“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?”
-Romans 6:1-2
Last night, our young adult group talked about sin. We began Romans 6, and didn’t get past the first two verses. And I think that is appropriate. Sin has always been the issue, and it always will be. Sin, at its nature, is anything and everything outside of the will of God. Christ died to conquer sin and bring us back to the Father by His righteousness. Yet in the church, we focus on building livelihoods, marriages, retirement accounts, the government, and what our neighbors are doing. The problem with this mentality is this: we get so focused on building our Kingdom that we forsake the Lord’s. Sin is the key issue we should be focused on, ours first, and then proclaiming the freedom from sin we have in Christ. While we’re here in Babylon (and yes, this world is not our home), we’re waiting to go home to the place Jesus prepared for us, we SHOULD build homes and livelihoods, we SHOULD build families that honor God, but the point should always be to do so for the sake of Christ and the Gospel. We’re to be fruitful and multiply as God commanded, but only inasmuch as we are increasing the image of God throughout the earth.
Loved ones, I will harp on this issue. God harped on this issue. The Prophets and writers of scripture pointed out this issue. John the Baptist, then Jesus, harped on this issue. Paul, Peter, James, John and Jude harped on this issue. So let us, then, make sure we keep the main thing the main thing. Let us focus on sin, and as we build lives, marriages, homes, and families, let us reflect Christ and the Church in all we do, and let us spread the Gospel everywhere. Let us make our work for the Lord, and our marriage for the Lord, and raising kids for the Lord. Let us, with all we are, seek His holiness, His righteousness, His Kingdom first and foremost, then wait on Him as He adds all these things to us. It’s all about Christ and what He has done. It is the business of every believer in Christ to be about the business of the Kingdom, which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Let us, as Jesus was, be enemies of sin, and proclaim His goodness and mercies throughout the world so that all may see and know His goodness.
Matthew 6:19-34
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Colossians 3:1-17
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.
Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
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