Sin: Our Burden

Intro

The Burden of our Sin

Brokenness & Consequences - Broken Cisterns

In Jeremiah 2:13 “For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, And hewn themselves cisterns—broken cisterns that can hold no water.” This passage says that we have forsaken Him, the fountain of living waters. This water mentioned is a symbol of purity and life. In order for life to be perfect it has to be pure and that is what God offered at the beginning; pure Life. The water of life that Jesus offers is the same, it is flowing and it is pure because He purified it with his blood the sacrifice of His life on the cross for our sins. This sacrifice brings believers back to the living waters where we can find hope and life abundant.

But the passage says that His people have forsaken the fountain of living waters and instead “hewn themselves cisterns”. A cistern is a large earthen basin that keeps or holds water for times of drought so people can come to the cistern and get water. Imagine if you will a shallow hole lined and mortared with rocks and positioned so that the water which comes from rain will gather in this cistern. This is a great way for a community to save water for a day when there is a drought. However, as that water makes its way into the cistern it flows past and through all of the dirt and debris, all of the manure and sewage, and then it sits there for weeks and months on end. Then when that drought comes the people can go and gather water from this cistern. Hopefully, it is not stirred up too much so that the worst of it has sunk to the bottom, and the people can drink that water which may not be the best but it might keep them alive. This is a decent plan for a future drought but you would not want it to be your everyday source of water because as I said it isn’t the freshest source of water. No, if you can; you always want to drink from a flowing source of water because it is cleaner and it is not stagnant.

Metaphors are great but I don’t want there to be any confusions here Broken Cisterns are Sin and sin is anything that we do, say or think that goes against God’s will. If we apply this metaphor to our spiritual lives. We have taken the living water and set it aside so that we drink from the stagnant disgusting pool. And why do we do this? Because it means that we are relying on our own strength to be in control of our lives as opposed to relying on God. Self-reliance, Autonomy, and a desire to do life for myself over letting God take control.

But God’s not done in His example here. You see what God says is that the people have turned from a fountain of living water to a cistern, and not just any cistern but a broken cistern. Their backup plan doesn’t hold water. They have replaced their source of life with broken cistern.

To have a broken cistern means that the very thing that you are supposed to depend on for your continued thriving is broken and will not hold water. This is exactly what sin does to us. You think to yourself, “I can have a good time with my friends and we can drink as much as we want and it will be a great time.” That is until you end up with any number of consequences from alcoholism, to DUI’s, to broken families, to death. What happened? The alcohol seemed like a way to have a good time and for a time it seemed like it could provide you with all that your hearts desired, but at the bottom of that bottle was a broken cistern that has left countless people destroyed. Or let me meddle a bit more. You’re anger has always gotten you your way since you were a child all you had to do was blow up and people just gave you what you wanted. The problem is that your relationships always seem to be superficial at best and rarely last past a few blow ups. If per chance you were able to have a marriage relationship and then children your anger will affect those relationships as well because they my love you but they are afraid of what you will say or do next. Getting what you want is the cistern and anger is your means of filling it but no matter how much you try it is broken and only disaster will be found there. We all have those things that we try to fill our lives with and in the end if it isn’t God and His fountain of living waters, you will find it to be broken and it will destroy you.

Our rebellion is so ruinous, and our sin so destructive, but instead of turning from it we have doubled down and have abandoned God and continued to replaced Him with broken cisterns after broken cisterns, It is a worthless way of life. This is the burden of Sin. We have pure life available to us through the work of Christ on the Cross and yet humanity continues to choose broken cisterns and in the end it will lead to eternal separation from God and eternal torment in hell.

The Burden of the Sinner

Forgiveness doesn’t come without Confession

The interesting thing is that we all know that our lives are filled with this kind of brokenness and yet we continue to try to fix them by doing the same things over and over again. I think we call that the definition of insanity, “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” If you want a different result you can’t continue to live with the broken cisterns, you can’t continue living with the burden of sin.

Therefore there is another burden that you must take on and this burden is the act of confession. Our broken cisterns cannot be fixed and they haven’t just hurt us. It is not enough to just make a change in our lives we must ask for forgiveness for the sins we have committed. Confession is a difficult task because no matter how you try it always comes back to humbling yourself enough to admit that you made a mistake and then asking for forgiveness.

There are a few things that we need to understand about the act of confessing sin. First we have to understand that forgiveness doesn’t come without confession. If you have just blasted a coworker out of anger, or if you have been caught by your wife viewing porn, or if you have lied to your children in order to get your way; you cannot just ignore it and expect it to go away. Leviticus 5:5 states “‘And it shall be, when he is guilty in any of these matters, that he shall confess that he has sinned in that thing;” Therefore the guilty must actually confess their sin to those they have sinned against. Without this the process of forgiveness cannot begin.

Forgiveness takes time

Next you must give opportunity for the forgiveness to take place. Psalm 103:12 says “As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.” Likewise Romans 8:1 reminds us of the fact that we aren’t condemned if we have found forgiveness through Jesus, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” This is God’s reaction to our asking for forgiveness. Because He is God and as God only He can forgive our transgressions in this way, the people you have hurt with your sin are not going to be so generous. Forgiveness between people takes time and the main reason that this is true is because people want to see if you are truly sorry for your sin and see if you have changed.

Forgiveness Requires Change

This change is the last act of confession. When is a thief no longer a thief, when is an angry person no longer angry, when is a drunk no longer a drunk, when is an adulterer no longer an adulterer? The answer that most people gives is, “When they stop doing those things.” However that doesn’t mean they are no longer thieves, angry people, drunks or adulterers it just means they aren’t doing it at this moment. No, in order to truly be a changed person you have to confess the sin and then replace it with the righteousness of God. Ephesians 4:20–24 is our guiding principle here, “But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.” The concept is that if we want to put off our old habits and sins we have to replace the sin with God’s holiness and righteousness. When is a thief not longer a thief? When He replaces his thieving with desiring God and His will. When is a drunk no longer a drunk? When they forever put away the bottle and replace it with the Word of God. When is an adulterer no longer an adulterer? When they no longer seek out the lusts of their flesh and instead desire to be holy and add to their faith, Self-control, and Godliness. These changes don’t come overnight and they can be destroyed in the blink of an eye so as children of God we must diligently to place our lives in the hands of the only one who can bring about this kind of change.

The Burden of Confession

I want to bring us a few more practical aspects of confession.

Confessing as wide as the sin

The first is that you need to confess as wide as the sin committed. Sin is a concussive action. Think of it like a bomb going off. There are those closest to the bomb that receive the most damage but there are also those further out that may not be hurt as much but the explosion still effects them. If you sinned by yelling at your wife in front of your children then the confession needs to include not only your wife but also those children. You may even need to apologize to others depending on who else may have been in the area at the time. This kind of apology is the most humbling. It is meant to be so that you understand the burden of your sin, the need to change.

When you are confessing as wide as the sin you must begin with Him in whom you sinned against in the first place and that is God. It is God’s righteousness that was sinned against in the first place and therefore even before you go to the person you hurt you must first seek out forgiveness from God. 1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Confessing often

Then next action we must take in confession is to continue confessing your sin as often as you sin. If yesterday you sinned and confessed and then today you sinned again then guess what you need to confess again. if the same thing happens tomorrow then guess what, you confess again. This is furthered if you add accountability to your confession. James 5:16 reminds us of this truth, “Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.”

Confess, Receive, Replace

There is a pattern to all of this and that pattern is to Confess, Receive, Replace. We confess our sins before those who we have sinned against, God first then others. We Receive the forgiveness of our sins. Remember that it is not that we need to forgive ourselves that is not a Biblical example, it is that we accept that God has forgiven us and others will forgive us our sins through the passage of time and the rebuilding of trust. And lastly we must REPLACE the sin with the righteousness of God as we discussed earlier from Eph. 4. This replacement of our sinful behavior is the one thing that will allow us to truly change because it is through the strength of God that we are given new life.