Sin is Lawlessness

Sermon by Rev. Steven McClelland on 1 John 3: 1 – 7.  Focus on why the law is still needed in an age of confused grace.  Justice is what love likes in the public arena.  Check out Jody Sinkway and Alex’s anthem after sermon.

Sin is lawlessness 1 John says. So what is lawlessness? On first glance that would seem to support the notion that there are rules to life that must be adhered to for everyone to thrive. Laws are the ways that we govern ourselves. They are based on God’s 10 commandments and beyond but let’s not forget why the law was given. It was given because of our hardness of heart. Meaning that we need rules in order to keep sin in check.

Think of sports for a moment. I hope no one is offended by this example but you can supply your own example if you do not like mine. The New England Patriots have been in more Super Bowls than any other team in Football history, but it is also true that those victories have been tainted by scandal such as deflate gate and the stealing of plays when they played the Eagles in the 2004 Super Bowl. But then there is karma – the 2017 Eagles.

Or think of Lance Armstrong the winner of seven Tour de France titles all of which were voided when he pleaded guilty to blood doping. In short, we don’t like cheaters. We want the playing field to be even and we want to see who truly is the champion or the winner based on talent not on cheating.

When God starts creating in Genesis his first concern is separating things like light and darkness, water and land, and water, which is mentioned again and again. Water represented chaos in the Old Testament think of the flood. And so in Psalm 23 when God says, “He leads me beside still waters.” God is saying I have tamed the chaos in life. I have brought order out of the chaos that cannot sustain life and will kill it.

And this is what 1 John is addressing. Sin he says is lawlessness. Sin is chaos and anarchy. It is the Hebrew word for formless, emptiness, chaos, confusion, and unreality. It means all these things. We know that this is true if we have ever played cards. We want to know does three of a kind beat a pair? Does a straight flush beat a full house?

Laws, rules may not save us, but they are in place to keep our sins from turning into outright chaos. Chaos means that you alone are in control of deciding what is lawful and what is not. In other words there is no standard anymore. It’s just up to each individual to decide what law to obey and which to disregard.

I posed this question to my Bible class on Thursday. How may of us have been in a 25 mile traffic zone and been doing 30 to 35 miles per hour? Everyone raised their hand. I have a very honest class. And that’s the point. We all look at law as something that should fit our needs. But laws have been given to us by God and for this reason. It was given to us because we were sinners and we needed some basic guidelines in order to live together in community.

This has always been the tension between law and grace in the Bible. We are saved by grace but the law shows us that we all fall short. If we think that we are different that the New England Patriots or the Pharisees who believed it possible to keep all of God’s laws then we deceive ourselves. The law was given because of our sinful nature. It wasn’t given to show us how to love. It was given to keep sin in check.

That’s the brilliance of our constitution and its separation of powers. Our founders took sin seriously. And for them sin was the equivalent in the public arena as power. So what did they do? They divided up power. Gave some to the executive branch, some to the legislative, some to the judicial.

But when it comes to love it encompasses all of the law. If you love someone you will not kill them, steal from them or bear false witness against them. If you are a loving person you are already fulfilling all of the laws of God and more. No law can make you love your wife, husband, child or neighbor. Love is above the reach of law because it transcends the law. It doesn’t say that the law is irrelevant. It says that we have risen above the basic requirements needed to sustain community life. As 1 Peter 4:8 states: “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.”

Love wipes out sin. Love conquers sin. Think of Jesus on the cross and how he responded to the injustice that was being done to him. “Father forgive them, for they no not what they do.” Love! The greatest gift ever given. The gift that never ends. The gift that makes all the difference in the world. Love, something you cannot legislate or mandate but is absolutely essential to the preservation of life itself. Without love everything withers and dies.

I believe in law. I believe in the rules that create a level playing field, but I also know that laws cannot make us love. If I break the law then I am guilty but if I give love to my fellow human beings I will be loved. I will be pardoned, forgiven and accepted says God. Love God, your neighbor as yourself and you will live. Choose not to and you are already perishing.

Love lives in confidence and peace because it does not hold onto anything. Instead it holds an open hand and allows who ever it is given too to be who they are and to change because you are not telling them they need to. We change because love is always in our interest. We change because love means we are looking for others in at least an equal amount to the love we have for ourselves. Maybe that’s the real problem. Maybe we have never learned what it means to give ourselves away to another because we simply love them. Or maybe we never learned how to forgive ourselves.

When I was young the worst thing I could do was to disappoint my grandmother because she loved me so much and never criticized me. She always saw the good in me and she made me want to live into that expectation. Love your neighbors and your enemies because it lets them know what is necessary to overcome the fear, isolation and hatred they feel inside. Probably the hardest thing in the world to do. But we also know that without it we are nothing. Amen