sermonette: Sin Against God

All Sin Affects the Relationship
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Given 30-Nov-02; Sermon #586s; 15 minutes

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As long as I have been in the church (my whole life), there has been a great deal of emphasis it seems (and maybe it is just my own perspective) on Matthew 18:15-17, and the process of dealing with a person who has sinned against you or offended you.

In fact, while I was a freshman at Ambassador College, oh so many years ago (1984), this passage was actually used against me for something I did at an Ambassador Club meeting one night. I am not sure whether I was actually giving a speech, or whether I was the toastmaster for the evening and I was introducing this fellow (who happened to be an Australian). By the way, there was an unspoken rivalry among some of the guys there at Ambassador College among the Americans, Europeans, the Australians, and New Zealanders, and it was all in good fun, but evidently not to this one guy. He was a senior. And I either introduced him, or made some comment about Australians, and tried to speak their accent, or I do not know what it was. I cannot even remember the exact crack that I said. It was something that I just kind of tossed out there. I did not think it was all that offensive. But, as I was walking home back to my dorm, suddenly I had this hand on my arm. “Richard, I need to talk to you about something.” He was offended, and wanted to know what I had against Australians, and we went round and round.

I tried to explain to him that I had meant nothing offensive whatsoever, but he just had to get an apology from me because I had sinned against him for some reason. He was really serious about it, and so we made up. There was no problem after that. We just did not discuss national or international relations from that point on.

But I find it kind of interesting that people so often resort to this instruction. I think it is, in part, because of our human nature. Once we get into this world and start behaving as human beings, we seem to be innately selfish. And so, whatever occurs in our hearing, seeing, in our way of living, we take it personally. So, we have to go, and get all these things straight, and there is nothing wrong with that.

But the reasons that people put this into practice are sometimes pretty laughable, such as, “You didn’t speak to me at church.” They take it as this great offense. There could have been all kinds of reasons why one person did not speak to this other person at church. It could have had nothing to do with this other person. It could have been that they just did not cross paths, or something. But they think that somehow they have sinned against him. And it is not true at all.

It is often for the silliest things. You could be passing something out like in class, or whatever, and you just happen to miss this person. So they feel slighted because you did not give your hand out to them. It is just simply something that needs to be overlooked. And I think that most of the time when these things happen to us, the best thing to do is simply shrug it off, and to consider that it was just a misunderstanding, or something unintentional. But some people are more prickly about it than others.

And so, the instruction is there for us to use, but I also know that the other side is there as well. There are some people that just cannot seem to let an offense go. There are some people that if something happens to them, it is has to have been intentional. It is has to have been something that was worse than it appears. They do not want to give the other person the benefit of the doubt in any wise. And they hold grudges. There is really nothing good about that. That can just lead to more sin. I certainly think that these things should be worked out in patience and love.

But I believe that there is one thing that a lot of these people who think of these things very seriously tend to overlook. And that is the other person that is involved in this interaction between people. I do not mean the other human person that is involved in these things. I am talking about another individual that is involved in all sin.

This tells me that such a person has not come to understand fully a very vital element of sin. And that is what I want to look into this afternoon. We are going to hop, skip, and jump between the first few chapters of Genesis because I want you to see that early on in the Bible, this important principle is brought up very often. There is a hint of it in the Flood story. But I am not going to go there. First, I am going to go to Genesis 13 in the story of Abraham. This is when Abraham and Lot are dividing the land between them.

Genesis 13:11-13 Then Lot chose for himself all the plain of Jordan, and Lot journeyed east. And they separated from each other. Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain and pitched his tent even as far as Sodom. But the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinful against [one another. No, that is not what it says. Their sin was against] the LORD.

Let us skip to Genesis 20, verse 6. This is about Abimelech and Abraham. Abraham had come into Abimelech's territory, and said that Sarah was his sister, and Abimelech was going to take Sarah as his wife.

Genesis 20:6 And God said to him in a dream, "Yes, I know that you did this in the integrity of your heart. [That is, to take Sarah as a potential wife, because he thought she was Abraham's sister.] For I also withheld you from sinning against Me.”

That is very interesting.

Let us finally go to Genesis 39. This is Joseph and Potiphar's wife.

Genesis 39:7-9 And it came to pass after these things that his master's wife cast longing eyes on Joseph, and she said, "Lie with me." But he refused and said to his master's wife, "Look, my master does not know what is with me in the house, and he has committed all that he has to my hand. There is no one greater in this house than I, nor has he kept back anything from me but you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?"

He obviously understood that there would have been a sin against Potiphar, but to Joseph, the far worse thing was his sin against God.

Now this concept is mentioned dozens more times in the Old Testament. It is sometimes said in different ways, but it all comes back to the same thing.

Strangely though, it hardly ever appears in the New Testament. The only place I saw that it was specifically said was in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, when the son finally came to himself while he was there in the pigsty. And he said something to the effect of, “Why did I ever sin against heaven in the sight of my father?” Now, he does not say he sinned against his father. He said he sinned against heaven in the sight of his father, or before his father.

I think the reason for this seeming change between the Old Testament and the New Testament is not that there was a change at all in the perspective. It is just that by this time it had been repeated so much in the Old Testament that it was thought to be an established fact that needed no repetition. It is the same thing as to why the Sabbath command is not mentioned frequently in the New Testament because there was no need. Everybody was keeping the Sabbath.

In the same way, both the Jews and the church (from about Jesus' time onward) understood that sin was against God. So it is not something that needed to be repeated over and over.

Now, I do want to go to Psalm 51, and look at David's psalm of repentance because I want to flesh this out just a little bit before I close. I want to read verses 3 and 4. David says, speaking to God:

Psalm 51:3-4 For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight—that You may be found just when You speak, and blameless when You judge.

Incredible! Let us just think about who else he had sinned against. He had Uriah killed—murdered. He had committed adultery with Bathsheba. A child had come from that liaison, and he died. And not only that, when Nathan finally came to tell him of his sin and to get him to realize what he had done, he told him that God's punishment for this was that the sword would never depart from his house. How long, how far did the consequences of that sin go down the line of his descent? And David seemingly has the audacity to say, I have only sinned against You, God.

Now how can we square this up with what we understand?

Well, he is not saying that he only sinned against God. That is how it appears to be what he is saying. But he is showing a contrast, a very stark contrast. The sins he committed against those people pale in comparison to the magnanimity of the great, awesome terribleness of his sin against God. Those sins against the people were nothing compared to what he had just done with his relationship with God. And it was as if there was no other sin, but the sin that he had committed against God Himself.

By his sin he had not only violated God's law, which is probably the first thing that we think of, that we have sinned against the law. But he had basically repudiated all that God had given him from the very beginning of his relationship: all his blessings, all the grace, and all the mercy that God had bestowed upon him; all the riches, all his kingship, all the promises that he had been given—he said he was willing to throw all that away for one tryst with Bathsheba.

Now how did that hit God? This was a man that He loved with all His heart. And one whom He thought loved Him with all his heart. And in this one sin, he was willing basically to throw it all away. And it lasted for months and months and months, because Nathan did not come and tell him until the baby was born, or just about born. I cannot remember exactly which it is, but it was just a day or two later, was it not, that the baby died.

So in effect what he had done was stick a branch up God's nose, as it is said in other places. Or it was like poking Him in the eye. So, the thing we need to understand is that even though we do sin against people, the real terrible thing that we have done is jeopardize our relationship with God.

What is ultimately more important? A ruined relationship with a person? Or a ruined relationship with God?

Now, we should not be doing either. But as far as the comparison goes, the relationship with God is much more important, and thus we have Psalm 51, because David here is showing that the sin that really matters is the one that is made or committed against God. We can see in verse 14 [Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God,] that he understood there was blood guiltiness there. He had done great harm to a human relationship. He understood that.

But by comparison, the sin that most mattered was the one against God.

So yes, people sin against us and we against them. But always in this, when we are thinking about this, we should not allow it to slip very far from our minds that sin is always against God.

By definition, sin is transgression against Him. Every and all sin is a slap of God's face. And our first reaction should always be to admit our sinfulness to Him, and seek to restore our relationship with Him.