Philippians 2:1-4
I had the habit of eating two pieces
of toast with a generous helping of butter and honey every night before bed. I
realized that this was literally killing me, that I had to stop. Stopping was
not enough—I needed to do something else at that time…or I would just fall back
into the bad behavior. So, I started eating a sliced tomato with olive oil.
Better, right? (I hope!) Just as it is with habits, we need to replace our sins
with virtues, our sinful attitudes and behaviors with godly attitudes and
behaviors. Therefore, while we identify these deadly sins in our lives, we also
need to practice life-giving virtues.
The “Seven Deadly Sins” are not found
in the Bible, per se—no Old Testament list, no list in Jesus’ sermons, and no
list in Paul’s writing. Rather, these sins were first identified by 2nd and 3rd Century Christians who were escaping the evil cities and
going out to live in the desert. They soon learned what we know today: Wherever
you go, there you are. They took their sins with them. Over time, they began to
identify the sins that were most damaging, most life-sucking…the sins that took
their eyes and attention off of God. That list evolved into the Seven Deadly
Sins.
Our first sin is lust, a sin Jesus
highlights in his Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:27-30). Jesus points out that
the sin behind adultery is lust…and that we need to root out this and other
sins the seek to destroy us and others. Other writers of the New Testament also
point to the sin of lust (Col.3:5; 1 Thess. 4:5; 1 Peter 4:3).
What is lust? “Lust is the strong,
passionate desire for something…a disordered and inappropriately strong
desire…a desire that leads us to act against our best interests…When directed
at a person, lust makes us unconcerned about the object of lust.”[1]
While we can lust for power, for
wealth, for popularity…Jesus and Scripture focuses on our lust for others. When
we do, when give all that energy to the object of our lusts, we take our eyes
off of God, and we rob ourselves of real life. We say, “the object of our
lust,” and that indicates exactly what happens when we lust for another
person—we objectify them. They lose their humanity. When we catch ourselves in
the sin of lust, we find a way of escape by recalling and holding on to the
person’s humanity. We remember this is a daughter or son of someone…a brother
or sister…a person with dreams and hopes and aspirations—and those do not
include being the object of our lust. That person is also created by God, loved
by God, and embodies the “image of God” (Gen. 1:27).
The other side of this same coin is
loathing. When we see someone that we loathe, we have done the same thing—we
have objectified them, robbed them of their humanity. We are able to think less
of them because we have conveniently forgotten that they, too, are sons and
daughters, brothers and sisters, made in the image of God and deeply loved of
God.
We respond to lust and loathing in the
same way—we remember that they are human beings. Paul tells us, “… in humility value
others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you
to the interests of the others” (Phil. 2:3-4). When we see another person that
we feel tempted to objectify (whether lusting or loathing), let us hold on to
this Scripture and remember their very real humanity. If doing this, we walk
away from death and embrace life.
Sunday, June 15, 2025
“Seven Deadly Sins Life-Giving Virtues”
Watch/Listen: HERE
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