Is it a Sin? Part 1
I learned a pretty powerful lesson about sin when I was in seminary. I did not learn it from a professor or in a theology class. I did not learn this lesson about sin through the study of the Bible. I learned this while playing with a piece of clay that I was molding into a chalice. What I learned about sin is this-- anything can be sin on our lives, even good things.
Sin is anything that separates us from God.
It was the first week of January 2006 and I was at the monastery in Atchison, Kansas. The final class that I was taking for seminary was to immerse myself for a week in this community of Benedictine nuns. It was an incredible week of prayer, meditation, reading the psalms and contemplative labor. I thoroughly enjoyed my week there even though it was not at the most opportune time for me in life and ministry. Perhaps it was at the perfect time, however, I did not see it that way when I went.
I had just moved to pastor a new church. A thriving, fruitful new start church that was growing and reaching new people. The church that I had just left had experience significant growth spiritually and numerically. I had been going to seminary full time and pastoring full time I was finally going to be finished with my formal education and be able to devote full time to pastoring and leading the church. I moved to my new church, preached my first sermon and then left to go to the monastery. I left my wife at home with 3 children, a house full of unpacked boxes, in a place she knew no one and said I will be back in a week. It was not the best time to go away.
Ministry was going well. I had been studying, serving, and leading the church and outwardly everything was going good. I was busy and finally, I was going to be able to take seminary off my plate and focus full time on doing ministry in the church. As was set in this barn that had been converted into an art studio playing with a lump of clay and thinking about my relationship with God it was like a window opened up in my mind and I begin to have a conversation with God through that open window. Free-flowing open dialogue with God.
Here is the lesson that I learned about myself and about sin at that moment. Somewhere along the way, as I studied the bible and theology, as I prepared and preached sermons, as I cared for the sick and tended to the saints, as I lead a church that was bearing fruit and growing I had become separated from God. I was doing good things. I was not doing bad things. But, what I was doing had led me to a place where I was no longer connecting to God. Early on in my relationship with Christ, as I was falling in love with Jesus and hearing his call to ministry, that window in my mind was open. I felt and experienced open dialogue with God. This is what enabled me to discern and to follow where God was leading me. But, somewhere along the way in the midst of all the studying and church work I had grown apart from God. Worse yet, I didn't even know it. I had not noticed that I had stopped the dialogue with God. I didn't recognize that the window had closed. I was so caught up doing good things that I stopped doing the God things. Good things can seperate us from God. Church work can separate us from God. Good things can become sin in our lives.
What do we call things that seperate us from God?
Sin.
Now, if we are honest, on our list of behaviors that we think constitute sin we do not have church work or studying about God. We don't have serving or preaching. I think that we trivialize sin when we think about it as a list of behaviors. Let me write this again. We trivialize sin when we think about it as a list of behaviors. We make it seem less important, less significant and less complicated than it really is.
I also think that this is exactly what the devil wants us to do. Make lists of good behaviors and bad behaviors. He wants us to believe that if we do the things on the good list we will be right with God and if we don't do the things on the bad list we will also be right with God. He wants us to believe that if we or other people do things on our bad list than we are not right with God. He wants us to boil it down to behaviors and strict obedience to a set of rules so we will miss that it is really all about our hearts and not our behaviors.
If good things like service in the church and pursuing a theological education can seperate us from God any behavior has that potential. So, it has to be about more than particular behaviors that you and I can say are good or bad. Sin has to be rooted somewhere deeper than just outward behaviors. While the Bible does contain lists of things to do and not do out of obedience to God I don't think that it is suggesting in any way that sin is that simple. Just behaviors. In fact, being saved by grace through faith and not by works says behaviors are not the ultimate determining factor in what separates us or connects us to God. So what is a sin? Are behaviors what sin is or is it deeper and more complex?
Let's walk back into the garden where sin makes its first appearance and let's dig into the soil where sin takes root and bears the first fruit of separation from God.
We are told that Eve knows what God desires. She is clear about what God asks of her and Adam. But, she lets the serpent tempt her to think about life and the arrangement of the garden differently. The serpent wants to get Eve to not think about God but to think only about herself. He begins with a lie. He stretches the truth by asking Eve if God said she couldn't eat from any of the trees in the garden. The serpent baits her into the discussion. She tells the tempter what God desires and then he ramps up his lying by telling her God has ulterior motives for his stipulation about the tree. He wants her to stop thinking about God's desires. He wants to turn her heart away from God. Because the inclination of her heart is what is important. It is what he has to change if he wants to seperate the creation from the creator. He knows he has to change the inclination of our hearts. Convince us that it is all about a list of behaviors that are either good or bad. He wants us to trivialize it and simplify it. He just needs to get us to desire something other than God.
We are told that Eve then decides that the fruit is good to her, pleasing to her, and she desires it. The craftiness of the serpent changes the inclination of Eve's heart from what God says is good, pleasing and desirable to what is good pleasing and desirable to Eve. This is what leads to separation. The irony of it all is that Eve, and you and I for that matter, have no knowledge of good and evil. Yet, the serpent in his craftiness gets her to think she knows something to be good, pleasing and desirable. It is not that he changes her knowledge. He changes her heart. He changes what she desires. She moves from desiring what God wants, and what she was created for, to desiring what Eve wants. This is the root cause of sin.
James writes, "When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death."
When the desire is conceived in our hearts it gives birth to sin. Sin is a matter of our hearts, not our behaviors. It is an attitude of our hearts that leads to separation from God, not bad behaviors in and of themselves. It is behaviors driven by the condition of our hearts that are sinful or not. It is a subtle shift, but it is significant in its consequences. The devil knows this. If we keep on the level of behaviors that are either good or bad we will never actually understand sin or address the real issue. It is the motive and the drive behind our behaviors that make all the difference. It is a heart problem, not a behavior problem. The desire conceived in our heats gives birth to sinful behavior. When the desire shifts to anything but God that is the root of sin. Sin is a heart issue not merely doing what is wrong. This is why simple obedience of all the rules is not enough for the rich young ruler. Jesus tells him you still lack one thing. It is also why the tenth leper gains his salvation when he is disobedient to what Jesus told him to do and the other nine only receive the healing being obedient. It is a heart issue at its core, not an obedience issue. I am not saying that behaviors and what we do are unimportant. I am just noting that sin is more complex than drinking, smoking, cussing or whatever behaviors we might put on our lists. For the tenth leper, we see his call to love Jesus supersedes his call to obedience. Jesus told him to go to the priest, but when he sees that he no longer is inflicted with the disease that had marked him and he understands that Jesus has healed him the desire of his heart is to thank Jesus and show his gratitude. He doesn't go to the priest as he was told to by Jesus. He disobeys and falls at Jesus' feet to show love. Jesus tells him that his faith has saved him. The other nine do what Jesus tells them to do. They received the healing but in their obedience, they missed their salvation. This is what I was doing early on in ministry I was doing good stuff, I was doing what good people do. I was pursuing my calling but I had exchanged my pursuit of Jesus for it. The inclination of my heart had shifted, subtly, but with significant consequences. I was playing church. I learned that it was a heart issue more than a behavior issue.
The Bible speaks about this.
Love today.
In Christ's love and mine,
Doug
Sin is anything that separates us from God.
It was the first week of January 2006 and I was at the monastery in Atchison, Kansas. The final class that I was taking for seminary was to immerse myself for a week in this community of Benedictine nuns. It was an incredible week of prayer, meditation, reading the psalms and contemplative labor. I thoroughly enjoyed my week there even though it was not at the most opportune time for me in life and ministry. Perhaps it was at the perfect time, however, I did not see it that way when I went.
I had just moved to pastor a new church. A thriving, fruitful new start church that was growing and reaching new people. The church that I had just left had experience significant growth spiritually and numerically. I had been going to seminary full time and pastoring full time I was finally going to be finished with my formal education and be able to devote full time to pastoring and leading the church. I moved to my new church, preached my first sermon and then left to go to the monastery. I left my wife at home with 3 children, a house full of unpacked boxes, in a place she knew no one and said I will be back in a week. It was not the best time to go away.
Ministry was going well. I had been studying, serving, and leading the church and outwardly everything was going good. I was busy and finally, I was going to be able to take seminary off my plate and focus full time on doing ministry in the church. As was set in this barn that had been converted into an art studio playing with a lump of clay and thinking about my relationship with God it was like a window opened up in my mind and I begin to have a conversation with God through that open window. Free-flowing open dialogue with God.
Here is the lesson that I learned about myself and about sin at that moment. Somewhere along the way, as I studied the bible and theology, as I prepared and preached sermons, as I cared for the sick and tended to the saints, as I lead a church that was bearing fruit and growing I had become separated from God. I was doing good things. I was not doing bad things. But, what I was doing had led me to a place where I was no longer connecting to God. Early on in my relationship with Christ, as I was falling in love with Jesus and hearing his call to ministry, that window in my mind was open. I felt and experienced open dialogue with God. This is what enabled me to discern and to follow where God was leading me. But, somewhere along the way in the midst of all the studying and church work I had grown apart from God. Worse yet, I didn't even know it. I had not noticed that I had stopped the dialogue with God. I didn't recognize that the window had closed. I was so caught up doing good things that I stopped doing the God things. Good things can seperate us from God. Church work can separate us from God. Good things can become sin in our lives.
What do we call things that seperate us from God?
Sin.
Now, if we are honest, on our list of behaviors that we think constitute sin we do not have church work or studying about God. We don't have serving or preaching. I think that we trivialize sin when we think about it as a list of behaviors. Let me write this again. We trivialize sin when we think about it as a list of behaviors. We make it seem less important, less significant and less complicated than it really is.
I also think that this is exactly what the devil wants us to do. Make lists of good behaviors and bad behaviors. He wants us to believe that if we do the things on the good list we will be right with God and if we don't do the things on the bad list we will also be right with God. He wants us to believe that if we or other people do things on our bad list than we are not right with God. He wants us to boil it down to behaviors and strict obedience to a set of rules so we will miss that it is really all about our hearts and not our behaviors.
If good things like service in the church and pursuing a theological education can seperate us from God any behavior has that potential. So, it has to be about more than particular behaviors that you and I can say are good or bad. Sin has to be rooted somewhere deeper than just outward behaviors. While the Bible does contain lists of things to do and not do out of obedience to God I don't think that it is suggesting in any way that sin is that simple. Just behaviors. In fact, being saved by grace through faith and not by works says behaviors are not the ultimate determining factor in what separates us or connects us to God. So what is a sin? Are behaviors what sin is or is it deeper and more complex?
Let's walk back into the garden where sin makes its first appearance and let's dig into the soil where sin takes root and bears the first fruit of separation from God.
So, is the behavior of eating the fruit from the tree what leads to separation from God or do we see something deeper that leads to that behavior and to the separation? Is the behavior the result of the real issue that is the sin. Do we see what might be the root cause of sin that helps us to understand sin as more than bad behavior?"Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden." Genesis 3:1-8
We are told that Eve knows what God desires. She is clear about what God asks of her and Adam. But, she lets the serpent tempt her to think about life and the arrangement of the garden differently. The serpent wants to get Eve to not think about God but to think only about herself. He begins with a lie. He stretches the truth by asking Eve if God said she couldn't eat from any of the trees in the garden. The serpent baits her into the discussion. She tells the tempter what God desires and then he ramps up his lying by telling her God has ulterior motives for his stipulation about the tree. He wants her to stop thinking about God's desires. He wants to turn her heart away from God. Because the inclination of her heart is what is important. It is what he has to change if he wants to seperate the creation from the creator. He knows he has to change the inclination of our hearts. Convince us that it is all about a list of behaviors that are either good or bad. He wants us to trivialize it and simplify it. He just needs to get us to desire something other than God.
We are told that Eve then decides that the fruit is good to her, pleasing to her, and she desires it. The craftiness of the serpent changes the inclination of Eve's heart from what God says is good, pleasing and desirable to what is good pleasing and desirable to Eve. This is what leads to separation. The irony of it all is that Eve, and you and I for that matter, have no knowledge of good and evil. Yet, the serpent in his craftiness gets her to think she knows something to be good, pleasing and desirable. It is not that he changes her knowledge. He changes her heart. He changes what she desires. She moves from desiring what God wants, and what she was created for, to desiring what Eve wants. This is the root cause of sin.
James writes, "When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death."
When the desire is conceived in our hearts it gives birth to sin. Sin is a matter of our hearts, not our behaviors. It is an attitude of our hearts that leads to separation from God, not bad behaviors in and of themselves. It is behaviors driven by the condition of our hearts that are sinful or not. It is a subtle shift, but it is significant in its consequences. The devil knows this. If we keep on the level of behaviors that are either good or bad we will never actually understand sin or address the real issue. It is the motive and the drive behind our behaviors that make all the difference. It is a heart problem, not a behavior problem. The desire conceived in our heats gives birth to sinful behavior. When the desire shifts to anything but God that is the root of sin. Sin is a heart issue not merely doing what is wrong. This is why simple obedience of all the rules is not enough for the rich young ruler. Jesus tells him you still lack one thing. It is also why the tenth leper gains his salvation when he is disobedient to what Jesus told him to do and the other nine only receive the healing being obedient. It is a heart issue at its core, not an obedience issue. I am not saying that behaviors and what we do are unimportant. I am just noting that sin is more complex than drinking, smoking, cussing or whatever behaviors we might put on our lists. For the tenth leper, we see his call to love Jesus supersedes his call to obedience. Jesus told him to go to the priest, but when he sees that he no longer is inflicted with the disease that had marked him and he understands that Jesus has healed him the desire of his heart is to thank Jesus and show his gratitude. He doesn't go to the priest as he was told to by Jesus. He disobeys and falls at Jesus' feet to show love. Jesus tells him that his faith has saved him. The other nine do what Jesus tells them to do. They received the healing but in their obedience, they missed their salvation. This is what I was doing early on in ministry I was doing good stuff, I was doing what good people do. I was pursuing my calling but I had exchanged my pursuit of Jesus for it. The inclination of my heart had shifted, subtly, but with significant consequences. I was playing church. I learned that it was a heart issue more than a behavior issue.
The Bible speaks about this.
"The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time." Genesis 6:5
"The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done." Genesis 8:21
"But they did not listen or pay attention; instead, they followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts. They went backward and not forward." Jeremiah 7:24The issue is cardiosclerosis. Hardening of the heart.
"When Pharaoh saw that the rain and hail and thunder had stopped, he sinned again: He and his officials hardened their hearts." Exodus 9:34
"Why do you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh did? When Israel’s god dealt harshly with them, did they not send the Israelites out so they could go on their way?" 1 Samual 6:6
“Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness," Psalm 95:8
"Blessed is the one who always trembles before God, but whoever hardens their heart falls into trouble." Proverbs 28:14
"For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’" Matthew 13:15
"Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning." Matthew 19:8
"for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened." Mark 6:52
"They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts." Ephesians 4:18
"do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the wilderness," Hebrews 3:8God has promised a cure for our sinful condition.
"I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws." Ezekiel 36:25-27Sin is complicated. It would be easier if it was just a list of behaviors not to do. I like lists. To do lists help me get things done. A grocery list helps me buy what I am suppose to and not buy what I shouldn't. But, sin is not that simple. It is rooted in our hearts. Our hearts are the place where desire gives birth to sin. Sin at its core is a heart issue not simply "behaving badly". Thanks be to God that he is in the heart transplant business. He promises the cure for our hard-heartedness. He also promises that he will give Himself to us along with a new heart. He also promises that His Spirit will move us to behavior that is good, pleasing and desirable to Him. We will unpack this more in future posts.
Love today.
In Christ's love and mine,
Doug
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