What is the first word a little baby learns to recognize? It would be so nice if it were “momma” or “daddy” but anyone who has been around children knows that it’s not true. The first word a child learns to recognize, and because it is an easy one to say, the first one they learn to say is usually “No.” Don’t you wish it wasn’t so? It seems like such a negative way to start them out with their first word being “no.”
Not too long ago a couple I knew had their first child and they didn’t want their little baby to grow up being negative. The way they decided they would accomplish that was to not use the word “no” with their baby. That theory worked so well for the first couple of months while their infant “cooed” and gurgled in the baby blankets. How long do you think that theory lasted once the little guy started crawling around? After a broken lamp and a few near catastrophic mishaps, those parents and that baby learned just how important the word “no” really is.
No matter how much we hate it, the word “no” is a critical part of our learning how to get along in the world. Through it we learn the limits, we have defined for us the difference between right and wrong, between good and evil, between what is best for us and what is harmful to us. And quite honestly, a big part of preaching is helping people know what to say “no” to.
But unfortunately, sometimes we preachers never get past the word no. It’s a whole lot easier to teach people to “Just say no” than it is to help them understand what they need to say “yes” to. Consequently, over the years much of preaching, and a whole lot of what the Church is known for in our culture, has been what we are against rather than what we are for. You know the routine. So much of the church’s words tend to wind up sounding like “To be a good Christian you don’t drink, you don’t smoke, you don’t chew, and you don’t go with girls who do!” That’s an exaggeration, but you understand what I mean. Too much of our message can wind up teaching people what to say no to. Don’t misunderstand, learning to say no is very important, but it can be overemphasized. The church, and we preachers, have often been guilty of being so concerned about moral purity that we have ignored the command of Christ to get our hands dirty helping others. Avoiding sin doesn’t just mean learning how to say no, it also means learning when to say yes.
That is what James is speaking about as he pens the 17th verse of the 4th chapter of His letter. “Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.” Sin is not just avoiding evil. It is coming face to face with evil in hand to hand combat. If you look at the passage in your Bible, you see that this sentence comes at the end of the paragraph about planning what you will do tomorrow. (Read James 4:13-17) As James highlights the need to turn every day over to God, he reminds us that God has a positive agenda for our lives. God has not simply told us what to avoid, He has told us and modeled for us what we should be doing.
The reality of the Bible is that God has placed a big emphasis on what we should avoid. There are alot of “Thou shalt nots” in the Bible. We have been told that we are not to have other gods, or make any images of god. We are not to lie, steal, cheat, covet, commit adultery, or do any of those other big sins that God has restricted us from.
But it is interesting that when God came to earth, He spent very little time preaching and teaching against the sins of the flesh. It’s not that He took sin lightly. You can turn to the Sermon on the Mount and see that His definition of sin was very strict. “You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery in his heart.” Nobody took sin as seriously as Jesus did. But you didn’t just know what Jesus was against. You knew what He was for because Jesus spent more of His life involved in a ministry of grace and mercy toward sinners.
-It was Jesus who was criticized for eating and drinking with the tax collectors.
-It was Jesus who was ostracized for hanging out with the lepers and outcasts.
-It was Jesus who would sit down with the women who had a bad reputation and show them that somebody cared about them as more than a piece of meat.
-It was Jesus who was caring for the insane, the diseased and the desperate of His society.
As a matter of fact, when Jesus did preach a “hellfire and damnation” sermon, it was usually directed at the most religious people in His society. When Jesus preached to the Pharisees, He usually nailed them to the wall. The Pharisees were the most respectable religious people of their time. Everything they did was religious. They went through the Old Testament with a fine toothed comb, and boiled down the Law of Moses to 613 direct commands. If you want to be godly, they thought, you must obey all the commands. Keep your hands clean by ritual hand washing. They prayed and fasted and tithed everything. As a matter of fact, when they went out into their garden and picked some dill weed, they broke off 10% and put it in a collection bag to give to God. You can’t beat that for devotion to God, can you? Jesus said you can. Listen to an incident recorded in Luke 11.
37 When Jesus had finished speaking, a Pharisee invited him to eat with him; so he went in and reclined at the table. 38 But the Pharisee, noticing that Jesus did not first wash before the meal, was surprised.
39 Then the Lord said to him, “Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. 40 You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? 41 But give what is inside the dish a to the poor, and everything will be clean for you.
42 “Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.
43 “Woe to you Pharisees, because you love the most important seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces.
44 “Woe to you, because you are like unmarked graves, which men walk over without knowing it.”
45 One of the experts in the law answered him, “Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us also.”
46 Jesus replied, “And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.
Do you see why Jesus came down so hard on the most religious people in his time? The Pharisees were so caught up in religion they forgot about God’s will to help the poor, to promote justice, and they even forgot about loving God. When our perfect performance on the outside becomes more important than our love on the inside, then we have become more like the Pharisees than Jesus.
So if God’s time on earth was marked by helping others, doing good, and taking care of people’s needs, why is it so rare in our churches today?
- It’s easy to be against homosexuality. But it is tough to find ways to effectively reach out to help someone trapped in a self-destructive lifestyle.
- It is not difficult to be against alcohol and drug abuse. However, it is tough to help those who turn to those substances to escape from the horrible realities of their life. It’s takes courage and patience to find ways to give them hope.
- It’s much easier to be against gambling and welfare abuse than it is to find ways to help those who live lives of poverty.
- It’s not too hard to be against abortion, but being really “Pro-life” is tough. Let me ask you, if no abortion had been performed in the last 20+ years, would you be standing at the front of the line to adopt one or two of those 50 million unwanted children, many of them with severe birth defects. Would you relish the thought of bringing them into your home, feeding and clothing them for years just like they were yours? If you really want to take James seriously, you can’t just be against something. The Christian model calls us to not only know what is right, but to live it out by doing the good things that result from a Christ-like character.
Jesus told a story about a man who was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. He was robbed and beaten and left for dead on the side of the road. Before long a priest came along and saw him lying there. But there was temple worship to be done, and the priest had an appointment to meet. Besides, he could walk past and not break any of the 613 laws, but if he helped the injured traveler, he would become ritually unclean and not be able to participate in temple worship. Realizing it, he walked on by. A Levite was the next to pass. He was in a hurry to get to worship also, and if he helped, he might not make it in time, so he moved over to the other side of the road. The third to come by was a Samaritan. If Jesus were telling the story to us today, He might use a gang member or an illegal alien for the last one to walk past. To the Jews that Jesus was speaking to, a Samaritan was a nobody, somebody to be avoided. But to the injured man that Samaritan was a savior. He cleaned the crime victim up, took him to a holiday inn, paid for his room and came back to check on him. The point that Jesus was making when He told that story was that the person who was being obedient to God wasn’t those guys who were in such a hurry to get to a worship service. The one who was obedient to God was the one who understood the second greatest commandment, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
The puritans classified all sin into 2 categories. There are the sins of commission. The things that we do that we aren’t supposed to do. When we commit a sin, when we do something that is wrong, it is a sin of commission. But from James 4:17 and others they recognized that there are also sins of omission. These are the good things that we know we should do but we don’t do them. When we don’t do something that is right, we commit the sin of omission. This morning we have focused our attention of sins of omission, and I think you understand the general premise by now. But let me point out 4 specific sins of omission that we need to avoid.
1. To know of needs without helping.
The story of the good Samaritan that Jesus told is a challenge to us to help out when we recognize needs. Now I certainly realize that in a world filled with needs, we can’t help everyone all the time. But I also know that we could do more than we do. Often we excuse ourselves from helping because it’s not easy, and frequently helping those with needs is time consuming and painful. But if we know of needs and are unwilling to help, we find ourselves in the shoes of the Priest and the Levite who walked past the crime victim without helping. Don’t commit the sin of omission by knowing of needs and then ignoring them. Paul said in Ephesians 2, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” When your eyes become fixed on a need you recognize, don’t hesitate, help. More than likely God has put you where you are and pointed you to that need for His purposes.
(New Crisis Pregnancy Center in Brown County, TRIAD, CSF at IU, tutoring at Elementary and Junior High School) Now that I’ve told you about those needs, don’t ignore them.
2. To be gifted without serving.
In 1 Corinthians 12 Paul talks about the fact that we all have been given gifts, abilities to do things for the kingdom of God. As he discusses these abilities he makes a very important statement. “Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.” That means that God did not give you your abilities, your gifts and talents simply to satisfy your own needs. God gave you those gifts for the good of everyone. If you have an ability to do something and you don’t do it, you are committing the sin of omission.
Now let me get personal. Sometimes serving is a pain. We ask guys to serve as elders and deacons and they say, “I’ll do the work, but I hate meetings.” “I’m not a leader!” There are all kinds of excuses, but as you offer them I want you to listen to your words and ask yourself if you are avoiding using your giftedness for service. If so, you need to recognize in yourself the sin of omission. “Anyone who knows the good he ought to do, but doesn’t do it, sins.”
3. To know the truth without telling.
Do you know someone who needs to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior but doesn’t? Are you aware of somebody who used to be active in church but now never darkens the door? Is there someone that you know you need to talk to about their relationship with Jesus, but you’ve been avoiding the subject? Often the Holy Spirit nudges us to speak to people about our faith and we ignore Him because we don’t want to or we are afraid we don’t know how. Recognize that the principle of sins of omission means that when we don’t respond to those promptings to tell other people the message of Jesus, we are sinning. Often our fear is there because we fail to recognize that God has been working in their life to prepare them for hearing what we are about to say. Don’t commit the sin of omission by knowing the truth and failing to tell it.
4. To hear the good news about Jesus without responding.
As I think about the truth that James points us to in 4:17, I am overwhelmed with my sin. Some people might think themselves so self-righteous that they can avoid sin, but when you come to recognize that sin includes knowing good things to do and not doing them, that is grievous. The weight of that guilt could destroy a person, or at least make one feel like it is impossible to every be right with God. If sin separates us from God, and everytime I don’t do the best thing possible is sin, then what hope is there?
I’m glad you asked. The good news of Jesus Christ is that there is a hope. Jesus died to save us from the eternal consequences of our sin. When Jesus shed His blood on the cross, it was for the purpose of saving us from every sin we’ve committed. Instead of paralyzing us to be afraid of moving, understanding the complete nature of sin helps us to love God all the more for freeing us from the burden of sin.
However, once you’ve heard the good news about Jesus dying on the cross, you have a responsibility to respond. The ultimate sin of omission is to know the good news about Jesus and to refuse to obey. As the author of Hebrews wrote “ how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?” The obvious answer to that question is “We can’t.” Don’t commit the ultimate sin of omission by refusing to respond to the grace of Jesus Christ.
