What is your attitude towards sin? Do you hate it? Do you consider yourself at war with it? Does it grieve you? Does it bother you when you sin? Do you daily confess your sins to God? Do you notice when you do sin in thought and deed? Is sin just actions to you or is it attitudes as well? Is sin doing wrong as well as failing to do the good? Is sin rooted in our wants and desires? Did our sin put Christ on the cross? Do you consider sin in your life the really bad ones like adultery, drunkenness, murder, etc.? What about fear? Worry? Anxiety? Pride? Despondency? Impatience? Are those sin?
Sin today is not PC in the Christian culture. It is rationalized, minimized, justified, blamed on others, circumstances, and genes, it is denied, and ignored. What I find is that many people just have the blase attitude towards it "Well I'm only human" or "nobody is perfect". Even worse is the belief that Jesus died on the cross for my sins so now I'm under grace so that it doesn't really matter if I sin or it's all covered by the blood. Christ died to get me to heaven not to bring me a new and holy life. The prevalent notion today is that sin, i.e. personal sin, is of minor moral significance. It is no big deal. No harm, no foul. If sin is sin, it is not a big SIN but a little sin.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer called this "cheap grace". He writes in his profound book The Cost of Discipleship,
"Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church...Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything they say, and so everything can remain as it was before. "All for sin could not atone." Well, then, let the Christian live like the rest of the world, let him model himself on the world’s standards in every sphere of life, and not presumptuously aspire to live a different life under grace from his old life under sin."
Jesus sees sin very differently than we do. it would be wise and lifesaving to pay attention to what He says! He makes a radical statement about sin in the Sermon on the Mount.
"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. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell." (Matthew 5:27-29 ESV)
Jesus was dealing with the typical view that the Jews had of law and sin as dealing with actions and behaviors. Jesus reaffirms the "spirit" and essence of the law and sin with being rooted in desires and thoughts. We sin in our desires and wants. How many people are adulterers who have never committed the act, therefore, let themselves off the hook for adulterous thoughts and fantasies?
Jesus says something else that is even more sobering after He defines the root of sin. "If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell" (Matthew 5:29). He shows that sin kills. It kills the soul. It is such a deadly foe that ruthless, radical measures must be taken in our lives. In other wards, Jesus demands that we tenaciously, diligently, consistently, with such seriousness that we are willing to gouge out an eye! John Owen said it the best, most succinct way that I've ever heard it:
KILL SIN BEFORE IT KILLS YOU!
Perhaps we hear this and immediately disassociate ourselves from the teaching of Jesus because we are Christian's, saved, and if we hold to the doctrines of grace (as I do), believe that we are eternally secure.
John Piper puts it this way:
"Many professing Christians...have a view of salvation that disconnects them from real life, and that nullifies them from the threats of the Bible, and puts a sinning person who claims to be a Christian, beyond the reach of Biblical warnings.I believe that this view is comforting thousands who are on the broad road that leads to destruction (Matthew 7:13). Jesus says if you don't fight lust, you won't go to heaven"
Sin kills. The stakes are high. Christianity is not a casual religion. The road to heaven is straight, difficult, and narrow, and few enter it says our Lord. that is why we must fight. "I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul"(1 Peter 2:11). "I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin which dwells in my members" (Romans 7:23). "If you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you Will live.... Put to death therefore what is earthly in you" (Romans 8:13; Colossians 3:5).
We are justified solely by grace through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ to be sure (Romans 3:28;4:5; 5:1; Ephesians 2:8-9). All those who are justified will be glorified (Romans 8:30). no justified, regenerate, saved person will ever be lost. BUT, those who give themselves to impurity will be lost. Galatians 5:19-21 says, "Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. " Those who fail to fight against sin will perish (Matthew 5:30). Those who do not pursue holiness will not see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14). those who do not surrender their lives to evil desires will succumb to the wrath of God (Colossians 3:6).
The faith that justifies is also the faith that sanctifies. the faith that trusts Jesus Christ as our crucified sin bearer and our righteousness before God is also the faith THAT keeps embracing Christ that way who becomes not only the means of our justification, but our sanctification as well. The faith that justifies is also the faith that sanctifies, period (James 2:14-26).
Faith delivers us from hell and the faith that delivers us from hell is the same faith that delivers us from sin.....
TO BE CONTINUED.
No comments:
Post a Comment