Vanity leads to the perversion of mankind’s judgement and society’s self-glorification stands in opposition to God and the humility of Christ. A prideful heart leads to prideful actions and consequently sin. Solomon wrote in Proverbs 21:4: “Haughty eyes and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, are sin!” As Christians we are called to love our neighbor and we can do so without condoning their behavior.
Today’s narcissistic culture doesn’t want to be judged for its beliefs. The pride that is proclaimed in parades, endorsed by society and taught in elementary schools–condones pornography, the sexualization of little girls, gender dysphoria, the degradation of the traditional family and ultimately the pernicious erosion of truth. This vociferous minority has manipulated society into accepting their agenda in the name of acceptance, tolerance and inclusion.
Isaiah 5:20 warns, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” The pride of mankind has this scenario playing out in real time in our generation. Rather than searching for what pleases God, society has chosen to please itself. Isaiah 66:2b tells us what pleases God. “This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit.”
Our godless society overlooks the morality surrounding sexuality in scripture in an effort to diminish the immorality of our sexual culture. Paul wrote, “Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another,” (Romans 1:24).
Paul then reveals, “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.” (Romans 1:26–27). The antagonism between the terms natural versus unnatural, illustrates God’s intent in contrast to man’s disregard for that intent.
EXTREME AND PERVERSE PRINCIPALS
Our culture today has gradually devolved to possess the very same extreme and perverse principles that were evident in the Roman Empire. Over time, cultural taboos have become normalized and are now part of mainstream values. In the words of Joni Eareckson Tada, “Gradually, the unthinkable becomes tolerable, then acceptable, then legal, then praised.”
Continued sin sears our consciences and hardens our hearts, and we deceive ourselves into believing that our depravity is not depravity at all, but an expression of our virtue. We succumb to the deception of relativism and are drawn in by false teachers that advocate our disrespect for God in an attempt to justify our desire to willfully sin (2 Timothy 3:1–5, 4:2).
Even “Christian” sources are being duped into claims that the Bible is unclear regarding sexual diversity and gender. Assertions that homosexuality is not sinful when practiced within loving relationships and that scripture must be considered in a cultural context have muddied the waters for those questioning same-sex practices. These claims even go so far as to say that God only “began” by creating humans as male and female and that scripture does not indicate that God only created this binary, and says nothing about gender.
False teachers assert that people can be considered Christians without repentance, or evidence of being born again. Recent statements on social media such as, “Even if you get drunk every day, get high, and look at porn, as a Christian, you are still completely righteous,” or “Even if you commit adultery 100 times, you are still completely righteous, as a Christian,” distort the word of God and lead people into a false sense of security regarding salvation and the sinful nature.
God is sovereign, pure, and incorruptible, and has no tolerance for sin; therefore, it is His right to not tolerate it in us. Jesus spent time with sinners not to sin with them, but to save them from their sin. While our sins have been forgiven through Christ, we do not have license to continue indulging our sinful nature. Just as God is holy, we are called to holiness, “for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy,” (1 Peter 1:16).
DO NOT LET SIN REIGN
Paul addresses this in the sixth chapter of Romans by saying, “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to Him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.
“What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves to the one you obey–whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness,” (Romans 6:12–18).
Satan is leading a rebellion against God, with the purpose of destroying every expression of God’s glory. He tempts you to defy God by twisting God’s word, and ultimately wants you to think you can be your own god, just as he tempted Adam and Eve in the garden.
John warns us in 1 John 2:15–16, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world–the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes, and the boasting of what he has and does–comes not from the Father but from the world.”
CALLED TO LIVE A NEW LIFE
We who have received God’s forgiveness of sin through Jesus Christ, are called to live a new life. Out of love for God, we then fully submit ourselves in obedience to Him. The bible says our faith is credited to us as righteousness, just as Abraham’s faith was (Galatians 3:6). Faith implies faithfulness. It is counterintuitive that someone would justify a sinful lifestyle while claiming to be a Christian. You cannot walk the narrow path that leads to life while remaining on the broad road that leads to destruction, just because you believe your sins are no longer sinful.
Repentance from our sins points us in a new direction that leads away from worldly living. Paul states, “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and your sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest we were by nature deserving of wrath,” (Ephesians 2:1–3). Believers are called to walk a new path. The path of obedience.
The Holy Spirit living within us makes obedience possible because of His power over sin. “Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation–but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live,” (Romans 8:12–13).
This doesn’t mean we become perfect. We are still confined to this earth and our earthly bodies, and Satan will continue to tempt. When we stumble, we can bring our failure before the Lord and anticipate forgiveness. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness,” (1 John 1:9).
In the fifth chapter of Galatians, Paul offers these wise words: “So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.
“The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies and the like. I warn you as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God,” (Galatians 5:16–21). It is nonsensical to assert that anyone can live in such a manner and be considered righteous. Paul adds in Galatians 5:24, “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.”
Today, the flamboyant posturing and promotion of LGBTQ values is disproportionate to societal demographics. The need to be acknowledged and celebrated reflects a much larger depravity in the human condition. Pride is the underlying motif that seeks to compensate for the sinful nature of man by depicting depravity as virtuous. Pride at its very core is sin.
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