I like to drive, but I’ve never really been into off-roading. Want to hear more?
A Child Called Christian
Imagine a young child we’ll call Christian, just 5 years old, a third-generation Seventh-day Adventist, and liking everything about church. Christian is always willing to recite memory verses and pray after the children’s story. Once of age, she joins the Pathfinder Club, and gives her heart to Jesus at a camporee. Or maybe it would be better if I painted Christian as a good guy instead . . .
In any case, according to good Adventist custom, Christian drives off to academy and flourishes in his ride with Christ. He tries his best, serves on the praise team, works at camp, organizes Bible studies in his dorm, and thinks about becoming a pastor (I really wanted Christian to be a girl, but that’s another story). The church that has fostered and nurtured him has taught him that sin is bad—doing evil against God’s commands and commandments. When alone he often feels discouraged about matters concerning faith and the surety of his salvation, because he is honestly just living out roles. The church encourages him to continue to be busy about godly things, and Christian does become a pastor. That seems to make the most sense, especially because everyone can see that he is a spiritual person—just like you, isn’t it?
But there is something Christian has not even thought of doing. He has never thought of consulting with God about his gears—individual actions, or his car—lifetime questions such as profession and marriage. What kind of life is that?
The Main Question
The main question of our conversation is this: Can college kids and church elders be immersed in godly things and still be utterly lost? Or thinking of it another way: what is there at the core of our Christianity that shows we are saved? I know you don’t like showing, but showing is real, you know (Matt. 7:16, 20).
The one thing in life that I shall never regret is the relationship I have with Jesus. I am grateful to God for the understandings He has granted me through our journey together. To think that I’ve learned what I have at the age that I have has been both a comfort for my faith and a burden on my soul. I feel with Paul that I must cry out “Woe to me” if I do not share the charge God has laid on my heart with my own generation of guys and coeds (see 1 Cor. 9:16). I worry that my church, in particular my generation, lives with a skewed, and, dare I say, an incomplete definition of sin.
I see my fellow youth grow up Seventh-day Adventist, accept Christ, participate in all the many activities the church provides for youth and young adults, and then drive off in some other direction, whether theologically or lifestyle-wise or both. I am convinced that it is at least partly because they didn’t learn well enough what sin is. They lived with an incomplete definition of sin that was limited to things you do or do not do.
Where Does It Come From?
Where did this incomplete understanding of sin originate? One source would be our unanswered questions. Another related place would be living out unquestioned answers, especially those concerning where we should or should not go, or why we are forbidden to participate in a given activity, or what is appropriate and inappropriate with regard to apparel.
For me, my classmates’ main problem, and indeed, my church’s main difficulty, seems to be what I’m here calling the “sinner’s ride.” But if our understanding of sin is incomplete, it would be only fair to consider what a fuller understanding of sin might be. Genesis 3 seems as good a place as any to begin our discussion.
The Serpent’s Real Deception
In Genesis 3:1–5 the serpent approaches the woman and begins to dialogue with her about what exactly were God’s commands and His motives behind them. In verse 5 he makes a statement that seems to catch the woman’s interest and leads to her own inspection of what God has forbidden. He says to her: “For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (NKJV).1
For years I was told that this was the devil’s deception and that this was a lie. But the serpent’s statement is just as half truth as the popular understanding of sin. Though Genesis 3:5 can be described as a deception, Genesis 3:5 is not entirely false! When our first parents decided to eat from this tree, they did, in however limited the sense, become like God. And even if you find that a bit puzzling, please don’t quit reading.
During the garden couple’s subsequent interaction with God, Adam says something that causes God to ask direct questions: “I was afraid because I was naked” (verse 10, NASB).2 Fear and knowledge of self, based on one’s own understanding, is very often related to sinful actions. But that may be another topic all its own. What we recognize here is that the man and woman now see themselves for the first time apart from God. The direct consequence of their actions is that they are now on their own. Where, before sin, Adam’s work was to maintain God’s garden, he was now seeing himself as charged with making provision. And Eve would now be burdened with onerous labor in the process of giving birth. As new ways of survival dawn upon Adam, he proceeds to name Eve “the mother of all the living” (Gen. 3:20, NASB). It is as though Adam now thinks of life on earth as beginning with him, an interpretation I find supported by God’s own words.
God’s Verdict
In Genesis 3:22 God says: “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” (NASB). In these words we can hear God’s acknowledgement that humans will now act on their own forever, if so allowed. And it is a cause of grief for Him. Sin, it turns out, is not just our bad actions against God’s holy standards. Sin is, in its simplest form, humans acting on their own, according to their own initiative, establishing their own standards. It is not just an opposition to the things of God, but even worse, a functioning through all matters of life with no concern for God—choosing routes, buying cars, pulling gears, without full reference to God.
Hopefully somebody is seeing more clearly how important this matter must be to our everyday life, whether within or outside of the church. More specifically, I am praying that my fellow college and university youth can sense the importance of confronting and correcting this tragedy of behaving as if we are free to become dentists just because we feel like it. For it is possible, understanding sin this way, to be separated from God’s ideal for my life despite my awareness of my need for Him, or my involvement in godly affairs.
Personally Speaking
I have found that when God becomes the only factor for making a decision, it never negatively affects other factors in my life. However, when I consider other factors along with God, things become confusing. I see it most vividly in situations in which various decisions all seem acceptable to church or society. For example, many young adults, Christian equally with non-Christian, change their cars—their majors, I guess—multiple times through college. Society likes your track—the fact that you are in college; and church or family members may be impressed with the car (the discipline) you chose. But how should youth decide on majors in the light of our definition of sin?
My answer is that God already has a car for our drive. Though someone may not appreciate this, may even be jolted by it, that car may not be medicine. The plan for your life may not include biology or theology, or it may include both, as it did in my case, which leads to its own set of complications. The main question still is: What is there in our life that says Jesus owns us, we have given ourselves to Him, we are saved? As believers in Christ are we willing to make Solo Christo decisions? Or have we adjusted to some prevailing view within and outside the church that standards are fine just because they seem positive, however far from God’s will they may actually be? Are we promoting knowledge of the “fruit” of the tree God may not have destined for us to eat, by baptizing it in education? How well are we addressing God’s call on our lives? Might we at times conclude that He is closing a door simply based on a test of faith that we were not able to endure?
God, and God Alone
Someone must be asking themselves: Derrick, why are you making things even more confusing? My answer is that I believe God wants us to break the “drive-through” habit we have developed in our decisions concerning Him and His leadership in our lives. Rather than grab and go, He wants us to take the time to address Him and wait for His response. God cares more about the journey with us than merely arriving at some location called heaven.
The devil is deeply opposed to that journey. He is bent on destroying the privilege and joy of it. If necessary, he will use a mission trip or a call to ministry to distract us. Off-road, after all, is very exciting! He will do it by asking us, What did God actually say? And, grounded in the Word of God, we must know the answer for ourselves when he dares to ask. The problem that led to our situation of sin was not that our first parents wanted to be away from God. The woman ate the fruit because she really did think it would make her like God, thus making their relationship even closer. We too do many things that we believe will bring us even closer to Him. But that’s just how great the deception is. In attempting to get closer to God in our own car, we burn enormous amounts of gas roaring away from His grasp.
The “sinner’s ride” may be a gear-by-gear process of living out, on my own, exactly what God wants to do in my life. The tragedy is that it is possible to worship in God’s very presence without even recognizing how far I am off the road of His will. In light of all this, here is a question to ask ourselves: Are all my decisions led by God and God alone?
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1 Texts credited to NKJV are from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
2 Scripture quotations marked NASB are from the New American Standard Bible, copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
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Derrick Nelson is a first-year dental student at Loma Linda School of Dentistry, where he lives with Karie, his wife of two precious years. He is on the journey God has set out for his life, and is seeking to understand it more and more each day. This article was published April 19, 2012.
