This is an excerpt from Chapter 6 in Sinner Saint: A Surprising Primer to the Christian Life (1517 Publishing, 2025). Sinner Saint is available today from 1517 Publishing.
On its journey from Byzantium to Constantinople to Istanbul, this special place helps us understand the broader arc of Christian history, which goes on until Christ's return.
We needn’t fear statistics and studies as palm readings into a certain future. God is God, and his Spirit is alive through his Word.

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The Parable of the Prodigal Son is a familiar story. This creates a challenge for the preacher.
In Christ, the new and better David, we are redeemed from our lame condition of sin
Had you been the only sinner in the world, He would have died for you alone
To be textual in our preaching, we ought to do as Paul does, and drag our people through the Old Testament narratives. We ought to let the Holy Spirit do the illustrations. Of course, Paul’s illustrating too, but he’s doing it in the Spirit and using the Holy Spirit’s own vocabulary.
We’re tempted to try and connect the dots. Something bad happens to someone and we can’t help but wonder about the cause. Even if we don’t say it out loud, we are tempted to think they must have done something to deserve it. They must be guilty of something. God must be punishing them for something we don’t know about. But Jesus stops this thinking in its tracks.
Our enoughness before God cannot be earned by our piety or bestowed by our neighbor. Our righteousness and our justification come from Christ and His work for us
The great steadfast love of God is shown by His work on the cross
Everything in the text sets up the polarity of earth and heaven, mortification and glorification, humiliation and exaltation. We preach the cross, because it is the only way to glory. Just look at Jesus, who set His face toward Jerusalem, endured the cross, despising its shame, and is now seated at the right hand of power, with all things under His feet.
I don’t think the people of Jerusalem designed to reject God. They didn’t wake up one day and decide that, instead of listening to God, they would make it their mission to kill him. They were deceived. Blinded. Deluded by sin and its author. As a result, they were unable and unwilling to hear the Word of the Lord.
“Each of us shares in this sin; the sin of self-justification and disbelief in God’s promises.”
I was once asked why I thought young people were leaving the church in droves after they graduated high school.
Our sin marked Christ. Jesus was marked with the scars of nails and a spear for us. His hands, feet, and side are marked with scars displaying the cost of our redemption.