Sin: Are You For or Against it?

There’s a story that is told of the fellow who asked the preacher what he was going to preach on the following Sunday. The preacher said “sin… I’m preaching on the subject of sin”. The fellow asking the question responded… “are you for it or against it?”

That’s a funny story but what’s not funny is that sometimes I can’t tell by observation if Christians are actually for or against sin.

I see some folks of the “once saved always saved” persuasion say things like… everyone’s a sinner so we’re going to sin from time to time and it doesn’t affect my salvation in any way. Kind of like a “get out of jail card free” that you can play. For example, you might see Christian men and women living together outside of the ties of marriage and it’s okay because they have been saved.

I see some folks say things like… the blood of Jesus Christ is so powerful that it can forgive anything. And you might see these kind of folks marrying, divorcing and remarrying seven times or even seventy times seven times because the powerful blood of Jesus Christ cleanses that sin right away and you’re so clean you can just move on to the next woman… there are no “consequences” to sin.

So just what is the truth on sin and how do we apply those truths to our lives?

Let me start with this… that might set some folks back on their heels… God expects us to be sinlessly perfect.

Matthew 5:48, states that we are to be “perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect”.

Ephesians 4: 15, states that we are to “grow into Him… even Jesus Christ”

Romans 12:2, states that we are to “transform ourselves by developing new minds”, i.e. we don’t even think about sin much less act upon it.

So that seems impossible for mortal men to achieve right? Wrong!

In Philippians 3:15, the apostle Paul says this… “Let us therefore, as many as are perfect be thus minded…”

Get this Paul identified himself as being perfect and others as well. What are we to assume? Paul was perfect as his heavenly Father was perfect (Mt. 5:48). Paul had grown into the image of Jesus Christ (Eph. 4). Paul had transformed his mind so he didn’t even consider sin (Romans 12) and others had too.

Let me suggest that your salvation might be in peril if you willfully and consistently violate God’s Law and twist God’s Word to justify it. Let me also suggest that there are consequences to sin. Oh yes, you can get the forgiveness of any sin but a consequence may be that you are not free to just remarry willy nilly.

That kind of behavior doesn’t even pass the smell test and in fact it stinks all the way up to Heaven.

Be perfect as God is perfect… it is what God expectes of you.