Sin

This morning we will be starting a new series we’re calling “The Top 10 Questions”. This was, primarily, Craig’s idea as a way to unfold God’s word around important issues that can be confusing and, sometimes, divisive. While it is often easiest to simply avoid these questions from the “front”, we’re not going to do that - we are going to speak to these issues. Please be praying for this series. Pray that grace AND truth would walk hand-in-hand. Pray that the Holy Spirit would grow us through these discussions and that Jesus would be lifted up.

Before we actually tackle these question I think it’s important that we lay the groundwork for the questions and the answers. So, I want to take a couple of Sunday’s and talk about to vital issues. I want to talk about SIN and I want to talk about SCRIPTURE. Sin and the world we live in and Scripture - God speaking to us.

I’m doing this because the questions we’ll be discussing are very important and we must approach them carefully. Often these questions are more than simply questions. They are laced with preconceived ideas and cultural bias. We’re going to talk about how the one devoted to Jesus should think about drinking. How the one devoted to Jesus should think about sexual relationships before marriage, heaven for someone horrible who repents - is that fair, a lifestyle flush with money while others are in desperate need. We’re going to talk about God and politics, God’s command for Israel to wipe out entire cities - men, women, and children. We’re going to talk about Women’s roles in the fellowship.

So, this morning I want to talk about sin. It is my desire to communicate that sin is MUCH, MUCH MORE than simply a bad choice we occasionally we make. Sin is more like the water we swim in. Sin is so pervasive that apart from God’s restraint of sin, we would tear ourselves apart. Sin is so much a part of our individual and group humanity that cannot be sure of what’s right without God’s revelation.

Between 1915 and 1918, 1,500,000 Armenians living in Turkey were executed or died through forced deportation

Between 1932 and 1933 Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, set in motion events designed to cause a famine in the Ukraine - 7,000,000,000 people died

In December of 1937 the Japanese Imperial Army executed 300,000 civilians and soldiers in China’s capital city of Nanking

Between 1938 and 1945 Adolf Hitler and his Nazi followers killed 6,000,000 Jews

Between 1975 and 1979 Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge executed, starved, and worked to death 2,000,000 Cambodians

For one hundred days in 1994 the Hutu militia killed up to 800,000 Tutsis in Rwanda

While many would quickly agree that evil happens and that there are many evil people, most would also say that we as humans collectively or individually are NOT lost in sin. While we look at these historic atrocities and shake our heads in disbelief, we don’t see any real connection between those who committed these atrocities and us.

I don’t belong in that class of people. I have nothing but good intentions. O.K., maybe I do a few bad things like gossip. Maybe I’m a little envious once in a while, maybe deceitful now and then, and, O.K. maybe I’m, occasionally, a bit ruthless.

Romans 1:29-31 (NIV) Paul speaking of humanity and it’s sinful disposition

29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. We keep great company.

Many think humanity is moving forward. We invent wonderful, helpful things like the internet. International communication is almost instantaneous and the world is a much better place. AND pornography flows around the globe like never before - destroying lives and families. We can, now more easily than ever, recruit terrorists and plan killings.

Sin is indeed action - We should not kill, we should not lie,

Sin is also found in our thoughts:

Exodus 20:17 (NIV)

17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

Matthew 5:28 (NIV)

28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Mark 7:20-22 (NIV)

20 He went on: “What comes out of a man is what makes him ‘unclean.’ 21 For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.

Institutional sin - Cultures and societies develop group thinking that is programmed into the ethos of the group dynamic so as to create a disposition that either actively approves of sin or participates without thought. INSTITUTIONAL SIN DOES NOT, IN ANY WAY, REMOVE PERSONAL RESPONSIBILIITY. Almost every major atrocity shows this - Nazi Germany corralled many who knew better. Slavery in this country and in Europe become part of the cultural “necessity”. Many who should have known better were trapped in this unspeakable evil. The extermination of the Australian Aborigines and the American Indian. This list seem never-ending. And it’s strong today - abortion is part of our cultures dynamic and many, if not most, who consider themselves Christians are tired of the issue and have simply left it - let’s focus on what’s important. Last year there were more than 1,000,000 abortions in the United States

Paul’s view of himself:

Romans 7:18, 21-23 (NIV)

18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 21 So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me (sin as a force). 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.

How do we summarize?

Jeremiah 2:13 (NIV)

13 “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

How does this leave us?

The Bible says we’re dead in our sins. We’re not sick, we’re dead.

Ephesians 2:1 (NIV)

1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins…

Colossians 2:13 (NIV)

13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins…

If I am to live, my only hope is God’s action toward me

Don’t despair - the consequences of sin (separation from God, God’s judgment) and the force of sin will not win. Jesus came to make us right with God and killed the power of sin. Through his sinless life he gained the right to represent us before God. His death for my death. In my helplessness God saves.

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Misconception - God would not tell us to do good unless we, in and of ourselves could do good. So, we are sick but not dead. If given the right environment, which we’re working for, we could

How can we be dead when the Bible instructs us on how we should live. We must be capable of living the way we should if God gives us living instructions. How can we be held responsible for disobedience if we are unable to obey?

This question reflects a fundamental, pelagian, misunderstanding. Pelagius was an early 5th century monk who, in an effort to inspire devout Christian living, said that God would not command something that we could not do.

The problem here is that Pelagius was coming to God’s word from the wrong perspective. Scripture was NOT given so that basically good people would be encouraged to live rightly. God’s word was given to show us our tragic inability and point us to Jesus. God’s word was given to us to save us, to bring us back into fellowship with our creator. God’s word was given so the dead would live.

Romans 3:19-20 (NIV)

19 Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. 20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.

There is GOOD news here - God saves the helpless. And because God is the one who saves, no one is too lost to be saved.

Now, back to “The Top 10 Questions”. The answers MUST NOT be developed from cultural authority - those answers will be wrong.