Article 7: Sin – the elephant in the room
October 10, 2010
BMC- Romans 3:9-18, Isaiah 1:12-17 & Ephesians 6:10-12
Introduction: Recall Notice
Have you ever been watching the news and heard about a recall on your child’s toy, an appliance you have, or a vehicle you own? Something has gone wrong, the manufacturers are willing to fix it, and all that you have to do is bring it in or order the part. Well, I recently received a recall notice that seems pertinent to share with all of you this morning.
RECALL NOTICE:[1]
“The Maker of all human beings (GOD) is recalling all units manufactured, regardless of make or year, due
to a serious defect in the primary and central component of the heart. This is due to a malfunction in the original prototype units code named Adam and Eve, resulting in the reproduction of the same defect in all subsequent units. This defect has been technically termed "Sub-sequential Internal Non-Morality," or more commonly known as S.I.N., as it is primarily expressed.
“Some of the symptoms include:
1. Loss of direction
2. Foul vocal emissions
3. Amnesia of origin
4. Lack of peace and joy
5. Selfish or violent behavior
6. Depression or confusion in the mental component
7. Fearfulness
8. Idolatry
9. Rebellion
“The Manufacturer, who is neither liable nor at fault for this defect, is providing factory-authorized repair and service free of charge to correct this defect. The Repair Technician, JESUS, has most generously offered to bear the entire burden of the staggering cost of these repairs. There is no additional fee required. The number to call for repair in all areas is:
P-R-A-Y-E-R.
“Once connected, please upload your burden of SIN through the REPENTANCE procedure. Next, download ATONEMENT from the Repair Technician, Jesus, into the heart component. No matter how big or small the SIN defect is, Jesus will replace it with:
1. Love
2. Joy
3. Peace
4. Patience
5. Kindness
6. Goodness
7. Faithfulness
8. Gentleness
9. Self control
“Please see the operating manual, the B.I.B.L.E. (Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth) for further details on the use of these fixes.
“WARNING: Continuing to operate the human being unit without correction voids any manufacturer warranties, exposing the unit to dangers and problems too numerous to list and will result in the human unit being permanently impounded. For free emergency service, call on Jesus...
Thank you for your attention!
GOD
“P.S. Please assist where possible by notifying others of this important recall notice, and you may contact the Father any time by 'Knee mail'!”
I find this to be a somewhat humorous but also very poignant look at the reality of sin. We have reflected on creation and the creation of human beings in particular over the last two weeks. We know that we were set apart in creation and that we were meant for great things. We have purpose; but unfortunately, as this comic portrays from Reverendfun portrays, it wasn’t long before things weren’t going so well.
Here we see God looking over creation and saying, “I invented people, gave them free will, allowed temptation, and now I’m waiting to see how long until they … OOOp, Nevermind.”[2] Adam and Eve ate of the fruit and we have developed a defect or contracted a bacterial-like infection that is throwing everything off for all of us.
Adam and Eve chose to succumb to temptation. They took the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil and every thing went south from there.
The Point of View of a Child[3]
“The story of Adam and Eve was being carefully explained in the children's Sunday School class. Following the story, the children were asked to draw some picture that would illustrate the story.
“Little Bobby was most interested and drew a picture of a car with three people in it. In the front seat, behind the wheel was a man and in the back seat, a man and a woman.
“The teacher was at a loss to understand how this illustrated the lesson of Adam and Eve. But little Bobby was prompt with his explanation. "Why, this is God driving Adam and Eve out of the garden!"
We let sin in, Adam and Eve had to leave the garden and nothing has been the same since. Unfortunately, it is the elephant in the room that none of us like to talk about. Yet it is an unavoidable reality that we must address.
Traditional Approach: lists
Traditionally, the church has done a very good job of naming sin. We have lists in scripture like the Ten Commandments, the lists we find in Proverbs[4] of things that God hates and the teachings of Paul. But then we also create our own lists like that of the seven deadly sins that tradition passes on from generation to generation.
We could spend time naming sins today, but I doubt that we would have an exhaustive list and I’m not sure how that would benefit us given our innate ability to name sin. And I want to be clear that being able to name sin is important. As I shared last week, being able to name something gives us a certain level of power over it or at least an ability to address it.
Commentary #1 is clear “Sin is a reality, not an illusion. We cannot explain away sin by blaming it on illness or by claiming we are victims of circumstances or of evil. Sin involves personal responsibility and has real consequences.” Sin is real and has consequences.
My concern is what we do with this knowledge. My concern is how we use this knowledge for the furthering of God’s kingdom and the shining of the light of Christ into the dark world that surrounds us.
This week, I attended a conference in Atlanta called, Catalyst. The theme of the conference was “The tension is good” and each speaker approached that from a different angle. One of the speakers, Christine Cain, shared of a time that she took her daughter to Wal-mart and bought her a flashlight and batteries. Once they were through the checkout, her daughter put in the batteries and turned on the flashlight. In the midst of a bright Wal-mart, the light of the flashlight was hard to see. Her daughter turned to her and said, “Mommy, let’s go find some darkness.” Christine reflected that in the eyes of a little child, this is what we should be doing with the light of Christ.
Article 7 Highlights: Group Sin
But what does this look like. I think that typically, we have erred pretty heavily on this meaning that we either talk about the sins of the world around us and do nothing to address them or we go out and point out the sins of others regardless of whether or not we have a relationship with the person. Either way, while our intention may be good and our ability to name sin is important, I wonder if we err too heavily on that side of the equation.
In our article for this morning, we see some important considerations within it that don’t note necessarily negate our status quo, but they certainly do question our starting place and our balance of the equation. The first is that “We sin by making individual and group choices to do unrighteousness and injustice.”
I would argue that the majority of modern American Christianity focuses primarily if not exclusively on the individual and the unrighteous part of sin. We tend to get caught up in this and only look at the sins of individuals and to address their sins of unrighteousness. When in reality as our article names, sin also has a group dynamic to it. Moreover, sin is not just unrighteousness. It is also injustice against others.
In Isaiah 1:16-17, we read, “wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.” Here we see Isaiah speaking on behalf of God calling the people of Israel to do right. And in this instance the focus of his concern is on justice: encouraging the oppressed, defending the fatherless, and pleading the case of the widow. If we are serious about addressing sin, it is not just the individual sins of unrighteousness. It is also the corporate sins of injustice.
While at catalyst, we heard the cry of those who have been abused by human trafficking. We don’t like to admit it, but the reality is that slavery still exists in our world today and in fact, there are more slaves now than at any other time in the history of the world. There are 27 million people enslaved by human trafficking. So for the time being, I know wear this key around my neck to pray for those that are enslaved.
The A21 Campaign website[5] reports that in Europe “trafficking in women is the second largest global organized crime today, generating approximately $12 billion a year.” “Once formally put to work, human trafficking victims can be forced to service from 40 to 110 customers in one day. Malnutrition, sleep deprivation, as well as emotional and physical abuse become day-to-day normalities.”
But what may be even more troubling for us is that this is not just something that is out there, it is also something that goes on in the United States. At Columbus 2009, Mennonite Church USA delegates passed a resolution entitled, “Statement against human trafficking, modern day slavery.”[6] That statement names the problem, stating that 12-18 thousand persons are victims in the United Sates and that 2.2 million children are sold into sexual slavery each year. 80% of victims are female and 50% are children under the age of 18.
The statement also calls us to consider this reality by becoming educated, taking counsel on how to work against it, and to speak out against this sin. “When we care for people who are oppressed and stop violence against them, we show that we are people of God. The prophets repeatedly call on people of faith to stop oppressing those who are poor and vulnerable (Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Amos, Micah, Zechariah, Malachi, etc). Jesus urged us to care for one another and offer healing to the hurting (e.g., woman with the issue of blood, Samaritan woman, Canaanite woman).” We must work against the sin of corporate injustice.
Article 7 Highlights: our sin
Another important balancing focus of our article is the use of “we” within the article. It begins with “we confess that…” It goes on to say multiple times that, “we sin by…” and that “In sinning, we become…” We are tempted to talk about the sins in others and to ignore the sins that exist within ourselves, when clearly we are all sinners and Jesus encourages us to address our own sin first.
Commentary #4 names this more clearly saying, “Sin is part of the human condition; we all participate in it. The sin of Adam and Eve affects all; at the same time, we are held accountable for our own behavior. As the Anabaptist leader Pilgrim Marpeck wrote, any heritage we have received from our first parents does not deprive us of our own final responsibility before God.”
In Romans 3:9-12 we read, “We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one." For better or worse, we are all guilty of sin.
Moreover, Jesus is clear in Matthew 7:1-5 that we need to address the plank in our own eye before we go after the splinter in someone else’s eye. We need to clean up and address our own sins before we go after the sins of those around us. But even if we are ourselves at 100%, we also have to remember who it is that we are battling against.
We tend to focus our sights on the person who is sinning; and certainly those who are living a life of sin are at fault. They are making their choices, but they are not the ones that we are called to focus our attention on. Ephesians 6:12 reminds us that “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” That is who our battle against sin is directed toward.
Now, please hear what I am saying here. I am not saying that we ignore sin or that we not call people to righteousness. I am suggesting that we have our priorities out of order. Our focus needs to include injustice in the world and addressing the sin within our own lives.
The Elephant in the Room
I’ll be the first to admit that this means me too. Unfortunately, the reality is that I do sin and while that is not the way it should be it is the reality. And unfortunately, I believe that this is the reality for each of us to one degree or another. In fact, when I hear those that proclaim that they never sin; I am even more sure that they do.
By saying that they never sin, they have just sinned either by out right lying about the reality or by being prideful about their lack of sin. Either way, they too have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. They too have missed the mark. Moreover, those that deny the sin in their lives are doomed to sin all the more.
While I believe that we should not sin, what I believe is more important is that despite the fact that we sometimes do sin that we choose not to live a life of sin. Sin happens. It shouldn’t, but it does and we must choose not to continue in it or to dwell in it. We must choose to fight the lure of the devil that is lurking.
On page 14 in his preface to the book “Beliefs: Mennonite Faith and Practice” which we will begin studying together on Wednesday night, John Roth notes, “Recognizing the persistent reality of our sinful natures, Mennonites nonetheless orient their lives around the teachings of Jesus, the empowering grace of the Holy Spirit, and the horizon of the coming kingdom of God.” Beyond that, I want to suggest two things that we need to do to work at fighting against sin within our lives.
The first is that as Andy Stanley suggested at Catalyst, we have appetites and our appetites only have one word in their vocabulary, “More.” We have appetites for food, progress, respect, winning, fame and achievement to name a few. And after we experience a taste of anyone one of those, the only word our appetite knows is “more.”
Andy also offers three things that we need to keep in mind about appetites.
1. God created them and sin distorted them.
2. Appetites are never fully and finally satisfied.
3. Your appetites always whisper now and never later.
We need to recognize our appetites and we need to control those. The way tat we respond to these will determine the direction of our lives. As we control our appetites, we reduce our propensity for sin.
The other thing that we need to do is to expose the darkness to the light of Christ, and to live into the light even as the darkness threatens to surround us. And sometimes this means that we have to shoot the hostage.
Those of you who have seen the movie Speed may understand the parallel here. When I was in high school this movie came out staring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. It was called Speed because for the bulk of the movie, there was a bomb on a bus and the bus had to maintain a certain speed or the bomb would explode and kill everyone on board.
Keanu Reeves and his partner, Harry, were part of the LAPD, the Los Angles Police Department. It was their job to protect the innocent people from danger and to try to capture the bomber. At times during the movie when they had a lull in the action, they would test each other with pop quizzes.
For instance, Harry would say, “Pop Quiz: Airport gunman with one hostage. He’s using her for cover. He’s almost to the plane. You’re about a 100 feet away. What do you do?” Keanu’s character, Jack, then responds with his solution to the situation. His solution was to shoot the hostage. Doing so, eliminates her from the equation and means that he may get a clear shot at the gunman.
Later in the movie, Harry becomes the hostage who is being held by the bomber as he tries to escape. Jack has him at gunpoint and Harry says to Jack, shoot the hostage. Jack then shoots his partner Harry in the leg.
In our spiritual battles with sin, sometimes we find ourselves the hostage in a cosmic struggle between God and the prince of darkness. The sin in our lives holds us in bondage and keeps us prisoner falling ever further into a life of sin in which we give the prince of darkness greater power over us. Christ has the final victory in the struggle, but until that comes to fruition, sometimes we must shoot the hostage.
Sometimes, figuratively speaking we must eliminate ourselves from the equation. I am not suggesting that this is done through literal means of dying just as I don’t believe that Jesus literally meant that we should pluck our eyes out if they cause us to sin. If that were the case, we would have a world of blind people.
Rather I am suggesting that through the difficult work of confessing our sin, exposing it to the healing light of Christ, and seeking the support and accountability of fellow believers; we are freed from this bondage and avoid living a life of sin. Just like shooting the hostage is a counterintuitive approach to dealing with a gunman, so is admitting our sinfulness.
Our reflex response it to hide our sin and to try to control it, but the reality is that when we do so, we only become more bound by it and we give the prince of darkness greater control over our lives. Once we become a hostage of the prince of darkness, once we do sin; we must take drastic and counter intuitive measures. We must accept the consequences for our sin, we must take the bullet in the leg, that will free us and allow us to put the sin behind us and live into a life that is not ruled by sin.
Because if we don’t choose to shoot the hostage, if we don’t choose to remove ourselves from the bondage when it first starts, we fall into the trap that our article names. “The more that we sin, the more we become trapped in sin. By our sin we open ourselves to the bondage of demonic powers.” And often times this happens as the slow fade that Casting Crowns sings about.
{Play “Slow Fade” by Casting Crowns[7]}
In this video we come in as the bad things are revealed and then we rewind to see how they got there. Meanwhile we hear the words… “It’s a slow fade, When you give yourself away
It’s a slow fade, When black and white are turned to gray.
And thoughts invade, choices are made, A price will be paid
When you give yourself away, People never crumble in a day…
People never crumble in a day, Daddies never crumble in a day,
Families never crumble in a day”
Conclusion
As we consider this article about sin, I must be the first to admit that I too have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. I deeply wish that I could stand before you as the perfect model and invite you to be like me, but the truth is that there is only one perfect model and that is Jesus Christ. While we strive for righteousness, we must not kid ourselves and believe that we have reached a point in our lives in which sin is no longer a reality in our lives.
Since I cannot be the model of perfection for you, I instead invite us to join with me in choosing to be proactive in our own lives in dealing with sin. Sin is here and we are not going to abolish it. But we can choose to avoid temptation and to combat it within our own lives. We can choose to name and address the sins within our own lives, curb our appetites, ask for forgiveness and shine the healing light of Christ upon that which is dark within us. We can choose to make ourselves vulnerable to trusted individuals to be in prayer for us and to hold us accountable. For me, that includes my wife, Pastor Rick, my mentor Randy Keeler, and my accountability group here at Bethel.
This is not an easy thing and it is not done without pain; but it is what God calls us to in our lives. And it is what is necessary for our own personal growth and for our ability to share the gospel with a world full of sin around us. We need to shine the healing light of Christ into the world around us; but in order to do so, we must first shine that light into our own lives that it may then shine through us to others. May God give us the strength and the courage to address the sin within our own lives. And may God walk with us through those difficult times to light and the salvation on the other side.
Amen.
[1] Source unknown, taken from e-mail forward.
[4] For example Prov. 6:16-19
[5] http://www.thea21campaign.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=151&Itemid=306&lang=en
No comments:
Post a Comment