A Statement Stronger Than Silver

 

The commissioner of the NBA Adam Silver banned franchise owner Donald Sterling from the league for life because of his unapologetic racism.

 

The swift and decisive condemnation will be celebrated by most across America, as it should be. Praise God for the progress our nation has made in striving for and experiencing racial reconciliation. The horrific injustices of our history are awful beyond imagination and

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ought to make us shudder today. But as good as the news will feel for many - myself included - it pales in comparison to the gospel’s message in the light of the Donald Sterling scandal. When we’re tempted to think justice has been served, God has something more sure, more powerful, and more lasting to say.

 

We are all created by a loving God whose purpose is for us to live out the unthinkable love that He has for all of us. Yet by our own choices we have become corrupt to the very core of our being for none is righteous - not one - before God (Rom. 3:10). As disgusted as many are with Donald Sterling, it is but a faint shadow of what we ought to feel over the way we have responded to God’s love for us.

 

All of that sin was placed on Jesus Christ on the cross. The place where our loving God poured out His entire wrath and was satisfied that, then and there, all sin was put away forever. And in the doing, we who have sinned were totally forgiven. Yes, God loves us that much.

 

Those who accept this truth can trust in an eternity with God while those who continue to cherish their self-righteous racism face nothing but God’s wrath. Let God put your sin away on the cross or face it full, without mercy in eternity. All of Mr. Sterling’s billions cannot change one moment of this punishment. Pray with me that Sterling and all like him find the grace of God in Christ.

 

Now may you and I, reconciled by the blood of Christ and filled with the same Spirit that was on that cross, proclaim and live out the truth that in Christ’s death and resurrection we have the anointing to live together on higher ground, more forgiving, accepting that God is not finished with any of us just yet.