"Though God has forgiven and forgotten your past sins, yet don't forget them yourself. Often remember what a wretched bond slave you were in the land of Egypt. Often bring to mind your particular acts of sin before conversion, as the blessed Apostle Paul is often mentioning his old blaspheming, persecuting, and injuriousness, to the renewed humbling of his heart and acknowledging that he was the least of the apostles, and not worthy to be called an apostle, and the least of saints, and the chief of sinners. And be often in confessing your old sins to God. Also, let this following passage be often in your mind: "Then, when I make atonement for all you have done, you will remember and be ashamed and never again open your mouth because of your humiliation, declares the sovereign Lord" (Ezek. 16:63)
~ Jonathan Edwards, offering advice to a new convert to Christianity in 1741
What do you think of Reverend Edwards' advice?
Kind of heavy. Aren't we supposed to celebrate the forgiveness of our sins at the cross of Christ? Forgive and forget, right?
One of the things us Presbyterians get dinged for is our obsession with sin. Why spend so much time in the worship service confessing? Sin is depressing. Let's focus on joy in worship, right?
If you look at the Apostle Paul's example, as Edwards does, you do see a remarkable tendency to keep mentioning past sins. Paul knew his freedom in Christ. He also knew where he came from and never forgot it. In other words, he never lost sight of God's grace.
This friends, is the secret to humility. The way up is down. One of the surest signs of maturity in Christ is authentic humility. What produces humility? Humility is the outcome of keeping our sin in view while not losing sight of the cross.
I love Edwards advice to this young convert to Christianity. Christians are sometimes quick to embrace salvation by faith through grace, but slow to live by continued faith in Christ. What do I mean? After getting saved by grace, we turn to living by works. We try to make God like us more (or be displeased with us less) though our works of righteousness. We go back to trying to earning our salvation again. Works based righteousness promotes spiritual pride. We slide backwards. We regress.
We can't lose sight of God's grace. The key is to keep remembering where we came from, and keep asking God to show us our sin so that we might confess and repent daily. You may think that this glorifies guilt. I have found quite the opposite. It produces humility and joy. Tasting grace daily produces an inward joy that cannot be quenched.
How about you? Are you walking by faith or by works?
This can be a difficult thing to balance, but we do want to remember where we've been. I went through a time recently when God brought to mind some sins of my past, but I knew it was not to condemn me. It helped me with humility -- I had to face the fact that I was the kind of person who did that sort of thing. I saw His grace all the more because I knew He loved me even though I had done those things. And I was reassured against doubt because I knew there was fruit in my life. I no longer did those things anymore.
Posted by: GotToBTru | November 15, 2007 at 09:47