Whatever Happened To Sin? Series

Our society’s, our culture's concept of sin is very closely related to their concept of holiness, God’s holiness. Our culture has a lack of a belief in God, or at very least, if there is a belief in a higher power, our culture’s has a low estimation of God’s holiness. Our single biggest obstacle to holiness is sin.

There are 3 general reasons for the lack of recognition of sin today, not only in our culture, but in the church as well. [1]

1. We have a diminished view of the Holiness of God. If God does not exist or regarded as high and holy, neither is our view on the seriousness of sin. If there is no God, or God is not high and holy, who sets the standards? If there are no standards, who are you to tell me what is right from wrong?

Whenever God’s holiness is encountered, the light of His presence, our sin is magnified. And we do not like that, so we consciously or unconsciously, lower our view of God’s holiness. In fact, many will avoid any contact with God to keep their sin from being exposed.

John 3:19–20 This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.

2. We have eliminated guilt. How? Because we shifted the blame. My wrong doing happens because I’m a product of my environment. Modern psychotherapy can explain sin away, blaming it on an early influence and attempt to cure sin by connecting with our inner innocent child deep within us that supposedly has remained untouched by the worst of our sins. They treat sin as an illness from which we can be cured through therapy. Our jails are full of people who claim to have Jesus and promise to get their lives together after they get out, but find themselves back in jail for the third and forth time, unable to cure their illness by themselves. They have, as many “so called Christians.” received the gospel, yet devoid of the power of God, which leave them well adjusted, but still dead in their sins. The power of God only comes with true repentance and personal ownership of our sins.

3. We have dumbed down and renamed sin. We have lowered the standards and haven given sin another name: Homosexuality is just an alternate lifestyle; Abortion is just a woman’s right to choose; Living together outside the bonds of marriage does not matter if the two really love each other; Pornography doesn’t hurt anybody; etc. After being loaded down with sin and evil, we start to become adjusted to it. Our way to righteousness and holiness becomes a pipe dream. We begin to rename much of our sins as error, and as we get further entrenched in sin, much of our errors become “normal.” So now we have sins, errors, and normal. And we excuse our sins by saying “God made me this way.” In fact god become responsible for our sins. No of it is my fault.

Romans 3:9–18; 23

There are about twenty words in the Bible for “sin” The most popular is the Greek word “hamartia,” meaning “to miss the mark.” But in the Greek, context is everything. “Missing the mark” is not merely an innocent blunder or a poor shot. It is something far worse. Sin is a problem of the will and desire. When we miss God’s mark for us, we miss what is righteous in God’s eyes by deliberate action. We are known by our actions, and defined by our nature. Jesus taught that people do sinful things because they are tainted.

Mark 7:21–23 For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, 22 deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. 23 All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.”

Paul is writing to the Romans, both to the Jew and Gentile Christian, explaining the doctrine of sin. The doctrine of sin is so important that Paul spends a good portion of the first 8 chapters of his letter to the Romans, just explaining sin.

Romans 3:9 What then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; Paul is summing up what he has said in the first 8 verses in chap 3.

"Are we better than they?" Are the Jews better off than the Gentiles? Jews have some advantages: They been God’s chosen people. God gave them the Law and many privileges. Paul explains in chapter 2 that God does not give them any preferential treatment, if anything, God will judge the Jew first and more severely because they do have the law. The Gentile, who did not have the law, will still be judged because of their conscience, they knew the difference between right and wrong.