Sunday, September 18, 2005
Sin
“Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor His ear too dull to hear; But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.”
~Isaiah 59:1,2
As innocent as Eve appeared, gullible and naïve, her sin and Adam’s weakness in bending to Eve’s persuasion cannot be diminished. When someone apologizes for a pain they caused you, intense pain, lasting pain…when they say they didn’t mean to hurt you, does that wipe out the wrongdoing and suffering? Intentions can make a difference. After all, deliberate cruelty is devastating. But think about the more common trespass. “I didn’t mean it.” “It was an accident.” “I was stupid.” There has still been a severing in your relationship with this person because the hurt is still real and there is an awareness of careless, thoughtless, maybe even self-centered behavior. The lack of consideration and reckless handling of where you were, who you are, your feelings and desires may not break the bond but there is often a serious fraying.
Yes, every one of us has caused someone pain due to our mistakes, and thus, we are able to forgive. We have understanding of human failures because of our own. Going back to the sin idea, failure to consider the other person as if they were us is a sin. “Love your neighbor as yourself.” We seldom “forget” to care for ourselves. Maybe an occasional lunch or a few hours of sleep is denied and no doubt that is sin too! The worse failure is, we do forget the other guy.
Eve forgot God; Adam forgot God in that one moment. Chomping into the fruit…they completely disregarded God, who could very well have been standing there watching! They were not mindful of what God had said. There was a lack of respect for their Creator. They blew it! How sad…we are sympathetic…but it makes no difference to God how we sin---maliciously, angrily, stupidly, recklessly, innocently. We hurt Him all the same. The result is always separation from the Creator, painfully real.
Dr. Kennedy’s sermon this morning was astonishingly pertinent. He said 99.9% of our sins go by unnoticed by us. (That sounds about right.) He finished by asking, in so many words, “What will you do with your sins? There are only two choices. Carry them with you to your grave and on into eternal separation from God, the natural consequence? Or will you put them on the Cross of Christ for Jesus to suffer the separation for you?” Thankfully, I thought, I don’t have to actually ask Jesus to suffer as He did…who could do it? “No, that’s okay Jesus, I’ll take them myself,” we would want to say. But no, Jesus’ work is finished! He did it without our asking and now all that is left is to accept God’s offering to take those visible and invisible sins, intentional and unintentional, to Jesus’ grave instead of yours. Hallelujah!
~Isaiah 59:1,2
As innocent as Eve appeared, gullible and naïve, her sin and Adam’s weakness in bending to Eve’s persuasion cannot be diminished. When someone apologizes for a pain they caused you, intense pain, lasting pain…when they say they didn’t mean to hurt you, does that wipe out the wrongdoing and suffering? Intentions can make a difference. After all, deliberate cruelty is devastating. But think about the more common trespass. “I didn’t mean it.” “It was an accident.” “I was stupid.” There has still been a severing in your relationship with this person because the hurt is still real and there is an awareness of careless, thoughtless, maybe even self-centered behavior. The lack of consideration and reckless handling of where you were, who you are, your feelings and desires may not break the bond but there is often a serious fraying.
Yes, every one of us has caused someone pain due to our mistakes, and thus, we are able to forgive. We have understanding of human failures because of our own. Going back to the sin idea, failure to consider the other person as if they were us is a sin. “Love your neighbor as yourself.” We seldom “forget” to care for ourselves. Maybe an occasional lunch or a few hours of sleep is denied and no doubt that is sin too! The worse failure is, we do forget the other guy.
Eve forgot God; Adam forgot God in that one moment. Chomping into the fruit…they completely disregarded God, who could very well have been standing there watching! They were not mindful of what God had said. There was a lack of respect for their Creator. They blew it! How sad…we are sympathetic…but it makes no difference to God how we sin---maliciously, angrily, stupidly, recklessly, innocently. We hurt Him all the same. The result is always separation from the Creator, painfully real.
Dr. Kennedy’s sermon this morning was astonishingly pertinent. He said 99.9% of our sins go by unnoticed by us. (That sounds about right.) He finished by asking, in so many words, “What will you do with your sins? There are only two choices. Carry them with you to your grave and on into eternal separation from God, the natural consequence? Or will you put them on the Cross of Christ for Jesus to suffer the separation for you?” Thankfully, I thought, I don’t have to actually ask Jesus to suffer as He did…who could do it? “No, that’s okay Jesus, I’ll take them myself,” we would want to say. But no, Jesus’ work is finished! He did it without our asking and now all that is left is to accept God’s offering to take those visible and invisible sins, intentional and unintentional, to Jesus’ grave instead of yours. Hallelujah!
