Where Do You Draw the Line

 Sin is ugly business. Over the past 30 years of pastoral ministry, I have dealt with sin in my personal life as well as the lives of many church members. Sin destroys. There is no sugar coating the devastating effects of sin on families, churches, and society. Here is the sobering truth. We are all guilty. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. [Rom 3:23]

The question is not if people sin. They do. All of us do. We are all guilty. No matter how religious we may try to appear before others, no matter how pious we may act, no matter how we may fool everyone around us, each of us is plagued with the same human condition. We were born sinners. Our sin nature opposes the work of Jesus in us. Sinners sin. Even born again Christians sin. None of us is perfect. There is no room for any of us boast before God. All of us have been saved by grace. [Eph 2:8-9] Therefore, our only boasting is in the love, grace, and forgiveness of God. 

Where do you draw the line of grace? How much sin before you say too much? The drunk driver who crashes a car into an unsuspecting family killing others is a horrible crime as well as a sin. What if that driver truly repents and turns to Jesus for salvation? Does your theology of grace extend that far? What about for a murderer? If that person acknowledges the error of his or her way in repentance and cries out for salvation, can that person expect to receive gracious pardon from the Lord? Where do you draw the line of grace? What about the adulterer? The person who breaks his or her marital covenant is guilty before God. If this person repents, can they experience the gracious salvation and forgiveness of God? Does your theology of grace extend that far? Where do you draw the line?

Let me be the first to say that God can graciously forgive people for heinous sins. That does not mean that there are not consequences for those sins. The drunk driver who kills someone will face the judicial system as well as the murderer. The adulterer may lose his or her family over sexual indiscretions. 

We may say we believe in salvation by grace, but do we think some sins go too far? Do we harbor the dark secret that we do not believe some people deserve salvation or a clean start. 

King David is a much beloved Bible character. He was an adulterer and a murderer. Psalm 51 is his brokenhearted confession of sin. Only those who have been broken before the Lord over their sin can truly relate to David's heart. 

Psalm 51:1-19 (NASB)
¹

 Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; According to the greatness of Your compassion blot out my transgressions.
²  Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity And cleanse me from my sin.
³  For I know my transgressions, And my sin is ever before me.
⁴  Against You, You only, I have sinned And done what is evil in Your sight, So that You are justified when You speak And blameless when You judge.
⁵  Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.
⁶  Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being, And in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom.
⁷  Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
⁸  Make me to hear joy and gladness, Let the bones which You have broken rejoice.
⁹  Hide Your face from my sins And blot out all my iniquities.
¹⁰  Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me.
¹¹  Do not cast me away from Your presence And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.
¹²  Restore to me the joy of Your salvation And sustain me with a willing spirit.
¹³  Then I will teach transgressors Your ways, And sinners will be converted to You.
¹⁴  Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, the God of my salvation; Then my tongue will joyfully sing of Your righteousness.
¹⁵  O Lord, open my lips, That my mouth may declare Your praise.
¹⁶  For You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; You are not pleased with burnt offering.
¹⁷  The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.
¹⁸  By Your favor do good to Zion; Build the walls of Jerusalem.
¹⁹  Then You will delight in righteous sacrifices, In burnt offering and whole burnt offering; Then young bulls will be offered on Your altar.

One of the last things communicated by God about David was that David was a man after God's own heart. God restored David. David repented and God lavished him with grace. That did not mean that David did not suffer the consequences of his grievous sin. Those consequences dogged David for the rest of his life. 

Do people deserve God's forgiveness? Do any of us? NO! It is easy to condemn other sinners while wanting to excuse our transgressions. It is easy to narrow our gaze at other's failures while turning a blind eye to our own offenses against God. None of us deserves forgiveness. None of us can stand before God and boast in our flawless character. 

Abraham was a liar. Moses was a murderer. David was both a murderer and adulterer. Jonah rebelled against God's commands. Peter denied knowing Jesus. The other disciples were cowards. Paul was a terrorist murderer. God forgave each of them and restored them to His purposes. Do we extend the same grace and forgiveness to ourselves and others. Sometimes the hardest person to forgive is ourselves. At other times we find it impossible to forgive those who have wronged us. 

That is why I ask the question, where do we draw the line? At what point do we refuse to forgive or even believe in a God who can forgive others for heinous sins. We qualify certain sins as bigger and more unforgiveable that other sins. The only unforgiveable sin listed in the Bible is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Anything other than that is forgivable. 

Admittedly that is hard to digest sometimes. We want justice and rightly so for people who harm others. Justice may be carried out on earth, while grace may be extended in the courts of heaven. The Bible has much to say about forgiveness. 

Psalm 103:1-3 (NASB)
¹ Bless the LORD, O my soul, And all that is within me, bless His holname.

²  Bless the LORD, O my soul, And forget none of His benefits;
³  Who pardons all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases;

Psalm 103:11-12 (NASB)
¹¹  For as high as the heavens are above the earth, So great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him.
¹²  As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.

Ephesians 1:6-8 (NASB)
⁶  to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
⁷  In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace
⁸  which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight

 1 John 1:8-9 (NASB)

⁸  If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.

⁹  If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

These are just a sampling.  There is so much more. Do we draw the lines of forgiveness and grace at the same places where God draws the lines? In our hurt when people sin against us, we want vengeance. We harbor bitterness. I know because I have been there many times. In those times some verses haunted me. I hated them. I tried in every way to justify my attitude and actions against those verses. In the end, I chose to ignore them. Until God brought me face to face with them and my sin. At that point He graciously brought me to repentance. 

Matthew 18:21-22 (NASB)
²¹  Then Peter came and said to Him, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?"
²²  Jesus *said to him, "I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.

1 John 4:20-21 (NASB)
²⁰  If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.
²¹  And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.

I hated members in my own family for wrongs committed against me. Sexual abuse, theft, physical abuse, deceit, and other things done to me in my childhood that I could not get past. I tripped over my unforgiveness, bitterness, anger, and vengeance. When I read those passages after I got saved, I disliked them and tried to ignore them. Eventually God's conviction won. I had to extend grace to those who did not deserve it. I had to forgive people who were wrong. Uncles, cousins, siblings, parents, and even grandparents. I had to learn that God draws the lines of grace much differently than I do. I am thankful His grace has extended to cover my sins. I am thankful His grace extends far enough to cover you too.  Where do we draw the line of grace?