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Off the Tracks – Corporate Sin

November 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Off the Tracks

Off the Tracks – Corporate Sin
Sycamore Creek Church
November 13, 2011
Tom Arthur
Romans 7:14-25

http://movieclips.com/CLEuG-unbreakable-movie-trailer-1/

It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong.
Romans 7:21 NLT

Peace, Friends!

Yeah, it seems a little odd to say “Peace” after a scene and verse like that, but peace is where we’re going today.  Keep that in mind as we look at how sin causes our lives to jump off the tracks.

When I was in seminary my first year before classes began, the school organized a community BBQ for students.  During this BBQ there was a wiffle ball tournament.  I grew up playing baseball, and thought this would be a fun way to meet people.  So I joined in the fun.  There was a slight problem though.  I didn’t have any fun.  I kept taking the game so seriously.  All the old habits that I had developed while playing baseball were still in my muscles.  No matter how much I said to myself, “Don’t take this so seriously,” I couldn’t step up to the plate and not get in my batting crouch.  I couldn’t ignore the year of private batting coaching I had in high school.  I couldn’t not swing the bat with everything I had.  And I couldn’t not run to first base at a full body and spirit sprint stretching my stride longer than usual to beat the throw to first base.  Well, I couldn’t not do it, but my body no longer could take it!  That first time I ran to first base, I pulled my groin.  Then as I was coming home at one point and saw the wiffle ball out of the corner of my eye I did a belly slide into home plate taking out the catcher.  I came home a mess, and I was so sore that while we lived only a ten-minute walk from campus, Sarah had to drive me into classes.  I limped through my first week of training to be a pastor.  All because I couldn’t get rid of the old habits of baseball that were still in me.

I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn, I can’t make myself do right. I want to, but I can’t.
Romans 7:18 NLT

I think we’ve all experienced something like this.  We keep doing stuff that causes our lives to jump off the tracks.  No matter how hard we try or how many times we commit to change, we still go back to our old habits and practices that always end us up in the same place – off the tracks.

Off the Tracks

This kind of behavior shows up in some obvious ways like addictions.  We tell ourselves we’re going to quit smoking, but we just can’t stop.  We tell ourselves this is the last night I’m going to get drunk.  But then we do it again.  We tell ourselves that we’re never going to light up a joint again.  But then we do.

There are a lot of other not so obvious ways that we keep repeating old broken habits.  What about the way that we enter into relationships.  We keep being unfaithful.  We keep verbally abusing our spouse.  We keep thinking the next marriage will make it all better.  Or what about the various destructive ways that we talk to ourselves.  I’m no good.  No one loves me.  Or the destructive relationship we keep getting into.  We know that guy is no good for us, but we hook up anyway.  Or destructive eating habits.  Goodbye junk food.  Hello junk food.

Earlier this fall we ran a clearance sale on broken emotions.  We tell ourselves we won’t get angry again.  Then we lose our temper and blow up at the ones we love.  We tell ourselves we won’t get anxious or worry about that situation again.  But then we go home and rehearse it over and over throughout another night.

I’ve been a pastor now for almost two and a half years.  It has been an amazing two and a half years.  I’ve learned more about more people than I have ever known in my life.  You may think that that person sitting next to you has it all together; that they never struggle with this or that sin.  Well, I’m here to tell you that we’re all pretty messed up.  Myself included.  I never knew how really messed up we all are until I became a pastor.  All our lives are off the tracks.  All of us say we’ll make it right the next time, and then we don’t.  All of us.

Back on the Tracks

Today we’re continuing in this series called Off the Tracks.  The tracks are living at peace with God and others.  Sin is anything that causes our lives to jump off the tracks.  God is for peace, so God is against sin.  The big question is, how do we get back on the tracks? Last week I suggested that there are two basic steps to getting back on the tracks:

  1. Tell the truth about yourself.  Confess to God that your life is off the tracks.  Name the behavior, action, or attitude that has gotten you to this place.  Don’t try to pretend you’re something you’re not.
  2. Receive God’s lift of mercy and forgiveness.  If a train engine is off the tracks, it’s highly unlikely that it will get back on the tracks by itself.  It needs outside help. It needs an outside lift.  God lifts our lives back on the tracks when we confess our sin.  God forgives us.

If these are the two basic steps for getting back on the tracks, why do we keep falling off the tracks over and over again?  And how do we stay on the tracks in the future?  That’s what we want to look at today.

Paul, one of the writers of the New Testament, knows all about jumping off the tracks over and over again.  He describes this in his letter to the Romans.

Romans 7:14-25 NLT
The law is good, then. The trouble is not with the law but with me, because I am sold into slavery, with sin as my master. I don’t understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do the very thing I hate. I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong, and my bad conscience shows that I agree that the law is good. But I can’t help myself, because it is sin inside me that makes me do these evil things.

I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn, I can’t make myself do right. I want to, but I can’t. When I want to do good, I don’t. And when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway. But if I am doing what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing it; the sin within me is doing it.

It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another law at work within me that is at war with my mind. This law wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin?   Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.

Paul describes a desperate but ultimately losing battle against the sin in our lives.  We want to do good, but we always end up doing bad.  Arghhh!  Christians have a term for this.  We call it “original sin.”  Original sin doesn’t refer to the first sin although it is easy to make that mistake.  Original sin means that humans are unable not to sin.  Our will is curved inward on itself.  We have a permanent lean in our lives toward sin.  Sin is a kind of power or force at work in us causing the train of our lives to continually jump the tracks.  Our train is damaged to begin with.  It’s like the little toy train we’ve been using for the logo for this series. If you look at the toy itself, you’ll see that the front wheel is broken.  The axel is broken so that the engine spins without turning the wheel.  This train is damaged from the get go.  That’s what original sin is.

Staying on the Tracks

But Christians don’t believe that original sin is the end of the story.  We believe that in our baptism, our “train” is made new, and we are given the freedom to not sin.  When we go under the water we die to ourselves, and when we come up out of the water, the tide of the war within us turns away from the enemy and toward Christ.  The only problem is that we have all these old habits that are continually pulling us back off the tracks.  It’s like we’re a butterfly with wings to fly, but we continue to act like a grounded caterpillar because that’s all we’ve known.

So the key to staying on the tracks is replacing old habits with new ones.  This is not a function of trying harder.  There is a significant difference between trying and training.  Trying is about telling yourself you’ll do better next time.  Training is about getting new habits in your muscles and mind.

Let me give you an example from my own life.  I have in the past been a very judgmental person.  I would look at someone and quickly size them up and fit them in a box and categorize them.  My boxes tended to be pretty simple: saint and sinner.  I didn’t see a lot of gray in between.  So if you met me on the street, I’d quickly decide which of those two boxes you fit in.  If you were in the saint box, then you were my friend.  If you were in the sinner box then I did my best to stay away from you.  Over time this habit of being judgmental has been transformed by being replaced with other new habits of patience, humility, discernment, and love.  Now I’m not saying I’m perfect.  In fact, my own judgmental attitude continues to creep up and surprise me and those around me from time to time.  But I jump off the tracks less often because of a judgmental attitude than I have in the past.  And it wasn’t so much because I focused on trying not to be judgmental.  It was because I focused on training for new habits.  It wasn’t a direct frontal attack that helped me stay on the tracks.  It was an indirect side attack on my character as a whole.

New HABITS

Here at SCC we have a core value of seeking to create healthy community through biblical patterns of relating to one another. These biblical patterns of relating to one another are the new habits we’re trying to train into becoming.  We have an acronym to talk about these.  It is conveniently H.A.B.I.T.S.

H – Hang out with God in prayer, meditation, and fasting.
A – Give a true Account of yourself to someone else in an accountability friendship.
B – Read your Bible daily.  It’s hard to know what biblical patterns of relating to one another are if you’re not reading your Bible.
I – Getting Involved with the church.  That’s means getting into the messy work of friendships.
T – Tithe your money.  The Old Testament standard for giving is 10%.  The New Testament standard is higher: live simply and give everything else away!
S – Serve your church, community, and world.

If you train at developing these habits in your life, the old habits that cause you to jump off the tracks will slowly but surely disappear, and you will find that you continue on the tracks for longer and longer periods of time.

Staying on the Tracks (Most of the Time)

I’d like to give you three examples from my own life of how this has worked.  I’m not talking about myself because I’ve got it all together or because I always stay on the tracks.  I’m talking about myself because I know my own experience best.

First, I’ve had an old habit of being judgmental.  I’d look at people and categorize them pretty quickly into one of two boxes: saints or sinners.  This would especially happen during worship.  If you raised your hands in worship, you were in the “saints” box.  If you kept your hands in your pockets you were in the “sinners” box.  I took this so far that I had a rule about dating: I’d only date a girl that raised her hands in worship!  Apparently I was more focused on watching other people worship than I was actually worshiping myself.

Over time as I began to practice new habits this judgmentalism began to break down.  As I got involved in people’s lives I realized that life isn’t that black and white.  And as I practiced the habit of accountability, I realized that my own life wasn’t that black and white.  Most of us, including myself have one foot in the saint box and one foot in the sinner box.  We may lean on one or the other from time to time, but we’re all a mixture of both.  My old habit of judgmentalism which would cause my life to jump off the tracks was replaced with new habits of patience and love for other people.  I can’t say that I’m never judgmental now, but it pops up a lot less often than it has in the past.

Second, in the past I have struggled with looking at pornography.  Every day during middle school and high school and going into college I would look at porn.  I’d tell myself that I was going to quit, but I just couldn’t no matter how hard I’d try.  I even told my youth pastor that I had to step down from leadership because of this sin in my life.  I had habits that put my life off the tracks.  I felt ashamed and double faced all the time.

More than any of the sins I have struggled with, this one shows more than any other the power of overcoming sin, staying on the tracks, by not focusing on trying to stop sinning.  What I did instead was focus on other habits like spending time with God, accountability, prayer, Bible reading, and the like and pretty soon I found that porn just became less and less of a temptation.  I was becoming a different kind of person who no longer had the habit of needing to objectify women in this way.  New habits were replacing the old, and it wasn’t because of a frontal “attack” on the sin.  It was an indirect attack from the side.  I stopped focusing on stopping an old habit and instead focused on cultivating new habits that kept me on the tracks in general.  Again, I can’t say that the temptation to porn no longer exists, but it holds a lot less power over me than it ever did before.

Third, I have in the past, and still somewhat now, struggled with being a cheapskate.  Let me give you an example.  I like to go to Biggby’s coffee, but I don’t drink coffee.  So I order tea.  Because I bring my own mug, they ring me up at $1.17.  I usually have a $1/off coupon so I pay 17 cents.  I’ve also gotten to know the barista’s who work there, and I’ve even begun to care a little more for them as people and not just faces that serve me.  They’re mostly college students, and they’re making a lot less than I do.  I’ve never tipped them even though there’s a jar there for tips.  So lately I’ve decided to put a $1 tip in every time I use a $1/off coupon.  I wouldn’t have even thought of this in the past, but because I’m practicing the habit of tithing at church, and being generous with my money there, it’s rubbing off on me and I’m slowly becoming more generous with other people too.

A World on the Tracks

I wonder what our world would look like if all the Christians started practicing these kinds of habits and staying on the tracks more often?  It might look like the early church, especially the habits they practiced when it came to money. The 4th century pagan emperor Julian, wrote a letter to his pagan priest Arsacius saying, “It is disgraceful that, when no Jew has ever to beg, and the impious [because they don’t worship the Roman gods] Galileans [his term for Christians because Jesus came from Galilee] support not only their own poor but ours as well, all men see that our people lack aid from us” (11).  What would the world look like if all the non-Christians saw the Christians behaving like the Christians of Julian’s day?  We’d not only be developing new habits of God that keep our own lives on the tracks, but we’d be helping one another stay on the tracks too.  That’s the kind of community I’d like to be a part of.  That’s the kind of community I hope you’d hold me accountable to being, and I’ll hold you accountable to being.

Prayer

God, I confess that my life is off the tracks and that I have a tendency to stay off the tracks. I confess that the world we live in is off the tracks and tends to keep us off the tracks too.  Forgive us.  By the power of your Spirit at work in us, give us new habits that keep us and those around us on the tracks of living at peace with you and with others.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

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Off the Tracks – Personal Sin

November 7, 2011 By 1 Comment

Off the Tracks

Off the Tracks – Personal Sin
Sycamore Creek Church
November 6, 2011
Tom Arthur
Matthew 7:13-14

Matthew 7:13-14 NLT
You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose the easy way. But the gateway to life is small, and the road is narrow, and only a few ever find it.

Today we begin a new series called Off the Tracks. Has your life ever jumped the tracks? You know. Because of something you said, or did, or thought your life ended up not the way it’s supposed to be, off the tracks. Being off the tracks is called sin, and that’s what this series is going to explore.

Sin is a tricky thing to talk about without coming across as really negative. I grew up in what is called the “holiness tradition.” The holiness tradition is focused on being holy, and in order to be holy, one must not sin. So sin was a real focus for me growing up. Sin was something that you did everything you could to root out of your life. Jesus helped in there somewhere, but sometimes God came across as pretty hard to please, like a heavenly Santa Claus who is keeping a list and checking it not just twice but several times a day.

In our own culture, images of talking about sin tend to be pretty negative. We think of labeling sin like a scarlet red letter branded on someone’s clothing. Or a soap box preacher at Wells Hall on MSU’s campus.

Our view of what is sinful tends to be pretty diverse. But there are a couple of places of consensus. The one sin that everyone in our culture agrees upon is intolerance. You’re definitely off the tracks if you are intolerant to someone or a group of people. And the one culture that we all agree was sinful was the Nazis (and even evil!). Then there are the times when we think sin is good as in “sinful chocolate cake.”

Sin Is…

The Bible uses a lot of different metaphors to talk about sin. Sin is missing a target. Sin is straying from the fold. Sin is a hard heart and a stiff neck. Sin is blindness and deafness. Sin is a beast crouching at the door waiting to pounce. Sin is overstepping a line (transgression) or a failure to reach it (shortcoming). Or as we saw in the verses read above, sin is wandering from the right path, the narrow path.

This last metaphor of wandering from the narrow path implies that it is easy to sin and difficult to not sin. The narrow path is, well, narrow, like a railroad line or a balance beam. The path of sin is wide and easy to keep in like a six lane highway.

Paul, one of the authors of the New Testament, adds to our understanding of sin when he describes it in terms of two dimensions. On the one hand sin is actual sins, the moments when our actions or decisions cause our life to jump off the tracks. On the other hand Paul talks about sin as a kind of force, power, or disposition that pushes us off the tracks. You can see this in his letter to the Romans:

Romans 5:12-17 NLT
When Adam sinned (actual sin), sin (force/power/disposition) entered the entire human race. Adam’s sin brought death (off the tracks), so death spread to everyone (force/power/disposition), for everyone sinned (actual sins)…What a contrast between Adam and Christ, who was yet to come! And what a difference between our sin and God’s generous gift of forgiveness. For this one man, Adam, brought death to many through his sin. But this other man, Jesus Christ, brought forgiveness to many through God’s bountiful gift. And the result of God’s gracious gift is very different from the result of that one man’s sin. For Adam’s sin led to condemnation (off the tracks), but we have the free gift of being accepted by God, even though we are guilty of many sins (actual sin). The sin of this one man (actual sin), Adam, caused death to rule over us (force/power/disposition), but all who receive God’s wonderful, gracious gift of righteousness will live in triumph over sin and death (back on the tracks) through this one man, Jesus Christ.

Next week we’re going to look at how sin is a kind of power, force, or disposition. Today we’re going to be looking at actual or personal sins, the moments when our actions or decisions cause our lives to jump off the tracks.

Sin can be looked at in negative light. It is anything intentional or unintentional that causes the train of our lives to jump the tracks like lying, stealing, greed, adultery, and the like. But sin can also be seen from a positive perspective. The tracks are what the Bible calls “peace” or more literally “shalom.” “Shalom” is the Hebrew word for “peace.” But shalom is more than just the absence of conflict. Shalom is a well being of the whole person: socially, physically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually. God is for shalom, and because sin is what breaks shalom, God is against sin. The tricky part of all this is that there are a lot of ways to break shalom or peace with others. That’s why the way of sin is broad and easy. And because it is often hard to keep peace with others, the way of shalom is narrow and hard.

Beauty on the Tracks

One misperception of the narrow way of peace is that it doesn’t leave much room to be creative. This way of thinking says that the narrow way becomes confining and restricting. It is for party poopers and people who have their undies in a bunch wanting to keep the rest of us from having any fun. But this is a misperception. It does take discipline to walk in the narrow way of peace but there can be great and beautiful creativity within the “tracks” of how it is supposed to be.

There’s an amazingly beautiful short video that illustrates well the beauty that is possible through the discipline of the narrow way. Watch for the moments in this video that require discipline in the narrow way in order for those moments to be beautiful.

Living on the tracks isn’t for duds, it can be a beautiful and life-giving experience. One example of this comes from the fourth century emperor Julian. He is writing a letter to his “pagan” priest, Arsacius. In it he says, “It is disgraceful that, when no Jew has ever to beg, and the impious Galileans [his term for Christians] support not only their own poor but ours as well, all men see that our people lack aid from us.” That’s the narrow way, the way of peace and shalom. It’s opposite the broad way of sin. It’s living on the tracks.

One author describes living on the tracks as strong marriages; secure thriving children, nations respecting and valuing differences within and without; men deferring to women and women deferring to men and in a crisis the most talented one making a decision; public officials serving in truth and integrity while valuing other public officials; business associates thankful for someone else’s promotion; missile silos converted to scuba diving tanks; news papers filled with stories of virtue, joy, and beauty; in God all would give thanks and glory; and we would see in our differences a unity among diversity (like the Trinity who is one united God in three diverse persons of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). Now that’s a beautiful vision of the world back on the tracks.

Back on the Tracks

I think that most of us have an innate sense that our lives are continually off the tracks. We don’t even live up to our own expectations of ourselves, let alone live into the way of peace and shalom that God desires for us. So the big question becomes, “How do I get back on the tracks?”

The first step to getting back on the tracks is this: Tell the truth about yourself, confess to yourself and God that your life is off the tracks and then do what is in your power to point your life back toward the tracks (perhaps by confessing to others how you have broken peace with them). This is the hard step. It is always difficult to move out of denial and into the truth. It is hard to take off the mask with yourself and God and be truly who you are, a broken and sinful person whose life is not the way it’s supposed to be.

The second step is to receive God’s lift back on the tracks. Receive God’s mercy and forgiveness. A train that has jumped that tracks can’t get itself back on the tracks. It requires intervention from the outside. The same is true of our lives. To get our life back on the track, God must pull out God’s crane of forgiveness and put our life back on the track of being in right relationship with God and others around us. God’s forgiveness puts you back on the tracks of peace with God and others.

John Donne, a 17th century poet, has written a beautiful poem that describes what it is like to confess and receive God’s forgiveness. I invite you to use this poem as a prayer of confession and forgiveness.

A Hymn to God the Father
by John Donne

I.
Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun,
Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
And do run still, though still I do deplore?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.
II.
Wilt thou forgive that sin which I have won
Others to sin, and made my sin their door?
Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun
A year or two, but wallowed in a score?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.
III.
I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
But swear by thyself, that at my death thy Son
Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore;
And having done that, thou hast done;
I fear no more.

Third, stay on the tracks by growing in the practices of living at peace. This requires knowledge about the tracks. That knowledge comes in two forms: from the Bible and from the community of Christians who are seeking to understand and live what the Bible teaches. As you practice what the Bible teaches, you will soon form new habits that tend to keep you on the tracks. Those new habits over time will end up forming in you a new nature so that you don’t even have to think about staying on the tracks. And soon you will find that you are delighting in staying on the tracks and the “narrow way” is no longer hard but easy and joyful.

But in the mean time, why don’t we stay on the tracks? Why do we keep sinning? Why do we keep breaking peace with God and others? Because our nature is fundamentally broken. And that’s what we’ll be talking about next week.

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Off the Tracks

October 31, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Off the Tracks

Have you ever seen a train jump off the tracks?  Like in a newsreel or in a movie?  It’s not a pretty sight.  The tracks keep the train moving forward in a positive direction.  Have your own actions and attitudes ever caused your life to jump off the tracks?  It’s not a pretty sight.  Come join us for a three-week teaching series that will explore how and why sin causes our lives to jump off the tracks.

November 6 – Personal Sin

November 13 – Corporate Sin

November 20 – Gray Areas

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Four Circles Story

August 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Of all the “tracts” that describe the four spiritual laws, this is probably my favorite.  I like how it includes the entirety of creation.

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Switch by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

July 21, 2010 By

SwitchSwitch: How To Change Things When Change Is Hard
By Chip Heath and Dan Heath
Audio Book
Rating: 9 out of 10

Chip and Dan Heath offer an exceedingly helpful and practical book on the art of change.  The title and the cover showing a light switch miss the book’s main strong guiding metaphor.  Making change is like helping a rider on an elephant go down the right path.  The rider is the intellect.  The elephant is emotion.  The path is the circumstances, situation, and context that the rider and elephant find themselves in.  A successful change happens when the rider/intellect is spoken to in clear and unambiguous ways, the elephant/emotions are motivated, and the path is cleared of all obstacles.  Switch is itself written in this manner.  The book engages the intellect in easily understandable ideas, motivates one’s emotions to be a change agent, and the simple metaphor helps clear the path forward to accomplish change in one’s personal life, business life, or community life.

Often times leaders seek to bring about change by engaging the intellect alone.  This can be seen by the ubiquitous Power Point presentation with graphs and charts.  The problem with this approach according to the Heaths is that when you’re speaking to the intellect, you’re speaking to a rider who is straddling an elephant of emotions.  The rider may understand and agree that change is needed, but without getting the elephant motivated, the rider will become tired over time.  This dynamic of rider-fatigue decreases as the behavior that one is seeking to change is replaced by habits.  Habits help the rider because they are like paths that the elephant can easily follow, but sometimes the both the rider and the elephant are motivated but change still doesn’t take place.  This may be due to the lack of a clear path.  How simple is it to change?

Among many studies cited, the authors point to a study done on eating popcorn.  Two groups were given huge containers of popcorn that were impossible to finish during the course of a movie.  The only difference was that one group was given an even bigger container.  Even though both groups did not finish all the popcorn in their containers, the individuals who were given the bigger containers ate more popcorn!  Throw in the small detail that the researches gave both groups ten-day old popcorn and the results of this study are astounding.  Sometimes we eat more simply because of the situation.  A simple solution to losing weight, according to the Heaths, would be to simply get rid of all your dinner plates and eat only off of your salad plates.  Provide an obstruction-free path for the rider and elephant to follow.

One question I have as a Christian leader reading this book is what role sin plays in the lack of change.  The authors clearly put most of the blame on bad habits in the hands of the context rather than the individual.  They see positive reinforcement for the rider, elephant, and path as the primary means of bringing about change.  But what role does and should contrition, sorrow, confession and repentance play in changing?  Perhaps one way of understanding the role of sin in this book is that we as a species have a hard time changing simply by knowing what is the right thing to do.  This situation in itself is lamentable.  And then there’s the brokenness of the culture around us that we collectively participate in which reinforces unhelpful and even sinful behaviors.  This is both individual and corporate sin, and while Switch does not name it as such, the Christian must do so, because we will never make enough switches in our life that everything is perfect.  We still need a God who saves us from both ourselves and our context.

While I have this one theological quibble about the role of sin in making change, overall I found Switch to be chock full of helpful ideas on how to implement it’s one main metaphor: speak to the rider, motivate the elephant, and clear the path.  I can and already have implemented many of these ideas in my own life and leadership over the course of the several weeks that I’ve read this book, and I suspect I will read Switch again in the future.

Currently Reading/Listening:
American Saint: Francis Asbury and the Methodists by John H. Wigger
Sober for Good by Anne M. Fletcher
The Shack by William P. Young
God’s Economy by Jonathan Wilson Hartgrove
The Expectant Father by Armin A. Brott and Jennifer Ash
Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear by Scott Bader-Saye
The Gift of Fear by Gavin De Becker
Documents in Early Christian Thought edited by Wiles and Sante

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Questions – Why Do I Keep Sinning?

April 19, 2010 By

Questions

Questions – Why Do I Keep Sinning?
Romans 7:14-25
Sycamore Creek Church
Tom Arthur
April 18, 2010

Peace, Friends!

Recently I was listening to the radio show, This American Life.  A great segment came on with a poem titled, “The Fable of the Scorpion and the Tortoise.”  The tale is told of a tortoise who is swimming along when he is greeted by a scorpion on the shore.  The scorpion asks for a ride on the shell of the tortoise.  The tortoise declines knowing that the scorpion is prone to strike and kill him.  The scorpion replies that there would be no reason to do so because then they would both die.  The tortoise is won over by the scorpion’s logic, so he gives him a ride across the river.  Half-way across, the tortoise feels the scorpion sting him.  As he begins to die and sink he cries out, “Why did you do this?  We both will now die.”  The scorpion replies that he does not know why he has done this, but he cannot help but sting because it is in his nature to do so.  The morale of the fable is said to be that we cannot change our natures.  What we are is what we are.  What we do is what we do.  Is this true?

The good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that our natures can change.  We can change from what we have been to become a new creation with a new nature.  It is not always easy, and there is certainly struggle along the way, but YES, we can change our nature.

Today we continue in the third part of a series on questions.  These questions were questions that the teenagers in our church asked Sarah and me one day when we met them.  I enjoyed the questions so much that I thought they were worth building a sermon series around.  Each week a different teenager has asked me a different question.  Week one: How do I know that Jesus is who he said he is?  Week two: What’s up with heaven or hell?  Today, week three: Gaelen asks, “Why do I keep sinning?”  Let’s begin by taking a look at what Paul has to say about the topic in Romans.

Romans 7:14-25 (NLT)

14 The law is good, then. The trouble is not with the law but with me, because I am sold into slavery, with sin as my master. 15 I don’t understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do the very thing I hate. 16 I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong, and my bad conscience shows that I agree that the law is good. 17 But I can’t help myself, because it is sin inside me that makes me do these evil things.

18 I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn, I can’t make myself do right. I want to, but I can’t. 19 When I want to do good, I don’t. And when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway. 20 But if I am doing what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing it; the sin within me is doing it.

21 It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. 22 I love God’s law with all my heart. 23 But there is another law at work within me that is at war with my mind. This law wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. 24 Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin?   25 Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.

This is God’s story for us today.  Thank you, God!

Paul’s thinking throughout this passage is a little difficult to follow.  Thankfully he gives us a summary of what he’s trying to say in the last verse.  We read, “Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin” (Romans 7:25, NLT).  It could be said of our lives that sin remains but it does not reign.

It is a popular conception that one sin is no different than another sin.  This is true from the perspective of whether any of us are better or worse in God’s eyes, but it is not true as to the consequences of sin.  There are at least four different kinds of sin.  Let’s take a look at each one of them.

The first kind of sin is external sin.  External sin has to do with the big ones: idolatry, lying, stealing, murder, adultery, etc..  If you grew up Catholic you would have known to call this kind of sin “mortal sin.”  This is the kind of sin that breaks our relationship with God.  We know that it is wrong and that God does not want us to do it, and we do it anyway.  Generally speaking, when one becomes a Christian, one does not commit these kinds of sins.  We’re talking the Ten Commandments here.  This is not to say that Christians never commit external sin.  Rather, it is to say that when we know it is clearly wrong, we simply don’t do it, and if we do, we ask for forgiveness, and we intend to not do it again.  These kinds of sins are easier to avoid because they are obvious.

When I was working in a church in Petoskey I committed this kind of sin one time.  I lied to my secretary.  It was not a big issue, but she confronted me about how I was using some office equipment.  I knew what I was doing, and I knew that it was wrong.  I was ashamed at what the truth meant for me.  So I lied.  I had not lied like this in a very long time.  I couldn’t believe what I was doing.  Immediately the Holy Spirit convicted me of this sin, but I did not immediately act upon this conviction.  Eventually I did.  I went and confessed to her what I had done and asked for her forgiveness.  She forgave me.  Thank you, God.

The second kind of sin is internal sin.  Internal sin has to do with our attitudes, our spirit, our motivations.  We’re talking about the sins of jealousy, envy, ill will, pride, etc.  These are much more subtle sins.  They don’t immediately break our relationship with God, but they can over time build up a resistance and hardness to the work of the Holy Spirit in us.  If you grew up Catholic you might have known these sins as venial sins.  These kinds of sins are harder to avoid, but you can grow in God’s grace to overcome them.  The tricky part is that as you grow in maturity, you begin to notice all kinds of sins like this that you had never noticed before.  So while you make progress, you also realize more and more how much progress needs to be made!

There was once a person I did not like very well.  I tended to avoid this person.  When I would see them coming down the hall, I would turn a corner so I didn’t have to meet them.  There was something about them that just got under my skin.  It wasn’t that they had done anything to me.  I just didn’t like them.  I didn’t ever do anything outright sinful to this person.  I didn’t lie to them. I didn’t cheat them.  I didn’t fail to follow through on commitments I had made.  One day while I was in prayer, the Holy Spirit convicted me about my attitude.  I realized I had to go and confess this sin to this person.  I did.  I was amazed to find that they were very receptive to my confession.  They said that they saw a soft side of me in that moment that they had never seen before.  I can’t say that I immediately liked this person, but the ongoing build-up of resentment stopped.  Thank you, God!

The third kind of sin is sometimes called sins of surprise.  These are sins that we don’t plan to commit, they just happen in the moment when we’re not thinking about it.  You smash your thumb with the hammer and you say, “@%#$!”  You see someone being bullied, and you don’t do anything.  When you think about these kinds of situations you intend to do the right thing.  When you think back on the situation you wish you had done the right thing.  But in the moment of the situation, you react in a way that surprises yourself.  These kinds of sins may be lessened over time, but they may never go away.

There is something about computers that really gets me agitated.  It’s like they’re a magic black box that I can’t understand.  I can get so agitated by them when they are not working right.  I want to pick it up and throw it out the window.  One time I got so annoyed with my laptop that I slammed the top down and brought my closed fist down on top of it.  I immediately felt ridiculous.  My stupidity was multiplied when the computer would no longer turn on.  I had not planned on treating the computer this way.  I was sorry that I had done so after it was over.  I surprised myself by my reaction.  I confessed my sin to God.  God forgave me.  Thank you, God!

The fourth kind of sin is corporate sin.  It has to do with the sin ingrained in the structures of our society.  If you live and work and breathe in our culture, you participate in the sinful ways of our society.  These kinds of sin can be fought against but they will likely never go away completely until Jesus comes back to set everything straight.

I remember the day that I first realized that when I bought shares of a mutual fund I now owned a part of that company, and that meant that I owned a part of the responsibility of how that company was going about its business.  I could potentially be profiting off of their misdoings.  Do they pad their books?  Do they lie to make money?  Do they make money on sweatshops around the globe?  Do they pay their employees a living wage?  Do they harm the creation?  Do they discriminate in their hiring practices in terms of the number of women or minorities in leadership positions?  I began to pay more attention to not just the bottom line of how much money my investments were earning, but the manner in which the businesses that I owned went about making that money.  When I realized this I found that there are investment strategies and investment brokers who care about these same kinds of things.  Thank you, God!

There are different kinds of sins and some are easier to overcome than others, but over time we can be transformed so that sin does not have the same hold over us that it once did.  Sin remains, but it does not reign.

John Wesley has a great sermon called On Sin in Believers. He has this to say about sin:

Every babe [new Christian] in Christ is holy, and yet not altogether so. He is saved from sin; yet not entirely: It remains, though it does not reign. If you think it does not remain, (in babes at least, whatever be the case with young men, or fathers) you certainly have not considered the height, and depth, and length, and breadth of the law of God.

Sin remains, but it does not reign.  He goes on to add:

The usurper is dethroned. He remains indeed where he once reigned; but remains in chains. So that he does, in some sense, “prosecute the war,” yet he grows weaker and weaker; while the believer goes on from strength to strength, conquering and to conquer.

Sin remains, but it does not reign.  It does not reign because the power of Jesus has come into our lives and broken the bondage that sin held over us.  It does not reign because Jesus has made us free.  It remains because the old habits remain, but it does not reign because we are free to replace those old habits with new habits of love.

So if sin remains in a Christian, what motivates us to continue the fight?  Can’t we just settle for good enough?  I mean, we’ve got our fire insurance.  We’re Christians.  That gets us into heaven, doesn’t it?  Why worry beyond that?  The answer to that question is that I don’t think there is such a static place where we are not growing.  We are either growing as Christians or we are not Christians.  We are either growing at following Christ or we are not following Christ.  Health implies growth.

It is a beautiful thing to see a four or five-year-old dog paddle across the pool for the first time.  It is rather disturbing to see that same person at age fifty still dog paddling across the pool.  It is a beautiful thing to see a five-year-old riding their bike around with training wheels on.  It is a very disturbing thing to see that same person riding their bike with training wheels when they are fifty.

Sometimes change is just noticeable improvement.  I don’t spend a lot of time at bars.  I’m not a big beer drinker.  In fact, I don’t like the taste of beer.  There’s nothing wrong with having a beer here and there if you don’t get drunk.  Drunkenness is what the Bible has a problem with, not drinking.

Now I don’t know what you think about seminary students, but most of my friends at seminary liked to have a drink now and then.  One of my friends had a birthday party, and it was at a local bar.  There was a back patio that all these seminary students took over and celebrated my friend’s birthday.  No one was getting drunk, but we were having a good time.  I found out that night something I never knew.  Beer girls aren’t just in beer commercials.  There was this beer rep at the bar and he set up shop on the back patio.  He was cursing up a storm and handing out free beer samples.  I don’t think he realized that we were all future pastors.  He brought along with him a beer girl.  I call her a beer girl because I don’t know what else to call her.  She was dressed like a girl in a beer commercial.  That is to say, she was dressed to capture the eye of every guy in the joint.  Skimpy top.  Mini skirt.  Stiletto heels.  Being a guy, I noticed her.  It was almost impossible not to notice her.  It would be like telling my wife to ignore the gold finch at the birdfeeder.  But that night something happened that had never happened before.  For the first time in my life I noticed her and I thought to myself, “I bet she’s really uncomfortable in those shoes.”  What happened in that moment?  She became not just an object for me to look at, but she became a real person.  How did this happen?

I’ve thought back on that night several times and wondered why that just noticeable improvement happened. Here’s why I think it did.  First, I had been married for over ten years by then.  I knew from my wife’s experience how uncomfortable women’s shoes can be sometimes.  My marriage was a means of grace for me to grow in God’s grace.  Second, I was surrounded by Christians.  I had the community around me reminding me constantly not verbally but implicitly who I was called to be.  Third, I had been practicing this for thirty plus years.  I regularly pray, “God help me to see everyone through your eyes.”  That night, God answered my prayer.  I saw that “beer girl” as God saw her, a human being in need of a comfortable pair of shoes.

There are two ways to kill the fire of the Holy Spirit in us.  The first is to throw water on it.  That is to sin, but the second is to remove the fuel.  That is to neglect the practices, habits, and disciplines of following Jesus.  Do you spend unhurried time with God daily?  If you do, you will see just noticeable improvements.  You will see the habits of your new nature, your Christian nature begin to move to the forefront more and more, and you will see the old habits of your old self begin to move more and more to the background.  Sin remains, but it does not reign.

So what would it look like if you grew to love more perfectly?  I’m not talking about absolute perfection.  I’m not talking about being at a place where you are never tempted, or can never fall back into sin.  I’m talking about being at a place where you are fully submitted to God’s will that you are entirely devoted to God, you love God with everything you’ve got and you love your neighbor as yourself.  As you grow in God’s grace what would it look like if you had a fully accurate self understanding in which you knew what you were good at without pride and knew what you were not good at without frustration or envy?  If you were patient with others around you born out of a humility of knowing that others are patient with you.  If instead of trifling your time away in front of another TV, computer, video game screen you spent your time enjoying the beauty of creation and God’s presence in it?  If you didn’t ever worry about what to do next because you fully trusted in God’s leading?  If you had no money anxiety because you trusted God by living simply and giving generously?  If you were present fully to the people around you, able to love them not because you needed someone to love but because unconditional love flowed naturally from your entire being?  If instead of loving the things of this world, you used the things of this world to love God and others?  What would your life look like?  We’re talking here about not just good enough, not just getting into heaven, but growing in God’s grace so that while sin remains, it does not reign.

If you want to know what it would look like take the famous passage from Corinthians about love and insert your name in the place of “love.”

1 Corinthians 13:4-8
_______ is patient and kind. ______ is not jealous or boastful or proud, or rude. _____ does not demand his/her own way. ______ is not irritable, and keeps no record of when he/she has been wronged. _______ is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. _______ never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. ______’s love will last forever.

Why settle for good enough when there is a more excellent way of love?  Why settle for the sin that remains when God’s grace is able to help you overcome the sin that does not reign?  Why settle for just getting by when you can spend unhurried time with God every day and grow into the person that God has called you to become?

Gaelen, why do we keep sinning?  Because sin remains, but it does not reign.  We live in a fallen world and absolute perfection may not be available this side of heaven, but we can grow in maturity wrestling less and less with pride, impatience, anxiety, distrust, greed, hate, idolatry, and the like.  We can grow to overcome the sin the sin that remains.

“Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 7:25, NLT).

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Question – Why do I keep sinning?

April 13, 2010 By

We’re currently in a series called Questions.  The questions I’m answering each week are based on questions the students in my church asked me one day when I met with them.  I thought they should present the question then themselves.  So here’s the question for this Sunday asked by Gaelen: Why do I keep sinning?

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