Aim For the Sin Not the Person - Kill the Sin and Redeem the Person

Hello Church Family:  Are you actively killing sin in your life?  Are you actively helping others kill sin?  Or are you actively killing the person instead of their sin?  As we continue in our series, “How the Gospel Changes Us,” we get to the somewhat forgotten response that all believers are called to participate.  We are commanded by our Lord Jesus Christ to be living a life of repentance.  We are called to be living out a faith that is breathing repentance each second, minute and hour of every day.  The fruit of faith is repentance.  This is difficult as we live in a church culture in America that does not want to ever say that anything is wrong.  As we live our lives in Christ, through repentance our soul is called to strip off all sin that is so easily insnaring us and at the same moment let our faith cloth us with the promises and righteousness of Christ that we are forgiven and accepted.  Through repentance we will be weeping over sin and through faith we will be rejoicing in Christ’s redeeming hand making all things new in our lives.  If we find ourselves having no hatred for our sin then most likely we are strangers to repentance.  Have you come to love some of your sin?  Do you treat your sin like a pet with full acceptance?  You feed it, pet it, groom it, teach it tricks until one day you realize your pet is an apex predator who is devouring and destroying your life moment at at time.  This apex predator pet sin that is not repented of will consume your soul and your desire to please the Lord.  David wrote about hiding sin and how it was killing him in Psalm 32:3-4,  For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.  

When we hide our sin we constantly put out this false reality, this fakeness, a facade that makes us a miserable prisoner.   Hiding sin does not allow us to be fully known as Christ intended us to be known.  Jesus calls us to enjoy a "life without regret.”  2 Corinthians 7:10, tells us that "godly greed produces repentance that leads to salvation without regret.”  What an incredible promise!  Once our soul rejoices in a life of repentance we start to live under the covering of God’s grace.  We can be certain that He redeems all of our mess-ups, failures, disappointments, and fiascos.  He turns all of this destruction on its head.  When we actively breathe out repentance each moment of the day we find that Jesus is already at work redeeming our lives and the situations we have gotten ourselves into.  As the church we are called to help each other kill each other’s sin.  We are to be a people who are killing sin not killing each other.  Aim for the sin not the person.  This is the way Jesus responds to us and why He tells us, "there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance” (Luke 15:10).

John Owen, one of my favorite Puritans, once said “Be killing sin or it will be killing you.”

Psalm 32:12 Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.  Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.

I look forward to worshipping with you Sunday, Steve