What's the Big Deal About Sin?

I vividly remember the first time I broke the eighth commandment, “You shall not steal.” I was four or five years old, in my grandmother’s guest bedroom, when I noticed a pack of gum sitting on a dresser. My first thought was, “I should ask my grandmother if I can have a piece.” My second thought was, “The heck with asking. It’s just a piece of gum. What my grandmother doesn’t know won’t hurt her.” I took the gum out of the wrapper and started chewing. I remember the gum tasting great, but I also remember feeling a little twinge of guilt. I had just stolen from my grandmother. I somehow, some way, as a little four or five year old, felt like I had disrespected my grandmother.

It is so easy for Christ-followers to turn the commandments into a set of “thou shalts” or “thou shalt nots.” That day in my grandmother’s guest bedroom, I did not obey a “thou shalt not.” But, what if at the root of the purpose of the commandment is not an emphasis on rules, but instead a relationship. God cried out regarding the commandments in Deuteronomy 5.29, “Oh, that their (the Children of Israel) hearts would be inclined to fear me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever.” Why did God provide the Children of Israel the commandments?... “So that it might go well with them and their children forever.” At the heart of the commandments is a caring God that wants his life to “go well” for his people.

So, what’s the big deal with sin? The terrible thing about sin is not that we break a rule; it’s that breaking a rule results in the wounding of the relationship between us and the same caring God who handed down the commandments on Mt. Sinai.  The first “rule” that was broken in Scripture was “You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” Eve and Adam disobeyed that rule and the result was that they lost their ability to walk with God face-to-face. It was the ultimate loss of the ultimate relationship; the ultimate heart break.

The same cycle continues today whenever we disobey a commandment from Scripture. We sin and a relationship is affected. Sometimes, a sinful act can wound a relationship with a friend or relative, but a sinful act always causes a wound in our relationship with the same caring God of Deuteronomy 5. When sin happens, it doesn’t go well for us or our children because we miss the one thing we were created for most; a relationship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

What does this sinful and relational loss look like in our normal lives? For me, it wasn’t about the gum. The deeper sin was that I disrespected my sweet grandmother. For another, the deeper sin is not the physical affair. The deeper sin is that they did not relationally care enough about their spouse to keep their vows through richer or poorer. For someone else, the deeper sin is not cheating on a test. The deeper sin is not valuing the education a teacher works so hard to teach. For someone who refuses to be honest, the deeper sin is not caring enough to tell the truth. When it comes to honoring God, the deeper sin is not valuing and embracing his desire to relationally be with us.

So, as you move about your week, I encourage you to not see sin as a refusal to follow a list of rules. Instead, see sin as relational acts we perform that wound our relationships with one another and especially God. Thankfully, the story does not stop with sin. The story gets much better.