WBB – Only sinners and idolaters allowed

Title: WBB – Only sinners and idolaters allowed
Description: So here’s the thing. Paul simply has no ability to pull his punches. When it comes to human sinfulness he refuses to avert his gaze, or our gaze as his readers.

Why? Because he understands so deeply the revelatory goodness of all of creation and because he knows the power of the gospel to break through our penchant for evil.

But I’m not so sure that I can handle so much sin and wickedness at 7.22 in the morning. I’m not so sure that I can handle being “given up” to the “lusts” of our hearts, to “degrading passions” and a “debased mind” so early on a Tuesday morning. I mean, that seems like late-on-a-Saturday-night kind of stuff.

The problem is that we’re committed to journeying with Paul in his letter to the Romans this year at Wine Before Breakfast. And Paul insists that we can’t grasp the power of the gospel, without facing the depths of our brokenness. We can’t disarm the power of the empire in our lives without debunking the empire’s idols.

So here is what I propose. If you don’t have any problem with impure lust, degrading passions and a debased mind, then take a pass on WBB tomorrow morning. If the seductive power of idolatry has never held you in its grip, then stay home. If things like covetousness, malice, strife, gossip, slander, insolence, parental disrespect, foolishness, faithlessness and ruthlessness are not a part of your life, then why don’t you just sleep in on Tuesday morning.

But if you are a sinner, then come and join me and a bunch of other sinners as we face our brokenness and turn to the only one who can make us whole. And bring along other broken and idolatrous folks with you. But don’t bother the sleep of those who have already got this sin stuff licked.

Wine Before Breakfast
Tuesday September 22 @ 7.22
Wycliffe College Chapel

David Neelands will serve the bread and the wine. I’ll be preaching.

Again, sinners only!

In sinful solidarity,
Brian

— Brian J. Walsh CRC Campus Minister, University of Toronto
Start Time: 07:22
Date: 2009-09-22