Responsibility

Thank you, Mr. Schauenberger. I think of all those, the last title is the one that's the most appropriate. I worked for years and years to become known in the church, and Connor arrived on the scene, and I turned invisible, except for being his dad, but I don't mind that. And I want to say, just mention how much I did enjoy the special music. I really appreciate all of you young people who put the effort into that, and it really was beautiful.

I remember my days in choir in college, and just what a special experience it is to join together with other people to make beautiful music. It's very uplifting and inspiring, so thank you for that. And they told me that lectern's a little rickety, so I've got to drink the water fast so I don't spill it all out.

But I want to thank the group here in Columbus that puts the prom on for giving me the high honor of inviting me to come and speak. I'm guessing now that they've been doing it four years, they were running out of people, but I still consider it an honor. And it's always a thrill to come back to my hometown. I was actually born in University Hospital here in Columbus and grew up, and have always considered Columbus to be my home, even though I love being in the southern Ohio now.

But it's always amazed me how the city changes. And even as we were about to pull in, pull off of Cleveland Avenue to come in here, we decided to stop at that McDonald's and get a cup of coffee. And I said, I don't think that McDonald's was here. Last time, the Columbus congregation used to meet just down the road in the old Masonic Hall, just past the Sirens Dance Club. I'd forgotten about that, so I saw the signs of it.

That brings back memories. Not for me going in, just from making jokes about the sign. Maybe I'd better get into the sermon. What I was going to say, though, is the city changes. And I remember when I was away at college, it seemed like every time I'd come back there'd be a new skyscraper or something like that.

The city seemed to just double in size. And in Columbus, you know, it's a city that's grown a lot in the latter half of the 20th century. It was also known as the city where they would test things. Sometimes it was called Test City, because it's, I guess, so mediocre. It'd be a good place to test products. There's one particular thing that was tested here.

People might not know it, but most of you probably drove part of I-270 coming here. It's almost impossible not to. And we circled halfway around the city. And around much of I-270, you see these sound abatement walls.

You know, those little, those walls they build up to keep the sound near the freeway and protect the homes. Well, one of the first that was ever built anywhere was actually built along I-270 right across from the airport near Guiana. Some of you that aren't from this area drove past and you saw the roadside for Guiana. I've had people say, was that Guiana? No, no, Guiana. It's different. But I remember when that, that it was about 35 years ago that wall went up for the first time. You almost can't see it now because there's so many trees and shrubs in front of it.

But when it was brand new, and at the time I was about 14, 15 years old, you know, none of us had seen something like that before. Wow, there's this big, blank concrete wall. And as soon as it was up, it immediately sprouted all sorts of very colorful graffiti, just like the April flowers sprout out from nowhere.

Now, I hope you don't mind me reminiscing. I'm going to tie this together. It's just interesting when I think back to those days, you know, when I was a teenager here, and I see Arne Hoffman looking at me, she's going to laugh through part of this. You know, I never dreamed I would have been up here doing this. And to be honest, especially back then, you know, 35 years ago, I was, well, I would have described myself using nice terms now as being one of those kids that were a little bit socially awkward.

You know, we all go through phases where we're trying to find our way. How do I fit? What can I do to find my own thing? And when I was about 14, maybe 15, me and some of my friends thought we had found it, partly by just having our own slogan.

We developed this word that we thought was our own word. It was cool sounding. Now, some of the longtime Columbus members might cringe when I say this. You haven't heard it probably that long, but that word was mow. Mow? Yeah, M-O-W. We thought that was so cool. Now, I know I've since then looked in the dictionary and thought, it is an actual word.

It means a big pile of hay or straw. Now, we ignored that. We were like, hey, we say mow. We're cool. And during that time, my older sister would not be seen in public with me. Is that your little brother? No, I don't know who that guy is. My mom was on the verge of that.

And I looked back, a lot of people thought, hey, those guys are being silly. And when I got older, I thought, yeah, that was kind of a goofy thing. But just about everybody in the Columbus congregation in those days knew which of those weird teenage guys liked to go around saying, mow. We're a mow. Now, if you wonder why in the world I'm telling you this story, it's partly so you'll understand the next story that I'm leading up to.

And believe it or not, that's going to work towards a point. But this next story was, as I said, about 35 years ago, I was 15 and about to turn 16. Turning 16 is a pretty big deal. Back then, you couldn't get your learner's pyramid to drive until you were 16. When I was going to be 16, I'd be able to drive. I could get a part-time job. So one of my friends and I decided, we need to do something special to celebrate that birthday. Hmm. What could we do?

What would really stand out? Well, you know there's that new wall by the freeway in Guiana. What about if we go out there and we put our own colorful graffiti on there? That'd be a really cool way to celebrate turning 16. So we decided to do it. On my birthday, we went out and had hamburgers at McDonald's, and then we're going ninja-style.

We dress in black clothes. He dims the headlights of his car as we pull off the side of the road and park where there's no lights. And we sneak up there, red spray paint. And what are we going to paint? M-O-W. And letters this big. And of course, then our names. And the names of our friends.

Well, only first names. We didn't want to get in trouble. Yeah, right. Well, what I remember about this is the next Sabbath. This is back in the old Medina of middle school days. After services, we're out in the lobby, and one of the deacons comes up. I don't remember which one, but... And me and my friend right there said, Excuse me, boys.

Mr. Dick would like to speak with you. Uh-oh. What I didn't know then, but it was soon explained to me, is that Mr. Dick, who was the pastor here at that time, drove down that stretch of highway just about every day. And the way he said it, he drove by and he looked and he said, That's us! And this is where I'm getting to the point of it all. It didn't take him long to explain to us that, you know, you facing public property and breaking the law is not proper behavior.

And for all of you who might think that that was a cool story, no, it's not okay to do that. I'm not telling you this story to encourage you to go do likewise. But it's interesting, he made that point, explained to us, bad behavior, don't do that anymore. But then he said, I'm not going to give you any other punishment.

What I want is for you to fix it. Get that off of the wall. I don't care how you have to do it. If you have to call the local sheriff, work with the local police, go downtown and talk to the people in the State Highway Department.

But you did this and you need to take care of it. You need to take responsibility for what you did. Get it undone. So with the amount of time I've spent talking about this, you might think, and you would be right, this made a pretty good impact on me. Mr. Dick, whether he was intending it or not, was teaching me an important lesson about responsibility. There's a lot of meaning in that word.

You know, we talk often about taking responsibility, about accepting responsibility, about being a responsible person. And I do want to talk about these things today. You know, responsibility can apply to small situations, like when I make Connor pick up the toys that he leaves laying all over the living room floor. Actually, usually it's my wife Sue who makes them pick them up.

But it extends to the biggest part of God's plan for salvation. So now I want to give you a little insight into some of the process I went through writing this, because I remember thinking, okay, I've got this idea for a sermon. You know, I'm going to tell these stories about myself that hopefully will be a little bit entertaining. I've got a big point at the end. Now how do I get from one to the other? Got to fill in between. You know, responsibility is a good subject, but I thought, you know, I did want to get up here and say, little kids need to learn to be responsible.

Be responsible. For one thing, a lot of you stop listening. And the other thing is, it's not something just for young people. All of us, adults, old folks, ministers, we need to learn to be responsible. We need to exercise responsibility. It's not for me to drum into the heads of the teens. And believe me, one of the things I've talked about with some of your parents and other people, we appreciate how responsible you already are.

You know, compared to the 70s when Mr. Schallenberger and I were the teens in the church, as he said, we've got a lot more hope for our future now than back when it was us. So I thought, well, what are you going to put in between? Well, some good stories come to mind. People like stories. The Bible's got a lot of good stories that illustrate responsibility. And as I thought about some of those I might use, well, they illustrate different aspects of the word.

It can be used in more than one way. Okay, Frank, now you've got to go and do that sort of dry speaking technique where you explain your terms. And on one of my shelves at home in my office, I've got this Webster's New Universal On A Bridge Dictionary. Normal book size, except it's this thick. It weighs like 20 pounds. And it's got seven different definitions for the word responsibility. I'm not going to read all seven. They overlap a fair bit. But I found three different ways to talk about responsibility that I think are important to realize.

One says that being responsible means being accountable for something that happens. It's fake that when something's negative, you take the heat. You have to own up, accept and live with the results. That's where we tend to talk about taking responsibility.

That was me at 16 in regards of spray-painting that wall. You know, I had to take responsibility. I had to bear the burden for making things right. A Scripture that comes to mind I'm not going to turn to because it says it so briefly, but in Galatians 6 and verse 7, it says, Whatever a man sows, that he also will reap. We use other cliches these days. If you want to dance, you have to pay the band.

I've got a brother-in-law who likes to say, If you mess with the bull, you're going to get the horns. I could go along with cliches all day, but let's move to the second definition. Another one is, responsible means taking on the care and concern for something. Making sure that something is okay or that it happens properly. And bearing the implications of what happens if it doesn't.

That's where we'll tend to talk about accepting responsibility. There's a really good example, I think, in the Bible in the book of Genesis. If you remember, of course, Joseph was sold into slavery and ended up in Egypt and worked for Potiphar, then he was in prison, then he becomes prime minister of the country. And in the meanwhile, all of his brothers start experiencing a famine. And, you know, Papa Jacob says, You guys got to go down and get us some food. And they go down once to bring back a year's supply, but they have a difficult time.

He says it's time to go again. And if you want to turn to Genesis 43, we're going to read part of this. He wants them to go down and get some more food, but they say, We can't go unless our youngest brother Benjamin goes with us. And he says, Yeah, right. Last time I let my second youngest son go out somewhere, he never came back.

I don't want Benjamin to go. Let's start reading in verse 8. Genesis 43 and verse 8. Then Judah said to Israel his father, Send the lad with me, and we'll arise and go, that we may live and not die, both we and you and also our little ones. And here Judah says, I myself will be surety for him. From my hand you'll require him.

If I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, then let me bear the blame forever. Judah was offering to take responsibility for his younger brother. Now, I want to mention one more definition that it's related to these others, and it's a little bit different, and it's a little more technical.

The third definition is being responsible means being able to discharge a debt or obligation. That's the person who's in a position of responsibility. One of the best ways I can give an illustration for this is something many of us have been in this situation before, and I'll give the illustration, once again, referring to Connor, since if you haven't met him, he's over here somewhere having a snack, but you'll see him running around later.

Down there in southern Ohio, we only live a couple miles from a Walmart, and Connor loves to go to Walmart, because you know what Walmart has? Toys. They have a lot of other things, but he likes to go look at the toys.

Now, he's not content to just look at the toys. Some of them you've got to pick up and you've got to try out, which is natural. But just say he's trying out one of these toys and it breaks. Uh-oh. Now, by our first definition, he's responsible. He took an action and he's responsible, but you know who the store manager's going to look at? Me. I'm his dad. I'm in a position of being fiscally responsible for what my son does. I'm in a position to be able to discharge that debt.

So I'm fiscally and morally responsible. I'm just hoping it was one of those really cheap toys that only cost a couple bucks. Now, just to plant a question, it's worth asking, how far can that responsibility go? Can I take responsibility for everything Connor ever does? Keep that in mind. We'll come back to that. But we can also see a biblical example of this when David met Abigail.

King David, he's anointed, but when he meets Abigail, he's not on the throne yet. We're going to turn to 1st Samuel, Chapter 25. If you remember, after David was anointed king, the current king, Saul, wasn't real happy about that.

And David is forced to go on the run, and he's hiding out and has a lot of interesting adventures. And during part of this time, he had some of his men stand guard for a wealthy landowner who has a lot of livestock named Nabal. And all through the season where the sheep are grazing the sheep and the cattle and the goats, David's men are out there protecting Nabal's lives. Nabal is livestock from any harm, from any marauders or anything like that. And doing a very valuable service just...well, from the good of their heart. But, you know, when shearing time comes, David sends some of his men, saying, let's go ask Nabal for a contribution, because we've done him a very valuable service.

But as you might remember, I'm summarizing the story so I can get to the responsibility part. Nabal wasn't interested in contributing to the cause. Not only did he send them away empty, he insulted them very badly and insulted David. When David got word of this, he was angry. How dare he talk about us like that? How dare he refuse to contribute?

So he decided he was going to go back and punish Nabal. And, you know, Nabal, you could say, had kind of earned that. But Nabal had a wife named Abigail who was smart and who was willing to take responsibility. We're going to pick up in 1st Samuel 25 and read in verse 23.

She brings a payment to give to David to sort of pay off his debts that her husband had incurred. Now, when Abigail saw David, she dismounted quickly from the donkey, fell on her face before David, and bowed down to the ground. So she fell at his feet and said, On me, my lord, let this iniquity be, and please let your maidservant speak in your ears and hear the words of your maidservant.

I'm not going to continue there. Suffice to say, David did listen to her, and he accepted Abigail taking responsibility for her husband. As Nabal's wife, she was in a position of responsibility where she could discharge his obligation. I think we might say not just anybody could do that. As I said, I want to come back to that principle later, because it's worth considering how much can a person assume responsibility for another. But before that, I want to look at another story from King David's life that I really like for how it shows responsibility in more than one way. This is at the end of 2 Samuel.

So we've been near the end of 1 Samuel. If we go to 2 Samuel 24, we're going to read a little bit more of this story. This is, of course, as you can guess, it's a whole book later. King David is now on the throne. He's been ruling for a while. David gives us so many good examples, partly because the Bible tells us so much about his life. A lot of what he did and said is recorded. And David made some big mistakes. And learned from those mistakes. The saying often goes, David sinned greatly and he repented greatly. Let's turn to this chapter, 2 Samuel 24.

As I said, when David repented, he took responsibility for what he did. Well, I'm going to begin in verse 2. Does the king, that is David, said to Joab, the commander of the army, who was with him, now go throughout all the tribes of Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, and count the people, that I may know the number of the people.

And Joab said to the king, Now may the eternal your God add to the people a hundred times more than there are. And may the eyes of the Lord my king see it, but why does my Lord the king desire this thing? He said, Why do you want to do that for? And it's important, the reason Joab was asking this. You can look all through the Bible and you won't find anywhere that it says, it's a sin to count people. Now, counting isn't a bad thing, but maybe the why David was doing it was sinful.

Matter of fact, I'm fairly certain that's the case. We tend to think, you know, David had fought a lot of wars. He had a fair bit of success. He had built up Israel into a strong military power. And perhaps because of his success and because of that power, he'd begun trusting the military power. He'd begun trusting the number of soldiers he had more than God who had actually built up the glory and strength of Israel.

And David needed to remember God and God alone had made Israel strong. Here, it seems David had lost sight of that. He'd lost sight of the fact that God was responsible for his success, not he and not the size of his army.

But as we see in verse 4, The king's word prevailed against Joab and against the captains of the army. So Joab and the captains of the army went out and from the presence of the king to count the people of Israel. And I'll skip over some verses because it says they traveled. They went over to Gilead. They went up north. They went down south. They probably set up camp and counted, and there were a lot of men. But by the time it was all done and they handed the figures to David, he'd realized the mistake that he'd made.

And he owned up to it. Let's look in verse 10.

David's heart condemned him after he'd numbered the people. So David said to the Lord, I've sinned greatly in what I've done, but now I pray, O eternal, take away the iniquity of your servant, for I've done very foolishly.

Now we know that God is merciful. God forgives. First John 1 verse 9 tells us, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins. Now David did confess, but it's worth noting, God is also a God of responsibility.

With Him, and in the universe that He created that fits with His way of doing things, there's always a cause and effect.

What a person reaps! No, what a person sows He must reap. That doesn't mean that there is not forgiveness. God is always forgiven.

But, He does sometimes allow us to feel the effects of sin.

He lets us learn sin has consequences. To put it in two words, sin hurts.

God was going to make sure David learned that lesson this time. We'll continue in verse 11.

When David arose in the morning, the word of the Eternal came to the prophet Gad, David's fear, saying, Go tell David, thus says the Eternal. I offer you three things. Yeah, three. Choose one of them for yourself, so I may do it for you.

So Gad came to David and said to him, Shall there be seven years of famine come on your land? Or shall you flee three months before your enemies while they pursue you?

Or shall there be three days' plague in your land? Now consider and see what answer I should take back to him who sent me. David gave a very smart answer. He said to Gad, I'm in great distress. Please let us fall in the hand of the Eternal. His mercies are great. Don't let me fall in the hand of man. In other words, whatever punishment would involve human beings, men aren't very merciful. God always is. Now some people might ask, well, why is God going to punish the whole nation? David's the one who sinned.

In fact, David himself asked that question. If you look down at verse 17, David spoke, we saw the angel, and said, Surely I've sinned. I've done wickedly. What have these sheep done? Let your hand be against me and against my father's house. So there's that question out there. I personally believe what happened was because David was king of the nation, in a sense, his sin was an official act of government.

When David became king, he accepted responsibility for the whole nation. In that position of responsibility, when he made good decisions, all the people benefited, even though some of those people weren't necessarily very good themselves. When David made bad decisions, the whole nation would tend to suffer, even some individuals who might be pretty good people. David was in a position of great responsibility. But I want to note something here. This is, I think, an important factor for us to keep in mind.

The result of responsibility can go both ways. When the people overall did good and served their God, whoever was ruler at the time would tend to benefit from that. When the general populace was being wicked and serving false gods and breaking the Sabbath, whoever happened to be king would tend to suffer. He was in a position of responsibility. He would tend to share in what the people were sowing and reaping. So in this case, David's sin, his sin as king, brought national results.

And we'll see in verse 15. So the eternal sent a plague on Israel. From the morning till the appointed time, all the way from Dan to Beersheba, 70,000 men of the people died. When the angel stretched out his hand over Jerusalem to destroy it, the eternal relented from the destruction and said to the angel who was destroying the people, It's enough. Now restrain your hand.

The angel of the eternal was by the threshing floor of Arana the Jebusite. And I've been struggling with how to pronounce his name. I think it's Arana. I wish they just named him Bob the Jebusite. Or Barzilii. I like saying Barzilii. But notice, God, as David predicted, God was merciful. At this point, God became willing to accept a different consequence, a sacrifice for the people instead of the deaths of the people.

And we see that in verse 18. God came that day to David and said to him, Go up erect an altar to the eternal on the threshing floor of Arana the Jebusite. So David did, according to the word of God. He went up as the Lord commanded. And Arana looked and saw the king and the servants coming towards him. And he went out and bowed before the king.

I can imagine he's out there just working, doing some threshing. And next thing you know, the king's coming. Sort of like if I was out mowing my lawn and suddenly the President and all the secret service agents come walking up, I'd probably say, Hey, what's going on? And verse 21 Arana said, Well, why has my Lord the king come to his servant? David said, Well, to buy the threshing floor from you, to build an altar to the eternal, that the plague may be withdrawn from the people. David made clear what he needed to do. Now, Arana seems to have been a civic-minded person.

He wanted the plague to stop, too. And he was an overall good guy. We'll see that he offered to give whatever was needed. I'm guessing he must have been a pretty well-off guy, too. In verse 22 Arana said to David, Let my Lord the king take and offer whatever seems good to him. Look, here's oxen for the birth sacrifice. Here's threshing implements, the yoke of the oxen for wood. All these, O king, Arana had given to the king. And Arana said, May the Lord your God accept you.

So he said, I'll give it to you. That sounds great. But David understood his responsibility. He had done the sin, not Arana. He was king. Arana was not the king. So David was responsible for bringing that plague on Israel. He had the responsibility to offer the sacrifice that would end it. So in verse 24 the king said to Arana, No, I'll surely buy it from you for a price.

I won't offer burnt offering to the Lord my God with that which cost me nothing. So David bought the threshing's Lord. He bought the oxen and all the instruments. He bought them for fifty shekels of silver. And there he built an altar to the eternal and offered burnt offerings, peace offerings, and the eternal heeded the prayers for the land and the plague was withdrawn. And we know history and tradition tell us that that very threshing floor was where later the temple would be built. A lot of times we see this incident as an interesting side story of David's life and reign.

It's certainly not as dramatic and as colorful as his sin with Bathsheba and Uriah the Hittite. And the repentance that we read up here isn't as powerful and poetic as what we read in Psalm 51. But there's some good lessons here about responsibility. David had to take responsibility for what he had done wrong. He was responsible for the people he ruled. And he had to learn the lesson that they would suffer when he did wrong. And as I said, I think it's worth us remembering that a ruler, a person in a position of responsibility, might also suffer when the people under him do bad, do wrong. With that in mind, I want to consider something David wrote in Psalm 51. If you'll turn with me there. Oh, Jerry, you're going to be happy. I think I'm going to be done before four o'clock. I might have just put a curse on it. Folks and Portsmouth, no, it's not a good thing when I say I'll end early. I should have kept my mouth shut. But let's go to Psalm 51. As I said, I know this is writing about a different sin, but I think we'll see an important principle here that's related to the ultimate in responsibility. Psalm 51, verse 1, Have mercy on me, O God, according to your loving-kindness, according to the multitude of your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, cleanse me from my sin. This is heartfelt, and this is something that should be our feeling whenever we truly repent. For I acknowledge my transgressions. My sin is always before me. Against you. You only have I sinned and done evil in your sight. I'm going to stop there because that's always arrested my attention when I read that. Against you and you only? I've always wondered if Uriah might question that. Or even Bathsheba. David lured her into committing adultery. And back there, Uriah, he basically murdered. They might have felt that David sinned against them. And I would say he did. But I think the explanation for how David could have possibly written something like this has a lot to do with responsibility. We all. You, me, everyone who has ever lived. We're God's property. We, He made us. We belong to Him. In 1 Corinthians 6, it says, we're bought with a price. We're not our own. Not applied to Bathsheba and Uriah. When David harmed them, he sinned against God because they belonged to Him. And as I said here, I want to follow that chain of responsibility all the way up to the ultimate responsibility. I asked earlier, how much, how far, can one person go in assuming responsibility for another person?

In a sense, I think we could consider David's relationship to the nation of Israel as a model for God's relationship to all of mankind. Now, God didn't accept responsibility from any higher power. He created us. So He gave Himself responsibility for all of us. He's in the position of King and we're His subjects. And since He's the ruler of the universe, when He does something good, we all benefit.

And I like that. I've often thought, because like many of you all bet, I like to eat. And God didn't have to make food taste good. The first time I heard a minister say that, I said, huh, He could have made everything taste like cardboard.

But He didn't. He made some things taste like lasagna. And He made, well, I'm not sure if He made ice cream, but He made all the ingredients, and He gave us taste buds. God did something very good, and all of us benefit from that. He did a good thing when He created mankind and made them male and female. I think later tonight, many of you are going to get dressed up in really nice clothes, and we're going to appreciate the good that God did in making male and female, and us to appreciate the different features and how they're attractive to us.

We all benefit when He does something good. And the great thing is He never does anything bad. We never suffer because God did something wrong. He never does anything wrong. But we do. Remember that making that point about responsibility, that it can transfer benefit or suffering both ways. And also, that odd definition that I gave, that third definition about a person that's in a position of responsibility could be one who's able to pay a debt or to discharge an obligation. You know, I mentioned if Connor breaks a toy when we're looking at the toys in Walmart, I'm in that fiscal position of responsibility to pay for that.

Another person could offer, but they're not responsible. I am. Just like when David went to offer sacrifice on Arana's threshing floor, Arana said, well, I'll give it to you. He said, no, it wasn't your sin. It's mine.

I need to buy these things from you. It was David's responsibility. David had to pay. After I wrote that down, I wrote another note that said, well, wait a minute. There's some confusion here because, you know, David didn't die for that sin. Who died there on the threshing floor? Well, the oxen did. David didn't die. He paid money for animals and sacrificed them.

Did he transfer his responsibility to the oxen? Well, maybe in one sense, but only temporarily. Because I want to make the point when it comes to the ultimate responsibility, that can't be transferred from one person to another. Not humanly speaking. God would explain that to Moses, or I should say He did explain it many years ago, when Moses tried to take permanent responsibility for the people of Israel whom he was leading.

Remember, after he led them out of Egypt, they went through the wilderness, were introduced to manna and water out of a rock, and Moses went up on Mount Sinai because God told him, come on up here. I've got some stuff to tell you. I'm sure He didn't say it in those words, but... And once he was gone long enough, the children of Israel came to Aaron and said, hey, we don't know what happened to Moses. Can you make us some gods to worship? Give me your earrings. I'll see what I can do.

They just golden calf. Moses... Well, God set Moses down, and you know the story. Moses was pretty hot. He ground up the calf, put it in the water, and said, now you drink it. But Moses wasn't the only one that was angry. God was pretty angry. Moses realized these people had all earned the death penalty, and Moses did something that's very unusual. He offered to take responsibility. And I don't mean temporarily. I mean permanently. And I've been saying all this. Let's turn to Exodus 32. I'm building up to where he actually offers this, and God gives him an interesting answer.

So Moses goes up there after this great sin. Exodus 32, and we'll begin reading in verse 31. Just a couple of verses. Exodus 32, verse 31. So Moses returned to the eternal, and he said, Oh, these people have committed a great sin, and they've made for themselves the God of gold. Yet now, if you will, forgive their sin.

But if not, I pray, blot me out of your book, which you've written. What book do you think he's talking about? I think he's talking about the book of life. I think Moses was saying, I'll give up my eternal life if you'll forgive them. And God answered, The eternal said to Moses, Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book. Moses offered to give up his life, perhaps his eternal life, to pay for the sins of others.

But God said, No, that won't work. Each person who sins is responsible. He or she will have to pay for his or her own sin. No substitutes. At least not among humans. That matches also what God said in Ezekiel 18. Let's turn to Ezekiel 18 and verse 20. Ezekiel 18 and 20, this is one of the first memory scriptures that I ever put in my memory. Basically because it explains to us that we don't have an immortal soul, that we are a soul.

But you can go beyond that to learn something about responsibility. Ezekiel 18 and verse 20, I would help if I actually turn to that verse. The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be on himself. The wickedness of the wicked shall be on himself. Okay, that's pretty clear. But again, I want to stop because in some senses it seems like I might be contradicting myself.

Because I've already said that how I as a father am responsible for Connor, and in that position of responsibility I pay for things he breaks. But where the difference comes is I can't die for him to have eternal life. I can't substitute for him. Just like King David was responsible for Israel, and the nation suffered or prospered because of what he did, and he suffered or prospered sometimes because of what the nation did. But God told Moses, whoever sins will be blotted out of my book.

And here he says, the soul that sins shall die. When it comes to eternal life, if there can be no transfer of responsibility for eternal life, then that means we all have to die, eternally. We all have to pay our own debt. Because according to Scripture, a couple other memory Scriptures, Romans 3.23 says, all of us have sins. Romans 6.23 says, the penalty for that sin is death. That's part of one more memory Scripture, Hebrews 9.27.

It's appointed for all of us to die once. After that comes a judgment. This is sounding pretty bleak at this point. All of us have sinned. We can't be redeemed by anyone else. We all have to die. Well, wait a minute. Don't we teach that we can be saved from our sins without having to die and stay dead? Don't we teach that we can have eternal life because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ? Yes. Yes, we do teach that. And that's a pretty nifty thing to understand.

Only His sacrifice could do that. He is the only one, not the sacrifice of animals, not the sacrifice of any other person. Turn with me to Hebrews 10, if you will. Hebrews 10, I want to read verse 4. I hope no one will mind. I've been telling stories and reading stories really to make a very simple basic point. But it's a simple basic point that is at the heart of our belief and at the heart of our hope for eternal life. Hebrews 10 and verse 4 basically says the point I've been making.

It's not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins. They can't. But a different sacrifice could. Move ahead in the chapter to verse 10. Hebrews 10 and verse 10. And by that will, we've been sanctified through the offerings of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all.

Every priest stands ministering the daily offering repeatedly the same sacrifices which can never take away sin. Those sacrifices, even the oxen that David sacrificed on Arona, the Jebusite threshing for. I'm starting to catch on to saying that name. Still not as good as Barzillii, but even those oxen, that didn't take away sin. The only thing that could take away sin is as we see in verse 12. But this man, Jesus Christ, after he'd offered one sacrifice, four sins forever sat down at the right hand of God. That sacrifice can pay for our sins. It's put in a simpler way. I won't turn there, but 1 John 1 verse 7 says simply, The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sins.

Why could Jesus Christ take responsibility for our sins and pay the price when no one else could? Have you ever thought about that? There are two things that I think of. One is very obvious, and we always say, and that's the one we're certain of, because it's certainly in Scripture. Jesus Christ lived a perfect life. He never sinned. Never at all. He didn't have to pay for any sin of his own. There was no death penalty coming to him. So he could substitute for other people in a way Moses could not. Moses offered to do it.

God said, no, you've got to die for your own sin. Well, you would have to accept there's someone else who can do it. I believe that Jesus was also perhaps able to pay because he was already in a position of ultimate responsibility. Let's look at John 1. John 1, verse 1. The well-known passage of Scripture. I want to keep reading all the way through verse 3. John 1, 1 says, In the beginning was the Word. We would know Him later as Jesus Christ. But the Word was with God. The Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him.

Without Him, nothing was made that was made. He's the One that did all the making. Ephesians 3, verse 9 says that God created all things through Jesus Christ. So God the Father is involved in the creation, but Jesus Christ, the One who became Jesus Christ, was the Word. He did it. I sometimes wondered why. Was God the Father just didn't want to get up off the couch and help with doing that work? No. He wasn't lazy. He wasn't tired.

My personal guess, and the Scripture doesn't specifically say this. I'll say this is my personal guess. But I think God the Father and the Word, who became Jesus Christ later, deliberately planned and did it this way. So that Jesus Christ was in that position of responsibility. He said, these people's sins, well, they belong to me. I made them. I can step in and take responsibility for any sin they commit because, you know, they're mine. They came from me. I made them. As I said, the Word, Jesus Christ made us all.

He made everything. He could take responsibility for our sins in a way that no one else could. Jesus Christ was the one who could be the Passover sacrifice. And of course, this time of year, that's an important lesson. He was perfect. He was, you know, that those lambs without blemish were symbols of Him. He had no blemish, no penalty of His own to pay.

So He could substitute for those who did and substitute for all of us because He was responsible. He put us here. He willingly took responsibility. He took responsibility for my sins, you know, for your sins and for everybody's sins. Now, of course, there's a whole other sermon I could talk about, the fact that we need to repent. We have to go to God and change our ways and ask Him to apply that sacrifice. But I wanted to make the point that we're able to do that because He took that ultimate responsibility.

And I say, hmm, did I really go all the way from talking about a goofy 16-year-old getting in trouble for spray painting graffiti to talking about the creator of the universe sacrificing himself to pay for my sins? Well, I connected those two with that one concept, responsibility. It's an important concept. As I said, it applies to small things and to big things. And, according to me, I never did tell you what I did about the paint, did I? You might not be interested, but remember how we were the spray-painting ninjas wearing our dark clothing and sneaking out at night?

When it came to getting it off, I just bought a big thing of gray paint, drove out in the middle of rush hour traffic, just walked up and started painting. That's funny. We were so secretive, and nobody cared. I was there painting away. Nobody said, boo, state troopers drive by, hey, how you doing? Well, actually, that didn't happen, but I imagined it because I did learn an important lesson about responsibility in that incident.

As I said, learning about responsibility leads us to see how important it is. As we mature and as we grow, we should all turn into more and more responsible people. Because when we do that, we become more like God. Our God, both God the Father and God the Son, Jesus Christ, God is a God of love, of power, of mercy that never fails.

We could also add that He is the God who is willing to take responsibility.