Midweek Message from Pastor Hal:
Everything that I have tried in my life I’ve had a strong desire to improve at. Basketball when I was younger. Golf as a young adult to even now. Relationships. My careers. My life as a believer. My calling in life. This is why I struggle with those who say “I’m just a sinner. Have always been…will always be”. Though it is realistically true that sin is part of the world’s culture and that we live IN this culture…therefore sin is easier to live in than God’s desired pattern, to completely surrender our will to be just a sinner seems a bit defeatist.
There is a section of the Bible that takes this on. This week we look at the reality of sin’s presence. Next week it’ll be about what ELSE is possible. But for now, read this: 1 John 1:8-10 – If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth… If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts.
The realities of this text are: 1) we can’t ignore our sin…yes, it’s there. 2) if we feel it doesn’t exist, we are accusing God of lying, because He says we commit sin. If we ignore God’s perspective, we can expect God to be distanced from us. The wrong conclusion is drawn from this section though. We just think “since I have sin in my life, I guess that’s just how I’ll be”. No reason to attempt anything else.
Then we read: “But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.”. That, my friends, is God’s grace and our new chance. See, God doesn’t say that if you have sin in your life NOW then your eternity in hell is decided. If so, we’d ALL be going to hell and nothing could change that. Instead John writes that God is in GRACE-mode. He is still willing and able to offer forgiveness. Our reaction? Oh great! So I don’t need to sweat my sin. All I need to do is live out life, with sin not mattering, because God HAS TO forgive me (He said He would). Paul writes in Rom 6:1-2 – Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? Of course not!”. I fear that’s the conclusion many have today…doesn’t matter how I live because God said He’d always forgive me. What’s our motivation to systematically remove sin from our lives? It’s not that God will stop forgiving us. Consider the implication of Hebrews 6:6 as it pertains to our sins…”they themselves (willful sinners) are nailing him (Jesus) to the cross once again and holding him up to public shame.”. With every sin we commit, Jesus experiences the pain of the crucifixion nails all over again.
So before we start living by the thought “It’s ok, God says He’ll forgive another sin”, we should look over and see the nail we are about ready to drive into Jesus’ hand.
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