Dealing with Sin (Pt 7)

In dealing with sin in our lives we need to look back, look down, look out, and look up. Looking back we remember the pain and destruction our sin has caused. Looking down we recognize our own responsibility and guilt. Looking out we recognize the influence of the world around us on our values, beliefs, and actions. Finally, we look up recognizing God's grace (Ezr 9:13b-15, 8).

Ezra acknowledged that they had been punished less than deserved. “And after all that has come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great guilt, seeing that you, our God, have punished us less than our iniquities deserved and have given us such a remnant as this” (Ezr 9:13). As a people of God called to be separate from the world, they had instead embraced the practices of the world. They deserved much greater judgment than they received. We may feel that whatever discipline God sends our way is greater than we can bear (see Gen 4:13), but it is always less then we deserve.

Ezra 9:14-15 (ESV)

[14] shall we break your commandments again and intermarry with the peoples who practice these abominations? Would you not be angry with us until you consumed us, so that there should be no remnant, nor any to escape? [15] O LORD, the God of Israel, you are just, for we are left a remnant that has escaped, as it is today. Behold, we are before you in our guilt, for none can stand before you because of this.”

Ezra acknowledged that they deserved nothing but judgment and yet God had shown them grace and mercy. Cain was concerned with being able to bear his judgment (Gen 4:13). Job on the other hand, a man whom God called righteous, acknowledged in his pain, “Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” (Job 2:10). Job understood that the righteous God had a right to do whatever he did and that we deserve nothing.

Ezra acknowledged God’s favor in his prayer, “But now for a brief moment favor has been shown by the LORD our God, to leave us a remnant and to give us a secure hold within his holy place, that our God may brighten our eyes and grant us a little reviving in our slavery” (Ezr 9:8). Any good we receive is a gift and blessing from God. It is not deserved, but gifted to us in mercy and grace.

Too often, rather than recognizing God’s grace we try to make light of our sin by claiming that it’s not really all that bad, justify our sin by blaming others, or live in denial claiming that we’ve done nothing wrong at all. What we need to do is fully acknowledge the gravity of our sin, recognize that we deserve nothing good from God, and throw ourselves on his mercy. That’s what the cross is all about.

In the early ‘70s a friend worked at a store called Pamida. One of his jobs was to watch for shoplifters. I was walking through the store one day when I heard my name being called but I couldn’t see anyone. It was my friend sitting behind the back wall watching for shoplifters through the pegboard wall. He told me that he once caught a man trying to walk out of the store with a large mirror stuffed under his shirt. The man denied that he had anything under his shirt even though my friend could see the mirror between the button holes where his shirt was pulled open.

I watched a television program some time back where a team of experts came into a store and set up surveillance to stop shoplifting. They caught a woman on camera putting a pair of sunglasses into her milkshake. When they confronted her she insisted that she had done nothing wrong. When they finally convinced her to take the lid off her milkshake and the sunglasses were revealed she insisted that the girl working the counter must have put them there even though they had her on camera doing it herself.

This is so often how we respond to sin. We deny. We blame. We fail to take responsibility. But when we come clean about our sin we are then ready to look up and receive grace, forgiveness, and healing. When we fail to take responsibility for our sin we can never experience grace in its fullest. Look back, look down, look out, and then look up and find grace and forgiveness in Christ.