Does Sin Still Surprise You?

Genesis 6:5

The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.

Are you still surprised? Surprised at the events of the past 10 days? Surprised that yet another black man has been killed while already detained by police? Surprised that this is the second time in six years that arresting officers have done nothing to help a black man saying, “I can’t breathe”? Surprised that it’s even necessary to say, “Black lives matter”? Shouldn’t that go without saying? If it must be said out loud or printed in big bold letters, that means it hasn’t been taken for granted. The message still hasn’t reached its audience.

 Are you surprised? Surprised that some would use peaceful protests as a launchpad for violence? Surprised that fear is met with fear and hate with hate? Fear is control. Are you surprised that innocent people—peaceful protestors, police trying to keep order, and even those standing on the sidelines—are losing their lives and livelihoods?

 Are you surprised that some would use this tragic death and its aftermath for their own personal or political gain, left, right, and center? Racism is not a political issue. Neither is violence. Neither is murder. These are evils. “Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him” (1 John 3:15).

 Are you surprised at the inclinations of your own heart? The quickness with which you lump all people of a group together because of the actions of a few. The confusion you feel about where to even begin. The ease with which hate can push out love. The denial that your heart could ever be so inclined to evil.

 “The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time” (Genesis 6:5) Of all the people living on earth, God only found one family of believers to rescue from the waters of the flood and continue the line of the Savior.

 But the flood did not solve the problem. After the flood, God said, “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood” (Genesis 8:21). What other human hearts were there than those of righteous Noah and his family?

 God does not reveal the wickedness of the human heart to excuse evil. He does it to take away the surprise. The surprise we feel at the evil of a corrupt police officer or an opportunistic looter. The surprise we feel at our own evil.

 Every person naturally believes they are capable of good without God. We do not excuse ourselves from this moral standard of our own making. Yes, of our own making, because even if we use God's standard as our blueprint, we tend to soften it into a more acceptable, more attainable standard for ourselves. “It wasn’t gossip. I was just venting.” “I only did that because they did it to me first.” When we fail to reach even the low bar we set for ourselves, we might be surprised. But it’s not long before the surprise fades into lowering the bar again.

 We use this bar to measure ourselves against the good and evil we perceive others do. We try to connect dots, no matter how many dots we ignore in between. We form biases, both favorable and unfavorable. We attach a certain morality to an ethnicity or a uniform or some other aspect of appearance. And when the stereotype is unmet, we are again met with surprise.

 God has spoken. “The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). He has told us what he has seen. “Every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood” (Genesis 8:21). He is saddened, but not surprised by what he has seen in the human heart. He is grieved, but not shocked by what is going on in our world right now.

 God does not judge the outward appearance. He judges the heart. He strips away clothes and skin, flesh and bone, and looks at the soul. And he says,

“There is no one righteous, not even one;
    there is no one who understands;
    there is no one who seeks God.
All have turned away,
    they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
    not even one.”
“Their throats are open graves;
    their tongues practice deceit.”
“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”
    “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood;
    ruin and misery mark their ways,
and the way of peace they do not know.”
    “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.

Romans 3:10-19

 No one person is superior to another in the only place it matters, in God's eyes. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). To think your place of birth, or nationality, or ethnicity determines your value before God, and, therefore, your value, is to believe a lie. To think a person’s works or service or activism elevate them above reproach for their sins is false. There is no spectrum of righteousness. You either are or you aren’t. And before the law of God, “there is no one righteous, not even one” (Romans 3:10).

 The events of the past days may have surprised you. Maybe you’re over being surprised. But, either way, you are left with the same problem. How is life worth living if no life seems to matter, if every life stands condemned by God's law?

 If God only spoke the law, we would be ready to say, “No life matters to God.” But God is not finished speaking with the law. He speaks again: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Jesus “is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2). God “wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). To God, every life matters, including yours.

Before God's law, all stand condemned to death. Before God's gospel, all are invited to believe in his Son for eternal life. “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:19-21). He looked at the inclinations of your heart, and you still mattered to him. He still wanted to save you. And if your eternal life matters to him, your earthly life matters to him, too. Are you surprised? This is the most surprising news of all.

 Black lives matter because they matter to God. Any other reason is in addition to that. God's opinion far outweighs all others. Thinking that slogan by itself means to say black lives matter at the expense of other lives is a disingenuous and dangerous thought. If you cannot take that slogan in the kindest possible way, repent and ask the Savior who loves the whole world for forgiveness and for help to do so.

 Now is a time for all of us to actually listen to each other. Deflecting the issue with “what abouts” or preconceived ideas is not listening. Demanding one group or the other, one person or another, change their ways before you can show them love is not love. Love others with the love Christ showed you. Christ loves because of who he is, not because of who you are. Christ’s love is self-sacrificing.  Christ’s love is the only way you can love. “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:18,19).

 Pray to God to heal our country. Because of sin, people will always find a way to divide themselves. If not by race, then by social class. If not by social class, then by nationality. If not by nationality, then by something else. Pray that God would remove divisions from among us by uniting all people in his Son. Continue to pray for Christ's perfect love that your love would be more perfect.