What to Do When You Sin

We are wrapping up our study on Ezra this morning,so flip over to Ezra 9-10.

This has been a great series for us as we have seen what it is like to rebuild a foundation of worship.

We have learned that God is able to work in incredible ways, even in the hearts of kings that don’t believe in him.

We have seen that we need to make worship a priority, and that worship is big enough to handle our fears and frustrations and discouragement.

We heard about the kinds of roadblocks we might encounter and were reminded about just how important it is to study God’s word, obey it, and help others to the same.

The more you walk with God, the more you are going to find out something that you likely already know: you are far from perfect.

The Bible doesn’t sugar coat our imperfections; instead, it calls our shortcomings and failures what they really are: sin.

When you and I choose to do what we want instead of what God wants, or when we don’t do what we know God tells us to do, even in our thought lives, it is sin.

What do we do when we figure out that we have sinned?

We are going to answer that by looking at how Ezra handled sin in these last two chapters of the book.

Let’s back up a bit and remember what has gone on so we have the proper view of what is taking place here.

God had specifically chosen the people of Israel to be his special people.

He had given them an incredible land to live in, and he promised that they would have everything they needed as long as they kept him first.

However, they chose to chase after all kinds of other gods, and they stopped honoring the one true God.

Eventually, God caused most of them to be killed or carried off to captivity in Babylon.

Remember as well that the kings and emperors in those days had habits of mixing up different nations, so he would have moved in people who weren’t Israelites and had them settle in Israel.

We pick up this morning after God has started to send some of his people back from Babylon to the land he had given them.

This particular return was led by a man named Ezra, who was a priest and knew God’s law really well.

His role was to go back to Jerusalem, Israel’s capital, and make sure that they were worshiping God like they should.

Not long after he got back, he found out something devastating: God’s people had become heavily involved in sin.

As we see how Ezra led God’s people through getting right with God in this area, we are going to see how we are to handle our own sin and how to help others as they struggle.

Let’s look at the text to see what they had done.

Read with me Ezra 9:1-3.

God’s people had disobeyed him by marrying people from the other nations that were around them.

I want to explain this very clearly and carefully.

In those days, when you married someone from another nation, you would be tempted to start following their God. That would cause you to either stop worshiping the one true God or to put other gods on the same level as him, which is idolatry.

Because of that, God had commanded his people not to marry anyone who was a part of the pagan nations around them.

Hear me very clearly: this is not a prohibition against interracial marriage today. There is absolutely nothing in the Bible that says a Christian cannot marry another Christian of a different race or ethnic background. There is nothing in Scripture that says a white Christian cannot marry a black Christian, or an Hispanic Christian can’t marry an Asian Christian, or anything of the sort.

The prohibition here was warning the nation of Israel against marrying someone from a different nation because they would have worshiped a false God and led you to do the same.

The principle of not marrying someone who is not a believer is found in the New Testament, but it isn’t tied to race or ethnicity.

Rather, 2 Corinthians 6:14 warns us not to be “unequally yoked,” or in close partnership, with someone who is not a Christian. There is no closer human partnership than marriage, so that teaches us that a Christian should not pursue non-Christian for marriage.

Let me also add, though, that if you are married to an unbeliever, you are called in the New Testament to handle this differently. We can’t fully look at it this morning, but 1 Corinthians 7:12-16 tells a believer to remain married to an unbeliever if the unbeliever is willing to stay.

If you have any questions about this, please contact me. I would love to talk with you more about it!

Back to Ezra...

God’s people had sinned by marrying those outside of God’s covenant family.

This was a big deal, and we want to outline three steps of how to handle sin as we look at Ezra’s reaction.

First, when we discover sin in our lives, we must...

1) Let it break your heart.

Ezra was rightfully devastated by what he found out.

Pick up in 9:3-5a

When he finds out what has happened, Ezra is devastated.

He reacts with the typical signs of mourning in those days. When the Israelites were brokenhearted, they would tear their clothes, tear hair from the head and beard, and sometimes throw ash on their heads in mourning.

That’s how Ezra responds, but why?

Ezra is devastated because God’s people still haven’t listened!

Think about what has happened over the previous 120 years or so at this point. God’s people had made compromise after compromise, and a lot of it had to do with marrying foreign wives who brought worship of their gods with them.

That’s what got Solomon off track, and he was the wisest man who ever lived to that point!

1 Kings 11:4–6 CSB

When Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away to follow other gods. He was not wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord his God, as his father David had been. Solomon followed Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians, and Milcom, the abhorrent idol of the Ammonites. Solomon did what was evil in the Lord’s sight, and unlike his father David, he did not remain loyal to the Lord.

God’s people continued to worship those gods, which led to the destruction of Jerusalem and carrying everyone off into captivity.

And what have the people done? The very same thing!

Ezra could have made excuses, couldn’t he?

He didn’t say, “Well, I guess it is understandable. After all, there aren’t as many Israelite women around, so they didn’t really have much of a choice.”

He never said, “Oh, well, they didn’t have good role models or examples, so they are off the hook.”

No; he knew God’s word, and he knew it was sin, and he didn’t try to make any excuses.

He simply let it break his heart.

When you and I realize we have sinned, we need to start in the same place.

We don’t need to make excuses, we don’t need to try to cover it up, we simply need to let it break our hearts.

I am not trying to be mean, but you have to remember what sin is: it is telling the God who made you that you think you know better than he does what you need. It is rejecting his love, grace, power, and plan, and choosing to do your thing instead of his.

Sin is a big deal, that’s why James would tell us in the New Testament:

James 4:8–9 CSB

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.

God may not call you to express it through torn clothes or by pulling out hair, but you and I need to take sin seriously and let it break our hearts.

We have fallen short of what God called us to do and be, and it is an affront to a holy God.

This isn’t being sorry you got caught, by the way; it is a sorrow that sees clearly what you have done.

This the idea behind repentance: to allow God to break your heart over your sin to such an extent that it causes you to feel the weight of it.

It is a consequence of putting his glory first, like we talked about last week, and then realizing you missed it completely.

When is the last time you were broken for your sin?

Have you had a time when you saw something from God’s word and realized that you had messed up, and it broke your heart?

That’s where we have to start in dealing with sin. We can’t seek forgiveness if we haven’t realized how far we have fallen.

However, it doesn’t stop there.

That brokenheartedness over sin pours out into the next step...

2) Confess it.

When it came time for the evening sacrifice, Ezra cried out to God in a beautiful, powerful prayer of confession.

Look at how he prayed in verses 6-15.

As we mentioned, Ezra doesn’t try to make excuses.

He begins by owning their sin without any caveats.

Beyond simply saying that they were guilty, though, Ezra does two things that we should do in confession as well:

A) Acknowledge God’s faithfulness.

Look at what he says in verses 8-9.

Ezra makes it clear that their sin is not God’s fault. He has continued to be faithful to Israel in spite of their unfaithfulness to him.

When we are confessing sin, we should do the same.

Acknowledge how you have seen God continue to work in spite of your sin.

This forces us to again see just how far we have fallen short and how great he is.

It both rebukes and encourages us as we see that we fail but he doesn’t.

That leads to the second part of his prayer of confession.

We must also...

B) Agree with him about the sin.

Look at verses 13-15...

Again, Ezra clearly calls sin what it is.

He doesn’t seek to get out of it or justify their actions in any way.

This the primary idea of confession: to say the same thing God says about our sin.

When God says, “This attitude or this action is wrong,” we stop and say, “God, you are right. I have sinned.”

We don’t say that it isn’t as bad as what this person did or try to rationalize why we didn’t do what he called us to do or anything like that; we simply acknowledge that this is sin.

If our hearts are broken about our sin, and if we confess that sin to him, then we will follow through with the third step in handling sin:

3) Make changes to be right with him.

Ezra confessed the sin on behalf of the people, but something had to be done about it.

A crowd gathered around while he was praying, and they knew they could not continue living like they had.

They told Ezra that they would be willing to send their foreign wives and children away to be right with God.

Ezra continued to pray about it, and it became clear that they needed to do exactly that.

Chapter 10 is all about them finding out who had sinned this way and calling them to separate from them.

There is even a list of the men who had sinned this way, and it is clear that they dealt with it.

Sending these women away seems harsh to us, doesn’t it?

Again, if you are married to someone who is not yet a Christian, don’t take this as a command to divorce your spouse. I would again point you to 1 Corinthians 7:12-16 for you to prayerfully consider your situation.

However, for the nation of Israel, they were called to send these women away.

This would have been costly, and it would have been painful, and it would have been awkward, but it was what had to be done to turn from the sin they had committed.

You might be tempted to think, “Well, that’s just Old Testament stuff. God was grumpier then. Now we live under grace, so it isn’t like that anymore.”

If you are thinking that, let me lovingly and gently tell you that you’re wrong. First, the God of the Old Testament is the same God as the God of the New Testament. He didn’t change, although he is working through the church in these days instead of through the physical nation of Israel.

He hasn’t grown more lenient about sin, either.

Here’s what Jesus said about that. Using the example of adultery, he said,

Matthew 5:27–30 CSB

“You have heard that it was said, Do not commit adultery. But I tell you, everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

Jesus made it clear that you and I must be willing to take drastic measures in our fight against sin.

I know this isn’t school, but I have some homework for you.

If our ushers could hand out the “Put Off/Put On” handout.

This list is from Life Action Revival Ministries, whom God has used greatly in my life throughout the years.

The idea comes from Ephesians 4:20-24, where we are commanded to put off our old way of living and put on the new way of following Christ.

It is not an exhaustive list of every sin in the Bible, but it covers enough to keep us all busy.

Let me explain what you are looking at: These are designed as half sheets with two columns on each. The left hand column tells us what attitude or action is sin that we should put off, and the right gives us the thing we should replace it with.

You will find Scripture references that are where we see this sin or the attitude to replace it.

Here’s what I want you to do with this:

First, as soon as you get it, write the words, “Agree with God” across the top of the page. That is to remind you about what confession is and to stop you if you start to get defensive or make excuses.

Second, I want you to take some time today to get alone with God and walk through this list.

When you realize you have committed a particular sin in the last two months or so, put an underline under it. Go all the way through underlining it.

Go back through it again and put stars by those sins you either haven’t confessed or haven’t really turned from.

When you find those sins, commit to making the hard choices to put off that habit, pattern of thinking, or behavior, and put on the new life Christ has given you.

It may even be helpful for you to try to find groups of sin so you can see if there is an underlying pattern that you need to address.

For example, I did this on Wednesday afternoon, and it broke my heart to see how far I fall short. I realized that many of my sins had to do with how much I talk, so I could address many of them by simply learning to be quiet.

If we didn’t have some church business to handle today, I would have you start looking over these lists now.

However, as we move towards our time of invitation this morning, I simply want you to make this commitment: “God, whatever you show me on this list or in your word that is sin, I want to confess it and make the changes I need to make to be right with you.”

As we prepare our hearts to respond, let me be clear with you: your salvation is not dependent on your ability to check off all the right boxes on this list.

In fact, the book of James tells us that even if you only committed one of the sins on this list, you would be just as guilty before God as if you had committed every single one.

God knew you and I could never obey him perfectly, which is why he sent his Son to die in our place and take the punishment for our bitterness, pride, jealousy, anger, wrong motives, idle words, and everything else listed on these sheets.

When he died, he took my idolatry and my hypocrisy and my unbelief and bore the punishment for my sin.

When he rose from the dead, he showed that my debt has been paid and now I can be covered by his righteousness so that positionally, when God looks at me, he see Jesus’ perfection that covers my imperfection.

Now, I want to run from these sins because I see what they cost the God who made me, and I know that he created me to honor him.

I strive to honor him, not to save myself, so when I sin, I let it break my heart. I acknowledge his faithfulness and agree that I was wrong. By his grace and for his glory, I make whatever changes I need to make to act like he really did transform me.