1 John 1:8
If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.
What’s one defining characteristic the whole world has in common?
We seem to have a rather unhealthy appetite for sinning in many awful, albeit often creative, ways. Maybe it was lying to our parents about having homework when we were younger, possibly being a bit too harsh with what we say to our friends, having what seemed to be a vagabond for an eye, an insatiable desire to exert power and abuse over others, all the way to you might be an ex-murderer.
The one commonality we possess in the midst of all this is that we’ve said to ourselves either implicitly or explicitly, “God really is an idealist, and I think I have a more realistic understanding of how to deal with this situation.”
Let’s think about sin in terms of a courtroom.
You have misdemeanors, felonies, etc., with each one have a specific subset of offenses depending on their severity. Now we have good news, and we have bad news. The bad news is that all the above sins fall into the same category. They’re all “felonies,” we’ll say.
Unfortunately for us, they all have the same penalty: death.
The good news?
The judge is also our lawyer. He’s also the only one who can exonerate you from the charge.
Better news?
He doesn’t only want to exonerate you from the charge, but he wants to shape you up into the kind of person who stops sinning and instead is good in the eyes of the judge.
The best news?
His name is Jesus, and he has complete power to do that.
Psalm 19:13
Also keep back Your servant from presumptuous sins;
Let them not rule over me;
Then I will be blameless,
And I shall be acquitted of great transgression.
Now there’s some other categories to address: What if you have a warrant out for your arrest, and you don’t even realize it yet?
Possibly one of the most terrifying types of sin is that which you don’t even know is happening within your own heart. Maybe something has slowly crawled onto the throne on your heart and you haven’t even noticed yet. Lucky for us, our lawyer is not only able to exonerate us and save us from future sins but is also faithful to open our eyes to our present sins if we ask!
Jesus isn’t simply chilling in the courtroom waiting to heap the charges on you, but instead is actively seeking you out and looking to clear the charges and get you out of that law breaking lifestyle before it ever comes to such a point.
The beauty here is that even though the heart is deceitful and doesn’t always give us an accurate moral compass, we know we can cry out to the Father, and because he’s faithful and loves us, who will convict our hearts of the sin and lead us to repentance himself. He calls us up about the warrant to straighten it out before we even know it’s happening!
2 Cor. 7:10-12
For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death. For behold what earnestness this very thing, this godly sorrow, has produced in you: what vindication of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what avenging of wrong! In everything you demonstrated yourselves to be innocent in the matter. So although I wrote to you, it was not for the sake of the offender nor for the sake of the one offended, but that your earnestness on our behalf might be made known to you in the sight of God.
So here we are, and Jesus opens our eyes to the sin in our lives. Not only does he open our eyes to the sin, but he changes and molds our heart in a way that makes our heart more sensitive to sin, causing us to have a growing distaste for it in our lives and in the lives of others. Sin starts to become something that we don’t just shrug off – it bothers us, we hate it.
Now we’re in a spot where we see the sin in our lives and it’s eating away at us. There’s two ways we can go with this now:
We can repent, and then rejoice our heads off at the fact that Jesus delivers us,
or
We can repent and then continue dwelling on the sin that brought us there and end up in some strange cycle of repenting for the sin, still feeling bad about the sin, feel bad for still feeling bad, and eventually have a 7-layered guilt burrito.
The latter, though reminiscent of Taco Bell, is not tasty. Unfortunately, if you haven’t been there yet, you will at some point in life, and that is when you especially need a strong community around you reminding you who Jesus is, what he’s done, and helping you in whatever way is necessary.
(Also I know there’s a third option of not repenting at all, but that’s for another time.)
Luke 18:13
“Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’ I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
So now you’re cruising around town, no warrants out that you’re aware of, and stuff is going well. Praise God! But be careful that you aren’t exalting yourself in the process.
Nothing is more ironic than coming before the perfect king of the universe who is well aware of your sins – past, present and future – and saying,
“Man, thanks for making me into such an awesome person. I’m glad I got a fair share more of mercy than those other guys over there. You know, just between you and me and all these peasant bystanders, they suck at this whole being righteous thing.”
Instead, approach God in humility with a posture that’s more along the lines of,
“Thank you Lord that you’ve made me who I am, and when you think about me, remember me in light of your love. Don’t forget my brothers and sisters, Lord, remember us all, and keep us as your own.”
1 Samuel 12:22
For the Lord will not abandon His people on account of His great name, because the Lord has been pleased to make you a people for Himself.
So what kind of person is this God that forgives, and why?
The only way I know how to describe him is as what I would imagine the perfect husband to be: perfectly forgiving. God doesn’t forgive us because something within us merits any sort of forgiveness. There’s nothing we can say as a rebuttal to which God will respond, “Man, you have a good point. Alright, here’s a pass.” Instead we can only hang our heads and silently point to Jesus, the one who stands alone in justifying us. But why does he do it? I mean, why bother saving us?
Psalm 25:7
Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
According to Your lovingkindness remember me,
For Your goodness’ sake, O Lord.
Ephesians 1:4-6
In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
Well, it’s a mix of, “He loves us,” and “It brings glory to his name.” If that answer seems complicatedly simple and baffles you, you’re on the right track. Welcome to grace. It never quite makes sense in light of how much we screwed up.
1 John 1:9
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
So finally, what gives us any guarantee that our sin is dealt with?
Honestly getting blindsided by 30+ unpaid parking tickets is going to suck now, how much more so on judgement day? How do we even know that once our sin is dealt with, we won’t go crawling back to it endlessly?
Because God tells us that if we confess, Jesus is not only faithful to forgive us, but he’s just in doing so. God has interwoven his perfect justice with his perfect forgiveness in that one fulfills the requirements of the other somehow. So when we confess our sins to Jesus, when we ask for forgiveness, he not only greets them with a resounding, “It is finished,” but he also rids us of unrighteousness.
Though it might be a slow process sometimes, part of Jesus’ faithfulness is to lead you out of sin after forgiving you for it. God doesn’t just excuse your absence from work because you broke your legs, he heals your legs himself so you’ll get there next time.
Leave a Reply
Your email is safe with us.