It Is Not My Fault

The evening’s sermon is trying to go in light of the lesson this morning. This evening sermon is entitled; It is Not My Fault. I came across this story which tells about the manager of a minor league baseball team who was so disgusted with the center fielder's performance he ordered him to the dugout and assume the position himself. The first ball the game in the center field took a bad hop and hit the manager in the mouth remember he's trying to show the player how to do it correctly. The next one was a high fly ball which he lost in the glare of the sun until it bounced off his forehead.
The third was a hard line drive that he charged with his outstretched arms. Unfortunately it flew between his arms and smacked him right in the eye. Furious he ran back to the dugout grabbed the center fielder by the uniform and shouted, “See what you have done. You've got centerfield so messed up that even I can't do a thing with it.” This attitude is all too often seen in the world around us which is what I believe the reason is that there are so many posters. When we look around we can often see posters that remind us of the following three ways to fail.
One complain about everything. Two blame others for your problems. Three never be grateful or it’s always easy to blame others.
You can spend your entire life blaming the world but your success or your failures are entirely your own responsibility.
Or when you blame and criticize others you are in essence avoiding some truth about yourself.
Picture Adam one day out hunting with his two boys and came up to the Garden of Eden where he and Eve had been kicked out for eating the forbidden fruit. I could picture Adam staring at the garden and one of his boys saying HEY DAD WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU WHY ARE YOU CRYING. Adam wiped a tear and says boys that is the Garden of Eden right there. That's where we used to live until your mother ate us out of house and home.
To cover the subject of right and wrong, of good and evil we must go way back to creation, back before the beginning of time. The first two verses of Genesis tells us that in the beginning our road was formless it was empty. It was dark. Then God stepped in and gave it shape. He gave shape to that formless. He filled the emptiness with life and brought light into the darkness. In other words God took the chaos and created order out of it. We know that the Bible records the days of creation. It tells us that God looked upon everything he had made and what did he say.
It is good but not everybody was happy. The Bible also tells us about Satan the angel of God who rebelled and because of that he was evicted from heaven and banished to Earth. Satan learned that he could not overcome God so Satan focused his attack on his next target mankind to whom God had given authority over the earth Satan's goal is to put chaos back into our world. It doesn't take a very acute observer to realize that he has been successful in many areas of our world today. You look around and you can see how confused we have become.
For instance there is confusion about the roles of men and women husband and wife, mother and father. We seem no longer sure what these roles should be. Young men young people are confused about their place in the family and are often in various stages of rebellion against the authority of their parents. The rise of homosexuality has even brought in more confusion. We’re confused about the value of life. Some transgenders nowadays are confused about what safe sex they are. Abortion tells us that life is really not all that valuable and that euthanasia will become the next thing the next big issue that will probably have to face in this country because we are no longer sure about the value of life.
Satan is bringing chaos into our lives. When we think about what Satan got for a few bites of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. You realize that he really got a lot it ruined the lives of Adam and Eve and got control of the world just for a couple bites of a forbidden fruit. Sounds ridiculous doesn't it. Long after the flavor of that fruit was forgotten Adam and Eve are still paying that price for the stupid decision they made. Satan depends upon us making unwise decisions also, does me?
It depends upon us having a distorted sense of value. He never really offers us very much and in exchange he wants everything from us. I would like to read from Joshua 7:19-20 A Achan traded his life for a wedge of gold, and a Babylonian garment. We know that Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of soup to satisfy his temporary hunger for one sensual moment with Bathsheba we know David opened himself up and his family to generations of misery. Satan is always doing things like the never offering much.
We think we're getting a great deal, a moment of pleasure, a little economic gain, the applause of the crowd maybe. In reaching for it we discover that we have given up everything. That is how Satan works and when that happens we try to find someone else to blame. In the third chapter of Genesis we see God coming back into the Garden of Eden following the temptation following the sin of Adam and Eve. Versus 8-13 tell us that the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool day and they hid from the Lord among the trees in the garden.
But the Lord called to them. Where are you? Adam answers, I heard you in the garden. I was afraid because I was naked. He asked, who told you that you were naked. Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from? What does the man say? The woman you put here with me she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it.
Then the Lord God said to the woman what is it that you have done? The woman said the serpent deceived me and I ate. If we listen closely, don't blame me says Adam. It wasn't my fault. It was the woman you gave me she enticed me the aid of the forbidden fruit. Eve don’t blame me. It was a serpent who turned from you and deceived me and I ate. Most of us when our sins are found out are what to look for a scapegoat, aren't we?
It wasn't my fault. It was someone or something else that caused me to become involved in this sin. Let's look this evening at some ways that we can use to blame someone else for our sins. That's just the way I am. That's how God made me. Have you ever heard someone say that? A man might have a violent temper. He says I can't help it that's just the way I am, but his whole family ends up suffering from the verbal abuse and maybe even the physical abuse. He says it's not my fault. He has a hurt wife. He has children who run for cover every time he loses his temper, but he says that's just the way I am. There's nothing that I can do about it.
God constantly reminds us that we are responsible for our own words. We are responsible for our own actions and we will be held accountable for that. We can't pass the buck by saying that's just the way I am. Sometimes we even use that excuse to justify being quiet about things.
Maybe you don't want to get involved. That's somebody else's problem. As long as they leave me alone, I'm fine with it. You stick out the lower lip and give them hurt look on your face and you go around thinking I'll show them. I won’t talk to them for the next three weeks. So you sit around and hope and hope that someone will notice that you aren't saying anything and you ask why you’re not going to say anything. When you finally do break the silence and someone to ask why you acted that way.
You answer I can help it. I was born that way. That's just the way I am. In other words don't blame me blame God. God gave me this personality. You just have to accept that this is the way I am.
At other times what do we say?
If you knew my family background my relationship with my mother or my father then you would know why I behave the way I do. My dad lost his temper all the time or my mother was always sulking. I'm just doing what they did. So don't blame me.
We oftentimes see in society and don't get me wrong I do feel sorry for individuals that have grown up maybe not knowing what a real family situation would look like not knowing the love of their mother or father could give them yet too often we look and try to blame society. We blame somebody else. We try to uncover and blame some dark family past too many times that becomes a scapegoat, an excuse for our own weaknesses and our bad decisions. The Bible doesn't allow us to give that kind of excuse, does it? It always says be responsible for yourself.
How many times have we said it's the people who surround us every day. I would gladly quit smoking but everyone else there smokes. I would gladly give up this bad habit but it's so tough because everybody around me is doing it. It's their fault not mine. I know that it's wrong to do such and such, but we know that we have to change the influence that we have from others. We have to change the temptation we have.
Then there’s the opposite because many would say well I wouldn't be tempted. I can go into those situations because you know when Howard says avoid all forms of evil. We can say that doesn’t apply to me. I can go in and do that and I won't be tempted.
We may be tempted. We conveniently find ourselves with something or someone else to blame in every situation. Jim Wright wrote an editorial in The Dallas Morning News some years ago about the Carter High School. It was about the championship football team which saw a number of its players arrested for committing robberies and other crimes. Those were young men with bright futures. Most of them could have gone on to college and played football. Some of them perhaps could have played professional football and made lots of money, but just for the fun of it they started robbing convenience stores and doing burglaries and things like that.
Jim Wright quoted that the quarterback of the team who said we did this to ourselves. No one made us hold up those stories. We can't blame anybody but ourselves.
Interesting, isn't it.
The author then wrote the thought that we have the freedom to choose our own paths and that having chosen we are responsible for our choice is a very large one. We don't hear it much in the public forums today. Nowadays it seems that the style is to look for ways to get the offender off the hook by finding somebody or something else to blame. Those who use the don't blame the accused route may seem to be guilty of nothing more than softheaded solitude for people in trouble, but if you look closely there is often something much more sinister and self serving underneath.
Later on he commented about the way we treat criminals and he used as an example the young man who picked up a submachine gun and shot 15 people. He wrote: Here is the public response. Aw poor guy. He shot down 15 people with a submachine gun, but remember he came from a poor socially economic background. He was the victim of a callous society. He felt the pain of being deprived for most of his life. He was bored by a life of meaningless changes and blah blah blah. Wright continues the thrust of such blah blah is that the unfortunate chap can hardly be blamed for his actions since he was only doing what he was compelled to do by outside forces over which he had no influence. The devil or something made him do it. So he cannot really be blamed.
I want you to notice that the Bible never teaches that the will can force us to sin.
The Bible teaches that the devil is a deceiver and then he received Eve in the third chapter of Genesis in the ninth chapter of the Gospel of John Verse 44. We are told that the Devil is the father of lies. He lies to us. He deceives us. He manipulates us and he attempts us. But why? Why does he deceive? Why does he tempt? Why does he manipulate. The answer is because he can't force. If he could force you to sin there would no way be any temptation that we could avoid. He would just force you to do it.
But he cannot force us to sin. We must choose. It must be a choice of ourselves. We know in James it talks about where this sin has come from. It comes from our own personal desires. You see nobody tied Eve down and forced to eat the forbidden fruit. Nobody forced you to take that first drink. Nobody forced us to be tempted by whatever temptation we have in our life. That forces us to sin. It's our choice. If it's our choice then we are responsible for our actions.
When we find that we can't blame the devil and we blame God.
After all God is responsible for everything, isn't he? He is the one who gave me the awful family that I have. He's the one who surrounded me with friends who have led me astray. He's the one who made it impossible for me to have the willpower to say no therefore all too often people say it is God's fault.
What does James say? God never tempts us. It's entirely up to us.
James 1 versus 12 through 15 tells us Blessed is the man who endures temptation. For when he has been approved he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love him. Let no man say that when he is tempted I am tempted by God for God cannot be tempted by evil nor does he himself tempt anyone. But each was tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires. And then he's enticed that with desire has conceived that gives birth to sin and sin when it is full grown brings forth death.
In Second Corinthians five verses nine and ten Paul says so we may get our goal to please him whether we are at home in the body or away from it. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body. Whether it is good or bad.
In other words God says I hold you accountable for your sins. Don't blame someone or something else you yourself personally I are accountable. That is the bad news. We also have good news. The Bible clearly teaches that Jesus Christ loved me that Jesus died for me and that his blood can cover my sin.
If I make the right choices the first step is being covered by the blood of Jesus. It is to accept responsibility for my own actions. As long as I try to find someone or something else to blame then I'll never come to grips with the fact that I am a sinner. I have to come to the place where I will pray God be merciful to me a sinner as Jesus used in the example of the two that went down to pray when we do that then God is anxious to hold us in his arms to cover us with his blood and to save us from our sins.
A man Donald Barnhouse tells of a time when a prairie fire swept across his father's land and burned everything the house the buildings the crops everything. Later on his dad was walking across the burned ground kicking this object and that. Finally came to a charred piece of something that looked like a stump from a tree. He kicked at it. When he did little baby chicks started running in all directions. He bent over to look and discovered that the charred lump was the old hen, Mama, who had covered her chickens to protect them from the fire. They were still alive, but in the process she had given her life for them. That is what mother chickens do.
That is what Jesus did for each one of us. Jesus said how often I would have gathered you under my wings but you would not come. He looked at the masses and said they are like sheep without a shepherd. If only they would come, but you see he will never force us to come. He is always available. We know Jesus said come to me all ye that labor and are heavy like I will give you rest.
We know that we are always welcome to come unto him. He will not turn anyone away. The song most everyone has learned when they were younger Jesus Loves Me This I know. Why? For the Bible Tells Me So little ones to him beyond they are weak but we know he is wrong. He is always available and right now he waits for you to open the door to invite him to come in.
We look at the words of the song picked this evening our song of invitation number 614. Look at the words who had my door is standing patiently drawing nigh entrance within demanding. Whose is the voice I hear? Door of my heart I hasten thee will I open wide though he rebuke and chasten He shall with me abide.
We are the only ones that can open that door. Jesus stands at the door waiting.
If there is anyone in need of the invitation this evening will you not come forward as together we stand and sing.