Missing the Mark

 

 

“What is sin?
It is the glory of God not honored.
The holiness of God not reverenced.
The greatness of God not admired.
The power of God not praised.
The truth of God not sought.
The wisdom of God not esteemed.
The beauty of God not treasured.
The goodness of God not savored.
The faithfulness of God not trusted.
The commandments of God not obeyed.
The justice of God not respected.
The wrath of God not feared.
The grace of God not cherished.
The presence of God not prized.
The person of God not loved.
That is sin.”

~John Piper 

We live in a broken world. Perhaps more broken than ever, perhaps less broken than ever. There is only one entity who has been alive for the Earth's entire history, and that is our Creator. So only he can judge our current level of broken. But through all of time, man has called things sin which the Lord never forbid, and man has called good things that the Lord explicitly denounced. So I thought I'd do a little scripture study today on what sin (literal definition: missing the mark, like an archer not hitting a target) is or is not.

 

Now, we know that when Jesus came to Earth, He said, "I have not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it", meaning that the law given to Moses is still in effect, but Christ kept it perfectly, knowing that we could not. And in exchange for paying our penalty, He commanded that we ought to love the Lord with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength, and we ought to love our neighbor/anyone who needs our help as we love our own selves.

 

But what does this mean? For as Paul said in his letters, grace does not give us license to sin. Yet in another place, he said, all is lawful, just not all is profitable, nor is all edifying. (though if all is still lawful, then this seems to imply unprofitable and unedifying things can still be within lawful. For example, this is perhaps why the Lord never directly explicitly denounced polygamy as unlawful, even though we can see the damage it did in the lives of so many biblical patriarchs. Because unpopular opinion, it is entirely possible to do this while loving the Lord in all of the ways John Piper spoke of, and while loving all your wives as yourself. But when your wives lead you into idolatry as Solomon's wives, or you end up in contention as Rachael and Leah did, or you commit adultery as King David did, that is where sin comes in.)

 

So what is sin then, anyway?

 

Well, for starters, it is not the outward that makes a man a sinner, but that which is inward, for Jesus said that, "Nothing that enters a man from the outside can defile him, because it does not enter his heart, but it goes into the stomach and then is eliminated." Mark 7:18-19

He continued: “What comes out of a man, that is what defiles him. For from within the hearts of men come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, arrogance, and foolishness. All these evils come from within, and these are what defile a man.”  Mark 7:20-23

 

Food is not what makes you a sinner. Eating without washing your hands does not make you a sinner. Nothing done outwardly is what makes you a sinner. The only sin is whatever heart issue is causing you to do or not do something.

 

In the mid 19th century, science and medicine finally realized that handwashing is the biggest and most critical part of not spreading contagious diseases. Why Jesus thought it wisdom to not tell us sooner, I don't know. But He didn't, and His wisdom is sovereign. But eating with unwashed hands is not a sin. Now, it may very well be a sin to abstain from handwashing now that you know it helps prevent the spread of disease, because at that point, you are being held accountable to your knowledge, and it isn't very loving to your neighbor if your wilful neglect causes them to get sick.

 

"For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins." Hebrews 10:26

 

I will add as a caveat, that doesn't necessarily mean anybody was sinning by refusing to wear facemasks during Covid-19. Common sense and thousands of years have confirmed that handwashing is an effective tool. Common sense and experience have shown us that face masks had little to no effect on the containment of the coronavirus, *if* they didn't actually make things worse.

 

But that brings me to my next point. Sin is that which is not done in faith.

 

Romans 14:1-23 says, "As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions. One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin."

 

I could do an entire separate discussion on faith, and most likely I eventually will. But I propose that faith, by definition, is doing what the Lord has commanded you to do. Stepping out of the boat was faith for Peter, because Jesus said, "Come." Whereas if Jesus hadn't said to come, I think stepping out of the boat without instruction would not have been faith, but rather would have been "putting God to the test", which Jesus condemned during His second temptation. And Peter would've sank immediately. Jesus would've saved him from drowning still, but I think He would've told Peter, "foolish child, you are not God. You can't do things unless I give you the power and authority to do them."

 

In other words, faith is acting on that which you have heard, which you are convinced in your mind to be your instruction from the Lord, and which does not run contrary to scripture. (Because some people try to claim the Lord told them to do things that are very un-scriptural, and this is false.)

 

Scripture grants all food to be un-sinful. But if you personally have doubts or struggles about something, then eating it is a sin. And this goes for other areas of life. 

 

If your faith convicted you to wear a mask during Covid, unmasking would've been a sin. And if you felt convicted to go without a mask, covering would've been a sin.

 

Wine and strong drink are not sin when done in moderation. Jesus made water turn into wine. Paul told Timothy to drink a little wine for the stomach. But if it feels like a sin for you to partake in alcohol, then partaking in it would be a sin to you, because you are not drinking in faith.

 

Anything which is done contrary to what the Lord has called you to do, this is sin to you. As it says in James 4:17, "So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin."

But to finish up, I would like to go back to my earlier point that our first commandment is to love the Lord with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength. As such, sin is also anything that He has expressly denounced.

"And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them."  Romans 1:28-32

 

"The acts of the flesh are obvious: adultery, pornography, and debauchery; idolatry and sorcery; hatred, discord, jealousy, and rage; rivalries, divisions, factions, and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God." Galatians 5:19-21 

 

"But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people."  2 Timothy 3:1-5

 

 This is not an exhaustive list of everything the Lord said is not good. But it gives you an idea. The point is, sin is anything that does not come out of pure and honest intent and desire to act in love and obedience to/faith in our heavenly Father and Creator, and anything that does not come from pure and honest intent and desire to love the world around us in the agape way that He loves us. But if you can do something while confident that you are following these two commandments in true faith, with a clean and pure, noble and honorable heart, well then...Whether or not it is profitable and constructive is a whole different debate, but it is lawful.