These are some letters that I sent to my grandchildren.
My Dear Grandkids,
Your
mother asked me to consider writing down some of the things that God has taught
me over the years and passing it on to you. After thinking and praying about
this, it seems a good thing to do. Thus, this little missive.
One
thing that I have learned is that the Gospel is the key to life, to living
well. So, it only makes sense for me to write to you about some basics of the
Gospel. At this point, it looks like I will be writing about three different
elements of the Gospel. This is the first of those. It's about sin.
I
want to be clear about what I am aiming at, about the goal that I have in mind
as I write to you about sin. I think that it is very important for every
Christian to feel the weight of his sinfulness, to see something of how ugly it
is. Bit by bit, as that happens, he will become increasingly amazed that Jesus
has rescued him from that sin. It is out of this amazement at Jesus that
Christians grow as wholehearted disciples. This is what I want for each of you.
Let's
begin. The first thing is to do is nail down a definition. (Clear definitions
are so important.) What is sin? Don't be fooled into thinking that sin is just
about doing wrong things. It's much worse than that. Sin is hating God. It is
rejecting Him and His ways. This hostility to God is an attitude of the heart
long before it shows as some behavior. Here's some Bible that you can look up
about this: Romans 8.7; Genesis 6.5.
That's
the definition. Next, you need to see what God's response to sin is.
Here
is a passage from a Psalm that has stood out to me for a long time.
For you are not a God
who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you. The boastful shall not
stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers. You destroy those who speak
lies; the LORD abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man. Psalm 5:4–6
In
this Psalm, David uses various words to refer to sin and the people who commit
it: wickedness, evil, boastful, evildoers, liars, bloodthirsty, deceitful.
There are many more ways to describe sin and sinners, but these are clear
enough.
Now,
notice the words that David uses to describe God's response to sin and sinners.
There are things that God won't do: delight in wickedness, let such people
either dwell with Him or stand before Him. But now notice the things that God
will do: hate, destroy, abhor.
I
was spending some time meditating on the word 'abhor' recently. I looked up its
definition: to regard with extreme repugnance, to
feel hatred or loathing for
You
should look up the word 'repugnance' and the word 'loathing'. The word 'hatred'
is clear enough. These are very strong words and they describe God's attitude
to sinners.
David
used another word in that Psalm to describe what God will do to those who sin:
destroy. Take a moment to understand what David is saying by using that word in
this Psalm.
Now
for what I want each of you to understand. This Psalm describes what God would
do to each of you if Jesus had not rescued you from your sinfulness. Remember
the words: hate, destroy, abhor.
Hers's
something I'd like you to think about. What would this look like and feel like
in your lives if Jesus weren't your Savior?
This
is where the Gospel starts.
Next
time I will be writing something about what it means to believe in Jesus.
Grandpa B