Faith Filled Rebellion part 1

I tried to add a page to my blog entitled Mini Sermons... for devotions and writings that are not necessarily personal but that I have written in the past.  Blogger doesn't let you do that so I guess they will be all on one page.  

This was written for a workshop I gave a couple years ago and I wanted to share its concept. I picked this concept to start with because we all deal with and have been brainwashed that if you do A B or C you can not be a Christian, I have come to know this is not true.   I have edited it for easier reading since it was written to be presented with audience participation… answer the questions for yourself and feel free to share with friends and comment…  It  will be posted in several successive blogs because it was written for a 45 min presentation.  Hope you enjoy it.
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I know you are wondering, what is faith-filled rebellion.  As I have been preparing to come to this conference many people asked me what I was going to talk about.  When I told them the name of the workshop they would laugh and say how can that be?  It is impossible to have faith-filled rebellion.  We all have a preconceived notion as to what rebellion is….  

When you hear the word Rebellion what come to mind?                                                             

The dictionary.com says:

Rebellion is a refusal of obedience or order ^[1]. It may, therefore, be seen as encompassing a range of behaviors from civil disobedience and mass nonviolent resistance, to violent and organized attempts to destroy an established authority such as the government.

A lot of us equate rebellion with sin….  We are rebelling against God when we sin. We are disobeying rules... but who's rules

What do you think of when you think of sin?  When you list sins do you think they are all inclusive?  Example….That _____ is a sin for everyone?  If it is a sin for you it is wrong for everyone else? 

I believe that some of the things that we consider sin are not really sins.... but some of them might not be beneficial to us.

Some things lead to sin for us or another that are not necessarily sin, so it is better for us to stay away from them… 1 Cor. 6:12 and 10:23

(1cor 6:12)            “Everything is permissible for me- but not everything is beneficial.  Everything is permissible for me- but I will not be mastered.”

(1 cor 10:23)       “Everything is permissible – but not everything is beneficial.  Everything is permissible-but not everything is constructive.  Nobody should seek his own good but the good of others.”

 Also, sin can be something we fail to do….

 (James 4:17)       “Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins”

Most things we call sins today are ways to keep civil obedience in the church and in our societies.  They are man made laws based on our culture and what we believe is right or wrong.  In The God You Never Knew Marcus Borg writes “There is an enculturated sense of sin and guilt that has little or nothing to do with God.  The messages of our socialization (religious and secular) get internalized within our psyches as the critical voice of the superego, the police officer and judge in our head.”  We may have heard them from our parents, on TV, in church, or in school but they were designed by men to keep order.

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We take these messages out to the world and judge others based on our own sense of sin and guilt.  One thing I know is that I can not judge a person based on any outward appearance.  Many people appear to be something they are not.