In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

One of the things that I think we’re very good at doing in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod is communicating to people the fact that we’re all sinners. From our confession of sin on Sunday mornings, to Catechism class with our youth, to the kinds of sermons that we usually hear preached from our pulpits, it’s more or less impossible to be a member of one of our congregations and not know that you’re a sinner. And that, of course, isn’t a bad thing at all. In fact, it’s a very good thing. The reality that we remain sinners until the day we die is a fundamental truth of the Scriptures that if rejected or denied, makes someone no true Christian at all. As Saint John says in his epistle, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”

The problem, though, and there is a potential problem here, is that if this is the only description of sin that we ever hear about, we aren’t getting the full picture from God’s Word. Let me explain. When all that people hear over and over again is that we remain sinners until the day we die, sometimes this can confuse them into not taking their sin seriously. Sometimes it can make them think that there’s no difference between repentant sin and unrepentant sin and that true believers, who have the Holy Spirit, continue to live in sin, without remorse, just like they did before. In the worst cases, it can even make people think that they are able to commit certain sins on purpose, and that this will have no effect on their faith, because after all, aren’t we all just sinners.

I want you to compare that, though, to what Saint Paul tells us about certain sins in our epistle lesson today from Ephesians chapter 5. He writes, “But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.” Now that is fuller depiction of sin and much more than the mere statement, “we’re all sinners.”

First off, these words clearly show us that some sins do have the ability to put us outside of a state of grace, and cause us to forfeit our salvation. That’s what Paul literally says in verse 5 of our text, “Everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.” This is very similar to what the Bible also says in 1 Corinthians 6 and Galatians 5. And to prove that point, and demonstrate that this is not an isolated teaching of the Scriptures, I’m going to read both of those passages too. Here’s the one from 1 Corinthians, “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” And this is the one from Galatians 5, “Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” 

But what do these verses mean? Certainly, they do not mean that if a person has committed one of the sins from these lists in the past, that it’s impossible for them to go to heaven no matter what they do. Saint Paul himself, at one time, was guilty of the sin of murder and persecuting the Church. We can also think of the example of king David who committed the sin of adultery with the wife of Uriah the Hittite, and then tried to cover it up by orchestrating his death. Those were terrible sins. They grieved the Holy Spirit, and put both men in a state of grave spiritual danger. In fact, if either of them would have died in that condition, there is no doubt that, according to the Bible, they would have been lost forever. But what happened was they repented. After Paul was confronted by Christ on the road to Damascus, he turned away from his former life, and stopped killing Christians. And after David was approached by the prophet Nathan, he confessed his sin too, and accepted the temporal consequences for what he’d done. That’s why their sins did not condemn them. That’s what made their sins different from other kinds of sins, even though they were on this same list. It’s because they turned away from them, instead of embracing them. They put those sins away, and looked to God for forgiveness.

The Bible doesn’t just teach us that true Christians shouldn’t be ruled by their sin, it tells us that they can’t be. As soon as someone accepts his sin, and doesn’t even want to be rid of it, he ceases to be a Christian at all. That’s what God’s Word means when it says in Romans 6, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions… for sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” To let your sin have dominion over you means that you to do it on purpose, without any intention of trying to stop. But those who have the Holy Spirit, however weak their faith might be, want to stop sinning. Even if they fall into sin sometimes, they are upset with themselves over it, and don’t excuse their bad behavior by simply saying, “we’re all sinners.” On the contrary, when they fall, they confess. When they sin, they repent.

To give an easy illustration of what this looks like so we can better understand it, think about a person whose traveling through some dangerous part of a big city. If that person gets attacked by a mugger, what are they going to do at the first opportunity to get away? They’re going to take it. We Christians are traveling through a dangerous world on our way to heaven. Sometimes we get attacked by the devil and succumb to his temptations. But that’s not because we want to. It’s because we’re weak. And when it happens, we quickly confess our sins to God, and He forgives us for Jesus’ sake. However, when a person doesn’t do that, and takes sides with his or her captor, then they prove that they are not on God’s side at all, and not a genuine Christian no matter how pious they might pretend to be.

Let’s apply this directly to some of the sins that Saint Paul mentions in our reading. He talks about sexual immorality, impurity, and idolatry. Obviously, there are very few of us, if any, who can honestly say that we’ve have never had an impure thought enter into our minds. As Jesus tells us in Matthew 5, “Everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” In that sense, then, we are indeed guilty of breaking the 6th commandment. No one should deny it. But the question is, what is your attitude toward that sin? Do you like it? Do you think that it’s an okay thing to do, and do you look for opportunities to keep on doing it more and more? Are you proud of the fact that you can’t always keep your mind clean and that sometimes you haven’t? I hope not! But there are some people who are. There is literally an entire month of the year in this country called, “Pride Month,” where individuals celebrate their sexual sins. That is not the same thing as the Christian who struggles against his sin and wants to be free of it. And that’s what Saint Paul is talking about in our text.

This, by the way, is the reason why in the Lutheran Church we have always treated things like moving in with your boyfriend or girlfriend, and sleeping together before marriage, differently. On several occasions when I have counseled couples to stop doing this, and even refused to give them Communion until they quit, I’ve been met with a similar excuse. “Pastor, don’t we all sin, so how is this sin any different? Why can’t I have Communion when there are other people in the Church who sin too, and you give them Communion anyway?” I always respond the same way, “The issue is not with your sin, per se, but with your unrepentance. Yes, we all sin. But that doesn’t mean that we’re all unrepentant. And you need to be repentant before you can take Communion. You need to want to be forgiven of your sin, and be willing to bear fruit in keeping with repentance over that sin, before you can receive the gift that’s intended to take it away. Because if I gave you Communion now, you would not learn to repent. You would become even more secure in the sinful thing that you’re doing, and have an even harder time giving it up.”

And again, this doesn’t just apply to willful sins against the 6th Commandment, it applies to willful sins against every other Commandment too. Paul mentions idolatry, which he says is a form of coveting. It’s bad to want things that don’t belong to you and to not be content with what you have. That shows a lack of trust in the Lord, and that you are worshiping a different god than Jesus. But is the Christian who mourns this reality, and recognizes their weakness, fighting against it daily with the strength of the Spirit and the aid of God’s Word, in the same category as those who literally worship at a Buddhist temple, or call Allah “god,” instead of Christ. Of course, not! They would be if they refused to admit the sin and plead with Jesus for forgiveness, but that’s exactly what we do, isn’t it? Every time that we sin, we come to church and ask God to have mercy on us. Even for the sins we are unaware of, we pray that for the sake of His only Begotten Son, He would not count any of them against us, and help us to resist them in the future. 

The danger in conflating repentant sin with unrepentant sin is that it deceives people. As Saint Paul says in our reading, “Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.” When we give the impression in the Church that you can live in your sin on purpose, without even trying to stop, and that all sins are the same regardless if a person is even sorry for it, we lead people astray. We cause true Christians to not take their sins seriously, and risk falling away from the faith, and we embolden false Christians to think that they are going to be saved even though they’re not. But they will soon find out when they die that they were lied to, and despite what they were led to believe, they cannot go into God’s Kingdom.

I hope you see by now just how important this distinction from God’s Word is, and why it’s insufficient to simply say, “we’re all sinners,” without any further explanation. The difference between repentant sin and unrepentant sin is all throughout the Bible. The Holy Spirit teaches us about it, first, so that those who are living in unrepentant sin would quickly turn away from it, and second, so that those who are sorry for their sins, and want to do better, would not despair of their salvation. In either case, the goal is always the same: that we would have the forgiveness of sins that comes from Jesus.

Are you doing something that God’s Word forbids? Have you committed one of those sins that the apostle Paul names in our reading, or are you committing one of them now? Then listen to what he says, and put it away. Don’t lie to yourself, and pretend that sin is no big deal. That won’t do you any good. It will harden your conscience, and may even lead to you going to hell. Rather, as often as sin should rear its ugly head in your life, no matter what that sin is, don’t coddle it, or feed it, but put it to death through contrition and repentance. Turn to Christ in heartfelt sorrow, and ask for His forgiveness. Remember your Baptism, which still has the power to give you cleansing, and come to the Lord’s table where God promises you His grace. “Walk as a child of light,” as Saint Paul says, and let Jesus, who is the Light of the world, not only expose the darkness of your heart, but cover it with His perfect righteousness. That’s the entire reason why He came into the world. He came to save sinners. And when you are repenting of your sins and looking to Him for salvation, you have nothing to fear, and don’t have to be in doubt at all about your place in God’s Kingdom. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.