1 John 3:4 “Whoever
commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.”
This last Sunday, Pastor
Herk followed up on the previous Sunday sermon, stating that one of the things
that we have to be concerned with in overcoming prejudices and injustice in our
lives and nation is that we need to look at them as more than just a
situational issue. It is not. Sin is what is causing the problem. If we could
overcome our sin problem, then we could overcome our social issues and see people
through God’s eyes. If we are going to truly receive the revival in this nation
that we all want to see happen, we have to deal with our sins; not just
collectively, but personally and individually.
The Lord sometimes reaches
down and gets our attention, as in this quote: “What if we treated sin as if it
was the Corona Virus?” We have gone to some extraordinary lengths to limit the
affect of this pandemic upon us. If we went to the same lengths to have an
influence on the sin in our lives, what a wonderful change would come in our
lives and our country. Everyone knows that the Corona Virus is a serious
problem, causing serious illness and even death. Now, we listen to the
conflicting reports and political spins on the disease and we can wonder about
its true severity, but all know that this virus is dangerous. So, we have been
asked to do some extraordinary things that we’ve never done before in our
lives. But, we also have another problem called sin.
Romans 3:23 “For
all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”
As we move into the promise
that God has given us, Pastor Herk wants to continue to teach about things that
will be beneficial to us as Christians, if we want to see revival . He believes
that the season that God is leading us into is one of pronounced holiness,
where the Holy Spirit will minister to every one of us and point out the
weaknesses we have in our lives and show us how we need to change. Don’t we
really want to change for the better? Don’t we want to reflect a little bit more
of Jesus every day and for people to look at us and say, “I see Jesus in you.”?
We should want to be a little more Christ-like all the time. We try to blame sin on a lot of things;
people, places, things and the devil influencing and causing us to sin. We know
that when sin comes into our lives, that it creates serious spiritual illness
that is difficult to overcome. Sin keeps us from doing the things that we know
we should do and causes us to do things we shouldn’t do The problem the world
is going through now is not a social or ethnic problem. It is a sin problem.
James 4:17 “To
him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.”
The most common New
Testament word for sin is the word “hamartia”, meaning failure to hit the mark.
That means that we deviate from God’s prescribed Law found in His holy Word,
the Bible, and hit another unholy mark. In the New Testament, sin is always
described as a deviation from God’s Law in a moral sense. Whether by omission
(not doing what we know is right) or by commission (where we intentionally do
what we know is wrong), sin can happen in our thoughts that we think, in our
words that we speak, or in the actions that we do. There is another word that
describes our sin and that word is “parabasis”, which means to trespass or
transgress, literally stepping across the line or step beyond where we know we
have a parameter or limit. If we step over a property line into someone’s
private property, we are trespassing. It is the same way with sin. We can step
over the line of God’s Word, Will and Way for our life, and it is easy to do.
Ephesians 2:1-3 you “were
dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to
the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the
air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom
also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling
the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of
wrath, just as the others.”
The person that disobeys and
ignores God’s standards of righteousness steps over the line has committed a
trespass or transgression of sin. Some people are okay with committing sin. In
fact, sin in some people’s lives is encouraged an promoted. Sometimes, sinful
things are thrown on us and take us by surprise in this fallen world.
Entertainment and the media take sin as “no big deal” because they believe that
it is just the way of life in our country today. We even see government passing
laws that legalize what God says is sin. We see people living lifestyles where
sin is just ignored. It has been normalized, ingrained and habitual to the
point that it is no longer looked at as sin any longer.
Romans 6:23 “For
the wages of sin is death.”
The big problem is that sin
leads to spiritual and eternal death. James 1:14-15 tells us, “each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own
desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin;
and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.” The world is
treating Corona virus very seriously, using extraordinary measures to control
the spread. Everyone is being encouraged to change the way that they are doing
things. Life has changed dramatically in response to COVID-19. What if we could
see that same kind of reaction against sin on a worldwide basis? Think of the
influence it would make on society.
Let’s continue Pastor Herk’s
message on the root problem in society on the next post.
In Christ, Brian
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