Let's Stop with the Excuses

1Pe 2:20  For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God.

1Pe 2:21  For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.

1Pe 2:22  He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.

1Pe 2:23  When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.

1Pe 2:24  He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.

Christians have always struggled keeping themselves untainted by the culture around them.  Today we see this as many Christians, nominal but also true saints struggle with what has been termed determinism.  Briefly it is the idea that we are a product of our environment and genetic makeup so that freewill is illusionary.  Theologically it results in the belief that we are what we are by birth and so we can’t help but sin.  So for example the homosexuals use this to say that they have same sex attraction because of their genes and so it is God’s fault they are the way they are so they can’t and shouldn’t change their behavior.

Of course, there are many problems with this but primarily it is an attack on the biblical definition of sin and also an attack on the gospel itself.  The above passage offers one example in which those who find themselves in adversity cannot blame their attitudes and actions on their environment but must bring them under control through the power of gospel truth.  Peter offers Christ as the ultimate example of obeying God regardless of the pain and difficulty to do so.

So if our environment isn’t an excuse to sin what about our genetics?  The Bible teaches that this also is no excuse.  Sin has affected every person’s genetics for sure.  We are all broken by sin and we are all born with the desire to live for ourselves and not the Lord.  Our natural propensity is to put our desires ahead of both God and others.  This is seen in that we get angry when things don’t go our way and sometimes we want to hurt others as a result. 

The Bible teaches us that we are to subdue these sinful passions and love our enemies instead.  We can’t use genetics as an excuse to murder someone because we have a will that is to control what our bodies do.  So being born with a violent temper just means that it will be more difficult to control it but control it you must or suffer the consequences.  Up until the last couple of decades even a worldly society understood this.  But now we are being told that personal autonomy is more important than laws that govern our baser desires.

The Bible teaches us that we are all broken sexually as well.  Before the Fall men and women would have only been attracted to a person of the opposite sex and would have no difficulty being faithful to only their spouse because they loved God supremely and so would have obeyed whatever God told them to do.  But after the Fall our sinful nature is at enmity with God and loves self supremely and often this is seen in that we are attracted to things we shouldn’t be.  But nowhere does the Bible say that since we have a sinful nature it is okay to disobey God and act on whatever desires we have.  After the Fall our environment and genetics make loving God more difficult but they do not excuse sin.

As Christians we have been given new natures and the power of sin has been broken so that we can say no.  So it is especially disturbing when false professors stand in our pulpits and tell us that it is okay to practice the most perverted of sins and that God made them that way so it is his will.  This makes God the author of sin.

I say this hits at the heart of the Gospel because the whole reason God saves us is so that we can live for him and not be dominated by sin.  Is this not what this verse and many others teach?  1Pe 2:24  He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.  Instead of things beyond our control determining how we live, the power of the Holy Spirit controls us. 

He revolutionizes our thinking so that we don’t have to think in a self-destructive way any longer.  It doesn’t matter if you weren’t loved; now you are.  We no longer can say that I am not a loving person and so don’t have to love because God loves us in his Son and that love is shed abroad in our hearts.  Change is possible, change is commanded, and we are free in Christ to live differently than the way we were born.  Greater is he that is in us, than he that is in the world.  This is why the political correctness mess today strikes at the very heart of the gospel.  Christians are not to identify themselves by their past sins or past abuse but instead start living in the reality of what Christ has done for you and to you.