Sin- Not the Evil We Think
Scripture: Matthew 11: 28-30, John 3: 16-18, Matthew 5:22-24, 27-28, Romans 14:23, Romans 3.
Thorough biblical/theological definition of sin: Any lack of conformity to the moral law of God, either in act, disposition, or state.” Disposition being related to your mind or belief.
Why should we talk about sin?
So important, one because, just the word itself gets a bad reputation. The big C church has underdefined it with the churn and burn concept only. Jesus shares the redemption component of sin, the redemption of the shame and guilt. Sin covers so much more than the terrible things we do. Good to understand that our responses are rooted in sin, we can then turn those around and repent and ask the Lord to heal us of those. To turn away from your sin and turn toward God. If we just believe we are a sinner, or if we believe that’s something we have in our family, like we all have short tempers, or we all have addictive personalities, we all have depression, then we will inevitably continue in it because we believe we ARE.
Ricki, you said last podcast, “To live is to think. And to think is to do—to choose, to communicate, to feel.” By living in this state of brokenness or in sin, is to continue to think and believe WE ARE. Then as we respond, we act, we communicate, and we feel, all of those will be rooted in the sin, not in a spirit, but our flesh. We get stuck in this cycle. So to shift the paradigm, we have to believe we are more.
To understand sin, means to encompass even those areas, then we know Jesus died for those as well. He can heal me, redeem me, renew my mind to no longer believe those, but to instead believe what he says, then I can find I no longer am in bondage. But like a child born into bondage may not know what freedom looks like, feels like, tastes like, or smells like, once the freedom has been brought forth (in knowledge) then the child knows. They know the difference, and in our case we get to choose; do I continue to stay in bondage to sin, or do I live out this life of servitude to righteousness and ultimately find freedom from those things that weighed me down before?
Sin doesn’t always mean that we are doing something evil. The big umbrella of what sin is, when we choose to communicate, think, and feel according to the patterns of this world (habits of this world). We choose to communicate and think in the old patterns that we are born with/into. The world may not say it is sin, but the Bible it is as we are missing the mark. Rather than living dependent upon ourselves, we have the opportunity to walk with God, abide with Him, and depend on God in all we do now.
When we bring up sin, there is often this connotation of disgust and shame associated with it. When Adam and Eve ate the fruit…it wasn’t a disgusting act to eat fruit. However, It did bring about shame. Sin is not just the ugliness, sin is brokenness. In Romans 3, the Jews were actively seeking out righteousness by themselves. There is an aspect sin that is ugly, that we all know is sin, there is also this aspect is the lost soul, the one living independent of God. Romans 14:23 – Whatever does not proceed from faith, is sin. That means not just the ugly thinking/doing in my life, but everything that does not flow from faith in God, trusting in God, abiding in God is sin. God has never asked us to perfect ourselves, He has have never asked us to be good enough. He says he loves us, cares for us, will pave the way for us, and He will walk with us. As you abide in me, I will abide in you. It makes the cross even bigger, instead of it being 10 sins, it is every breath that I take that is not in dependence in God is sin.
It is biblically based that there is more to sin than just the 10 commandments. Jesus on the sermon on the mount opens sin up to a deeper meaning than what we understood…Matthew 5:22-24, 27-28. To not understand that depth, means to stay stagnant. To stay stagnant means to not abide, as we are comfortable staying where we are. When we understand sin more completely, it will lead us to God and a deeper relationship of dependence on Him. We can rest in our dependence in God, rather than pursue independence from God. The natural fallen state is independence from God. Reads John 3: 16-18 We are not bringing up sin to feel in a negative light, but to give you a hope. To find freedom that Paul speaks about.
