What’s my problem?  Have you ever asked yourself this?  If you are like me, sometimes you avoid that question by turning on the television and immersing yourself in another glorious episode of “Lost.”  I think deep down there is a haunting bassnote of dissatisfaction, guilt, filth, and shame that hangs over us.  We point to 1,000’s of circumstances in a vain effort to blame someone or something for this feeling.  However, circumstances change, relationships change, our age changes and that bassnote is still looming.  At some point, we must admit there is something terribly wrong with ME.  That problem is summed up by King David, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51:5).  Ouch, the ultimate issue is my sin within me.
    Sin complicates, distorts, and ruins everything it touches.  And since it lies within all of us, it powerfully affects us all.  Paul David Tripp’s fantastic book Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands describes the results of sin in three categories.  Perhaps this will explain just what is going on inside all of us.  First of all, sin produces rebellion.  We falsely believe we have the right to do what I want when I want to do it.  There is no better place than college to feed this notion.  You get to choose your schedule, your peers, your classes, your recreations, etc.  Naturally, we believe the lie…I submit to no one but myself.  When Adam and Eve first sinned in the garden (Genesis 3), it’s not that they quit believing in God.  Adam and Eve had conversations with God!  However, they refused to have God as their King.  God was just fine being a pal and a counselor, but to submit to Him as King was just too restrictive.  Sin produces the same rebellion in us, therefore refuse to recognize our Creator’s authority.  Independence and self-sufficiency are the lies that are destroying us.  Just as a car was made to run on gas, we were made to live according to our Creator’s design.  Any and every time we go the way of self-sufficiency it is to our own destruction.
    Secondly, sin produces foolishness.  Tripp says, “Foolishness convinces us that we are okay, and that our rebellious, irrational choices are right and best.  Foolishness is a rejection of our basic nature as human beings.  We were never created to be our own source of wisdom. We were designed to be revelation receivers, dependent on the truths God would teach us, and applying those truths to our lives.”  Having a child has given me a fresh and tiring insight into this.  Little Shelby is made to be dependent on Liza and me.  As she grows, she must trust us and our interpretations on the world.  Though, foolish as we are, it will be to her own folly to trust her young “wisdom” over against ours.   Will the stove look like a nice thing to touch?  Of course, but she is to learn from us.  In the same way, we are Children of God, designed to live according to His Wisdom contained in His Word.  Yes, college tells us to find ourselves and believe in ourselves…the better question is this:  Have you learned to distrust yourself in light of God’s Wisdom?”
    Thirdly, sin renders us incapable of doing what God has ordained us to do.  Yes, this can be quite depressing.  Our inability affects everything.  I can’t pull of living according to God’s wisdom and standard even if I so desire.  Paul explains this notion in Romans 7 when he says, “For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing.”  We really are “moral quadriplegics, fundamentally unable to do what is right.  Alas, not always the feel good picture we like to have of ourselves.
    What does all this mean?  To quote Tripp, “our deepest problem is not experiential, biological, or relational; it is moral, and it alters everything.”  Of course other factors impact us.  The ruinous effects of sin means that being sinned against leaves enormous scars.  However, the only way to the solution, the only way of redemption from this sin that is destroying us, is to recognize that the ultimate problem is within.
    But at this point, the good news of the Bible comes in.  Once we finally discover the pervasiveness of sin, of our rebellion, and of our inability, we realize something truly beautiful.  True redemption and change from this sin will not come from a system.  No system, no list of do’s and do not’s, no 10 step guides, and no amount of changing our situations will fix us.  While those things are genuinely needed and helpful, all those suggestions begin with me!  And I am fundamentally foolish, rebellious and incapable. 
    The Bible holds out clear hope of redemption.  It unequivocally promises real redemption, real restoration.  But the Bible does not point to a system, it points to something outside ourselves, it points to a person.  We need someone to bring inward change, a change all the way down to our core.  We need someone to die for our rebellion, obey God for us, replace our inability with ability, and change our foolishness into wisdom!  We need to be restored to the King. 

    Once again, Paul Tripp, “The good news confronts us with the reality that heart-changing help will…only be found in the Man, Christ Jesus.  We must not offer people a system of redemption, a set of insights and principles.  We offer people a Redeemer…But our inclination to replace the King with a things does not die easily, It rears its ugly head even when we search for answers in Scripture.  We approach the Bible with a “where can I find a verse on ___” mentality.  We forget that the only hope the principles offer rests on the Person, Jesus Christ.  And we forget that the Bible is not an encyclopedia, but a story of God’s plan to rescue hopeless and helpless humanity.  It’s a story about people who are rescued from their own self-sufficiency and wisdom and transported to a kingdom where Jesus is central and true hope is alive.
    We cannot treat the bible as a collection of therapeutic insights.  To do so distorts its message and will not lead to lasting change.  If a system could give us what we need, Jesus would never have come.  But he came because what was wrong with us could not be fixed any other way.  He is the only answer, so we must never offer a message that is less than the good news.  We don’t offer people a system; we point them to a Redeemer.  He is hope.

    The book has certainly been convicting for me and how often I just look for and/or give advice.  It’s opening my eyes once again to so many of the conversations I have with college students over lunch.  Too often, much like myself, you are looking for some simple advice to help you change a little bit.  What can I do to make this situation better?  How do I need to understand this problem?  All those questions have their place, but fundamentally, we need a Redeemer, we need a person!  He is where change happens.  He has taken the promise of change on His shoulders and promises to restore us from the sin that so plagues us. Have you seen the Redeemer that comes to rescue you from yourself?  Are you pointing others to the Redeemer?  Let the new bassnote of your life be the famous Lord of the Rings phrase: “The hands of a king are the hands of a healer.”