Off the Tracks – Personal Sin

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.