The Gospel's Answer To The "Love" Of Sin - Part One

The Gospel Of Christ And The Problem Of Sin
The Gospel's Answer To The "Love" Of Sin (Faith In Jesus) - Part One

In the previous lesson, we introduced "How The Gospel Addresses The Problem Of Sin" In this lesson we focus our attention to that part of the problem which is the "love" of sin. We saw that sin does have its pleasurable side - He 11:24-25 "Then after Moses grew up, his faith made him refuse to be called Pharaoh's grandson. He chose to be mistreated with God's people instead of having the good time that sin could bring for a little while." This pleasure makes it easy for men to love sin. Such love often blinds men to the truth - Jn 3:19 "The light has come into the world, and people who do evil things are judged guilty because they love the dark more than the light." Such love definitely alienates one from the love of the Father - 1 Jn 2:15 "Don't love the world or anything that belongs to the world. If you love the world, you cannot love the Father."
The gospel of Jesus Christ answers the problem of the "love" of sin by commanding us to have "faith," in particular, to "believe in Christ", notice Mk 16:15-16 "Then he told them: Go and preach the good news to everyone in the world. Anyone who believes me and is baptized will be saved. But anyone who refuses to believe me will be condemned." Faith can be defined as "a strong conviction, assurance". When we come to have the right kind of faith, we will come to no longer love sin, but even to hate it! As the Psalmist expressed in Psa 119:104 "Through thy precepts I get understanding: Therefore I hate every false way." (ASV) In this study, I want to do two things:
1.) Define the kind of faith the gospel requires to really hate sin.
2.) Briefly consider the evidence the gospel presents to create that kind of faith.

A faith necessary to hate sin starts with faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. That the gospel requires such faith is clear - Jn 20:30-31 "Jesus worked many other miracles for his disciples, and not all of them are written in this book. But these are written so that you will put your faith in Jesus as the Messiah and the Son of God. If you have faith in him, you will have true life."; 1 Jn 5:13 "All of you have faith in the Son of God, and I have written to let you know that you have eternal life." A strong conviction that Jesus of Nazareth, son of Mary, was indeed the Messiah foretold by the Jewish prophets - Ac 2:36 "Everyone in Israel should then know for certain that God has made Jesus both Lord and Christ, even though you put him to death on a cross." A strong faith that He is more than just a good man, but the only begotten Son of God - Jn 1:14 "The Word became a human being and lived here with us. We saw his true glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father. From him all the kindness and all the truth of God have come down to us."

A strong faith that Jesus died for our sins because God loves us. Believing that Jesus died for our sins is a necessary part of the gospel - 1 Co 15:1-3 "My friends, I want you to remember the message that I preached and that you believed and trusted. You will be saved by this message, if you hold firmly to it. But if you don't, your faith was all for nothing. I told you the most important part of the message exactly as it was told to me. That part is: Christ died for our sins, as the Scriptures say." Understand...Jesus died for OUR sins! Just as the Scriptures foretold He would - Isa 53:4-6 "He suffered and endured great pain for us, but we thought his suffering was punishment from God. He was wounded and crushed because of our sins; by taking our punishment, he made us completely well. All of us were like sheep that had wandered off. We had each gone our own way, but the LORD gave him the punishment we deserved." Why, because God loves us! - Jn 3:16 "God loved the people of this world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who has faith in him will have eternal life and never really die."; Ro 5:8 "But God showed how much he loved us by having Christ die for us, even though we were sinful."

A Faith that God raised Jesus from the dead. This fact is also an important part of the gospel
Consider 1 Co 15:3-4 "I told you the most important part of the message exactly as it was told to me. That part is: Christ died for our sins, as the Scriptures say. He was buried, and three days later he was raised to life, as the Scriptures say."; Ro 10:9 "So you will be saved, if you honestly say, "Jesus is Lord," and if you believe with all your heart that God raised him from death."

How does such a faith cause us to hate sin? If we are strongly convicted that Jesus was truly the beloved Son of God, He was really the Christ, the promised Messiah, that God loved us so much (and hated sin so much) that He sent His Son to die for us, and that God raised Him from the dead to prove to us that His death was an acceptable sacrifice for sin... then how can we not hate sin? With such a faith, we now hold sin responsible for making the death of Christ necessary in the first place! The anguish God must have felt when He saw the separation between Him and us! Deemed it necessary to have His Son die for us! The pain and agony suffered by Jesus! In the garden of Gethsemane - Mt 26:39 "Jesus walked on a little way. Then he knelt with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, don't make me suffer by having me drink from this cup. But do what you want, and not what I want."’ On the cross of Calvary - Mt 27:46 "Then about that time Jesus shouted, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" which means, "My God, my God, why have you deserted me?"’ When we understand and really believe these things, then we will say with the Psalmist: "Through your precepts I get understanding; therefore I HATE every false way." - Psa 119:104

This is the kind of faith called for in obedience to the gospel, and the kind of faith which effectively deals with the love of sin! But how does one gain this kind of faith? Faith comes from the Word of God (Ro 10:17). Indeed, as the apostles of Christ proclaimed the gospel, they presented evidence designed to create faith in the hearts of their listeners. In the continuation of this we will look at the evidence that creates such a faith that answers the "love" of sin, in part two.