The Holy Spirit enables us to overcome the power of sin. Just as we must put our trust in Christ alone for salvation, we must put our trust in the Holy Spirit for sanctification. The same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead is now at work in us to apply the saving benefits of Christ in our daily lives. When was the last time you preached a sermon on sanctification? This should be a regular occurrence, as this is where our people need the most help. Passages such as Galatians 5 or Romans 6–8 are life-giving and transformative and can deliver believers from the futile cycle of sinning, confessing, and sinning again as they learn how they are now dead to sin and slaves to righteousness.

Sin is an unpleasant subject. Many of us have a tendency to avoid dealing with or talking about sin. But not only is sin ubiquitous ever since the Fall, it has serious consequences and should not be ignored. Sin disrupts our relationship with God and others and interferes with our marriages and families.

Even for Christians, sin requires repentance and confession. The good news is that forgiveness is available in Christ, who took our sin upon himself. As we trust in him, the Holy Spirit will enable us to overcome sin’s dominion in our lives, though we must continue to be vigilant, because, as in Cain’s case, “sin is crouching at the door” (Gen. 4:7).

In the following article, I will lead us to reflect more deeply on the importance of the doctrine of sin in a pastor’s ministry and caution us against neglecting to preach and teach on this vital subject.

Why the Doctrine of Sin Matters

In a previous post on the doctrine of humanity, I have already discussed that while God created humanity in his image and likeness to be fruitful and multiply and to exercise dominion over the earth for him, humanity rebelled against God, resulting in the fact that now everyone is born with a sin nature. But Jesus, the Son of God, took on human nature to redeem humanity from sin and, as the perfect human, kept the law and showed us how to live. Here are seven truths about sin that pastors will do well to teach their congregations in order to equip them to live their lives more fully in keeping with biblical teaching.

7 Truths to Teach about Sin

Scripture clearly teaches the following seven truths to teach about sin yet preachers regularly neglect many of these today. The instinct to stay positive and encouraging is not wrong, because we all need encouragement, but before people are ready for the good news that there is forgiveness of sin available in Christ, we must tell them the bad news: They’re all sinners—that is, sin has crept into their spiritual DNA—and must thrust themselves upon God’s mercy so he will deal with them not on the basis of their depraved state but on the merits of Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice on their behalf on the cross.

1. Sin disrupts our relationship with God and others.

When Satan approached the woman in the Garden, he flatly contradicted God’s Word and questioned God’s goodness, hinting that God had chosen to withhold from her pleasures that offered greater fulfillment. In this way, Satan sowed doubts in the woman’s mind that God had her best interests at heart and suggested she better look out for herself rather than trust her Creator. By encouraging her to act independently from her husband, Satan also drove a wedge between the woman and her husband. We need to stress that sin always has negative consequences on our primary relationships and separates us from those we are called to love.

2. Sin has gender-specific ramifications.

Some of sin’s consequences are generic, that is, they affect men and women alike. The most obvious example is that all people die.

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