of school and end up in prison. Girls without a father are seven times more likely to have a teen pregnancy. 90% of homeless children came from a fatherless home, as did 63% of youth suicides and 71% of school dropouts. A stable nuclear family, with mother and father and children, is the building block of society. The world is designed to be family centered, and yet divorce holds steady at 50%, and for adults aged 18-24 cohabitation is now more common than living with a spouse. The legal acceptance of gay marriage has resulted in a common belief that gender roles of father and mother are no longer important, and has redefined what a healthy home has always looked like down through human history.
11. Financial Dishonesty and Fraud. Dishonesty has reached epidemic proportions in the US… Cheating government programs like Medicare, Medicaid, IRS, Unemployment Claims, state welfare programs. The US government loses an estimated $500 billion each year to citizens who decide to cheat and defraud the government in some way. This is apart from the huge increase in shoplifting and retail theft, consumer scams, on-line hacking thefts, and other attempts to cheat private citizens out of money and possessions.
12. Sexual Brokenness: The US, along with the rest of the western world, is stuck in the middle of a profound sexual revolution that has dramatically changed our society. Instead of the objectively true distinctions between the sexes, we have seen an unrealistic redefining of male and female, father and mother, husband and wife. Sexual behavior has lost its moral compass. This radical change in sexuality has contributed to the breakdown of the traditional family, and has given us such cultural lowlights as indecent exposure at public gay pride parades, genital mutilation of minors, drag queens reading queer stories to children in public libraries, biological men competing against women and sharing their dressing rooms, tampons in boys bathrooms, the grooming of children by trans and gay activists, and the absurd claim that men can get pregnant. Where will this lead us as a country, and what will be the result of all this sexual brokenness? God only knows.

Sheryl Crow & Bonnie Raitt – Everything Is Broken [Eric Clapton’s Crossroads 2019]

Yes, there is sin, sin and more sin. But that only means there is the far-surpassing presence of grace, grace and much more grace! When the devil seems to be overplaying his hand, that only means he’s running scared. For each material step backward, there are ten spiritual steps forward. For every flame of sin, there are bonfires of revival. Pray that we won’t allow what seems to be the worst of times to blind us to what is actually the best of times!

Trouble In My Way Reginald Sharpe

‘GRACE’: In the New Testament, the Greek word for “grace’ is the tremendously rich word of “charis,” which is usually pronounced “care-iss.” This important biblical word, used over 170 times in the New Testament, was at one point a general term adopted from Greek mythology, and could mean goodwill, loveliness, charm, sweetness, favor, and that which gives delight. But St. Paul especially expanded its meaning to point to God’s undeserved favor on us; His unearned gift of good will; His unmerited kindness; His unexpected spiritual blessings that bring us delight and pleasure; God’s free gift of acceptance with no strings attached. This is the basic concept, but Paul used “grace” as a word that summarizes all the blessings that God offers to us. “Grace and peace” is found in his closing remarks or benediction often enough. This biblical grace is an absolute truth, and so grace exists whether or not we choose to accept it. Grace is not meant to be a merely abstract quality, but is intended to be a personal experience that is lived into and fleshed out. Grace to others is the exhale after the inhale of God’s grace into our life.

“For you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abundant in faithful covenant lovingkindness.” (Nehemiah 9:17).

The Jewish Roots of Grace. Since Christianity is essentially a Jewish faith, a branch growing out of the tree of Judaism, we will find the roots of common Christian terms in the Hebrew Bible. Grace is one of those key words in our Christian vocabulary, and grace has its roots in the Jewish Scriptures. Christians will not understand the full meaning of grace unless we study its origins with a nod to Hebraic thinking. Grace (Hebrew, “chen” “chanan”) is accepted as the centerpiece of God’s character that shows divine favor to those who don’t deserve it; the nature of God which prefers to show mercy to those who haven’t earned it; the heart of God which leans toward offering the free gift of love and acceptance to others, free of charge; God’s desire to restore and heal whose who are broken whether or not they deserve it; the lovingkindness provided by God as a free gift for no apparent reason other than sheer compassion.

“Now the LORD Yahweh descended in the cloud and stood with Moses, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. And Yahweh passed before Moses and proclaimed, The LORD! The LORD! A God compassionate and gracious, longsuffering and slow to anger, abounding in grace and truth, preserving covenant love and grace to the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin, but by no means clearing the guilty!”  (Exodus 34:6-7).

Lord Yahweh showed His true colors to Moses there on Mt. Sinai. This has long been considered a central passage in the entire Hebrew Bible, because it is God’s supreme self-revelation, expressing to Moses and the world His basic nature, His identity, His Name.  This passage forever formed the vision for the Hebrews of Who God is, how He thinks, and why He acts. Yahweh reveals to all of us in this passage why we can trust God’s gracious heart, His motivation, as mysterious as it may be to all of us humans.

“God is kind the ungrateful and the wicked… He makes His sun shine on good and bad people alike, and He sends rain to the righteous and the unrighteous alike!” (Luke 6:35; Matthew 5:45).

Divine Extravagance. This is the term often used for the overflowing grace and blessing offered in Messiah. Jesus’ turning water into wine in all these stone jars, for example, is a powerful picture of the superabundance of grace and truth in the Anointed One. Unexpectedly providing so much wine for a little wedding in Cana went far beyond ‘more than enough.’ It was extravagant. It was abundantly generous. All the pots were reportedly full to the brim with water, which means 120-180 gallons of wine was produced by Jesus. That amount is equivalent to 600-900 standard-sized bottles of wine today! This was insanely more than was needed. God is not economical when it comes to grace. It is immeasurable, it surpasses all forms of measurement. God is not stingy with His blessings. He has an endless supply of grace and joy and forgiveness. Cana wine is like crucifixion blood… more than enough. Enough for the whole world. Beyond measurement. A flood of wine in Cana, a flood of blood at Golgotha, a flood of grace to the world. Cana wine is like the unending showers of blessing coming from the hand of a merciful and gracious God. He provides more blessings than we need, He seems to almost waste precious blessings in His generosity, spiritual riches without measure. And it wasn’t just quantity of wine, it was the quality as well. Jesus made first-class, expensive wine for the end of the feast, for those who could never afford such a luxury. And He continues to provide for us vintage grace to us who cannot hope to deserve it.

Grace is God’s Love Offering. A grace in the Christian faith is the undeserved gift to us of being allowed to participate in the life of God. We have no right to think God owes us anything. We don’t have a leg to stand on if we start thinking we have somehow earned the right to know Him in any way. He is the eternal, almighty God of the universe. God doesn’t owe us anything. But grace is God’s profound gift of accepting us as worthy, granting us the privilege of actually participating in His life. This gift of God’s love for us is beyond imagining. Grace is the eternal fact of Creator God desiring that we approach Him and develop a relationship with Him. Grace is God’s love offering to us which He initiated and to which we simply need to respond. Any gift of God’s grace that enables us to develop this life-saving relationship with Him is a sacred mystery. So sacraments in the Church involve material elements like bread, oil, water and wine to bring God’s presence into our lives. The physical elements of the sacraments are the means that God has provided, through the working of the Holy Spirit, to grow in our faith and become more like Jesus. The Sacraments of the Christian church are a main reason why, even when sin abounds, grace much more abounds.

Sacrament has been described in literally hundreds of ways. Because there is a mystery involved, there may be no perfect definition to sacrament, but perhaps these descriptions will help us get a handle on what a sacrament of grace is in the life and ministry of the Christian church:

• Outward signs of inner grace;
• Sacred mysteries to convey grace to our souls;
• Material forms of grace for our spiritual benefit;
• Visible symbols of the reality of God;
• Vehicles of God’s grace to enable believers to grow in His holiness;
• Earthly materials by which heavenly life is given to us;
• A physical sign of a spiritual reality;
• The material elements that unite us into a spiritual union with Christ;
• God’s gifts of Himself in created matter for our transformation;
• When God’s grace elevates nature into being vehicles of God’s presence;
• When God’s gift of the Holy Spirit transforms matter for our own transformation;
• When God’s Spirit brings divine life to tangible elements for our benefit;
• The physical elements that are inspired by the Spirit to bring God’s influence upon us.
• Material objects that are channels for God’s energy and power to believers in the Church;
• Tangible elements that bring sanctifying grace to believers;
• Created elements that usher us into participation in the divine life;
• Signs of grace entrusted to the Christian Church by which spiritual life is strengthened and empowered.

Jesus is Himself the Great Sacrament for us, the ultimate physical sign of God’s love for us, who enables us to dwell in God and He in us. Jesus  is the material channel that conveys God’s transforming work in our lives through His Holy Spirit. Jesus is the visible demonstration of God’s desire to reconcile with us in our sinfulness, and it was Jesus, the Son of God, who was consecrated by the Father and the Spirit to take away the sin of the world. The human body of Jesus, now in the heavenlies, is our supreme Sacrament, Grace in the flesh, the Church’s greatest sacred mystery in human form.

Dropkick Murphys – Amazing Grace [Live]

“What do you have that hasn’t been given to you? Isn’t everything you have and everything you are a sheer gift from God? Can you honestly take credit for something you received as a free gift from above? Grace has given you everything about yourself that is good, so why do you boast as if it is something you achieved on your own? Why do you brag about the good in your life as if you earned it, that you deserved it, knowing full well it is all graciously given to you from outside yourself?” (1 Corinthians 4:7).

A Word from our Gracious God. It’s as if God is saying… When I created this beautiful world, I was like a farmer drunk with joy, casting seeds of blessing everywhere with reckless abandon. For no particular reason, out of the goodness of My heart. Well, I do love beauty, and wholeness and truth. One might say that I initiated the world with grace, the free gift of life, and I invested Myself into the world from my storehouse of goodness. And then I topped it all off with the centerpiece of my created universe, mankind. I bestowed the gift of my very breath of life, and I graced the world with the human being made in My image, a free gift to every person. I give each image-bearer a conscience, an imagination, reason, a body that can do things, the capacity to love… All are graces at my initiative, to kick-start life on planet earth. Blessings free of charge, no strings attached. I loaded one blessing on top of another, and I still do, because I felt like it, because I am magnanimous by nature. My universal favor on the human race includes a key component of their nature… a spiritual antennae that will sense My call to them, that will open up their eyes to the way I choose to witness to everyone through my creation.  Solomon called this placing “eternity in our hearts.” So it’s clear that it is a monumental grace for you to simply exist! And on top of that, I generously gave to each, in varying degrees, what was needed to flourish, the raw materials to succeed and achieve. So what’s this about being a “self-made man?” I would love it if every person would see the foolishness of that attitude. I gave them all these free grace-gifts, and they pretend to earn every blessing they get? Divine favor is not earned. No one deserves grace. They are blessings granted before you were even born. There is no such thing as self-sufficiency, or independence from Me. Let’s face it, I didn’t ask them for permission to lavish gifts on the human person, to give them life, and the capacity to flourish and experience goodness. It’s not like anyone deserves such an astounding gift. Everything you accomplish or achieve as you use my graces is actually after the fact. You’re way behind if you think you’re a step ahead of Me. I initiated everything before you saw the light of day.

Vineyard Worship – The Lord Is Gracious And Compassionate [Official Lyric Video]

“The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. The LORD is good to all; His compassion rests on all His creatures.” (Ps. 145:9-10). “The earth, O Lord, is full of your mercy and your lovingkindness.” (Ps. 119:64; Ps. 33:5).

God’s Grace is Everywhere, for Everyone and Everything. I’m not very economical, God is saying, when it comes to handing out grace. I want all my created beings to be blessed, good, bad, or indifferent. I’m like the generous bartender who shouts out, “Okay everyone! The drinks are on me! They’re on the house!” before they even walk through the door. In this way we see God spreading His goodness around, willy-nilly, to all of us, whether or not we actually believe in Him. An example of common grace would be when we see an agnostic writing a godly truth in a novel, or an atheist painting an inspired piece of art, or an unbeliever writing an exquisite, heavenly piece of music. And sometimes we witness a full-fledged skeptic extending mercy to the needy, or a friend who demonstrate goodness in his/her life. Believers do not have a monopoly on God’s goodness. Truth, goodness and beauty can be shown unintentionally by any of God’s creatures, and that is God’s grace.

Amazing Grace

One More Grace Note, Sung in Three-Part Harmony: “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you. Amen.” (2 Corinthians 13:14).

Faith And Grace