What is sin?

There’s a word mentioned many times in the Bible and is probably spoken in just about every sermon preached.  If it isn’t, it should be.  That word is “sin.”  I’ll start off our lesson today by asking you a simple question: Do you know what sin is?  The dictionary will tell you that sin is a “transgression of divine law” or something similar.  Let me tell you what my definition of sin is: it’s “my will” instead of “Thy will.”

 

Let’s go with a few more questions.  Is fishing a sin?  Is baseball, football or any other sport a sin?  How about watching TV or, as we’ve seen in our study of Ecclesiastes in our Sunday morning class, is having a lot of money a sin?  Is the ownership of a great many of earth’s commodities a sin?

 

The answer to those questions is - No.  Those things, in and of themselves, are not sin but, they can be the catalyst to sin.  That simply means that they can be a “provoker” or perhaps a “motivator” to sin.  Something that we like to have or to participate in.  When we devote our minds (hearts) and our efforts to having or doing them before and above obeying God is when sin occurs.

 

It’s not that ball game or “whatever” that is the sin.  In effect, it’s us putting that “created thing” over, in a sense “worshiping,” God when we’re supposed to be doing that.  It’s putting the “creature” over the “Creator.”

 

There’s an old hymn entitled: “Take My Life And Let It Be” and in the 2nd stanza we sing these words: “Take my will and make it Thine.  It shall be no longer mine.”  The last part of that verse tells us where our “will” is located.  “Take my heart it is Thine own.  It shall be thy royal throne.”

 

Our “wills” are housed in our “hearts.”  In the book of Matthew we read that both “good” and “evil” comes from our “hearts.”  (12:35 & 15:19)   I suspect that’s so because Christ tells us in Matt. 6:21 that in our “heart” is where we store our “treasure.”  But way before Jesus preached His sermon on the mount, we were told how important the “heart” is to our soul.  In Prov. 4:23 Solomon said these words: “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.”  (NLT)

 

Most all of us are familiar with the next scriptural passage I’ll use and it’s found in Hebrews 12:1-2.  In verse 1 the writer is talking about living our lives as if participating in a race.  Then in verse 2 he says where the focus of our “hearts” are to be: “looking to Jesus.”

 

If Jesus then is our guide, our example, let’s see how His “heart” directed Him.  My next verse has been used many times in sermons and lessons, but probably not in the way that I’m using it here.  In Matt. 26:39 we find Jesus in Gethsemane, “on His face” and praying these words: “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.”

 

Think about that for a moment.  What was soon to transpire.  Yet even in His time of great agony, Jesus made His will subservient to His Father.  I’m quite sure that we’ve put our will over God’s many times with not near so much of a “motivator.”

 

What I read in that verse is that Christ would just as well have been somewhere else, doing something else rather than going to the cross and dying on it.  Why can I say that?  Because He was like all men while on earth  (Heb. 4:15) and subject to man’s temptations.  Yet, when faced with what would have to be the greatest temptation ever, He knew that it was not God’s will that “this cup pass” and Jesus accepted that His Father’s will was greater, more superior to His own, therefore was to be obeyed.

 

Various scriptures tell us that Christ “did no sin” while on the earth as a man.  One of those scriptures is the one I just cited in the preceding paragraph, Heb. 4:15.  The reason He did “no sin” is because he never put His own will above His Fathers.   He says as much in John 6:38:  “For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me.”

 

I’ll wrap up my thoughts today by going back to the onset of our lesson and my definition of “sin.”  We sin when we make God’s will subservient to our’s.   If we claim to be Christians, which means that we claim to follow Christ, then let’s follow His guidance, we need to follow His “steps” in doing our best to make our will subordinate to God’s.

 

I think a closing passage fitting to our thoughts here would be this one:

 

      “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in His steps.   He committed no sin, neitherwas deceit found in is mouth."  1 Peter 2:21-22 (ESV)

 

Ron Covey