"Anything Done Apart from Faith is Sin." ~John Piper

I'm drawing your attention to the fact that we should see our depravity in relation to God. I think that's important.

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. ~1 Corinthians 10:31

Sometimes we define sin for ourselves in such a way that it doesn't feel as pervasive, but if this is the command over all of our lives...how are you doing? Everything. From the smallest thing of eating to the largest thing you can imagine doing, you do it in such a way as to make God look glorious in it. I think that's what “to the glory of God” means. And I look at that and I think (laughs) My life is just so...weak! A nice, gentle, self-excusing word. So, the question of our shortfall is not “You have a list of things to do” and then you don't do it. Rather, “Do you believe that you are called to live every moment of your life, whether you're eating or drinking or anything at all, and do it with this great, glorious motive, intention, and effect?”

Now, keeping that in mind, here's the old favorite verse for defining our sinfulness. I learned as I was growing up that, in sharing the gospel, one of the pieces that needs to be shared is the need piece. People won't embrace the gospel if they don't know they have a need for the gospel, and so you look for a nice, crisp, clear biblical word concerning all of our needs. This is the one that's short, pithy, clear:

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. ~Romans 3:23

I learned that growing up, but I almost never in my growing up years focused on this part. This is what sealed the deal. If you're talking to somebody about their need for a savior, then it's the “all” here that they need to grasp. So: I'm in the “all” and “all have sinned,” and therefore “the wages of sin is death” and therefore Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, and therefore you need a savior. You move in that way. But we need to reflect on what this is. Sin by it's nature IS a falling short of the glory of God. Now what does that mean, “falling short of the glory of God?”

The best explanation of Romans 3:23 is Romans 1:23. They exchanged the glory of God for substitutes...

“...They became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.” ~Romans 1:21-23

So that exchange, I think, is behind this. “Fall short” here is [Strong's G5302] hustereō, which means “to lack” - lack the glory of God. What is “lack the glory of God?”

Lacking the glory of God doesn't mean “You aren't God and therefore are at fault. You should be as glorious as God is.” No, no, no, no, no. I think lacking the glory of God is what you do if you exchange it! If you have something and then exchange it for something else, you lack it. It's there and this is here instead. We've all done it, and that's the essence of what sin is – We are offered God Himself, in all the full range of His perfections and glories, as our treasure, as the thing we admire most, desire most, and are satisfied in most. And we trade it for...you name it. Just test your own heart's affections; the heart is a desire factory for alternative desires to God! Desire for computer things, desire for sex, desire for position in the company, desire for health, desire for long life, desire for the latest car, desire to look beautiful, desire to lose weight, desire to eat. Just all kinds of things that – this heart is just (frantic, heavy breathing) a desire factory! And when you ask, “Where does God and His glory...fit?” He's hardly even there. He's NOT there for the fallen unregenerate human being. His glory is simply not a treasure. Other things are our treasure. So, sin has to be understood (in order to feel the force of it) not as, you know, “Your momma said not to go out in the street: don't go out in the street. You went out in the street, get a spanking. That's a sin.” Or, “The Bible says 'don't lie.' You told a lie. *Spank* That's a sin.” That view of “Here's my list of don'ts, here's my sometimes breaking them,” you don't ever feel the weight of sin when you use the list method. You have to bring GOD into the picture! The majesty of God, and the greatness of God, and the pervasive demand of seeing and savoring His glory that we don't do.

So all have sinned...they lack the glory of God...or – I remember this verse just knocked me off my rocker back in seminary:

“But whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith. For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.” ~Romans 14:23

What is sin? Anything.

The best things and the worst things, it doesn't matter if they're on the list or not. Anything that is not from faith is sin.

In other words, if you're not depending on God to teach you, enable you, empower you to do a thing so that He gets the glory...you're sinning.

“...[Let him who] serves, [serve] by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.” ~1 Peter 4:11

You can hear the dynamic of how it works: “Call upon me in the day of trouble and I will deliver you and you will glorify me. (Psalm 50:15)” So, the deliverer gets the glory, the giver gets the glory: 1 Peter 4:11. So everything that we do should be done in reliance upon a redeemer to forgive us, an empowerer to enable us, so that when it's done the redeemer and the empowerer get the glory. Everything that's not done that way is sin.

Changing a diaper would be sin.

Building a hospital would be sin.

Planting a church would be sin.

Having sex with your wife would be sin.

Drinking a glass of cool water at the end of a race would be sin.

And when you stop to think about this, it means that this world is simply DROWNING in a sea of sin. It's all unbelievers do, is sin...that's all they do.

I used to say that to classes that I taught and the students would absolutely go ballistic. And just...they were so FAR, I mean, we have grown up in a culture that is so non God-centered that the thought that all nonbelievers do is sin is off the charts unacceptable to evangelicals! And to me it's so obvious. Of course, you have to be careful. There are ways to say that it's a good thing for an unbeliever to build a hospital, rather than to commit mass murder. Hitler and Mother Theresa are not in the same category...you know what I'm getting at.

If I ask my son, Barnabas, “I want you to wash the car if you want to use it tonight to go to the basketball game.” He asked me, “Can I have the car...?” And I say, “Sure. Will you wash it for me before you go? I'd just like to have it clean for tomorrow.” And he gets really bent out of shape, and he didn't set that in his schedule, and he doesn't want to do it. And I say, “Well Barnabas, I don't want to be picky, but that's the requirement. So, wash the car, and sure. Then you can have it.” And he walks out of the room fuming at me. I'm his father, right? Now, that fuming at me is not a good thing. He should be willingly submissive, obey his dad, be thankful that he can use the car, wash it. And he stomps out as though he's not going to do as I say. Then, I notice an hour or two later he's out in the driveway (angry, ragged breathing) and everything in his body is exuding I don't want to be doing this and I'm angry at my dad for doing this.

Now, he's doing what I told him to do....how does that make me feel?

Is he obeying me? In the raw external sense, but not in the heart sense that makes any difference to me at all. He's being totally governed by principles different than his love for me. That's the way unbelievers build hospitals.

It's a good thing that hospitals get built and it's a good thing that unbelievers build them. AIDS crisis centers, and food for the hungry, and endless kinds of things that are right to happen in the raw external sense; God wants compassion to abound in the world. But the attitude, if you actually boil it down to “God issues” (they're the ones that count), they're oblivious of God, they're not relying upon God, they don't care about God, they're blackballing God, they're not trusting God, they're giving Him ZERO attention with their time. That's like me watching my son wash the car. Well, the car will be clean tomorrow and that's my will for my son to be driving...but...my son is in rebellion.

...That's amazing.

So you just...try to feel how sinful this world is. If you feel it, it will change the way you articulate the problem of evil and blessing in the world. God never treats anybody unjustly when there's a hurricane, or a tsunami, or an earthquake, or a tornado, or a random shooting. Nobody who gets taken out in one of those events is ever being treated wrongly by God. We're always treated better than we deserve. Always. The amazing thing is not that any of us are sick in this room. The amazing thing is that any of us are alive in this room and surviving from moment to moment in view of how corrupt our hearts are.

Was it Voddie Bacham who told the story? There was an argument about the problem of evil with a student on a campus. The student was in his face about how God hadn't treated him, or his family, or his campus the way that he thought He should, and Voddie stopped him and said: “The main question you need to answer is why God didn't kill you in your sleep last night. Why you woke up this morning. You take that totally for granted! You think you deserve that? Every morning I wake up...I don't deserve to wake up. I don't deserve any health, I don't deserve a marriage that has lasted and is happy.”

You don't feel these things until the weight of depravity lands on you.

Another illustration of making sure God is in the picture when we talk about depravity:

“Whoever keeps the whole law, yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all...” ~James 2:10

Amazing. You stumble in one point of the law, you're guilty of having disobeyed the whole law. That's just, I mean just about anybody would say, “That's, just, off-the-charts exaggerated!” (laughs) Just...ah...please...that means that everybody's going to be executed for minor...traffic violations? So, what's he going to say to explain that? And here's his ground, his explanation:

...For HE who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not commit murder.” ~James 2:11

That's his answer. Do you see what he does?

He says, “The reason I'm talking like this, the reason I'm saying that one infraction of the law makes you guilty of the whole law is because HE...He said that. Which means: an offense against the living infinite God and it's OVER. Just one. It's just over.

There's something so CATACLYSMIC in moral significance about a creature lifting up its will against its creator (infinitely perfect, infinitely glorious, infinitely holy creator) and saying, “No,” that just ENDS it. That is so huge, it covers everything. His guilt is universal! Because He's the same God who says one and the other. The argument for why this holds is that He who said the one said the other, and you're opposing Him! It's not that different commandments are of different significance, but rather, He's of infinite significance and you've just resisted Him! And that's an infinite offense.

So, those several passages give you the flavor of why I think depravity is serious, namely because it has to do with God.

-Jon Piper