How's Your Rap-Sheet Looking?

Then there are sins of stumbling. James 2:10 Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. On the night Jesus was betrayed, Peter warmed himself at the enemies’ fire. A servant girl accused him of being a follower of Jesus. Peter, under the pressure of the moment just blurted out, “No, I don’t know the man.” He didn’t mean to do that. He intended to do just the opposite, but he stumbled. We do the same. We get startled and a word comes out of our mouth that we know we should not say. We get angry and we retaliate. We forget to set the alarm and we miss church. We get careless and we gossip. We don’t intend to do those things. It just happens. We stumble and sin.

Then there are sinful thoughts. The people of Noah’s day died in God’s judgment flood because every thought they had was wicked. In Jesus day, He said, “It has been written, ‘Do not murder.’ I tell you, ‘Do not hate.’ It has been written, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ I tell you, ‘Don’t even lust in your mind.’” You see sin is not just bad behavior, but bad thinking as well. You ever heard the phrase you can look but you can’t touch? That’s not true. Jesus said that your thoughts need to be pure as well.

Finally there is what is known as sins of omission. James 4:17 says “Anyone then who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.” Many of you have been following the case in Texas of the young woman who hit a homeless man with her car, and he got lodged in her windshield and instead of getting help she simply drove home and parked her car in her garage. Now hitting the man was bad, but it was an accident, and what has gotten everybody so upset is not what she did, but what she didn’t do. And many of you know that there are things you should do…you should be more patient with others, you should be more generous, you should be more concerned about others. You know you should pray more, study more, worship more faithfully. And if you know you ought to do something and you don’t do it then that is a sin.

A man was awoken in bed late one night by a knock at his front door. Angered, he opened the door to see a drunk man who said, “Can you give me a push?” The man said, “It is 12:30 at night, no I can’t give you a push. I was sleeping!” When he got back to bed his wife asked who it was and he said it was some guy who wanted a push. “Well, did you give him one.” “No, it’s late and he smelled like he was drunk.”

“Honey, the bible says to do on to others as you would have them do unto you. Now if your car broke down and you needed help pushing it, wouldn’t you want somebody to help push the car with you? You know what you ought to do.” ‘You’re right.” So the man went outside and yelled, “Hey do you still need a push?” “Yeah!” “Where are you at?” The drunk replied, “I’m on your swingset.”

Now with all his in mind, what kind of record do you think you have? How long is your rap sheet of sins? If it was put on paper and stacked, how many miles up would it go? And the thing is just one of those sins makes us guilty before God. Only one, and we’ve broken God’s law. And that is the debt we owe. If we break man’s law, we pay our debt to society, so if we break God’s law, we must pay our debt to Him. So with this huge record of sins piled against us, the psalmist asks the question… “if You O’Lord kept a record of sins, who could stand?”