Dead Men Walking Podcast Short: Grading Sin on a curve

Galatians 5: Works of the Flesh and the Need for Repentance

Hey guys, welcome back to another Dead Men Walking Short. It's where we take a subject and we talk about it for about five minutes. Today we are going to title this one, Sin Graded on a Curve. So I'm gonna read real quick from Galatians 5 verse 19 through 21.

Now the works of the flesh are evident sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, bits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.

I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

That's pretty strong there. Pretty straightforward. Yeah. So what do you think? Do you think it's just these things, our sins? Or is this like kind of categorically?

You know, we have we have quite a few more to read in Romans 1 if you'd like. But yeah, I think that they're, as Christians, we like to, I have heard this somewhere, I can't remember where I heard it, but it's we like to grade on a curve, you know?

Like we have a, we're like, well, you know, I used to drink a lot. I used to get blacked out drunk, but guess what? At least I didn't do drugs. Right. You know, and it's like, you know, there's different levels.

People like to talk about levels of sin, like, you know, well, murder is actually up here, you know? And like adultery is like, you know, maybe a little bit further down here.

Gossips way down at the bottom. God doesn't really care about that.

Don't worry about that. Or, you know, taking too many selfies on your cell phone and popping them up online.

That's a little narcissistic, but not too bad.

A little vain, but you know, whatever, you know, not so bad. At least I didn't murder someone. But, you know, I think that we have to watch ourselves in that situation whenever we're kind of, you know, looking at someone else's sin as though they cannot be forgiven as well, you know, that they can't have Christ's blood cover them as well.

You know, it's almost like a, I don't know, it's like an argument that doesn't really need to happen in the Christian community. It's like, guess what? We're all sinners, right? Yeah, like we need a Savior.

I think that's the need Jesus Christ.

Sin, the Flesh, and the Danger of Grading on a Curve

Yeah, absolutely. I agree. And I think that's the natural human state. The natural depraved state too is to grade on a curve. Yeah, like to rationalize our sin. Like, well, at least we're not doing that.

Yeah, like you said, and we see this all the time. Like, well, you know, I might have done this, but I haven't done that. And it's like, man, when you read the Bible though, it's so black and white about a holy and just and righteous God.

I mean, any sin is a blemish, right? I mean, up against a righteous God, your gossip is just as sin as your sexual sin. And it gets really sticky because yeah, there's different consequences for our sin, right?

Maybe the consequence of stealing a 50 cent candy bar when you're 12 years old is much different than the consequence of murder. It's still sin, right? So that's like what you're alluding to, like levels of sin.

The consequence is different, but to a holy and just and righteous God, that sin is still sin and it has to be forgiven. Right. And we need to repent and.

Believe that it is something that can be taken away. Pretty much, you know, he's laid down his.

Life for those sins. Yeah. And I think we might cover this in a further episode because this is a lot to talk about in five minutes. So you might hear something from us in the future on this, but it gets really weird when you get into like sexual sin and stuff too.

When maybe a guy's going, hey, look at, I'm just doing something privately on the internet versus a guy that's actively hurting a child or doing something, you know what I mean? That range of like the huge thing.

And you go, well, if they've all professed, you know, they've repented and professed Christ as Lord, does he not forgive them all the same? Right. And we can get into the back end of like what a true profession is and regeneration and salvation and sanctification.

But if all those things are true, can we look at another person with a harsher sin and truly judge when we have.

That sin just the same? Any sin. Yeah. It's something that we just need to watch ourselves. And yeah, I think we're going to have to definitely do a full episode here.

Paul’s List of the Works of the Flesh

So Galatians does a really nice, yeah. Galatians does a really nice job. You know, Paul's doing a really nice job here of laying out all these different things, sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery.

I mean, he gets into it. Strife, jealousy, fits of anger. Right. So he's going from low to high here.

Isn't it so great. Like Paul's just brilliant. I mean, like, well, he was a scholar. He was able to write that in one verse, you know, like two verses and really hammer it home.

The closing statement here for me would be, be very wary of rationalizing your sin against someone else. Yeah. Well, I do this, but someone else does that. Guess what? In the sight of a holy God, it's all sin.

Yeah. And we should repent immediately of it. Yep. Cool. Guys, thanks so much for listening to another Dead Men Walking Short. As always, God bless. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram at Dead Men Walking Podcast for full video podcast episodes and clips, or email us at deadmenwalkingpodcast at gmail .com.