The story is tragic on multiple levels, but what I found most poignant is that this anonymous writer, torn apart by guilt and shame, lacks the means to find forgiveness. A nameless author on a nondescript web page calls out for help, asking only for luck so that she can forgive herself. You may not have wrestled with those particular sins; you may not be as desperate as she. But we all have sought forgiveness, and hungered for peace of mind after we’ve faced ourselves in the mirror and not liked what we’ve seen. The mantra of our age is sadly summarized in the woman’s closing desire: that she must forgive herself. We want to be accepted, so we mistakenly think that self-acceptance is the key, only to find our words hollow and fleeting. Absolution from our own lips is cheap and useless. Where can we go to find the forgiveness we desire? What must we do so that the self-torture over past sins ceases and we can find that elusive joy that others seem to possess? Psalm 103 points our minds in the proper direction. As God’s Word often does, the attention is directed away from ourselves and onto the only One who is able to forgive and willing to restore.
Last week we began examining verses 1-5 of this psalm and there we saw the necessity for gratitude to motivate our worship. The reason for gratitude was God’s pardon, preservation and provision. The psalm continues on that theme, but focuses on God’s mercy and that mercy which is seen in light of his forgiveness. In verse 6, David focuses our attention on the issue of God’s righteousness and justice. At first glance, terms like these can produce more fear than freedom, as in the case of the woman who went to a photographer. She insisted that this portrait do her justice. The photographer studied his subject for a few moments and said, "May I suggest, madam, that what you need is not justice, but mercy." How much more does this apply for you and I. We need mercy, but we often wonder whether we’ll receive it. We’re confused, like the sign spotted on a convent’s property in southern California, reading: Absolutely No Trespassing! Violators Will Be Prosecuted to the Full Extent of the Law. Signed, "The Sisters of Mercy." But verse 7 is the first glimmer of hope in the passage, giving us the answer as to how the Lord works righteousness and justice for the oppressed: "God made his ways known to Moses." That is fine, but if that is more law, we are all done for. Then in the next verse we see where this is leading us. After the Israelites left Egypt, having survived the plagues, they walked through the Red Sea, and came to Mount Sinai where God gave Moses the Decalogue. In Exodus 32, while Moses was still on the mountain, the people rebelled, crafting a golden calf and bowing down to worship it. As Moses came down the mountain with the two stone tablets in hand, he saw their debauchery and shattered the tablets. The covenant appeared to be destroyed. God’s favor was gone. But in the ensuing chapters of Exodus it is clear that God’s mercy is not so easily broken. New tablets are chiseled out of rock and in Exodus 34, God descends to Moses in a cloud and speaks.
David, in explaining the tremendous benefits we have belonging to God, points our attention to these events, thus giving us perspective on what God’s mercy looks like. How does God handle rebellion? How can we know his forgiveness? God's forgiveness does not remove the law. God forgives and gives them the Law once again. Grace does not ignore justice; rather grace alters the place where justice will be met. So how can God forgive? God forgives due to the degree of his compassion [verses 8-10] God’s response to us is one of mercy God’s mercy is summarized in the four descriptive words in verse 8. First: compassionate, or tender. The word is related to the Hebrew for womb, thus relating God’s kindness to a maternal care. Whereas grace and mercy are the common terms we use to describe what God does, this term gives us a glimpse into his heart for us. What flows out from compassion is then grace. This term speaks of a favor or kindness that is unmerited. Rather than mechanical, cold terms to describe our Lord, the words depict God’s pleasure and favor falling over us. These words are at the heart of God’s forgiveness. I read a story of a wealthy Englishman who was satisfied with only the best. So, naturally, he drove a Rolls-Royce. It was his pride and joy, but one day after years of perfect service, he hit a pothole and his rear axle broke. The car was towed to the dealership and soon repaired, but without a bill. Although his warranty had run out, there was no charge. The car was fixed perfectly, all for free. The owner called the company and inquired about the repair. The reply was, "We have absolutely no record of your Rolls-Royce axle ever breaking. There can be no charge." The dealer’s commitment to excellence would not permit a flaw to be made known. Therefore, they repaired the damage immediately and without charge...as if nothing had ever gone wrong. So it is with God's grace. Grace is not deserved; it comes without charge to the one who receives it, but it is very costly to the one who gives. The next term naturally flows from the first two – he is patient, slow to anger. Often in Hebrew terms are visual and pictorial. God's patience, "slow to anger" is literally: "long of nostrils", because anger is expressed in flaring the nostrils, or snorting. So here, God is long in the nostril; they do not flair quickly. This long-suffering on the part of God is the first fruit of his compassion and grace. He delays the execution of justice; he waits to be gracious despite disobedience. Fourthly, he is committed to love. Once again an important term is used to describe how God abounds in mercy. Love is an inadequate rendering of the Hebrew word, "hesed". It does not refer to kindness to which one has no right or claim; that's "hen" or grace. But the word refers to a kindness to which one is obligated on the basis of a relationship. There is love between me and my wife out of our marriage, and between me and my children, because they are my kids. My love does not make my kids my children; rather, my love comes because they are my children. God’s response to us is one of forgiveness [verse 9] How different God is from us. As long as your memory functions, you no doubt can recall many hurtful things said and done to you. If we forgive, we certainly struggle with bitterness later. There were two brothers, James and Ben, who like most brothers, soon were in a squabble. Ben hit James, and tears and bitter words followed. Accusations were still exchanged as mom prepared them for bed with the instruction: "Now James, before you go to bed you're going to have to forgive your brother." James was thoughtful and then he replied, "Well OK, I'll forgive him tonight, but he'd better look out in the morning." God is not the accuser; he doesn’t "endlessly nag or scold us". God doesn’t hold grudges, allowing resentment to boil over in bitterness. That may be how we tend to act when people sin against us, but God is not like that. Verse 10 is a great definition of mercy: "God doesn’t treat us as our sins deserve." If grace is giving us good gifts we don’t deserve, then mercy is not treating the way we deserve because of the bad things we’ve done. So grace is giving us good gifts, and mercy is withholding judgment. If God treated us in proportion to our sins and our failures, we’d all be hopeless, condemned to an eternity of separation from God. When we sin, what is our immediate response? We hide; we feel shame; we are sure God is angry. The young woman’s whose letter I read still sought forgiveness seven years later. But time cannot erase guilt. "If they knew me, they would despise me," she wrote. But what is God’s response to sin confessed? – He is compassionate and gracious. Chances are when you do that which you know displeases God, you sense the need to grovel a bit, or to do some act of contrition, betraying a disbelief in God’s compassionate mercy. Do you ever wonder whether God is able to still love you despite the foulness of your offenses? From the perspective of the New Testament we understand the reason as to why God’s anger does not continue. It is not that God is a gentleman who puts aside grievances or due to advancing age forgets why he was ever angry in the first place. It is not as though God ignores his own character to achieve forgiveness. Rather, his accusation and his anger are placed on another. Christ’s death on the cross is the reason the Father is affectionate toward us. God does not sacrifice justice to show mercy; he does not deny his law to be gracious. But as Christ has died for your sins, you are free from the guilt and shame of that sin. Forgiveness is secured. The degree of his compassion is great due to the great degree to which he went to secure us for himself. His forgiveness is great because his love is great, a love that gave his only Son. These should not be abstract concepts. They are clearly marked by a bloodstained cross. God forgives due to the dimension of his compassion [verses 11-14] The dimensions in these verses cover every facet: the height of his love, the breadth of his forgiveness and the depth of his compassion. First, the height of his love. What is the extent of God’s love? How far will God go to show us compassion? The dimension is beyond comparison. The height of heaven is the closest comparison. Were you to spend eternity rocketing through outer space, you would never find the end of God’s love. God’s love is showered in this infinite fashion on those who simply trust, fear and reverence God. There is a reciprocal nature of this love. The breadth of his forgiveness. If his love is measured by the infinite distance traveled by his Son to die in our place, it should be no surprise that the effect of the cross is to remove our sins an infinite distance from us. Notice he doesn’t say as far as the north is from the south. If I go north I eventually reach the North Pole, cross over, and suddenly I’m going south on the other side of the north pole. So if I go north I’ll eventually reach south. But if I go east I’ll never reach west; rather, I’ll forever be heading west. This is a way of saying God’s forgiveness is final and complete. Every sin, every particle of guilt, every atom of transgression is, by the redemption of Christ, taken away from all the Lord's believing family. This is unlike how we often define love. For us love has limits. Even our marriage vows take this into account. In the best possible of all situations it is "till death do us part." But when God forgives it is final. Does God forgive and forget? To some, this verse implies that God ceases to be aware of sin. But that would necessitate a fallacy – that God ceases to be omniscient. Remember in heaven Jesus is the Lamb upon the throne, the Lamb that was slain. The incarnation means that for eternity the Son of God will bear the nail-scarred hands. How can God forget the central focus of redemption? It is not so much a forgetting that takes place. But in Hebrew to forgive is to remove, or to carry away, an object. That is what has taken place. God's mercy does not overlook the wrongdoing; it deals with it decisively. The cross will be forever remembered in heaven. But it is on that cross that God’s wrath is propitiated; it is by the cross he accepts us. Clara Barton, the founder of the American Red Cross, was reminded one day of a vicious deed that someone had done to her years before. She acted as if she had never heard of the incident. "Don't you remember it?" her friend asked. "No," Miss Barton replied. "I distinctly remember forgetting it." The depth of his love When it comes to our own sin, we are indeed our own worst enemy. We beat ourselves to death with how we have failed God, how we have failed ourselves, and how we fail everybody else. But God’s compassion is like that of a father, who knows us better than we know ourselves. Many years ago, a father and his daughter were walking through the grass on the Canadian prairie. In the distance, they saw a prairie fire, and they realized that it would soon engulf them. The father knew there was only one way of escape: They would quickly begin a fire right where they were and burn a large patch of grass. When the huge fire drew near, they then would stand on the section that had already burned. When the flames did approach them, the girl was terrified but her father assured her, "The flames can't get to us. We are standing where the fire has already been." (Erwin Lutzer, Failure, The Back Door to Success)If you are in Christ, blood has already been spilt and sin has already been atoned for where you stand. God’s wrath towards sin is real and eternally deadly, but it cannot touch you for it has been placed on his own Son. Have you considered the dimension of God’s love? God forgives due to the duration of his compassion [verses 15-22] God’s forgiveness is great not just in degree and in dimension, but also in its duration. His compassion never ends. It is hard for us to comprehend an enduring mercy, as we are such transitory creatures. Within a few generations, no one will know you or I were alive. Apart from a two dimensional family tree, no one may even know you existed 100 years from now. Almost 100 years ago one of the great battles was waged outside of Somme in France. Over 100,000 British soldiers died in that battle, but today the field is covered with clover and except for the sign marking the conflagration, you would never know of the carnage that happened there. But God’s compassion is not so limited by time. It does not wane like the once vibrant picture whose hues fade with time. As God is eternal, so is his love. It stretches over time, from one generation to the next. This is a wonderful promise of God’s mercy that extends not only to us, but to our children as well. The promise of the covenant is clear. The promise is not just to us; God’s forgiveness is available to the generations that come. It is not that we somehow earn God’s love, or that our personal holiness and our keeping the commandments makes God indebted to us. What is promised here is the simple truth of the gospel. As we look in faith to all God has done for us, we are assured of God’s forgiveness. A little boy came to the Washington Monument and noticed a guard standing by it. The little boy looked up at the guard and said, "I want to buy it." The guard stooped down: "How much do you have?" The boy reached into his pocket and pulled out a quarter. The guard said, "That's not enough." The boy replied, "I thought you would say that." So he pulled out nine cents more. The guard looked down at the boy: "You need to understand three things. First, thirty-four cents is not enough. In fact, $34 million is not enough to buy the Washington Monument. Second, the Washington Monument is not for sale. And third, if you are an American citizen, the Washington Monument already belongs to you." We need to understand three things about God’s compassion. First, we cannot earn it. Second, it is not for sale. And third, if we are in Christ, we already have it. So what would you say to the young lady? Would you try to brush it aside with a casual remark: "That’s okay, we all make mistakes." That would provide no comfort to her anguish, nor would it be honest to how God views sin. To imagine that grace is just ignoring sin denies our duty to God (verses 11,13, 17 – fear; verse 18 – keep covenant and obey precepts). What is more, it cheapens grace to make it worthless. That kind of grace cannot heal the pain of guilt from sin. Rather we point real sinners to a real Christ. He is the one who dies for the prostitute and the gossip, for the molester as well as the embittered. We show them what can be theirs if they only look in faith to one whose compassion is most clearly seen hanging on a tree. Instead of seeking self-forgiveness which will never come, for we do not possess the power to forgive even ourselves, we must realize the painful truth of our sin, so that then and only then we can see the power of Christ at work to save sinners like us. During the Reformation Martin Luther corresponded with a friend and co-worker George Spalatin. Spalatin gave advice he later believed to be sinful. He became immersed in grief and shame. He was convinced he should have known better. Luther wrote to offer absolution and comfort: My faithful request and admonition is that you join our company and associate with us who are real, great, and hard-boiled sinners. You must by no means make Christ to seem paltry and trifling to us, as though he could be our helper only when we want to be rid from imaginary, nominal, and childish sins. No, no! That would not be good for us. He would rather be a Savior and Redeemer from real, great, grievous and damnable transgressions and iniquities, yea, from the very greatest and those shocking sins; to be brief, from all sins added together in a grand total…Dr. Staupitz confronted me on a certain occasion when I was in the same hospital and suffer the same affliction as you, by addressing me thus: "Aha! You want to be a painted sinner and, accordingly, expect to have in Christ a painted savior. You will have to get used to the belief that Christ is a real Savior and you are a real sinner. For God is neither jesting nor dealing in imaginary affairs, but He is greatly and most assuredly in earnest when he sent his son in the world and sacrificed him for our sakes." |
