Your sin will find you out

“For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked” (Psalm 73:3, ESV).

I resonate with the psalmist on this one. Look at the success of cheaters, crooks, jerks, and corner-cutters. Such folks contributed to the financial collapse a few years ago. We see them in our workplaces too. It seems, though, that they are nowhere more prevalent than in sports.

Just before the start of the baseball season, Ervin Santana, signed by the Minnesota Twins to a $55 million contract, was suspended for 80 games because he tested positive to performance-enhancing drugs. A few days later, Jenrry Mejia, the closer for the New York Mets, received the same suspension for the same reason. How long have they been cheating? How much did it contribute to their baseball and financial success? Did they receive opportunities they didn’t rightly earn? These are all fair questions without clear answers.

“Be sure your sin will find you out” (Numbers 32:23, ESV).

This “rules don’t apply to me” approach can be far more serious than a few supplements and a competitive edge, though. On Wednesday, Aaron Hernandez, a former star tight end for the New England Patriots, was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole. It’s a different kind of story than that of players seeking to gain an unfair edge in a sport. Hernandez didn’t cheat at a game; he cheated at life. And he cheated another man out of his life.

How does someone get to this point? The short answer is that sin makes people stupid, and then stupid progresses to sinister. It takes reality and truth and turns it upside down. Lies become friends and confidants. We begin to believe that success is more important than ethics or kindness. We believe we are more important than anyone else, and then sin compounds itself to cover its tracks.

What Hernandez did should be seen as a horrific cautionary tale of what happens when someone falls too much in love with power, money, and himself. I don’t know precisely what conflicts and circumstances precipitated the murder, but I know that Hernandez had lived above the law even prior to his NFL career. His status as a great player freed him from being an upstanding person, gave him a sense of invincibility, and fed him a lie of deity—the sense that he was his own god.

Envying those who break God’s commands is foolish. Their gains may be great, but they cannot last. Yes, many cheaters never get caught. Some murderers go free. But even those who go through all of life without being caught will face reckoning in the end. We must remember that ill-gotten gains are actually losses and the more we dabble in sin the more it takes ownership of us. We must see God as sovereign, just, and good so that we’re able to hold to truth in the face of temptation and hope in the face of injustice.