It is so common among the church culture that I grew up in and now pastor that few, if any, notice it. An overly harsh judgment would declare this behavior as pseudo-humility, even willfully fake humility. A more gracious judgment would recognize a need for a better and deeper understanding of what salvation does to sin and our lives. I am talking about how many Christians speak with hopeless defeat about their struggle with sin and obedience to God’s word. There is even an overly used, often misunderstood, and theologically deficient phrase that embodies this issue – “I am just a sinner saved by grace.”

Sometimes “just a sinner saved by grace” is employed to excuse or rationalize the behavior of an unrepentant sinner. However, more often, it is spoken by one who truly desires to live righteously before the Lord but feels a need to show humility rather than confidence. Sometimes this same sentiment shows up more subtly. A teacher teaching on an issue of sin will preference their comments with “I fail at this all the time.” A preacher proclaiming from a text that calls the saints to a specific response may temper his words with “we all fall short of this.” In all these things, there is a prominent attitude of defeat. There is an assumption that failure, disobedience, and inadequacy are the norm. Such an attitude recognizes that we should feel bad about not perfectly obeying the commands and expectations of scripture but offers no hope that anything, but a perpetual state of disappointment, can be known.