SUNDAY SERMON: Purpose to live a life free from sin

What you need to know:

  • The words about the devil driving them to commit sin seem to explain the situation better than anything else.
  • It’s not that they experienced the sensation of an evil spirit lurking in the shadows. But they do sense that they were not entirely in control.
  • They deeply regret what they did. They will even insist that, somewhere in the depth of their soul, they regretted what they were doing even in the very act of doing it.

The devil made me do it!” After doing something seriously wrong, a lot of people have this gut feeling that something strange happened. They were not entirely in control. They can’t explain exactly why they feel that way. They only know that things don’t add up.

The words about the devil driving them to commit sin seem to explain the situation better than anything else. It’s not that they experienced the sensation of an evil spirit lurking in the shadows. But they do sense that they were not entirely in control.

They deeply regret what they did. They will even insist that, somewhere in the depth of their soul, they regretted what they were doing even in the very act of doing it.

 There are many things to say about this phenomenon. The first is that there is some truth to it. This is why St Paul wrote in the Letter to the Romans: “I fail to carry out the things that I want to do, and I find myself doing the very things I hate ... Unhappy man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

 The first one to give a name to this human condition was Saint Augustine, that great African bishop whom many still regard as the greatest theologian of the early Church. He called it “original sin”. He did a thorough analysis of the New Testament writings, concluding that St Paul’s words describe something about all men and women of all cultures and all periods of human history. Again the words are from the Letter to the Romans: “Sin entered the world through one man, and through sin death; and thus death has spread through the whole human race because everyone has sinned.”

 We feel it as a tendency towards sin. Evil things somehow manage to feel good, even when we have the clarity of mind to say: “I should not do this because it will cause harm.” Some good things—like going to church and giving alms to the poor—do not feel good even though we know that they are very good.

 The whole reason Jesus died on the cross was to help us overcome this tendency towards sin and become God’s holy people. However, do not imagine that this will happen just because you pray from time to time. One of the many things you need to do, if you are serious about following Christ, is to change “environment”.

 If you spend a lot of time with people who are committing sins—and all the more so if you feel drawn towards that same sinful behaviour—you make it impossible to follow Jesus. So Change environment.