The cross seems too simple to me at times and my sin too complex.
It seems too easy of a remedy and my sin so awful. Surely it is foolish to believe so naïvely.
Surely my heinous sin cannot be forgiven by merely believing and trusting in the Gospel and the sacrifice of the Cross of Christ – this is too difficult to trust in completely…
Surely I must do something, surely I must atone – after all, I have been saved already and I knew better when I sinned this time. I am ashamed now – I just want to hide my face from Him because I do not want Him to see my guilt. At other times, I want to pretend as if I didn’t sin and that His wrath isn’t against sin and try to claim that my sin really doesn’t matter and that it doesn’t make a difference, because, after all, I’m saved aren’t I.
But, still trying to carry my sin and feeling that the weight of sin is still upon me, I only feel more distant from God and begin to doubt that God’s forgiveness is really for me or that I can ever really be the recipient of His love, because my sin is too great and my heart too hard.
Then, in the cool of the day, He comes looking for me and in my shame I hide and try to cover my nakedness with clothes I have crafted on my own, thinking He cannot see that I am naked through these leaves that I have pieced together. I do not want Him to find me and I want desperately to hide my face, so that I do not have to look into His all-knowing eyes – I do not want to experience His wrath, His disappointment and most of all, I do not want to feel this shame that I am trying to avoid at all costs. Yet, I truly have sinned and I am dirty and defiled, naked and wretched and I crouch in shame. The foul odor of my body of sin gives my whereabouts away – not that He needs such help finding me...
Soon, I hear His footsteps stop in front of my trembling, lowered head. I dare not look up, as a scared child hiding beneath the sheets, hoping that these leaves will cover me – yet, they are no camouflage at all. He is not distracted nor does He turn aside. He turns to me and then, when I deserve His wrath, He gently lifts my head with His hand and He dresses me in His Son’s own magnificent clothes of righteousness and then He speaks to me and says that He does not excuse my sin and that His wrath truly does burn against it and it would have raged against me as well - that my sin made all the scourging, the desertion, the beating, the mocking, the thorns, the bitter nails of the Cross, the gradual draining of blood from the body and the final heaves of the painful death of His Son necessary. Yet, instead of me, all of His righteous fury has burned fiercely against His Son once and for all time, and now He looks at me with forgiveness, kindness and love.
Now, I must trust the Cross and Jesus’ sacrifice alone – it is my only hope and I cannot pay for the punishment my sins deserve. No amount of condemnation or guilty feelings, no attempts at self-atonement and no false attempts at concealing or minimizing my sin will do. I must simply trust wholly and completely on what I was, and am, most undeserving of – the giving of God’s Son for me. So simple and yet so hard – it means I must die and I must put away any hopes of trust in myself. It means I must stop hiding, lay aside these feeble leaves I have strung together with my ugly threads of pride and come out into the plain light of the garden - naked, poor, wretched and dirty. I must come to Him humbly and plainly acknowledge all of my sin and ask Him for mercy for it all and in every part, because only His blood can wash me truly clean and only His clothes will be able to remove my shame.
It is difficult to trust the simple truth of Christ’s atoning sacrifice for me, when I keep trying to cover my sin and pick up my own ragged clothes of pride again. Still, the simplicity of the Gospel of Christ demands that I lay aside my pride and any attempts to earn salvation. It demands that I come humbly to the Rock of Ages for Him to dress me.
Yes, it remains hard at times to trust the simple message of the gospel, yet trust in the Gospel and the Cross of Christ alone I and we all must do with all that we are - for the Gospel truly is our only hope… and what a glorious hope it is indeed! Washed in His blood, clothed in His righteousness and trusting in Him alone, we will not be ashamed.
Sovereign Grace Church will be meeting at the Embassy Suites on Sunday, September 13th at 10am. The Embassy Suites is located on Verdae Blvd. near the intersection of Woodruff Rd. & Roper Mtn. Rd. We will return the the Marriott on the following Sunday.