Day 31: The S-word

My friend Mitch got me thinking about sin this week. We were at an open forum where I was interviewing him about being a follower of Jesus Christ as a business leader. I had the easy job.
 
The thing is, he mentioned the “S” word—SIN, in a public setting. At least it was in a Christian public setting where everyone in the room was on the same page. But it was also in a private room in an entertainment center, where the moment one walks out of its secret enclave one is awash in loud, driving music, rapid fire video games, mounds of food, beer, beer and more beer, and ka-chink! It could have been a casino, except gambling isn’t legal here.
 
The “S” word can be jarring. No one uses it in public except “religious” people and those in the other S-word industry, the Sex Industry, where sin is star. Sin is either really, really bad, or oh so good!
 
Is there a happy medium? Oh that’s right, we’re talking about sin, the idea of wrongdoing. And that’s the problem. How does one talk about it without feeling judged or judgmental, without feeling ashamed or confused? It’s an uncomfortable word because, frankly, it admits wrongdoing and that’s just not a good feeling.
 
We live in an enlightened society, we hold tolerant values, we are a compassionate people, and whether we believe in Jesus or not we like Jesus’ words to do unto others as we would have others do unto us. Don’t tell us we’ve sinned. We won’t tell if you don’t.
 
And yet, if we do follow Jesus’ words—all of them and not just the convenient ones—if we believe in a God who is not just good but perfect, just and righteous, if we want to have a relationship with Him, we have to come to grips with the fact that we are not like Him.
 
We have to spend serious time considering not just what makes us different but what separates us from Him. That is what I think sin is. Sin is the difference between God and us. It is everything that He is not.
 
The Greek word for sin used most frequently in the Bible is hamartia which literally means “missing a target or mark” —as when the Apostle Paul wrote, “For all have sinned [hamartano], and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). We can then say that everything that is outside of the bulls-eye is outside of the glory of God. Anything that falls short of receiving the adulation that God deserves, anything that is one iota less magnificent than God—is not God and is therefore sin.
 
Therefore, to know what sin is, we have to know God. When we know God, we will recognize what is not Him. We will understand what falls short, where we miss the mark, how we sin.
 
The S-word is still not something I want to flash around in public. But I can understand it more if I see it through the light of God rather than dig for it in the darkness of my heart, the method many of us have traditionally employed.  If thinking about sin actually gives me more freedom to think about God’s goodness, greatness, awesomeness, incomparableness, His grace towards me, His tenderness, His love for me—I feel empowered, I feel liberated. I actually feel okay about making a long list of how I am not like God.
 
And that is a good thing. When I can see how desirable God is but at the same time see the distance that lies between Him and I, how much more do I understand my need for Jesus. Only Jesus who is fully God and fully man can cover that chasm.
 
Paul writes in Romans 8:31-39 —
If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
   "For your sake we face death all day long;
      we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

 

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