Willful Sin

What is Sin?

Before we go into everything today I want to make sure we are all on the same page about some things.

1st are we all sinners? - Yes

2nd was Jesus sinless? - Yes

3rd can we live a sinless life? - No

4th is anything that comes between us and our relationship with God a sin? - Yes

5th and final, but for this one I want you to just think about it. Does Jesus’ sacrifice and grace for which we are saved excuse our future sin?

My first question was “are we all sinners?”, the bible makes this clear both in the old and the new testament.

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

Ecclesiastes 7:20 “For there is not a just man on earth who does good And does not sin.”

Psalm 51:5 “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.”

Galatians 3:22 “But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.”

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

Proverbs 20:9 “Who can say, “I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin”?”

1 John 1:8–10 “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.”

There is no doubt that we are all sinners, we have all done something at some point to separate ourselves from God. Which is why we need Jesus, without Jesus we are all condemned to Hell. Without Jesus we are hopeless, without Jesus our hopes for heaven are all but lost.

But what about the laws? Couldn’t we have followed the laws unto which we could find salvation?

Well in total there are 613 laws, I’m just going to read some and you tell me if you have faltered at all.

Exodus 20:12 ““Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.”

If you have ever dishonored your parents you have disobeyed the laws

Leviticus 19:17–18 “‘You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.”

Leviticus 11 talks about unclean foods which.

Deuteronomy 23:23 “That which has gone from your lips you shall keep and perform, for you voluntarily vowed to the Lord your God what you have promised with your mouth.”

That means anytime you don’t keep your word, you are disobeying the law and God.

Deuteronomy 22:5 ““A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment, for all who do so are an abomination to the Lord your God.”

The list of all of the laws is a long one, when we read through all of them, it is very clear that we have all missed the mark on some of them at some point and according to James 2:10-11 that is all it takes.

James 2:10–11 “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.”

This is why we need Jesus.

2 Corinthians 5:21 “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

Jesus is our way to salvation, He carries the truth of which we should live, and through Him we may have life. The Way, the Truth and the Life

But Jesus’s life is not an excuse, it is not an excuse for us to live unrighteously, it is not an excuse for us to sit back, relax and live in contentment with our sinfulness.

Types of Sin

When you truly give your life over to Jesus, His grace lives within you and that grace is powerful. Through His grace and the Holy Spirit we have strength to live righteously. Living righteously means to completely turn away from sin. But there is different types of sin. Willful and Unwillful.

Unwillful sin is sin we stumble into unintentionally, such as seeing something on a magazine at checkout in a store that we shouldn’t see. When that happens we look away and repent for the inadvertent sin we committed and wish we could undo what we never intended to do.

Willful sin on the other hand is something we chose to do, it is something that we are accountable to when we know the truth that is Christ Jesus.

Hebrews 10:26–29 “For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?”

This is why Jesus said take up your cross and follow Him. When we claim the name of Christ as our savior we are to live as He lived, walk as He walked and through the power of His grace we can achieve this.

Romans 6:1–14 “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.”

Jesus fulfilled the law so that we might be saved through Him. But He didn’t do away with it and the purpose of the laws are still relevant today. Understanding them will help you live a Godlier life. Understanding them will help you to live more like Jesus which ultimately is every Christians goal.

Turning away from willful sin is what Jesus expects us to do and He has equipped us to overcome all of them.

1 Corinthians 10:13 “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.”

Choosing to abide in willful sin is a decision to ignore the commandments Jesus said to keep and is a practice of lawlessness.

1 John 3:4–10 “Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin. Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him. Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God. In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.”

Whether you are living righteously or not is between you and God. You are accountable for your actions if you know the truth, and the results of your decisions will be reflected on your life.

Blessings and Curses

It is reflected in everything around both in blessings and curses.

If your obey God in your life He will bless you.

Deuteronomy 28:1–14 ““Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your God: “Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country. “Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks. “Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. “Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. “The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face; they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. “The Lord will command the blessing on you in your storehouses and in all to which you set your hand, and He will bless you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you. “The Lord will establish you as a holy people to Himself, just as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in His ways. Then all peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of you. And the Lord will grant you plenty of goods, in the fruit of your body, in the increase of your livestock, and in the produce of your ground, in the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers to give you. The Lord will open to you His good treasure, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand. You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail; you shall be above only, and not be beneath, if you heed the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, and are careful to observe them. So you shall not turn aside from any of the words which I command you this day, to the right or the left, to go after other gods to serve them.”

And for those of you familiar with the term generational curses our disobedience opens that door.

Deuteronomy 28:15–68 ““But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you: “Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the country. “Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. “Cursed shall be the fruit of your body and the produce of your land, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks. “Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out. “The Lord will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken Me. The Lord will make the plague cling to you until He has consumed you from the land which you are going to possess. The Lord will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with severe burning fever, with the sword, with scorching, and with mildew; they shall pursue you until you perish. And your heavens which are over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you shall be iron. The Lord will change the rain of your land to powder and dust; from the heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed. “The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them; and you shall become troublesome to all the kingdoms of the earth. Your carcasses shall be food for all the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and no one shall frighten them away. The Lord will strike you with the boils of Egypt, with tumors, with the scab, and with the itch, from which you cannot be healed. The Lord will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of heart. And you shall grope at noonday, as a blind man gropes in darkness; you shall not prosper in your ways; you shall be only oppressed and plundered continually, and no one shall save you. “You shall betroth a wife, but another man shall lie with her; you shall build a house, but you shall not dwell in it; you shall plant a vineyard, but shall not gather its grapes. Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes, but you shall not eat of it; your donkey shall be violently taken away from before you, and shall not be restored to you; your sheep shall be given to your enemies, and you shall have no one to rescue them. Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, and your eyes shall look and fail with longing for them all day long; and there shall be no strength in your hand. A nation whom you have not known shall eat the fruit of your land and the produce of your labor, and you shall be only oppressed and crushed continually. So you shall be driven mad because of the sight which your eyes see. The Lord will strike you in the knees and on the legs with severe boils which cannot be healed, and from the sole of your…”

The Sin you don’t deal with

Back in September Regan and I had the opportunity to take part in a revival hosted by our church in Alaska. It was an amazing, spirit filled week full of worship and teachings 6 nights in a row for about 4 hours each day. Lives and hearts were changed there, including mine. One of the preachers there, who actually lives near Dothan said something I will never forget. He said “The sin you don’t deal with your kids will deal with.” As you can see in Deuteronomy 28, generational curses are a very real thing. I can see that to be true in my own life. Praying for them to be broken is one thing, but what good does it do if you allow the same spirits of sin that caused the curse to walk right back in your house the next day. The generational curses that could be passed to my future kids are in my hands to deal with right now. That means that any part of me that is not right with God I need to handle diligently and God has equipped me to deal with them, its just up to me to choose whether or not I want to serve God or the Devil. And maybe those curses have been passed down already, that’s the case most of the time especially if your kids are already growing or grown. That said, it’s never too late to change the course of your families life forever. It’s never too late to start listening to the still soft voice calling you to be more than you have been your whole life. It’s never to late to let go of who you were to become who God created you to be. It’s never too late, the question is are you willing?