I heard someone on the radio this morning say, “If, when you look at yourself in the mirror, you don’t see the most sinful person you know, then you aren’t being honest with yourself.” I’ll be honest, my first thought was, “well, I don’t know.” But then I thought of the fact that I don’t have access to anyone else’s heart. The only heart with deep, dark secrets that I have full access to is my own, and if I am honest with myself, there is more than enough sin in this heart of mine to be able to say that I can’t point to anyone else with assurance that their heart is more sinful than this one that I know so well. So I find myself in agreement with the morning show host on my radio.
What about you? When you look in the mirror, can you say, “That’s the most sinful person I know!”? You may assume that other people have more sin hidden in their hearts than you, but you have no way of knowing that.
Today’s lesson is going to be about hypocrisy, and it will be the first in a new series calling us to deeper discipleship. The only way for us to battle hypocrisy is to realize that it is safe to come out from behind our mask. I can’t assure you that other people will make it safe for you to do that (although the church should make it safe), but I can assure you that you and I are safe with God when we refuse to hide our sinfulness. When we readily admit that we are impure or impatient or angry or spiteful or whatever sin you need to insert, then we can know that God is ready to be merciful.
With this in mind we are going to learn a new song today called “His Mercy is More.” The song is interesting because it was written in the last few years, but it has the sound of an older hymn. However, it wasn’t the tune that drew me to this song, it was this line:
Our sins, they are many; His mercy is more.
That’s a message I need to hear over and over, and it’s one that makes it safe for you and me to be honest about our sinfulness. We don’t need to hide because there is more than enough mercy to handle the brokenness we bring into the light.
This new series will be from Luke 12 and 13 and will be entitled, “Our Master’s Will: Whole-Hearted Discipleship.” It is fitting that we begin a call to deeper discipleship with an acknowledgement of our sinful state, a reminder of His mercy, and a refusal to pretend. There is a phrase that I will probably repeat several times throughout this series, and it is one that can carry a different nuance for different people: His mercy doesn’t negate His call, but neither does His call negate His mercy.
So today we will begin a series that calls each of us to deeper obedience while remembering that He is merciful with our failures. May He help us hold both truths equally strongly.
– Deryk Pritchard, Preacher