Sin – What Does This Mean?

God the Jealous God

Encore Post:

[Eighteenth in a series of posts on Martin Luther’s Small Catechism]

In our tour of the Ten Commandments, we learned God wants more than just a casual keeping of his law. He wants our hearts and souls to match our behavior. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:5). Of course, we know we cannot keep the law perfectly in this life, and God knows it, too. Jesus died to pay the price for our disobedience and to earn us forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. So, why should we try at all to be good?

The reason is that sin has its consequences in this world and the next. When Adam and Eve sinned, sin multiplied and became a part of the lives of every one of their children. It brought with it death, sickness, disaster, grief, and pain. It destroyed the close relationship between people and between people and God. Since we were made to share our lives with God and each other, it harmed the very purpose for which we exist. It sin that God sent his Son to save us from, not to be a fire insurance policy against hell.

God describes his relationship with his people as a marriage. Sin amounts to being unfaithful with other gods, dividing our love for him by giving ourselves to others. So it is that God warns us in the First Commandment that he is a jealous God and there are consequences when we are unfaithful to him. (Exodus 20:5-6) God, in the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ, breaks the power of sin and death in our lives. With prayer and the help of other Christians, we can fight back against these sins and sometimes even be free of them.

After all, God’s warning comes with a promise. It is not only sins that travel from generation to generation but also blessings. With the help of the Holy Spirit, when we establish habits of doing good — attending worship faithfully, praying with our children, reading God’s word to them, and caring for others, these, too, will be a part of their inheritance.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Pastor Emeritus

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Christians and Good Works

[Twelfth in a series of posts on Ephesians 1 & 2] Encore Post: When the Bible speaks about good works, it really is not talking about the everyday things we think about when we mention good things people do. The good things people do are always colored with mixed motives. Maybe we did them so that people would sing our praises. Maybe we expected to get something from them, a reward, a trophy or a good deed in return. The Hindu idea called Karma is supposed to work that way. If you do good, good will be done to you. Sometimes the things we choose to do are our own ideas. All-night vigils, long fasts, pilgrimages and similar feats are very impressive, but God never actually asks us to do these things.

So, none of them save us or even especially please God — unless we do them because we have faith in God and want to thank him for his love and mercy towards us. Strictly speaking, non-Christians cannot do good works. All the things they do are motivated by the desire to get something out of it. Even Christians who love and trust God aren’t perfect when it comes to doing good with pure motives.

Truly good works, then, are the product of faith in Jesus Christ. Every thankful thought, grateful prayer of thanksgiving, things done because we love God, are good works. Even though a sinful thought or motive might tarnish them, because Christ earned our forgiveness on the cross, God does not count these sins against us, but sees only those things done because we love him.

Originally posted at What does this Mean? Blog: https://whatdoesthismean.blog

The posts in the blog What does this Mean? are now available at What does this Mean? | Rev. Robert E. Smith | Substack

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Pastor Emeritus

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Everybody’s Good at Heart? Right?

Encore Post: “He meant well,” you explain when someone you love really makes a mess of things. He may have tried to do something good, but his actions just complicated an already bad situation. You may have defended your actions with similar words. “I was just trying to help,” you say. Sometimes we can convince others not to blame us or our friends when our actions end up hurting others. This kind of argument often works because we all would like to believe that people are good at heart. No one really wants to hurt others, we think. There must be a reason why someone does even evil things. Maybe they are poorly educated or have been harmed by others or grew up in a violent neighborhood. deep down we like to think of ourselves as good people.

Unfortunately, this is more fantasy than reality. From time to time, mass murderers or other criminals show this to us by committing horrible crimes, even though they grew up with every advantage in life. We study their lives, but we cannot find even a motive for their evil.

And even so, they are not alone. We also were born as sinners. (Psalm 51:5) Our hearts and minds were filled with evil thoughts. (Genesis 6:5, Genesis 8:21 , Mark 7:2-23 ). We were dead spiritually, caught up in the ways of this world, controlled by Satan. Down deep, we really didn’t even want God to save us. (Ephesians 2:1-3, Romans 3:9-18) We spent our lives, like the rest of the world, chasing whatever makes us feel good and entertains us. What we really deserve is God’s punishment and nothing we can do will change that.

Yes, we were spiritually dead, filled with sin. Yet God loved us anyway. So He sent His son to die in our place. On the cross, Jesus paid the full price for our salvation. So, our sins are forgiven, our guilt removed and the power that the world, the devil our flesh has over us was broken once and for all time.

Now, together with Jesus, he raised us from the dead, spiritually now, but literally on the last day. He did this, so where Jesus is, we will be also. All of this is because of his grace alone.