The Lutheran Hour
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"A Great God"
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Text: 1 John 3:20
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Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! To hearts that condemn us; to souls that are grieving, the Savior’s resurrection reality calls out: “God’s grace is greater than your grief; His mercy stronger than your sin.” Today, the risen Savior comes and says to repentant, believing hearts, “Be at peace, your sins are forgiven.”
Have you ever had your heart condemn you? Do you have things – secret things, personal things, public things which happened in your past, but now, maybe even years later, cause your stomach to knot, your face to flush, your blood pressure to rise, your brow to sweat, your pulse to race? Inside of you, do you carry things – things which were done or left undone which still give you guilt; which still activate your conscience, which make you fearfully glance from side-to-side to make sure that no one has, somehow, in some way, managed to discover your secret?
Have you ever had your heart condemn you? Most of us have. One day, in September of 1972, an intense man with stony face, stood on a busy street corner in the Chicago loop. As people passed by he would with a slow, solemn gesture, lift his arm, point to the person closest to him and, looking that individual in the eye, let lose with a single word, a stentorian: “Guilty!” Then the man’s arm would drop back to his side. In a few moments he would begin the process again. “Guilty!” Now people who work in Chicago’s loop have seen many strange things; it takes a lot to shock them. Even though they’re cosmopolitan, the solemn man with the somber word: “Guilty!” still surprised them. Some of those sophisticated Chicagoans actually jumped a step or two to the side. Others stopped dead in their tracks and stared. More than one person was overheard saying, “How did he know?”
Have you ever had your heart condemn you? Most of us have. Sometimes that condemnation seems to stem from an inconsequential, insignificant trifle. In 1895, a teenager wrote to President Cleveland. In his letter, he poured out the censure of his heart. He said: “To His Majesty President Cleveland! Dear President: I am in a dreadful state of mind, and I thought I would write and tell you all. About two years ago I used two postage stamps which had been used before (on a letter.) Perhaps (I used) more than two stamps, but I can only remember doing it twice. I did not realize what I had done until lately. My mind is constantly on that subject. I think of it night and day. Now, dear President, will you please forgive me, and I (will) promise you I will never do it again. Enclosed find (the) cost of three stamps, and please forgive me, for I was then but thirteen years old. I am heartily sorry for what I have done.”
About the same time as that boy wrote a letter to President Cleveland, the case of another young boy mystified his doctors. The lad’s initial symptoms were nervousness, accompanied by a deep depression. Soon the boy lost his appetite and was unable to sleep. He tossed, turned and moaned, “Oh, those eyes, those eyes!” When the boy awoke, the doctor rightly inquired of the youngster what his words had meant. The boy slowly, reluctantly confessed, “The other day I saw a toad. He was on the road, and was trying to get away from me. He managed for a while, and that made me angry. I got so angry, that when I caught up with him, I took a sharp stick and pinned him to the ground. I left him there. Then, the next day I went back and the toad was still there. He was alive, and he looked right up at me, and his eyes, oh his eyes. He seemed to say, ‘You did this.'” Then the boy finished saying, whenever he tried to eat or sleep, he could see those eyes filled with accusation.
Have you had your heart condemn you? Most of us have not lived a life so perfect that we can say, “No, my conscience is clear; my mind remains untroubled.” That’s because, and I’m not too worried about being contradicted when I say, all of us are sinners. Even the most upstanding of us have done things, many things, which are wrong. As long as I’m telling you stories from the late 1800s, let me tell one more, one that took place at a general store at a small town in Wyoming. The store, the only one in town, was run by two brothers. Although the shelves always needed to be restocked, the books weren’t balancing in the black. An inventory showed that many of the smaller items they stocked were not there, even though the records showed that those items hadn’t been sold. Putting two and two together, the brothers hit upon a plan to discover what was happening. They drilled three small holes in the floor of the storeroom which was located directly above their shop. From those vantage points the brothers could clearly see all that was going on below. One brother would watch from the secret spots in the storeroom while the other waited on the customers below.
It didn’t take too long before the men made some startling discoveries. They found things were flying off their shelves. Literally. They also discovered that some of the upstanding leaders of the town, apparently weren’t as upstanding as they led everyone to believe. Knowing their business depended upon a good relationship with the community, the brothers declined to publicly accuse anyone of pilfering. Instead, at the barbershop, and the post office, and during visits after church, they simply, subtly shared the fact that they had placed a lookout spot in the store’s ceiling. The shoplifting stopped. Of course the brothers did get a chuckle every time they saw one of their customers casually strolling around the store and, when they thought they were out of view, stealing a quick, guilty glance at the peepholes in the ceiling.
Have you ever been condemned by your heart? Those stories are told only to set the stage, only to prove the point that all of us stand condemned – condemned by our fear of being found out, condemned by our hearts, and most importantly, condemned by God’s laws. Right now, anonymity allows me to talk to you in a way far more intimately than your dearest darling, your closest companions, your oldest friends, your parish pastor or priest. They would never be bold enough to pry into your past, or secure enough to suggest the incidence of a secret sin. They would never be so confident of your relationship that they would speak about some terrible transgression. They know, that if they were to broach such a subject, you would be compelled, in self-defense and denial, to build a great, thick wall between the two of you. For these reasons they leave such matters unspoken and undeclared.
But I do not know you; and you do not know me. If we were ever to meet, I could never have any idea that what I am about to say had touched your troubled heart. So, with the safety of a shared secrecy, let me ask you to bring your special sin, your secret sin out of the dark cobwebbed corner of your heart. I speak of that sin of which you are most ashamed; the sin for which your heart condemns you. I know it may be difficult, even traumatic for you to do so, but, please, bring it out – set it here, set it down in a place where you can see it. No, you do not need to speak the name of this sin. Just bring it out, set it down, and take a look at it.
Do you remember when that sin was new? Do you remember how the guilt of it was always there, its constant memory made you worried and wretched? You couldn’t deny its existence; you couldn’t pretend it was imaginary. What did you do? Did you try to explain it away? Did you say to yourself again and again, “This thing is not so bad. Others have done the same and worse”? Did you try to ignore the condemnation of your heart by saying: “The passing of time will make this thing fade. I will think no more about it”? Did you try to dull the thing with out-of-control eating, drinking, inhaling, or injecting; did you try to take your mind off the thing with unfaithfulness, promiscuity, dishonesty, and disregard for yourself and others? Did you say, “Well, I have done this deed, the damage is complete, it can’t get any worse, I may as well continue on”? Is it possible that you thought, “This is a bad thing, and I must make amends. I will now do good things; I will dedicate my life to the doing of good deeds which will bring balance to the scales of justice”?
It was in the 1800s, I guess most of my stories today begin in the 1800s. At any rate in the 1800s, a man, in the middle of the night, went to steal corn from his neighbor’s field. His reluctant young son was conscripted to act as lookout. Before the man climbed over his friend’s fence, he took one last, long look to his left, then to his right, and then over his shoulder. Not seeing anyone, he put his foot on the lowest fence rail. It was at that moment his little boy spoke up. The lad said, “Father, there’s one direction you haven’t looked.” The father, thinking that some unnoticed observer was coming, whispered, “Where? Who?” The boy replied, “Dad, you forgot to look up!” The boy was right.
When we look up, we realize that although we may be absolutely brilliant in hiding our sins from others; we are failures in hiding them from God. We may wear our masks of respectability 24/7; but our all-knowing God, sees past our disguises into the sinful recesses of our hearts. God knows everything about us. King David, an expert at trying to hide his sins, wrote: “O Lord, You have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You discern my thoughts from afar… and are acquainted with all my ways… You hem me in, behind and before, and lay Your hand upon me… Where shall I go from Your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, You are there!” (Psalm 139 excerpts). David discovered God knows us; He knows our sin. Before the world was created He knew us. When Jesus knelt in the Garden of Gethsemane, He clearly saw us and all we’ve ever done wrong. When He hung upon Calvary’s cross, it was our sins which put Him there and kept Him there. Yes, God knows everything about us, even the secret sins which we have tried so hard to hide. When we look up we know that it is not just our hearts which condemn us, we discover God has convicted us as well.
That last statement, “Our hearts and our God condemn us,” is probably the saddest sentence I have ever said. In that sentence there is no hope; no possibility of happiness; no future in heaven. Rather than light at the end of the tunnel there is only more darkness. If things remain as they are, unchanged and unaffected, we sinners will remain helpless and hopeless, doomed and damned. From personal experience we know that hiding our sins does not help; trying to work them off with a lifetime of good-deed doing won’t erase them. And you know what? I’m not telling you anything your condemning heart hasn’t told you before. You know, you are alone; you are lost – if things remain unchanged.
My unseen friends, I want you to look at that sin which you have kept secret for so long; gaze upon those sins which have brought such shame to your souls. Look upon these human stains and know that this day is the last day they will ever bother you. Never again need you spend your nights awake in worry; no longer need you be afraid. Does that seem too good to be true? No doubt, but things have changed. Jesus Christ, God’s Son has come to seek and save we who are lost; to bring light to our darkness; to bring healing to our hearts, and win salvation for our souls. The Savior has entered this world so that through His life, His sacrificial suffering, His deplorable death and wondrous resurrection, we might be given God’s gifts of mercy and grace.
Now I’m going to take just a moment explaining those words: mercy and grace. Most people think they’re the same thing; they’re not. Just for a moment, imagine that you’ve fallen six months behind in your car payments, in your house payments, in your credit card bills. You know what’s going to happen. Those to whom you owe money are going to expect to be paid. That’s understandable. At first they ask nicely for their money, then they get a little more forceful, and eventually they take you to court. There’s no question that you owe them. You have an unpaid debt. Now here’s where mercy and grace come in. Mercy is when you, guilty beyond any shadow of a doubt, turn to the judge and ask for the court to show mercy. You ask the judge not to pronounce the punishment that your dark deeds deserve. You ask the judge to set aside the law and forget about justice. Most of us would agree that setting aside the law and showing mercy isn’t something a conscientious judge should do – at least not without a very good reason. But that is what must happen if you ask for mercy.
Grace, as I said, is different. In the same scenario, grace would be given if the judge said, “You don’t deserve it, but I’m going to have somebody else make all of your payments.” Grace is when the judge says, “I’m going to have somebody else pay the price for what you have done.” Do you see the difference? Let me make it simple: mercy is not getting what you deserve and grace is getting what you don’t deserve. On occasion you may see a judge who has seen some kind of extenuating circumstance, offer mercy to someone who is guilty; but seldom will you see a judge give grace. You will never see a judge sentence his son for the crime of someone else. It would be unthinkable; it wouldn’t make sense; it wouldn’t be fair. But that is what must happen if grace is to be given.
Grace and mercy are God’s gifts to us. We have sinned, we have committed crimes against our Lord, others, and ourselves which we can never make right. God’s law tells us; our hearts condemn us. There is no question of our guilt or that we deserve to be punished. In spite of what we have done, God, our divine judge, decides to extend His mercy and His grace. He doesn’t give us the punishment we deserve; and He extends forgiveness which we haven’t earned: mercy and grace.
Of course, the Lord couldn’t set aside His Laws. He couldn’t do that. The price for our sin had to be paid. And it was. So that we might have His mercy and grace, God sent His sinless Son to take our place. I can’t tell you why He would do this, it doesn’t make sense; but that is what God did. God sent His Son to live the perfect life that we could not; He sent His Son to fulfill the laws that we have not; He sent His Son to die the death that we deserved. My friend, your sins may be great, but God has shown that He is greater. That is what the Apostle John said, “Whenever our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts.” Hundreds of years before Jesus was born, the prophet Isaiah shared God’s plan that would be fulfilled in the Babe of Bethlehem, the Christ of the cross, the Savior of the empty tomb. Isaiah prophesied, “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows… (He was) stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. He was wounded for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His stripes we are healed.”
Now let us look, once again, at your special sin, at all of your sins. Jesus saw those sins. The big ones; the little ones; all of them. Jesus saw our sins, and 2,000 years ago He picked them up and carried them, carried them with His cross to the crest of a skull-shaped hill called Calvary. There, when He died, the punishment for our sins died with Him. Now, because of what Jesus has done; because of the guarantee we are given in the Savior’s resurrection, believers are given mercy and grace. Believers do not get the punishment that they deserved and they receive the peace, the joy, the comfort, the hope, the heaven that was always beyond their reach.
Now I want you to understand exactly what I’m saying – what God is saying here. As far as God is concerned, your sin is gone. With Spirit-given faith in the Savior your sin is gone. Completely, totally, absolutely, fully, wholly, entirely, thoroughly – how many more words do I need to use in order to convince you that Jesus’ blood has made it so? That sin, your sin, is gone because of the blood of Jesus Christ. Don’t you ever pick it up off that table again. Don’t you put it in your pocket or purse; don’t you put it back in your heart; don’t you ignore God’s mercy and grace. Because of Jesus Christ, your sin is gone.
What’s that you say? How can you know; how can you be sure your sin is gone? You can be sure because the Bible says so. God says it simply: “If we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). You can be sure that when you stand before your divine judge and throw yourself on the mercy of the court, that mercy will be given. Because of Jesus, the judge will declare you free from all you have done wrong. Christ has paid the price of your debt and because He has, nothing can separate you from the love of God that Jesus has won. Today, every day, the blood of Jesus Christ wipes away your sin.
Let me finish with just one more, very short story from – what else – the late 1800s. The humorist and philosopher, Mark Twain, told about the day he sent an unsigned telegram to a dozen of his closest friends. The telegram had two sentences: “Flee at once. All is discovered!” Twain said everybody left town immediately. I suppose that’s a normal reaction if you feel guilty. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Our great God, on Calvary’s cross, and in His Son’s empty tomb, sends repentant souls a different message. The Lord’s message reads: “Repent and believe. All is discovered and all has been forgiven!” If you need to know more of this assurance, call us at The Lutheran Hour. Amen.
LUTHERAN HOUR MAILBOXY (Questions & Answers) for May 7, 2006
ANNOUNCER: Now, author and historian, Dr. Paul Maier, offers a critical view of Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code. Dr. Maier’s written several novels based on historical characters. What’s different about the way Dan Brown handles history?
MAIER: Now you know, whenever I object to The Da Vinci Code, Mark, people say, “Well, chill out – it’s fiction after all, isn’t it? ” Well, here’s the point: when you’re doing credible fiction, you have your foreground characters, your principle characters are fictional, of course. Do anything you want with them. Invent them. Just do whatever you want, that’s fine. But the background in which these fictional characters move, should, in fact, be accurate for the purpose of credibility. For example, if someone were writing a novel about World War II of which there have been hundreds, the Allies still win the war and the Nazis lose, OK? Well, what Dan Brown has done, he’s falsified both the foreground and the background. A complete mangling of history is what takes place in the background whenever Dan Brown talks about Christ, or the Church that He founded.
ANNOUNCER: For example, how does Dan Brown handle historical fact when he writes about the Emperor Constantine?
MAIER: He claims that Constantine was a life-long pagan who was baptized only on his deathbed, too weak to protest. Well, 20 percent of that is true. He was baptized on his deathbed, but that is only because they had false theology in those days that claimed that since baptism wiped your slate clean, what you ought to do is get all your sinning done ahead of baptism, and then go into heaven with a clean passport. That part’s true, but Constantine was a convert; he couldn’t do enough for the Church. He’s the one who summoned the First Ecumenical Council. In the session at Nicea, he paid for the travel expenses and lodging expenses of all the churchmen coming across the empire, 300 strong. You can just see how the truth is manipulated continually in this novel.
ANNOUNCER: What do the facts say about the true Christ and what He has done?
MAIER: The standard version that we have of the life of Jesus and what He taught as comprehended in the Gospels is fully historical. So many people think that everything about Jesus is mentioned only in the New Testament. No – His name shows up in interesting commentary; shows up in non-Biblical sources. This gives the lie to that common pathetic challenge to Christianity that Jesus never lived, even historically. That’s just rot.
ANNOUNCER: Dr. Maier, you’ve devoted your life to finding historical connections between what we read in Scripture, and what might be found in ancient literature and in archaeology; how do we know that the Bible can be taken for what it really is – the Word of God – the truth?
MAIER: I have to admit, Mark, that’s correct. I’ve always been fascinated by trying to find outside evidence that correlates with what is claimed in the Old and New Testaments. And since Christianity, unlike other world religious systems, is built on fact and not on fantasy, there’s a tremendous difference in the case of our Christian faith. We should use those facts from the past in order to defend the faith. And it comes very, very handy in a case like this, when we’re trying to get a clear portrait of who Jesus was and is, and what He taught, and what He didn’t teach, and so forth. It is so important to have the facts. Now where do you get the facts? Not only from the Bible, but because the Bible is based totally on history, it’s amazing to see how many facts from the ancient world, from secular sources, correlate admirably with the Biblical record. We find some of the same people, and places, and episodes, and events reported also by non-Biblical documents from the ancient world. And they say so often the same thing as the Bible does, sometimes giving us even more details which help us in terms of a better appreciation of the Biblical episodes.
ANNOUNCER: We’ve been talking with author and historian, Dr. Paul Maier. Thanks for listening. This has been a presentation of Lutheran Hour Ministries.
Music selections for this program:
“A Mighty Fortress” arranged by John Leavitt. Concordia Publishing House/SESAC
“Create in Me a Clean Heart” arr. P. Christiansen. From The Concordia Concert Choir by the Concordia Concert Choir (© 1996 Concordia University College of Alberta)
“An Organ Partita on ‘Easter Hymn’” by William H. Bates. Concordia Publishing House/SESAC
“Allegro from Concerto in a minor ” by J.S. Bach. From Richard Heschke at the Hradetzky in Red Bank by Richard Heschke (© 1993 Arkay Records)