What is the Meaning of Sin According to the Bible

TRANSCRIPT

So we're gonna do a little bit of myth busting, I guess, if you like, on things that we may have sayings or statements or theories that we may have been saying or believing for many years. And, uh, we boil it down and realize that, you know what, God actually didn't say that. And it's no reference in scripture or the Bible to what we often believe or talk about.

So, are you ready? Yep. Yeah, let's do it. You know, as Christians, as followers of Jesus. We, uh, we strive to live the way God wants us to live, don't we? We, uh, we, we read his teachings. We read the life of Jesus, and we look at what he says, and we, and we do our best. We do our best to try and live like that as followers of Jesus as Christians.

That's, that's our aim, isn't it? That's what we wanna do. We look at things and we say, you know what? I wanna do my best to do that, but sometimes, no matter how hard we try. We mess up, we fail. We miss the mark and the Bible scripture calls that sin. And so we're gonna be talking about sin today. Ooh, the Bible calls it sin missing the mark.

And you know that word, it actually is derived from the Greek. So I want you to imagine I'm wearing a toga this morning. Don't imagine. Don't imagine too much. Okay. I'm I'm gonna go all Greek on you right now. The word, the word sin in the Greek is, actually, I'm gonna see if I'm gonna read this. Tia is the word and Tia, it literally means to miss the mark.

Just to missed it by that much. Missed the mark and it's actually used. Let's discover this one. It's actually used in, uh, in as an archery term. You know, the old bow and arrow archery. When you shoot the arrow at the target and you don't hit the spot that you're aiming for, they call it sin. They call it a sin.

You've missed the mark. And in the same way in our Christian faith as followers of Jesus. When we miss the mark, it's called sinning. We sin. Now, unfortunately, I know to point at someone and say, you're a sinner. Oh, you're a sinner, man. It's not acceptable. You can't do that today. You just can't do it.

People will look at you very, very strangely. It's not acceptable in our culture today. It's unacceptable to say anyone. It is, is a sin. Know anyone's doing the wrong thing. And that leads me to the cultural misbelief that we're gonna talk about today in the start of our series. And you'll hear it all the time and, and maybe you've said it yourself and we saw it on the little video there.

It doesn't matter what I do, as long as I don't hurt anyone. It doesn't matter what I do, as long as no one else gets hurt. I'm just breezing along over here on my own. It doesn't matter what I do, as long as I don't hurt anyone. Well folks, sorry to say God never said that. God didn't say that nowhere. No reference in scripture at all.

So today I wanna dive into the reality of what scripture actually teaches us about our behavior, about what we are doing. You know, if you think back in time to to Jesus' time, like to when Jesus was here, Jesus walked the earth. And I'm thinking back and wondering what is a cultural value? What is like a major cultural value that was really upheld in the time of Jesus, a cultural value that was really upheld.

Now there, I can't necessarily prove it. Okay, but there's, it's, it's a debatable subject. Of course, I can't prove it, but I can tell you, I can make a very, very strong argument towards this. When we think about the biggest cultural value that would've been upheld in the time of Jesus was justice. Justice.

You hear it? An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. You do something wrong, you get in trouble for it. There's punishment. That would've been a very strong cultural value that was upheld back in the time when Jesus was here. You know, if you ask the same question today, what's the biggest cultural value? In our world today, you could make an argument that the biggest cultural value is tolerance, isn't it?

Tolerance. We tolerate bad behavior. I mean, you don't have to look very far. We've got the youth crime and all the stuff that's going on. The craziness we tolerate, we put up with it, you know, and even the definition of tolerance has changed massively. It's changed massive, massively over the decades. When you know, tolerance used to mean about mean, the things about people, you know, people have equal value.

All people have equal value. In other words, we're gonna value people. Well, today, that word tolerance or that view of tolerance, it's actually evolved and it means the ideas of behavior have equal value. So all behavior has equal value. We're just gonna tolerate it. We're just gonna put up with it. So even the definition of tolerance has changed so much.

So in culture today is wrong. It's considered wrong and unacceptable, man, you just don't, you don't ever say to someone, your behavior is wrong, your behavior is wrong. You can't do that. That's sinful. You can't say that today in society. In fact, culturally we've watered it down. We have watered it down and sanitized it and put sanitizer all over it.

And we've made otherwise sinful terms, words that describe sinful behavior and we've watered them down to make ourselves feel better about them, haven't we? I'm gonna, we we're gonna go right in there. We're gonna go, I mean, you just look at the topic of sexual sin. Ooh, I got some attention. Some people even looked up from their phones and said, what, what did you, what did you say?

Sexual sin. That's a behavior. I mean, you look at it, you know, instead of saying you're looking at pornography, you say, oh, it's just a little bit of adult entertainment. Sounds nice, doesn't it? Adult entertainment, instead of saying, oh, you know, uh, they, they've committed adultery to that person. We say, oh, they had an affair.

It's just an affair. They, they had a bit of a fling with the secretary or a bit of a fling. Woo, sounds fun.

Or we're not gonna call it premarital sex anymore as a sin in culture today. We don't call it that because we don't even call it premarital sex. We say, oh, they're just, they're just fooling around. Well, they're young people fooling around. They everyone fools around. We've taken what once was wrong and we've changed it up and we've made it in a way we've described it.

That's not so harsh anymore because in our culture today, it's unacceptable to call people out. You can't call people out. I remember when I was a kid. When I was a kid and we would be, we'd be running through the, the shopping center, mucking around and knocking things over and, and anyone, any adult could grab you by the arm and say, you stopped that right now.

Oh. And you'd be like, you'd be like, I'm, my life is finished. That happened. And people are nodding their heads like, you remember those days, man? You try and do that today. My goodness me, you're in the courts. It's all over. We've sanitized things. It's unacceptable to call people out. Don't ever tell somebody they're doing the wrong thing.

And besides, it's none of your business anyway. It doesn't matter what I do, as long as I don't hurt anyone, as long as no one's getting hurt. It doesn't really matter what I'm doing. I got, uh. I kinda really expose myself this morning. I got pulled over by the police.

I was driving, come on. I was driving, driving my car. Came up to a stop sign, slowed right down, slowed right down. Looked no cars anywhere, and I just cruised on through the stop sign. What do you know, boo? Right on the corner, Mr. Policeman. He calls me over. So I'm like, oh, I knew I knew. So I went on the window down.

I said, good morning, officer. What seems to be the problem? Surely I wasn't speeding. Try try and throw him off the scent, you know, didn't work. He said, uh, sir, any reason why you did not come to a complete stop at that stop sign? And I was like, a complete stop. Like. I, I stopped enough. Like I, there was no cars coming.

I was, there, was I, you know, it's not like I'm hooning. It's not like I not like I was gonna hurt anyone. And he goes, right sir. Hop outta the vehicle. Outta the vehicle. I'm like, okay. Round the front hands on the bonnet. He pulls out his Batten and he starts whacking me with it. Whack, whack, whack. I'm like, whatcha doing?

Protect. Protect. Whack, whack, whack. And he goes, I'm sorry, do you want me to stop? I said, yes, please, please stop. And he goes, do you want me to like sort of stop or do you want me to completely stop? I was like, I started crying. Please completely stop. I'm sorry. Okay. I'll get your point. True story. I get your point, but I got a ticket anyway, so.

It doesn't matter what you do, as long as you're not hurting anyone. Yeah, just like we break the road rules, we get tickets, we get, we lose points off our license

just like we break the road rules. We miss the mark and there are consequences and punishments and we read to net. We need to recognize that sin is very real. Okay. And sin. Has dramatic consequences in our lives today. I wanna take a look just briefly at three cultural misbeliefs about sin cultural society, misbeliefs about sin, and look at what God really does say.

How are you feeling? Is everyone feeling bit squirmy? Do it. Do it. Do it. The first thing is this, very common in our world for people. To believe this one. Maybe you've even said number one, I'm not a bad person. Come on. I'm not a bad person. I'm not bad. I'm not a bad person. You are not a bad person. I'm all over the world.

You know, we're not bad people. I mean, I'm not a bad person. I, I know I make mistakes, but everyone makes mistakes. Surely I'm not that bad. But the reality is, is that's not true. Hmm. It's not true. I'm sorry. In fact, in John, in the book of one John one, eight, he says that if we claim to be without sin, in other words, if we say, you know, I'm not a bad person, he says that we deceive ourselves.

We are lying to ourselves, and the truth is not in us. Oh, that hurts a little bit. Sorry about the sting, but it's, it's in there. It's black and white. I, I didn't write it. So now if we compare ourselves to other people, okay, this is where, this is where it gets tricky. See, we compare ourselves to other people.

We may be tempted to say, you know, I'm not really that bad, am I? I mean, because you can always find someone worse off. You can always find someone worse than you

pulled over by the police again. I'm really going for it this morning. I, this is a years time span, right? Come on, come on. Pull over the police for speeding a little bit and, and said the guy's writing me the ticket. Okay. Because I was, I missed the mark I got. I've gotta pay the consequence, writing the ticket.

Another car, it just goes roaring past. And I'm like, oh God, look at that guy. He is going so much faster than I was and he is on his phone. I didn't say it. I thought it very loudly though, all with my history with the police. I dunno. I thought it, I thought it so loud. I was like, man, you should be giving him a ticket.

He was going so much faster than I was. This is not fair. You can always find someone that's batter than you always. You don't have to look very far. Chances are on one side or the other of where you're sitting right now, you're sitting next to a person that's batter than you. No, no elbows. No elbows. You know, you'd be like, you know what, you know, I'm not as, I'm not as bad as, I'm not as bad as this guy, you know?

I'm not a bad person. That is a lie that we tell ourselves. The problem with this theory, there is a big, big problem, big hole in this theory. The problem is, is that other people are not the standard that we get measured by. Ah, yeah. I know. Other people are not the standard when we compare ourselves to a holy and perfect God.

Uh. Huh. Holy and perfect God. Then we are dirty, rotten sinners. All of us. We are bad. I'll prove it. Who he has ever told a lie. Put your hand up. Yeah. Told a lie. You're a liar. Who? He has ever stolen something. I'm keeping my hand up even from mom and dad. My dad Growing up, my dad had a sock drawer with a sock with all the loose coins that he used to divvy out on Saturday morning with our pocket money.

Uh, maybe, maybe I dipped into that sock drawer a couple of times without my dad knowing it was his money. Not mine. I stole it. I'm a thief. Okay. How about who's ever looked at someone lustfully. Oh, hands not. Oh, hands aren't so quick to go up there. It's, Hey, it happens. It happens. All right. It goes on. Yeah, so that means you're a liar, you're a thief, and you're an and Jesus said if you look at someone lustfully, you've actually committed adultery in your heart.

So you're an adulterer as well. Lying thieving, adulterer. Welcome to church this morning. What an uplifting. Yeah, really? I told you. I told you there's gonna be some vegetable seed.

But we're not good. Yeah, we are not good people. When we compare ourselves to a holy, perfect, and amazing God, we are not good. We are bad. We are sinful at our core. In fact, scripture teaches us, says Romans three 10, there is no one righteous. Not even one. You are not. I'm not. We're all sinful in the eyes of God.

So that's Misbelief number one. That I'm not a bad person. That's just one. That's just one. I know, I know. I told you it's gotta be harsh.

The second misbelief cultural misbelief about sin is that all sin is the same. I, I've actually said this myself. I've said it. No. All sin, God looks at all sin the same. And you're gonna hear this all the time, many people, you probably believe it, I've, I've known myself, I've said it. Who are you to judge me?

What I'm doing is no worse than what you are doing. All sin is the same. Well, unfortunately, God never said that. God didn't say that. What you need to understand, and please hear me clearly, the Bible doesn't teach that all sin is the same. And make sure you get this. Don't miss it all. Unforgiven sin. Is the same.

All unforgiven sin leads to death eternally, but not all sin is the same. All unforgiven sin does lead to death. In fact, the Apostle Paul, he writes in Romans 6 23, Beth shared about this morning, for the wages of sin is death. The wages of sin is death. Any type of sin. Little sin, big sin, whatever kind of sin, any type of unforgiven sin is gonna lead to death.

But there's good news. The Apostle Paul goes on to say, at the end of that, he says, the good news is, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. Our Lord also know that all unforgiven sin does not, does lead to eternal death, but all sin. Is not the same. All sin is not the same. I was driving in my car.

I know I have a lot of issues while I'm driving my car. Maybe I should start catching the bus. I think again, who get a driver. Yes, James. No police this time I was driving in my car and we know the roadworks, the roadworks on the Gold Coast. I live down the southern end and it's just horrible, horrible, horrible.

So there's lots of situations where you, to merge, you gotta merge into the traffic. So I'm driving in the car and I'm going to merge, and I didn't see, or I didn't see the guy, all right. He was coming hooting up the inside and I, I cut him off. Well, I own, I cut him off. All right. I didn't do it deliberately.

Right. It was just one of those things. I cut him off and I could tell instantly he was not happy that I'd cut him off. I could see in the mirror, I could see him side going side like this and trying to get, and then he finally got up alongside me. So I thought, oh, I've gotta do it international. You know, my bad.

I'm sorry. You know, put the hand up head down. Sorry mate. Sorry. Didn't mean that it was an accident. Well, he came alongside me. He put Jo his window down. And he gave me the international sign for, I'm not happy with you. It was one of those man, he said, read between the lines brother.

He shot me the finger. Now that's a sin. He actually sinned by shooting me the finger, but he, he had shot me with a gun. That's also a sin. But very, very different consequences. They'll both keep you out of heaven if they're unforgiven, but they don't have equal terms of consequence, do they? Not all sin is the same.

All unforgiven sin separates us from God, but all sin is not the same. Doesn't matter what you do, as long as you don't hurt anyone. Well, God never said that. How we live what we do, it matters. It matters here on earth and it matters in eternity. So misperception number one is that I'm not a bad person.

I'm not bad. You're not bad. Well, yes you are. Sorry. We all are, we're sinful in the eyes of a holy God. Number two, all sin is the same. Well, actually, it's not the same. All Unforgiven sin does separate us from God and has eternal consequences, but there are certain sins on Earth that will have a bigger impact on our lives.

It's just obvious, and eventually they'll have a bigger impact eternally. So the third big cultural lie that so many people believe is, well, since I've already done it, I might as well keep doing it. Since I've already done it, I might as well keep doing it. You know, the list, the list of when we fall into this one just goes on and on.

I don't even know where to start. I mean, you've got your teenagers or young adults that say, well, I'm not a Virgin anymore, so, you know, I might as well just keep doing it. Or, I've taken drugs before now I'll, I'll just keep, I'll just keep going. Well, you know what, I, I cheated on that exam or, or that tax return.

And it helped me out. I didn't get caught, so I might as well do it again.

I've already done it once, so I might as well do it again now, evidently a couple of thousand years ago, just over

that problem was as real then as it is today. The apostle Paul asked that very pressing and relevant question. Romans chapter six, verse one, why you even asked this question? He said, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? Should we, should we keep on sinning just so we give God the opportunity to be more graceful to us?

In other words, hey, God's gonna forgive us anyway, so why should I even stop? Should we keep on sinning that Grace May abound? Should we keep on sinning because God has forgiven us anyway? And the Apostle Paul says to that a very resounding no no, of course not. Oh my goodness. Of course not. Are you joking?

You should know better than that. You should know better. You should be better. Of course not. Of course we don't do it. And he says, since we have died to sin, how can we live in it? In other words, since Jesus died for us, Jesus came, he died. He took away the punishment of sin. He took away the wages of our sin for us.

If we confess those sins and we hand them to him and we open our heart to him, he takes that sin from us. So the Apostle Paul's saying, so if that sin Hass been taken away, why would you continue to go back to it? Why?

Our sinful nature should no longer have power over us. We should have the power of Christ living in us. Why would we continue to go back into that which hurts the heart of God? It hurts our own lives, and it's got the potential to hurt so many people in our world, shall we keep on sinning because God's gonna forgive us anyway?

No, of course not. Of course not. I. You should know better than that. You know, God's got something much better for us. He's got something much, much better. We need to let God take the truth that he has shown us and let it settle in our hearts and let it settle us free from the sin that so easily entangles.

Well, I've already done it. I should just keep doing it anyway. Now, I mentioned that we have vegetables to get through. That was the Brussels sprouts. We've got some dessert coming now. There is some good news, there is some good news church. There is a way out. There is a way out. The closer you get to Jesus and it seems the way out, seems so simple that you think, man, why didn't I think of that?

And we get, it gets brought up in our face all the time, and sometimes we tend to brush it away. It's so simple. The closer we get to Jesus, the closer we get to Jesus, the quicker we find the way out. We've just talked about soap devotions. We've done a whole series making room. The closer you get to Jesus.

The closer you get to the light and the closer you get to the light, the more you recognize just how much darkness of sin there is in your own life. We get to Jesus, we get close to him. Jesus' light.

Now I don't, I don't want us to go around feeling all horrible and guilty and hang your head and. Well tear your clothes and wear sackcloth or whatever they used to do back in the day,

but we need to recognize it. We need to recognize that sin is progressive. Sin grows. Sin grows in the dark, like a mushroom sin grows in the dark. If you take it and keep it quiet, it will grow and it will fester in there. But when we confess it, when we bring it. Into the light and bring it out to Jesus and we expose it and say, Jesus, I'm sorry.

I can't believe I did this again. I'm sorry. Please. He is quick to forgive and he releases it from us and lets us be free. Sin is progressive. It will take you further than you want to go, and it will cost you more than you wanna pay. How's it costing you? Well, if you're a follower of Jesus. And you continue to live in sin, you will lose intimacy with God.

We just spoke about this whole series making room, spending time with Him. The more we continue to live in our sin and don't deal with it, then we lose intimacy. We lose relationship and connection with God because sin and holiness of God, they can't be in the same room together.

But the good news is, is that Jesus is our friend. Jesus is the friend of sinners, and when you can see yourself as a sinner, then you'll see the need for a savior. We all have a need for a savior on a daily basis. I don't know about you, but I, on a daily brace basis, I ask God for his forgiveness, try and rattle off things that I can remember or think about, oh God, I, I can't believe I said that to that person.

I can't believe I did that. God, forgive me, please. The minute we recognize our sin, we bring it to Jesus. And we've gotta remember that Jesus didn't come for the healthy people. He came for those that were sick, came for those that were struggling. In fact, one Corinthians 10 13 says, God is faithful. He will not let you be temp beyond what you can bear.

'cause he knows temptation is real. Temptation comes for all of us every single day of the week. There is temptation. God will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear, and he'll also provide a way out of it, a way to endure it. So it doesn't matter what you are trapped in. I don't know everyone's story here this morning in the room.

I don't know if you've trapped, if you feel like you're trapped in something, maybe there's a, a bad habit that you just can't seem to shake or a bad lifestyle choice that you know you should stop. It doesn't matter what that is. It doesn't matter what you're trapped in. It doesn't matter how long you've been trapped in it for.

It doesn't matter if you think you can never get out. God will always, that's what I'll tell you this morning. God will always give you a way out. There is a way out and Jesus is the way out that name Jesus. Every knee will bow, every tongue will confess. Jesus. Jesus, the son of God, he's the way out. He's the way, the truth, the life.

He's the way out. He sets you free. He sets you free. Doesn't that sound good? You can have freedom if there's something you feel that you're trapped in. I'm, we're not gonna put hands up now when I'm not gonna highlight things. But you know, you know what it is. You know what it is. I'm here today to to tell you that you can be free from that.

You can be free. No longer have to be a slave or trapped in it. 'cause the reality is sin costs us, but Jesus is bigger than sin. He's bigger than our sin. Now, if we go back to that first scripture we looked at in one John chapter one, verse eight, it says that if we claim to be without sin. What does it say?

It says, we deceive ourselves, we lie to ourselves. And the truth is not in us, but here we go. Ding ding. The very next line, the very next verse, I don't think it's up here, the very next verse says, but if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just, and he will forgive us our sins, and he will purify us from all unrighteousness.

How good is that? Yeah. Faithful and just. Man, he is such a good God. He's such a good God. He doesn't have to do that. He doesn't have to do that. If we think about how many times we missed the mark, and every time we come back say, God, I did it again. I'm so sorry. He's like, come on. Come on son. Let's go again.

That's how good Jesus is, is the way the truth and the life. And we remember that God is faithful, our God is faithful. He'll not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear, and he'll always give you a way out.

It doesn't matter what I do, as long as I don't hurt anyone. We need to recognize that as a lie from the pit of hell itself because that lie, that statement can make you breeze over so many lifestyle choices. Is that it's hurting you and it's hurting others. And I'm here to say, I want us all to be free, to be free to live in the freedom and the love, and the peace and the joy of Christ Jesus.

Jesus is the best friend of sinners, and that's what I want you to know. Because we're all sinners. We're all sinners. Let's face it. And we need his grace. We need to run to Jesus. He's the friend of sinners who came and who died to set us all free so that we can live in freedom in him. So God never said that.

It's the start of our series. It's gonna be a journey. I encourage you to come with us, but let's live and walk in that freedom. Let's do it together. Let's pray. Father, we do thank you. Thank you, Lord, that you have given us your love, Lord, that you give us your grace and your mercy. Lord, we just wanna acknowledge you as a mighty powerful God and Lord, we thank you.

Thank you for your love. Thank you Lord for this message. Although it can sting a little bit and it can feel a bit prickly, Lord, we know we need to hear it. Thank you, Lord, that we can hear that this morning, Lord, but especially thank you that we can hear that you love us, that you give us a way out. And Lord, I pray, I pray that you'll give us the strength and the boldness and the courage, Lord, to face that lifestyle choice or to face that habit or to face those words that we, that, that we let slip out.

All those things that we do, not that we can face them. Front on and say that's enough. Lord, we can bring them to the light. And Lord, we thank you that as we do that we know that you'll release it from us and you'll forgive us. Help us to do that, I pray Lord give us the strength to do that.