Accepting Blame

Introduction

As little Johnny’s mother stepped into the house, she could hear the screeching of the family cat. And so she yelled down the hallway, Johnny, are you pulling that cat’s tail again? To which Johnny replied, No, Mom, I’m not pulling the cat’s tail. But the screeching continued, and so she investigated. And as she stepped into little Johnny’s bedroom, she saw Johnny standing there with the cat’s tail in his hand. And she said, Johnny, why would you lie to me? You said you weren’t pulling the cat’s tail. To which Johnny Riley replied, Mom, I’m not pulling. I’m just holding the tail. The cat’s doing all the pulling. This morning I want to talk to you about accepting blame. Why is it that we find such a difficult time in just saying I’m wrong?

I’m at fault. I have sinned. The Proverb writer says in Proverbs chapter twenty eight and verse thirteen that he who covers his sin will not prosper. But whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy. You know, an uncomfortable part of the gospel is that the gospel must, if it’s to be of any benefit in our lives, the gospel must first convict us. You think of the sermon on the day of Pentecost. We often wonder at the fact that 3,000 souls that day responded positively to the gospel. But that positive ending had to start with a negative beginning. And that negative beginning was Peter and the apostles pointing to them and saying, You crucified the Son of God. If we think later in Acts chapter 8 of the Simon the Sorcerer, and Peter telling him that you are in the bonds of iniquity.

1. Adam: The Beginning of Making Excuses

You see, the gospel must convict us, must bring us to our knees to first admit that I have sinned. Then and only then can true confession, repentance, and salvation take place. But history is replete with people who, like little Johnny, didn’t want to admit that they had done something wrong. Turn with me to the book of Genesis, chapter 3. We think of the story of Adam. And isn’t it sadly interesting that at the beginning of sin is the beginning of making excuses about sin? Adam had taken that forbidden fruit and had eaten it, and so God comes and confronts them in the garden. And look what it said. Genesis chapter 3, verse 11, God says, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?

And let’s pause here. And if you just glance at verse 12, you can see that verse 12 contains several words. There may be the hint there for us that usually true confession, true confession of our sins involves very few words. The longer the sentence, the longer the paragraph, the less likely that we truly repented and truly confessed. Because when answered a simple yes or no question, did you eat? Adam doesn’t answer yes. He answers thusly, verse 12, the man said, the woman whom you gave, she gave me of the tree, and I ate. A one-word answer, yes, or maybe a two-word answer that he finally got to, I ate, was preceded by the woman, whom you gave me, God. By the way, I didn’t ask for.

You sinner. And so he first blames Eve, and possibly, was he implying that God was somehow involved in that? A warning stands there for us. That when we sin, and if we are confronted with the reality of our sin, do not bring God into it. In the sense that I mean that God’s name, when it comes to sin, God’s name should only be invoked during confession of sin. Let’s think about modern day examples. Those who are insistent that the sin of homosexuality is not a sin begin by saying what? God made me this way. Someone trying to justify, maybe leaving their wife and going and being with someone else says, God would want me to be happy. Don’t bring God into your sin. Just simply say, I’ve sinned.

2. Aaron: This Calf Came Out

And God’s name should only be evoked in the context of confession. And so we think about Adam. The woman whom you gave to me, gave to me, and oh yes, I did eat. I think about later, about Aaron, the brother of Moses. Turn over. In Exodus chapter 32. And I know it’s a serious matter that we’re talking about this morning, but Aaron’s evasion of responsibility, I’m sorry, is nothing less than comical. We won’t read the entire context. You remember the story, Moses had gone up into Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments. He was taking a little bit longer than they thought. And they may be speculated that, well, God’s just struck him dead. We don’t know what’s happened to him. And so they come to Aaron and they say, Aaron, make us gods that’ll go before us.

And so look with me there in Exodus chapter 32. Let’s begin in our reading in verse 4. And he received the gold. He’d asked for their gold earrings, their gold jewelry. He received the gold from their hands, and he fashioned it with an engraving tool and made a molded calf. Then they said, This is your God, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt. Let’s pause there and think about what Aaron did. He took gold jewelry, melted it down, and then resolidified that piece of gold and took an engraving tool and engrave that gold to make it look like a calf. I want you to think about the process that had to be involved with that. If you gave me all the gold jewelry in the state of Florida.

And the most intricate of engraving tools, I couldn’t make something that closely resembled a cow. That takes some artistic, that takes some ability. It takes some time and a process involved with that. That’s what the text says that he did. Now, God finds out what’s happening. Moses finds out what’s happening, comes down, confronts Aaron, and now skip down to verse 21. We remember what the text said Aaron did. Moses said, verse 21 to Aaron, what did this people do to you that you’ve brought so great a sin upon them? So Aaron said, Do not let the anger of my Lord become hot. You know the people that they’re set on evil. For they said to me, make us gods that shall go before us. As for this Moses, the man who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.

And I said to them, whoever has any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it to me, and I cast it into the fire, and this calf came out. That is as ridiculous as little Johnny’s excuse about the cat, isn’t it? This calf just, I don’t know how. You should have been here, Moses. It was the funniest thing. Now, is that what the text said happened? No, the text says he took it, he melted it down, he took an engraving tool, and he fashioned it.

He left out some important steps, didn’t he? And in so doing tried to evade his responsibility. He first started by blaming the crowd. You know these people. And then seemed to intimate it just happened. I guess I found myself in the wrong crowd. It just happened. Well, I made a mistake. None of these seem to sound like true confession and acknowledgement of sin. Another thing that seemed to elude Aaron’s sight was that though, yes, the people were involved, he was Aaron. And he was to be a leader of these people. You know, it’s a poor leader who blames those whom he is intending to lead. In fact, a true spiritual leader won’t simply just go along with the crowd. The true spiritual leader has as their instruction to lead the people.

Did the people want this? Yes. What was Aaron’s responsibility? To stand in the breach and say, no. That’s not the gods that we serve. God has condemned this. You shall have no graven image. It was Aaron’s responsibility to stand up as a leader and a lead. And in some sense, we’re all spiritual leaders. Whether you lead a congregation, whether you lead a service, whether you lead your family, or whether you are the spiritual leader of your own spiritual life.

3. Saul: The People Spared the Best

A true leader will accept the responsibility for their own sins and for their own actions and their failure to properly lead. So we’ve got Adam and Aaron. You think about Saul, King Saul. Stay in the Old Testament in 1 Samuel chapter 15.

You probably remember this story. Toward the end of Saul’s reign, and it was the end of Saul’s reign because of events such as this. God had given instructions for them to go and to destroy the Amalekites. They had mistreated Israel earlier in their history, and now is the time to come for their judgment. And so the instruction was very clear. Go and destroy them utterly. Verse 7 of 1 Samuel chapter 15 says, Saul attacked the Amalekites from Havilah all the way to Shur, which is east of Egypt. He also took Agag, king of the Amalekites, alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword, but Saul’s and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lamb, and all that was good, and were unwilling to utterly destroy them, but everything despised and worthless, that they utterly destroyed.

And you remember this is just almost as comical as Aaron’s statement. You remember the circumstances that followed. Saul is coming back. Here comes the prophet Samuel. Saul first says, Oh, I’m so glad to see you, Samuel. I’ve obeyed the commandment of the Lord. Maybe wanting a pat on the back from the prophet. I did what God told me to do. And you remember, I can almost picture a wry smile coming over Samuel’s face as he says, really. Then what’s the sound of these oxen and sheep that I hear?

No, you didn’t, Saul. You didn’t. Now notice his reply. Even after being confronted, look what he says, verse 15 of 1 Samuel 15. Saul said, They, they have brought them from the Amalekites. For the people spared the best of the sheep and the oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God, and the rest we’ve utterly destroyed. Look in verse 21. But the people took of the plunder, sheep and oxen, the best of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal. And notice, I don’t want to press the point too much, but notice even when he finally does confess what he says in verse 24. Saul said to Samuel, I have sinned. Again, maybe the best confessions are the shortest ones if he just stopped there, but he didn’t.

I have sinned, for I’ve transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. Three times Saul, as a leader of the people, said, They did it. And even when he finally gets around to saying, I did it, he says, I did it because they told me to. Interesting in this story is the first thing Saul does is he just denies that he’s done anything wrong. And that he’s fully obeyed God. Blinded, probably intentionally blinded to his transgression of the law of God. And then, like Aaron, he blames the people. They did it. They kept some of them back. They wanted to do this. And then, possibly like Adam, he invoked the name of God in his sin, saying, well, their intention, our intention was to bring these things back and sacrifice them to God.

Did he really believe that? Again, invoking, improperly invoking the name of God in the midst of his sin. True confession, true repentance of our sin that we be real about the scenario that we’re in. Maybe in Saul’s case, part of his problem was that he was talking to Samuel, just a messenger, a spokesman of God. And he forgot in reality he was really dealing with God himself. So maybe he thought, if I can convince this man, Samuel. When he failed to remember that he wasn’t going to convince God. And one of the first steps of confession is absolute naked honesty as to what we’ve done. No obfuscation, no pointing the fingers, no excuses. Just simply I sin. Well, let’s not leave this lesson with bad news.

4. David: Short and to the Point, I Have Sinned

Let’s think of some good examples. We looked at three examples of people who failed to accept responsibility for their sins. But let’s think about some examples of some who did it right. I think about King David. Now, it took him a while. He tried to cover up his sin, and by so doing simply horribly compounded that sin. But when he was confronted by Nathan the prophet, much as his predecessor Saul was by Samuel the prophet, what was David’s reply? David didn’t say the people.

She shouldn’t have been parading around like she was for me to look at her. He didn’t say she’s to blame in this is what did he say? Short and to the point. I have sinned. Look what he says in Psalm 51. Psalm 51 is one of the penitential psalms. And it’s one of the historical psalms as well. Historical in the sense that it’s one of the psalms that tells us the setting or the backdrop of it. You have that little heading in Psalm 51 says to the chief musician, a psalm of David. When Nathan the prophet went to him after he had gone into Bathsheba, we know the historical setting. Notice what David says. Have mercy on me, O God, according to your loving kindness, according to the multitude of your tender mercies.

Blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin, for I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only have I sinned and done this evil in your sight, that you may be found just when you speak and blameless when you judge. Do you see the clear contrast between David’s language and the language of Adam, Aaron, and King Saul? It’s striking, isn’t it? Is it any wonder that it wasn’t Adam? It wasn’t Aaron, it wasn’t Saul that was called a man after God’s own heart. The distinguishing factor was not that one of them sinned and the other ones didn’t. The distinguishing factor was what did he do with his sin? He humbly and completely acknowledged it.

So much so, keep reading in Psalm 51, a very misunderstood verse that says, Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity. And in sin, my mother conceived me. That verse has been completely ripped out of its context. To try to teach the false doctrine of inherited depravity that David was saying that he inherited. How does that at all fit into the context of him saying it was me to turn around and say, it really wasn’t me? I was born this way. That’s not what he’s saying. What David, this is poetry, by the way, what David is doing is he’s utilizing a figure of speech known as hyperbole to emphasize his absolute sinfulness. He was saying, I am so full of sin that I’ve been sinning from the day I was born.

Does he mean that literally? No. He means it in the same sense in which we might mean of somebody who’s a very good, maybe musician, and you can say he was playing the guitar from the day he was born. Do we mean that literally? Absolutely not. What do we mean? We mean by that hyperbolic statement to say, this is how good this person is. This is how they’ve excelled. They’ve been doing it for so long. That’s what David is saying when he says, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. He’s saying, I have sinned so much so that I could say I’m such a sinner. I’ve been sinning from the day I was born. Emphasizing him owning his sinfulness.

I have sinned.

5. Paul: Of Whom I Am Chief

Someone else who would use a similar figure of speech is the Apostle Paul. You remember in 1 Timothy chapter 1. In speaking of Christ and the purpose of his coming, 1 Timothy 1 and verse 15. Paul says, this is a faithful saying, 1 Timothy 1 15, and worthy of all acceptance that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. Of whom I am chief. I’d say that’s a similar figure of speech as David’s. I don’t think Paul was literally saying, I’m the worst person that’s ever lived. He was simply owning up to the reality of his sinfulness. I am the chiefest. I am the foremost of sinners. That’s owning up to the responsibility of sin. Another thing that is doing in this context is that is personalizing sin.

One of the greatest dangers that we can have is depersonalizing sin. He personalized it. He doesn’t say simply that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. And I get lost in the crowd. No. He said he came to save sinners. And then he pointed the finger right at himself and said, That’s me.

6. The Prodigal Son: No Longer Worthy

Personalize your sin. Personalize the death of Christ. While it is true and scriptural to say that Jesus came to die for the whole world, it’s also true that he came and died for you. And your sin. And me. And my sin. And then we think of the story that our Savior told of the prodigal son. Who the text says came to himself. And that filthy pig pen it says he came to himself and he made the decision. I’ll go back to my father. And this is what I’m going to say. And he research rehearsed the speech.

And it says before he even gets to the house, his father sees him and comes running. You know it would have been very easy at that moment to say, well, I guess I don’t have to say what I rehearsed. Looks like dad’s glad to see me after all.

But even though his dad came and threw himself on him and hugged him around the neck, the son still. And he’s to be admired for his fortitude and his bravery in still saying, Father, I’m no longer worthy to be considered your son. You know, it’s one thing to rehearse the speech at the pig pen. It’s another thing to look your father in the eye and say those words. But true confession demands that we do that. That we figuratively look our father in the eye and say, I’m not worthy. I have sin. And point the finger at no one else but the man in the mirror. Further good news is this is that the scriptures promise us that if we properly deal with our sin, God will deal with them too.

We can’t wash away our sins, we can simply acknowledge them and lay them before our Father. But he has promised.

We have this promise. First John 1 verse 8 begins, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. And the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Why would I ever bring myself to admit that I’ve sinned? To lay my sins bare in the shame of my transgressions. Because then and only then has God promised to wash them.

When we’re willing to confess our sins, that God is willing and faithful to remove them so that they’re there no more.

Conclusion

Have you sinned? Is there iniquity in your life? Maybe you’ve been successful enough to keep hidden. You’ve made excuses, and other people have bought into those excuses. But do you realize it’s time to look at your Father and say, I’m no longer worthy? I have sinned. Please accept me back. If you’re not a Christian this morning, why not become one? Why not lay your sins at the altar and let the blood of Christ wash them away? As you believe, repent, confess your faith as well as your sins, and to be baptized for the remission of your sins. Maybe you’ve done that, but sin has crept its way back into your life. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to confess them. Would you acknowledge them this morning?

And when you help you in any spiritual way, right now, as together we stand and as we sing.