Abounding Grace for Abundant Sin

There are words that change our lives.  Like the little girl who was scared to jump into the pool and her brother said, “Jump in!”  over and over again.  But, then an old lady that was swimming laps stopped and said, “What’ the matter little girl?”  She said, “I’m afraid!”  The lady said, “Okay.  Be afraid and jump in!”  And the little girls jumped in!   Reminds us of the phrase, “The pen is mightier than the sword!”  Every Good Friday reminds us of two simple, but life changing words:  Sin and Grace.  These are two simple words but they summarize both mankind’s ruin and mankind’s salvation.  Sin is what God sees as he looks at people.  Grace is what people see as they look at God through faith in Jesus Christ.  Both of these words are important for us to meditate on this evening.  We came to this Good Friday service with sin, and I pray all of us leave this evening covered in grace.

St. Paul wrote about these two simple words to the Christians in Rome. “The law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace overflowed much more,” The Holy Spirit brings us these words to remind us of the Abundance of our Sin, but also the Abounding Grace of God.  Tonight we turn our eyes to the cross of Jesus Christ to see

Abounding Grace for Abundant Sin

The Depth of Sin

We know what sin is.  It is missing the mark.  That mark is perfection demanded from us by God.  To deny the existence of sin is a lie.  We see sin as we drive, visit the grocery store, and talk to people.  We see sin on social media, on TV and every time we listen to a news broadcast.  Life makes us all the more aware that sin not only exists, but it abounds!

Original Sin – Paul tells us where this sin came from.

“¹⁸ So then, just as one trespass led to a verdict of condemnation for all people,”  

It wasn’t that God made the first man sinful, but holy and perfect.  However, a tragedy happened when the devil brought temptation to Adam and Eve that led to them disobeying God’s command not to eat from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.  This infection of sin was then passed on from Adam and Eve to their children all the way through history to you and me.  Paul said,

“¹⁹ For [just as] through the disobedience of one man the many became sinners.”

It doesn’t matter what skin color you have, what nation you’re heritage is from, whether you’re short or tall, male or female, 90 years old or 1 hour old—every person is infected with the disease of sin.  Scripture is clear, “There is no one who does what is good; there is not even one” (Rom 3:12).  Sin Abounds!  Right after The Flood Noah built an altar to the Lord, yet even then the Lord spoke this truth:

“I will never again curse the soil anymore because of man, for the thoughts he forms in his heart are evil from his youth” (Gen 8:21).  

After Noah the population of the world was 8 people.  In 1950 the population of the world was around 2 billion people.  Today there are over 8 billion people.  That means sin has exploded by 400% in just 75 years and flows out of the hearts of all these people.  Jesus told us,

“To be sure, out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual sins, thefts, false testimonies, and blasphemies” (Matt 15:19).

You know the complete infection of sin and the sins of deeds, words, and thoughts.  Deeds—the CDC reports that there were 68 murders per day in the United States in 2022.  The pornography industry is estimated to earn $10 billion a year with users watching 6 billion hours of porn.  Sinful deeds abound!  What about sinful words?  The Motion Picture Association of America rates movies.  You are allowed cursing/swearing in a PG movie, but if there is an F-bomb it turns into a PG-13 rating.  And more than 2 F-Bombs and the movie gets a R rating.  How would God rate your mouth?  No potty mouth?  PG-13?  R rating?  Sinful words abound!  And what about sinful thoughts? These would include the sins of lust, greed, anger and deceit.  If I could read your mind for the next 24 hours what would I find in your thoughts?  Oh, the Depth of Sin in the world!  Oh, the Depth of sin in YOUR & MY life!  How do we know?  Paul tells us,

“²⁰ The law came in to increase the trespass.”  

You can see the sins in your life by looking into the mirror of God’s law.  God’s law is clear, “You shall be holy, because I, the Lord your God, am holy” (Lev 19:2).  Don’t compare yourself to the world and think you’re okay.  Compare yourself to God’s holy law that means no unholy deeds, no dirty words and no evil thoughts and realize that you are guilty of them all.  God can and does see every sin in your life.  He sees it all!  Suppose he would print out your list of sins from this past day in the service folder….how many pages would it take?  What about for your whole life?  It would take stacks and stacks of paper!  And this says nothing about the sins of NOT doing what God wants you to do.  Have you loved your neighbor as yourself?  Have you proclaimed the gospel to your neighbor as God commands?  Have you always put God first in your life, or did the pleasures of this world get in the way whether family, sports, fitness, entertainment and the list goes on!  It is Good Friday!  It is the perfect day for us to confess together, “Lord, Sin Abounds In My Life and I’m am sorry!”

And if you are not sorry, then maybe I need to remind you that such a load of sin also carries with it God’s righteous punishment.  For just one of the sins you have committed you deserve to be sent to hell!  God’s declaration still stands, “The soul who sins is the one who will die” (Ezek 18:20).  Surely you realize this.  Surely you cry out with St. Paul,

“What a miserable wretch I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Rom 7:24).  

Confess it now!  The Depth of Sin is Abundant in My Life!  Get on your knees with Peter who betrayed his Lord.  Get on your knees with the woman caught in adultery.  Get on your knees with King David.  Get on your knees with St. Paul.  Acknowledge your sin.  Own it.  For the Depth of Your Sin Is Great!    

The Depth of Grace

Is that the way you feel?  Do you sense the burden of your sin against God?  If you do then I can lift that burden for you.  Are you ready?  Listen:

“²⁰ The law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace overflowed much more.” 

Can you think of a sweeter word in all of Scripture than “GRACE”?  For just as a starving man longs for food, as a dehydrated person longs for water, as a prisoner longs for freedom, GRACE gives the repentant sinner forgiveness instead of punishment, salvation instead of damnation, heaven instead of hell.

And I’ve heard it before.  “You Christians yell about being sinners, but you know what’s coming, forgiveness.  So why bother?”  We hear mockery like this because they don’t know what grace is.  Do you?  Is grace a weakness in God so that he overlooks the sins people commit?  Does God know that we can’t be perfect, so he lowers the expectation of what a Christian life should look like?  No!  God can’t do that because that would make God out to be a liar.  God threatens to punish every sin and this is a threat that must be fulfilled in action.  Rather grace is punishing our sin through his Son, Jesus!  God never should have done this to his Son.  God should never love us to the point of sending his Son to a cross!  But, it is all by GRACE!  This is God’s undeserved, miraculous love for you.  Isaiah said it like this,

“Surely he was taking up our weaknesses,and he was carrying our sufferings.  We thought it was because of God that he was stricken, smitten, and afflicted, ⁵ but it was because of our rebellion that he was pierced. He was crushed for the guilt our sins deserved. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. ⁶ We all have gone astray like sheep. Each of us has turned to his own way, but the Lord has charged all our guilt to him” (Is 53).  

All the murders, the porn, all the cursing & swearing & and potty mouth; all the lust, greed, anger and deceit; our infection of our sinful nature, all sins of all people, past, present and future were placed on God’s only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.  That’s GRACE!

Here at the front of our church we have a reminder of this GRACE!  Jesus hung on the cross for you.  Jesus is the first and only person who kept God’s holy law perfectly.  Jesus is the first and only human being to have the perfect life God demanded as payment for the sins of all people.  Jesus is the first and only Son of God to have a powerful life to cover the sins of all people.  By his suffering, crucifixion and death Jesus paid the penalty of your sins.

“but where sin increased, grace overflowed much more.”

Can it get any better than this?  Yes, it can.  His death not only paid the penalty of all your sins, it did even more.  Listen:

“but where sin increased, grace overflowed much more, ²¹ so that just as sin reigned in death, so also grace would reign through righteousness, resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” 

God’s GRACE caused Jesus to pay the penalty of all your sins and give you the holiness you need for eternal life in heaven!  The holiness we are missing is GRACOUSLY given to you.  This holiness becomes you very own through faith in Jesus Christ.  Just as you would cover up the horrible sight of a mangled person who has died in a crash with a blanket, so Jesus has covered up your filth of sin with his holy righteousness.  You, dear Christian friends, stand before God absolutely spotless and blameless.  Believe it!  You probably have your favorite verses that remind you of this fact. 

“Though your sins are like scarlet, they will be as white as snow. Though they are as red as crimson, they will be like wool” (Is 1:18). 

Or how about this, “My sins, they are many, His mercy is more!”  That is all by God’s Abounding GRACE!

Word change lives!  This is Good Friday.  I hope you came here this evening with your abundant sins.  I also hope you relish the Abounding Grace that is yours from Jesus Christ.  We are about to put that into action.  We will take our nail and put it into the cross.  Then we will walk past the baptism font and remember that God graciously washed away all our sins. That makes this Friday a Good Friday.  Jesus takes on our sins and gives us his holiness.  That is Abounding Grace for Abundant sins.  Amen.