This month-Sin

This month in Kids we're taking a good, honest look at sin. Last Sunday, one little girl started out our discussion on sin by saying this, "But I don't even know what a sin is!" The other kids were quick to enlighten her with examples of their own "bad behavior", which was a complete list of examples of times they had disobeyed their parents. The same little girl then added her own example, "Like my sister! She lies to my mom all the time!" Sound familiar? Ahh, yes, that would be Adam in Genesis 3, turning the blame on Eve. It's her fault! She made me do it! What she did was worse than what I did! He did it first!

God created people to live in a perfect relationship with Him, to experience a full, happy, and easy life in the garden. But, when Adam and Eve chose to listen to the crafty serpent rather than God, that relationship was broken. It was easy for the kids to connect the sins in their own lives with consequences. Disobey mom, lose tv time. Make a scene in public, get punished when you get home. The consequences for Adam and Eve were so severe that it completely changed the course of human history right there. God ejected them from the perfect garden, and told them that instead they would have to work the ground for food. Nothing would be easy anymore, their lives would be lived in toil. And worse yet, sin had created a terrible separation between God and people.

Wonderfully, that is not the end of the story. At all! While Romans tells us that we have all sinned and fallen short of God's glory, we are also taught in the gospels and epistles that Jesus is the bridge between God and people. Here's a verse I memorized a couple summers ago for a camp I was working. It beautifully explains this.

"This is good and pleases God our Savior. For he wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth. For there is only one God and one Mediator between God and people-he is the man Christ Jesus. He gave his life as a ransom for many. This is the message that God gave to the world at the proper time." 1 Timothy 2:3-6

Because of Jesus, we don't have to live in our sin anymore. He acts as the mediator between God and people, bridging the chasm created by sin. And that is GOOD news!