I didn’t really notice it until Marti came into my life, but she was appalled by what she observed around my family as a torrid sense of sarcasm. I always thought we were a happy family with a great sense of humor, but Marti brought into perspective that our sense of humor was almost always at someone’s expense, and not necessarily someone else’s expense. It could come at the expense of one of us – my mother being a favorite target. I can see now how she would even play into it – act dumber than I knew she was – just to get the attention of being the goat of the sarcastic comments.

This might appear harmless if it were not attached to a longer list – symptoms of living not by the New Covenant of Christ’s blood, but the Old Covenant of the rigid, unyielding law. Old Covenant Christians we were, a distinction all too common in the church today. We talk about the gospel and uphold Christ and his death for us on the cross – something that made possible an adequacy based not in ourselves but in Him – and yet we lived as if it all depended on us. And if we were at all successful at giving a good impression as Christians, all sorts of horrible attitudes ensued. Marti has sense discovered and listed them as the following:

1. First you develop a form of snobbery. You look down on people who are not living up to the standards that you are. It shows up as prejudice. Certain types of people are acceptable and others you cannot stand and wonder how anybody can stand them.

2. You begin to develop a critical spirit; others do not measure up. The ride home from church can turn into a litany of those who are not measuring up.

3. Where you feel you are strong, you begin to put down those who cannot make it in that area.

4. You become absolutely intolerant of others, impatient of lack of progress on their part.

5. You develop a form of sarcasm, the way you talk about people – the names you give them.

6. Bigotry begins to emerge.

You can see by this list that we were pretty well down the line of famous Old Covenant Christian attitudes. The New Covenant has no room for these assessments. You are so amazed at God’s grace, for instance, in spite of yourselves, that nothing comes at anyone else’s expense. Christ has already paid all prices, and we walk in that freedom.

It might be good to check your attitude with this list. Should you find any of these familiar, it would be a first run indication that you might want to consider the source.