The Sin Love

We choose it over others, even God. We may remember it in fondness and miss it when it is gone. And we are prone to hate things we ought to love, or at least are better for us. Recently I spoke to an addict who has been having a difficult time staying away from drugs. Besides the chemically addictive part in the drugs, there was also another reason why he went back.

He loved the drugs. He loved what they did to his body and mind. He believed its promises of escape and enjoyment. He loved the drugs and himself more than he loved his family or God. Because outward actions will not change inside problems. Our affections and desires what we love and hate stem from the heart, and our hearts can only be changed by the One who created our hearts.

Instead, hearts of stone loves the things he hates: In order to love God more and love the things he loves and hate what he hates , we need hearts of flesh. This is a surgical procedure only the Great Physician can do.

We may have tried, but eventually, we are guaranteed to fail. In changing our hearts…nothing. But we can cooperate with the Holy Spirit in the process of our hearts changing. This series is based on a book by Rev.

DO WE HATE SIN IN THE LIFE OF OUR NEIGHBOR BUT IGNORE IT IN OUR OWN LIVES?

Adam Hamilton called Half-Truths. In this series we are looking at common sayings that are often associated with Christianity and said by many Christians. And at first, they may sound OK, and we often mean well when we say them. When neo-Nazis and KKK members are marching in broad daylight on the streets of America, their words and actions filled with hatred and racism, then there is the need for the word of God to be heard.

When people are killed and injured by an act of domestic terrorism for the world to see on TV. The church should not remain silent. So yesterday, I wrestled with whether I should throw out what I had written and instead devote this sermon solely to what is taking place in Charlottesville, and what it says about what is taking place all over America.

But in the end, I decided to mostly remain with my original sermon.

I did this for two reasons. First, I was unsure that I could come up with the words needed to theologically address the events taking place in Charlottesville. Like many of you, I am still trying to make sense of what has taken place, and how God is calling us to actively engage in opposition to hate, racism and white supremacy.

The second reason that I stuck with this sermon is because I think it does speak, in several important ways, to the events of this weekend. We need to be talking about love. We need to be talking about sin. We need to be talking about hate. It sounds Ok, on first read. How can it be bad to love anybody?

Especially if we think of sin as things that we do that hurt ourselves, others, or hurt God. The phrase is not in the Bible, though. It is thought to have originated with St. Augustineseveral hundred years after Jesus. If we know of someone who is sinning, we should continue to love them as a sinner, but hate and condemn the sinful actions they do. And this does sound true, right?

Rarely, are we ever able to contain our hatred only to the sin. Ghandi once spoke about this saying: If we practice this, we end up focusing much more on sin and the label of sinner, much more than we focus on love. Jesus never said love the sinner. Jesus said love your neighbor. Jesus knew that if he commanded people to love the sinner, they would begin looking people more as sinners than neighbor.

If I said to you right now, I want you to love everyone sitting here in the congregation today, especially those who have been recently diagnosed with a highly contagious form of smallpox.

Are you going to focus on loving your neighbor, or on who looks a little under the weather today. This is a good time to read our second scripture this morning. Because it addresses this very topic. In Jesus day, the Pharisees were Jewish authorities, who by all accounts, should be considered as righteous. They strictly lived their lives according to proper Jewish laws.

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He was a righteous man, especially when compared with the tax-collector. His brothers and sisters. It was the Pharisees who looked at them and scrawled "sinner" on their foreheads. It was the accusers who drew circles in the sand with themselves on the inside and "those sinners" on the outside. Those words -- "a friend of sinners" -- were spoken with an upturned nose and a self-righteous sneer.

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And that's the same phrase the church has adopted to speak of our own brothers and sisters -- "Love the sinner, hate the sin. It's the same self-righteous sneer heard in the words of those who dragged the woman caught in adultery to Jesus: She was "one of those. Just a pawn in a political debate. But Jesus knelt with her in the sand. Unafraid to get dirty. Unafraid to affirm her humanity. He could have said "You're a sinner, but I love you anyways. Those voices were loud and near and they held rocks above her head. Jesus refused to let his voice join theirs.

DO WE ACTUALLY HATE SIN, OR DO WE SIMPLY LOVE JUDGMENT?

By telling her "go and sin no more," he affirmed that sin is not her deepest identity. It's not how he saw her. It's not who she was at the core of the being. But before I was a sinner, I was created in the image of God. While sin has twisted and smudged that image, it can't erase it. Sin is so terrible that it killed Jesus.