Greg Ryan explains that sin means missing the mark, using Romans 3:23 and metaphors like a dartboard to show how everyone falls short. Jesus never missed the mark, so his perfect life offers the solution to sin.
Greg Ryan here with Jesus Mighty Men and host of No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe. You see I'm prepping my shirt. I love this shirt. But anyway, I wanted to come to you and answer a question: What is sin according to the Bible? And to answer that, I'm going to use some of my podcast episode on that exact topic. I'm trying to figure out how to do this YouTube thing and incorporate some of the stuff that I've got on my podcast episodes. I'm in the 160s or something right now, so I've got a lot of information, but I want to talk to you on YouTube as well. I want to put a name to a face. I'm going to try to put some cool video editing moves on you, but I'm really just trying to figure this thing out. And I want to thank you for being a part of this, and I'll come back to you at the end of this video. It's going to be a quick answer to what is sin according to the Bible, and then I'll come back to you and we'll pray.
I want to talk specifically about a topic that involves everyone, and that topic is sin. And I've got to go to the Bible, of course, because that's what this whole podcast is about, is putting the foundation of your life on the Word of God. And so for that, we've got to go to Romans 3:23. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Now, I've talked in previous episodes about when you come into a new community or a new business or a new country, even, there's a language and there's terms and there's definitions and things. When people start speaking inside their little culture, culture or community, you know, they use words that sometimes we don't understand. And that sin, I think, is one of those instances. I mean, you hear that word all the time, and I, in my first 29 years, I mean, I thought I knew what sin was. You know, it was, it was something really bad that everybody else did. You know, occasionally I'd screw up, but you know, before I knew Jesus as my Lord and Savior, I don't know that I ever attached, you know, walked around. I guess if I did, I would I would feel all that pressure and weight of needing a Savior. But for whatever reason, I just put my mistakes and my— all of my misgivings just in the back of my head. But, you know, I knew when the Word of God came and said— the Holy Spirit, in a— when it was preached, you know, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. When the Word of God was spoken, it quickened something inside of me that said, oh, You know, that may be me. And so when the Bible says something like all, then it means everybody. And so I kind of— I want to define sin. What is sin? And the, the practical definition that I've heard and works for me, if you, if you think of a, like a dartboard or a, you know, a target, a shooter's target with the bullseye in the middle, That bullseye— everyone's seen a target and everyone's seen a bullseye, but anything outside that little red— most of them are red or black— most, most anything outside of that circle is sin. It's missing. Everyone's aiming at the bullseye, so it's missing the mark. If you can picture throwing a dart at a dartboard and every time you don't hit the bullseye, you've sinned. That's your, that's your picture of what sin is. Sin is just missing the mark, and it's pretty easy to see that we've all missed the mark. I mean, I miss the mark weekly, daily, but I don't just wallow in, in missing and screwing up. I mean, even though I do that, you know, I try to correct my course. I, you know, that's repentance, and that's for a different episode. What I do is I try to have a standard, a standard. And that's where I, that's where I believe the Bible is such a powerful tool, because that is God's standard, perfection. And to think, I mean, when you start thinking about what Jesus did when he was born, he, he left heaven and he was born a virgin and he came to earth and never missed the mark. I mean, he never hit outside the bullseye. If for that day— like, God had a specific plan for Jesus on each day, and Jesus nailed it. Now, I think he woke up early in the morning, he prayed a lot, he stayed in constant— I mean, if you look at the life of Jesus, you can see how to avoid it. But there's no way, because we're not born perfect. And we don't have, we're not born with Father God's blood, so we are, we are born into sin. And that, and that's a whole nother thing. And you know, I don't want to start chasing a different rabbit, but I want to concentrate on what sin is. Sin is just missing the mark. That's if you're, if you're supposed to turn left, if you've ever driven in a different city and you've got your, you know, whatever the navigation's talking to you and it says at the light turn left and you turn left and then at the next street turn right and you don't, you don't see that street and you drive past it, you know, that recalculating tool. I mean, you could say that missing that mark, missing that turn, I mean, you know, in the simplest of terms, you, you've sinned. So I want to, you know, I want to take away, you know, that stigma. You know, we all sin, so we all have missed the mark. We're not perfect. And the good news is, is that we don't have to be. Perfection has never been the standard for us, for you and I, because we have someone that has walked this earth and lived a perfect life and died a perfect death, and on the third day was, was risen to sit in, you know, to sit at the right hand of the Father. I mean, it is a wonder— the gospel is a wonderful message. But I want to get back to sin because since we've all done it I want to kind of give it— and I, I have a ready, fire, aim mentality, and I've, I've said that multiple times, and that's probably why I'm on this podcast. I don't, I don't use a lot of thought process when I decide to do something. I just do it. And so I tend to jump in, and before I'm ready to go swimming, sometimes I don't put the swimming trunks on in life. I just jump in and I'm soaking wet, and everything that I'm wearing But I, when I saw this sin and how everybody did it, I was like, why not write a book? I mean, I know you're probably thinking, now who thinks like that? But why not write a book on what sin is and what it looks like? And so that's what I, way back, I don't even remember, I think it was in 2012 that I wrote this book, 8 years ago, 9 years ago, somewhere, we'll call it 10. Just for easy numbers. But about 10 years ago, I wrote this book, and it was kind of based on— and I was, you know, God was showing me things, and I was kind of picturing things in my mind. Well, let's cut the video off right here. I know that's a little abrupt, but we'll pick up the next video and what sin looks like.
Well, I hope you got something out of that, and let's pray real quick. God, I thank you so much for the person watching this video, and I pray in Jesus' name that you would quicken in them the idea that all have sinned. Lord, your word is truth, and it says in Romans 3:23, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." God, we thank you that you came for the answer, and God, we thank you that you and I are one now. And I pray that the person watching this video would accept that they've messed up if they have not accepted accept you as their Savior and take what you did on the cross for them, Lord, that you put sin on the cross once for all and you died once for all sin, past, present, and future sin. And God, I pray in Jesus' name that the person watching this video will accept what you did for them on the cross and on the third day you rose again. And Lord, you will never die again. Lord, we thank you, we love you, We ask it all in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you on the next video.
When you pick a side you must choose to be a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness
