Today I want to continue to our series on sin by looking at the impact it has on our everyday lives. We have defined sin as being more than just doing something wrong...it is allowing good things to become ultimate things. Obviously when that happens the consequences are serious and far reaching.
Tim Keller said:
"Defining sin this way, we can see several ways that sin destroys us personally. Identity apart from God is inherently unstable. Without God, our sense of worth may seem solid on the surface, but it never is--it can desert you in a moment. For example, if I build my identity on being a good parent, I have no true "self"--I am just a parent nothing more. If something goes wrong with my children or my parenting, there is no "me" left. Theologian Thomas Oden writes:
"Suppose my god is sex or my physical health or the Democratic Party. If I experience any of these under genuine threat, then I feel myself shaken to the depths. Guilt becomes neurotically intensified to the degree that I have idolized finite values....Suppose I value my ability to teach and communicate clearly....If clear communication has become an absolute value for me, a center of value that makes all my other values valuable...then if I [fail in teaching well] I am stricken with neurotic guilt. Bitterness becomes neurotically intensified when someone or something stands between me and something that is my ultimate value."
If anything threatens your identity you will not just be anxious but paralyzed with fear. If you lose your identity through the failings of somone else you will not just be resentful, but locked into bitterness. If you lose it through your own failings, you will hate or despise yourself as a failure as long as you live. Only if your identity is built on God and his love, says, Kierkegaard, can you have a self that can venture anything, face anything."
In what ways have you sought to find your identity in someone or something other than God?
I know for me, when I am still before God, this is a very humbling question. It is a question that I need to ask all the time!
Will
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Monday, October 6, 2008
Defining Sin - Part I
I know that it has been a while since we have updated the blog and for that I apologize. We are going to work hard at keeping it updated much more regularly and we would love your input and comments.
This morning I want to begin a series of posts on "sin" and what the implications of sin really are. As I have shared with you before I have been really challenged by Tim Keller's book The Reason for God. The book really is a must read for all Christians. You can get a copy here.
In Chapter 10 entitled "The Problem of Sin" Keller systematically addresses the implications of sin, and I want to spend some time looking at each of them and also hearing from you and what your thoughts are.
I know that long quotes can sometimes be tedious, but let me share some thoughts from Keller regarding the meaning of sin. He writes:
"The famous Danish philospher Soren Kierkegaard wrote a fascinating little book called The Sickness Unto Death in 1849. In it he defined "sin" in a way that is rooted in the Bible but also is accessible to contemporary people. "Sin is: in despair not wanting to be oneself before God...Faith is: that the self in being itself and wanting to be itself is grounded transparently in God." Sin is despairng refusal to find your deepest identity in your relationship and service to God. Sin is seeking to become oneself, to get an identity, apart from him.
What does this mean? Everyone gets their identity, their sense of being distinct and valuable, from somewhere or something. Kierkegaard asserts that human beings were made not only to believe in God in some general way, but to love him supremely, center their lives on him above everything else, and build their very identities on him. Anything other than this is sin.
Most people think of sin primarily as "breaking divine rules," but Kierkegaard knows that the very first of the Ten Commandments is to "have no other gods before me." So, according to the Bible, the primary way to define sin is not just doing of bad things, but making of good things into ultimate things. It is seeking to establish a sense of self by making something else more central to your significance, purpose, and happiness than your relationship to God."
I thought one of the most challenging thoughts was how we can turn "good things" into "ultimate things?" Are there ways in which you have done that?
Will
This morning I want to begin a series of posts on "sin" and what the implications of sin really are. As I have shared with you before I have been really challenged by Tim Keller's book The Reason for God. The book really is a must read for all Christians. You can get a copy here.
In Chapter 10 entitled "The Problem of Sin" Keller systematically addresses the implications of sin, and I want to spend some time looking at each of them and also hearing from you and what your thoughts are.
I know that long quotes can sometimes be tedious, but let me share some thoughts from Keller regarding the meaning of sin. He writes:
"The famous Danish philospher Soren Kierkegaard wrote a fascinating little book called The Sickness Unto Death in 1849. In it he defined "sin" in a way that is rooted in the Bible but also is accessible to contemporary people. "Sin is: in despair not wanting to be oneself before God...Faith is: that the self in being itself and wanting to be itself is grounded transparently in God." Sin is despairng refusal to find your deepest identity in your relationship and service to God. Sin is seeking to become oneself, to get an identity, apart from him.
What does this mean? Everyone gets their identity, their sense of being distinct and valuable, from somewhere or something. Kierkegaard asserts that human beings were made not only to believe in God in some general way, but to love him supremely, center their lives on him above everything else, and build their very identities on him. Anything other than this is sin.
Most people think of sin primarily as "breaking divine rules," but Kierkegaard knows that the very first of the Ten Commandments is to "have no other gods before me." So, according to the Bible, the primary way to define sin is not just doing of bad things, but making of good things into ultimate things. It is seeking to establish a sense of self by making something else more central to your significance, purpose, and happiness than your relationship to God."
I thought one of the most challenging thoughts was how we can turn "good things" into "ultimate things?" Are there ways in which you have done that?
Will
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