Sin – What Does This Mean?

Christians and Good Works

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.

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Rev. Robert E. Smith

Fort Wayne, Indiana

God Lets It Go, So Let It Go

Encore Post: Forgiveness is simple, really. You tell someone they do not need to pay you back something they owe you. It is sometimes the hardest thing you’ll ever do, when the thing you need to forgive is a deep hurt. What God is calling on you to do is let it go. When we pray to have our sins forgiven, God wants us to remember he is releasing you from the debt you owe him and wants you to do the same.

The Greek word Jesus used (ἄφες) in the Lord’s Prayer for forgive literally means “to loose, to release, to let go.” In financial terms, it is used to write off a debt and not expect repayment. We daily rebel against God’s will, break his law — sometimes deliberately. Worse, we were born that way. Even though every non-Christian religion tells us we can repay that debt — we cannot. We rack up even more debt faster than we could possibly repay. But God loved us and in Jesus suffered and died to pay that debt in full.

When others hurt us, deliberately or not, the pain can eat us up. If we hold on to that debt day after day, year after year, it can cast a shadow over the rest of our life. When we pray that God forgive us, knowing he already has, it can give us strength to forgive others. That is why we pray to be forgiven — so that we can forgive others.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Concordia Theological Seminary

Fort Wayne, Indiana

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God the Jealous God

Encore Post: In our tour of the Ten Commandments, we learned that God wants more than just a casual keeping of his law. He wants our heart and soul to match our behavior. “Love your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:5) Of course, we know that we cannot keep the law perfectly in this life and God knows it, too. Jesus died to pay the price for our disobedience and earned us the 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 as well as the next. When Adam and Eve sinned, sinned multiplied and became a part of the lives of everyone 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 the relationship he has 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 that the death of Jesus 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 blessings as well. 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.

Rev. Robert E. Smith

Concordia Theological Seminary

Fort Wayne, Indiana

Blog Post Series

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.