(Based on Getting’ There by Steve Farrar)

Sin – Does the Target Matter?

Sin, everyone does it and it seems that most can’t even escape living through the destructive wake of someone else’s sin.  We sin against our fellow man through action, inaction, and our thoughts.  When we trespass against our neighbor, they often retreat into a self defense mode and distance themselves from us.  We often feel as if they won’t be willing to hear us out, let alone forgive us.

The sin against our fellow man, although not as reprehensible as our sins against God, causes us separation from those we hurt.  Is it logical in this world to assume that our iniquities against God would be any different?  Absolutely!  Due to our human nature, even though we’d like to think that we have unconditional love, it doesn’t compare to that of God.  God’s ability to rebuild us through our relationship with Christ is infinite.  He longs to have us close to Him, even in the worst of times.  In fact, it seems that these worst times build our relationships more.  I liken this to the relationship felt between men that experience life and death situations (like war); the love for each other is unbreakable!  These men would go to the ends of the earth to ensure each other’s safety just as God has gone from eternity past to eternity present in planning our lives to expose us to the One that brings true safety – Jesus Christ.

We’ve Sinned, Now What?

When we’re in over our heads, where should we go for oxygen?  When we’ve sinned against our neighbor, we can simply go and humble ourselves in their presence confess our transgressions and ask for forgiveness.  This is no different before God.

However, our worldly view of relationships puts us in an uncomfortable position, we fear going to Him as we’re afraid of the rejection and wrath.  Scripture provides us with role models of the humble behavior.  For us, we have men like David.

David is a great example of going to God humbly with his confession and his request for forgiveness.  Through this Psalm, David provides us an example of getting out of the depths through our faith and love in God.

David’s Prayer of Psalm 130

This prayer shows us three distinct examples of how we should go to God when we’re in the depths: Cry Out, Wait, and Hope.

Cry Out

Men don’t cry out well.  We continue to believe that our power is enough; we’re in control of this situation.  When we are in really deep trouble, we tend to lash out or stay silent.  We hold in our feelings so that we don’t show our weakness to others.  Often, it’s not until we have been completely defeated that we cry out for help.  As an example of this, let me briefly describe the delivery and early development of my second child, Jillian.  She came to us almost eight weeks early through an emergency C-Section; ultimately being flown via helicopter to Children’s Hospital in San Diego, almost sixty miles south of the place she was born.  While recovering from respiratory distress and Bradycardia I continued to convince myself that everything would be alright.  I didn’t do this because I had any greater faith in God and his ability to take care of the situation than the next person.  I did it to protect myself from being seen as weak and out of control.

It wasn’t until she was about six months old that the Lord provided my breaking point in this situation.  We had been through a bout of deafness and were facing serious neurological concerns.  Jillian was depicting physical signs of developmental delay and involuntary muscular tone.  After having her seen and preliminarily diagnosed with either Cerebral Palsy or Muscular Dystrophy I was broken, scared, and unable to handle this situation alone.  I was crying out!  I felt like David in his first four verses…

1              Out of the depths I have cried to You, O LORD.

2              Lord, hear my voice! Let Your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.

3              If You, LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?

4              But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared.

Should it take being broken to cry out?  We as men have a great set of resources to help us get through these struggles.  We have each other and we have God.  We need to lean on these resources more and readily admit that we aren’t in control of our own lives.  Giving our lives up to the Lord isn’t easy, but it is necessary.

Wait

David’s Psalm (verses 5 & 6) concentrate on waiting. 

6              My soul waits for the Lord more than the watchmen for the morning; Indeed, more

Scripture is riddled with references to waiting.  Our society is completely contradictory to this counsel.  We honk at the first sight of a green light, we have drive thru for silly things like coffee (and I use them), and we spend hours communicating via email, instant messenger, and cell phones, and we have the highest credit expenditure as fraction of our income ever.  We’re the society of wanting it now!  It would be nice if we could conclude our prayers by clicking on a button on our computer that says “Amen” and instantly a progress bar would march on the screen showing us God’s progress.

The reality is that God has already done something; we just can’t always see it.  God knew we would be in the pickle we’re in and he’s got a plan to get us out of it, but it may take time.

Hope

In today’s society, hope and want are typically interchanged.  In the sense that David uses the word it more closely relates to faith.  It is a desire that we have reasonable confidence in the results.  With God, our hope should be endless.  Understanding that God has our best interests in mind is comforting.  Evidence is provided in the bible of God’s faithfulness to His children.  We should have every confidence in Him and be comforted to hope in Him.

In a quick search of the bible, the words hope and wait are directly linked in six verses (Psalm 33:20, Psalm 130:5, Isaiah 51:5, Micah 7:7, Romans 8:25, Titus 2:13).  Perhaps the best reference to David’s hopeful prayer is Micah 7:7 where it is written:

What power we would possess to understand that God is worth hoping for!

Application

Our nature is sinful.  We continually fail to measure up to God’s standard.  However, rather than running from our transgressions with God, we should understand the true love He has for us and run to Him.  Our separation from God has been abolished through the Cross for those that have faith in Jesus Christ.  As Paul writes in Romans 3:22-26

Appendix - Definitions

Supplication 

1384, from O.Fr. supplication, from L. supplicationem (nom. supplicatio), from supplicare "plead humbly" (see supple). In ancient Rome, a religious solemnity, especially in thanksgiving for a victory.

Sin

is "any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God" (1 John 3:4; Rom. 4:15), in the inward state and habit of the soul, as well as in the outward conduct of the life, whether by omission or commission (Rom. 6:12-17; 7:5-24). It is "not a mere violation of the law of our constitution, nor of the system of things, but an offence against a personal lawgiver and moral governor who vindicates his law with penalties. The soul that sins is always conscious that his sin is (1) intrinsically vile and polluting, and (2) that it justly deserves punishment, and calls down the righteous wrath of God. Hence sin carries with it two inalienable characters, (1) ill-desert, guilt (reatus); and (2) pollution (macula).", Hodge's Outlines.

The moral character of a man's actions is determined by the moral state of his heart. The disposition to sin, or the habit of the soul that leads to the sinful act, is itself also sin (Rom. 6:12-17; Gal. 5:17; James 1:14, 15).

The origin of sin is a mystery, and must for ever remain such to us. It is plain that for some reason God has permitted sin to enter this world, and that is all we know. His permitting it, however, in no way makes God the author of sin.

Adam's sin (Gen. 3:1-6) consisted in his yielding to the assaults of temptation and eating the forbidden fruit. It involved in it, (1) the sin of unbelief, virtually making God a liar; and (2) the guilt of disobedience to a positive command. By this sin he became an apostate from God, a rebel in arms against his Creator. He lost the favour of God and communion with him; his whole nature became depraved, and he incurred the penalty involved in the covenant of works.

Original sin. "Our first parents being the root of all mankind, the guilt of their sin was imputed, and the same death in sin and corrupted nature were conveyed to all their posterity, descending from them by ordinary generation." Adam was constituted by God the federal head and representative of all his posterity, as he was also their natural head, and therefore when he fell they fell with him (Rom. 5:12-21; 1 Cor. 15:22-45). His probation was their probation, and his fall their fall. Because of Adam's first sin all his posterity came into the world in a state of sin and condemnation, i.e., (1) a state of moral corruption, and (2) of guilt, as having judicially imputed to them the guilt of Adam's first sin.

"Original sin" is frequently and properly used to denote only the moral corruption of their whole nature inherited by all men from Adam. This inherited moral corruption consists in, (1) the loss of original righteousness; and (2) the presence of a constant proneness to evil, which is the root and origin of all actual sin. It is called "sin" (Rom. 6:12, 14, 17; 7:5-17), the "flesh" (Gal. 5:17, 24), "lust" (James 1:14, 15), the "body of sin" (Rom. 6:6), "ignorance," "blindness of heart," "alienation from the life of God" (Eph. 4:18, 19). It influences and depraves the whole man, and its tendency is still downward to deeper and deeper corruption, there remaining no recuperative element in the soul. It is a total depravity, and it is also universally inherited by all the natural descendants of Adam (Rom. 3:10-23; 5:12-21; 8:7). Pelagians deny original sin, and regard man as by nature morally and spiritually well; semi-Pelagians regard him as morally sick; Augustinians, or, as they are also called, Calvinists, regard man as described above, spiritually dead (Eph. 2:1; 1 John 3:14).

The doctrine of original sin is proved, (1.) From the fact of the universal sinfulness of men. "There is no man that sinneth not" (1 Kings 8:46; Isa. 53:6; Ps. 130:3; Rom. 3:19, 22, 23; Gal. 3:22). (2.) From the total depravity of man. All men are declared to be destitute of any principle of spiritual life; man's apostasy from God is total and complete (Job 15:14-16; Gen. 6:5,6). (3.) From its early manifestation (Ps. 58:3; Prov. 22:15). (4.) It is proved also from the necessity, absolutely and universally, of regeneration (John 3:3; 2 Cor. 5:17). (5.) From the universality of death (Rom. 5:12-20).

Various kinds of sin are mentioned, (1.) "Presumptuous sins," or as literally rendered, "sins with an uplifted hand", i.e., defiant acts of sin, in contrast with "errors" or "inadvertencies" (Ps. 19:13). (2.) "Secret", i.e., hidden sins (19:12); sins which escape the notice of the soul. (3.) "Sin against the Holy Ghost" (q.v.), or a "sin unto death" (Matt. 12:31, 32; 1 John 5:16), which amounts to a wilful rejection of grace.

Sin, a city in Egypt, called by the Greeks Pelusium, which means, as does also the Hebrew name, "clayey" or "muddy," so called from the abundance of clay found there. It is called by Ezekel (Ezek. 30:15) "the strength of Egypt, "thus denoting its importance as a fortified city. It has been identified with the modern Tineh, "a miry place," where its ruins are to be found. Of its boasted magnificence only four red granite columns remain, and some few fragments of others.

Appendix - Bibliography

Steve Farrar, A Passage Through the Psalms… Gettin’ There, How a Man Finds His Way on the Trail of Life, 2001 Multnomah Publishers, Colorado Springs, CO

“sin” Biblegateway.com, 25 May 2007.