When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once. Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’ A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”” (John 13:31–35, ESV)Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Jesus’ love is better than we can ever achieve. His love is selfless, ours is selfish. His love doesn’t tolerate sin, it exposes, condemns, and removes it. He forgives sin, not by ignoring it, but by his holy and precious blood, and his innocent suffering and death. He pays the debt of sin against God, it cost him everything. Our love wants to tolerate sin for the sake of unity. We don’t want to condemn, because others think it is unloving. We do little to speak the truth of sin, even though it usually costs nothing. There is nothing loving in ignoring sin, it is, in fact, quite the opposite. Sin is an affront to God’s purpose. It opposes God’s design for human life. It tears down relationships. It destroys trust. Left to its own devices, it is all consuming and all corrupting. No part of life can escape its influence. We rank sin. Murder is worse than speaking against our neighbor. Adultery against your spouse is worse than pornography. Homosexuality is worse than cohabitation. Lying is categorized as white lies and outright lies. Denying Christ is worse than overlooking an opportunity to speak about him. On and on it goes. We justify ourselves with excuses when there is no justification. In God’s eyes, sin is sin. It all comes from the same place. The corrupted human heart. It is all rejection of God. It is all damnable.
Jesus confronts sin. One example is in John 8, where the scribes and Pharisees bring before him a woman caught in adultery. “Moses commanded us to stone such women.” they said. Jesus stoops down and begins writing in the dirt. We don’t know what he wrote, but it was apparently convicting.
Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.Her accusers all left; she was alone with Jesus.
Has no one condemned you?... No one, Lord. She replied. Neither do I condemn you, go and from now on, sin no more.Jesus doesn’t ignore her sin or the sin of her accusers. He calls for repentance. Sin no more.
Love is not love when it ignores or justifies sin. A toddler will play in the street, ignorant of the danger. A loving parent will not allow it and may even punish the child. They must learn that the street is an unsafe place to play. Ignoring sin is the same. In Lutheran terms it is the First Use of the Law. That is to curb, or control dangerous sinful behavior. There is no salvation in the First Use, only condemnation, only correction, only expected behavior change. The means is the cattle prod, not grace. This is why God has established Government,
for [the government] is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. (Romans 13:4, ESV)Or as Luther stated:
The sword is necessary in the world, and without it the world cannot exist. If there were no law and no sword to restrain the wicked, everything would go to ruin. — AE 45:91The church is different, yet the same in one respect. The church, that is Christians, act with love, the government acts with the threat of force. Both are commanded by God to confront sin. The government acts to restrain sin. The churches’ reason for confronting sin is much different. It speaks the truth in love, hoping for the unrepentant sinner to repent. Hoping for them to see their sin and turn to Christ for forgiveness. The church cannot function, as God has designed it, by ignoring or justifying sin. A church that doesn’t practice discipline isn’t loving.
Why doesn’t the church confront sin, as it ought? We don’t really understand the depth of it. We see it as a small thing, especially our own. We think that God simply overlooks it, because he is loving. But that isn’t the case. Sin sick is what we are. It is dangerous and deadly. There is no such thing as a small sin. And even Christians struggle with deep-rooted sin. Paul himself says:
For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. Romans 7:18, ESVFor a loving God, this is an intolerable situation. His love can’t put up with sin. There are two responses from him. Eternal hell for sinners, or grace. But grace isn’t just ignoring sin. He can’t do that. Instead, he chooses to deal with sin in the only way possible. He pays the price, the debt himself. So caught up and trapped in sin are we, that we can’t resolve it. But God does.
So, once in history, God became a human being.
But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5, ESV)It is only in understanding the depth of our own sin that we take grace seriously. It is only in the cross that we clearly see the cost of sin. Instead of hell, that we deserve, we receive grace. God’s undeserved favor. When we look on the cross, as ugly as it is, with Jesus there, in all his gory glory, we see the price paid for our little sins, our great sins, everything we have ever done or will do against God’s law. It is utterly amazing what God does through the cross. What Jesus was willing to do for us, to resolve our sin problem.
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:5–8, ESV)There is no grace without the bloody cross. God can’t just set aside sin; it must be dealt death. Forgiveness without the cross, and Jesus on it, is cheap grace. Detrich Bonhoffer, the Lutheran Theologian during the Third Reich, said,
Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession... Grace without the cross.
Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again... It is costly because it cost God the life of His Son; it is grace because God did not reckon His Son too dear a price to pay for our life. (from The Cost of Discipleship)It is right there, Jesus, bloody, broken, bleeding and dying. It is the cost of your sin. That is why the real symbol of the truth of the cross is a cross with Jesus on it. It speaks to your sin, its depth, its seriousness. We dare not take our sin lightly. God, in Jesus, didn’t.
But there is more. Going back to Luther, he understood that it wasn’t enough to believe that the Gospel is true in general.
It is not enough to believe that Christ died and rose again. This must be for me. If I do not believe that it is for me, it does me no good. — Galatians Commentary (1535), AE 26:177That’s faith. That’s the key. Because my sin is so great, your sin is so great, Jesus did what was necessary, for me and for you.
The Gospel is not only a story about Christ, but it is the power of God for all who believe. It does not say, ‘Christ is such and such a person, who lived and died,’ but rather: ‘He is your Savior; He is yours and all that He has is yours.’ — Sermons on John 3, WA 17/I:463When I Survey the Wondrous Cross
Text: Isaac Watts, 1707 Common Tune: “Hamburg” (by Lowell Mason)
1. When I survey the wondrous cross On which the Prince of Glory died, My richest gain I count but loss, And pour contempt on all my pride.
2. Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast Save in the death of Christ, my God! All the vain things that charm me most, I sacrifice them to His blood.
3. See, from His head, His hands, His feet, Sorrow and love flow mingled down! Did e’er such love and sorrow meet, Or thorns compose so rich a crown?
4. His dying crimson, like a robe, Spreads o’er His body on the tree; Then I am dead to all the globe, And all the globe is dead to me.
5. Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were a tribute far too small; Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all.
Jesus’ love is better than we can ever achieve. How can we confront sin in our brothers and sisters in Christ, when we can’t even see it clearly in ourselves? Lord, help us to see it thus.
The church, and I mean here the whole church, not just the LCMS, is corrupted by sin. It has always been. It will be so until the bridegroom returns to make all things new. He is the only hope for the church. Jesus is the only answer. It begins right here (in the heart), through the prompting of the Holy Spirit. First, we repent of our own sin and take it to the cross. There we receive Jesus, for me, for you, for forgiveness. Then, we proclaim clearly the truth of God’s Word, that speaks clearly about the churches sin. We speak the truth in love, not to judge, but toward repentance. Jesus’ love is better than we can ever achieve. Amen.
The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.