The other night, my nighbors house was damaged from high winds. Roofers have been working for a couple of days and this morning I woke to the sounds of nail guns fastening shingles in place.
As I walked to my shop, my ears were hijacked with the sounds of audio pornography. I've heard lots of things in my life but this is the first time I have ever heard rap music of this genre. Gangsta-hippity-dippity telling me what the gangsta wanted to do and what he was doing and what he was doing looked like. (What?) I was deeply hurt and my knees went numb.
As the adrenaline hit my bloodstream, I yelled at the top of my lungs, " Hey! Turn that off! I do not want to hear that kind of stuff in my yard or in my neighborhood! You can listen to that at home if you want to but I am not going to listen to it here! The roofer replied, "I'm sorry." and turned the music off immediately. "I'm sorry...it was just on the radio" he added. Then I responded, "I'm sorry too. You are a better man than that! I didn't mean to get so mad. Thanks for turning it off."
I grew up the son of a bricklayer so I have lived the construction life. I know how hard it is to make a living from labor and I am very familiar with the construction genre of social realations. (What?) I am aware that by entering into the circle of social networking among the trades, I inherently ante up my physical being as collateral for the privilege of expressing my personal opinions. With that in mind, I have often asked my two sons this question: "What are you willing to get beat up for?"
Why did I say something to that guy? Was it because I am a preacher and preachers are supposed to act all Pharisaical and tell people when they do stuff wrong? Was it because I'm slowly turning into a grumpy old man who resists the changing culture like a man spitting into a fire?
God pounded my heart with his Word yesterday concerning the concept of being dead to sin. I wrestled with my heart all afternoon and even dreamed last night about what it means to be crucified with Christ. My conclusion is this: "There has to be some sort of violence such as we find in the cross when it comes to glorifying God in the struggle against sin." Not a violence produced by the sinful nature, but a violence resulting from our identification with something as brutal as crucifixion.
I'm sure that my neighbor's roofer could yell at me for a lot of things going on in my life. We all need that kind of "wake-up" call from time to time. I want to encourage you as a follower of Christ to ask God to show you what sin really is and how our co-crucifixion with Christ frees us from sin.
For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin --because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. Romans 6:6-7
(" Thank you Lord for the guy on the roof. Bless him as labors today. Thank you for giving him grace when I yelled at him.")
