Anything: Sin in the New Testament

Intro

We’ve being wondering through this series of Anything. On the wall at both of our campuses, there is a banner that says, We as a congregation agree to do anything short of sin to reach people who are far from Jesus.

Those are two very big statements! Anything, short of sin. So we’re taking sometime and asking the question, what is sin? We broke it up into two weeks, last week the Old Testament, and this week the New Testament. My hope is last week we caught the heaviness of sin, and that it is a big deal to God. We as people can try to minimize sin in our life. We rationalize that it isn’t a really big deal, but the Old Testament reminds that it is in fact a big deal.

So what about the New Testament? Does it have a different spin then the Old? I’ve heard many times in my years as a believer and as a pastor that Christians don’t have to worry about the Old Testament because we are under a new covenant. The only thing that really matters is everything after the Gospels.

Question 1: Do you believe the Old Testament doesn’t apply to New Testament believers?

There is no judgment regardless where you fall on this spectrum. If that’s what you believe, that’s OK but I’m going to suggest you adjust your belief slightly. But I will tell you why later in the message.

Before we dive too deep into the New Testament, I just want to lay some quick foundation from last weeks message. We said three things about sin:

Sin is unfaithfulness to God

All sin is ultimately against God

Our sin is not our own

It is important to keep these things in mind as we dive in to the New Testament.

But to kick off, I want to set the stage a little. Just like the entire Bible is built off the first five books of the Old Testament, known as the Law or the Pentateuch, the New Testament is really built off the the first four books of the New Testament, or the Gospels. Why? Because that’s where all of Jesus’ teachings are. Jesus said some really foundational things for this discussion about sin, and hopefully this will be a new spin on an old topic.

John 14:15 ESV

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Followed in the next chapter with this:

John 15:10 ESV

If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.

So this is a build off of what the Old Testament said. God called the people of Israel to keep his commandments and they would experience the favor and blessing of God. If they broke God’s commandments, that would be sin and they would open themselves up to curses and death.

Jesus reiterates this. If you love Jesus, you will keep commands. You will follow his teachings, everything he says is good you will pursue, and everything he says is wrong you will avoid. Makes sense, right?

Jesus also said this in Matthew:

Matthew 22:37 ESV

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

If you love me, you will keep my commands. Now one of the things that could be drawn, and often is drawn from the Old Testament teachings, is that sin is an action. Do not murder. Murdering would be considered an action. For everyone in school studying English, murder is a verb, it is an action word. Adultery is an action. You actually have to do something to commit adultery against your spouse. Stealing, bearing false witness. All actions that can be observed and people can testify as seeing you do them.

But Jesus reminds us about a very important thing about God. In the Old Testament, in the story of David being annointed as king, we read about how Samuel went to David’s father and saw all of David’s brothers. Samuel thought for sure that each son was the one God picked. Why? Because they we tall and handsome and strong. But God said something interesting in this story.

1 Samuel 16:6–7 ESV

When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, “Surely the Lord’s anointed is before him.” But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

We even see it in the 10 commandments in Exodus. There is a commandment in there that speaks to the important of our heart and our mind.

Exodus 20:17 ESV

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”

You can’t see coveting. It isn’t a physical action, it is something that is done in the heart. Longing for something that is not yours. Now there is whole other message right in that statement, but we’ll save that for another time.

So Jesus takes the Old Testament teachings and takes them up a level. It’s not just the actions we take or the words that we speak. We show our love for God through the thoughts we have and the things we feel in our heart. We catch a glimpse of this earlier in Matthew, before Jesus lays out the Great Commandment.

Matthew 5:21–22 ESV

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.

And again in Matthew 5

Matthew 5:27–28 ESV

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

This takes things up a level considerably. So often we pat ourselves on the back when someone makes us upset and instead of reacting and putting them in their place, we bite our tongue and say nothing, or we hold back our true response and say something nice and encouraging. That’s great, and that is definitely a step in the right direction. But this is saying that if we harbour that frustation in our hearts and hold on to that anger, that is just as big a problem as if we had put them in their place. I think this is one of the reasons coveting was listed in the 10 commandments. I didn’t steal that thing from my neighbour, so good job me. But man do I ever wish I had it! How long do we hold on to covetous thoughts before we act on them? Back then, it would’ve been stealing. Today, it might be going into debt to get something we’ve longed for. Is debt a sin? Paul says that when we owe someone money, they become our master, and we are to one Master, Jesus Christ.

So what about temptation? If God is concerned about our hearts and our minds, what about those moments of temptation? Are those sin?

Question 2: Is temptation a sin?

Everyone watching online, no matter when you’re watching, I would love to see what you think. If you need sometime to write your answer out, then pause the video, get your answer down, and then hit play to hear the rest.

James 1:14–15 ESV

But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

The Apostle James says we are tempted by our own sinful desires, and desire gives birth to sin. So the temptation isn’t the problem. It is when we dwell on the desire that flared up that temptation that can lead to sin.

Now it at this point that I need to point something out.

Matthew 15:1–9 ESV

Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,” he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: “ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ”

Pharisees created a loophole for honoring your father and mother and worded in such a way that they were honoring God by abiding to this loophole. Of course Jesus saw right through it and called them out for it.

But we do this as believers. This is classic case of legalism and this is how legalism goes. There is a line called sin, and for the sake of this example I’m going to use alcohol. Bear with me for this. The Apostle Paul teaches that drunkeness is of the sinful nature and has no place among God’s holy people. So drunkeness is the line that we don’t want to cross. As a safe guard, we put up an additional line to protect ourselves and those around us from crossing that line. The new line says you shouldn’t drink alcohol at all. Now there’s nothing wrong with the new line, especially if you have struggled with alcohol abuse in the past and just want to stay as far away from this as possible. That all makes perfect sense. The problem arises when we start teaching that drinking is just as bad as drunkeness itself. Do you see how that works? That is taking a tradition of man and giving it the same weight as the actually biblical teaching. It is called legalism and it reduces our faith to the things that we do, or rather don’t do, that makes us holy. The truth is, it has nothing to do with what you say or do. Jesus makes you holy and good when you ask for forgiveness and make him Lord of your life. It is out of the holiness that Jesus places in you that begin to act, not on your sinful desires, but the Holy Spirit that dwells in you and leads and guides you.

Question 3: What are some ‘traditions’ that have been taught as equal to God’s law?

I realize that this is a dangerous question, but we could have some fun with it. Just so you know, I’m coming back to that alcohol topic shortly. It isn’t the end of the conversation just yet.

But we’ve got to bring everything back to real question at hand:

What is sin?

To really understand what sin is, we have to understand what our faith is about. We just said that our faith isn’t about the things that we do, because that leads to self-righteousness and pride. So what is faith? If we go back to the garden of Eden, what was one of the major things that we lost when the first man and woman sinned?

Genesis 3:8 ESV

And 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.

God came to the garden in the cool of the day. The fact that God was walking in the garden wasn’t what scared the man and woman. It was what they had done: they were unfaithful to God and broke his one commandment. Every since, God has been trying to have a relationship with his people. A relationship where God loves us and we love him back. God pours out his grace and love upon us and in turn live a life that honors Him as Lord and God of our life. It is all about relationship.

Matthew 22:37 ESV

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.

Relationship isn’t just about the things you do. It is the things you say, the things you feel. You don’t just love your spouse in action and say awful things about them when they aren’t listening. You love them completely, with your whole person, all the time. Same with your kids, your parents, and any relationship that hold any weight in your life. By extension, if someone hurts the person you love, it hurts us because of the connectio we have with that person.

This is why all sin is ultimately towards God, even the sins we commit towards each other. In the same way that if you hurt me, it is one thing. But if you hurt my wife or my kids, you have booked your ticket for the pain train. As much as I love my family, God loves EVERYONE exponentially more, and when we hurt each other, we hurt the God who loves all of us.

So we love God with everything that makes us who we are. Our heart, our soul, our mind. We love people the same way. Not just in action, but in heart, mind, and soul. And after we have loved God and loved others, then we got to love ourselves with same depth and devotion because at the end of day, God still loves me and loves you more then you could every comprehend.

What is sin? Anything that is violates the law to love God, love our neighbour, and love ourselves. This is why I don’t drink and encourage others to stay away from it. It’s got nothing to do with me. It has everything to do with my neighbour who has maybe struggled with alcohol in the past. It has everything to do with my brother in Christ who has been delivered from drinking. We aren’t supposed to put stumbling blocks in front of our brothers, and I will gladly give up one drink to ensure that happens. There’s a few other options out there. If you don’t know what they are, I’d be more then happy to help you find out what they are.

Bob Goff said this to close:

Let’s pray.