A question like that might lead a reader in the wrong direction if it is left alone. I’m not asking for advice on how to sin and I’m not encouraging you to sin. Rather, I recognize that we, as believers, are at war with sin. I concur with John Owen in his book Morification of Sin in Believers. As a main thesis of this book, he writes, “be killing sin or sin will be killing you.”
To that end, it might be helpful to know how you sin so that you can root out its influence in your life. Here are three ways we sin: Excess, Other and Refusal.
We sin in Excess by taking too much of God’s gifts so that we delight more in the gift than the giver. For example, wine was a gift that even Jesus gave at the wedding at Cana, but he didn’t give it for drunkenness. Drunkenness is sinning by excess.
We sin by Other when God gives us a gift, but we choose something else. When God gives us pleasure through marital union but we choose pornography or adultery or homosexuality, we sin by choosing something other than what God has given. In doing this, we put ourselves in the position of God by elevating our will above his command.
We sin by Refusal when God gives us a command and we refuse to do it. God made us in his image and gave us the command to fill the earth with his image (our presence). At the tower of Babel in Genesis 11 the people said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” Again, their sin was elevating themselves to the position of God, but also refusal to obey.
This theme of the command to fill the earth with the Lord’s image and glory is found throughout Scripture.
Gen 12.2-3
And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing . . . in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
Psalm 72.19
Blessed be his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory! Amen and Amen!
Isaiah 11.9
. . . For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
Habakkuk 2.14
For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
Matthew 28.19
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations . . . .
Acts 1.8
. . . You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.
Revelation 7.9
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb . . . .
This theme is unmistakable and, to put it bluntly, it is sin to refuse it.
So, I’ll ask again, how do you sin?
