TAKING SIN SERIOUSLY

                In our world today, we do not take sin seriously. In fact, many people refuse to acknowledge the reality of sin. Instead, they see it as making bad choices or being a victim of their circumstances. But they don’t take responsibility for their sinfulness. They believe that they are basically good and that God will overlook their mistakes, because they are really trying. In extreme cases, sin has become something to embrace and be proud of. In essence, by making light of sin, it takes the sting out of it. People just don’t understand how serious sin really is.

                Think of living in sin as a mud run. Mud runs are a popular event these days. People sign up for a mud run as a fun activity. They enter it in high spirits, expecting to get muddy. In fact, many people go to the extreme and try to get as muddy as possible. There is much laughter and joking as each contestant struggles in the mud, over and through the various obstacles in their way. But what if, when they got to the end of the mud run, they discovered that they could not wash the mud off. That they were doomed to live covered in mud for the rest of their lives. It would not be much fun anymore. 

                Many people view living a sinful life like a mud run. They enter it with their eyes wide open. They embrace sin as a fun activity. Along the way, some try to avoid being too sinful, while others indulge in as much sin as they can. Each one expects that at the end of their life, miraculously, all the mud of sin will be washed away and they will be fit to enter heaven. Unfortunately, it just isn’t true. If a person chooses to live their entire life in sinful rebellion, and refuses to repent and come to grips with their sin, they will spend all of eternity encased in their own sin. The difference will be that there will be no fun or laughter, only the regret of being unable to cleanse themselves.

                That is really what hell is. Hell is not a vindictive God, meeting out indiscriminate punishment. It is God removing His love and grace from the equation, and allowing people to live fully in the sin they have chosen. Hell is the just reward for a life lived in self-consumed rebellion.

                Paul clearly understood the struggle we have with sin. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? (Romans 7:21-24) But Paul didn’t stop there. He knew the solution to the problem, and that solution is found in Christ.  Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. (Romans 8:1-4)

                Like a water hose at the end of a mud run that washes away all of the mud, so the atoning work of Christ washes away our sin. No matter how immersed we have been in sin, Christ has the power to transform us into spiritually clean people.

Isaiah 1:18

"Come now, let us reason together," says the Lord.

"Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow;

though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.”