Se7en:
One Day Sin at a Time
1 John 5:16-17
April 6, 2008
I’m beginning a series on the seven deadly sins. The series is called Se7en. These seven sins have been highlighted by Christians as being especially important to be on guard against for hundreds of years. Let’s start off and see if we can name them.
Lust
Gluttony
Greed
Sloth
Wrath
Envy
Pride
While walking down the street one day a US senator is tragically hit by a truck and dies. His soul arrives in heaven and is met by St. Peter at the entrance.
“Welcome to heaven,” says St. Peter. “Before you settle in, it seems there is a problem. We seldom see a high official around these parts, you see, so we’re not sure what to do with you.”
“No problem, just let me in,” says the man.
“Well, I’d like to, but I have orders from higher up. What we’ll do is have you spend one day in hell and one in heaven. Then you can choose where to spend eternity.”
“Really, I’ve made up my mind. I want to be in heaven,” says the senator.
“I’m sorry, but we have our rules.”
And with that, St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell. The doors open and he finds himself in the middle of a green golf course. In the distance is a clubhouse and standing in front of it are all his friends and other politicians who had worked with him. Everyone is very happy and in evening dress. They run to greet him, shake his hand, and reminisce about the good times they had while getting rich at the expense of the people.
They play a friendly game of golf and then dine on lobster, caviar and champagne. Also present is the devil, who really is a very friendly guy who has a good time dancing and telling jokes. They are having such a good time that before he realizes it, it is time to go. Everyone gives him a hearty farewell and waves while the elevator rises... The elevator goes up, up, up and the door reopens on heaven where St. Peter is waiting for him.
“Now it’s time to visit heaven.”
So, 24 hours pass with the senator joining a group of contented souls moving from cloud to cloud, playing the harp and singing. They have a good time and, before he realizes it, the 24 hours have gone by and St. Peter returns.
“Well, then, you’ve spent a day in hell and another in heaven. Now choose your eternity.”
The senator reflects for a minute, then he answers: “Well, I would never have said it before, I mean heaven has been delightful, but I think I would be better off in hell.”
So St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down to hell. Now the doors of the elevator open and he’s in the middle of a barren land covered with waste and garbage. He sees all his friends, dressed in rags, picking up the trash and putting it in black bags as more trash falls from above. The devil comes over to him and puts his arm around his shoulder.
“I don’t understand,” stammers the senator. “Yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and clubhouse, and we ate lobster and caviar, drank champagne, and danced and had a great time. Now there’s just a wasteland full of garbage and my friends look miserable. What happened?”
The devil looks at him, smiles and says, “Yesterday we were campaigning. Today you voted.”
I will begin with a little background.
What Lies Behind the Seven Deadly Sins
1. Although biblical, the specific list does not correspond to one passage.
First of all, we need to realize that there is no specific list of these seven deadly sins in a specific passage from the bible. However, each of the sins is identified as being a sin somewhere in the bible, usually in multiple places. Galatians 5:19-21 does give a large list of sins that includes most of the usual famous deadly seven as well as several others. There is a list of seven sins found in Proverbs 6:16-19. It reads:
There are six things the LORD hates,
seven that are detestable to him:
haughty eyes,
a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked schemes,
feet that are quick to rush into evil,
a false witness who pours out lies
and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.
These seven sins have some parallels but they are obviously quite a bit different from the traditional seven deadly sins. In fact, the “seven deadly sins” are more inward character affecting sins and the list in Proverbs contains more actions perhaps that have resulted from the inward character defects that sinful attitudes have created.
2. Sins that lead to death.
The Roman Catholic Church has created a distinction between two types of sins. To be fair, there is a scriptural basis for such a distinction. However, what seems to me to be problematic is the classification of different actions and attitudes into one or the other. The result has often been a failure to deal the “lesser” sins. These were often sins that would be sort of “winked” at.
1 John 5:16-17 says:
If anyone sees his brother commit a sin that does not lead to death, he should pray and God will give him life. I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying that he should pray about that. All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death.
So the RC Church says there are deadly or mortal sins and then there are lesser or venial sins. Now before we get too critical, we must remember that we judge sins this way all the time. Even in the Church of God, we have created our own system of classification: willful and unwillful. Willful sins are those that you knew were wrong and you did them anyway. Unwillful things (some still don’t want to use sin) are things that are not clearly wrong and maybe you did them but you didn’t know that they were wrong or maybe you did them accidently or maybe you even rationalized that you hadn’t been convicted of them yet. One of my seminary professors said that we don’t really sin, we just “semi-sin.”
There are two things happening in this passage. One is the sin that is specifically designated by God’s Word as sin. Example: murder. Murder is sin. Killing someone is sin. In fact, Jesus says that hating your brother is the same as murdering him. This leads to death. This also implies there things that maybe God’s Word does not directly address but are still sinful. All wrongdoing is sin. As someone once said, “A sin is a sin.”
This passage also is about the attitude. A sin that does not lead to death are those things that we know are wrong (God’s Word tells us and God’s Spirit convicts us), and we do (or continue to do) them anyway. This is a matter of intention. The Law also makes a distinction between intentional and unintentional sin. But all wrongdoing is sin. And I believe that what God says is true: We can live out the life of Christ and make decisions that keep us from willfully sinning.
There is a space between the moment something happens and how we respond. Those who are mature emotionally have worked to make that space larger so that we can choose are responses. We can choose how we respond to temptation: to not continue a conversation that is engaged in gossip, to not pull the trigger (whether it is a literal gun or the tongue), to not stab someone in the back, to not lie or fudge the truth. God has given us the will to choose the right thing to do and the Spirit to help us. If a prostitute walks up to one of us, we don’t say, “Oh well, I can’t help myself. I have no choice but to do this.” We do have choice.
So what should we conclude:
• Unrepentant sins lead to death: They destroy life now and eventually have eternal consequences.
• Intentional and willful disobedience (“I know its wrong but I don’t care”) leads to death.
• Repented sin, even if willfully done, is forgiven.
• Those born again do not continue to willfully choose sin (1 John 5:18 - We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin).
3. Character formation is a slow and steady process.
Because these seven deadly sins are about our character defects and who have become, what we will be doing over the next few weeks is examine our character. As impatient as we are, character takes time to develop. In fact character is formed one decision at a time.
Character is formed one decision at a time.
When you have spent years ignoring what God says is the right way to live, the way that is meant to give us life, then it takes years to undo and reform our character. People do not form bad character traits overnight. One decision at a time. One bad choice at a time. It usually even begins with perhaps 3 good choices with a bad choice in between. It can even be a bad choice based on poor judgment but we don’t want to own up to the mistake and suddenly we are making the same bad choice over and over. Soon we are intentionally making poor choices one out of three times. Then two out of three. And then it becomes a lifestyle.
The good news of Jesus is that he has given us helps when we finally decide that we have had enough: a community of faith, his written word, prayer, worship, mentors, books, tapes, sermons, and especially the hope that comes with his Holy Spirit. And we can start to make good choices as citizens of a new kingdom. We can start to undo the character defects: one choice at a time. And praise be to God, we can turn our lives in a different way, making amends to those that we have hurt, and seeking to do what God wants right now. We accept the forgiveness of God as not something that we have earned but as a precious gift.
Sins are forgiven immediately. Grace is extended now. However, it usually takes one good choice at a time to form a new identity and a new character. It does get better and it does get easier. Don’t give up.
Over the next few months we are going to examine seven different sins. It might be painful. We see things that we wished we could have left in the dark. But that is the point of such an examination: to live in the light!
Live in the Light
The goal here is not to beat ourselves up. (and of course it is not so we can identify everyone else’s faults). It is to bring God’s light to bear on these areas so that God can cleanse us and heal us of our past. This is supposed to show us the difference of living in the darkness hiding our character defects and living in the light.
And I do have one important thing here. If you are taking notes, write this down. I emphasize it again. Don’t take on too many character defects all at once. Most of us have plenty to work. We just need to be intentional about working on them. Choose one area. Maybe that God seems to be speaking to you about and work on it. Sure, identify others during this process but work on one area at a time. Otherwise, you’ll get overwhelmed and feel defeated. Otherwise, the enemy will take advantage of you and beat you down. One good decision at a time, right? Right?!? So take one area at a time. Read about it. Fill your mind with workable solutions and positive examples. Examine your patterns and how perhaps that one area has influenced you over your life. Take plenty of time and work on that one area. This is not self-help nor self-improvement. This is godly character formation! This is not one a week process. It will take us more than seven weeks to cover each of these sins.
Anne Rice is one of the most widely read authors in the world. Her bestsellers—most notably, her series of gothic books called "The Vampire Chronicles"—have sold over 100 million copies. After spending most of her adult life a self-described atheist, Rice converted back to Christianity in 1996. She has since focused her writing efforts on religious-themed works. Her newest book is entitled Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana. She recently allowed the readers of Time magazine to ask her whatever they wished for an interactive piece called “10 Questions.” When one reader asked about the reasons behind her conversion, Rice summed up her journey in these words:
Americans like to believe we turn to religion because of an accident or the loss of a loved one, but in my case it was simply the culmination of searching. I wrestled with a lot of theological questions, and then one afternoon, I thought, I love you—I want to come back to you.
No matter where you have been or what you have done. God wants you to come back. Come back to Him and seek His face. That is why you are here isn’t it?
