Sin and Faith and Missing the Mark

SIN AND FAITH AND MISSING THE MARK

Luke 7:36 One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to come to his home for lunch and Jesus accepted the invitation. As they sat down to eat, a woman of the streets heard he was there and brought an exquisite flask filled with expensive perfume. Going in, she knelt behind him at his feet, weeping, with her tears falling down upon his feet; and she wiped them off with her hair and kissed them and poured the perfume on them.
When Jesus' host, a Pharisee, saw what was happening and who the woman was, he said to himself, “This proves that Jesus is no prophet, for if God had really sent him, he would know what kind of woman this one is!"

The Pharisees judged the woman harshly and they also judged Jesus harshly in this situation. This was bad press for Jesus – ‘Immoral sinful woman publicly kisses the feet of Jesus at a party

Then Jesus spoke up and answered his thoughts. "Simon," he said to the Pharisee, "I have something to say to you."
"All right, Teacher," Simon replied, "go ahead." Then Jesus told him this story: “A man loaned money to two people--$5,000 to one and $500 to the other. But neither of them could pay him back, so he kindly forgave them both, letting them keep the money! Which do you suppose loved him most after that?"
"I suppose the one who had owed him the most, “Simon answered. "Correct, “Jesus agreed.
Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Look! See this woman kneeling here! When I entered your home, you didn't bother to offer me water to wash the dust from my feet, but she has washed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You refused me the customary kiss of greeting, but she has kissed my feet again and again from the time I first came in. You neglected the usual courtesy of olive oil to anoint my head, but she has covered my feet with rare perfume. Therefore her sins--and they are many--are forgiven, so she loved me much; but one who is forgiven little, shows little love."
And he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven. “Then the men at the table said to themselves, “Who does this man think he is, going around forgiving sins?" And Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace."

Jesus described the beautiful logic of a person who owed much greatly appreciated being forgiven much. She loved Jesus in return for this forgiveness and she publicly demonstrated her love to him. Jesus compares her love and honour for him with the neglect he received from the owner of the house.

The woman was a sinner (harmaton - one who misses the mark) and she was forgiven for all her sins, which were many. Sin (harmatia - missing the mark) means disobeying The Commandments and religious rules in the Old Testament.
The men at the table had said “Who does this man think he is, going around forgiving sins?" And Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace."

In that one final sentence Jesus prophetically declared the difference between missing the mark or target in the Old Testament and missing the mark or target in the New Testament. She was being judged by people of missing the mark according to the Old Testament but she was responding by faith in Jesus and hitting the target according to the New Testament, which had not yet come into effect!

The mark to be missed in the Old Testament of being judged by the Commandments had been met fully by Jesus whom the Bible tells us was without sin. Jesus took his sinless life through the cross and was killed even though death had no claim on him according to the Scriptural law of sin and death 
Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, so death came upon all men because all sinned…
He then rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven and then sent the Holy Spirit upon humanity. Then there came a new way that sin was to occur with a new kind of mark to be missed. The New Testament mark to aim for was of belief in the fact that we have received the gift of the sinless life from Jesus’ death and resurrection and can now live in the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. This is why Jesus said very clearly 
John 16:7…if I do not go away, the Holy Spirit (paracletos) will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin … because they do not believe in me.
So the new definition for sin that the Holy Spirit is constantly convicting the hearts of all people about today is unbelief in the indwelling life of Jesus. God wants that life of his to be expressed through us. 
The Bible says ‘the just shall live by faith’(Galatians 3.11. Romans 1:17)

There are other words in the original language in the New Testament Scriptures used for deliberately disobeying God that occur a few times only, such as lawlessness and transgression, but the one and only word for sin as missing the mark , hamartia, is used over two hundred and fifty times as in the above Scriptures and elsewhere throughout the New Testament Bible.
Missing the mark, or sin in the Old Testament is hata – turning from the path or missing the mark. That was a much easier target to see and to judge in the Old Testament because it was the observable outward behaviour concerning the Jewish rules and the Ten Commandments. There were many sinful acts of behaviour to be observed such as idolatry, anger, violence and killing, sexual immorality and unfaithfulness, stealing, lying, coveting and these were judged by man and by God. The mark that we miss in the New Testament is an inner hidden quality of the heart of faith that only God can judge. 

The overarching fact is that God still requires that we obey his Commandments. 
Matthew 5:17… Jesus said… ‘I come not to destroy the law but to establish it’. 
How do we fulfill God’s requirement of us to obey his Commandments?
Paul writes that our heart of believing in the life of Jesus within us is the only way that we can please God and willingly desire to obey his Commandments. This is because of the work of the Holy Spirit within us giving us the same desire as Jesus had to do the will of his Father. This is God’s gift of grace to us.
Romans 8.4 the righteous requirement of the law might now be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to our human nature but according to the Spirit. So that the right living that the law commanded could now flow freely from us who live a shared life together with Jesus in his divinity instead of a life isolated and limited by its own flawed condition.

Why would someone miss the mark (sin -hamartia) under this New Covenant of grace?
A person would miss it if they were totally ignorant of any knowledge of God and his covenant. They would miss it if they worshipped other gods. They would miss it if they were not interested in God. They could also miss the mark if they had been told incorrectly that it was about rules and Commandments and outward observance rather than about being about grace and faith and an inner commitment of the heart of faith. These errors of understanding remain and abound today.

This new understanding took time to transition out of the religious mindset of the Jewish apostles who thought it was still a matter of being under the Law of the Commandments and the Jewish religious rules, while still passionately believing that Jesus Christ was God and that he died for the forgiveness of our sins. Those early apostles were taught by the Holy Spirit how to receive the revelation of this New Covenant and through those struggles of faith they came to understand that they could preach the full Gospel of grace and faith to the Gentiles also. 

The apostle Peter was told to preach the good news to a Gentile centurion called Cornelius and he resisted that command from God at first because it broke the Jewish Laws of entering the home of a Gentile, not to mention the eating of Gentile food which was sinful and unclean for a Jew (even a Christian Jew, according to Peter). Peter did as he was told and he was amazed to see the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit revealing Jesus to them and filling them with his divine life. Peter later describes to the other apostles the supernatural work of God upon the hearts of the Gentiles 
Acts 11:15 ‘If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's way? God has granted repentance that leads to life to the Gentiles also. Peter went on to say ‘And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having purified their hearts by faith. (Acts 15:9).

It was finally Paul who unfolded the truth of the universal grace of God through Jesus Christ. Universal grace means that Jesus died for the sins of all mankind and that all are forgiven. And we saw that the apostle John writes that the Holy Spirit is at work in ‘the World’, not just in ‘the Church’, and that means every human heart. Paul also states ‘For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all mankind, especially of those who believe. (1Timothy 4:10). 

That is not ‘universalism’ because the question remains – how many people believe what God wants them to believe?
Many who call themselves Christians today may be unaware of what ‘sin’ is and unaware of what the mark is that they are supposed to aim at, namely, a full commitment to living as a partaker in their inner life of the divine Spirit of Christ.

I have to seriously ask myself that question every waking hour of my life. Do I believe? 
All I can say is “Lord I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).

It is easy to look at peoples’ behaviour in the outside world and legalistically judge them as ‘sinners’, but Paul warns us against doing that; 
‘For what have I to do with judging outsiders (1Corinthians 5:12).
So who gives account to Who and who gives account to what? 
In the Old Testament God’s people were accountable to God and UNDER the Law, so they were accountable to the Law and judged by the Law.
In the New Testament we are ALL accountable to God and UNDER grace, so we will each give account to God about receiving his grace that works by faith. 
2Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you 
……………………………

1Corinthians 4:5 Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of each one’s heart. At that time each will receive his praise from God.

The Church has become more occupied with judging one another than with loving one another. God might say to someone on that day – look your doctrine was too pushy and legalistic and brought condemnation however I loved your heart of sincerity to do your best for my Kingdom or yours was too pushy and self-serving and promised healing and prosperity on demand and brought confusion – however I loved your heart of generosity to do your best for my Kingdom. Or he might say ‘you felt so bad about yourself that you kept giving up and running away and doing yourself more harm than good, but I Ioved your humble heart of transparency’ give me a hug. PLUS TEN OTHER SCANARIOS - And then he might say – come on all of you and give one another a hug and stop arguing about how everybody missed the mark and by how much they missed it. 

Romans 14:7
For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.
Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God; for it is written,
“As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me,
and every tongue shall confess to God.”
So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. 
Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother. For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. 

So do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever serves Christ in that manner is acceptable to God and approved by men. So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding…

The faith that you have, keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who has no reason to pass judgment on himself for what he approves. But whoever has doubts condemns himself if it is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin – misses the mark...
Faith is surrendering your spiritual agenda into the heart and hands of God who alone can bring about the supernatural outcomes.
Paul nonetheless sets that mark as the highest goal of life – the upward call/invitation of God. He is saying that if you don’t have faith in this grace that works in you through the Holy Spirit then you are missing the mark one way or another. 
Paul admits his own struggle.
Philippians 3:12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have fully made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward that mark which is God’s Heavenly invitation to us all. 

It is God’s great love that draws us towards himself by the Holy Spirit to respond to his invitation to reach this mark because our being with him is the highest mark that he desires for us to reach. He knows that is what will fulfil our heart’s desire because that is what fulfills his heart’s desire. And his great love is matched by his great mercy as he sees us stumbling forward. He sees our imperfect efforts, but when he also sees a perfect heart of intent that is what blesses him – and us. 
There are barriers in our human thinking that prevent this truth of grace from becoming established in our hearts. One barrier is that we can feel that we are too insignificant or unworthy to receive this kind of gracious love from God. That could be the greatest barrier of all because it seems like such a paradox that such an Almighty Holy God would be interested in such flawed human beings like us. The Bible shows that thinking like that is a lie. 
Isaiah 57:15 For thus says the High and Lofty One Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to bring to life the spirit of the lowly, and to bring to life the heart of the contrite ones.

Even with the highest intention of our heart of faith we can still get disappointed in our falling short of fully believing and trusting in this gift of grace. We find ourselves saying with Paul ‘the good that I want to do I do not, and the bad things I do not want to do I do’.
But Paul knew that the Spirit of the life of Christ within would always lift him above the limits of his frail and feeble human nature if he pressed towards the mark and didn’t give up. When we do that we are exercising the greatest kind of faith and love towards God that exists, just like the woman who kissed the feet of Jesus. 

The only way we can truly appreciate and give thanks to our God who is in the highest place, is to know him as the one who loves us in our lowly place and that is in fact the most perfect place.  We need never be ashamed of our place of lowliness because that is where he wants to dwell with us. This is the glory of the cross and the resurrection. We can now truly sing ‘Amazing Grace who saved a wretch like me’.