To me, to live is Christ. Philippians 1:21

On Oct. 29, my Nebraska Cornhuskers will face my Michigan State Spartans in a Big Ten college football showdown. I grew up in Nebraska, so I was born and bred a Husker. But 25 years ago, I moved to Michigan, became a campus pastor at Michigan State University, and embraced the MSU Spartans. My blood flows both Husker red and Spartan green. Do you see my dilemma?

Sinner and saint in the world

I have another dilemma. I was born and bred a sinner. In my sinful nature I have been a big fan of sin my whole life. On the other hand, "Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2:20). That's my new life and identity given to me at my baptism. Do you see my dilemma?

I know you do, because every day you too face that tension between your old sinful nature and your new self that is Christ living in you by faith. God tells us whom to follow in his Word. That should settle it. But for good measure he also designed our consciences to sound a can't-miss alarm when we are about to sit on the wrong side of the bleachers and to give us a thumbs-up when we sit on his side. Besides that, haven't we learned by now from painful, personal experience that ignoring that alarm and choosing sin is a losing game? There should be no dilemma.

But there is. There always is, for the allegiance to sin in us is strong. So we wrestle with whether to lie or tell the truth, whether to be understanding or hard-headed, whether to forgive or hold a grudge, whether to be selfish or selfless. Before this day ends, how many times will you have shown your true colors, and they will not be the colors of faith and love for Jesus? In light of that, how can Jesus remain true to you or to me?

Redeemed children in God's eyes

But all our unfaithfulness presents no dilemma at all for Jesus. The Father "chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight" (Ephesians 1:4). We are God's choice to be his redeemed, holy children from the very beginning, even when that choice called for the sacrifice of his only Son. And Jesus didn't agonize over coming to earth to be our Savior. Even on the night before he went to a cross to offer his holy life as the sacrifice for our sins, he didn't wrestle with whether to save himself or us. While it was agonizing for him to feel the weight of our guilt and know what he would suffer for us, his love did not waver. He chose us because it was his Father's will. And although he knew how deep our loyalty to sin ran before our baptisms, he chose us then too, for his choice was and remains forged in grace—undeserved love for unfaithful sinners.