Understanding Sin

“The recognition of sin is the beginning of salvation.”- Martin Luther

How does that quote sit with you? Do you agree with it? Why or why not?

The topic of sin is a hard topic to talk about these days. Maybe because we have raised a couple of generations now that define right and wrong for themselves, making themselves the standard by which to judge everyone else by. Or maybe it’s because too many Christians spent their time yelling at others, trying to make them feel bad for their sin, instead of loving them like Jesus loves them. Or maybe, we are just so exhausted at all the negativity that we experience in life and in particular, in life online, that we just don’t have the energy to consider what sin is and what the consequences of it might be for our lives.

Whatever the reason is, sin has become a taboo subject but today, we want to press into the difficulty, press into the uncomfortability of sin as we continue in our series called “We Believe” - a look at North Park Community Church’s statement of faith.

Last week, we talked about how we believe that there is one God, the creator and sustainer of all who exists eternally as three persons - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. If you missed it, we invite you to go back to our YouTube page and check it out. This week our statementis an anthropological statement - that is, in talking about sin, we gain an understanding of who we are and how great our God is.

Now, before we look at the statement, let’s define what we are talking about today. The New Testament word for sin is “hamartia” which means to miss the mark. Remember at camp, when you would do archery? They would set up some targets, you would use the cheap $10 bow they gave you and you tried to hit something. More often than not, you probably missed though. In that case, you would have sinned, you would have “missed the mark.” So, spiritually, to sin, is to do that which misses the mark or the standard by which God has set. But what is the standard? Well, because God is our creator and we are made in our image, to sin is to fail to love God and to love others by not treating them with the honor they deserve. Terry Tiessen, who wrote a commentary on our statement of faith defined it as “Sin is a violation of the “shalom,” the well-being, which God intends for his creation.” In fact, if you were to look at the 10 commandments found in Exodus 20, you would see that the first half of the commandments identify ways to you can fail God and the second half are ways that you can fail others. This is why Jesus, when he summarized the entire OT law with its 613 commandments, said,

Matthew 22:37–39 NIV

Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

Before we get to our statement of faith, there are two aspects to sin that deserve to be mentioned. The first is our “objective sin.” Objective sin is when we sin according to the laws and rules that God has laid out in the Bible. Because the standard is spelled out in Scripture, it is outside of us and is therefore objective. It’s sin for everyone, not just you. And more and more in our culture as we move deeper and deeper into a post-Christian culture, the idea that the Bible has declared certain actions as “sinful” has less and less acceptance in our society. What we see as right and wrong is differing more and more from what others in our western culture are seeing as right and wrong.

But the second aspect of sin is one that most people are on board with, that is, “subjective sin.” This is sin that you see as sin, but isn’t necessarily spelled out as sin for everyone in the Bible. Let me give you an example. Last week, I mentioned a story about some seniors in Saskatechewan that grew up being taught that using playing cards was sin. That’s a pretty hard one to get behind biblically, but some people deeply held that belief. For them, to play cards would be sin.

Romans 14:23 NLT

But if you have doubts about whether or not you should eat something, you are sinning if you go ahead and do it. For you are not following your convictions. If you do anything you believe is not right, you are sinning.

That is subjective sin. It’s to violate your own beliefs, whether the belief is objectively sin or not. Most people like that because it speaks to our integrity but also, you can make up whatever rules you want and they love that autonomy. What we need to keep in mind, as we talk about sin, is that we are talking about both objective and subjective sin because both have a major impact in our lives.

So, let’s look at the second line from our statement of faith now, and if you are in the room or you are at home, I invite you to say the statement outloud, as a declaration of faith. And if you are watching this and you don’t know what you believe yet, or even f you believe, then my hope is that today’s teaching will help you get a good understanding of what we, as followers of Jesus believe in regards to sin. Let’s read it, outloud, together:

We believe God’s original creation was perfect, but the first humans sinned against God by willful disobedience and passed on a corrupted nature to all humanity. Our sin alienates us from God and brings us under his condemnation.

This second line in our statement of faith ties in to the creation aspect of the first line, where we declared God as the creator of all that is. Here, our statement qualifies that creation by declaring it perfect. In Genesis 1, after each thing that God creates, he says it is good. The sun, moon and stars: good. The livestock on the ground and the birds in the air: good. Chik-fil-A: good.

Genesis 1:31 NIV

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

At that moment, there were no earthquakes, tsunami’s, or hurricanes. There was no cancer, no COVID. There was no murder, no sadness, no shame, no broken hearts, no adultery, no drugs, no car crashes, no heart attacks or strokes. At that moment, life was perfect - all was at harmony with God and with itself.

And then, all hell broke loose.

The source of evil, of corruptedness, of sin has been postulated by every religion, every philosophy because it is an obvious part of our reality. According to the Zwemer center for Muslim Studies, Adam and Eve’s failure in the garden was a mistake, but it didn’t have serious consequences for the earth. They would believe that everyone is born pure and a muslim with their salvation intact, but are polluted by sin due to outside evil influences. In Buddhism, they would say there is no sin, just ignorance of doing what is right. What people need, according to Buddhism, is more instruction, not salvation. And other faiths and other philosophies would all have different definitions of sin, sin nature and what can be done about it.

In classical Christianity, we believe that Adam and Eve willfully disobeyed God’s one prohibitive law.

Genesis 3:1–6 NLT

The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day he asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?” “Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,” the woman replied. “It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, ‘You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.’ ” “You won’t die!” the serpent replied to the woman. “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.” The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too.

This passage shows us that for Adam and Eve, they had a choice to sin and they did it willfully. And make no mistake, they were both there when she ate the fruit and he joined her in eating it too, making them both equally culpable. This wasn’t an accident, it wasn’t a mistake. It was rebellion. They knew the instruction from God and they knew the punishment but they chose to put their immediate desires above God will for their lives. And in doing so, they changed everything. We call this moment “The Fall” because to us, there are far reaching consequences for their, not just for them, but for all of us.

In classical Christianity, we believe that when Adam and Eve sinned they passed on a corrupted nature to all humanity. Paul describes it in his letter to the Romans

Romans 5:12 NLT

When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned.

And earlier in the book, in Romans 3:23, Paul says,

Romans 3:22–23 NIV

This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Sin is now a part of every person. Where many other faiths would assert that humanity is good from birth, we would say all humanity is now morally marred by sin. We are all selfish, self-centered people who put our needs and desires ahead of God’s will.

Quoting Psalm 36, Paul the apostles says,

Romans 3:10–11 NIV

As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God.

So does this mean we are all evil and can’t do anything good? No. It means we all have a corrupted nature so no one can be perfectly good and moral for their whole life. It means that we have a propensity towards self-centeredness and sin. I remember when my oldest was small - like around 4 or 5 years old. She came up to us and asked if she could have a piece of chocoloate cake as a snack, and Abby and I said no. A short while later, we heard her in the kitchen and so we go in to check on her and she looks up at us. We ask her, point blank, did you eat some cake? And she looks at us, so cute, full of innocence and says, “nooooo.” Meanwhile, Abby and I are staring at her face, which is covered with chocolate icing. We never taught her to lie, it was instinctual. If you have or had kids, you know that kids aren’t innocent. Those little sinners show us they have a corrupted nature from birth that leads to them sin. And even as we get older, how many of us know what the right thing to do is, and yet, we do the opposite? Paul the Apostle himself experienced this and in Romans 7 he articulates the struggle that we all face.

Romans 7:15–20 NLT

I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it. And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.

We are all born with this sin nature that compels us to be self-centered and to willfully disobey God, just as Adam and Eve did. And that’s not new information for you. For there isn’t a single person watching who doesn’t know that they have disobeyed God at least once in their life. There isn’t a single person who believes that they are morally perfect and that everything they have ever done, ever said or ever thought is perfectly in alignment with character and will of God.

Just this past week, as I was writing this sermon on sin, I found myself grumbling and complaining at how I was the only one doing things and how my teenager couldn’t even put dirty dishes in an empty dishwasher and I realized, while in this self-pitying state, that God calls me to serve my family, not complain about them and I thought, wow, how insidious this sin of pride and self-centeredness is, that it caught me so unaware as it did. And so what did I do about it? Well, let me just say, I didn’t do the right thing. I still reacted to my daughter in a passive-aggressive way that was wrong and un-Christlike, even though I recognized earlier that day that I was being petty. Sin, which so easily entangles us, is utterly pervasive and ever-present in us, and in our world.

So, what are the effects of sin? Why should we care about it? In our statement of faith, we assert two things: that our sin alienates us from God and it brings us under his condemnation.

The prophet Isaiah says to the people of Israel,

Isaiah 59:2 NIV

But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.

And in the NT, Paul writes

Galatians 5:19–21 NIV

The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Our sin often has earthly consequences. Adultery often leads to divorce and the break-up of a family. Embezzelment can lead to prison. Complaining leads to broken relationships. But in addition to all that, there is a spiritual consequence of our sin: separation from God. Because God is perfectly holy, our sin alienates us relationally from him. But there is good news to this, so hang in there.

Not only does our sin alienate us from God, it also brings us under his condemnation.

Romans 6:23 NIV

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Our sin brings condemnation from God which results in spiritual death. Jesus, when talking about people acting without justice to the poor and oppressed, says,

Matthew 25:46 NIV

“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

We believe God’s original creation was perfect, but the first humans sinned against God by willful disobedience and passed on a corrupted nature to all humanity. Our sin alienates us from God and brings us under his condemnation.

And if this is where we left it, we would be in a sorry state. This statement, on its own, feels hopeless, depressing and fatalistic. But this statement is but one part of the larger creed that is our statement of faith and this isn’t the whole story. Yes, we have a corrupted nature, proven every day in all of our lives. Yes, our sin alienates us relationally from God and brings us under his condemnation. But there is good news. The good news is that God himself makes a way for us to come out from that condemnation and to be reconciled to him relationally. God made a way for us to experience his love, his mercy, his grace and his forgiveness for all those sins that entangle us and keep us spiritual prisoners. God made a way for us, a people who were dead in our sins to be made alive. He did it by sending Jesus to become fully human, just like us, but without the sinful nature. He lived sinlessly - in that he perfectly loved God his father and he perfectly loved humanity and he willingly took the spiritual consequences for our sin upon himself when he was crucified. And because he rose again from the dead, he defeats death and offers to us not just forgiveness, but new life and a relationship with God that is built not on how good we are, but on how good HE is, a relationship that is by faith, not by sight. And we are going to go deeper into this as we begin to look at the person and work of Jesus Christ for the next three weeks.

So what are the takeaways from this statement of faith?

Sin is serious - Sin destroys lives. Sin breaks up families. Sin causes untold heartache and pain. Sin separates us from God. So take it serious and actively pursue loving God and loving others with every fiber of your being and put to death those parts of you that want to rebel against God’s rule in your life and want to make what you want more important that what God wants for you.

Sin is Pervasive - because sin means to “miss the mark” every time we are unloving toward someone, we are sinning. Whenever we are unkind in our thoughts to ourselves and others, we are sinning. Whenever we start feeling sorry for ourselves, we are sinning because we are being self-centered. Sin is insidious and it sneaks up on you when you are least expecting it. So be on your guard. Check your thoughts and take the evil ones captive. Check your motivations, and make sure you are operating out of faith. Know the word of God, so you can know what God sees as objective sins that we need to avoid.

Sin loses it’s teeth in Jesus - because of what Jesus did on the cross, you are not defined by your sin, but by his lavish love for you. Sin and death are defeated by Christ on the cross.

Romans 8:1–2 NIV

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.

Sin and death have no power over you who are in Christ. You can be free from the power of sin to control you and from the penalty of sin by faith in Jesus. And that faith starts with repentance.

The Apostle Peter, in Acts 3 says,

Acts 3:19 NIV

Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord,

Are you ready for a refreshing in your spirit from the Lord? Then today is the day to acknowledge your sin to God, and claim his forgiveness for you.

1 John 1:9 NIV

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

Pray.