Schadenfreude

"I'll tell you what the problem is. We have all these criminals because the judges are soft on crime. Throw them UNDER the jail and see what happens."

That little thrill you feel as you say this to your friends at McDonald’s, or wherever you hang out, is called schadenfreude. You are justifying yourself by wishing evil upon another, and you are deriving pleasure from imagining that outcome.

Paul reminds us in Romans that we are justified by faith, not by schadenfreude. We are justified by our faith in God, and we then have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace. If we look to the misery of others for our justification, we have turned our back upon God's offer of grace.

Click here to join the congregations of Community Presbyterian Church of Bellefonte Kentucky and the Chapel of St. Starbuck's the Jittery for this week's sermon on how we turn from God's grace in our sermon called Schadenfreude.

Community Presbyterian Church of Bellefonte, Kentucky, was built on the casting floor of a 19th Century iron blast furnace. We use "The Casting Floor" as an image for the power of the Spirit to form us. Visit us at http://communitypresbyterian.org.