“And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11).

Paul had just listed people who are not going to inherit the Kingdom of God. It is a laundry list of misbehavior that begins with sexual immorality and proceeds to include the greedy, slanderers and swindlers. Ray Stedman once read this list to his congregation and asked his church members to stand when he came to something they once were. A visitor looked at everyone standing and thought, “These are my kind of people.” He became a Christian that morning.

We each were on that list somewhere. We were sinners. The liberating message is in this verse. “That is what some of you were.” It’s not what we are any longer because of Jesus. Each description of the change we experience is passive which means that something was done to us. We were washed, we were sanctified and we were justified. The Holy Spirit does all that because of the Cross of Christ. Jesus died so we could be moved from the list of wrongdoers and be included in the family tree of God Himself.

When we believe in Jesus we are washed, we are made holy (“sanctified”) and we are made righteous (“justified”). When we sit in church and look around we aren’t looking at people who were more perfect than we were, we’re looking at people who, like us, have been changed by Jesus Christ. When I go to church and look around I think the same thing that the visitor to Ray Stedman’s church thought. “These are my kind of people.”