Sin

 Is sin simply a societal concept used to maintain a power differential? You know, like “rule” in “the golden rule”— “whoever has the gold makes the rules” (Hart, 1964). Maybe we could adapt it to say something like, “The Big Rule” as in, the Big Man makes the rule? Or just go straight to “might makes right?” 

I did not understand sin correctly for a long time. I always thought of it as a list of dos and don’ts. Do you understand sin?

Unfortunately, defining sin as a list from an all powerful God isn’t too far off of what has been taught in Sunday School. I’ve even heard someone, while teaching a Bible class, say, “at the end of the day we follow God’s rules because he’s big enough to make them stick.” Of course, all effective lies have a little truth in them to help them slide down. God is big enough to make the rules stick. But the lie is, “he has a list of rules.”

God doesn’t have a list, he has himself. The commandments are a short list about a few things that are true about God, and they help us tell the truth about God. But keeping that list is both impossible and in-adequate. Jesus says the entire law and all the prophets are summarized by the command to love God and love your neighbor. Does it still sound like a list? And Jesus says the law from Moses was pointing to himself and that he came to fulfill the law. It is also written about God, that he is Love.

Trying to bring clarity to sin by talking about love is challenging with all the misunderstanding of love in our culture. Let’s clarify something—eros is eros, and agape, agape, but only one fulfills the law. There is only one Christian love—Christ defined it in his death and embodied it in his life. It is forgiving, self sacrificing, life giving, enemy including, agape. While there is nothing admirable about eros, agape is rare, holy—divine.

Back to sin. Sin cannot be defined in a list anymore than God can be defined in a list. Sure, you can make a list of sins. But you won’t have defined sin. God cannot and does not change. That doesn’t mean he is static. It is referring to his character, his trustworthiness. And it means that, the way he is, must be taken into account. He calls himself the I Am. And there are things that are not compatible with him. In Hebrews he is called a consuming fire. In Genesis he says nobody can look at him and live. When people are confronted with his presence they are terrified. Sin is sometimes called ungodliness (that which is not like God). This definition helps us see the personal nature of sin. Sin is a personal offense against God because it is something we do that is not like him. You might think, “well opposites attract, nobody wants to marry themselves, right?” We will always be distinct people. God does not want to make us all the same. He loves variety, and he loves us. But that is not the problem I’m getting at. It has to do with being compatible. We must be made into something that will survive God’s presence if we are going to live with him for eternity. And if you think, well, then I’ll just be separated from him for eternity. Well that brings up another problem. He is life. And I hate to state the obvious, but you cannot live without life.

Think of sin like this. Sin is that which is incompatible with God. All people are incompatible with God because they all sin. But God loves people, and you, and he made a way for everyone to become compatible with him so that you could not only survive in his presence, but thrive beyond all imagination or thought. And doing this was very expensive for God. It cost him the very thing he loved the most.

He had to send his Son, Jesus, to enter into our story as a genuine man, live a very hard life, give himself up to death as a sacrifice in payment for our sin—meanwhile showing us what it means to do right and not sin. And if you look closely at Jesus' life, what you will see is that doing right means completely entrusting yourself to God, believing what he says, and submitting your life to him. Jesus said, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.”

(John 6:38 ESV)

The definition of being a true Christian is someone who trusts Christ and therefore follows him in submission to God. Scriptures are clear that this isn’t something we are perfect at and the condition for this salvation is not for us to act perfectly without sin. The condition is this, that you believe Jesus, that you trust him. And if you actually trust him, you will follow him. And he will change you into a new creation that can and will be with God, alive for eternity. 

Understanding sin as incompatibility with God is very helpful in some ways. But this all gets a little sterile without actually talking about the ugliness of sin. If you look into examples of sin, almost all of them have to do with hurting other people or not helping them—lying, murder, cheating, abuse, etc. And the others have to do with not showing others what God is truly like. For example, God says not to worship another god besides Him. He says that for multiple reasons. He doesn’t need our worship. He desires our good and the good of others. We are made in his image. If we bow down to another god we are saying that God is not God, and that is a lie that could harm other people and ourselves. Our identity and purpose is wrapped up in God. If we deny him we deny our purpose and that is bad for us and for others. When you spend more time looking at examples of sins, it becomes very clear very quickly that God is good and we are not. The fact that God is good, is very good news.

—reh

“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

(1 John 4:8 NIV11-GK)

“But you are the same, and your years will have no end.””

(Hebrews 1:12 ESV)

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

(Hebrews 13:8 ESV)

““For I the LORD do not change;”

(Malachi 3:6 ESV)

““Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?

 Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

 Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.

 Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.”

(Isaiah 58:6–9 NIV11-GK)

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

(2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV)

“Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.”

(1 John 3:2 ESV)

“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

(1 Corinthians 1:18 ESV)

“Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!”

(Psalm 107:1 ESV)

“And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living…”

(Mark 12:26–27 ESV)

Count The Cost

It’s hard to make friends when you start out by bragging, but there are exceptions to most rules, and sometimes just the right exception can open a door. I’m willing to bet you’d want to brag about this story too. And every word is true. 

Here’s how it happened. Kelsey, my (awesome) wife, was leaving our home to bring someone to the airport. Recently she had pointed out that since the upstairs toilet was a slow unreliable flusher, the kids were competing for the downstairs toilet a little more often than any of us preferred. Yes, competition is the right word in a house with seven children.  The moment she left I sprang into action and ran to Menards. I bought a toilet with all the fixings (delicious), including one wrong-sized compression fitting valve. I brought everything home. I ripped the old toilet out, and got it into the trash without any mess—with the help of two apprentices. I scraped out the old wax ring with an audience of kids predictably exclaiming, “ew that is disgusting, look at that old poop.” Of course it was just old wax, but as an experienced dad I couldn’t just waste their ignorance, so I played along for a bit, waiving the sludge on the end of a paint stick in their direction. After that entertaining detour I put the new wax ring on and then the new toilet in. It was incredible. I was going to have this thing done without one hitch, and I was all smiles. Then I realized I had the wrong valve, time was ticking, I started to sweat a little. Any extra trip to Menards and I would fail to finish before Kelsey came home. Not a chance! I had to prove that I’d made it to the next level of manhood, the place where I could call order into the chaotic abyss of a DIY plumbing project and emerge successful, on time, on budget and make it look easy. I went out to the garage and rummaged through my old plumbing drawer. After a few minutes I found a used one, you know, those one-time use ones. Somehow I got it off the old pipe intact and reused it on the upstairs toilet. Kelsey pulled in just as I was sweeping up the last of the rubble—about three hours after I started the clock. And it all worked perfectly, barely an extra part, only one trip to Menards, we’re talking a perfect ten with the bonus of justifying my plumbing drawer. I know what you’re waiting for. You’re waiting for the math to work out. Upstairs toilet, check; rush-job, check; reused old one-time-use plumbing part, double check. You’ve done the math. You’re waiting for the middle of the night scenario where something starts leaking onto the face of the person sleeping in our guest bedroom below and the awkward explanation that, ‘it’s actually toilet water.” And no, adding the word delicious doesn’t make them smile at that point. You’ve been through enough of these scenarios to know what should be coming. But you’re wrong. It’s been working without a hitch for...almost two-years? It was the ten toilets and remodel projects before this one that finally got me one project that went perfectly. And you know the purpose stories like this serve; this story is here to help me plow ahead for the next twenty projects that I jump into over my head. And I’ve probably helped you persuade your spouse that it will be a cinch to do that plumbing project you’ve been toying with. Yep, this is the stuff of legends, and you’ve probably got one in you too. But if you’re newly married, don’t expect to achieve this level until you’re at least forty, after about ten over-budget all weekend plumbing fixes. I earned this one. So did my wife.

You see, the truth is, counting the cost is something we categorically avoid. We lie to ourselves almost every day about the cost of things. And there are good reasons—like trying to maintain sanity. I can hardly count the number of projects I have jumped into telling myself, “this is going to work easily.” But I know it won’t. And it’s not all bad, right? I mean part of it is just the optimism it takes to try something, to get out of bed in the morning. Who would really want to have kids before they know everything that’s involved? But then you’ve got to see the whole thing through because you’re in over your head and the stakes are high. Then somewhere along the line you rise to the challenge, and you become someone different than you were at the start. Some of you have been praying for the chance to discover that struggle. And your response to this struggle also defines you in ways you couldn’t have known beforehand, causing questions about purpose, feelings of loneliness and quiet suffering—the cost of hope. But there are some struggles that do not lead to a satisfying end. Some costs cannot be ignored, and there are many costs we are not qualified to calculate.

What is the cost of a careless comment, on social media? What is the cost of our temper? What is the cost of getting the policy we hoped for by forcing it through—to the praise of half the nation and cursing breaths from the other? What is the cost of snuffing out a human life for our own convenience or gain? And what is the cost of feigning love for the weak and powerless only for political sway?  What is the cost of shutting down the jobs that feed struggling families? What is the cost of free money and microscopic interest rates? What is the cost of an extreme materialist culture? What is the cost of building a new house or a kitchen remodel? There’s an easy right answer. Yes, there IS an easy right answer—a lot more than we thought it would cost. 

People will always have to face decisions, the ends of which they can never really see. But there is one path which has been laid out for us; it is well marked, and the cost of this path is not a secret. Don’t get me wrong, there is an enormous amount of confusion about this path. You see, some believe this path leads to salvation—it does not. But salvation through the blood of Jesus does lead to this path. In fact, salvation only leads to this path. Some people believe this path leads to better health, higher paying jobs, and earthly blessing. It does not. Some people believe this path leads to status and respect—they call it the high road. But again, they are mistaken because those who follow after Christ are not thought to be wise; they are thought to be fools. The road that Christ marked out is called many things, but all of the true names point to the things Christ promised. What did he promise? He says clearly in Luke 14 that following him will cost everything, and after stating this he asks his listeners to count the cost. If you’re signing up to be a part-time follower then you’re signing up to be someone else’s disciple—not a follower of Jesus. Maybe you came for the food. You’re not alone. But Christ invites you to stay for your own death so that you can live fully in Him. 

Luke 14:25-30 “Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said:“If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’”

Crosses are still for dying. Jesus doesn’t ask us to take up our cross because crosses are enriching life-hacks. But the death we die we die to the flesh, and we are raised to new life in Christ.

John 12:24 Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

John 15:18-20“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ b If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.

Many people will quote John 19:28 …”it is finished” to show that there is nothing for us to do. It is true that the atoning sacrifice for the salvation of our souls in payment for the sin of the world was the business of Christ alone on the cross. But we each have our own cross, and our cross is not finished. Our cross does not bring salvation, but our salvation arrives with a cross. If you find this difficult to accept you are not alone. But truly, for those who know they are sick, counting the cost is not a complex calculation. The one who has been forgiven much loves much —see Luke 7:47. Also, "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.” Matthew 13:44 In that picture the man’s death is represented by selling everything that he had. This pattern is repeated throughout the gospels, and the disciples and the early church lived this pattern out. They counted their belongings and physical life as nothing in service to Christ.  They did not see it as a metaphor or Jewish Rabinic hyperbole. For the first three centuries of the church it would have been laughable to consider these teachings such—they were the normal way of life.

This road, the way of the cross, it is the road on which you lose your life to find it. It is the way of the upside down kingdom, which is not from this earth. It is the road where the greatest is the servant of all, where you put others above yourself, and you seek the glory of God. This road is marked with suffering. 

—reh

Worship Your Child and Raise Hell

My children are not yet grown. I can’t claim the authority that comes from raising Godly children to adulthood. But along the way, these are some of the things I am learning and conclusions I have made from watching others.

The ultimate selfie includes posing for a life portrait as the most loving parents—which many interpret as generally being the nicest parents. The ultimate evil in our society is the mistreatment of children, and society’s definition of mistreatment is any treatment that does not place them at the top, dead center. But why do we do what we do? Is it because we are selfless parents working for the best long-term outcome for our children? Or do we do it because it makes us feel good in the short term? “Sure, stay up a little later, have another cookie, watch one more episode, play one more video game, sign up for all the activities you want—we’ll pay for them, and we’ll rearrange our entire lives to make sure we’re there for every game, performance, and dance.” It’s easy to say yes. Being the jerk takes work, enough work that I might “need” another cookie myself. In fact, maybe the real reason I told my son he could have another cookie is because I wanted one. Maybe I wanted one because I felt like I didn’t get enough as a kid, and of course, I can’t do one thing and say another...can I? No, that wasn't my personal issue. I’ve always had plenty of cookies, and that’s definitely not the answer. But I have always been told that parents cannot hold children to a standard above their own. This was often the cause of disrespectful thoughts toward my father as a child, not because it was self evident, but because I was at the same seminar as my dad.  The man on the stage asked, “Father’s, do you demonstrate what you require of your children? If your garage is a mess, how will you get them to clean their room? I started saying things like, “Why should I clean my room? Your garage is a disaster.” But my dad was no idiot, and he wasn’t lazy either.

I remember the smell of dust and oil as I swept the garage. Yeah, you couldn’t sass my dad without paying for it.  The two large circles on the cement floor, one rough, and one smooth, told the story of my dad going the extra mile to seal the bottom of his grain-bin after fall harvest. The smooth circle was where my dad placed his grain bin. The rough circle was where my grandpa placed his. He didn’t bother sealing it; after all, it was a temporary storage. My dad was going to build his garage on this slab in the spring, “goodnuff for now.” But the corn in my Grandpa’s bin rotted, and the acid from the rotten grain etched the cement—forever testifying to my dad’s wisdom. The rough circle was ugly, and it was harder to keep that part of the floor clean. 

As a kid, you just don’t know what your parents are doing or what they’ve done. There is no way for a child to understand until they’ve grown up and lived a while. The man on the stage didn’t know my dad either. He didn’t know that he was a high school teacher, farmer, Bible camp director, and business owner. He never knew the battles he fought or would fight later. Cleaning the garage seemed to be one of my eternal jobs as a kid. It was hard. Keeping my mouth shut was harder. 

Hypocrisy is tricky. Disciplining your child for something you know you too have failed at is humbling. It’s easy to want to try to hide our failures or to ignore wrong behavior we are also guilty of so that we appear less hypocritical, but that is a temptation we must resist. Hiding our failures brings the opposite effect than what we hope for, and ignoring wrong behavior is like planning our child’s demise. We can’t simply wait until we’re perfect to train our children. Being a hypocrite and then facing it, not hiding it, is the way forward. It is important for our children to know that we fail, that we don’t give up, that our heavenly father loves us in spite of our failures, and that He disciplines those He loves. My children know I’m guilty of some of the same things I discipline them for. They also know that I have a different set of responsibilities than they do, and so far they are thankful to keep their roles. 

Discipline is only one aspect of not worshiping our kids. What percentage of our life is caught up in special activities for our kids? Do they know it? If they think they are only loved when the world revolves around them, how will they receive love in the real world? When I was young, I wished my dad would spend more time doing fun things with me. When I was in baseball why didn’t he spend hours at the batting cages with me or give me the money to go? Because we couldn’t afford it, and we didn’t have time. He ran children’s camp during the summer, and farmed. During the school year he was a teacher. Even though my dad was busy, I spent plenty of time with him, but not in batting cages or arcades. I followed him out to the field. We worked on tractors together, plowed fields together, harvested together, got wet, cold, and dusty together—why? Because he was a farmer. Our relationship existed on his terms, not mine. My dad never used his children as an excuse not to do something that needed doing. I learned that you can sing at the top of your lungs in the tractor; nobody is there to criticize you. At thirteen years old I was driving a huge tractor towing wagons full of grain down the road. When he had to grade projects at the high school, I went with him after supper. That was where I got to drink Dr Pepper—no, we didn’t have it in our fridge at home. I learned the smells of the photography lab and spent time making things from wood scraps in the wood shop.

For a while I resented always having to work instead of playing. But as a parent, it’s all making sense now. One of the biggest struggles I have had as a parent is figuring out how to make sure my kids struggle enough to grow into warriors instead of couch potatoes. After deleting all the scenarios that caused resentment as a child, I found that I’d created a life of ease for my children. And there is no quicker road to hell than spoiling kids. But it isn’t just about work. Our culture breeds narcissism from birth to death, and if your life is busy revolving around your kids desires, don’t think that will go without impact. The culture teaches your kids that they should be denied no opportunity, that everything they want to do should be placed within their reach, that they shouldn’t have to fight for anything. Suddenly suicide is an option for more and more people reaching the age of adulthood. But there are millions who don’t follow through with it who will continue for years trying to find a reason to live. 

It is important for our kids to see our love and sacrifices for them, but they must know those sacrifices in the context of our Savior whose words we do not ignore, in the context of a hurting world whose needs we are not blind to, and in the context of preparing them to live, suffer, and die with hope and joy to the glory of God! Children can understand, see, and believe more than we think. We do them great harm when we build for them a temporary world where they are gods, and we are their servants. 

Thank you, Mom and Dad, for giving me an excellent childhood on your terms. Thank you for not using your kids as an excuse.

—reh 

Proverbs 3:12 “because the LORD disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.”

Hebrews 12:8  “If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all.” 

John 5:19 “Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.”

Prophesy of The Grey Town

I have seen that grey town on the way to hell that C.S. Lewis wrote of years ago. His description so accurately mirrors the current social communication landscape that it appears prophetic—a correlation he never could have known about when he was here.

Knowledge is power, and what would we expect to happen if limitless knowledge was at our fingertips? Communication has never been more prioritized in history. Never have we had tools for communication as advanced and powerful as we do now. We can shoot a quick text, rant on facebook, goof around on youtube, spout off on twitter, take care of business on email, set the record straight on blogs and catch up on video chat. There are tools for making public and tools for keeping “private,” tools to amplify, simplify, beautify, and clarify. We have the power to present ourselves any way we want, and we feel justified to spew fire on our neighbor in the name of honesty, but we approve of being offended by the lightest slight. We can effectively create our own reality. We isolate ourselves in the middle of the crowd. We build walls and distance ourselves from others for smaller and smaller reasons.

And what would we expect to see from a world like ours? a fallen world, a hurting world, a Godless world? Nobody trusts anyone. Why should they? There are so many examples of people who held positions of influence and power who have let us down. Do I need to list names of pastors who have been found guilty of sexual abuse and misconduct, misuse of power, misuse of money? What about senators, judges, police officers, presidents, doctors, hospitals, big organizations, big businesses, big churches, fathers, mothers, and your neighbor?

Large rocks fall down a mountain. See the landslide they cause, the destruction they leave behind. They do not stop until they have fallen to the lowest places. Then how can we trust in one who never ends? But hasn’t he himself warned us that the fate of all who trust in men is to be cursed? Yet our world is coming to ruin without trust; without hope the end is already here.

There is one way forward, and it is Jesus. To know him is to know both love and power. Jesus has called us to love, and love hopes. Love moves forward.  We move forward in love for our neighbor, not because our neighbor is trustworthy but because Jesus has called us to move forward in relationships. Even if the relationship fails Christ’s purpose won’t. What man has offered his body in payment for fools? What man has offered up his body to be split open, spit on, and cursed to save his enemy? When we move forward displaying trust in each other we place our hope and trust in the one who can save us, in one who has withheld nothing, who gave up everything, who is worthy of our trust.

—reh

1Cor 13:7

Love...It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Jeremiah 17:5

Thus says the Lord: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord.

Psalm 118:8-9

It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes.

Isaiah 2:22

Stop regarding man in whose nostrils is breath, for of what account is he?

Jeremiah 17:9

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

Genesis 6:5

The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

1Cor 12:21

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”

1Cor 6:7

To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? [cheated]

John 14:1“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.

Romans 8:28

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good,[a]for those who are called according to his purpose.

Romans 10:9-11 (9)because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.11For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.”