SAMPLE Bridge TRANSCRIPT (ADAPTED FRoM VIDEO)

The big story of the Bible is God pursuing a relationship with people. May I share one sentence from it that summarizes how someone can have a relationship with him? The sentence is Romans 6:23, where it says this—I’m going to write it down: “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Let me unpack it for you.

The Bible says that God created us. He made us, and he wants to have a relationship with us. The problem is sin, that we have sinned. And that sin creates a barrier. Maybe look at it this way: like there’s this big chasm or cliff between us and God, and the sin that we have done creates this huge barrier.

Now, this verse tells us that the wages of sin is death. Wages—that’s what we earn. If you think about a salary, if you think about a paycheck, you earn wages. And our sin, we’ve earned a wage, and that wage is death or separation from God. There is a chasm between us and God. And it says the wages of that sin is death.

Now, that is not simply physical death, although it includes that too. If there were no sin, we wouldn’t die. But it’s not just physical death. And the reason I know it’s not simply physical death is that in comparison, the difference—the opposite of death—is eternal life. So, this is eternal death. The Bible talks about eternal death as separation from God forever. So that’s the problem. We’ve sinned, that sin has a wage, and that wage is death—eternal separation from God.

What this verse tells us, and here’s how we human beings are: our natural tendency is to think that we can earn our way. So, we try to do enough good deeds, but the Bible says that all of them fall short. We go to church, we’re nice to people, we give plenty of money, we try to be good, we treat people fairly, we work hard in our jobs—all those things are good, but the Bible says they fall short. They’re not enough to overcome the wages of our sin.

A hidden gem of this verse is the word “but.” There is a solution. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. So, the opposite of wages is a gift. We can’t earn this; this must come from God. What we’ve earned is death; what God has given us is life—it’s eternal life.

So how do we get this gift? If we can’t earn it, if everything we do falls off the cliff, how do we gain this? How do we get this gift? The verse says it clearly: it’s in Christ Jesus. God provided a way for us to get back in relationship with him. It is in or through Christ Jesus. And that is really through his cross—that Jesus came, he lived a perfect life that we couldn’t live, and he died on a cross to bridge this chasm so we could have a relationship with God.

In fact, the name Jesus simply means that God saves—that God has provided a rescue from this certain death—and that is through Jesus, who saves. And what we must do—it’s not enough to know this, I keep saying this—it’s not enough for us to know this fact; we have to place our faith in Jesus. When we do, that chasm is bridged, and we can have a relationship with God through Christ.

Now, as we do this, the last word of the verse is important. It is in or through Jesus Christ our Lord. He’s our master; he’s our leader. So, when we place our faith in Christ, we’re placing our faith in him as the forgiver of our sins—God saves—and as the leader of our life, our master, our Lord.

The real question for you is this: where are you in this picture? A lot of people find themselves on the first side—they’re constantly trying to earn God’s favor. “I’m a pretty good person. I’ve never killed anybody. I’m faithful to my spouse. I treat my kids well. I’m not perfect, but I’m giving it a good shot.” The Bible is clear: you can never be good enough, because the payment for your sin is separation from God.

So, do you find yourself here, or have you crossed that bridge through Jesus and placed your faith in him as your forgiver and as your leader?