Apathy and anxiety are the ‘sins’ that I’ll be speaking about on Sunday night as part of our series, “How To Sin & Get Away With It.” These two sins are particularly common and subtle, allowing us to cultivate the idea that we are flying under the radar of God’s awareness of our attitudes. Perhaps their greatest deception is the fact that often we are the only ones aware of them lodging deep within our hearts and even then we rarely recognise their damaging effects on our relationship with God. Like a cancerous growth they entwine their tentacles deep into our soul robbing us of the joy of serving and trusting God in spite of any and every circumstance of life.  

 God wants to search our hearts and minds, to identify and free us of everything that hinders His work in our lives and quenches the work of His Spirit to bring us spiritual growth and fruitfulness. We may reflect at times on why our experience of God seems dull, lifeless or even boring, but did you know that sin creates that very experience of God.

Think about it - how is it possible that walking with God and experiencing a relationship with the God of the universe can be boring?! Sin and Satan create that impression, and produce that negative experience and impression of God. The God who created this world with its soaring mountains, massive canyons, raging rivers, mountainous seas, vast deserts, weird and wonderful animal life and frightening forces of nature, is anything but boring!

A dull Christian life develops when sin pervades our thinking, sapping spiritual vitality from us. It is a spiritual condition that needs both surgery and medication, surgery comes by confession and repentance, once the problem is diagnosed, and the medicating effects of reading God’s Word and praying in the Spirit heal and strengthen the wounds of sin. There is power in the blood of Jesus. Power to heal, cleanse and forgive, and through the Holy Spirit there is power to transform, power to revive and renew. May that be your experience and mine as we seek to identify and extract sin and its deceptiveness that may be residing in our hearts.

There is no question it is a problem, an overwhelming one at that and it permeates the whole of our society. It is insidious and completely destructive, worse than any plaque, parasite, virus, earthquake, or typhoon; its powers to invade and corrupt are almost unstoppable. Yet surprisingly governments don’t care. It is never addressed by any educational curriculum; the media never mentions it, and you will never hear your neighbours speak about it. Yet the fact remains not a single human being can escape its devastating effects. What am I talking about? A single syllable, three letter word that has brought humanity to the brink of total annihilation on more than one occasion – SIN!

Surprisingly even churches often only mention it in hushed tones. It doesn’t exactly inspire or encourage large attentive crowds wanting to hear of our miserable condition, and the truth of it is often hidden beneath layers of pretence and the veneer of respectability. Truth doesn’t always leave us feeling great about ourselves, but reality is what it is, and we must face it whether we want to or not if we are to be true to God and true to ourselves. The world is full of superficialities. God’s church must dare to be different, and come clean on what is really happening in our lives if we are to ever see the power of God break through - with a force and power equal to and beyond the destructive nature of sin.

Your attendance is therefore invited to our 4^th term series beginning this Sunday entitled, “How To Sin & Get Away With It.” Contrary to what the weather might be telling us, it is Spring - so it’s time for a little Spring cleaning! Where better to begin than with our own souls?

This Sunday morning I will begin the series with an introduction that Kieran Johnson will continue in the evening. Although we may become a little battered and bruised listening to truth, ultimately we have good news about the problem of sin, and this perspective will permeate all of the messages throughout the series.

Look forward to seeing you there,

How to sin and get away with it! That’s the theme of our 4^th term sermon and Lifegroup series that begins Sunday week. Do you think it sounds a bit strange for a church to be teaching Christians how to sin and get away with it? The fact is we can’t get away with sin but surprisingly we sometimes think we can so we develop habits of ‘secretly’ sinning that are never confronted.

Sins like godlessness, pride, gossip, slander, apathy, anxiety, jealousy, judgementalism, greed and gluttony can all become part of our behaviour and attitude and we don’t even recognise how offensive it is to God and hurtful to ourselves and others. So lets investigate what God’s Word says about some of these sins and how we can deal with them so that they are no longer a ‘hidden’ part of our lives.

Scripture records instances of people trying to conceal their sins, Achan comes to mind in Joshua 7 as he endeavoured to bury what he had stolen in the earth beneath his tent – if only sin could be so easily concealed! Nothing is hidden from God however and what he had done was revealed to all. How embarrassing this must have been for Achan - his sin of theft and greed were identified and shown to be the cause of God’s judgment on Israel - as they were defeated in battle against a much weaker enemy. Embarrassment was the least of his worries however as judgment came upon not only him but also his whole family as everything that belonged to him was stoned to death then burned.

The example of Achan shows just how seriously God takes sin to be and how damaging it can be to us, our loved ones and all in our community. This is important for us to see as we begin our series on ‘How to sin and get away with it’ because we need to recognise sin for what it is so that we might put it out of our lives and experience God’s favour and blessing.

This Sunday morning Pastor Edwin is speaking and in the evening we will hear from Alan Millhouse. Please pray for the many who are sick amongst us at this time and remember our overseas missionaries. Pray for Simon and Emma and the boys as they settle back into life in Australia.

God bless,