We don't take sin serious enough.
Christians are known for what they think about sin.
And Jesus tells us that sin is a serious business.
And we must hold firm to what God says about right and wrong rather than bend to the will of our cultural caesars.
But I think the world has it wrong.
The problem for us as Christians is not that we’re serious about sin but that we’re not serious enough.
But maybe not in the way we often think...
Matthew 18:8-9
“And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.”
Christians don’t take sin seriously enough, because we don’t take our own sin serious enough.
We've got axes ready to deal with the world's sin, but we seem to be pacifists when it comes to our own.
Christians who take sin seriously begin by taking their own sin seriously. They hold the microscope to their own life first.
Now, the answer isn't to start being soft on the world's sin, but to start being hard on our own. Let us be known as extremists in how we handle ourselves.
Imagine if the world knew how big sin was by how Christians dealt with their own personal sin.
We need to be known as being too radical...with ourselves.
Imagine the testimony that would be if the world knew we believed our own message.
What if the world could see us hacking away at our own struggles, doing whatever we had to to run from sin?
What if they could see that our calls to repent always began in front of a mirror?
What if the world saw us giving up whatever we had to as we pursued righteousness?
How much punch would that add to our public calls?
We must cry out against sin, but it's easy to call out sins in others, to rage against the evil of a fallen world. You don’t have to have a high view of sin and holiness to do that.
Want to be someone who takes sin seriously?
When is the last time you examined your own life with scalpel in hand?