Props Required: A yard stick, 3-4 twelve inch rulers, tape
# **INTRODUCTION: The Standard **
In 2026, we have just about every kind of technology imaginable. We are smarter, more efficient, and more productive than ever before. We have tools today that were considered science fiction when many of us were growing up. In the next few years, there will be another mission to the moon.
And yet, at the same time, we are living in a time of crisis.
There are health crises. There are family crises. There are mental and emotional crises.
And everywhere we turn, there are promises of help.
Advertisements for self-help solutions. Medications that claim to fix nearly anything. Programs that promise to get you out of debt quickly. Systems that claim they can change your life.
Help is everywhere.
And yet, we still cannot seem to fix ourselves.
We try. We try again. And we continue to fail.
It is almost as if there is a standard out there… a measurement… something up to which we are supposed to live up.
And no matter how hard we try, we just cannot measure up.
Maybe that is because we were never meant to fix ourselves.
That is where grace enters the story. Grace exists because we cannot save ourselves.
No matter how advanced our technology becomes, no matter how far science progresses, no matter how many solutions the world offers, there is one problem we cannot solve on our own.
In the book of Genesis, humanity tried to do exactly that.
We chose our way instead of God's way. We broke the relationship with Him. And what we broke, we could not repair.
And that is still true today.
For all of our independence… for all of our effort… for all of our attempts… this is not something we can fix on our own.
That is where the Easter story comes to life.
Because it is only through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ that what is broken in our lives can be restored.
The fix that we are all searching for… the answer we cannot create… the solution we cannot manufacture… has a name.
And that name is grace.
And the Bible tells us exactly why we need that grace.
Romans 3:23 says:
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
Now I want you to picture that for just a moment.
In fact… I do not just want you to picture it— I want you to see it.
(Pick up the yardstick and hold it up clearly.)
This yardstick represents God's standard.
Perfect righteousness. Complete holiness. Nothing missing. Nothing lacking.
(Now pick up the ruler.)
And this… this represents us. This is what we bring to the table.
Now here is the problem.
(Hold the ruler next to the yardstick so the difference is obvious.)
No matter how hard we try… no matter how much effort we put in… no matter how many times we start over… we do not measure up.
We fall short.
# **1. The Reality of Our Sin **
And that brings us to the first truth we must understand about grace… the reality of our own sin.
(Hold the ruler next to the yardstick so people can clearly see the difference.)
### 1. We try to extend ourselves
You know, we sure do try to measure up on our own. We pull out all of the stops. We do everything we can to make ourselves match the standard.
We believe that if we can just try harder, we will meet the standard that God has established.
It’s like taking another ruler and taping it on top of our first.
We get so busy for Jesus. We attend every service at church. We visit the sick. We try to pray more. We commit ourselves to doing better.
We want our religion to be there.
We make promises to God:
“I will do better.”
“I will work harder.”
“I will stop sinning.”
And we keep taping another ruler on top.
Have you noticed, now what has started happening, when we start taping rulers together?
They get wobbly. They bend. They shift. They do not stay straight. They may look longer, but they are not stable.
And that is exactly what happens in our lives. When we try to build our own righteousness, it may look impressive on the outside for a while, but it becomes unstable.
It depends on our effort. It depends on our consistency. It depends on our strength. And sooner or later, it starts to wobble.
(Hold the taped rulers next to the yardstick.)
And with all the effort, even with all the added pieces, we still does not measure up.
No matter how much we add, we still fall short.
### 2. We cut others down
So when that does not work, we try something else. We stop measuring ourselves against God’s standard and begin measuring ourselves against other people.
Look how much better I am than my neighbor. I’m doing so much better than they are. I’m two rulers up on them. They do not even go to church every Sunday. I’m so much better off than they are.
But then we take it even further. We deal with our guilt by making someone else look worse.
(Break the ruler.)
We cut them down. We criticize. We point out all of their flaws and faults. We make them smaller so we can feel bigger.
And for a moment, it works.
We feel more righteous. We feel more acceptable. We feel more like we measure up.
But even then, we still do not measure up to God’s standard.
The reality of our sin is that the measurement never changed, and we still fall short.
# **2. The Remedy for Our Sin**
But thankfully, there is a real remedy for our sin. That remedy exists because of the great love that God has for us.
It was not something we discovered. It was not something we created. It was not something we earned.
That remedy was paid for by the life of our Savior on the cross of calvary.
Jesus is the perfect remedy to our sin, because He is the standard.
(Hold up the yardstick.)
You see, Jesus lived the life we could never live. Though He was fully human, He was completely God. He never sinned.
Not once. Not in thought. Not in word. Not in action.
While we fall short, He met the standard perfectly. Every inch of it.
And because He met the standard perfectly, He alone is in the position to provide the remedy for our sin.
Paul explains it this way in Ephesians 2:
4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. (Ephesians 2, NIV)
Grace is the free gift from God. It is nothing we can earn. It is not something we can achieve.
All our efforts — all our taped-together rulers — all of our attempts to fix ourselves — they are never going to be enough.
Only God’s wonderful gift of grace can fix what we have broken.
Grace is not God lowering the standard.
Grace is God sending Jesus to meet the standard for us.
What we could not do in a lifetime, Jesus accomplished perfectly.
It’s time for us to put down the rulers of our lives — the striving — the pretending — the exhausting effort to fix ourselves.
Instead, we need to fully lean into Jesus. In Him, we receive the incomparable riches of amazing grace.
# **3. The Removal of Our Sin**
Finally, this afternoon, through grace, we come to the removal of our sin.
You know, look at this mess.
(Hold up the taped rulers)
Just pieces taped together, barely holding together. And if we are honest, this looks a lot like our lives. A patchwork of effort and failure. Good intentions, followed by mistakes. Promises made. Promises broken.
But here’s the truth: This is the one thing we all have in common. We all have a mess.
That mess carries weight. It’s not just messy, it’s heavy. It’s the weight of sin. The weight of guilt. The weight of the charges that stand against us under the Law.
But here’s the good news of grace: That mess has been removed from our lives. As Paul says in Colossians 2:
13 You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. 14 He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. (Colossians 2, NLT)
Did you catch that? He forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us, as if they were never filed. He took it all away. He nailed it all to the cross.
Our sin was not just covered. Our sin was not just managed. Our sin was not just ignored. Our sin was removed. Cancelled. Erased. Declared null and void.
(Begin un-taping the rulers so that the bottom one, the original one, is left alone.)
All of this — all of the effort — all of the striving — all of the pretending….
Jesus does not want all of this. He does not need it.
Jesus wants just us. He knows we do not measure up. That’s why He came to bring the remedy, to remove our sin, and restore our relationship in His righteousness.
Jesus does not ask that we bring a fixed version of ourselves. He asks that we bring ourselves. Not our best version. Not our cleaned-up version. Just us.
Through His grace, what was broken is restored. What was guilty is forgiven. What was against us, has been taken away.
# **CONCLUSION**
As we draw to a close this afternoon, it’s evident that all of our lives, we have been trying to measure up.
Hold up one ruler at a time with each line.
Trying to be better.
Trying to do more.
Trying to fix what is broken.
We add things to our lives. We try harder. We do more good. We compare ourselves to others.
And before long, it becomes a mess. It all falls apart.
A mess of effort and failure. A mess of promises made and promises broken. A mess that we have tried to hold together on our own.
And deep down, we know the truth.
(Hold up the rulers)
These were never going to be enough.
This is still the standard. God’s holiness has not changed. God’s righteousness has not moved. The measure is still perfect.
And on our own, we still will always fall short.
But that is exactly why Jesus came. He did not come to help us tape our lives back together. He did not come to make us look like we measure up. He came to do what we never could.
He met the standard, completely. Every requirement. Every demand. Every inch of it.
At the cross, He removed our sin. Not patched it. Not improved it. Not managed it. Removed it.
That means there is hope for us: we can stop striving. We can stop pretending. We can stop exhausting ourselves trying to fix what we were never meant to fix.
Because what we could never do for ourselves, God has already done for us. Through His Son, Jesus Christ.
Nobody else could do it.
Nobody else did do it.
Nobody else but Jesus.
The three movements in this message — the reality of our sin, the remedy for our sin, and the removal of our sin — are adapted from ideas presented by Max Lucado in Tame Your Thoughts, Chapter 6, “When You Struggle with Guilt.” Lucado applies these themes to the practice of confession. They are used here as a framework for explaining the grace of God revealed through Jesus Christ.
