Once Upon a Time

 

Once upon a time, there was a certain believer who believed very strongly in His Lord.  He loved His Lord and sought to please Him in many, many ways.  He tried to live for Him, almost all of the time.  He wanted to avoid sin, most of the time.  He lived a pretty good life, and went to church nearly every Sunday of the year.  In fact, it was rare that he missed a Wednesday night meeting.  He often gave of his money to the Lord’s work, and even more often, gave of his time.  The other believers who knew him thought well of him.  He read his bible regularly, and prayed every day.  There were many times when he even witnessed for his Lord, occasionally to people he didn’t even know.  He could teach a wonderful bible study.  He had even gone on church mission trips to tell others about Jesus.  He had dreams of one day, doing something really significant for the Kingdom of God.

 

To this believer, there just seemed to be one issue between him and His Lord.  The one issue, so he thought, was his ongoing practice of sin.  He had believed that even though he had done all these wonderful things for his Savior, that His Savior still had something against him; and that something was his sin, or so he thought.

 

He reasoned that if he could just get rid of those one or two nagging sinful habits, that His Lord would truly love him with an overwhelming love and that then, his life would really start to change.  Then, he would begin to see God’s real power in his life.  He believed that it was his continual practice of those one or two sins that continued to form a gulf between him and his Savior.  He felt as if they must have created a barrier between him and His Lord, and therefore, his Lord must have considered them in the same manner.

 

Now, understand, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t tried to stop those sinful habits, for indeed he had.  He had prayed over and over and over again, asking God to remove those things from his life.  He had fasted on several different occasions, hoping that his efforts somehow would gain God’s attention and favor on his life.  He had talked with friends, asking for their advice and prayers.  He had spent untold hours upon his knees, begging God, through his tears, to deliver him from his habitual sins.  He thought God would have to be pleased with all of his fasting, praying, bible reading, and longing for deliverance.  He thought God would have to take those ugly sins out of his life.  He was wrong.

 

Does that sound familiar to you?  Do you know of anyone who has ever lived out that story?  Or does the story hit even closer to home than that?  Is this story something that you are currently living out in your life?  My guess is that there are vast numbers of Christians all around this world that face this situation on a daily basis.  They fast, they pray, they read, and they pray some more.  Still, for all of their efforts and tears, there is no deliverance that comes.  There is no freedom. There is no deliverance.  There is no anointing.  There is no power.  The chains are not broken, and the prison walls still stand strong.  Temptation is crowned the victor time after time after time.  Sin wins most battles without so much as even putting its best foot forward.  The enemy laughs as he repeatedly brings the believer to his knees.  How could this possibly happen?

How could the believer not find freedom through all of the tears, pain, crying, and prayers?  Why does God not answer?  Why does He not deliver the believer just as He delivered the Israelites from the land of the Egyptians?

 

Redefining Sin

 

There are times, in the English language, when certain words lose their meaning.  That is, they no longer carry the weight of the intended expression as they once did.  Take, for instance, the word “love.”  For the most part, this word has lost its meaning.  It is perfectly acceptable for one to say, “I love ice cream!” or “I love puppies.”  The bible says that, “…God so loved… that he gave his one and only Son…”   How can the same word be used to describe God’s burning passion for His creation, and the shallow sense of pleasure that we find in such things as ice cream, puppies, pizza, blue skies, and sporting events?  The answer is that the word “love” has lost its meaning.  Even when one person says to another, “I love you,” it still doesn’t convey the desired intensity of the intended emotion.

 

The word “sin” is another one of those words that has lost its meaning.  We at church throw it around like cheerleaders throw little plastic footballs into the stands at the halftime of the high school football game; fast and furious.  We all know it is intended to convey something that is awful, but we don’t think of anything awful when we hear the word.  We think of “missing the mark.”  And yes, that is the literal meaning of the word, but it means so much more than that.  My intent is not to redefine the word “sin” theologically.  It is to redefine it practically, that is, in how we look at sin.

 

We all know that Genesis 3 is where the account of man’s fall takes place.  Verse 6 tells us that both Eve, and then Adam, partook of the forbidden fruit.  Verse 8 tells us that they hid from God.  Verse 10 reports how Adam lied to his Creator, and then in verse 12, we have the first record of someone “passing the buck.”  Adam tried to convince God that the whole sin thing was Eve’s fault, but that He was the One who had put her there in the first place.  By the way, that didn’t fly.  And by the way again, it still doesn’t.  I’ve used it.  We’ve all used it.

 

What were Adam and Eve afraid of?  What did God have to be upset about anyway?  The real issue here wasn’t the eating of the fruit, the hiding, the lying, or even the blaming.  Something had taken place in Adam and Eve’s heart that was the real issue of what God was trying to get at.  We must understand this.  All of those behaviors are only the symptoms of the sin.  If we look at what was behind those actions, we will find that they all had their root in disobedience.  Their sin was a result of their disobedience.  So, we may believe that if we can solve the issue of disobedience, then we ought to be able to get along quite well with God, right?  Wrong.

 

If that is where we stop, then we commit the error that far too many Christians commit when it comes to their spiritual lives; the error of shallow thinking.  We have to look deeper than that.  As we gaze more intently into the issue of disobedience, we find that there is something far more ugly and devastating behind it.  What lies behind it is the main reason so many Christians are paralyzed in their spiritual lives and so useless in the Kingdom of God.  It is the cause for untold numbers of divorces and abortions.  It is the reason that sexual sin is extremely pervasive in our society.  Because of it, there are murders and gang violence, not on a daily basis, but an hourly basis.  It is the fountain of greed, lust, pride, idolatry, adultery, the reasoning behind the justification of the homosexual’s sin, the unbridled pursuit of power, and most of the lies and all of the pompous self promotion that takes place in Washington D.C.  It is what is behind all of the burglaries, rapes, and violence that take place in the inner cities.  It is the motivation for the teenager stealing an IPOD and the CEO stealing his company employee’s pensions.  It has been the motivation of the likes of Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini.  And yet it troubles less infamous individuals such as you and me on a daily, if not hourly, basis.  Without it, this world might actually have a chance to function as it was intended and we would learn to live in unbroken fellowship with the Holy Spirit.  If it didn’t exist, there would be no racism or discrimination.  Without it, tyrannical dictators would be a thing of the past, rather than the present.  What I am speaking of, of course, is the underlying cause of all sin; which is selfishness.

 

Just as the eating of the fruit, the hiding, the lying, and the blaming were not the real issue, neither was the matter of disobedience.  I do not intend to downplay their disobedience, but those acts were only an outward expression of the inward reality of the selfish condition of the heart.  Didn’t Jesus teach that it wasn’t what was on the outside of one’s life that caused him to be unclean, but what was on the inside?  It was the selfishness; their desires to please, protect, and promote themselves that caused Adam and Eve to commit the first sin of mankind in the garden.  Indeed, we have learned the lesson of selfishness well, and it is very much alive in 21st century America.  It begins as early as the crib, and it doesn’t loosen its war on our hearts until our eyes close for the final time.

 

Selfishness is the root of all sin.  It does not matter which particular sinful behavior we want to point out, selfishness is its cause.  It is the motivating factor behind your sin and my sin.  It is the womb of sin, deep within us, that gives birth to all types of different behaviors that we call sin.  In reality, the behaviors are only the expressions of the sin; they are only the symptoms.  It is the behaviors that signal there is a problem with the heart, much like the smoke from underneath the hood of the car signals that there is a problem with the engine.  Just as the smoke is not the real problem, so neither is the behavior.  The smoke, or behavior, only points to an issue beyond itself and calls for immediate attention.  There is no way that we can make a blanket statement that God is not at all concerned about the behaviors His children exhibit.  We are in no way saying that behavior does not matter at all.  However, we can say that He is first and primarily concerned with the priority of the condition of their hearts.

 

Selfishness abounded in the early days of creation.  After only five complete chapters in the bible, we find some very troubling words in Genesis 6:5-6, “The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.  The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.”  Man had made such a mess out of God’s beautiful creation that God’s “heart was filled with pain.”  The people were pursuing their own desires and pleasures; their selfishness was running rampant, and God “was grieved.”

 

Selfishness is still the issue of the human heart.  Without it, we can live in fellowship and unity.  With it, we live in factions and disharmony.  Without it, we can walk in truth.  With it, we must walk in shame.  Without it, we live in the light and walk with God in the garden, so to speak. With it, we live in the darkness and play “hide and seek” games with our Savior.  Without it, we sense a power to overcome the evil one.  With it, we become enslaved to our own desires.  Without it, we are free to share the love and power of Christ with a lost world.  With it, we are in bondage and can’t find the motivation to share anything with anyone.  Yes, selfishness is still the issue of the human heart.  And it is the issue of your heart and my heart, even now.

 

When we go to a doctor, we don’t want him to treat the symptoms; we want him to treat the cause of the symptoms.  We know that if he only treats the symptoms, that the cause and the sickness may continue indefinitely; but that if he treats the cause, that in a short time, the symptoms will disappear; they will vanish.  We do not pay the doctor to make us appear better.  We pay him to make us better.

 

So we too must deal with the cause of our sin; our own selfishness, not just the symptoms of our sin.  Christian bookstores are full of books dealing with the symptoms.  Churches are full of believers who only want to deal with the symptoms of their sin.  Pulpits across America are full of pastors who only want to preach about the symptoms of sin.  Christian television shows are full of evangelists who rail against the evils of the symptoms of sin.  But if we are ever to see any progress in our Christian lives, in our churches, and in our communities, then we must look past the symptoms of sin and look to the issues of the heart.  We have to be able to look deeply within ourselves and deal with the selfishness that prompts our selfish, “me first,” ego driven, “do it my way or else” mentalities, attitudes, actions, and behaviors.

 

You may ask, “What is the purpose of ‘redefining sin?’”  The reason we need to take this step is so that we can understand the task that is before us.  The bible tells us in 1 Chronicles 12:32 that the men of Issachar, “understood the times and knew what Israel should do…”  We need men and women today who understand the times, and know what the church should do and these people need to speak out with boldness.  The reason we need to redefine sin today, in a practical manner, is that the word has lost its meaning both inside and outside the church.  It no longer catches our attention the way it once did.  It no longer repels us the way it once did.  It no longer threatens the purity of our hearts the way it once did.  It no longer holds our doctrine accountable the way it once did.  It no longer promotes “the fear of the Lord” the way it once did.  And believe it or not, some would say that is a good thing.  I wonder if Jesus is impressed with our watered down versions of sin and Christianity.  I doubt that He is awed at our shallow lives and our weak churches.  I doubt that He marvels at our clever ways of preaching the gospel without the cross; of our offering salvation without repentance; or our raising up disciples without discipline.

 

It is time that the church of today quit defining sin as only a behavior that God has told us not to commit, and start understanding that sin is any attitude in our life where we promote ourselves above God; our interests above His; our desires above His; and our wills above His.  The reason that non-Christians think our faith is all about rules is because that is what we Christians have taught them.  In reality, that is what most of us believe in practice.  In short, sin is where we promote, or choose, ourselves over God.  It does not matter what sinful behavior that we focus upon; that is the heart of the matter behind the behavior.  We want our ways over God’s ways.  We want our desires over God’s desires.  We choose the path we think we should take over His path for us.  We choose to indulge ourselves, rather than deny ourselves.  To choose myself rather than to choose Him is the essence of sin, whatever appearance that may take on.

 

The book of Joshua sheds more light for us on this issue.  Chapter 7 is all about the sin of Achan and how that sin disrupted the fellowship that the Israelites enjoyed with Jehovah God.  The sin of one man, Achan, was singularly responsible for Israel losing a battle, which they should have won, and thirty-six of their own men losing their lives.  One man’s sin had disastrous effects upon his whole family and his entire nation.  But what we must not overlook in this story is contained in the first verse of the chapter.  The first statement in verse one records that, “…the Israelites acted unfaithfully in regard to the devoted things…”  To sin is to act unfaithfully, or in other words, it is to break faith with God, and therein lays the vileness of sin.  To break faith with God is to take our faith off of God and place it in ourselves.  It is to declare unto an all-powerful God that we are dominant in this situation.  It is to tell the all-knowing God that we have discovered a better way of doing things.  It is to shout to the Lord of the universe that we, ourselves, have asserted our own sufficiency in a particular matter.  In essence, it is to say to the Almighty, “We no longer believe in You.  We now believe only in ourselves.”

 

Any time a Christian chooses to sin, he chooses to please himself rather than please God.  He chooses to subordinate God’s will as inferior to his own will, and place his will as superior to God’s will.  He makes a willful decision to set aside God’s plan and counsel for his life in favor of his own.  He chooses to follow his own lordship instead of Christ’s.  So the vileness of sin lies not so much in the behavior, as in the setting ourselves in direct opposition to the One who gave His one and only Son for the sins of the world.  It is not so much that we “did” wrong, but that we “are” wrong.  It is not about the actions; it is about the character.  It is not about what is outside of our lives, but what is on the inside of our lives.

 

When a Christian chooses to sin, the essence of his choice is that he sets himself up as superior to God in his life.  He actually sets himself up as the god of his life.  Now, we know that no Christian would ever admit to doing this, but this is exactly what is happening in the decision making process in which we choose to pursue our gratification above God’s righteousness.  This too, is exactly the situation described in Isaiah 14:12-15, the passage that is often referred to as “Satan’s fall.”  It is said that Satan sought to exalt himself, or to set himself up as superior, over God and that was the reason that God expelled him from heaven.  This “self exalting” is the same action that occurs in the Christian when he willfully chooses to cast God aside in favor of his own selfish desires and plans.

 

If “love” means that we choose to work for someone’s well being, then when we choose to obey our desires over God’s desires, we choose to love ourselves over loving Him.  When we choose to ignore His commands in favor of our impulses, we choose to love ourselves.  When we choose to discard God’s eternal counsel and seek our temporary pleasure, we choose to love ourselves.  Sin, then, is any thought, attitude, word, or action whereby we, in effect, choose to love ourselves more than we love God.  Therein lies the true horrid wretchedness of sin in our lives.  That is why God so detests sin.  It is not so much about the behavior.  It’s that we have set ourselves over God.  We have, in fact, become a god unto ourselves.  Sound familiar?

 

Several years ago, in the heat of an election year, one presidential candidate employed the use of a catchy slogan to gain some extra publicity.  He thought that the incumbent had forgotten that our nation’s economy was one of, if not the primary, focal points that needed attention.  Bumper stickers started popping up everywhere that said, “It’s the economy, stupid!”  The idea was to call everyone’s attention back to what was really important.  And it certainly got attention.

 

If we were to try that tactic in our churches, it might be that we should have printed thousands and thousands of bumper stickers that would say, “It’s the heart, stupid!”  Now, maybe that’s not the best idea that we can come up with, but it probably would remind us Christians that what God ultimately longs for, is our hearts.  You see, for God, the “heart” of the matter is the matter of the heart.  Behavior flows out of our heart.  Jesus said, “For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.”  If our speech is corrupt, it is only because our hearts are also corrupt and in need of being cleansed and restored.  If our actions are corrupt, it is because our hearts are corrupt.  It is also true that out of the overflow of the heart, the person lives.  The heart of each individual is the prize that Jesus seeks.  This is rarely accomplished in a one time “walk the isle” event at the end of a church service.  Rather, it is something that will likely consume even the most serious believer’s life for the rest of his life.

 

The Seriousness of Sin

 

To say that “Your Sin is Not the Issue,” as this chapter is entitled, is not entirely correct.  It is more appropriate to say that your sinful behavior is not the entire issue.  We Christians get sidetracked when we begin to focus on our behavior.  Just as a spinning tire in the snow begins to dig a hole that it cannot get out of by itself, so the Christian, who constantly focuses upon his behavior, also finds himself needing the help of another believer to pull him out of the hole he has dug for himself.

 

There is definitely a sense in which your sin IS THE ISSUE!  But it is not your behavior.  It is your selfishness; your selfish heart.  The reason that this is such an issue is because of something that we have already learned in Chapter 1.

 

Do you remember what we said was the central, most important issue to God?  It was His glory.  God wants to make His glory known in us, through us, around us, because of us, and even in spite of us.  We are not the focus.  He is!  Remember, He will not share His glory with anyone.

 

When we choose to love ourselves over loving God, we set ourselves up to compete for His glory.  As we promote ourselves, we demote Him and His honor in our lives.  In choosing our ways over His ways, we begin to set up and promote our own glory as if we are someone to be honored; to be revered.  We compete for His glory by setting up our own.  If we exalt ourselves, we degrade Him.  If we honor ourselves, we dishonor Him.  If we promote ourselves, we demote Him in our lives.  John the Baptist said it like this, “He must become greater; I must become less.”  It is as if God is on the other end of the teeter-totter or seesaw with us.  If we are up, then He is down.  It’s only when we are down in our rightful place that He can be up in His rightful place in our lives.

 

The bible says that God is a jealous God.  Nothing can stand when it competes with His glory.  Not even you and me.  As passionate as our Creator and Father is about each and every one of us that He has created, he is far more passionate about His own glory.  Absolutely nothing can compete with His glory.  Nothing and no one.  Not in the past, the present, or the future.  Nothing and no one!  Never!  Ever!

 

That is why God takes sin so seriously.  John, in his epistle, writes of a sin “that does not lead to death.”  He does not encourage believers to pray for those whose sin leads to death.  We have an example of this in 1 Chronicles 10:13-14; “Saul died because he was unfaithful to the Lord; he did not keep the word of the Lord and even consulted a medium for guidance, and did not inquire of the Lord.  So the Lord put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David son of Jesse.”

 

Saul was a man whom God had chosen to lead the people of Israel as king.  He was a special man with a special heart.  But somewhere along the way, he began to desire his own recognition and seek his own glory.  At some point, he began to chase the “Israeli Dream.”  After some time of trying to get his attention and his heart back, God had had enough and the Lord “put him to death.”  What happened?  Saul forgot about the glory of the One who had put him on the throne, and began building the kingdom of his own glory.  God is a jealous God, and he will not share His glory.  Nothing, and no one, can compete for His glory, not even a king whom He had chosen.  Neither can you or I. 

 

We believers get sidetracked into thinking that God is only concerned with our actions.  We live in such a visible world and such an image driven culture that we allow ourselves to swallow the world’s view that “image is everything” as one soft drink retailer preaches.  This encroaches upon the sacred territories of our minds until our view looks no different from most any non-believer that we know.  Instead of fighting for our hearts, we fight for our image, just like all the other self-loving people we are surrounded by.  God is never impressed when we fight for our image, or our glory.  The only glory we have comes from His image within us.  He and He alone is the true representation of magnificent, transcendent glory.

 

How we desperately need to hear the verse, “The Lord does not look at the things man looks at.  Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”  We need to let this verse be our guide from the time we first awaken during the day until we fall asleep at night.  Keeping this verse in front of us at all times would help to remind us that God stares deep within the soul of us all, not seeking an external righteousness, but an internal righteousness.  How amazingly different we could be if we could throw image to the wind and let this world have it all.  The honest reason and the simple truth that we can’t do that is because we want what the world has.  We want their style.  We want their stuff.  We want their money.  We want their image.  We want their success.  We want their fame.  We want their glory.  We want it all.

 

All the while, we gaze lustfully at what this world offers in hopes that one day, we too will hit the jackpot.  God continues to long not for some of the pieces of our hearts that we have tried to give him, but for all the pieces; for all of our hearts.  Only then, will He really have all of us.  You see, it is really the matter of the heart that is the heart of the matter.  And that, dear Christian, is the real issue; not your sin.

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