Are you aware of your sin?

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Psalm 32:1-5,

    “Blessed is the one whose transgressions is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit is no deceit. For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. I acknowledge my sin to you, And I did not cover my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord’, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.”

“Let no man think to kill sin with few, easy, or gentle strokes. He who hath once smitten a serpent, if he follow not on his blow until it be slain, may repent that ever he began the quarrel. And so he who undertakes to deal with sin, and pursue it not constantly to the death.”

— John Owen

    Only the forgiven can be truly joyful and only those who are truly aware of their transgressions can experience true forgiveness. This is not to be a roasting session where I point out the wrath of God is real and only kindled through the sin of people and their refusal of repentance. Nor is this an appeal to your emotions in order to scare you into an obedient response toward God and his supremacy. For I believe that fear is a horrible motivator. Rather, I hope and pray this is used as a wakeup call, a shot of pure biblical truth if you will, that helps us pull back from our bias thoughts we have developed about God and draws us back into a time of repentance and refocus. I pray that the spirit will use these few moments to work in your heart, as he did mine, to refocus on Christ and his gospel and not on our sin alone! So that we can respond appropriately to his presence in our lives.

    As sinful people we are constantly finding ways to justify our actions. We come up with rational to explain why we do what we do all the time. We fabricate lies to explain where we have been, or what we are doing to try and cover up what is truly in our sinful hearts. We devote ourselves to our skills or talents in order to mask our insecurity, fear, or lack of skill in other areas of our lives. In short, we try and justify the means in everything we do.  What we don’t realize, or refuse to notice, is that our blatant refusal of Gods free gift will only produce more and more sin. And in turn this produces more and more insecurity, fear, and strife. We like to think that if we ignore the things that invade our happiness then we will eventually be able to have peace of mind, but nothing could be further from the truth. So, what is motivating us to do this? Are we even aware of our sin?

    Peer pressure to be a person of influence, to be the best and to perform in every aspect of life, is no new thing. Even Paul admits to this in Philippians 3:4-6,

    “Though I myself have a reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of one tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.”

    Paul met every cultural human requirement. He was born and raised in perfect cultural and political fashion, but it wasn’t enough for him and it won’t be enough for anyone.

    We all tend to try and make this same effort in our lives as well. We listen to the right music, dress the right way, and try to be influential and a voice in society. Peer pressure, culture, political stances etc… these, and so many more, get in the way of our pursuit of Christ and the truth he proclaims. I would assume that we all agree that truth is more important than comfort, that doing the right thing should be more important than doing the popular thing, right? More importantly truth does not change but instead is unchanging regardless of surroundings or influences, that’s what makes truth truthful.  Well in light of that what should be our response to our flesh and its desires? We must realize that our perceptions are not a basis by which truth relies but instead our point of view ( world view) should be informed by truth, not the other way around. So, how do we combat these lies? I am a huge John Owen fan so bear with me as I quote him again.

“ To suppose that whatever God requireth of us that we have power of ourselves to do, is to make the cross and grace of Jesus Christ of none effect.
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— John Owen

        The response of John Owen is the same response that all the apostles, and even Christ himself, spoke of over and over again. Our response is to dwell on the unsurpassable amount of grace, forgiveness and love that Christ lavished on us through his act of dying on the cross, paying our sinful debt, and rising from the grave. This pivotal moment in history altered our entire existence on this earth and made us all individually temples of God that Christ’s spirit may dwell in us for all eternity! Isn’t that a joyous thing? That is straight up good news for our former sinful flesh and therefore we should never forget, even for a second, how pivotal that is for all of us! That will be the truth we can rely on and base all our existence in this life upon without fear of it being tainted by human rational.

    We must preach the truth that sin is powerless in the light of God’s glory and that our effort is backed by Christ and his presence in our lives & nothing else. The Law that is taught in the bible is not for the sake of Christians to strive to be legalistic in our faith but instead to see the impossibility of achieving perfection on our own. Yes, we will continue to sin. Yes, it is worth it to fight sin. Even making war on the flesh every way we know how, But this should all be applied on the foundation of Romans 5:20-21.

    “Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace might also reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.”

    Christ has called us to be holy but not in and of ourselves. He is jealous for our praise and zealous for you to enjoy the riches of his grace. So, make war on your sin, and don’t make provision for the flesh. Pray that Christ gives you victory over sin and watch how your life moves from fear to a life of power and love and discipline! Praise God For his free gift of grace to all!