Behold, the God of Grace!

What Is Sin?

Sin is just not breaking a petty taboo or overstepping a mere custom. Sin violates the sacred covenant God made with us. Sin additionally tears down the gorgeous solidarity he constructed amongst us.

For instance, in Psalm 51, David’s prayer of repentance, he makes use of three phrases to explain his sin with utter realism:

Have mercy on me, O God,
     in accordance with your steadfast love;
in accordance with your plentiful mercy
     blot out my transgressions.
Wash me completely from my iniquity,
     and cleanse me from my sin! (Ps. 51:1–2)

First, “transgression.” That’s, willful, open-eyed, deliberate revolt towards God. David knew precisely what he doing when he took one other man’s spouse and bought her pregnant (2 Sam. 11). He defied God. His conduct was like giving God the finger. This is similar phrase used for Joseph’s brothers intentionally promoting him out (Gen. 50:17). It wasn’t a mere mistake.

What on earth was David pondering? Possibly he was feeling confined by his lifetime of obeying God. Possibly he was feeling sorry for himself, like God owed him. Possibly he began pondering, “Why not break away and discover my choices?” Stressed self-pity will get us doing horrendous issues.

Second, “iniquity.” That’s, a warped, twisted, harmful act. This phrase seems in Isaiah 24:1, the place the Lord “will twist” the earth’s floor into an unnatural kind. The English phrase iniquity sounds quaint, old style. However consider Gollum, that bizarre little villain in The Lord of the Rings. He wasn’t himself anymore. He had descended into one thing weird. Like Gollum, David distorted and degraded his God-given sexuality from life-giving to life-taking, from noble to repulsive.

Iniquity is like taking a smartphone—sensible communications know-how—and utilizing it to hammer nails. That isn’t what a smartphone is for. It would break.

Third, “sin.” That’s, lacking the mark or dropping one’s manner. This phrase seems in Judges 20:16, the place some extremely expert males may sling a stone “and never miss.” We too miss when the map says, “To get residence, flip proper right here.” However we expect, “I do know a greater manner,” and we flip left. No shock, then, that we get misplaced, waste time, present up late, disappoint others, and extra. Sin is like making an attempt to get wholesome consuming junk meals. It can’t work. Sin can solely miss out and allow us to down. We find yourself misplaced, remoted, depressed—and too proud to confess it.

David sums it up in Psalm 51:4: “[I have] carried out what’s evil in your sight.” “Evil” is a powerful phrase! Can we be trustworthy sufficient to make use of that phrase to explain issues we have now carried out, not simply what different folks have carried out?

In every sort of flawed—defying God, misusing his items, veering off from his path—we find yourself in the identical low place, with losses and accidents and disappointment we didn’t foresee. On his thirty-sixth birthday, the sensible Lord Byron, nonetheless a younger man, wrote this:

My days are within the yellow leaf;
     The flowers and fruits of affection are gone;
The worm, the canker, and the grief
     Are mine alone!¹

It’s not as if, if we simply sin extra cleverly, we are able to keep away from these painful outcomes. No, sin all the time entraps us in penalties that go away us defeated and shamed. Then our tears stream. All-time low, for positive!

How Does God Really feel About Us Now?

Does God take a look at sinners like us with disgust? Why shouldn’t he? Take a look at what we’ve carried out—or left undone! What hope do folks like us have by now? The Bible reveals us the center of God for sinners like us, who don’t deserve God. Test this out:

How can I provide you with up, O Ephraim?
     How can I hand you over, O Israel? . . .
My coronary heart recoils inside me;
     my compassion grows heat and tender. . . .
For I’m God and never a person,
     he Holy One in your midst. (Hos. 11:8–9)

You aren’t such a spectacular sinner that your sin can defeat the Savior.

God is agonizing over his folks. What grieves his coronary heart, greater than their sins towards him, is the considered not having them as his folks. “How can I provide you with up?” is his manner of claiming, “I may by no means provide you with up!” To God, breaking covenant with us is unthinkable, even once we damage him. And he feels such tender compassion, not as a result of he’s bending his guidelines, however exactly as a result of he’s God: “For I’m God and never a person.” In different phrases, “I’m not sensitive and explosive and vindictive, such as you. I’m the Holy One. I’m upholding all that it means for me to be God, proper in your midst. The door to your higher future opens right here: my countless capability to like you.”²

Behold, the God of grace!

And don’t inform him he’s flawed to be so sort. His grace doesn’t want your correction. It’s worthwhile to settle for his grace and cease retaining your distance and run to him and fall into his arms. What are you ready for?

The Bible says Jesus is our sympathetic excessive priest (Heb. 4:15). The Bible says he offers “gently with the ignorant and wayward” (Heb. 5:2). The Bible is evident: God doesn’t match our sins along with his grace. He overmatches our elevated sins along with his surplus of hyper-grace (Rom. 5:20). His biggest glory is how he responds disproportionately to our sins upon sins along with his “grace upon grace” (John 1:16). The entire logical construction of the biblical gospel is summed up in two easy phrases: “rather more” (Rom. 5:15, 17). Your worst sin is much overshadowed by his “rather more” grace.

Excuse me for being blunt, however you’ve met your match. You aren’t such a spectacular sinner that your sin can defeat the Savior. You would possibly as nicely give in, come out of hiding, and wave the white flag of give up. What awaits you and me, proper down at our lowest all-time low, is the completed work of Christ on the cross for the undeserving. And we are going to discover such an astonishing hope nowhere else.

All we do in response, all we can do, is obtain his grace with the empty arms of religion—and sure, even the soiled arms of sin.

This text is tailored from Good News at Rock Bottom: Finding God When the Pain Goes Deep and Hope Seems Lost by Ray Ortlund.

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