Sin in the Family

Risking that only my mom will understand this title and maybe even the content this is what has been trapped up in my heart and mind for those who are in Christ and all those who will be.

The thing with being saved by grace through Jesus is that it turns you into a sibling. You go from an orphan to a privileged son or daughter- an alien to a citizen, more than a citizen, a member of the royal family. Christ died and made you a co- heir of his inheritance- an inheritance of the only son of the king. That is why we have many brothers and sisters, all of the same scandalous family of orphans. (Romans 8:15-17, 1 Peter 2:9-12) We together are found guiltless apart from our works but in what Christ has done. This is the church- a family. We as a family have tremendous obligation to one another. We together are called to live out our identity in Christ as one another. Our calling to live lives showing and displaying Jesus we are told is impossible to do outside of the body. Every new testament command in the epistles (aside from the pastoral epistles) are written to a group. They are commands for a community. Therefore every command to be living out identities in Christ, worship, practice, exhortation, rebuke is done in and to a group. This is primarily because we alone cannot mirror and display Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12). We need all the saints to be Christ as his body here on earth. Some of us are hands, some of us are feet, we all build up and show who Christ is together as the church. We are a nation to the nations, a community to the communities. This is our identity. You cannot read the new testament and come up with a personal spirituality but rather a cooperate one. As a result as we live out our lives everything is done, or should be done, within the context of our family. Consciously, we are must identify collectively, before we identify singularly.

This is who Christ has created us to be, not one but one of another.  As we live out or new identities in this even our sin is felt collectively as well as dealt with collectively.  Inherent within all Jesus communities must be a rigorous habit and rhythm of dealing with one another’s sin, (Hebrews 3:13, Hebrews 10:25, James 5:16)  And when we establish this practice as an act of worship we build up one another to be more like Christ, promote the Gospel as victorious and not our sin. And perhaps more importantly, it frees us up to be on mission to see many come to Christ.

 This however can bring up some fears. Shame and embarrassments is the primary reason why I have not confessed sin. I want to appear a certain way before people because the real me is evil and disgusting. It is embarrassing for people to see my junk. However when my brothers and sisters remind me of the gospel I remember truth. Why am I so concerned with how my sin reflects on me? Isn’t that what I say was killed on the cross for my sake? Then why do I act as though it has sway over my standing?  We have to remember our standing as new creations. Remember the Gospel, the reason why we are here. We are not called to be anxious or fearful in Christ. You, to whom all things have been given on heaven and earth (John 17:22), to whom nothing is counted against in Christ (Romans 8:1) are a son of the most high who cannot be snatched out of your saviours hand. Therefore, our worth is not put in our reputations or our image. How could it be! It is not you who live but Christ who lives in you! Your reputation, evil and tainted as it was, was taken and pinned on a roman cross. It died there. Your worth is in Christ, boast in him and put your trust in him. He can carry you.

The first and foremost thing we have to know about sin is that it is always a heart issue- not a mere breaking of rules. It is always something wrong with who you are rather then what you do. To some of you this might be obvious. To others, it might be obscure. There has been an evil and religious tradition in Christianity which has attached a skewed morality to the gospel. These groups have gotten it backwards. They say that if you change your actions then your heart will follow.  If you alter your doing then you will alter your being. And while this precedence is being established these enforcers are appear like gospel believing Christians. They however are enforcing a works based righteousness instead of the righteousness given to us on the cross. Some of us may have grown up in this. Approaching the issue of our sin this way is contrary to the gospel that you were saved by. Christ came to change hearts through faith in his saving work. It is never our doing that will redeem us but rather our belief (faith)  that will justify. When dealing with one another’s sin, we must point each other to belief not to rules. Now, do not think that I am advocating a workless repentance. More often then not, we must do things when we repent. But let us have a reason for our doing namely the gospel- realizing that it is not our work that will separate us from sin but his work that will defeat it. The works is there to aid us in our belief. It is an extension, a slave of the belief. Let us be like James who is saved by faith but will know faith by works. Our doing reflects being.  But our doing will not change our being, it may mask it but never alter it. If our action is not based on the power of God in Christ (the gospel) then it is based on our power or something else’s. Is this not idolatry-When our power (ability, safety, leverage) is found outside of God?  This is why we must be a gospel people, through and through. A god empowered people, living by the spirit which gives us power because of Christ. We need new hearts and those are only given by the spirit in Christ.

So, the question is: how do we point one another to Christ? If Christ not only saves us from death but also from sin- sanctification not just justification- how do we demonstrate this reality to ourselves and to Christ? We are really good at making rules which have the ability to alter behaviour, but how can we really “spur one another on to good works” in Jesus? It is to all of this where we will now turn our attention.

So what follows is a loose train of thought which aids in our visualization of what “teaching and admonishing” should look like when we put it in the context of the gospel. It is not by any means a reified program or process. This would be creating a false justification by list. What I want in this is to provide a crystallized vision of what “gospeling one another” is.

1.       Where is our idolatry. What is the lie that we exchanged for a truth?

a.       All sin putting something ahead of God in your affections. It is placing someone or something in the place where God should be your treasure, your safety, your identity, your trust, your hope, etc. Where should God be that he isn’t ?

2.       How exactly has the gospel specifically defeated this lie and is better.

a.       This requires that we are well versed in the Gospel word and not simply bible verses.

                                                               i.       Sadly, for some of us this may be a foreign concept. As I noted before, many Christians have replaced the gospel with empty religion. The scary part of this exchange is that the religion is so often supported with verses. This is not because the verses are religious in their intent but because the quoter’s have removed the principle of the gospel away from the pragmatism that the verse talks about. The bible does call us to a doing but it is always a response from the gospel that we should have after we have faith and believe. Christians must be pragmatic in dealing with sin- we must do things which aid in our repentance- but when the principle of the gospel is removed from the reason of the pragmatism we get religion. This is because when we remove the principle of the Gospel from our pragmatism, we then forfeit both our perfection in Christ by his work not ours and the power of God to save. Then what is left for us to use for defeating sin? What but ourselves and our work? And where does our work get us? It gets us alienation from the creator.

                                                             ii.      That is why we must know the principle of the gospel by the back of our hands before we ever start practicing the responses to the gospel. We have to know the why before we know the how. It is like expecting a cart to move up hill with no horse. To do this we need to know the story of the gospel. We have to be gospel experts. We need to know its ins and outs. Then we need to learn how to be so literate in it that we can transcribe it to any and all sin situations with our selves and others. This is so integral. If we are not well versed in the gospel then we have no clue how our sin is dealt with and effective repentance is impossible. Think to yourself for a moment, can you tell the whole gospel to yourself right now. Is it the WHOLE gospel. Now that you have done that, apply it to a specific sin that you struggle with. If you can do that you are probably on your way to being gospel fluent.

                                                            iii.      But what if we are not? How do you become fluent enough in the truth to be able to transcribe it to another person’s life? This comes straight back to a fundamental understanding of what Sin is. Remember, sin is rebellion. it is an exchange of truth for a lie. It is where God should be in one place in your heart but something else is found there instead. Because of the fact that at the heart of every sin is pure cosmic treason against the perfect wonderful God of the universe, it immediately becomes a gospel issue. This is because it is in the gospel where these cosmic issues are dealt with. This means that my lust issue is no longer a matter of unplugging my computer but rather a matter of why i think i can search for comfort and intimacy outside of my assurance in Christ. My lack of tithing is no longer an issue of me being “too” tight fisted but rather

3.       Repent by turning completely away from the sin and leave yourself vulnerable to the spirit to work and change you by his power. This is faith in the power of Christ to save as you point yourself towards obedience out of the love of God which rises out of what he has done by his power in Christ- his death burial and resurrection. It is here where we live by faith in him to save.

a.       Keep in mind that there probably are things you need to DO in order to live out your belief. This could very well mean that you should unplug your computer because it aids you in keeping your belief. But that action does NOTHING to defeat your sin. It is only in Christ’s work on the cross where sin is defeated. Our work should aid our belief, not our belief aiding in our work.

I hope this helps. I want to leave you with a letter Paul wrote to a church in Ephesus encouraging them to be built up in the gospel. This is my prayer for me and my community. I hope that it will be for yours.  The truth is the Gospel of Jesus!

9 (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? [1] 10 He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) 11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds [2] and teachers, [3] 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, [4] to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.