The Keys Are in Your Pocket

Great story from Tullian Tchvidjian:

On at least two occasions in the last year I’ve been late for a meeting or an appointment and haven’t been able to find my car keys. Certain that either my wife or one of my three children have misplaced them, I’ve frantically run from room to room blaming someone with misplacing my keys: “Has anyone seen my keys? I’m late for a meeting. Who was playing with my keys? I put them right here on the counter and now they’re gone. They didn’t just vanish into thin air! Who picked them up? Where are they? I’m late. ” And right about the time I’m ready to order mass executions in my home, I’ve walked into my bedroom one last time to look (huffing and puffing, moaning and groaning), put my hand in my pocket and found my keys. They’d been there the whole time.

Every time I tell that story, people laugh. And rightfully so. What forgetful moron falls prey to frantically looking for car keys that are in his pocket? Me. That’s who.

The truth is, however, that this is the way we Christians typically live: frantically and frustratingly searching for something we already have. The gospel is God’s good news announcement that everything we need we already possess in Christ. Because of Jesus’ finished work, Christians already have all of the justification, approval, significance, security, freedom, validation, love, righteousness, and rescue that we desperately long for, and look for in a thousand things infinitely smaller than Jesus.

Through the Holy Spirit, God daily delivers the gospel to forgetful Christian’s like me, declaring, “The keys are in your pocket.”