ZEAL – Part 5 – Sin and Repentance
Today we continue our study on ZEAL, and as Davis mentioned last week, we’ve been working through some of the things that hinder us from having Zeal for the Lord, namely legalism and apathy. Today, we’re going to try and tackle another major contributor to the lack of zeal in our lives, and that’s the issue of sin.
The Bible defines sin as a couple of things. The first thing is doing the things that God has expressly told us not to do. We think of the 10 commandments or the Sermon on the Mount or any number of commands we find in Scripture knowing that if we fail to walk in obedience to those things we have sinned. But another Biblical definition is found in James 4:17 that says this: “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.”
In other words, sin is not doing what we know we should be doing. Again, same words, but just slightly different application. When we have heard the Spirit of God tell us to do something and we just refuse to do it, we’re sinning.
Remember that our definition of “ZEAL” is “Wholehearted surrender and fierce devotion to God rooted in the Gospel.”
Let’s begin by figuring out what God expects of us, then we will be able to figure out how to deal with it.
- God’s Expectation is Perfection
- God’s Intervention is Jesus Christ
- God’s Declaration is Your Perfection
The situation that everyone of us is in is that we have a sin issue. Every one of us has failed and every one of us is doomed to spend eternity without God. We are full of what John called “The Lust of the Flesh, The Lust of the Eyes, and the Pride of Life.” These three categories are the root problem of every sin we face. And if we are going to deal with the sin of our life so that we can pursue the Zeal that God wants us to have, then we need to know how to deal with it. So here is the challenge for you all today:
REPENT!
I will say that repentance begins with 1 John 1:9. It begins with confession. Sometimes we lack the zeal in our Spiritual lives because we are burdened down by unconfessed sin. But even when we confess it, we sometimes don’t take those next few steps.
The next step is renouncing the sin we have been involved with. What does it mean to “renounce” sin? Let’s look at the Bible for our definition…
Titus 2:11-14
We are to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions. We don’t just say, “Yeah, I did that. I sinned! I was wrong!” But we call those things what they are. We call them SIN. We call them WRONG! We call them SNARES and TRAPS that catch us! And then we LET GO of them. This is RENOUNCING ungodliness and worldly passions.
The final step is REPENTANCE. That term means to turn around and start going in the OTHER DIRECTION. And what leads us to repentance is the kindness of the Lord.
Romans 2:1-5
So, what do you say? Will you join? I’m not asking you to confess freely in front of the whole world, I am simply asking you to say, “Yeah, I deal with [fill in the blank]!”
We all deal with sin. But we can renounce the sinful and shameful ways of our past and turn away from sin and toward God. Let’s make today the first day of a life full of repentance, forgiveness, and living in the righteousness of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.