The Faith's Foundations - Part 8: Sin

Introduction

There is no such thing as sin anymore.

The Barna Study, the American Worldview Inventory 2020:

• there is no absolute moral truth (58%);

• right and wrong is determined by factors other than the Bible (77%);

• people are basically good (69%)

“Christianity is the religion of the broken heart. . . . Christianity means that sin is faced once for all, and then is cast, by the grace of God, forever into the depths of the sea.” - Machen, J. Gresham. Christianity and Liberalism . Unknown. Kindle Edition.

“But although Christianity does not end with the broken heart, it does begin with the broken heart; it begins with the consciousness of sin. Without the consciousness of sin, the whole of the gospel will seem to be an idle tale.” - Machen, J. Gresham. Christianity and Liberalism . Unknown. Kindle Edition.

1. We Have a Divine Obligation

To God (Gen. 1:1)

Genesis 1:1 NASB95

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

(1) As Creator - God is the main character of Gen 1-3; God is the primary active agent - he creates, he forms, he designs

Who is this creator?

(2) Holy and Just (Isa 6:1-5; Ps 89:14)

Isaiah 6:1–5 NASB95

In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.” And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke. Then I said, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”

Psalm 89:14 NASB95

Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne; Lovingkindness and truth go before You.

God is not just loving

Nor can we focus merely upon his love

Significant point: We have relational obligation to him

Because we have an obligation to God, we have an obligation to his commands—to obey him . . .

To God’s Commands (Gen 2:15-17)

Genesis 2:15–17 NASB95

Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”

(1) His commands are good

Deuteronomy 10:10–13 ““I, moreover, stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights like the first time, and the Lord listened to me that time also; the Lord was not willing to destroy you. “Then the Lord said to me, ‘Arise, proceed on your journey ahead of the people, that they may go in and possess the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.’ “Now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require from you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and love Him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the Lord’s commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today for your good?”

(2) Sin is Contrary to God and His Commands

1 John 3:4 “Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.”

But sin is more than just contrary to God’s commands . . .

2. Sin is Rebellion Against Our Divine Obligation

Sin is not just breaking an abstract, impersonal list of do’s and don’ts on tablets of stone. It is rebellion first and foremost against God himself.

Rebellion Against God (Gen. 3:6-13)

Genesis 3:6–13 NASB95

When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” He said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.” And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

illustration: When a child disobeys a direct command - when I was a child and went to a friend’s house (4 wheeler story)

Rebellion Against our Created Nature

We were created to love God, each other, to manage creation (re: cultural mandate). We were created a particular way: to flourish, to be creative, have families.

It’s taking a screwdriver designed to drive screws into wood and driving it into a man’s heart.

It’s taking our hands designed to work with and wrapping them around another’s throat.

It’s taking our mouths designed to praise God with and spewing out lies, gossip, and slander.

It’s the taking of our conjugal aspects of our bodies designed for procreation and using them for self-gratification, corrupt pleasure, and misdirected passions.

Sin is a rebellion against our created souls and physical bodies designed for specific purposes; sin is the abuse of our created nature.

3. When We Fail to Fulfill the Divine Obligation, Death Reigns

Spiritually (Relationally) (Gen. 3:7, 16b)

To God: Genesis 3:7 “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.”

To Each Other: Genesis 3:16b “To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you.””

Penalty here: the key to understanding is to recognize that the word for “desire” is the same as found in Genesis 4:7 ““If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.””

Thus: The woman will desire to rule over her husband, but the fact remains that the husband will remain the spiritual head of his wife.

I.e., this is describing the battle of the sexes.

Physically (Gen. 3:16a, 19)

Genesis 3:16 “To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you.””

Genesis 3:19 “By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return.””

Universally (Gen. 3:17-18)

Genesis 3:17–18 “Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life. “Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field;”

Romans 8:19–22 “For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.”

4. What This Means for Us

Sin is the Problem

This is a foundational belief to the Christian Faith.

The problem with humanity is not lack of niceness, tolerance, or acceptance. It is not lack of education.It is not bad karma. It is not sexual repression. It is rebellion against God and his commands.

We MUST realize this or else there is no such thing as the Good News of Jesus Christ. What makes the message of Jesus dying for our sins and raising from the dead make sense and amazing is that it resolves the horrific problem of sin. If we have no problem, then no resolution is needed.

Problem: Much of the present American church has no use for sin. The message is merely about the love of God through Jesus Christ. It wants to give the solution with no problem that needs to be solved.

Over the past week, much of culture has spent time telling Christians how unloving they are for pointing out the sinfulness of Olympics opening ceremony. I will take it that this event did not escape your notice. Christians have been told to stop hating and quit judging. They’ve been told that Jesus would welcome anyone to his table. Jesus wouldn’t point out their sins; he would merely love them right into the kingdom. And much of this condemnation and judgment of Christians (!) came from Christian pastors.

“Modern preachers are trying to bring men into the Church without requiring them to relinquish their pride; they are trying to help men avoid the conviction of sin. The preacher gets up into the pulpit, opens the Bible, and addresses the congregation somewhat as follows: "You people are very good," he says; "you respond to every appeal that looks toward the welfare of the community. Now we have in the Bible--especially in the life of Jesus--something so good that we believe it is good enough even for you good people." Such is modern preaching. It is heard every Sunday in thousands of pulpits. But it is entirely futile.” - Machen, J. Gresham. Christianity and Liberalism

Reason why we no longer have the stomach to talk about sin:

“A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.” - H. Richard Niebuhr

Reason why we reject sin is because we have a faulty view of God as creator, holy, and just. Many have reduced God to a distorted view of love.

A viral post on social media from a Pastor: “Before you share an angry post, or shout at people that Jesus died for, think for a while, and ask yourself if He would do the same. To be honest, you already know the answer. He wouldn’t. He didn’t.”

Jesus:

Mark 1:15 “and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.””

Luke 5:32 ““I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.””

Luke 10:13 ““Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles had been performed in Tyre and Sidon which occurred in you, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.”

Luke 11:32 ““The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.”

Samaritan woman: John 4:16–18 “He said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.” The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.””

Jesus cleared the Temple

Luke 24:46–49 “and He said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. “You are witnesses of these things. “And behold, I am sending forth the promise of My Father upon you; but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.””

Going out on a limb here: A pastor who attempts to bring a person to the foot of the cross without the acknowledgement and repentance of sin is no pastor.

CS Lewis: “Fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms. Laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, realizing that you have been on the wrong track and getting ready to start life over again from the ground floor-that is the only way out of a "hole." This process of surrender-this movement full speed astern-is repentance.”

Sin is Serious

(1) Sin affects everything in the universe

It distorts and corrupts everything, including our desires, emotions, feelings, thoughts, reasoning, etc.

Not everything we feel or perceive is accurate. Much of the time it has been distorted by sin.

What we think about ourselves; how we think about ourselves can often be incorrect. The is esp relevant to the issue of our time: LGBTQ.

“Born this way” - Perhaps. All people are born with a corrupt physical nature due to the Fall.

“Think I am a woman inside a man’s body” - You may very well feel this way, but it does not follow that you are therefore a woman inside a man’s body. It means that the thoughts you have about yourself have been distorted by the Fall and sin.

Think of Solomon for a moment: 700 wives and 300 concubines.

Think of alcoholics - Born with a proclivity to drunkenness? Perhaps. But this does not mean that such behavior is ok. It means that their nature is corrupted by sin.

(2) It brings literal damning consequences

Romans 6:23a “For the wages of sin is death . . .”

Sin has a Remedy

Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Ephesians 2:8–10 “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”

Acts 2:38 “Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”