What is Sin

In my last sermon I spoke about faith. I told you that faith was responding to what God has asked us to do. Today I want to talk about sin. Not in a Fire and brimstone way, but more of defining what sin is.

First the good news, Jesus died on the cross so that all our sins would be forgiven.

Now the bad news, there is no bad news. We are forgiven. We are forgiven for all the sins we have committed and all the sins we will commit.

But that doesn’t mean that we aren’t sinners and shouldn’t strive to reduce sin in our lives. Notice I didn’t say eliminate sin in our lives, because that would be impossible. Only Jesus was sinless, only Jesus was perfect. We can only strive for perfection. We can never attain it.

But in order to reduce sin, we need to know what sin is.

In the same way faith is a response to God’s word, sin is the opposite. It is ignoring God’s word. Ignoring what God has told us not to do and ignoring what God has told us to do. It’s believing that we are in control of our own lives and we don’t need God.

There are Sins of action and Sins of inaction.

Let’s look at the original sin as Jodi read to us.

God tells Adam that he should not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Notice that it isn’t an apple tree or any other kind of fruit we know of today. It is the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Now, the bible doesn’t tell us how eve is told not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. She is created after God tells Adam no to eat of it, but she apparently knows as she explains to the serpent that God said they can eat of all trees but the tree in the middle of the garden. We can assume that she heard it from Adam and not God directly, because as we read from the bible, the serpent asks her, ‘Did God say, “You shall not eat from any tree in the garden”?’ He questions her knowing the God did not tell her directly.
Did God say?

Notice that the serpent went to Eve and not to Adam. Adam would have been sure of what God said, and probably sent him away. Instead he goes to Eve and seduces her with how appealing the fruit looks. That eating the fruit will make her like God and so she eats the fruit.

In this way he deceives Eve into eating the apple thus ignoring God’s will and committing the first sin.

Now, Eve gets a bad rap through history. She did sin and it was the first sin, but she was deceived.

Adam, on the other hand, jumps into sin fully knowing what he was doing. He did it out of the love for Eve, knowing that God will punish her and he will lose her. So Adam joins Eve in her sin.

The punishment for their sin is harsh. They are expelled from the Garden of Eden, they need to work to survive, Eve, and all women, are punished with the pain of child birth. Death enters the land and more if you care to read it in Genesis chapter 3.

So that was the first sin. The second sin speaks to is when Cain kills Able and the punishment placed upon Cain.

The bible then jumps to the story of Noah. Sin becomes so rampant throughout the world that God has to wipe out all mankind with the exception of Noah and his family to start again. But in doing so, God promises that the next time he destroys the world will be judgment day.

God expects mankind to obey his commands but it’s not until Exodus and the 10 commandments that we get a clearer idea of what is expected of us.

Lets look at them quickly.

1- You shall have no other gods before me.
This includes any type of addictions. Drugs, alcohol etc. Addiction only serves to separate you from God.

2- You shall not take the lords name in vain.
3 - Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy.
To the Israelites that was Saturday. For us, everyday is Holy. Everyday belongs to God.

4 - Honour your father and your mother.
5 - You shall not murder.
6 - You shall not commit adultery.
7 - You shall not steal.
8 - You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour. No lying.
9 - You shall not covet your neighbour’s house;
1 0 do not covet your neighbour’s wife, or anything else for that matter.
To Covet. To wish for earnestly, to desire.
To even wish for something you don’t have that others have is a sin. Even if you live in a monastery devoid of any material possessions and have achieved true enlightenment you can’t get away from sin. We can get close, but God has made it impossible for us to be sinless. Why?

Remember the good news.

God has made it impossible for us to be sinless but he has sent Jesus to teach us that we need God in our lives and we are redeemed through his sacrifice.

After the ten commandments, God gives the Israelites the laws in Leviticus. If you read the laws in Leviticus you will see what God demanded of them. Punishment for sins, even capital punishment, was how the people of Israel handled those who broke the law.

Leviticus was a contract between God and the Israelites. Another word for contract is covenant. That’s a word you may be familiar with. There is much debate amongst Christians on whether or not we are to follow the laws stated in Leviticus. I personally don’t believe we are because we have a new contract.

A new covenant that was put into place by our Lord Jesus Christ.

That new covenant tells us very simply what God is asking us. Simple to understand, but in some ways more difficult to follow. A new way to deal with sin. Jesus says we must love everyone and we must forgive everyone. All that we do should be based on those two simple commandments. As Jesus said, and we say almost every week in church when we hear the summary of the law.

Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. And our neighbor is everyone else in the world whether we know them or not. So sin to a Christian is not loving others the way God loves us. Not showing God our faith and doing what God has asked of us and not doing what God has told us not to do.

So to reduce sin in our lives we need to love. We need to show our love to Gos, to Jesus and to the world around us.

So to sum up.
We are sinners and we always will be.
We should strive to become better people and reduce the sin in our lives
We should love God and Love all mankind, though we may not always love the actions and should reject sin in all its forms.
We should not judge ourselves or others for their sins for we are all forgiven.
We should do what we can to show our love for God and his children around the world.