Hey Christians, let’s talk a little about the blame game.
I am completely blind, as in can’t see a flashlight if you shine it in my eyes. Once, when one of my children was very young, he was leading me. Well, he was supposed to be leading me. He was not really paying attention and wasn’t watching where I was going. He passed very close to a bicycle, which was on his left. Guess what else was on his left? Me! Suffice it to say that the encounter between me and the bicycle didn’t turn out well. He looked at me, laying there on the ground, and said “Dad you ran into the bicycle!, as though that was my fault. It wasn’t at all funny at the time but I’ve gotten a lot of laughs about that little incident over the years. I try not to let him forget it either. Come to think of it, I haven’t brought that up to him in a while. Be right back.
There is a similar situation going on right now and it isn’t at all funny. As the Christian Church, we are supposed to let God’s light shine through us, to be the guiding light of the world. For the most part, we aren’t doing that. We are too distracted by our own sin. We aren’t even letting Him guide us so how can we help Him to guide the rest of the world? Then, we sit back, look at the state of the world, and say “you ran over the bicycle”. Well, yes, they did but whose fault is that? We like to think it’s the world’s fault. We even try to blame our own sin on the world. But I think it’s mostly the other way around. They can’t help it. We can.
Let’s dig into this a little bit.
We tend to externalize our sin. We do that in many ways but one way we externalize is that we blame our sin on the bad influences in the world. Think about something. When the first murder happened, when Cain killed his brother Abel in Genesis 4:8, it was before any of the bad influences that we talk about so much now had entered the world.
Jeremiah 17:9 says that the heart of mankind is “desperately wicked”. We in the human race don’t need any help from each-other to sin. Today’s popular culture tells us that we are all basically good. Not so. Our heart is sinful.
Look at what Jesus said here.
Mark 7
20 And He said, “What comes out of a man, that defiles a man.
21 For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,
22 thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.
23 All these evil things come from within and defile a man.”
Jesus said that these things come from within us. Many temptations are external. However, any sinful thought we have or sinful action we take because of that temptation comes from within us and our own sinful nature. It comes from within our own heart.
This externalizing of sin is nothing new. Cain externalized too. He blamed everything on Abel and got so angry that he killed him. What makes this particularly tragic is that God warned Cain and gave him a chance to set things right.
Genesis 4
6 So the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen?
7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.”
God told Cain that he was headed down a destructive road and that he should rule over the sin that sought to master him. Cain made a choice to reject what God had said and do what he did.
We too have been warned and we too have a choice. Read Romans 6:23. The first part says “the wages of sin is death”. There’s the warning. The rest of the verse says “but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”. There’s the choice. We really do have a choice and I’m not just talking about the choice to accept Christ as Lord. Once we have accepted Him as Lord, then we have a choice concerning sin because He gives us that power.
1 Corinthians 10:13
No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.
We will never be perfect this side of Heaven. We live in a fallen and sinful world and, even as Christians, we still have a sinful nature. Christ’s blood covers those sins but, because He lives in us, we do have a choice whether to sin or not in the first place. All too often, we choose the wrong way, the easier way.
We are people of excess. We eat too much (yes I went there), we accumulate too much stuff, we say too much, we work too much, and then we relax too much. We indulge our own desires too much, and we try to tell ourselves we deserve it. Then, we expend so much time and effort on all this indulgence that we don’t spend enough time with Him, studying in His Word and seeking Him in prayer. So, we don’t really know Him. Because of this, we don’t see most of our sin as sin and we don’t even realize that it has separated us from Him (ISAIAH 59:2). We seek only our own edification and our own glory. We must realize that He will share His glory with no one (Isaiah 42:8) and begin to seek His edification and His glory. We must begin to see our sin for what it is, an abomination to Him, and call out to Him for forgiveness. If we confess our sins to Him, He is faithful to forgive those sins (1 John 1:9) and the wall that sin has built between Him and us will begin to fall.
Many times, Jesus told us to take up our cross and follow Him. For most of us, taking up our cross isn’t anything dramatic like it was for Him. It’s dealing with the struggles in our every day lives and remaining true to Him. It’s sacrificing whatever we have to in order to do what He asks of us. It’s repenting of those pet sins that we try to hang on to while telling ourselves that we’re OK. It’s struggling to live in a sinful world but not being of that world, so that we can serve as His light to that world. If all of us who proclaim His name actually did that, this world would be a much different and better place.
All of us Christians who like to externalize combine to make up a Christian Church that likes to externalize. We like to think that this world’s problems are the fault of this lost world. It can be sort of comforting to think that way because it takes the blame and responsibility for a solution off of us. We are not blameless though. This world being in the state it is in is mostly our fault. The lost world cannot serve as it’s own light. Christ is the light of the world (John 8:12) and we are called to let His light shine through us to show the way to Him. When we don’t take up our cross, that light gets pretty dim. If we aren’t letting His light shine brightly, the world can’t help running headlong into sin any more than I could help running into that bicycle. Let’s all take up our cross and watch what happens. I know what will happen. Revival!
So, let’s quit sitting in our pews and complaining about the state of the world. Let’s take up our cross, get out there, and do something about it. We can. He has given us the power but He has given us a choice whether to use it. How will you choose?
