Sin

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Living in Denial?

The parking ticket flapped against the windscreen. Didn’t notice it at first, but there it was, plain as day. I was not happy. I had filled the meter twice, and it still had time on it. Apparently this doesn’t wash in Melbourne CBD: you can fill the meter all day if you want, but if you don’t move your car before the meter first expires, it counts for nothing. Zip. Nada. But, hey, thanks for the money!

Nothing alerts you to this. No signs. No information on the meters. Maybe, as someone from out of town, you have to sniff those facts in the air. Perhaps that’s how you know. But I read nothing and sniffed nothing about it. And that slip of paper on the windscreen was still flapping around to prove the point.

I was pretty indignant. See: I thought I was in the clear. I know: ignorance of the law is no excuse. But I still wanted to deny my personal responsibility. We all do this. We blame what others have said and done. We blame circumstance. We blame the flippin’ dog. We will do anything to avoid acknowledging our own sin. Because once we yield, even a millimeter, we must also acknowledge that we have sinned against another. And then guilt moves in.

Let’s be adult about it: we wrong people all the time. We wrong ourselves – we don’t even have the ability to keep our own promises perfectly. We wrong our environment. We wrong God. This is all about our actions, thoughts and decisions. And beyond all of that, the Bible talks about sin in our nature: reminding us that sin goes right to the core of our personality. We’re born with this brokenness already in play: explaining why no toddler ever needs to be taught to be naughty. This deep human brokenness is the reason we can never leave sin behind.

Sin is that pervasive. Every person. Every action. Every aspect of life. Every corner of creation. It began as our first rebellion in the Garden turned the universe against God.

We can only wonder, then, that while God hates sin and rebellion so vehemently, he still wants to shower us with grace, forgiveness and a new beginning.  We know this through Jesus: the One through whom all things were created became the One who paid the rebellion’s penalty on the Cross. He is also the One through whom all things will be recreated. And the proof is the Cross, the Resurrection, his Rule, and his eventual Return.

That’s the thing about minimising your responsibility in sin: you also end up minimising why Jesus came, and how he died to bear the cost of your rebellion and bring you back to God. You end up shortchanging the wonder of the life he pours into you.

God, help me to be honest about the wrong in my life and my heart. I don’t want this denial to constrict my life; much less my joy. So let me leave these things behind, as much as I can, and help me instead to embrace a life of love, grace, humility and seeking the right. Let your good life overflow in me, let wash away all my denial, and let Jesus’ life be seen in all its joyful wonder.

 

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Forgiveness is God’s Nature (5)

I have never been able to understand those who say that the God we read about in the Old Testament is angry and vindictive, while the God we read about in the New Testament is loving and kind. The reality is that God has always been gracious and forgiving, and this flows right out of the core of his being.

Think of the account of Moses on Mt Sinai in Exodus 34. Moses had asked to see the glory of The Lord, and God agrees to pass by and allow Moses to see ‘his back’. There is much in this passage that is hard to grasp, but one thing that is very clear is the nature and character of The Lord. As God passes by he proclaims his own name to Moses: “The Lord, The Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness and sin, yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”

Sure, punishment is mentioned. But the thing to note is what receives the emphasis. The first things mentioned are compassion, grace, slowness to anger, love, faithfulness, more love, and forgiveness. This provides the backdrop for any words about punishment: if God is going to be compassionate and gracious and loving, then he must call to account those who are not compassionate, gracious and loving. But that’s another post…

The main thing to see is how close forgiveness is to the heart of God. Right at core of his character is his desire to forgive.

Forgive is an interesting word. The Hebrew word is nāśā. It means to lift, to carry, to take up, to lift off. So, right at the core of God’s heart is his deep inclination to lift off the burden that weighs people down. God desires to lift off the weight of sin and guilt. He does not want to see people bent and broken by wrongdoing and the fall.

It reminds me of John Bunyan’s Christian, who makes his journey with a ridiculously huge burden strapped to his back. That burden is his own sin. Christian can’t get rid of it, no matter what he tries to do. But here’s the deal: God can get rid of it. And if we pay attention to what God says is at the core of his being, it’s clear that he wants to lift that burden: he forgives wickedness and sin.

In case you wondered whether this desire to forgive was at the heart of God, we see the same thing said about the Servant of The Lord in Isaiah 53 “Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering”. The ‘giveness’ of God is expressed in the giving of his Son, Jesus, who took up our pain and suffering, our transgressions and iniquities.

So these are core realities for God, for how he reveals himself, for how he sees himself, as well as the core mission of his son, Jesus Christ. God’s giveness is the foundation of his forgiveness. Our sin and guilt can be forgiven and forgotten because our wonderful God lifts it off us, and carries it away from us, in all he has done through Jesus his son.

When it comes to being forgiven, and being forgiving people, we have to start with the nature of God, with his core characteristics, and the clear reality of what he has done through Jesus. He is a deeply gracious God, and his desire is to forgive all your wrong and every sin.

Is this how you are used to thinking about God?

What does the fact that forgiveness is at the core of God’s heart mean to you?