The Root of Sin
Romans 1:22-25
“Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.
Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.”
The Root of Sin
We are creatures who naturally worship. God created us this way! Worship is something that we do not need to be taught. We worship what we think is going to make us most happy. We seek and savor those things which we think will satisfy the longings of our hearts. We have a natural system that applies value to people, places and things. We worship what we see as glorious. Our desires and longings are functions of worship. Last week we discussed the definition of sin. Sin is doing anything contrary to the will of God. This week we will discuss the root of sin, our worship.
The English word “worship” is derived from Old English worthscipe, meaning “worthiness” or “worth–ship.” So in its simplest concept, worship is to give worth or value to something. But Christian worship is not simply giving worth to “something” but should be focused on the Almighty Triune God. – (24-7worship.org)
Like what was said in the first paragraph we worship what we think is going to make us most happy. Take example of a cup of coffee. How many of us long for that first cup of coffee in the morning. We value its benefits. We look forward to the caffeine, the taste, the heat or the overall experience of drinking a cup of coffee. What are you willing to do for a cup of coffee? It takes time, money and energy to enjoy a cup of coffee. There is sacrifice involved. You give up something of value in order to enjoy a cup of coffee. You may replace the cup of coffee with anything; sports, animals, relationships, self, places or experiences. Think about this, what do we sing most about, get angry about, stress about, get happy about or get anxious about? Those things are the source of our worship. God calls them idols.
Romans 1:22-25 illustrates worship and reveals a problem with our worship. Romans 3:23 also says, “We all sin and fall short of the glory of God.” Our worship was designed to find satisfaction in an all sufficient God and in God alone. The creation was designed to put on display the glory of God so that we could enjoy Him. When we enjoy a simple thing like a cup of coffee, there should be an understanding of how awesome God is. We fall short of seeing how awesome God is in all of His creation and worship just the creation. We do not seek God. We do not find Him all satisfying. We do not get excited about God. We do not savor God. We can’t. He is not our ultimate source of satisfaction but His creation is and that is the problem.
Paul gives an example of broken worship in 1 Timothy 6:10, “For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” Paul is talking about those who wandered from the faith because the glory of money was more appealing. The glory of His creation is more appealing to us than He is. In fact, we hate His glory. This is no more evident then what happened to Jesus on the cross. Many have the perception, and it is correct, that this was the ultimate expression of God’s love towards mankind. The opposite, which is also true, is that the cross was the ultimate expression of man’s hatred of God.
Simply put, worship is the root of sin. Our worship works just fine but it cannot look past the creation and see the glory of God. Worship pointed at the creation brings death and destruction. Worship pointed toward God through Christ brings life and peace. The miracle is God by His Spirit enlightens us to see His glory in the face of Jesus Christ and we begin to worship Him as we should. This is no little thing. It is awesome! May we worship Him!
