In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit

Judges 17:6

In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit.

Judges 21:25

Meditation 

Fair warning, this week is going to be hard, but we need to go through it. In order to truly understand the Gospel, we have to understand sin. Sin is a very unpopular concept in today’s culture, and even the most faithful Christ followers struggle with being influenced by its lies. We live in an age that claims people should have no shame, regrets, or boundaries. Nothing is evil, bad, or wrong with the exception of what you individually define it as. Everything is subjective. Morality is individually constructed. Sin doesn’t really exist.

If you read through the Old Testament book of Judges, it’s a hot mess. It’s one of the darkest books in the Bible. It has many messages, but one of the primary ones is this: when there is no king everyone is a king and the world goes to hell in a handbasket. Sure, there are a few bright moments and a couple of good stories in Judges. However, they are rare. When there is no king, everyone does what is right in their own eyes.

40 years ago when you did your own thing for yourself it was called selfish. Today that same thing is called virtuous. I find it ironic that some of those who claim that sin is not real and morally subjective are also some of the loudest moral voices of protest in our culture today. How can you be an advocate or an activist if there’s no right or wrong? How can you tell people their actions are good or bad? How can there be justice if sin is outdated?

Are there moral complexities? Sure. Are some things gray? Of course. The acknowledgement of sin doesn’t mean morality isn’t messy. Yet there is objective sin based on the Bible. We can start a moral discussion and do something about evil. Brothers and sisters, sin is real and it's not completely morally subjective. It is well defined by God's word. So we have to talk about sin this week because if we don’t, sin wins. We have to move from trying to be our own kings, to submitting to King Jesus by acknowledging the reality of sin.

Question for Reflection

Before you look at sin in others, you have to look at sin in yourself. How are you struggling with sin right now?

And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

Genesis 3:22-24

Meditation 

The story of Adam and Eve raises many questions for people. I wouldn’t claim to have all the answers. Among them, why did God offer choice to Adam and Eve knowing that they would sin? Again, I don’t know all the answers to that question. But I do have a theory that is shared by many theologians. 

Meaningful relationships are fundamentally built on personal choice. The most robust connections occur when two people willingly choose each other, ensuring that love is not coerced. A healthy, loving bond is difficult (if not impossible) without a certain degree of freedom. While people occasionally find love and good relationships in forced circumstances, such instances are rare, rocky and resentful.

Lasting loving commitment is fueled by a virtuous cycle of mutual respect. When I freely choose to honor you, and you freely choose to honor me, that mutual choice creates a strong bond. Ironically, genuine freedom is essential for healthy commitment. Commitment that is forced or lacks freedom is often shallow and untrustworthy. 

I once had a mentor who told me that while God does sometimes push forward his will, in relation to our free will God is often a gentleman. The Garden of Eden was not a trick. It was not a pop quiz or test. It was God being a gentleman. God desired love from the two children he created, so he gave Adam and Eve a choice, knowing they would choose poorly.

There’s an old proverb that says, “If you love something, set it free. If it returns, it was always yours. If it never returns, it was never yours to begin with.” The Gospel’s version of that is “If you love someone, give your beloved a choice, knowing they will break your heart. That choice honors them. However, have a plan to rescue your beloved a million times over because if you love them, you will exhaust everything you can to bring your beloved home through their many sins.” 

The Garden of Eden was a choice grounded in love. The cross was a rescue plan that exhausted everything for the millions of rescues we need so God can bring us home. The Garden wasn’t cruel, it was comprehensive. The cross wasn’t cruel, it was the cost of forgiveness. Before things blew up in Eden, God had a plan based on love. 

Question for Reflection

How is your love driving you to micromanage a person or situation in an unhealthy way? How can you intentionally create more space and freedom to build a healthier love based on trust and respect?

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.

Ephesians 2:1-3

Meditation 

The long-debated question of human nature—whether we are inherently good or bad—is often answered today with the belief that we are naturally good. However, the Bible teaches a tougher lesson: our nature is evil. No one is born or lives entirely good. Paul tells the church in Ephesus and us that nothing good resides in us. While created in God's image, sin deforms it. Our problems are fourfold:

Death. “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins.” We are spiritually dead in our sins. The Bible does not teach sin as little mistakes or small problems easily fixed. Sin in the Bible is a violation of the very nature of God’s holiness. Sin is an affront to God's character.

Disobedient. “You used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.” We choose our ways over God's. Even our good deeds and repentance are flawed, as "all our righteous deeds are nothing but filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6). Until we come to terms with this we can’t truly repent.

Devil. The New Living translation puts verse 2 this way: “You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil—the commander of the powers in the unseen world. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God.” Before Christ, we followed evil and were enemies of God (Romans 5:10). We were fully evil, following the "prince of evil" even if unknowingly. 

Desires. “ All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath.” Sin is disordered love. We desire and love bad things. We also love good things the wrong way.

All these ideas together form a concept called "depravity." Paul writes a lot about this in the New Testament. See Romans 3:10-12, Romans 3:23, Romans 7:18, and Titus 3:3. This depravity highlights our human limitations and the depth of our sin. This is bad news.

What’s the good news? Romans 5:8 says “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” To understand the power of this good news, you have to understand the weight of the bad news. Understanding our brokenness helps us see just how beautiful the Gospel truly is.

Question for Reflection

Take time today to sit in prayer with God, honestly sharing your brokenness and sin. Then allow Him to simply love you by letting His forgiveness and grace wash over you. You are a mess, but you are loved.

For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. 

1 Corinthians 15:21-22

Meditation

There is a tendency today in our pluralistic society to “let people live and let live.” We wrongly believe that if people are nice and moral, they are good. Many within the church seem to feel little to no obligation to share the Gospel, or they share it only once with the rationale, "Why cause trouble? I shared the Gospel, they're a good person, so things will work out." While we can’t force the Gospel on anyone and need to honor people that we disagree with, God doesn’t view sin the same way many church people do.

Theologians use the term original sin to describe the nature of sin in humanity. This doctrine holds that Adam’s sin brought corruption into the human race. Therefore, all humans sin and need redemption in Christ. Salvation is by grace alone through Christ alone, not moral effort. Humans are unable to save themselves but are enabled by grace to respond to Christ’s call to surrender their lives to him.

Thus, Christ is “Plan A” and there is no alternative “Plan B”. Some in church make up “Plan B” because they have their own version of sin. We have a tendency to do something I like to call moral math. It’s our made up system of good points and bad points. On the good side, I helped a friend move today. That’s got to be worth +10 points. Yesterday I lost my temper with my kids so that’s -8 points. Thus, we develop a personal point system and try to stay out of the red and end up in the black.

However, what happens when your points are questioned? For example, that +10 should really only be a +2 because you helped out your friend out of obligation because that friend helped you two months ago with something. You didn’t really want to help with the move. What about that blow up at home with the kids? Your spouse doesn't think it’s a -10. They think it's a -20 because it happens all the time. Ask your kids. They think it’s a -30. See how motives, the perspectives of others and a whole list of other issues make the moral math approach a problem? Good luck trying to track all these points.

It gets worse because God, who is a righteous judge and morally perfect sees your good deeds and your sins radically different than you do. About your good deeds Psalm 14:3 says, “All have turned away, all have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.” About your bad deeds Isaiah 59:2 says “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.” Your positive and negative points are far worse than you think.

Adam’s sin in the garden messed us up, but we can’t blame him, because if we were there we would have made the same choice, and now our moral math doesn’t work. Yet glory to God because as sin entered the world through one man (Adam), so forgiveness entered the world through one man (Christ). God’s grace is so much better than our moral math.  

Question for Reflection

What would it look like to stop keeping a moral score and instead honestly admit that you can’t be good enough—taking responsibility for your sin and surrendering to God’s grace? How might that kind of surrender change you and your relationships?

For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

Luke 18:14

Meditation 

In discussing sin in depth this week, people probably had one of four responses to the subject. The first response is “I don’t believe this.” You don’t see the Bible’s teaching on sin as true. The second is “I believe this and I'm so bad God could never love me.” This is false because, while sin identifies we are broken, no one is beyond the power of God’s grace and redemption. We will talk about this in future devotions. The third response is “I believe this, I have repented and I am forgiven through the work of Christ on the cross.” This is the right response to sin. The fourth response may be “All the sin stuff is good. I believe in sin, and it makes me happy that God is going after the bad people.” It’s to this fourth response I want to address today.

It is possible to love Biblical morality and hate sin in a way that is toxic, immoral and unbiblical. I call this Christian moralism. It’s a love for Judeo-Christian values, pride in following the rules, and a secret belief that you are so good you rarely (if ever) break the rules. Worst of all, you are disgusted by those who do break the rules. What’s dangerous about this view is that it agrees with some of what the Bible teaches and uses the same language as someone who is truly born again. Yet this posture oozes pride and is filled with hate. It’s a view that has little to no understanding of Biblical grace. Maybe grace is grasped theologically and spoken publicly, but there’s a gap between what is believed and what is practiced. These people can blend very easily into any church.

Those who love Christian moralism have two problems. Problem one, they externalize sin rather than internalize it. Those who properly understand sin personalize it. They see the concept of sin as a mirror to evaluate oneself. Christian moralism just uses Christian ethics to see the wrong in others. Problem two, those who love Christian moralism often love the capability to use it as a tool to manipulate, control or have power over others. These people weaponize the Biblical concept of sin to harm others for their gain. 

In Luke 18:9-14 Jesus tells a parable about a pharisee and a tax collector. The Pharisee was a Christian moralist. He loved the law (the rules), approached God with pride, and judged the tax collector who was at the temple. Pharisees all throughout the gospels used their concept of sin to push others down and build themselves up. Their concept of sin was from the Bible, but radically misappropriated. The tax collector was humble, repentant and so forgiven.

I hope this week, as we discussed sin that you saw the value in it. But I also hope you didn’t take an unbiblical joy in it. If so, maybe you are a Christian moralist. Perhaps you are in danger of becoming an accidental Pharisee. However, the good news of the Gospel is even moralists can repent and be saved. Stop using the concept of sin to exalt yourself. Use it to build humility.

Question for Reflection

Read the entire parable of the Pharisee and tax collector found in Luke 18:9-14. Do you lean Pharisee or do you lean tax collector in your heart?