By: Mike Kelly
Retired Pastor
Have you noticed that in our politically correct kind of world we want to decide what is right and what is wrong? Somewhere we lost our way.
We have come as a society and unfortunately, even within the Body of Christ, to believe that we can define what sin is and what sin is not.
There was an article in a local paper some time back that talked about one denomination making some decisions about a group of people who wanted to become full members.
The article said, “The definition of what is acceptable and what is not acceptable is murky at best.” That’s just nuts. There are a number of things about sin that need clarifications but when God calls it sin, it is sin!
God’s Word decides what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. There is nothing murky about it. If God called it sin 2,000 years ago, it is sin today!
We cannot now say that what God said then is wrong, is now right when talking about moral issues, (not cultural issues). No matter if it offends, God’s Truth is The Truth. Even if it isn’t exactly what I want to do.
God is not confused, nor is His Word confusing. God draws boundaries for us. He lays those boundaries out clearly.
He told Adam that you can eat from any tree but that one. He told Moses that these are “My Commandments”, not suggestions. These aren’t arbitrary standards. God is not going to let us as the church redefine sin and call it choice or lifestyle.
The society we live in will do that regularly but we as believers are not allowed. Our Boss defines sin for us. No one else. When we do the opposite of what God’s Word says, we sin.
No matter what we want to call it or how we want to redefine it, sin is simply and always will be sin. God sets the standards. He determines what is and what is not sin. No one else.
Sin is not now, nor will it ever be something we can define outside of God’s Word. God is the God of justice. If we think we can change His Word or ignore it, then we will find ourselves facing His wrath.
We must decide who is going to call the shots. We must decide who has the right to determine what is or is not acceptable. Only God has that right.
That said, sin can be a complicated issue when you really look into it. Somethings we want to call sin are not sin to everyone or everywhere. For instance, some sins are personal.
It may be a sin for someone to drink an alcoholic beverage because they have an addiction problem but not for someone else who has never drank to excess. Some sin is also cultural meaning that it is not sin everywhere.
Think the female dress code in some African nations where toplessness is acceptable and even standard. Try that in America and it would not only be illegal but sinful.
As I said earlier, sin is complicated and here is another area where some major complications set in. Each of us must walk in the light that God has given us.
By that I mean that how we interpret scripture and how we prioritize it also impacts what we know of sin. Good men and women of clear conscience often disagree about what is sin and not sin based on how they understand the same scriptures.
For example, the on-going issue of homosexuality in the Church today. I take a conservative approach but a good friend of mine in the same denomination sees it differently.
He takes the scriptures about loving one another and prioritizes them above the scriptures about confronting sin. He treats homosexuality as the same as any other sin and I can hardly call that wrong.
His point is that if we allow a glutton like me to be a pastor, then why can’t we allow a gay woman to be one? We are both sinners. And our sins are called out in the same passages in Scripture.
I believe that we need to call it sin if the Bible says it, is sin. Gluttony, gossip and greed are sins, and we call them that, but he isn’t willing to confront the LBGTO+ group about their lifestyle.
And that is where we truly differ. If we don’t call sin a sin, then people will not confess it when confronted by God or his Word. We are all sinners. We are all called to love one another.
I just worry that my love is not real if I won’t confront something harmful in the lives of those I love. Because God loves us, he confronts us about our sin so that we won’t sin and suffer the consequences of it.
Because we love them, we confront our children about the things they do wrong, so they won’t have to face the consequences of those bad choices.
It seems unloving of me to not lovingly tell the gossips to quit gossiping, the gluttons to quit overeating, the greedy to change their hearts but not tell the LBGTO+ that God considers their actions sinful as well.
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Mike Kelly is the founding pastor of Bryan’s Grace Community Church (retired) and Board Chairman of Bryan’s Sanctuary Homeless Shelter and Williams County’s Compassion (free) Medical Clinic.
