Listen and Forgive.

Yet have regard to the prayer of your servant and to his plea, O Lord my God, listening to the cry and to the prayer that your servant prays before you this day, that your eyes may be open night and day toward this house, the place of which you have said, “My name shall be there,” that you may listen to the prayer that your servant offers toward this place. And listen to the plea of your servant and of your people Israel, when they pray toward this place. And listen in heaven your dwelling place, and when you hear, forgive. – 1 Kings 8:28-30 ESV

1 Kings 8:22-53

While Solomon was well aware of the fact that the great temple he had just finished constructing was insufficient to contain God, he was counting on God's promise that His name would be there. God had told David, Solomon's father, “Behold, a son shall be born to you who shall be a man of rest. I will give him rest from all his surrounding enemies. For his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quiet to Israel in his days. He shall build a house for my name. He shall be my son, and I will be his father, and I will establish his royal throne in Israel forever” (1 Chronicles 22:9-10 ESV). The temple was to be built as a sort of monument to the character and nature of God. It's beauty, richness, elaborate architectural detail and design were all intended to reflect the nature of God. It's sole purpose was for making sacrifice and receiving forgiveness. It was a tribute to the holiness, mercy, love and forgiveness of God.

So Solomon appealed to God to hear his prayer. He knew that, without God's presence, the building he had just had constructed would be nothing. It would be powerless to assist the Israelites in their times of need. After all, it was just a building. It was nothing more than a symbol of God's power, mercy, and love. It could not save them. If God did not show up and hear the prayers and accept the sacrifices they offered up, they were doomed. Which is why Solomon asked “that your eyes may be open night and day toward this house.” The temple was to be the place where they came to meet with God. It was where they would make their annual sacrifice of atonement to God in the hopes of receiving forgiveness for their sins. So it was essential that God see them and constantly be aware of their circumstances, as well as hear them when they cried out to Him.

Solomon knew full well that God was not going to take up residence in the temple. His dwelling place was in heaven. But he believed that God had chosen the people of Israel as His special possession. He had set them apart as His own and had determined to reveal His power and presence to them and through them. They were nothing without God. In fact, the only thing that set them apart as a people was their relationship with God. “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 7:6-8 ESV). God had chosen them, not the other way around. Their very existence as a nation was due to God's mercy and love. But Solomon knew that while God had been consistently faithful to them over the years, they had proven to be incredibly and repeatedly unfaithful in return. Which is why the sacrificial system was so essential. It was also why the temple was so important. Solomon was asking God to hear and forgive. He knew that the forgiveness of God was critical to their ongoing existence as a people. They were going to sin. It was inevitable. As a result, they would be required to bring their sacrifices and offer their prayers of confession and repentance. But if God did not hear them, they would be doomed. They would fall under His wrath and judgment. So Solomon appealed to God based on His character. He prayed based on God's promises. His request was for future forgiveness. While they were obviously enjoying God's blessings at that moment, all of that could change in a heartbeat if the people disobeyed God by breaking His laws. And Solomon knew that was inevitable and unavoidable. It would prove to be true in his own life. So he begged God to listen to their prayers of confession and contrition and honor their pleas of repentance with His forgiveness.

Solomon did not take the forgiveness of God for granted. He did not treat it lightly. But we do. We have grown so accustomed to the idea that all our sins are forgiven in Christ, that we no longer feel the need to own up to them or confess them. The apostle John reminds us, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9 ESV). Our forgiveness is a done deal. Jesus Christ has provided forgiveness for all our sins – past, present, and future – through His death on the cross. But that does not mean that we can sin at will and without any sense of remorse or expression of repentance. Our sin is still an affront to a holy God. We have His forgiveness available to us, but we must acknowledge our sin and confess it to God. Solomon valued the forgiveness of God. He built an entire structure just for the purpose of securing that forgiveness. God has given us His Son. We don't have to build or sacrifice anything. All we need to do is confess. And God will forgive and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Amazing, but also amazingly easy to take for granted.

To Sin Or Not To Sin.

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. – 1 John 2:1 ESV

John opens up chapter two of his letter by referring to his audience as “my little children.” It was a term of affection, spoken from the heart of a pastor who saw the believers to whom he wrote as his personal responsibility. He was concerned about their spiritual well being and wanted to make sure they understood what he was trying to tell them. Like children, they were somewhat gullible and susceptible to outside influences. They were too tolerant of other people's opinions about the gospel, which is the whole reason John is writing his letter in the first place. He knew that, if he was not careful, much of what he had just written could be misunderstood or misconstrued by his readers. He had made it quite clear that anyone who claimed to be sinless or who refused to accept God's declaration of sin in their lives was deceived and guilty of calling God a liar. Rather than deny our sins, we should confess them. “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9 ESV). It would have been easy for someone to conclude that the availability of confession and forgiveness was like a get-out-of-jail-free card allowing them to sin without consequences. Knowing human nature like he did, John knew that the doctrine of God's grace, made available through Jesus Christ's death, could be abused. The apostle Paul knew the same thing. In his letter to the believers in Rome, he spent the first five chapters establishing the guilt of all men and their unrighteous standing before a holy God. “For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” ( Romans 3:22-23 ESV). But Paul, like John, knew there was good news for sinners. “…but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8 ESV). Paul follows this wonderful news with the sobering question: “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” (Romans 6:1-2 ESV). He knew that someone was going to make the seemingly logical conclusion that more sin would lead to more of God's grace and forgiveness. In other words, they could keep on sinning, but always just ask for and receive forgiveness. Both Paul and John rejected this dangerous notion.

In fact, John said that the reason he was writing was so that his readers would NOT sin. God's grace was not a license to sin. Christ's death on the cross was not to be used like some miracle elixir to magically remove the guilt of our sins. Yes, if we sin, we can confess those sins and receive God's forgiveness and cleansing. But forgiveness is not the goal. Sinlessness is. Paul would have agreed. “How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:2-4 ESV). Both Paul and John knew that their readers were going to end up sinning, because they knew their readers had sin natures. As long as we live on this earth, all of us as believers in Jesus Christ will wrestle with the presence of our sin natures. But that does not mean that we HAVE to sin. It does not mean that sin is inevitable and unavoidable. We can walk in newness of life. But to walk in newness of life we have to learn to walk in the light – in fellowship with God and His Son. We must allow the penetrating and purifying light of God reveal hidden sin in our lives so that we might confess it and receive forgiveness for it. So much of the time, we are busy confessing for sins we have committed, but fail to ever see the root source behind our sins. We tell God that we're sorry for lying. We admit to him that we had a lustful thought or an angry outburst. But we never see what's behind those acts. We can't see our heart or know that those symptoms are the result of something far more insidious and dangerous – our own pride. It is only when “we walk in the light as he is in the light” that we begin to realize just how deep-rooted our sin nature really is. The great King David wrote, “How can I know all the sins lurking in my heart? Cleanse me from these hidden faults. Keep your servant from deliberate sins! Don’t let them control me. Then I will be free of guilt and innocent of great sin” (Psalm 19:12-13 NLT). Our goal is to live lives free from sin. But for that to happen, we must live in the light, in close fellowship with God, the Son, and the Word, allowing the Spirit of God to use the Word of God to penetrate and expose those hidden sins that are the root cause of all our wrong attitudes and actions. “For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires” (Hebrews 4:12 NLT). One of the primary ways we can walk in the light is by spending time in God's Word. The Psalmist knew the reality of that truth. “How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you” (Psalm 119:9-11 ESV). “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105 ESV).

The more time we spend in the light of God's Word, the more hidden sins will be exposed. But John reminds us “we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1 ESV). He stands beside the Father making intercession for us, and providing forgiveness and cleansing because of His sacrificial death on the cross.