Responding to Sin Against Us

Transcript

GRM 1124
6/15/2014
Responding to Sin Against Us
Romans 8:28; Ephesians 4:17-32
Gil Rugh

We have been talking about the matter of sin, how we deal with sin, the impact on a person’s life when they sin, and the seriousness of sin but the greatness of God’s grace in forgiving us our sin. We saw something of the consequences of the sin that is not dealt with and also the result of sin that is dealt with.

There is an area that I think is of just as much importance as anything that we have talked about and that is how we respond when we have been sinned against. Sin never takes place in a vacuum. It always impacts other people. We have talked about David. His sin impacted the whole nation. We have talked about his sin of adultery and murder. Later David will commit a sin numbering the nation and 70,000 men in Israel will die.

Our sin has consequences. It impacts those closest to us and ripples out. When sin occurs among believers it impacts the family of God. We want to be sure we are functioning Biblically. If we do not respond Biblically when someone sins the impact of that sin is multiplied and often it becomes confusing because it’s not the sin that has been committed in and of itself but it’s the response to it and one sin multiplies another.

So I have a couple of things I want to put up on the screens for you. The first statement, put that up. You ought to mark this down. Write it down in the flyleaf of your Bible. It’s not a particular Biblical verse but it is a Biblical truth: “Someone else’s sin never frustrates God’s plan for my life.” Someone else’s sin never frustrates God’s plan for my life. We must fix that in our minds because sometimes when someone sins against us we think, my life is ruined. It could be something, someone gets drunk and runs through a red light and hits the car and you are disastrously impacted. You say, “They have ruined my life.” That’s not true. God’s plan for me has included the impact of other people’s sin on me. God is still sovereign, still in charge. There are not meetings being held in heaven. Someone sinned and it’s dramatically impacted my child. We are going to have to alter the plan. No. Someone else’s sin never frustrates God’s plan for me.

A couple of verses: Romans chapter 8, verse 28, a verse that many of us have memorized but sometimes we forget. “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purposes.” All things, even what we would look at as the bad things. This is not to say God caused someone to sin but God’s plan for me included the sin that would be committed against me, against you; part of God working His plan for good to me. What hope would there be for us if we are at the whims of all that takes place, the sinful actions of other people frustrating God’s plan. We think oh, I had such great plans for what I would do for God and now they are ruined. Well maybe your plans weren’t God’s plans for you. Maybe my plans for me weren’t God’s plan for me. Who’s in charge? Someone else’s sin never frustrates God’s plan for my life.

An example: Come back to Genesis, the book of Genesis and we will go to chapter 45. This is where Joseph, and you remember Joseph was sinned against greatly by his brothers. His brothers, they hated him, they sold him into slavery. They wanted to destroy his life but without being guilty for actually murdering him, have him carted off to a strange foreign land to spend the rest of his life groveling as slave. And yet God took care of Joseph. And I love what Joseph said in verse 5 of chapter 45 of Genesis. He tells his brothers, those who did this to him. “Do not be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here. For God sent me.” I have that underlined in my Bible. Maybe you do. “You sold me, God sent me.” There sin, selling their brother into slavery. God’s plan, I’m going to use their sin to send my son, Joseph, my servant to Egypt where I want to use him.

Verse 7 “God sent me before you, to preserve you, to provide a great deliverance.” Verse 8: “Now therefore, it was not you who sent me here but God.” What an awesome recognition of the sovereignty of God. These men’s intention that he would spend the rest of his life perhaps in the most miserable of circumstances in slavery. Joseph’s perspective, no matter what you intended, no matter how you intended to hurt me and this is not something unintentional, this is very intentional, it was God who sent me here.

Come over to chapter 50 of Genesis, verse 20, Joseph speaking here: “As for you (referring to his brothers) you meant evil against me, God meant it for good.” We need to fix that in our minds. This is intentionally sinning against someone. I will just remind us, someone else’s sin never frustrates God’s plan for my life. So your first reaction may be nothing good can come out of this. My life is ruined because of what they did. That is not Biblical.

Second thing I want you to take note of, write it down, perhaps in the flyleaf of your Bible. I’ve got these things written on the back of my forehead because I forget. “Someone else’s sin is never an excuse for me to sin.” Someone else’s sin is never an excuse for me to sin. I must always and in every situation function as God would have me function, respond in every situation as He would have me respond.

We are still fallen beings. We have experienced God’s grace, personally as a church family. But you know when we are sinned against there is an immediate reaction and it reminds us how sad it is that would be my reaction.

Come over to Romans chapter 12. I want you to look at just a couple of verses here and these are just sampling verses on these two points that we are talking about. Romans chapter 12, verse 17: “Never pay back evil for evil to anyone.” “Never pay back evil for evil to anyone.” We could elaborate on that with numerous verses and the example of Christ. While you are in this, verse 19: “Never take your own revenge, beloved.” Verse 21: “Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.” My concern is not what someone does to me but how I respond, how I function. I can’t control what someone else does but I am responsible before God to function in a way that He would have me. Well if they hadn’t done that I wouldn’t have done this. If they hadn’t treated me like that I wouldn’t have gotten angry. If they hadn’t done that I wouldn’t have lost my temper. What does that have to do with anything? Someone else’s sin is never an excuse for me sin. We need to be careful even when we are dealing with one another. We sometimes want to emphasize so much that we cross the line. I understand this may be a difficult time. I understand this may be hard. I understand you may be hurt but again we want to be gracious, we want to be understanding but don’t coddle me in my sin. If I am not responding right, if I am not functioning right don’t act like it’s alright. Come and tell me, in love, that’s not a Biblical way to function, Gil. You are not handling this in the way God would want. But you don’t know what they did to me. We don’t need to know what they did to you, no. You can control what you are doing. You can’t control what they are doing.

Alright, those principles tie back to Hebrews chapter 12. I haven’t forgotten we are studying the book of Hebrews and we will someday return. But we have gone through sections in Hebrews and we may not connect what is going on. Let’s look in Hebrews chapter 12. He is talking about these believers going through difficult times and people sinning against them, falsely imprisoning them, slandering them, taking their possession, all of that. You know what? God is in control. He reminds them that God’s dealing with them as sons.

Verse 7: “It is for discipline (that word, child-training) maybe.” That’s what he is talking about, God developing His children that you endure. God deals with you as sons and you were without discipline. This child training process and these are unpleasant things even people sinning against them. It’s not fair but we recognize God is training me. What am I learning? How to respond in a godly way in this situation. How to draw upon God’s grace and manifest godly character. It is all part of his process so we can share His holiness at the end of verse 10 and know discipline. This child training process that includes the discipline is not joyful but sorrowful but the outcome is joyful. We see God’s hand sovereignly at work. So how do we respond? Someone sins. It hurts. It affects and ripples out. It affects the church.

Come back to Matthew chapter 18, Matthew chapter 18. We are not going to work through details. These are just some passages that have come to my mind and I have been reflecting on these matters in recent days and Matthew 18 is one of those passages that comes to mind that I think is important for us as a church to grasp. This is the context we often come to for church discipline because a pattern is set out in verses 15 and following. If your brother sins you go and show him his fault in private. You listen to him, you’ve won your brother. If he doesn’t listen take two or three with you. Maybe he will respond to them. If he won’t respond then you tell the church. If he won’t listen to the church then you cut off fellowship, a serious matter. You start out if your brother sins, in verse 15 or sins against you as you have in your margin as some of the texts have but Christ is not done.

Peter’s troubled. And so verse 21 picks up the same theme. “Then Peter came and said to Him, ‘Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him?’” See this kicks back to the beginning of verse 15, “If your brother sins against you, show him his fault.” Here’s the process. Well Peter then wants to know how often do we go through this process, Lord? “How often if he sins against me should I forgive him, seven times?” Peter is stretching here. The rabbis taught you should forgive three times, maybe four but probably three. They did it on the basis of Amos. “For three transgressions and for four” God pronounces judgment, for three transgressions and for four. Key statement in Amos, chapter 1 and on, seven times.

I mean if a person sins against you seven times, God forgives them seven times. That’s it. Jesus said, “It’s not seven times but seventy times seven.” The point is if you are keeping count you haven’t really forgiven them. Remember when we were studying earlier today in Psalm 51 and then in Psalm 32. What did David talk about? His sin being blotted out. The record is clean. God has forgiven him. There is no more record. As far as God is concerned it is done. What are you keeping count for? Well, do you know what they did?

You know sometimes as a church we have to be careful. We become self-righteous. You know we want to be Biblical and we do. We have to deal with sin. When people persist in sin then we as a church have to exercise what we call “church discipline.” That is covered in verse 15 and following but we also have to understand verse 21. When a person has repented of their sin, stopped their sin they are forgiven. Well you know they have done this before. Oh really, I didn’t remember. What do you mean you didn’t remember? Well, we forgave them, remember? Well yes, but they did it twice, three times. You know we have to be careful how our attitude is here and he gives an example: There was a king and he compares the kingdom of heaven. He is talking here in the context where the Jews anticipated a kingdom to be set up by the Messiah and Christ spoke to them about the characteristics that are true of the people who will be part of the kingdom that God had promised that ultimately His Messiah would set up on earth, redeemed people. Compared to a king who wanted to settle accounts with the slaves and he has a slave who owes him 10,000 talents and he couldn’t repay it. How is a slave going to repay 10,000 pounds? He is a slave.

This is a huge, vast sum of money. You ought to read some commentaries. They’ll give you an example. Different commentaries used different pictures to show the vastness of this sum of money. He didn’t have the means to repay so here’s the penalty. He and his family have to be sold into slavery. We will get what we can from them but they can never repay their debt. The slave asks for mercy and the master forgave him the debt, verse 27. But that slave went out and he had one of his fellow slaves and there was an order in slaves and some slaves had slaves and they had this kind of relationship that could go on. He owed him 100 denarii. A denarii is a day’s wage, a 100 days wages. But compared to the 10,000 talents, it is infinitesimal. It’s nothing. That’s the point. He was forgiven a debt that you can’t measure and now he is unwilling to forgive someone something that doesn’t amount to anything compared to what he was forgiven and so he is demanding to be paid and he has no forgiveness. So when the master hears how this slave treated the one who wanted forgiveness, he had forgiven him but he wouldn’t forgive the others then he says in verse 32: “Then summoning him his lord said to him, ‘You wicked slave. I forgive you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave in the same way I had mercy on you?’ His lord moved with anger handed him over to the torturers till he should repay all that he was owed him.” Then note this last verse. You ought to have it highlighted or underlined, “My heavenly Father will also do the same to you if you do not each one forgive his brother from his heart.”

The picture is what? Someone who claims to have experienced God’s forgiveness but is himself an unforgiving person never has known true forgiveness, never has understood the forgiveness of God. It is a serious matter.

This is where when we come and we are dealing with sin and sin against us whether it is individual against the church whatever. The mark of a true believer, one who understands something of the greatness of the debt, well I never sinned like that. I never did that sin. Wait a minute. You know how serious my sin is? I think I haven’t sinned like that. I haven’t sinned. What does God say? Apart from Christ I am doomed to an eternal hell and I can never pay my debt. That’s how serious my sin in. It would necessitate me spending an eternity in hell and I say, “Well, I never did something so bad.” My sin is so serious, so bad that it necessitates an eternal hell. If that’s not how we understand it what were we saved from? You know sometimes as believers we talk about God’s salvation and the unredeemed are going to hell but we never think what does that mean for what God has forgiven me? What could you do to me that would be on that level? I could say, “I could never forgive that. I just could not forgive that?” So we have to take seriously here. That’s why I say someone sins against us. We take that an occasion to sin. We magnify the situation and now reveal something about our character. You know what these situations that God and His plan brings into our lives, provide the opportunity for the child training, the discipline. This is unpleasant. I would like to return evil for evil. I would like my pound of flesh. I would like a little bit of retribution and vengeance here. But you know, I need to grow in grace and I have been forgiven so great a debt by God. It is my privilege. God, thank You for giving me the privilege of manifesting just a little bit of the grace that I’ve received. Isn’t that what we are talking about? I’ve been forgiven so much. What a privilege it is to forgive someone else what they have done to me. I get the opportunity to show a little bit of grace to them in forgiveness, in mercy. Not because they deserve it, so to speak. I didn’t deserve it but because I am showing the character of God and I have an opportunity to grow.

This is where things come into the body, our church, we have an opportunity to grow and some of you have said, “You know, as we have had to deal with sin it’s an opportunity for us as a church to grow” and that’s the attitude we want to have. I appreciate that so much. And it has to be ongoing. That’s why we talked about division when we were at the Lord’s Table. You know we have been forgiven so great a debt and we who have been saved by God’s grace and spared perhaps from a life of depravity and some of what we call the “big sins.” I don’t know, my sins were so great I would be on my way to an eternal hell and so would you. So how do you measure that forgiveness?

So of course we are glad to forgive people, forgive one another and no limit, no limit. We are not keeping record. Forgiveness means it’s blotted out. It’s done. That word “forgive” used in Matthew 18 means to cancel, to remit, to pardon. I mean, can I bring it up and keep bringing it up? Now wait, it’s been cancelled out, aphiemi, remitted, done, pardoned.

Turn over to Luke chapter 7, come to Luke chapter 7. You know, the Pharisees had a veneer of godliness and the Pharisees compared to the general unbelieving, pagan world looked a lot more godly and Jesus was invited to a house of a Pharisee in verse 36 of Luke 7. One of the Pharisees asked Him to come and dine. “He went to the Pharisees house and reclined and a woman in the city who was a sinner (an open, practicing sinner) came and she brought the alabaster vial of perfume. And standing behind Him at His feet, weeping she wet His feet, wiped them with her hair, anointed them,” all of this and the Pharisees sitting there said, “This is such a sinful woman. If He was a prophet He would know she is a sinner and wouldn’t want her even touching Him.”

The end of verse 39 says it all, “He would know what sort of person this woman is who is touching Him that she is a sinner.” He didn’t see himself that way. He saw her that way. Jesus said, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” He said, “Say it teacher.” And then we have another similar comparison. “ A money lender had two debtors. One who owed him 500 denarii and the other 50. When they were unable to repay, he graciously forgave him. Which of them will love him more? The Pharisee said, “I suppose the one who forgave the most.” He had judged correctly. The assignment, I came into your house. You didn’t care for Me. You didn’t provide water for my feet but she’s washed my feet with her tears and anointed them with perfume.

Verse 47: “For this reason I say to you, ‘Her sins which are many have been forgiven for she loved much but he who is forgiven little loves little.’”

You know you must understand the magnitude of God’s forgiveness and that produces in us a love for God and a love for God’s people. You are not saved by trying to be forgiving. He makes that clear down in verse 50. He tells the woman, “Your faith has saved you.” But our faith in Him and the recognition of the greatness of the forgiveness that He could bring to her, a great sinner resulted in her manifesting a great love. The Pharisee, that’s foreign to him because he didn’t understand the greatness of his sin, the greatness of the forgiveness that he needed in the Savior. Here He is in his own house but he is blind to the reality.

Do we understand that we have been forgiven much so we love much? But He seemed to forgive and people that’s characteristic of those who have experienced God’s forgiveness.

Come over to Ephesians chapter 4, Ephesians chapter 4. In chapter 4 we are talking about the walk of the believer. The first three chapters are often in Paul’s letters, as you are familiar. primarily lay a doctrinal foundation in teaching and the last part of the letter he wants to tell them how you live in light of this Biblical truth. So he talks about their walk which is the pattern of their life. You will note in verse 4: “I implore you to walk in a manner of the calling with which you have been called.”

Down in verse 17: “That you walk no longer as the unbelieving Gentiles walked in the emptiness of their mind.” Down in chapter 5, verse 2: “That you walk in love just as Christ loved you.” Down at the end of verse 8: “That you walk as children of light.” Verse 15: “Be careful how you walk.” Our conduct, living out the grace of God. And he is contrasting the walk. The hardness of the heart, the callousness of the unbeliever. He exhorts them in verse 30 to “not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and anger and slander and clamor be put away from you along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted forgiving each other just as God in Christ has forgiven you.” I want to draw your attention to those words, “forgiven, forgiving” just as Christ has forgiven you. It’s not the same word for forgiveness that we read back in Matthew chapter 18. It’s a broader word. We are familiar with the word grace, charis. This is the form of the word, charis, the verb form, charizomai, better translated, “Being gracious to each other, just as God in Christ has also been gracious to you.” It includes forgiveness but it’s a broader word than forgiveness. Forgiveness is included, that’s not a wrong translation. It’s one of the meanings of the word but the word grace is a broader word. One person put it this way. Graciousness is the antitheses of the bitterness.

Verse 31: “The anger, the wrath, the shouting, the abusive speech. It’s showing favor, kindness, pleasantness.” You give something freely or graciously as a favor. This is a Greek dictionary definition. Remit, forgive, pardon, show yourself to be gracious to someone. Again that word “grace.” Back up to chapter 2 of Ephesians, verse 8. Here we have this word grace, a form of it. “For by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God.” We have been the recipients of God’s grace.

“We who once walked according, (verse 2 of Philippians 2) we were dead in our trespasses and sins. We walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air.” And the same spirit that is controlling the unregenerate person controlled us. We lived in the lust of the flesh, indulged, we were by nature, we talked about this in Psalm 51 when David said, “I was conceived in sin.” We can go astray from birth. We were no different “but God being rich in mercy has poured out upon us” in verse 7, “The riches, surpassing riches of His grace in kindness.” You see the piling up of words, the rich mercy, the surpassing riches of His grace, in kindness in the context of mercy. You see the breadth of what we have been the recipients of?

And then you come over to chapter 4, verse 32 and he says, “Be gracious toward each other, merciful, kind, forgiving just as Christ has been gracious to you.” I read that. I need to come back and realize the grace that I have received, the mercy, rich in mercy, verse 4, “Surpassing riches of His grace in kindness” in verse 7. Being saved by grace and now I ought to be stingy in showing grace to others? How could that be, how could that be? Have I ever understood the greatness of God’s grace?

These things come into our lives so that we might grow. We see the negatives of sin and there are negatives but we want to learn and grow. The key thing we have as believers impacted by others’ sins, varying degrees, various ways at various times are opportunities for us to respond by showing grace. Sometimes sin is persisted in even there we want to discipline in love. We get concerned. Well maybe we will be viewed as soft on sin if we don’t. Once it’s forgiven, once it’s dealt with, it’s dealt with.

That’s why in the pattern Christ set down when we confront a person if they acknowledge it and stop it, agree, turn from it we rejoice. We have the brother back on the right track and we don’t want to be keeping track. Now you know, if you do this again that will probably be it. What do you mean? I am sure God hasn’t dealt with me that way.

I was saved in l953. Now I am not going to ask for a raise of hands in how many of you were even alive on earth on 1953. I can see some white hair out there but that’s a long time. You know what? I haven’t lived a perfect, sinless life in the 50 years since then, 50 plus years I should say. No, you know what? God keeps forgiving me. His blood keeps on cleansing us. He is the propitiation for our sins, the satisfaction for our sins. His blood keeps on cleaning us from all sin. All He requires from me is I stop sinning, I agree with Him, I confess my sins because that’s to agree with God. You know, as long as we hide it, we don’t face the reality of it, I won’t agree with God about it, I try to hide it from Him then I experience His disciplining hand. We saw that. Once it is dealt with we can rejoice together.

You know, make it personal. Sometimes and it’s not just for our church but in conversation recent weeks with some pastoral staff at another church in another state going through issues of sin in the church and one of the pastors said, “You know, it’s not that right that sometimes when people sin grievously our first thought is, I hope they go someplace else, I hope they leave.” You know what I tell people? I hope you stay. It’s good for you. It’s good for the church. No, we want to get over it. We want to grow together. We don’t want to say, “Anybody imperfect is not welcome here. If you sin you are on your way out. If you persist in sin we will have to chasten you but if you sin and deal with it, we will love you just the same.” And when people sin and they are no longer welcome we lose the opportunity to show grace, manifest God’s love. How are we going to grow? People who run and hide lose the opportunity to show the grace of God working in their lives as they move on. So I just want to encourage us.

Now we talk about sin and how sin is to be dealt with but we want to be careful we know how to respond when we are sinned against when we are in a situation where we deal with someone who has sinned. When we know they are dealt with we rejoice. We are glad it’s forgiven. If God has forgiven it who am I to be bringing it up. I mean He’s blotted it out. It’s sure not going to be on my record book. I wouldn’t want God saying, “Gil, I blotted that out for them. What do you have a record of it for? Well, Lord, I am just keeping it in case they did it again I could remind them.” That’s not the way God deals with me. It’s blotted out, forgiven, done. The book is clean. We want people to know that’s the way it is here. You are not a second class citizen, you are not a third class Christian, and you are a forgiven Christian just like I am a forgiven Christian. What a privilege to grow together and every opportunity is an opportunity to grow. May God give us the grace to do it.

Let’s pray together, thank You Lord for the riches of the grace that has been shown to us in Christ. Lord, we never want to take sin lightly in our lives or in the lives of others. We don’t minimize the impact of sin and Lord the effect of sin as it spreads out. Lord we would want to be careful that we don’t complicate things; we don’t make things worse by using someone’s sin to excuse our sin. Lord, our desire is to function with our lives in a way that is pleasing to You. Thank You for every situation that You bring into our lives, personally and as a church knowing You are sovereign, Your purposes are being accomplished. You deal with sin in the lives of Your people. There are consequences. Lord we are responsible to respond even when we are sinned against, even when sin takes place in the midst of our body to respond in a way that in honoring to You. Lord we can only thank You for the greatness of the grace that is shown to us in Christ and the privilege of manifesting at every opportunity just a little bit of that grace to those who have sinned against us. We give You praise in Christ’s name amen.