This post is going to make many of you uncomfortable. So, let’s begin with a subject that’s a little less painful: love.
Love is the supreme ethic in the entire universe. Love is how our Creator God started His relationship with us. God created us in His image for the purpose of knowing and relating with us. But God would not love us if He forced us to love Him. So, Creator God gave us the ability to choose to love Him. This is a great gift to those of us who do love Him.
Is this choice too great a burden for those who do not love Him? For if we choose not to love Him, then we separate ourselves from Him. The Bible says that separation from God is permanent if we run out of time here on Earth to make that choice. Why would He give us this choice if that burden was too great for us? It isn’t. God doesn’t describe Himself often in the Bible; but when He does, He says His is the easy yoke and His burden is light.
And still some choose not to love Him. That is where sin comes in to the world. And to God, sin matters. He is the holiest of all and cannot countenance sin in His presence. So, our sin separates us from this Holy God—perhaps permanently. I don’t know why some seem so comfortable with that notion.
In our culture, people who are not following God are following something. They tend to worship created things rather than the creator. They tend to push God out of the culture.
They may worship science. Science is a gift of God. I go to the doctor just like anyone. I appreciate what science tells me about how and what is happening to my body. But science can never tell me why it’s happening. God does, but science does not have all of the answers to my questions. Lately, science has been proving the existence of God in the universe. Why would anyone worship science?
They may worship sex, but that would be a perversion of something God created for our pleasure. Long before Hugh Hefner, God created sex for committed marriage relationships between those He created, not the broken families and individuals—now of all ages—addicted to the profane pursuit of the sexual response. They want sex without consequence. And yet to God, sex is sacred. Slavery thrives in our culture now in the form of human trafficking, but where is the same outrage over this that we see on television attributed to other matters? And when we fail to value innocent human life in the womb, is it any surprise that our young people are killed on the streets of our urban centers in this country each weekend?
Racism is sin to be sure. It attacks one of the two greatest commandments in the Bible—to love your neighbor as yourself. Whether through intentional acts (sins of commission) or microaggressions (sins of omission), racism is sin. To God, race is sacred. I’ve always thought that inter-racial marriages are snapshots of what it’s going to be like in Heaven. If there is anything we can know with respect to sin, it is that sin is a matter of the heart. Nothing proves that more than the existence of racism. That’s why erasing our history by tearing down statues will never end racism. Sin is a matter of the heart. Paying reparations will never end racism. Sin is a matter of the heart. No politician, policeman, or protestor can change the heart of man. Only God can. And in our culture, there are so many people who are simply comfortable with being separated from God.
We elevate ourselves over God when we sin. We tell Him that we know better what’s good for us. But the Bible says that while all things may be permissible for us, not all things are beneficial. Certainly, we can agree that the murder of innocents is wrong, and that Hitler, Stalin, and Mao were wrong when they killed millions in the last century. But how would we know what’s bad apart from knowing what’s good? How would we know what’s wrong and right apart from knowing what’s sin and love?
Sin matters because it points us to what’s good. I would challenge you even if you were an atheist, agnostic or nihilist with these questions: How would we know what’s bad, sin or evil, if there was not an intrinsic “good?” And how could there be a moral “good” without a moral law? And how could there be a moral law without a moral law giver? We have one, and He is a Holy God.
Sin is so much more than breaking rules and commandments. Sin ultimately points us to what is not sin—good. That’s why God doesn’t forgive sin. He forgives sinners. You can choose to live your life apart from God if you are an atheist, agnostic or nihilist, but that doesn’t stop Him from pursuing you while you live on Earth. He wants no one to perish.
Should you embrace Him, confess that His Son Jesus is Lord over your life, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will continue to sin. This is the human condition laid bare before Almighty God. If anyone was ever “born that way” it’s us. We are born with a proclivity to sin. So, our walk with God on this planet will not be sinless. Hopefully, it’s just less sin. C.S. Lewis put it best: “God does not love us because we are good. He makes us good because He loves us.”
Sin matters to God because of His great love for us. It is a matter of the heart. And because we are created in His image, matters of the heart matter to God. Yes, sin matters. But, thank God, so does love.
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