This is the 7th sermon from the "Just One Question Series." The question this Sunday was "How can I cope with the effects of someone's sin in my life?")
What It Takes to Move Forward

 

          It was the hardest part of the obstacle course.  The chances for disaster were high and for that reason alone, it was the spectators’ favorite.  It didn’t seem like it should be that hard, at least not if you had any coordination.  The obstacle course I am thinking of was a team competition.  You had to race to put together a puzzle.  You would crawl under some low hanging ropes.  And then you came to the boards.  Two six foot boards, almost like cross county skies, upon which you and your teammate would need to stand together, one foot on each board, one person in front and another person two feet behind the other.  And then you would move forward.  Normally, if you got a good start you would get a little ways before anything would happen.  But once a mistake was made, once someone took a drastically longer or shorter step than the other, once someone slipped just a little, then the real challenge began.  With all your adrenaline pumping, you would need to stop, regroup and re-gather, before you would have any hope of actually moving forward again.  That contest, that I am sure I never won and so have buried it deep in my mind till now, came to mind because I see some similarities with it and our question today.  How do you cope with the sin of someone else and that sin’s effects in your life?  If you imagine yourself cruising right along with someone else, whether it is a family member or friend or anyone else, things seem to be going smoothly, until what happens?  Someone makes a mistake.  Someone sins.  And that sin, whether it is a life changing type of sin or a daily occurrence that starts to add up, threatens to bring that relationship to a screeching halt.  What do we do?  How do we react to someone’s sin against us?  What does it take to move forward?

          If we were to ask this question to a professional counselor or even to co-workers at the water cooler, we probably would get a lot of different answers and ideas.  You need to make sure that you talk about the sin.  Don’t deny that it happened or just try to repress it.  If you are going to move forward you need to come to terms with it.  Maybe you need to analyze some of the events and actions that led up to it happening, then you can move forward confident that it won’t happen again.  Perhaps you can make a list of actions that need to be taken to make up for the mistake, to get back to square one before you start moving forward again.  Now don’t get me wrong.  Whether you hear it from a professional or from a trusted friend, there is a lot of wisdom in these thoughts.  But what do you do if none of these things seem to be working?  What if the more you talk about it, the bigger the sin seems?  What if you know there is no magical change that will prevent that sin from cropping up again?  What if you simply can’t form a list that if accomplished then things would be back to good again?  What if none of these things help you to move forward?

          Do our verses from Romans this morning seem to just be another list of options to try?  There are a load of different instructions here, each of which we could apply to our lives in many different ways, but for now, with our question before our eyes, let’s continue to ask, how can I cope and move forward when someone sins against me?  Paul’s list isn’t limited to this, but includes such thoughts as, “Honor one another above yourselves.  Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.  Practice hospitality.  Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.  Do not repay anyone evil for evil.  Live at peace with everyone.  Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”  Couldn’t all these statements serve as good advice to move forward?  Do these things and you will learn to cope and move past someone’s sins.

          Can’t all these thoughts be summed up in a simple way?  Show love.  The NIV titles this section simply as that, “Love.”  It begins with that command to show real love.  God is calling on us to show love to all, even those people whose actions have hurt us.  Whose words haunt us.  And whose mistakes have changed our lives.  God still calls on you and me to love, because love is the way that our lives will move forward. 

          So will that work?  Are you willing to try it?  Maybe we decide that we are going to give it a shot.  We are going to try to forgive that person out of love.  We are going to lovingly try to put their sin behind us and move on.  We are going to try to be consistent and strong even though their sin has mangled our life.  We are going to try not to strike back for this sin.  How far can you go with this?  How far will any of these thoughts take you?  I am amazed at times to see the strength of certain individuals who simply want to move on from a sin of the past.  It is truly awesome.  But the question I would pose for you, if you are someone who is trying to carry yourself past someone’s mistake, or if you are someone looking for the specific advise or method to do just that, is this.  Will you move this far forward?  Will you move as far forward as God demands of us here in Romans?  Will you really move so far past that person’s sin that you will love that person with a love that meets God’s standard of sincerity?  That is what God calls for here.  Will you move so far forward that you are never lacking in zeal, and I mean never.  That you never have a day where you are just exhausted from trying to move on that you give a little less than your whole heart in that relationship?  Will you move far enough ahead that pride won’t catch up with you?  That you will never stop and think, well I am way better than this person because I dealt with their screw up so well.  Will you move so far that you not only won’t repay them with evil actions, but not even evil thoughts?  Or are you more like me?  That you are excited about heaping burning coals?  That if I bite my lip and take the highroad, than you know what, I am going to make that person look even worse.  That’ll teach them for treating me that way.  Is any of this really moving forward from a sin?  Is any of this really coping with what they did to us?

          We were close to the right answer, but we took a wrong turn.  How do we cope with the effects of someone’s sin in our lives?  The answer is love.  We just looked to the wrong source for that love.  We looked inside of ourselves and said I am going to try and love, and we fall short.  Our love is not enough to move past sin.  Let’s instead look to the love of our God.  The love that he reveals to us as he moves forward past our sins.  You see, God couldn’t just move forward from our sins by assuring himself it wouldn’t happen again, because it would.  He couldn’t just say, I will put this out of my mind and continue with man like this never happened.  Realize what God had to cope with.  He had to cope with people like you and me, whose smallest sin, an oxymoron if there ever was one, is far worse than anything anyone has ever done to us.  You and I are sinful people.  When someone sins against us, while it might be painful, unfair, and yes, wrong, it is still nothing compared to what our sins are against a holy and righteous God, who only wanted to bless the people whom he made in his own image. 

          God was confronted with the effects of the sins of the world.  The effects of your sins.  And what did God choose to do?  He chose to move forward by love.  It would take unbelievable love.  Undeserved and unfathomable love to move forward in a relationship with mankind.  And that is what God did.  God the Father loved the world enough that he would give up his only beloved Son so that he could treat you like you never sinned against him.  God the Son would love you enough to die for sins, so that he could make restitution for the thoughtless actions and loveless words we spew out at one another.  God the Spirit would love you enough to convince you that such love that is foolishness, is real, and really for you.  God made up his mind to move past your sins and it took all of his goodness and love to do it. 

          God’s love has moved your relationship with him forward.  You and I were not his people.  We are a people who sinned against him and each other.  Now he has made us his own people.  The love of Christ accomplished this.  We whose sins cheated him of his glory and dishonored his name have been restored to be his children, by his love.  The relationship our sin destroyed with God has been repaired by his amazing love.   This is the love that we need to move forward with one another.  Only this great love equips us to love one another.  Only this great love gives us hope to repair and restore the bridges burned by sin. 

Where do we go with this love of God?  Back to our relationships.  Back to those who have hurt us and sinned against us.  And we let this love of God move us forward.  It moves us forward to love like God loved us.  To be a merciful servant and forgive, even when the debt seems too large.  Take that person’s huge sin and place it next to the forgiveness God shows to you.  The love of God moves us to be patient in affliction.  I know, I know how much pain there is here today, some of it I know clearer than others.  Looking to God’s love for you doesn’t mean you will not still suffer for someone else’s sins against you.  But the love of God will give you the strength to be patient in affliction.  To know you can stand and bear this great pain, because you have a God whose love for you mended your relationship with him.  To stand with confidence because no one’s sin can break your soul, because God has claimed it for himself through his love.  The love of God moves you forward to live in peace.  To lovingly move past hurt and strife in order to make wise decisions.  To know that there can be forgiveness and still be wise change that results from asking the question of how can I live in the peace of God.  God doesn’t tell you and me to look out for ourselves.  That is our natural tendency.  And so God stresses that we show love to those who wrong us, and then make wise decisions acting out of love.

Finally, God’s love calls on each of us to overcome evil with good.  We are called upon to do good to all.  If we do that to those who aren’t sorry for sinning against us, we give God one more reason to carry out his just vengeance.  If we do good to those who are sorry for their sins, God can use our good to turn them from their wickedness.  God can use such good deeds to convict them of wrongdoing when they realize there is a problem with how they have treated us.  God can use our good deeds to lead them to do good because they recognize their sin. They hear the forgiveness we have given them which is God’s forgiveness.  And they see opportunities to show their thanks for that forgiveness.  God’s love will move us forward in these ways.

The best method I saw to move those two person boards after a mistake was for one person to shout out, “Right.  Left.  Right.  Left.”  Normally such a practice got them back on track and moving forward.  When someone’s sin has taken your relationship off the path forward, God calls out to you, “Love.”  And as we hear the command and think how impossible it will be, God shows us what he is talking about.  The love he has for you, that he would mend and fix and move past your sins by the payment of his Son.  He calls out to you, Love.  Love that I showed to you, now show to this one sinning against you.  My love for you will sustain you and strengthen you in the pain.  My love will guide you to make wise decisions.  My love will carry you forward as it leads you to love with sincerity.  Cope with sin the same way your Heavenly Father does.  With his great love, that produces love in us.  Amen.

 


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