This sailing class is learning how to use spinnakers, those colorful parachute-like sails which billow out and catch down winds propelling the boat forward. They add excitement to the art and work of sailing.
Ideas, beliefs, goals, relationships, and activities which capture and motivate us become our personal spinnakers. We may have been caught up in the cross winds of obessions, addictions, or misguided desires and ideas and desperately need course corrections. However, we generally desire to make positive choices and to live productive lives. Good values, opportunities for growth and advancement, loving relationships, positive reenforcements, and well considered goals are emotionally and spiritually healthy motivators for us. But we may veer off course or not have clear direction for moving ahead.
There is no scientific, legislative, philosophic, didactic solution for moral failure apart from some inkling of who God is, of our inner nature where pride and rebelliousness reside, of how broken our relationship with God is, and of how the moral world works. Demanding rights, doing what we want to do when we want to, and blurring the lines of right and wrong do not turn out well for us.
There is no situational ethic with God. The Psalmist understood that God is immutable and absolutely good:“Your righteousness is everlasting/ and your law is true….Your statutes are always righteous/give me understanding that I may live” (Psalm 119:142;144). He knew the blessings of observing, as well as the consequences of swerving from, the absolutely good principles of life which God has established: “Blessed are those who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart—they do no wrong but follow his ways/You have laid down precepts that are to be fully obeyed/ Oh, that my ways were steadfast in obeying your decrees! Then I would not be put to shame when I consider all your commands” (Psalm 119:2-6). Disregarding how absolute, applicable, motivating and good for us the Moral Law is results in disappointment, guilt, shame, personal chaos, and anarchy.
Since we have an innate sense of right and wrong, “forgetting” the Moral Code is not the core problem. We may delude ourselves for awhile, but we do not forget. There is nothing positive about lying, thievery, adultery, murder, disrespecting others, greediness, jealousy, rebelling against what is good, coveting what belongs to someone else, living without regard for the needs or feelings of others, or demoting God to whom we want Him to be and not giving Him His rightful place as our totally steadfast, eternal Sovereign, who created the human race to be good in character. Our problem is obedience. We are natural lawbreakers. Even if we are considered honest, kind, generous, upright, and thoughtful, we know our attitudes, thoughts, and behaviors are imperfect. We need rescuing from the condemnation and consequences lawbreaking deserves. Prideful refusal to admit that will be our downfall.
All societies judge and demand payment for infractions of their civil/criminal laws. Personal morality cannot be legislated, but there are consequences for sin. Since we are incapable of making ourselves righteous regardless of how hard we try, we are in jeopardy. Scriptures consistently affirm that sin’s ultimate consequence is separation from God because God in His holiness will not tolerate it. Someone must pay if we are to escape that condemnation.
For that reason, Jesus perfectly endured all the trials and temptations that this life and evil could conjure against him. He fulfilled the righteousness of the Law, and became the only possible perfect sacrifice to bear humanity’s brokenness so we could be redeemed. God’s love is never passive. He took the initiative through Christ. His mercy, and grace are His gift to be received by faith (Ephesians 2:8-9). It is not by works of righeousness that we have done but by his mercy he saves us (Titus 3:5).
Faith is somewhat like a spinnaker. It catches God’s redemptive power, His loving mercy and grace. Trusting Him, His good law, and great love is the wind which empowers and propels one toward the best possible life—forgiven and freed to live joyfully, purposefully, and humbly before God while confidently sailing toward safe harbor.
