Mercy And Justice // Exodus 34:6-7

Join us as we wrap up our Yahweh Series by talking about God responds to sin!

Chapters

• 0:00 A Coach, Fear, And Hiding Mistakes
• 2:40 Two Bad Views Of God
• 3:39 Reading Exodus 34:6–7
• 4:51 Chesed To Thousands And Full Forgiveness
• 6:33 Justice That Heals, Not Revenge
• 9:04 Holding Mercy And Justice Together
• 12:13 Does God Punish Children For Parents?
• 15:51 Three Layers Of Generational Sin
• 19:56 Run To God, Don’t Hide
• 22:31 Forgiven People Forgive People
• 25:31 Take Sin Seriously Or It Takes You
• 28:36 The Cross: Mercy And Justice Meet

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:31

Well, I played football in high school. Um, I was actually a lineman. I weighed quite a bit more back then. Where are my lineman? My big boy's at? Yeah, there you go. Yeah. So in true lineman fashion, our offensive line coach was an absolute uh certifiable psychopath. Like this man uh was a character. I mean, some of the things he said uh actually ended up did got him fired. Uh for example, one time we were watching film and uh one of our linemen, one of my friends, the left tackle, his name was Spencer, missed a block. And so my coach, uh, knowing that Spencer had diabetes, said, Spencer, if you miss one more block, I'm gonna put a sugar packet in your Dr. Pepper. I was like, Coach, you can't say that. That is absolutely not okay in any way, shape, or form. And so, of course, uh, you can imagine that I was terrified of ever making a stake in front of a mistake in front of this guy. Like, if you did make a mistake, you pretended you didn't, right? And if you knew, hey, play 54 uh is coming up on this film tape, and I know that I missed a block on play 54. You're trying to go to the restroom, you're trying to leave, you're trying to do literally anything you can because you were terrified of this guy. And, you know, we can laugh about it now, and that was actually nowhere near even the worst thing that man said. Literally, like just crazy psychopath. But uh the thing is, we can laugh about it now, but ultimately it actually caused us to suffer on the football field because we were afraid to talk to him about our mistakes. Because the reality was we couldn't trust how he was going to respond when we screwed up. And because of that, it created a distance between us. We were afraid to come to him, and it led to confusion and disorder. Why am I telling you that tonight? Well, because a lot of us view God the same way when it comes to our sin. Uh, we we view God as this angry, vengeful God who just wants to take you out the second you make a mistake, the second you screw up. And we might not always say that, but if we're honest in our hearts, we believe it. And so we're afraid to come to him. We we cower in fear, and we always have this distance in our relationship with him. For others, we view God as a pushover. The God doesn't care about our sin. It's no big deal, right? I mess up, I do what he tells me, you know, that I shouldn't do, whatever, he'll forgive me. It's no big deal. It's his job to forgive me. I'm gonna do things my way. And that leads to a sort of destruction all its own. And so the question is: how does God respond to our sin? When you screw up, how does God act? How does God respond? Both of those views as God is either this tyrant in the sky or this cosmic pushover are wrong and they'll lead you to a place that you don't want to go. But the question is, well, how does God respond? And that's where we pick up with our last week of our Yahweh series tonight. The last couple of weeks, we've been walking through Exodus 34, 6, and 7, and we've talked about who God is, right? This is where God gives his name to Moses and not only his name, but his character, right? That he's gracious and compassionate, that he's abounding in loving kindness, that he's slow to anger, right? And then this week we land on God's mercy and justice, that he maintains loving kindness to thousands, that he forgives iniquity, sin, rebellion, and yet he punishes the guilty, punishes the wicked. And then we get this last part where it talks about visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the grandchildren. What in the world does that mean, right? Well, that's what we're gonna unpack tonight. And so if you have your Bibles, open up to Exodus 34, starting in verse six. Uh, I'm gonna pray for us and we're gonna jump into the word. All right, Father, we thank you for your word tonight. God, would you help us to have open ears and eyes to your truth, Father? That we would submit to it. Um, Lord, that you would show us areas of our life that we've been holding back out of fear, out of apathy, God, out of just not caring, whatever it is, Lord, and that you would give us the courage and the boldness to respond tonight and to step into whatever it is that you're calling us into. Praise things in the name of Jesus. Everybody said, Amen. So, Exodus 34, starting verse six. Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in loving kindness and truth. And this is our section this week. Who keeps loving kindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin, yet he will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations. Right? And so you're probably reading that thinking, hey, what in the world does that mean? What is up with God punishing kids for someone else's sin? Right? This is the part that as we've read this every week, we're like, okay, I'm really interested to see how Garrett tries to get around that. Um, well, here's the thing it doesn't mean what you think it means on the surface level. Uh, and we're gonna get to that here in a little bit. But first we have to start with the beginning of what we read tonight, and that's that God keeps loving kindness for thousands. We've talked about this word, this loving kindness uh is the word has said. And it's this faithful, trustworthy love that you can count on God to show up, that God has always showed up. God has always done what he says he's gonna do, even when humans, even when you and I haven't or don't. Right? And so it says that he maintains that love to thousands. And a lot of scholars say that this should actually be translated to thousands of generations. And the point here is that God shows that love to all. He's not in the sky picking and choosing favorites. He's not in the sky saying, you know, I'm gonna give this person the, you know, I'm gonna uh no, God shows his love to all. And so his love is overflowing, it has no end. And then the next part says that God forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin. And so not only does Yahweh maintain this love to everybody, but he forgives. In fact, he forgives as a product of that love. Because God is loving, he he forgives us of sin, right? And look at those three words that are used: iniquity, transgression, and sin. The NIV uses wickedness, rebellion, and sin. And so to just move through what these mean really quickly, wicked, wickedness is this Hebrew word avon, and it's this word that can be used for like any type of sin, like from cheating on your test to pushing grandma into traffic. Like it could be not bad, really, really bad, right? So any cover of any type of bad activity. And then rebellion is this word pesha, and it means to break the law. It's almost like a legal word, something you would hear on like CSI or you would hear in a courtroom. And it also has this idea of willful disobedience. It's not an accident or a mistake. It's when you know what's right and you choose to do the opposite. Like when a teacher says, hey, no phones, right? The law is no phones, and you still decide to pull out your phone and scroll, right? But none of you would do that because I believe in you, right? Never. It's knowingly pushing against authority, crossing a line on purpose. And then that last word, sin, is the word ha ta, and it literally just means to miss the mark. And so this is just this picture of like a bow and arrow, like an archer shooting a bow and arrow at a target, and he just misses, right? To fail, to screw up. And so we're not gonna spend too much time on those three words, but the point is God is forgiving of all kinds of sin, right? From A to Z. We're not saying that necessarily all sin has the same consequences. Yes, are you gonna face more consequences for killing someone than for speeding or breaking the law in that way? Sure. But at the end of the day, uh sin is sin, sin is deserving of death, but there's nothing beyond God's ability to forgive. And the best part is that this passage isn't just describing what God does, but who he is. So God doesn't just forgive your sin, but he is forgiving. Forgiving is not something that he needs to be talked into. It's his heart towards people who turn towards him. He wants to forgive. God's not just sitting there with his arms crossed looking at you like, fine, I guess Jesus died for them too. I'll forgive them this once. No, he desires forgiveness. He loves to show grace. And for some of you, if you can understand just that little fact tonight, it can completely change your relationship with God. That God desires forgiveness. He loves mercy. It's who he is. But the next part of this line actually has something else that's massive that we have to consider. And it says this, yet he will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. Another way to translate it is he will by no means clear the guilty. And the point here is that even though God is forgiving, he is also just. He will not ignore sin or just sweep it under the rug. And at first that seems really harsh. Like, man, God, like you're really just every little thing, like you never let anybody off the hook. But here's the thing: that's good news. We want a God who is just. Think about it. There's people in this world who do truly evil things and feel no guilt about it whatsoever. Right now, if you turn on the news, there's a genocide going on in a country in Africa called Sudan. And they've walled off these cities full of innocent civilians, and the military is coming in, going door to door, killing innocent men, women, and children to the point where you can see the bodies and the blood from satellite images from space. And these people are doing this with no remorse. They don't want forgiveness, they don't care. Do we really want a God who just lets that slide? Of course not. We want justice. And here's the thing: uh, God's justice is not the same that we think about justice. When we think about justice, we think about movies like Taken, right? Somebody takes Liam Neeson's daughter and like he's John Wick, right? You better not kill that dog. I'm not, as your youth pastor saying to go watch those movies. Hear me. But just if your parents have heard of them, ask them. But we think of justice as this revenge, right? But that's not God's purpose and justice. God is after healing. He's after healing creation because God made the world good and perfect, free of evil, and then we, through our decision to bring sin into the world, brought that evil in. And God wants to set everything right again, to have a world without sin, without evil, without pain, a world with no anxiety, a world with no suicide, a world with no bullying, no divorce, no gossip, no rumors, no cancer, no school shootings, no assassinations, no murders. Who wants to live in that world? All of us, right? And if you are a believer, you will. The truth is that Jesus is coming back, right? And he's going to make all things right. And we might be in the process of that, but one day every tear will be wiped away, justice will be dealt perfectly, and the world will be made whole. But we're not there yet. And so to put those two points together, my favorite author on the subject, who I've quoted a lot this series, he summarizes it this way: he says, Because Yahweh is forgiving, we don't need to live scared or dread the day that Jesus comes back. We can take all of our wickedness, our rebellion, and our sin, and we can take it straight to the cross because Jesus already carried it for us. And because God is also just, we can look forward to the day when God returns. Jesus returns to wipe out evil for good and to lead us into that world that's free from evil forever. God is forgiving. And I know it can be hard to wrap your head around those two things being true at the same time. And so let me use this example. Like, think about my son Michael. Let's say, purely hypothetically, uh Leighton takes one of his toys and he decides to hit her over the head with his plastic guitar. Purely hypothetical situation that definitely did not happen last night on the couch around 8 p.m. Uh so how do you think I'm gonna respond to that, right? Like, do you think I'm gonna look at Michael and be, oh boy, like I've been waiting. Oh, they just spanked this kid. Like, let's go. No, of course not, right? In a perfect world, right, I'm not gonna respond that way because that's not my heart. What I want for him, even as a you know, 20-month-old boy, is for him to realize what he did was wrong and come to me, apologize, and I want to forgive him. I would love nothing more than to in that moment him to realize what he did was wrong and turn me and forgive. Like the the first outcome I would love for that situation is for him to immediately repent, receive forgiveness, great. But if he refuses, if he doubles down, if he acts like it's no big deal, if he looks at his mom and hits her again, again, hypothetical, would never happen. How am I supposed to deal with it? Well, because I'm his dad, I have to. Not because I'm angry or that I want to punish him or just take him down a notch, but because I love him too much to let that type of behavior go. I love him too much to let him grow up thinking that a way to respond to hurt feelings is to hurt someone else. And it starts that young. And so, yes, I'll correct him, I'll deal with the sin, but it's out of my love. And honestly, I would much rather forgive. My heart with my son is bent towards forgiving him, but I love him too much to just let it slide. Do you see it? That is God's heart towards us. And if that's how I respond as an imperfect dad, imagine how much more perfect God is when it comes to things like that, because he's compassionate and gracious. It's who he is. He wants to forgive, but he loves us too much to ignore our sin. And so finally we get to that fun part, right? What's the thing about God punishing kids for the sins of the parents? What's going on there? Well, this is what it says. It says, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations. Well, what does that mean? Well, I truly believe that it doesn't mean that God punishes kids for their parents' sins. And why I believe that is because Moses actually says the exact opposite in Exodus 24, 16 through 24, 16. He says, Parents are not to be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their parents. Each will die for their own sin. Or later, the prophet Jeremiah actually quotes this passage, and this is what he says. He says, If you shall love to thousands, but bring, he's talking about God, you shall love to thousands, but bring the punishment for the parents' sins into the laps of their children after them. Your eyes are open to the ways of all mankind, you reward each person according to their conduct and as their deeds deserve. So you have two very clear spaces here where God is putting the responsibility on each individual person, person for their own actions. Right? That he's not saying that if your mom tells a lie at work, that God's going to hit you by with a bus, right? That's not the point here. So what is the point? Well, uh, one of my authors, who I've read a lot of stuff and as I was studying, really came out with three different layers of meaning for what's actually being said here. And the first one is this that parents' sin has consequences in the lives of their children. We all know this is true, right? If your parents go and get arrested, that's gonna affect your life. Or maybe let's say this say one of your parents decides to have an affair and they end up getting divorced. Is that gonna affect you negatively? Absolutely. Some of you in this room, it has. I know my parents' divorce affected me in a lot of ways, right? You you bounce between two houses every week and it feels like you don't really belong in either one. You had to grow up faster than you should because you're trying to take care of your other siblings and you're trying to keep the peace between your parents. You don't even know who to invite to your own birthday party or graduation or senior pictures because you're just afraid of the tension that it could cause. You you almost don't know how to trust anybody because you've seen promises be broken before. Your parents' sin affects you. And maybe if you it wasn't divorce, maybe it was your dad's anger. One bad mood changes everything in the house. Like you cringe when you hear the truck roll into the driveway. Or maybe it's one of your parents' relationship with alcohol or a substance and how they change with the flip of a switch. If that's you, I am sorry. Uh and we're gonna get to this point here in a minute, but it doesn't have to always be that way. It can end with you. But the truth is parents' sin affects their children. And that kind of goes into the second point that sin runs in the family. The idea here is sin can be passed down from generation to generation, just like eyes, hair color, like sin can travel. We call this generational sin. And it's when these patterns of sin and brokenness come from your grandparents to your parents, then to you. It's when the stuff that they struggle with starts to show up in your own life: anger, addiction, pride, control, and fear. For a lot of you who've had a family member who struggled with something like that, right? If your dad struggles with alcohol, there's a non-zero chance it's because his dad did and his dad's dad did. Sin runs in the family. I truly believe it. Now, that doesn't mean that you're doomed to repeat your parents' mistakes. It can end with you by the grace of God. And that actually brings us to the third layer. So, one, sin affects children. Two, it can run in the family, but three, because Yahweh is just, he's going to punish sin in every generation until it's all gone. And what I mean is just because your dad faced the consequences for his lust, it doesn't put you off the hook. Right? Yes, sin can get passed down, but remember what Jeremiah said about God. He said, you reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve. We don't get to point the finger in others and blame them for our sin. You may have been dealt a bad hand, you may have grown up in a hard situation. God sees that and God wants better for you, and he's made a way for better for you. But at the end of the day, we are responsible for our choices. And this isn't because God's angry or out to get us, it's because he loves us. God doesn't want you to be a slave to pornography or nicotine or anxiety or body image issues. He wants you to be free. No one wants that freedom for you more than he does because you're his kid. He wants it to end with you. But he's not going to accomplish that by just ignoring your sin or sweeping it under the rug. He loves you too much for that. He will deal with it because that's what love does. It meets it head on and it resolves it. And sometimes that comes through punishment. Right? I've heard it said before, like God doesn't punish his kids. No, God only disciplines his children. That's how you know you're a child. That God loves you, that he corrects you, that he brings you on the right path. And so to summarize, God is both forgiving and just. He loves to show mercy, but he loves you too much to ignore your sin. And it has real consequences. Sometimes it goes on for generations, but God always wants to heal, restore, and break those cycles through his love and ultimately through the blood of Jesus. But just like every week, we have to ask, okay, what does this mean for me? Right? We've learned all sorts of things about who God is and his character. But how does this change how me, a middle schooler, a high schooler in Bernie, Texas, lives their day-to-day life? Well, really, there's three ways that I think this applies to us. One, when you mess up, you can run to God. I said earlier that if you understand that God wants to give forgiveness, it will change your entire relationship with God. Because so many of us feel the complete opposite, right? That God the Father just can't stand us. He's this big, angry tyrant in the sky, and you know, Jesus is kind of like the real nice guy who comes in and makes a way. No, that couldn't be further from the truth. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, the entire Trinity has always had the plan for redemption from the start before we even screwed up. Because God wanted to make a way for us to come back to Him and be His children. So when you sin, you don't have to be afraid to come to God. So many of us keep our sin hidden in the dark because we're afraid to bring it into the light. We're afraid of how God might react or that God might view us differently, even though we know God knows. Keeping sin in the dark only keeps you trapped, though. And all it does is rob you from the freedom of being fully known and fully loved. What we all desire for someone to know everything about us and still choose you. And when you know that God is forgiving, you can come to Him with confidence. You can lay it all out there. Every sin, every thought, every decision you wish you could take back, every habit that you've tried to get rid of for as long as you can remember. Everything. And God doesn't just sweep it under the rug. God doesn't put it on the scales of how much good you've done, how much bad you've done. He says, Yeah, you know what? That sin is terrible. But I made a way for it to be paid for. I'm gonna forgive it. And I'm gonna call you my child. He's not waiting to shame you, he's waiting to forgive you. And so ask yourself tonight, is there something that you need to bring into the light? A secret sin? A habit that you keep running back to, those same old websites, anger that's turned into bitterness, comparison, jealousy, sexual sin, whatever it is, stop hiding. Run to Yahweh, the God who is merciful and forgiving. And the second thing is that if God is forgiving, we should be forgiving. We are made to bear the image of God. We've talked about this all semester, it feels like, that being made in God's image means that we are supposed to be a visible representation of the invisible God, that we're to show the world around us what he is like. And so if he's forgiving, we should be. And I know for some of you that seems like an impossible task, right? It's one thing to forgive that person who like says your joke a little bit louder and gets credit for it, which is the worst, by the way. But it's a whole nother thing to forgive the parent who left, the person who sent those pictures, the friend who stabbed you in the back, or the coach who cut you. Forgiving that feels impossible. Blankfully, Jesus has something to say about that. He tells the story about a servant who owes this king an insane amount of money, like a bajillion dollars. It's a made-up number. The point is he'll never pay it back. And the servant comes and he knows he can't pay it back, and so he falls on his knees, he begs for mercy, he asks for the king to be slow to anger. Notice the language there. And the king does something crazy, forgives him. He's forgiven, go in peace, you're free. Wipes it clean. But that same servant walks out and finds somebody who owes him money. And this is still a decent amount of money. It's like a hundred silver coins, I believe. And so it's like a couple of months' wages. So it's not nothing, but it's very realistic to be paid back. But that guy who owes the forgiven one money doesn't have the money to pay in the moment. So he begs that he says the exact same thing. Will you be slow to anger? Will you forgive me? I'll pay it back. But that servant who's been forgiven starts to choke him out. He says, Pay me back what you owe me. And he throws him in jail. And so obviously the king gets word of this, and the king's furious. He he calls him back in and he says, I forgave you of all of this debt. Shouldn't you have gone and done the same thing? So he throws him into prison until he pays every sin. Here's the point Jesus is saying that if you've been forgiven by God, you do not get to withhold forgiveness from others. Forgiven people, forgive people. Because when you realize how massive your own debt was, right? Just how indebted we were to God, just how messed up, how broken, how dead in our sins we were, every part of our being, and how God freely forgave that, then how could we not forgive anybody who's sinned against us? And look, I'm not saying that it's easy, and I'm not saying that forgiveness is saying what they did is okay. It doesn't always even include restoring that relationship. And it doesn't even take that other person saying that they're sorry, but forgiveness is between you and God. It's surrendering your right to revenge. It's saying, God, I'm giving this to you. I trust you to handle it. You are judge, you are just, and you are merciful. I pray that this person would repent, but God, at the end of the day, this is yours. And so let me ask you tonight, is there anybody in your life that you need to forgive? A parent, a friend, a family member? Write that name down right now. If you're taking your notes, you've got your Bible, you got a pen, put in your notes out, and pray about it. I'm not saying it's gonna say it be easy. I'm not gonna say it's gonna happen overnight. But it is your opportunity to bear the image of God that you were made to bear, to forgive as you have been forgiven if you're a child of the king. There's one more thing we have to remember when we talk about forgiveness, and that's the third point, that we need to take sin as seriously as God does. Right? God wants to forgive sin, but he's not gonna sweep it under the rug. He's gonna deal with it because his goal is a world without sin and evil. And if he doesn't play around with it, we shouldn't either. Because sin has its own consequences. Half the time, God doesn't even have to punish you. He can just let sin run its course and it'll do the damage. Pornography, it warps your mind, it prevents you from love, it forces you to view other people as just objects for your pleasure. Gossip destroys trust, isolates you, and makes you paranoid about what people are going to think about you, say about you. Dishonesty traps you into living a lie. It turns you into a performer who doesn't even know who you are anymore. Comparison will make you hate your life and turn you into somebody who always wishes they had a different body, a different face, a different family, a different life. See, God takes sin seriously because he sees what it does to his children. And he wants better for you. He loves you too much to ignore it, so stop playing with sin like it's your pet. Confess it. Drag it into the light. Tell someone you know and you trust about it. Tell them about it all. Be vulnerable. Don't just like pretty it up and put makeup on it. Tell them, hey, this is what I've done, this is where I'm struggling. And you'll find healing. But don't play around with it because you can know that God is just. And here's the truth: all sin is going to be paid for in one of two ways. One, you pay for it through eternal separation from God. Or two, someone else pays for it. And the only person in all of history who's qualified to pay for it is a man named Jesus. God in the flesh, born in a manger, lived in poverty his whole life, never committed a single sin. Did everything God ever told him to do, never did anything God told him not to do. Because he was God. And at the end of his life, he died on the side of the road. They nailed him to a cross, stripped him naked, beat him beyond recognition. He suffocated to death. And it wasn't an accident, it wasn't a mistake. It was because he loved you. And on the cross, God's mercy and justice are on full display. Scripture says Jesus became our sin. That in that moment he absorbed all of the wrath that we deserved, all of the punishment we deserved from that time you lied, from that time you went too far, from that time you knew what you should have done and didn't. It got put on to Jesus. Because God is just and he has to and he desires to punish sin. But God is merciful and he wants to forgive you. So he took that punishment on himself so that you could receive forgiveness. Isn't that beautiful? And Scripture says that if we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead, we will be saved. And so let me ask you: have you done that? Have you truly confessed with your mouth and believed in your heart that Jesus is Lord? I'm not saying have you grown up in church. I'm not saying did you do something when you were four years old that you had no idea what it meant and you just did it because everybody else was. I'm saying, have you made your own decision to follow Jesus? And if not, tonight could be the night. Because everything I just talked about, that's available to those who've placed their faith in Jesus. The ability to be forgiven, to forgive. And we said at the beginning of this series, we're going to talk a lot about who God is, his character. And I encourage you, hey, if you're here with questions, please keep coming. Please keep asking questions. Even if you are completely unconvinced of everything I'm saying up here, show up. One more week. Show up. And I pray that we've answered a lot of those questions these past six weeks. And I pray maybe, maybe even you sit here tonight and you're like, I'm still unsure. Well, keep showing up, keep asking questions. But I do want to tell you this maybe eventually turns into a no. God is patient, he's forgiving, he's merciful, he gives you time to repent, time to confess. But maybe eventually becomes a no. And tomorrow is not promised. And so I just want to encourage you if you know that there's a decision you need to make with the Lord and you've been putting it off, you've been kicking that can down the road, do not wait. Not just because tomorrow is not promised, but think about the blessing that's available to you in God, being a child of the king, being fully known and fully loved, not feeling like you have to earn your worth on a football field through your grades by getting into the right school, by looking a certain way, but knowing that your worth comes from the fact that God made you in his image and he loved you enough to die for you when you had nothing to offer him. This is the one love that is unconditional. You couldn't do anything to earn. It's available to you tonight, and it will change everything.