Our theme in this talk is what the Bible has to say about sin.
A few weeks after the resurrection of Jesus, there was a great festival in the city of Jerusalem. On that occasion a man called Peter took the opportunity to speak publicly, telling the crowds about Jesus Christ and the meaning of his life, death and resurrection. He confronted people with the wrong that had been done to Jesus. Many people in the crowd were left worried by Peter's speech. They felt responsible for events and fearful about how God might react. They asked Peter what they should do and he replied "Repent and be baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins." That was Peter's advice: Jesus can save you from your sins.
The Bible calls upon people everywhere to believe in Jesus in this way. But, clearly to understand the Bible we have to understand what sin is. So I'm going to explain it using four points.
Firstly, sin, according to the Bible, is the rejection of God. When somebody talks about sin then often people's minds rush straight to particular sins. They'll say, "He's going to tell me that I mustn't have sex with certain people; he's going to condemn me for wanting too much money." But that isn't the place to start. We must start with what the Bible says is the heart of the matter: sin is the rejection of God.
In saying this the Bible turns on its head one of the arguments used by people to explain why they don't believe in God. Sometimes you hear a person say, "Well if God is there then why doesn't he show himself and then I'll believe in him." But the Bible says the very opposite. It says that although invisible, it is plain that God is there; the world and the way it has been made shout out that God is there. But the human race refuses to see it because it has rejected its creator.
The Bible say that this attitude is so endemic to our race that none can escape it. Here's how the Bible describes what has happened to us all: "although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened." That's what we've done. God has been ignored for so long that we can't find the way back to him, by ourselves. Instead, says the Bible, most human beings simply accept or come up with their own crack-pot ideas about God and about the world. This is why we have endless religions and philosophies which all contradict one another.
To take one example: why do some intelligent human beings take a piece of wood and carve it into a little statue which they put in the corner of their room and worship, whilst the other half of the wood will be used as fuel? It's just a piece of wood so why do human beings do things like this? With all our intelligence and skills why have we dreamt up endless gods and religions and ideas to explain the world? Because, says the Bible, we don't want to know the true God and his explanations. But in rejecting him then we still need to find something to take his place, so we make something up.
But why reject our creator? Well that brings us to the second thing the Bible says about sin. Sin is rebellion.
Remember our previous quote: "although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him". The human race has one great problem with God - we don't like him being God. You see if there is a God who has created us all, then he has total rights over us.
Think about it this way. I could take a lump of clay, put it onto a potter's wheel and form it into a pot. The shape of the pot comes from me. I decide its height, circumference and design. I make it what it is and as such the pot is an expression of me, in a limited way. It tells you about my artistic skill and dexterity. And furthermore, I can do what I like with it. If I don't like it, then I can destroy it. On the other hand I could colour and harden it. It's completely my choice.
God is our creator, says the Bible, just as much as I am the creator of that piece of pottery. He designed me. He made me. He has absolute rights over me. And so the right reaction I owe to God is one of thankful worship. I should be thankful for the life the creator has given to me and should use it to shine out his handiwork, to his praise. Which means our lives should be lived in the way that He wants.
But we have rebelled against that and declared our independence. The rebellion began right at the start. The very first human beings wanted the so-called freedom to decide right and wrong for themselves. Freedom to be whatever they wanted.
Think again about that pot I described. Imagine I finished it beautifully but discovered it the next morning as just a pile of dust - for whatever reason, the pot had disintegrated overnight. What would I do? I would sweep it into a dustbin. The pot has become useless. It cannot act as it was intended to do. It no longer has the beauty I gave it. It has become pointless and worthless.
That, says the Bible, is what has happened to us. We have pushed God away to decide our own destiny. In other words, we are no longer what we were designed to be; we are no longer fit for the purpose we were made. We were supposed to shine out his glory and bring him pleasure, finding our own joy and happiness in him. But we have rebelled against him.
That rebellion is then expressed in a life of individual sins. This is where we come to particular thoughts or acts which are described by the Bible as sins. However, those sins are not just breaches in some arbitrary set of rules which God has set up but which we find it impossible to keep. Rather they are the outward expression of a refusal to live as God desires. And they flow from rebellious and corrupt hearts.
Here's Jesus view about our hearts: "from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean'." Jesus was countering the idea that people are accepted by God on the basis of their outward lives. So long as they were careful to keep up religious practices - eating in the right way and so on - then a person will be fine. And Jesus says no. The key problem now is on the inside of human beings: rebellious hearts which produce rebellious acts.
We know Jesus is right, don't we? The last century - with all its "progress" - is littered with examples of how dreadful we can be. We are a race capable of slaughtering one another in our millions and it's not just performed by nasty thugs. Many ordinary people get caught up in terrible evil, as in Nazi Germany. But apart from those great evils, what about your own life? Have you always met your own standards? No rages of temper? No secret searches on the Internet? No cruelty? No cheating? We could go on and but we know there is something wrong within us and we cannot be what we ought to be. That's sin.
The Bible actually gives us laws from God that we can test ourselves against and when we try to keep them then we fail. In this way the Bible highlights the sins in our lives. But, says the Bible, you must understand they come from a rebellious heart which doesn't want to live for its creator.
Now one last point. The Bible also says that "The wages of sin is death." God punishes our sin with death. But that destruction begins even before death. Take an honest look at your life. Where you have chosen a path that you've known was wrong, did it end with happiness and joy for all? Or did it leave you or others in pain? Did it leave a shadow of shame hanging over your life? Did it scar relationships with others? Did it harm you, even physically, and leave your life less than it once was? Do you have no regrets? No sense of guilt?
What about in others whom you know? Has their freedom to live as they want, lead them to a happy and satisfied life? What about this society in which you live? Has all the freedom from God of the post-war generation produced a collection of satisfied and happy people? Why do we see social disintegration all around us?
Sin is destructive, says the Bible.
You cannot reject your creator, rebel against him and pursue your own ways without ending up destroyed by it. This is the Bible's serious warning. But remember it also tells us that Jesus Christ came to save his people from their sins. These is an answer to sin. Won't you start to seek it out?