I have been inundated this Lenten season with questions of sin, who it affects, and how God responds to it. For a long time those questions have been answered by the Catholic Church. The seven deadly sins came into being. If we look at the creation of the seven deadly sins, they did their job. They inspire guilt. Read this statement about the seven deadly sins from the web site with the same name.

 

 People have always been immoral, shiftless, self-gratifying, and good-for-nothing. But for ages, humankind struggled to find a conceptual system to operationalize their spiritual shortcomings. The challenge was formidable: the system had to be complex and inclusive enough to implicate a vast range of disgusting behavior, yet simple and memorable enough to inspire guilt in an illiterate peasant. The Seven deadly sins; Pride, Envy, Anger, Sloth, Greed, Gluttony, and Lust.

 

www.deadlysins.com

 

I don’t know about you but I don’t need the seven deadly sins. I just need one sin to put that wedge between me and God. Not from God’s side, but from the guilt that whispers to me that I am not good enough for God and I will never be able to do anything to help myself. We know from Paul in Romans that if I break one commandment then I have broken them all. That means that I am a murderer, thief, and everything that you want to put on me. I therefore know that I need Christ. I need what God has done to make me righteous. I have been made a Child of God, sealed by the Holy Spirit, and marked with the cross of Christ forever. (Thanks be to God) 

 

"There is no one who is righteous, not even one; there is no one who has understanding, there is no one who seeks God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; there is no one who shows kindness, there is not even one. Their throats are opened graves; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of vipers is under their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery are in their paths, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.  For "no human being will be justified in his sight" by deeds prescribed by the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.” (Romans 3:11-20)

 

I don’t feel we need to learn that we are sinners. I think we know that!! Don’t we? But some still want to hear it. I figure it goes back to the creation of the seven deadly sins- “The challenge was formidable: the system had to be complex and inclusive enough to implicate a vast range of disgusting behavior, yet simple and memorable enough to inspire guilt in an illiterate peasant.” I don’t think guilt saves. I don’t think guilt lead us to do what is right. I don’t think guilt helps us to get to know God. I think that grace does.

 

Grace gives us the chance to be something we are not “Children of God”. When I call myself a sinner, I act like a sinner.  I have no reason to do good except to get something out of it. I feed the hungry so I can get good marks and go to heaven. But if I am a child of God I do good so that those whom I do good for, see my good works and glorify my father in heaven. You see, if I am a child of God, I no longer need to do good works to get to heaven. I can do good works because I am going to heaven.

 

I have a homework assignment for you. Please read the first five chapters of Romans. Read it from different versions, dissect it, and really get into it. Then let’s talk about sin and those who are sinners. We can preach sin and how we all need to do better and love God more. We also watch as those who preach that fall short themselves. We see in the history of Lutheranism, the struggle Martin Luther had with his own sin. Then one day he got it. He got grace through faith, not through works. You and I can never point to the sins of another for we all fall short.

 

How did God respond to sin? God sent his only Son to die at the right time for the ungodly. My prayer is that we believe it, feel it and live it.