WWUTT 305 Q&A Sin Means to Miss the Mark?

Does sin mean to miss the mark? If we were to convince a person that God is real and created the entire universe, is that enough? And how can we know that a church is a false teaching church? These questions and more when we understand the text.

Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text is an online ministry dedicated to teaching the Word of God in context, promoting sound doctrine while exposing the faulty.

Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

Friday Q&A and the Meaning of Sin

Thank you, Becky. It is Friday at the end of a very long week. And on the Friday episode, we take questions from the listeners and respond to them. That's what we'll be doing today. You can submit a question to when we understand the text at gmail .com.

We've had over a thousand listeners a day on the podcast this week, which is wonderful. And I thank you so much for listening in and letting others know about the Bible teaching that we offer here. We'll resume our study of 1 Peter on Monday if you haven't listened in before and you're just tuning in perhaps for the very first time.

We just began our study in 1 Peter and you can listen to the first episode going through the first chapter from this past Monday. Episode 301, I believe, is the first episode that we cover the beginning of 1 Peter.

Just posted a new what video it posted last night. The title of the video is Sin Means to Miss the Mark. I've been I've received several requests to do a video on this subject. I finally got around to it.

I decided to pull out Derek's question. This was from several months ago, but Derek from Lansing, Michigan, asked this, Dear what? Could you do a video about how sin doesn't mean to miss the mark? This is a description of sin I keep hearing over and over again, and I'd love to see a video addressing the topic.

Thank you so much. Well, Derek, I think you'd be disappointed to find out that sin actually does mean to miss the mark, although that's a very light definition of sin. And the way that we understand sin is not necessarily by defining the word, but looking at how the scriptures explain sin.

And that's what this video talks about. The word sin, as it appears in the Bible, comes from the Greek word hamartia or the Hebrew word hatah, which both mean to miss the mark. The word was used in archery and spear throwing.

When a person missed the center of the target, they erred or hamartia'd. So as this applies to sin, we should ask, what is the mark that we are missing? And the answer is the holy, righteous perfection of God.

When it comes to missing that mark, we're not just veering off a little and barely missing the bullseye. On our way to the range, we took a wrong turn and drove off a cliff. We don't come anywhere near the holiness of God.

Understanding sin requires more than knowing the definition of a word. We must consider how sin is framed in the Bible. It's worse than simply missing a target or making a mistake. Sin is treason. It is rebellion against the law of the high king of heaven, and for that we deserve death.

Joshua 1 .18 says, whoever rebels against the Lord's commandment and disobeys His words shall be put to death. That's sin and its consequence. Romans 6 .23 says, for the wages of sin is death. That verse goes on to say, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

See, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That's everyone. No one on their own merit will stand innocent before the throne of judgment. But God demonstrated His love for us in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us.

Followers of Jesus are saved from His wrath, no longer enemies of God, but we've been reconciled to God and to His people. Now we're fellow heirs of His kingdom. From treasonous criminals to fellow heirs, that's the love of God through His Son in whom we have the forgiveness of sins when we understand the text.

Some of the scriptures that were shown in that video, but you kind of heard a paraphrase of. Romans 5 .8 -10, but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since therefore we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God.

For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life. And also verse 11, more than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have now received reconciliation.

When we understand how serious our sin is, then we are able to worship God rightly. Our sin is so serious that it resulted in the entire universe being sent into upheaval. Our sin was so serious that it required the sacrifice of the Son of God in order to make us right before God.

And so praise be to God for His love that was demonstrated in the sacrifice of His Son and resurrection from the grave. May we continue to look to Christ every day for the forgiveness of our sins and pursue His righteousness.

Why an Intelligent Designer Is Not the Gospel

We're going to turn to another video now with our next question. This comes from James in New York. He says, Dear Pastor Gabe, some friends of mine have been sharing the following video on Facebook. While the information is surely spectacular to consider, they think of this video as some unbeatable argument for the existence of God.

I can't seem to convince them that the argument is not compelling. It won't actually bring an unbeliever to Christ. But at the same time, my own argument is not very compelling to them. I can't seem to find the words to explain why this video is unhelpful.

Can you help a brother out? Here is the video that that James is talking about. I didn't seem to write down who it came from. I'll look it up while you're listening to the video and I'll tell you where this video came from.

Some people say that human existence is a result of a roll of the cosmic dice. Like the gambler who stakes his life savings on the next throw. We just got lucky in the lottery of life. Some people say there's no purpose in the universe, no grand plan, no God behind it all.

Our numbers just came up and here we are. But I don't believe them. And nor should you. If I roll this dice, the chances of getting a 6 is 1 in 6. That's not too bad. But what are the chances of me rolling 6 twice in a row?

Well, the odds get longer. It's 1 in 6 times by 1 in 6. That's 1 in 36. So I'd have to be pretty lucky to get two 6s in a row. Now every time I add the chances of rolling another 6 in a row, the odds go up exponentially and it gets even more unlikely.

Now what if I rolled this dice 70 times and every single time I got a 6? Okay, that's pretty unlikely, but it's possible, right? Well in fact, the chances of rolling a 6 70 times in a row are around 1 in 10 to the 55.

That's a 1 with 55 zeros after it. Now just to put that in perspective, how long would I have to stand here rolling this dice, allowing about 5 seconds per roll, before hitting that lucky streak and rolling 70 6s in a row?

Well, I had a mathematician friend work it out for me. On average, you would have to continually roll this dice for 100 trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion years before your numbers come up.

That's a long time. What if you applied that thinking to us? What are the odds of us being here? Now the odds of rolling 70 6s in a row, 1 in 10 to the 55, as it happens, those are the same odds of something called the expansion rate of the universe being just right for the existence of us here today.

From the moment of the Big Bang, when our universe began to rapidly expand, the rate of that expansion was exquisitely finely balanced. Any faster and the universe would have expanded too rapidly to allow the formation of chemicals, atoms, stars and galaxies.

Any slower and the universe would have collapsed back in on itself. But as it happens, the universe expanded at just the right rate to allow for life to develop in the future, for us to be here. It hit 70 rolls of the number 6 in a row first time.

And the expansion rate of the universe is just one among 30 or so other incredibly sensitively finely tuned constants and fundamental forces in the universe that must be just the way they are for the universe to be able to produce us.

So let's imagine, if I went ahead and rolled this dice 70 times and what do you know, every time it came up 6. No waiting for trillions upon trillions of years, first time. Beginner's luck? Hardly. You would assume that I must have rigged it.

Maybe the dice are loaded, maybe there are 6s on every side, it can't be chance. Now let me ask you, why would we assume that this universe with us in it, which is actually way more improbable than my 70 rolls, is just a result of chance?

The fact that we're here shows that someone's loaded the dice. In fact, maybe there's no dice at all. What if the evidence points to this life-permitting universe actually being the product of an intelligent mind which intended for us to be here?

Now you could come up with some speculative other theory. Maybe there's an infinite number of universes giving you an infinite number of chances to roll the dice. Maybe. But we don't have any scientific evidence for it.

So if you're hanging your hat on that possibility, then you're every bit as much committed to a faith position as the person who says God was behind it. Believing in God isn't a delusion, it's a perfectly reasonable conclusion when we look at the fingerprints on our universe.

And if it's true that we aren't just the fluke result of a cosmic roll of the dice, and that we're actually here because a grand designer intended us from the very beginning, well that's worth staking something on.

Premier on Demand is the name of the ministry where that video comes from. And in the description of their YouTube channel it says, Our mission is to enable people to put their faith at the heart of daily life and to bring Christ to their communities.

Which sounds rather ambiguous. At least they mention Christ there, which they don't mention in the video. And that would be the flaw. That's, that's the problem with the video, James. No gospel is ever presented there.

Nothing in that video could ever save a person's life or lead them to Christ because the gospel just isn't there. Maybe it could convince somebody to believe in an intelligent designer, maybe. But as we are going through our study, the book of James several weeks ago, we read this in James chapter two, you believe that God is one, you do well.

Even the demons believe and shudder, James 2 .19. So just because you convinced somebody that God exists and that all things around them came into existence by God's design, doesn't save anybody. Because even the demons know that and they're not saved.

They're going to be destroyed. When it comes down to it, everybody knows that there is an intelligent designer. They have suppressed the truth with their unrighteousness. So what needs to be done is you need to show a person their sin.

If they're going to believe that God created all things, they first need to know that they have sinned and fallen short of that righteous God's perfect law. When we present the law to somebody, it says in Romans 3 .19, every mouth may be stopped.

Nobody would be able to proclaim their own righteousness. And through the law comes knowledge of their sin. And then once their heart is conditioned to realize that they are not perfect, they are not righteous, they are not good by their own merit because they lie, cheat and steal just like anybody else does.

Once they can be shown that according to the law of God, then their heart and their mind is conditioned to be able to hear about God and the gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God who came into this world to die on the cross for our sins.

And by his death and his resurrection, we are saved from the wrath of God that is burning against all unrighteousness. Whoever does not believe in Christ will be destroyed under God's wrath. On the day of judgment, God will send those who did not know his son to eternal torment in hell.

And those who did know his son, Jesus Christ, will receive everlasting life in the eternal kingdom of God. So we read this in Romans 1 18, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who buy their unrighteousness, suppress the truth.

For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made.

So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him. But they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened, claiming to be wise.

They became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. So when it comes down to it, all of us know we know that God exists and that he created all things by the word of his power.

But it is by our unrighteousness that we suppress that truth. So a person needs to be shown their sin and their unrighteousness, and then they can come to understand the truth about God. That is how we witness to somebody else.

But this video forgoes the gospel. It's not presented there, nor is there even any discussion about sin. And so it's it's some interesting information to be sure. And those of us who know God and we know Christ who created all things, we can listen to the mathematical number, I mean, just the huge exponential numbers that he presented in that video and we can go, wow, how great our God is.

And we can marvel like David did in Psalm 8, looking at the stars and saying, oh, Lord, our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth? Your glory fills the heavens. What is man that you are mindful of him looking at the vastness of the universe?

And yet you consider us. So we can marvel at God when we see numbers and statistics like that. But the person who does not know God, none of that is impressive. And it's really not going to change their minds from thinking that all of the universe is an accident to suddenly believing that it's the cause of an intelligent designer, because as he's going through all of these odds, the person who is an atheist or the person that doesn't believe is just going to go.

So what? So so it was insurmountable odds. We still exist. So clearly we overcame those odds. Clearly, you know, all things in the universe just came about to happen, despite how incredible those odds are.

Here we are. So just because you quote a number and you cite the odds does not that's not a convincing argument. That's not going to bring a person from unbelief into belief. The only thing that will bring a person from unbelief to belief is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The only thing see, only thing that will save Romans 1 16, for I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes the Jew first and also to the Greek, for in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith.

As it is written, the righteous shall live by faith. So anyway, James, I don't know how well I was able to answer your question, but I hope that that provides for you something that you can share with those friends of yours that continue to to throw this video around, thinking that it's some incredible, compelling argument.

It's really not. It's some interesting information. It's just not a compelling argument. I believe it was Louis Pasteur who said that science brings men closer to God. That's only true for the person that already fears God.

John Pavlovitz and the Denial of Sin

But for the person who doesn't believe in God, they'll worship the created thing rather than the creator. This next question is really more of a comment than a question. This comes from Martha in Santa Rosa, California.

She says, Dear Pastor, I want to thank you for writing your articles on John Pavlovitz. I read a post he had written on a Facebook page, and I knew that what he was saying was not correct. I'm going to share your articles with my friends.

Regards. Well, thank you so much for that, Martha. I started seeing my first John Pavlovitz articles two years ago. The first one that I saw was posted by a pastor friend of mine who never checks his sources.

So it's like I was looking up Pavlovitz for the sake of this friend of mine so I could show him, hey, look, this is not a guy that you should be referencing because he teaches all this other false stuff.

Pavlovitz is a heretic, and he actually comes from a church that doesn't even teach the word of God. Pavlovitz is a pastor of North Raleigh Community Church, and when you go to their website and you look up their About Us section, this is how they describe their church.

A list of beliefs on a website won't give you a very good feel for NRCC. Churches create these lists to help newcomers know what to expect before they come. However, our community isn't really organized around a set of doctrines we all believe.

It's almost like right off the bat, the church is admitting they're heretics. We don't even read the Bible. We don't even, yeah, don't even have to worry about that. There's no teaching there that we're grounded upon at all.

It's entirely subjective. It's whatever sounds good to them, and that's really what you get in their statement of beliefs that follows. So the website continues, for us, the thing that holds us together is our shared desire for spiritual growth, for wholeness, for wisdom, and for the fruit of God's spirit to shape the lives that we live every day.

They want the results of the spirit, not the spirit himself. Did you notice that? People in our community believe a broad spectrum of things about the Christian life, and some are trying to figure out exactly what they believe, and that is really okay with us.

Folks belong here even when, maybe especially when, they have deep doubts about the most accepted parts of the Christian tradition. No idea what that means. We are a Christian church, but we've also recognized that our heritage has left us many ways to be Christian.

We have been exploring a wide swath of historical stories in which we Christians have found ourselves. I have no idea what that paragraph means. Anyway, here are a few things that will help you get to know us, and then they list five articles of faith here.

Okay, so here's the first article of faith. We believe in paradox and humility. Okay? In the Christian tradition, you can't get away from paradox. Listen to how we talk about God. God is one. God is three.

God is good. God allows evil. God is all-powerful. Humans have free will. When our spiritual truths are so vast that they can't be contained in fixed doctrines, humility is a really good idea. It serves us well not to be too rigid in our beliefs.

It's better if we cultivate hearts constantly seeking deeper experience of God's life and love. You know, all of that was actually very proud and boastful. It wasn't humble at all. How do I know that?

Because it's all their own thoughts, their own ideas, not submissive to the word of God. So they're boasting in themselves rather than boasting in the Lord, which is what the scripture tells us to do.

Here's what Peter says about humility. First Peter 5, 6, humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that at the proper time, he may exalt you. Here's their second article of faith.

We believe in Jesus. Oh, really? Yeah, let's find out here. We believe Jesus purely expressed the life of God. We believe that in life, death, and the power of the resurrection, Jesus alerted us to a new way to live.

We hear in Jesus the singular command to love, to love God with all our hearts, and to love all people. Well, when Jesus said that the greatest commandment was to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself, it was because a lawyer came to him to test him.

Matthew 22, verse 36, teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? And Jesus said to him, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.

And the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets. Basically, Jesus's answer went like this. When you look at the 10 commandments, the first four commandments are vertical.

They have to do with our relationship with God. I'm God. You don't get another one. Don't worship anything that looks like me. Don't mess with my name. Don't mess with my day. Okay? Those are the first four commandments.

That's the Gabe version of them, by the way. The next six commandments are horizontal, having to do with our relationship with man. Honor your father and your mother. Do not murder. Do not commit adultery.

Do not lie. Do not steal. Do not covet. Okay? Those are the next six commandments. So in the first four, that's referred to as the first table of the law, vertical commandments. The next six is the second table of the law, horizontal commandments.

So when Jesus said, you will love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, he was talking about the first table of the law. When he said, the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

He was talking about the second table of the law. So basically, Jesus's answer went like this. What's the greatest commandment? Well, I'm going to go with the first four, and then I'm going to go with the next six.

Basically all of it. And what does it mean to love God with all of our hearts? That we give everything of ourselves to the Lord. Well, the church loves to talk about love there. How about John 14, 15, where Jesus says, if you love me, obey my commands.

And we read in 1 John 5 too, by this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey his commandments. That's the love of God, obeying what he commanded us to do. John 3, 36, whoever has the son has life.

Whoever does not obey the son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. I guarantee that church doesn't talk about the wrath of God. They'll talk about love, all the stuff they like, but not the stuff that they don't like.

Hear how God describes himself in Exodus 34, beginning in verse six, the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.

But who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation. Is that a God that you can love? A God that pours out mercy and grace, but also judgment and wrath?

That's the way God describes himself. If you can't love that God, then you worship a false God. So here's their third article of faith. We believe in spirit. Well, okay. They kind of talked about spirit a little bit so far.

Let's see how they define it. We believe God has given the Holy Spirit to indwell us. So far, so good. We believe the indwelling spirit awakens ordinary people to live divine lives in tangible, perceptible ways, huh?

We listen carefully for the spirit's inner voice and thread our way forward into deeper wisdom, insight, redemption, and wholeness. See the spirit's inner voice, not the spirit speaking through the word of God, which was divinely inspired by the Holy Spirit, the Bible, okay?

Not speaking to us that way, but the inner voice. Whatever we hear, whatever we think, if it has something to do with God, we know that it must have come from God. Nuh-uh. That's all subjective. You're all, you're just talking about what you feel is right.

That's what they define as spirit. Not the Holy Spirit and the divinely inspired word of God written down by the prophets and the apostles who gave this to us. Okay? Number four, we believe in the ancient spiritual disciplines.

No idea what that means. Through the centuries, Christians have discerned many practices that help us on our spiritual journeys. This diagram distills our rich heritage down to four categories of spiritual practice.

And there's a diagram there. Four categories of spiritual practice. Our souls prosper in the environment of loving and supportive spiritual community. Our souls prosper when we meditate, when we undertake soul quieting contemplative practice.

That's Roman Catholic, by the way. Our souls prosper when we learn, when we study both ancient and contemporary wisdom. Are they even capable of using the word Bible? Can they even say that? They seem to be allergic to that word.

Our souls prosper when we serve the earth, when we look beyond our own needs and concerns and work to make the earth a better place. That sounds pagan to me. I'm not even going to touch that one. Let's go on to the last one here.

Number five, we believe sin is not that big a deal. Whoa. All right. We've already had our description of sin at the beginning of this episode. So now all of this is coming full circle here. That sounds scandalous when you say it out loud.

And to be honest, we do that on purpose. Of course, sin damages our lives, our families, our relationships, and our futures. But compared to the vastness of God's grace and forgiveness, sin is just not that big a deal.

Consequently, at NRCC, we're not too focused on one another's sin. We don't spend much energy trying to keep one another on the straight and narrow. Rather, we try to encourage one another to listen to the indwelling spirit, once again, and let God move us to listen carefully for inner spiritual conviction and then respond fervently to what we hear.

Do that and sin will take care of itself. Well, remember what we read last week at the end of James, James 5, verses 19 and 20. My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and cover over a multitude of sins.

And we read this in Romans 6. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means. How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?

We were buried, therefore, with Him by baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.

We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died to sin has been set free from sin.

Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over Him, for the death He died, He died to sin.

Once for all, but the life He lives, He lives to God. So you must also consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.

Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under the law, but under grace. Sin is death. Death came into this world because of sin. God hates sin, and He hates those who do sin. But He didn't leave us dead in our sins and our transgressions.

He sent His Son, Jesus, to die on the cross for our sin, so that in Christ we may live in His righteousness. So if you are in Christ Jesus, you are no longer enslaved to your sins, so stop doing them.

Instead you are a slave to righteousness, so pursue the righteousness of Christ. Yes, sin is a big deal. Sin is why we die. So do not live in sin, and stay away from anybody who gives you permission to sin, like John Pavlovitz and his false teaching church.

He is a heretic, and I hope that he repents of his sins and knows the true Christ according to the Bible, not this God that he has made up in his own mind. If you have any questions that you would like to submit to the program, send them to WhenWeUnderstandTheText at gmail .com.

God bless, and as mentioned, we'll be back to the study of 1 Peter on Monday.

This is When We Understand The Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. There are lots of great Bible teaching programs on the web, and we thank you for selecting ours, but this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family.

Find a good, gospel-teaching, Christ-centered church to worship with this weekend, and join us again Monday for more Bible study, When We Understand The Text.