What is sin?

What is sin? Sin is acting without believing God (Rom. 14:23; Heb. 11:6) Sin is not doing what is the right thing to do — acts of omission (James 4:17) Sin is acting rebelliously against God’s Law (1 John 3:4) Sin is doing anything unrighteous — acts of comission (1 John 5:17) Sin is wicked. […]

Christ and your sin

John Owen, Communion with the Triune God: Sin being removed, and righteousness bestowed, we have peace with God—are continually accepted before him. There is not any thing to charge us with: that which was, is taken out of the way by Christ, and nailed to his cross—made fast there; yea, publicly and legally cancelled, that […]

Sin is…

R. C. Sproul, The Truth of the Cross: “Sin is cosmic treason.” With those words, I [am] trying to communicate the seriousness of human sin. We rarely take the time to think through the ramifications of our sin. We fail to realize that in even the slightest sins we commit, such as little white lies […]

Sin became a trifle

Epitaphs take a life and synthesize it into a concise statement. Some are humorous. “I told you I was sick.” Or “She lived with her husband for fifty years and died in the confident hope of a better life.” Some suggest a wasted life. “She loved the phone.” Others are tragic. “One miserable soul; lived […]

Working with the Spirit of God

Jeremy Taylor: While the Spirit of God is doing this work [of regeneration] in man, man must also be ‘a fellowworker with God;’ he must entertain the Spirit, attend his inspirations, receive his whispers, obey all his motions, invite him farther, and truly renounce all confederacy with his enemy, sin; at no hand suffering any […]

Grab bag

Some helpful articles from around the internet: Jon Bloom offers “Seven Ways to Pray for Your Heart.” David Murray reminds us, “All things for good.” Sin too? All sin is evil. No sin is worth it. It’s always better that we not sin. However, sin is also part of the “all things” that God works together […]

Christ, our Advocate

A couple of years ago I sat in a courtroom as a member of a jury serving a criminal case. On that day there were two lawyers in that courtroom serving as advocates — one as a defender of the man accused of a crime, and the other serving as both defender of the victim […]

Sin in the believer

John Murray: “There must be a constant and increasing appreciation that though sin still remains it does not have the mastery. There is a total difference between surviving sin and reigning sin, the regenerate in conflict with sin and the unregenerate complacent to sin. It is one thing for sin to live in us: it […]

Sunday Leftovers: Fighting against sin

In 1 John 2:1, the apostle declares, “I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.” He is telling his readers — believers in a group of churches in Asia Minor who had been taught by a group of heretics that sin was irrelevant and that one could be in good […]

Sunday Leftovers: more on confession and 1 John 1:9

In 1 John 1:9, the beloved disciple reminds believers that “If (when) we confess our sins, God is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Most believers are quite familiar with this verse, but what does it really mean to confess our sins? What is confession? What should […]

Preparing for a sermon on 1 John 1:9

This afternoon I’ve been thinking about tomorrow’s sermon on 1 John 1:9. This may be one of the most well-known verses in Scripture, behind perhaps John 3:16, Psalm 23, and Genesis 1:1. It’s easy to miss the importance of a passage because of our familiarity. How can we prepare to hear this familiar word in […]

It happens every day

It happened every fall. I worked as a pool cleaner while in seminary and as soon as the weather got too cool to swim, to save a couple of dollars, a few customers would request to have their pools covered and winterized and their service discontinued until the spring. We would show up to do […]

Sin is not master

John Murray, Redemption, Accomplished and Applied: There must be a constant and increasing appreciation that though sin still remains it does not have the mastery. There is a total difference between surviving sin and reigning sin, the regenerate in conflict with sin and the unregenerate complacent to sin. It is one thing for sin to […]

Sunday Leftovers: four reasons for hope for the believer who sins

Toxicologists Frank LoVecchio and Jeffrey Suchard of the Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center in Phoenix conducted a study a few years ago and discovered that 15% of Arizona rattlesnake attacks occurred after the snakes had been mortally shot, bludgeoned, or even beheaded. One man shot and decapitated a snake, then waited five minutes before picking […]

A benefit of suffering: it exposes sin

Thomas Boston [The Crook in the Lot] writes of a number of benefits of our suffering and afflictions — the crooks (or bent, difficult pathways) in our lots (the circumstances of our lives that have been allotted to us. One of those is the exposure of sin in our hearts: There are some corruptions in […]