6/28/26, Melrose Community Church, Sunday Service

Today's message dismantles one of the most pervasive myths in modern Christianity: the idea that doing good automatically means we'll receive good in return. Drawing from Psalm 73 and the Apostle Paul's letters, we're confronted with a sobering truth about spiritual entitlement. The psalmist Asaph wrestles with a question many of us have asked: why do the wicked prosper while the righteous suffer? His honest struggle reveals how easily we slip into a transactional view of faith, keeping mental tallies of our good deeds and expecting God to reciprocate. But the turning point comes when Asaph enters God's sanctuary and gains eternal perspective. We're reminded that what we truly deserve, according to Romans 3 and 6, is death because of our sin. Yet grace offers us something infinitely better than karma ever could. The message challenges prosperity gospel teachings that encourage us to remind God of our good works, exposing how this reduces Christianity to self-centered consumerism. Instead, we're called to recognize that we do good not to earn God's favor, but because we've already received the greatest good possible: Christ's sacrifice on the cross. This shift from convenience to obedience, from self to God, from temporal to eternal, transforms our entire approach to faith and suffering.