Sermon Transcript
Auto Generated
Sun, Jul 21, 2024 10AM • 59:59SUMMARY KEYWORDSsin, Jesus, god, live, people, verse, bible, Christ, good, reading, romans, church, sinful nature, lord, talked, sin, holy spirit, chapter, slaves, sinning
This message revolves around the concept of sin and its implications in the Christian faith. Pastor Gene emphasizes the importance of understanding the Bible and its teachings to live a life free from sin. We discuss the consequences of intentionally sinning against God. Pastor Gene also highlighted the importance of treating everyone with equality and compassion, and emphasizes that sin has consequences not only on the individual but also on their family and community. We consider the high price of Jesus' death and how sin squanders that sacrifice.
Good morning. If you're new here among us. My name is Gene. I serve here at c3 church as your pastor. In this series, we've talked about watches. I told the story of a little watch aspired to be something greater. Now if you know me, you know I have a real appreciation for timepieces, especially the ones that are not battery powered. They're mechanical. And if you get a real nice one, you can sometimes see through the back, and you see all the gears and movements and all the different things. And it just amazes me, all these tiny, complicated movements, no electricity, nothing else working it, but those movements, it's just incredible to me.
So I heard a story about a clock that wasn't that complicated. In fact, this clock had trouble with the basic functions. This clock found its home in its church, and the problem was well to the congregation that the clock ran slow, and this meant that, well, the preacher would sometimes think that he had a lot more time than he actually did, according to them. So what happened was, behind his back that people in the congregation began to, like, move the hands right so they'd advance it forward and mess around with it. This went on for a long time, trying to get it right. So finally, the preacher notices, and he puts a sign above the clock, and he says, he writes, don't blame the hands. The trouble lies deeper. The same is true of people. The real trouble with people lies deeper than what shows on the surface, and some say it's complicated. We'll see today we find ourselves in our series twisted scriptures. So I talk a lot about the verse of the day, problem fortune cookie theology is kind of what I call it, right, where most Christians are just exposing themselves to the verse of the day that they get fed on the app it comes through. They look at it, they don't know the context, they don't know what it really means, and they apply it to whatever they want to apply it to, right? Like a fortune cookie. So similar. So last week, we looked at doing good that would be evidence of our salvation. It's a good thing. This week, we'll look at doing bad and we're going to go to the book of First John, where we see that our bad deeds also prove something about us, or So says the Bible. So just on this note, we are, I'm going to say a bad word today,
sin. Alright, we're going to,
we're going to talk about that. So just because some of those sins, some things might come out that little ones you might not want them to hear. And if that's the case, you might want to take em over to the kids room and bring em in there, just as a waring. I'm not going to say any real bad words, but, but we're going to talk about some of those sins later on, so the little ones, sensitive ears, just disclaimer. Alright, so here's our verses in question today. Alright. So first, John one eight, if we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living the truth. But if we confess our sins to Him, that is God, in this context, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that His word has no place in our hearts. So you've been in church for a while, you've seen how this is used, probably, hopefully, you've never used it in that way. How people use this is to say they basically, this is, these are the give up verses, the I quit verses, right? So, you know, basically, I can just do whatever I want. Alright, that that's really what it means, greasy grace, we call it, right? So I can do whatever I want at Jesus's expense, alright? So that's kind of how people use this. So we're going to move along in our next series, I'm really going to define, like biblically, all different kinds of sins. For today's purpose, just to make this simple, right? Because people do make this too complicated. So we're going to simplify this a little bit today. So if you're new, you've never been in church, right? So just think sin is anything you know you shouldn't be doing. Let's just keep it really simple, right? If you're a Christian, you read the Bible, okay? You know all these different sins, great. So it's those two, right? If it's simple, 10 Commandments, think about that, right? So things you know inherently you shouldn't be doing, right? So it's not that complicated. So what we're going to do let's look at the verse we've learned this right when you're reading the Bible, sometimes you get your definition, you get your explanation, just by carefully applying our reading comprehension skills, like just to the verse itself. So what we're going to do is we're just going to look at these verses and read them carefully for a moment. Alright? So. Let's put it up again. First John one, eight, if we claim we have no sin, we're only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to Him, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that His word has no place in our heart. So a couple of things are going on here, right? So, a here, right? So I like, what have a whole I have, I have sins in the Greek, that's the word there. So that's that sin nature that we've talked about, that the Holy Spirit's going to war against when he gets in there, right? So we have a sin nature in us. That is the word have in there. Alright? Now the other word, sinned, no matter what version you look at, it all has that past tense. That should be your first clue there, right? Sinned. Past tense. The other thing Jesus, right, He will cleanse us from all wickedness, all wicked. Say he'll cleanse us from some of the wickedness, and then leave some. Nope, cleanse us from all wickedness. So these are the things in this verse right. Now, another great way to get more clarity is to simply keep reading. Now, if you're in your Bible, if you still read a paper Bible, right, and you got what this would take you to would be the bottom of the first chapter of First John. That's where you'd be. And so if you just simply had the energy to turn the page, this is exactly what you would read First John, two one my dear children. I'm writing this to you so that you will not sin, but if anyone does sin, we have an advocate who pleads our case before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who is truly righteous. He Himself is the sacrifice that atones for our sins, and not only our sins, but the sins of all the world, that is those in the world who are in Jesus. So we get to so that statement there so that you won't,
oh, we're getting closer to the point, right?
So if someone does, okay, Jesus sacrificed himself for that person so that we won't sin, right? Let's keep reading First John, two, three, and we can be sure that we know him if we obey His commandments. If someone claims I know God but doesn't obey God's commandments, that person is a liar and not living in the truth. But those who obey God's word truly shall completely they love him. That is how we know we are living in Him. Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did? We looked at that. Remember? We looked at that last week. That was the expectation be like Jesus, right? Now, what'd it say before? Who is the liar? Right? One who says they haven't sinned? Right? They don't have sin. But now, who's the liar? Ah, the ones that claim they know God and don't obey his commandments. Now, there's the liar, right? So we've talked about that obedience. That's really important. We're tying things together here really, really important. Again, the command to be like Jesus. That's a command, by the way. It's not an option, be like Jesus. Now we could have stopped reading there, but this point is so important in the Word of God that if we keep reading first, John two nine. If anyone claims I'm living in the light, but hates a fellow believer, that person is still living in darkness. Anyone who loves a fellow believer is living in the light and does not cause others to stumble, but anyone who hates a fellow believer is still living and walking in darkness. Such a person does not know the way to go, having been blinded by the darkness. So here we go. If anyone claims to be a Christian, right, but hates others, that person's a liar too. They're living in darkness. Those doing good live in life. So this is theme of light and darkness or walking in. If you're reading it in the Greek, it's all walking in, right? So if we continue a couple of themes, I'm just going to kind of paraphrase highlight here, not loving the world. So we saw that theme of the world people, the heavenly people and the worldly people. Warnings about antichrists, plural, there's more than one. Read First John for yourself, right? So this word is very prevalent in First John, so it's a side note, and he's the one who mentions antichrists, right? Anyone who doesn't believe in Jesus, essentially as an antichrist. So we'll keep reading, if we turn the page again, people who belong to the world. Another theme. And then First John, three, four, everyone who sins is breaking God's law, for all sin is contrary to the law of God. And you know that Jesus came to take away our sins, and there is no sin in him. Anyone who continues to live in him will not sin, but anyone who keeps on sinning does not know him or understand who he is. Dear children, don't let anyone deceive you about this. When people do what is right, it shows that they are righteous, even as Christ is righteous. When people keep on sinning, it shows that they belong to the devil who has been sinning so. This the beginning, but the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil. Those who have been born into God's family do not make a practice of sinning because God's life is in them. So they can't keep on sinning because they are children of God. So now we can tell who are children of God and who are children of the devil. Anyone who does not live righteously and does not love other believers. Does not belong to God. Quick note, if you're new, I'm just reading the Bible. That's all I'm doing. So Jesus came to take away our sins, to die for us, so that we would not do those things anymore. Anyone in him will not. It says they can't. It's good translation, by the way, right? We don't do this at
his expense,
right? So it's a very strong statement. If that wasn't enough, those who do again reading the Word of God are children of the devil. So sin proves who we serve. Who we serve is who we actually worship. So doesn't get easier. Talks about turn the page again. I know that's going to be hard. Now, people of the world, they belong to the devil, and it talks about loving one another. Then first John 420 if someone says, I love God but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar. For if we don't love people we can see, how can we love God whom we cannot see? And he's given us this command, those who love God must also love their fellow believers, bringing unity to the church here. But I would say everyone right? If we put it all together, we read Romans 12. Everybody, right? Jesus says that too. So similar. It sounds like it's like, oh, wait, didn't we read that before? Yeah, it's redundant. He's saying it twice now, same thing. If you love God, you obey Him. Heavy lifting. Turn the page. First, John five, one. Anyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has become a child of God, and anyone who loves the Father loves his children too. We know that we love God's children if we love God and obey his commandments, loving God means keeping His commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome, for every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve victory through our faith. And who can win this battle against the world, only those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God. So you see this theme here, right? This battle against the world, not flesh and blood enemies, right? Ephesians, but the spiritual battle here. Christians are known to be Christians because they obey God. That's how we can tell right?
They will know us by our
love, right? It's not hypocrisy. So again, we know who people are by who they truly serve. If we keep reading, there's an acknowledgement about people who do sin, and it says, help them. And we talked about this in context, right? Who's going to help? Let the leadership take care of it. If it's heavy stuff, right? Don't be judgy. Judgy. Better to have a mirror than a picket sign. That's what I always say, right? So again, but we can help them so it happens, right? And in case we wanted to run with the mistakes, right? Case, want to say, Ah, see, can we make mistakes? We want to run with that. Well, first, John, 518, we know that God's children do not make a practice of sinning, for God's Son holds them securely, and the evil one cannot touch them. We know that we are children of God and that the world around us is under the control of the evil ones. We've talked about that before, and we know that the Son of God has come, and He has given us understanding so we can know the true God. And now we live in fellowship with the true God, because we live in fellowship of the Son, Jesus, Christ is the only true God and His eternal life, dear children, keep away anything that might take God's place in your heart. So just a quick note here, because I've talked about it in the past. Like, every once in a while you get this, like teaching that takes like something and runs a little too far with it and develops some bad theology around it. And so today they call it the deliverance ministry. Basically, the devil made me do it, right? So we look at Second Corinthians For some answers. There we saw that if you're a Christian, you cannot be demon possessed. That's you cannot, okay, the Bible says that. But here's another proof verse here, right? We know they're good children. We do not make a practice of sinning, for God's Son holds him securely, and the evil one cannot touch them cannot, right? So the devil didn't make you do it if you're a Christian. So if the devil made you do it, maybe you're not a Christian. That's the problem with that whole theology there. Alright, so God's children do not make a practice of sinning. So best way to get our answers is to keep reading the Word of God. And so now, do those verses that we looked at that people twist? Does that meaning look as ridiculous as it actually should be to those who obey the command to read the Word of God? Someone say, Yes, ridiculous or. Ridiculous. I don't know how many times it didn't count, right? Unbelievably redundant. So there are some similar verses throughout the Bible that people do the same thing with, right?
But what happens is,
you get the same conclusion and result, no matter where they are like so if you take, for example, Paul's statement in First Timothy, things like that. If you keep reading, the same thing happens. I want to take you to one other place because it's really, really common and popular. It's another kind of give up verse or a couple sections, one can be very hard to understand. So what I'm going to do is, I'm just going to give you kind of the simple meaning of Romans or so if you've been in church for a long time. Yeah, I know there's more to it than that, but let's just back up for a second and just kind of get the simple meaning here. So Paul writes Romans, said this before. He's not sitting around and like saying something like, let me write the greatest theological work ever written, you know. So that's not really like what he's trying to do there. So what you have is a situation, if you read Acts like acts 18, the Jews are expelled from Rome by Claudius the amber, right? And then they come back later, but they come back to a church that isn't very Jewish. So if you know about the faith, right? So Jesus and the apostles, they're Jewish. They're coming. He's the Jewish Messiah, right? But then it opens up to the Gentiles too, right? Make disciples of all ethnic all nations, everybody now, right? So, but in the beginning, they're struggling with that a lot, and especially in Rome, because of the situation that's happened. The Jews leave, the Jews come back. But the Gentiles are like, Whoa, you're not doing Gentile Jewish things in the church. So what Paul's thinking is, the pattern that follows is get along, right? So you Jewish people, like, I know you had the law of Moses, whatever, if you want to follow it, that's fine. We're not saved by it, but that doesn't make you better. They're being like Pharisees, as we call them, in church, right? So those really legalistic people that come into church and pretend they don't have problems and judge everybody else, right? So they're kind of like that. The Gentiles are like, Huh? You know, like, Gracie grace. I can do whatever I want. I don't have the law. I don't have to do that. I don't have to get circumcised. That's great. So like that. So they have this problem, right there. There's these two kind of, like, social classes, perhaps ethnic, you know, if you're thinking in that regard, Jewish people. So Paul starts out, and the point in chapter one is, alright, look, the Gentiles, even though they don't have the law or any of that other stuff, they know what's right and wrong, like I said at the beginning of the message, right? You inherently should know just by look, look around you. Look at everything God created. It's nature. So he starts going into things that are unnatural, right, you know? And he starts kind of poking at that like this is unnatural. When people do something that's unnatural, they know they should know it's wrong. It's kind of like this. He has the gentiles on one side, the Jews on the other side, and then so the Jews are like this. And so he turns to them, and you're Jews, if you know so much, teach yourself, right? So that's chapter two. We get to chapter three, and we get to our key verse, right? Romans, 323, for everyone has sinned, we all fall short of God's glorious standard, okay, but now that you kind of basically understand he's leveling the playing field. That's the point of that verse. That's the context of that verse is that, look, you're all sinners, right? That's it. Stop going at one another, right? So again, I want you to notice something about the verse, though, for everyone has sinned. Do you notice that past tense again? Yeah. Alright. So now next section we're going to get to, if we just kind of hop over a little bit. So you know, he'll he's a little confusing because four, he talks about Abraham, but he's just making the point like he was, he was counted righteous by God before the law of Moses. So he's kind of still hammering on the Jewish people there, right? So chapter five, Adam and Christ contrasted. We'll get to six. I'm going to jump over to seven. And when you get to seven, you might have, like, a chapter heading in in your Bible that isn't in the original. So they're not there. So all those bold chapter headings, they don't exist. Neither do the numbers and the original. And so you'll see different ones if you look at different Bible type, and some will say struggling with sin.
And I hate that,
and we'll see why. But anyway, you may say struggling with sin, or you may have had a pastor, somebody teach on this, or a Bible study, something like that. Someone who shouldn't been doing the Bible study might have said, This is how we struggle with sin. Romans, now I want you to remember Paul is dictating, right? It's hurt. Yes, he's dictating. So this is Paul's voice right here, of course, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans, 714, so the trouble is not with the law for the spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I'm all too human, a slave to sin. I don't really understand myself. For I want to do it is right, but I don't do it instead. I do what I hate, but if I know what I'm doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good, so I'm not the one doing wrong. It is sin living in Me that does it okay. Key phrase to back pocket, slave to sin. Just put that in your back pocket for a second. But already, if you. Know the Bible, if you were here last week and paying attention, this should sound really weird. Coming from Paul, really weird. It just should not sound right at all. Right. Remember, Paul wasn't a slave to sin. Paul was a slave of Christ. Remember Philippians? There's a big difference. Christ is not he's slave of Christ can't be you can't serve two masters. So what's going He also described himself as
blameless, blameless.
What's happening here, right? So, weird, brief summary. He continues on this theme, right? I want to do what is right, but I can't. I want to do it is good, but I don't right. So I don't want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. She goes through this right? But wait. I thought that Christians can't keep sinning. Isn't that what John said? But he keeps going. And what I want to do, I inevitably do what is wrong all the time. This power makes me. He says it again, slave to sin that is still within me. Oh, what a measurable person I am. Now at this point, if you know Paul 13 books of the New Testament. It's like this doesn't sound like Paul at all. Like this is insanity. This is really weird, right? Remember Philippians? Rejoice always. What a miserable person I am. I know he had anxiety over the churches we talked about that. Yeah, he had some anxiety, but not a miserable person. Rejoice, always. Joy, Joy. Remember the theme in Philippians. Okay? So in order to understand what's going on here, you have to actually, well, we'll look at in a minute. You actually have to read all of Romans. Imagine that. So read Romans,
you kind of get it, but
it's a literary device called, we understand rhetoric, right? You hear a lot of rhetoric, so a lot of people think like that's when someone really exaggerates something, but they don't mean it. Yeah, and there's different rhetorical devices we talk about hyperbole, right? So one of them is called prosopia, prosopisa. It's literally two Greek words that mean to make a face. That's what it means. So it's like putting on a mask. Okay? So this is what Paul's doing here, right? It's rhetoric. So Paul, for a moment, takes, takes chapter seven of those chapters, and he goes and he puts on a mask of Adam. Context chapter five, Adam and Christ contrasted. So that's what he's doing here. So he's contrasting Christ and Adam. So now he's got the Adam mask on, right? So he's mocking him. So there's no contradiction. There's just a contrast that he's trying to create. Now we really figure this out if we had read from the beginning. So if we got a running start and we got up to chapter six, we would have seen this now. So remember what he just said? Remember the back pocket? Take it out. Slave to sin. Miserable person. I'm always doing wrong. Okay? One chapter before Romans, six, one well, then should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? May it never be, of course not. Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? Okay? So should we keep on abusing God? No, not at all. Of course not. We've died to sin. If we hop down to verse six, Romans, six, six, we know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ, we were set free from the power of sin. He's getting pretty redundant, right? So here we should have known going into chapter seven that we are not slaves to sin. So Paul must be talking about someone else, because the chapter before that, Adam, alright, it has no power over us. We hop down. Romans, 611 so you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ, Jesus. Do not let sin control the way you live. Do not give in to your sinful desire. Sounds like a different guy here, right? Really clear, like First John. All right, Romans, 617, thank God. Once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we have given you. Now you are free from your slavery to sin. You've become slaves to righteous living because of the weakness of your human nature. I'm using the illustration of slavery to help you understand all this. Previously you let yourselves be slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led even deeper into sin. Now you must give yourselves to be slaves to righteous living so that you'll become holy. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the obligation to do right. And what was the result? You're not ashamed of the things you used to do, things that end in eternal doom, but now you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves to God. Now you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So there's that past tense again. And several times. So then what happens is, if we were reading it straight through, we get to that chapter seven thing I wrote you read you that people twist. That's where that would be alright, just so you don't run with it. Paul made sure he end capped it right. So he's going to make the point again in chapter. So after he does the mockery of Adam. He wants to make sure you know that this is not the way you should live. Romans, 81 so now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ, Jesus, and because you belong to him, the power of the life giving spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death. The Law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own son in a body like the bodies we sinners have, and in that body, God declared an end to sins control over us by giving his son as a sacrifice for our sins. He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us who no longer follow our sinful nature, but instead follow the Spirit. Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the spirit. So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death, but letting the spirit control your mind lives to life and peace. For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God's laws, and it never will. That's why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God. But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit. If you have the Spirit of God living in you, and remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to God at all, or him, and Christ lives within you. So even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you've been made right with God. The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ, Jesus from the dead, He will give life to your mortal bodies by the same Spirit living within you. Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do. For if you'll live by its dictates, you will die. But after the power of the Holy Spirit, you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God, but we saw we have that sin, yes, and I'm just reading the Bible, right? So those words are a little better than mine, just to let you know, right? We have a sinful nature. But it's crystal clear here, isn't it, Jesus not only dies to cover our sins, but also Jesus dies to put an end to that. Sins control over us.
If we're in Him,
we follow the Holy Spirit, right? So that's what he's saying here. Like, if
you don't have the Holy Spirit in you, you're not saved. Like, that's kind of a problem. So if you have him in you, well he'll correct that, right? So this destroys that Romans seven argument that Paul struggles with sin.
I don't think so, right?
Adam sin nature, that's what that's about. But the Holy Spirit's The key here. That's how we get it done, right? So we talked about it again. Sin nature versus the Holy Spirit. They're at odds with one another, and we can tell if someone has it right. We can tell who we worship by who we're serving, the sin nature or
the Holy Spirit, right? Now,
there are other places, like First John Romans, but again, like I said before, you are you will always achieve the same result by being true to the Word of God. Just by reading what it says, it will give you the answer. It's right there. Alright, so there's no contradictions here. So now the question comes to mind for a lot of people. They get to this and they go, is it possible to live a life free from sin?
Is that possible? Well,
we saw the Bible clearly calls for it.
And again, we saw last week called Paul called himself and mentioned it today, blameless. That's kind of interesting, right? According to the law without fault. And we saw that's really, really hard to do, really hard. So we're not under the Law of Moses, right, but the New Testament is calling us to live blamelessly. And we saw that. So just to look back again, Philippians 110 for I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ's return, may you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation, the righteous character produced in you in your life by Jesus Christ, for this will bring much glory and praise to God. So we have. Other sub that statement, you'll live blameless lives, showing the fruit of your salvation, which is what righteous character, and it's not the only place. So remember John the Baptist, right? Repent and prove it, he says to the Pharisees, right? Well, his parents were described the same way, Luke one five. When Herod was king of Judea, there was a Jewish priest named Zechariah. He was a member so this is John the Baptist. He was a member of the priestly order of Abijah. And his wife Elizabeth was also from the priestly line of Aaron. Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous in God's eyes, careful to obey in Greek, it says living blamelessly according to all of the Lord's commandments and regulations. Okay? So we see in the New Testament that there are people living blamelessly. And then we saw the calls to do it were crystal clear in first John and Romans, be like Jesus. Remember, if we keep reading in Philippians, we saw that that's what chapter two is really all about. Make your own attitude that of Christ, Jesus, right, look out for the interest of other people, not just your own. Be like him. Be sacrificial. And he given in First Peter, we saw that he's our example. First Peter, 221, for God called you to do good, even if it means suffering. Jesus, Christ suffered for you. He is your example, and you must follow in his steps. He never sinned nor deceived anyone.
So there's an expectation. Jesus never sinned,
follow his example
again and again and again.
And I would call this an appropriate response to what Jesus did for us. If you've been a Christian church for a long time, perhaps a lot of Christians have been become numb to what Jesus has done. But when you keep this here, the Holy Spirit keeps this at the front of your mind, like, yeah, he died an excruciating death on a cross for you.
How should we respond to that?
Well, Bible tells us, right? Philippians 127 above all, you must live as citizens of heaven, conducting yourselves in a manner worthy of the good news about Christ. Again says, There it is, must live as citizens of heaven, not of the world,
serving Christ in a manner worthy.
Did you notice? Did you see that we must live in a manner worthy of what he did. Well, you
know, a lot of people would be like, wait
a minute, saved by grace. I'm all good.
Think about what he did, and if he's your master, if he's Lord, yes, I want to be worthy of you and worthy of this sacrifice. Jesus did not die so that we can sin.
He died to free us from its power.
We talked about a response to salvation last week in the form of good works. So sin is going the opposite way. It's the wrong response. And if you've never been to church, you probably know parts of a very famous example here of a of a response, right? That Jesus calls for. So religious leaders, when he comes back to the temple, Jesus is approached by the religious leaders. So these Pharisees, these religious leaders, they bring a woman who's been caught in the act of adultery, right? So that's what we actually know. Put in front of the crowd as a teacher, right? This woman been caught in the act of adultery. The Law of Moses says to stone her, kill her, throw rocks at her till she dies, right? So Jesus stoops down, writes in the dust with his finger. We can talk about his Bible study. Don't distract from the point. Okay, people will talk for hours about this, but, but then, you know, they keep going at it. And he stands up. He says, Alright, but let the One who never sinned throw the first stone. So probably know that. And he stoops out again. He writes in the dust with his finger. So when the accusers heard this, they slip away one by one, right? So I'm a killer. If you're without sin, God do it.
Alright. So the
oldest to youngest, they leave. There's no one there, just Jesus and the woman, John, 810, now here's the part here that we're going to hit, a part where people leave out. And Jesus stood up again, said to the woman, where are your accusers? Don't even one of them condemn you. No, Lord, she
said. And Jesus said, Neither do I
go and sin? No more, no more.
There's an expectation.
Jesus commands a response,
simple as that,
if you feel like it, you.
Nope, sin no more. This
is a picture of how He expects us to respond in saving us. Now, you know you never heard the gospel before I gave you a part he died right to save us. I am saved because I've accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Believed in it, in my heart and in my mind, He is my Lord. He died for me. I believe that. So my response in being saved like this, I'm the woman, right? I'm not a woman, right? I got to break it up with some comedy if it gets hit through so no different sermon. But I'm the woman that sense where he saved me from death, from what I deserve, right? So he says to me, Go and sin no more.
We have choices.
Or Yes, Master, I think if he's your Lord, that's probably the appropriate response.
Now,
clearly Jesus believes that that's possible.
Now let's look
at some of these consequences. I want to dip into something Hebrews 1026, dear friends, if we deliberately continue sinning after we have received knowledge of the truth, there is no longer any sacrifice that will cover these sins. There's only the terrible expectation of God's judgment and the raging fire that will consume his enemies talking about hell for anyone who refused to obey the law of Moses was put to death without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses, just think how much worse the punishment will be for those who have trampled on the Son of God and have treated the blood of the covenant which made us holy, the blood of Christ, as if it were common and unholy, and have insulted and disdain the Holy Spirit brings God's mercy to us. That's interesting. So, like, if you've been in evangelical Christianity for a long time, it's always this contrast, like, the law is impossible to follow, right now, that
kind of thing. Well, here, what's going on? He's
saying, Well, how
much worse?
Grace is better.
That's the idea here. The punishment for abusing grace is far worse,
far worse.
If they did it for the law without Christ's sacrifice, how much more should we be able to do it for our master with what Jesus did for us on the front of our minds. So there's an expectation blameless and we see some very serious consequences for sin we've trampled on Jesus,
insulted, disdain the Holy Spirit,
serious. The Bible tells us to take this very, very seriously. But again, of course, there's a punishment for that.
And notice something,
if we deliberately, if we intentionally so. Disclaimer, we all make mistakes. I am a pastor, and I make mistakes like that. Ask my wife joke again, so she has a list, right? So I make mistakes,
but I don't intentionally make them,
alright? So, you know, the toilet seat, right? So we have, we'll have one that automatically, anyway,
right? I'm not intentionally doing things to aggravate her.
She brings things to my attention, and I fix them trainable. That's what a woman. He's good.
That's what I do.
I got to, like, find out she hates something and do it on purpose. That's evil, that's nasty. Like, no, I'm so sorry. I
feel bad,
right? The Holy Spirit's like, hey, knucklehead.
Other words, sometimes
wake up. She's your wife. You made a commitment or didn't, doesn't matter, but she's beautiful or anything. She's your wife. You made a covenant with her. Serve her. Shut up. You don't have any problems.
Yeah, you're right. Thank
you. Are you being crucified? No, shut up. Serve her work. That's it, right? So, intentional, not intentional, right? So there's a difference. Like, I make mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes. Stub your toe. Say a bad word because you're from New York, right? So that kind of thing, it happens, yes, but when it's brought to your intention, you don't want to do that anymore. Oh, I'm sorry, right? So we talked about consequences a little bit last week. Uh. There are consequences for others, right? So we saw that. They were like, we're kind of in a business sense, right? We're brand ambassadors, right? That's what we are. Now, a lot of you're like, I'm a model, right? So brand ambassador, right? We represent Jesus when we're out there, right? And you're like, and some people like, I'm not a missionary, not an evangelist, right? Like, you've forgotten about the Jesus fish on your car, right? And then you end up cutting people off and then flipping them off and doing all these things, right, sinning, sinning, right? And then they're like, Jesus fish. I don't want to ever become a Christian, because if it makes me like that, no thanks. So he saw that our sin, because those are sins have consequences for other people, right? We misrepresented Jesus.
So sin is not a victimless crime.
Also, you know, if, if you've been here for a while, we have a heart for people in recovery, right? I'll let my wife share her own story in recovery from addiction and things like that. And so if you've been in this church, you know, we, we get in there, we roll our sleeves up, and we treat everyone as equal, and we, we try to serve one another and help others through this problem, where we can right and so, you know, if you've been here at the church for a while, we've experienced loss due to some people sinning, that's really what it is right now, just
because they have they're All welcome here, and again, we're
trying to help them right, gently and humbly, but sometimes they die because that's what addiction does to you. It kills you, and we saw that's not victim Hey, good for you. You're out, but the rest of us here have to grieve. You know,
it's not victimless,
you know, I just, I lost my cousin not too long ago. We weren't very close, so, you know, don't be like, oh, you know. So not very close, closer to my aunt, who is grieving, and he, we
lost him to addiction. He's just a little bit older than me. He's
mine. Killed him.
My aunt's Alright, of course, she lost her son.
She didn't expect that.
The addiction killed him.
So sin had a consequence, not only on him, but on his family. Have younger cousins that are like, how did what? Now you got to explain that to young people. Now here's what a lot of people do, and I've been there, I get it right. So you, you're like, yeah, yeah, but no, you're going to lawyer the pastor, right? And you're going to lawyer the Word of God, and you're going to be like, but that's not me. I don't do that. So now we're comparing sins, right? Oh, that is a dangerous road. No, they all lead to death. They all lead to death, alright, but I don't do that one. That's not me, you know, and my son's not going to cause me to die, or anybody. I
do mine in secret.
What does Jesus say about he's wise. You got to get that picture. It says, I'm watching you a picture of Jesus, right? He's he can see you. He can see you when you're doing some of those things you shouldn't be doing. But you might say, like, if it's secret, it's just between me and the Lord. It's just between me and the Lord. Okay, alright, so there's no misrepresentation here. There's
no package from that.
Again, there's no such thing as a victimless crime in Christianity. The Bible says so first, Corinthians, 316, don't you realize that all of you together are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God lives in you. God will destroy anyone who destroys this temple, for God's temple is holy, and you are that temple first, Corinthians, 619, don't you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in you and was given to you by God. You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body. There's that sacrifice. Again, you should be thinking about high price. You must honor God with your body. All sin is an offense to God. All sin is a defilement of his, not your temple. You did not make yourself. I was like we did not right. So me too, Pastor gene,
I did not make myself.
I belong to God. God made me. I am his workmanship, created anew in Christ, Jesus, if we keep reading that part of Ephesians, right, for the purpose of good works, which God planned long before, right?
I'm not my own,
and I've been bought, redeemed.
The high price of the death of Jesus, God Himself,
sin is squandering that sacrifice.
Now, what a lot of people consider harmless actually has it. Now you will, let's just get practical. Selfish for a minute, right? So if, if, maybe you don't believe, I don't know, maybe you don't believe in Jesus, but if you believe in Jesus right now, and you have your head in your hand, good, right? This is what happens to me too, right? A couple times, holding back tears, right? This is not good, right? But maybe you know, well, let's be selfish, right? Or maybe you don't believe so there's an irony here. The things that we look to for pleasure are actually destroying us. There's an implication in those verses in Corinthians, they're actually destroying us. So drugs and alcohol, right? So that's obvious, right? So anybody, everybody's at least only, even if you don't have a problem with that, you're only, like, one or two people removed from someone who does have a problem. So we can relate to that. We've seen people die. We've lost people. We see the effects, right? Even if you don't, you've seen them, you know, in out in the wilderness, there, the city, you know, right? So you had interaction, you can see what that does. So that's really obvious, right? So, yeah, you're going to get messed up. You start drinking too much, you do too many drugs, you're going to get messed up. We get that. You could die. Definitely, right? Another one, but it's pretty simple, and the Bible does talk a lot about it, and so I will mention it. Just being faithful to God's word. I don't like it because people don't like me when I bring it up, but God's Word brings it up food. What do you learn? First grade, second grade, food pyramid. Don't eat them careful. Like you could cause health problems, right? Then you get to my age, what happens? You know, go to the doctor, and they're like, Ooh, yeah, lose some weight. Why? Well, you, you're a prime candidate for a heart attack. They'll say something like that, diabetes, something like that,
you're killing yourself.
Watch it. And remember, Jesus fasted a lot,
right? But no, we don't want to be like Jesus. Okay, that's your choice. But the doctor told you you're going to die,
you know? And again, this
also has effects on other people, right? So you might be like, whatever. That's nice. So your friends, your spouse, okay? You know sexual things, right? Diseases that you can get from doing that, the emotional harm that you cause other people by using them or supporting that industry. It also affects your prayer life, and we saw that. So go back and watch the messages in this series. The Bible is crystal clear, and I showed you just many we don't time today, but go to First Peter, many verses, even the New Testament, just quoting the old saying that when you're in sin, God's not listening. Husbands treat your wives well, so that your prayers will not be hindered. Read First Peter, that's what it says
over and over and over again,
Old and New Testament, right? So, but think about again. Think about Christ's sacrifice. But think about like, if he's a good father, right? He's not spoiling us, he's disciplining us. And so it's like going to him not doing your chores, and saying, Hey, can
I have my allowance?
No, do your chores.
Then we'll talk kind of what a good father does it just we start thinking of it rightly. It just makes sense. There's so much theology out there just makes no sense. And as we can see, it does not line up with the word of God. And we need more people today saying that it's nonsense. This is the only sense that's it, the only thing that makes sense. And we need to be true to this and stop coming up with all this complicated theology around it, because it's not right. Jesus expects a response to the relationship. It's as simple as that we talked about. This likely, genuine right relationship leads to genuine religion. We saw that it was that's another stupid thing. People say it's not a bad thing. James pure in genuine thre Skia in Greek, it's pure, it's genuine, it's good. And so pure relationship leads to pure religion, you're going to start getting it right now. Here's the thing. As a pastor, you can calculate the condition of someone's heart by how complicated they make the topic of sin. It's as simple as that. Sometimes they do it with theology, sometimes they do it with big words. Sometimes they do it with excuses, all designed to distract from the simple point. Jesus made it real simple. If you love me, you will obey my commandments. Jesus,
that's it. It's as simple as that.
Don't over complicate if we're in a relationship with Jesus, the love and the joy will overshadow any desire to do that stuff. Why? Right? So we're not seeking another relationship if we're in a relationship with Jesus, and yes, it's mutually exclusive, and it should be like a marriage, you should be absolutely committed to Jesus 100%
of course,
I can do that for my wife. Why can't I do that for God, almighty? If we love him, we're fully committed to Him, we're not seeking another relationship. We're not making it complicated. So people weren't like when they're doing all these relationships, right, they'll say, it's complicated. No, it's not. You're just doing what you want. It's pretty simple. It's complicated. So neither is this theology. It's not complicated. Alright, so that's it. Jesus sinning is cheating on Jesus.
That's it. It's that simple.
Remember the tree and the fruit? What Jesus said? Luke, 643, a good tree can't produce bad fruit. A bad tree can't produce good fruit. A tree is identified by its fruit. Figs are never gathered from thorn bushes, and grapes are not picked from Bramble bushes. A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart. So why do you keep calling me Lord, Lord
when you don't do what I say?
So it comes together, doesn't it? Right? There.
Jesus expects and deserves nothing less than our total obedience and our total commitment. Nothing less, and the statement he's making like if you're not obeying me, why are you calling me Lord?
How am I your Lord? Now
there's a scary implication when we read the full context of God's word, if Jesus is not your Lord,
He's not your Savior.
So what is this total commitment look like? Well, last week, you could draw the phrase out of the message, right? Like practice what you preach, you could draw that phrase today. We saw a couple things here. First, John 39 those who have been born into God's family do not make a practice of sinning because God's life is in them, so they can't keep on sinning because they're children of God. First John 518, we know that God's children do not make a practice of sinning, for God's Son holds them securely and the evil one cannot touch them. So we got that there. Remember, so devil didn't make you do it. So have you ever heard the phrase like, practice makes perfect,
right? Practice.
So let's get practical, right? So we'll start with the practical. How well practice. You get real good at whatever you practice, right? So if you know me real well, you know, I guess music, am I going to say I was like, real good. But, you know, after a while, playing guitar became second nature to me. I just didn't think about it at all. I just get up there, and that's why I can sing and play whatever, just it's just automatic. That's what happens when you practice 12 hours a day, right? So it becomes like just second nature, right? Maybe you've done so I did martial arts. You can't be thinking about your moves, right? No time for that. You have to make it second nature. Everybody, pretty much if you're over the age of 16, right? So if you drive, you don't think about it actually, that can get you killed, right? It takes too, too long. You have to just react or respond. Why practice? You just start doing things automatically. Well, sin nature becomes second nature when you practice it a lot.
That's it. Stop
practicing it. So
if you're at the very beginning and you're struggling with Stop, stop practicing it. Alright. But likewise, the practice of not sinning can also become second nature,
simple. Now, to be clear,
no person is good outside of God, right? So this is just kind of us working with God, because clearly Jesus commands something that we do, right? So there's something we have to do, right? So we have to take some part and responsibility in this, right? So, but to be clear with you, we can't save ourselves or save our faith in Jesus Christ by grace, by the grace of God, right? I get that, but the Bible seems to be saying an awful lot about proving it or living a life in him, or showing a response, right? So we can't win this war on our own. It's actually very kind of counterintuitive to us as human beings, because we have so much pride. Right? So
the key here is actually surrendering.
Alright? We have to kind of surrender and let God work in us. That's how the Holy Spirit begins to work. When we get rid of that pride, we say, Okay, I need You, Lord, help me. Help me, and he will. And that's the key here. That's how we receive the Holy Spirit. It's not complicated. It's as simple as surrender. That's it. I give it to you, God and the Holy Spirit wins that war against your flesh. So just to encourage you, you know, look, nobody's perfect. I'm not. Again. I make mistakes. I have to work on things. You know, when they come to my realization, I put them on the list and start working on them immediately and ask for God's help. Like, help me. I want to be better at this. And he does. He's faithful. He really does. But you have to have that desire. So this morning, you know, whatever it is, like, you know, you may be carrying a burden. You may be carrying something. It's just like you keep going to whatever it is, something that maybe has been brought to your attention, but you're still struggling with it, right? So that's my encouragement, my prayer for you. You're invited to give it to God. That's just so many stories here of recovery, where people are like, yeah, Emmanuel, the moment I just put my face on the ground. It was like, take it. Lord, take it. That's when it finally went away, right? And then once we get there, yes, there's a practical process we have to work through with God. So if you feel like you're in a fight, right, that you're always in, you're like, tired, because it's tiring, isn't it? Isn't it tiring, especially sin, it's exhausting because it's, you know, you get that moment of pleasure, whatever it is, right? But then after it the wreckage. Are you tired of the wreckage? Are you tired of the cleanup? Are you just exhausted from wrestling with it? If that's you this morning, alright? So you're invited to give it to God. Get off the hamster wheel of insanity. If that's you this morning and you're tired, you're exhausted. If you want to live in joy, you want to have that freedom. Just be free to not have to hide anything anymore that's making you tired. I want to be myself, alright? I don't want to cover these things up and lie upon lie and I don't even know what the first lie was anymore. It's exhausting. Wanna free up that mental energy. You feel like you're in bondage to something that's you, that's you. This morning, I invite you to come into a genuine relationship with Jesus Christ, who is the only one who can free you from that slavery to sin. We pray for you, Lord. I thank you for this church, for everyone who came in here to hear Your word, knowing that that's what we preach here. And I thank you for everyone's patience and the time and the fact that they stayed, because this is hard, and so Lord, we ask for your help this morning. We're all going through something. We have all sinned. We all have the sin nature in our flesh. So Lord, we just pray. Just take it from us. Take it from us so that we can be holy, we can be worthy of your sacrifice, and we can be vehicles that carry your love, your joy, your peace, your patience, your kindness, your goodness, your faithfulness, your self control out there into the world and have a loving effect on others, bringing glory to You. We ask these things In Jesus's Name. Amen. You.
This message revolves around the concept of sin and its implications in the Christian faith. Pastor Gene emphasizes the importance of understanding the Bible and its teachings to live a life free from sin. We discuss the consequences of intentionally sinning against God. Pastor Gene also highlighted the importance of treating everyone with equality and compassion, and emphasizes that sin has consequences not only on the individual but also on their family and community. We consider the high price of Jesus' death and how sin squanders that sacrifice.
Good morning. If you're new here among us. My name is Gene. I serve here at c3 church as your pastor. In this series, we've talked about watches. I told the story of a little watch aspired to be something greater. Now if you know me, you know I have a real appreciation for timepieces, especially the ones that are not battery powered. They're mechanical. And if you get a real nice one, you can sometimes see through the back, and you see all the gears and movements and all the different things. And it just amazes me, all these tiny, complicated movements, no electricity, nothing else working it, but those movements, it's just incredible to me.
So I heard a story about a clock that wasn't that complicated. In fact, this clock had trouble with the basic functions. This clock found its home in its church, and the problem was well to the congregation that the clock ran slow, and this meant that, well, the preacher would sometimes think that he had a lot more time than he actually did, according to them. So what happened was, behind his back that people in the congregation began to, like, move the hands right so they'd advance it forward and mess around with it. This went on for a long time, trying to get it right. So finally, the preacher notices, and he puts a sign above the clock, and he says, he writes, don't blame the hands. The trouble lies deeper. The same is true of people. The real trouble with people lies deeper than what shows on the surface, and some say it's complicated. We'll see today we find ourselves in our series twisted scriptures. So I talk a lot about the verse of the day, problem fortune cookie theology is kind of what I call it, right, where most Christians are just exposing themselves to the verse of the day that they get fed on the app it comes through. They look at it, they don't know the context, they don't know what it really means, and they apply it to whatever they want to apply it to, right? Like a fortune cookie. So similar. So last week, we looked at doing good that would be evidence of our salvation. It's a good thing. This week, we'll look at doing bad and we're going to go to the book of First John, where we see that our bad deeds also prove something about us, or So says the Bible. So just on this note, we are, I'm going to say a bad word today,
sin. Alright, we're going to,
we're going to talk about that. So just because some of those sins, some things might come out that little ones you might not want them to hear. And if that's the case, you might want to take em over to the kids room and bring em in there, just as a waring. I'm not going to say any real bad words, but, but we're going to talk about some of those sins later on, so the little ones, sensitive ears, just disclaimer. Alright, so here's our verses in question today. Alright. So first, John one eight, if we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living the truth. But if we confess our sins to Him, that is God, in this context, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that His word has no place in our hearts. So you've been in church for a while, you've seen how this is used, probably, hopefully, you've never used it in that way. How people use this is to say they basically, this is, these are the give up verses, the I quit verses, right? So, you know, basically, I can just do whatever I want. Alright, that that's really what it means, greasy grace, we call it, right? So I can do whatever I want at Jesus's expense, alright? So that's kind of how people use this. So we're going to move along in our next series, I'm really going to define, like biblically, all different kinds of sins. For today's purpose, just to make this simple, right? Because people do make this too complicated. So we're going to simplify this a little bit today. So if you're new, you've never been in church, right? So just think sin is anything you know you shouldn't be doing. Let's just keep it really simple, right? If you're a Christian, you read the Bible, okay? You know all these different sins, great. So it's those two, right? If it's simple, 10 Commandments, think about that, right? So things you know inherently you shouldn't be doing, right? So it's not that complicated. So what we're going to do let's look at the verse we've learned this right when you're reading the Bible, sometimes you get your definition, you get your explanation, just by carefully applying our reading comprehension skills, like just to the verse itself. So what we're going to do is we're just going to look at these verses and read them carefully for a moment. Alright? So. Let's put it up again. First John one, eight, if we claim we have no sin, we're only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to Him, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that His word has no place in our heart. So a couple of things are going on here, right? So, a here, right? So I like, what have a whole I have, I have sins in the Greek, that's the word there. So that's that sin nature that we've talked about, that the Holy Spirit's going to war against when he gets in there, right? So we have a sin nature in us. That is the word have in there. Alright? Now the other word, sinned, no matter what version you look at, it all has that past tense. That should be your first clue there, right? Sinned. Past tense. The other thing Jesus, right, He will cleanse us from all wickedness, all wicked. Say he'll cleanse us from some of the wickedness, and then leave some. Nope, cleanse us from all wickedness. So these are the things in this verse right. Now, another great way to get more clarity is to simply keep reading. Now, if you're in your Bible, if you still read a paper Bible, right, and you got what this would take you to would be the bottom of the first chapter of First John. That's where you'd be. And so if you just simply had the energy to turn the page, this is exactly what you would read First John, two one my dear children. I'm writing this to you so that you will not sin, but if anyone does sin, we have an advocate who pleads our case before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who is truly righteous. He Himself is the sacrifice that atones for our sins, and not only our sins, but the sins of all the world, that is those in the world who are in Jesus. So we get to so that statement there so that you won't,
oh, we're getting closer to the point, right?
So if someone does, okay, Jesus sacrificed himself for that person so that we won't sin, right? Let's keep reading First John, two, three, and we can be sure that we know him if we obey His commandments. If someone claims I know God but doesn't obey God's commandments, that person is a liar and not living in the truth. But those who obey God's word truly shall completely they love him. That is how we know we are living in Him. Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did? We looked at that. Remember? We looked at that last week. That was the expectation be like Jesus, right? Now, what'd it say before? Who is the liar? Right? One who says they haven't sinned? Right? They don't have sin. But now, who's the liar? Ah, the ones that claim they know God and don't obey his commandments. Now, there's the liar, right? So we've talked about that obedience. That's really important. We're tying things together here really, really important. Again, the command to be like Jesus. That's a command, by the way. It's not an option, be like Jesus. Now we could have stopped reading there, but this point is so important in the Word of God that if we keep reading first, John two nine. If anyone claims I'm living in the light, but hates a fellow believer, that person is still living in darkness. Anyone who loves a fellow believer is living in the light and does not cause others to stumble, but anyone who hates a fellow believer is still living and walking in darkness. Such a person does not know the way to go, having been blinded by the darkness. So here we go. If anyone claims to be a Christian, right, but hates others, that person's a liar too. They're living in darkness. Those doing good live in life. So this is theme of light and darkness or walking in. If you're reading it in the Greek, it's all walking in, right? So if we continue a couple of themes, I'm just going to kind of paraphrase highlight here, not loving the world. So we saw that theme of the world people, the heavenly people and the worldly people. Warnings about antichrists, plural, there's more than one. Read First John for yourself, right? So this word is very prevalent in First John, so it's a side note, and he's the one who mentions antichrists, right? Anyone who doesn't believe in Jesus, essentially as an antichrist. So we'll keep reading, if we turn the page again, people who belong to the world. Another theme. And then First John, three, four, everyone who sins is breaking God's law, for all sin is contrary to the law of God. And you know that Jesus came to take away our sins, and there is no sin in him. Anyone who continues to live in him will not sin, but anyone who keeps on sinning does not know him or understand who he is. Dear children, don't let anyone deceive you about this. When people do what is right, it shows that they are righteous, even as Christ is righteous. When people keep on sinning, it shows that they belong to the devil who has been sinning so. This the beginning, but the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil. Those who have been born into God's family do not make a practice of sinning because God's life is in them. So they can't keep on sinning because they are children of God. So now we can tell who are children of God and who are children of the devil. Anyone who does not live righteously and does not love other believers. Does not belong to God. Quick note, if you're new, I'm just reading the Bible. That's all I'm doing. So Jesus came to take away our sins, to die for us, so that we would not do those things anymore. Anyone in him will not. It says they can't. It's good translation, by the way, right? We don't do this at
his expense,
right? So it's a very strong statement. If that wasn't enough, those who do again reading the Word of God are children of the devil. So sin proves who we serve. Who we serve is who we actually worship. So doesn't get easier. Talks about turn the page again. I know that's going to be hard. Now, people of the world, they belong to the devil, and it talks about loving one another. Then first John 420 if someone says, I love God but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar. For if we don't love people we can see, how can we love God whom we cannot see? And he's given us this command, those who love God must also love their fellow believers, bringing unity to the church here. But I would say everyone right? If we put it all together, we read Romans 12. Everybody, right? Jesus says that too. So similar. It sounds like it's like, oh, wait, didn't we read that before? Yeah, it's redundant. He's saying it twice now, same thing. If you love God, you obey Him. Heavy lifting. Turn the page. First, John five, one. Anyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has become a child of God, and anyone who loves the Father loves his children too. We know that we love God's children if we love God and obey his commandments, loving God means keeping His commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome, for every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve victory through our faith. And who can win this battle against the world, only those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God. So you see this theme here, right? This battle against the world, not flesh and blood enemies, right? Ephesians, but the spiritual battle here. Christians are known to be Christians because they obey God. That's how we can tell right?
They will know us by our
love, right? It's not hypocrisy. So again, we know who people are by who they truly serve. If we keep reading, there's an acknowledgement about people who do sin, and it says, help them. And we talked about this in context, right? Who's going to help? Let the leadership take care of it. If it's heavy stuff, right? Don't be judgy. Judgy. Better to have a mirror than a picket sign. That's what I always say, right? So again, but we can help them so it happens, right? And in case we wanted to run with the mistakes, right? Case, want to say, Ah, see, can we make mistakes? We want to run with that. Well, first, John, 518, we know that God's children do not make a practice of sinning, for God's Son holds them securely, and the evil one cannot touch them. We know that we are children of God and that the world around us is under the control of the evil ones. We've talked about that before, and we know that the Son of God has come, and He has given us understanding so we can know the true God. And now we live in fellowship with the true God, because we live in fellowship of the Son, Jesus, Christ is the only true God and His eternal life, dear children, keep away anything that might take God's place in your heart. So just a quick note here, because I've talked about it in the past. Like, every once in a while you get this, like teaching that takes like something and runs a little too far with it and develops some bad theology around it. And so today they call it the deliverance ministry. Basically, the devil made me do it, right? So we look at Second Corinthians For some answers. There we saw that if you're a Christian, you cannot be demon possessed. That's you cannot, okay, the Bible says that. But here's another proof verse here, right? We know they're good children. We do not make a practice of sinning, for God's Son holds him securely, and the evil one cannot touch them cannot, right? So the devil didn't make you do it if you're a Christian. So if the devil made you do it, maybe you're not a Christian. That's the problem with that whole theology there. Alright, so God's children do not make a practice of sinning. So best way to get our answers is to keep reading the Word of God. And so now, do those verses that we looked at that people twist? Does that meaning look as ridiculous as it actually should be to those who obey the command to read the Word of God? Someone say, Yes, ridiculous or. Ridiculous. I don't know how many times it didn't count, right? Unbelievably redundant. So there are some similar verses throughout the Bible that people do the same thing with, right?
But what happens is,
you get the same conclusion and result, no matter where they are like so if you take, for example, Paul's statement in First Timothy, things like that. If you keep reading, the same thing happens. I want to take you to one other place because it's really, really common and popular. It's another kind of give up verse or a couple sections, one can be very hard to understand. So what I'm going to do is, I'm just going to give you kind of the simple meaning of Romans or so if you've been in church for a long time. Yeah, I know there's more to it than that, but let's just back up for a second and just kind of get the simple meaning here. So Paul writes Romans, said this before. He's not sitting around and like saying something like, let me write the greatest theological work ever written, you know. So that's not really like what he's trying to do there. So what you have is a situation, if you read Acts like acts 18, the Jews are expelled from Rome by Claudius the amber, right? And then they come back later, but they come back to a church that isn't very Jewish. So if you know about the faith, right? So Jesus and the apostles, they're Jewish. They're coming. He's the Jewish Messiah, right? But then it opens up to the Gentiles too, right? Make disciples of all ethnic all nations, everybody now, right? So, but in the beginning, they're struggling with that a lot, and especially in Rome, because of the situation that's happened. The Jews leave, the Jews come back. But the Gentiles are like, Whoa, you're not doing Gentile Jewish things in the church. So what Paul's thinking is, the pattern that follows is get along, right? So you Jewish people, like, I know you had the law of Moses, whatever, if you want to follow it, that's fine. We're not saved by it, but that doesn't make you better. They're being like Pharisees, as we call them, in church, right? So those really legalistic people that come into church and pretend they don't have problems and judge everybody else, right? So they're kind of like that. The Gentiles are like, Huh? You know, like, Gracie grace. I can do whatever I want. I don't have the law. I don't have to do that. I don't have to get circumcised. That's great. So like that. So they have this problem, right there. There's these two kind of, like, social classes, perhaps ethnic, you know, if you're thinking in that regard, Jewish people. So Paul starts out, and the point in chapter one is, alright, look, the Gentiles, even though they don't have the law or any of that other stuff, they know what's right and wrong, like I said at the beginning of the message, right? You inherently should know just by look, look around you. Look at everything God created. It's nature. So he starts going into things that are unnatural, right, you know? And he starts kind of poking at that like this is unnatural. When people do something that's unnatural, they know they should know it's wrong. It's kind of like this. He has the gentiles on one side, the Jews on the other side, and then so the Jews are like this. And so he turns to them, and you're Jews, if you know so much, teach yourself, right? So that's chapter two. We get to chapter three, and we get to our key verse, right? Romans, 323, for everyone has sinned, we all fall short of God's glorious standard, okay, but now that you kind of basically understand he's leveling the playing field. That's the point of that verse. That's the context of that verse is that, look, you're all sinners, right? That's it. Stop going at one another, right? So again, I want you to notice something about the verse, though, for everyone has sinned. Do you notice that past tense again? Yeah. Alright. So now next section we're going to get to, if we just kind of hop over a little bit. So you know, he'll he's a little confusing because four, he talks about Abraham, but he's just making the point like he was, he was counted righteous by God before the law of Moses. So he's kind of still hammering on the Jewish people there, right? So chapter five, Adam and Christ contrasted. We'll get to six. I'm going to jump over to seven. And when you get to seven, you might have, like, a chapter heading in in your Bible that isn't in the original. So they're not there. So all those bold chapter headings, they don't exist. Neither do the numbers and the original. And so you'll see different ones if you look at different Bible type, and some will say struggling with sin.
And I hate that,
and we'll see why. But anyway, you may say struggling with sin, or you may have had a pastor, somebody teach on this, or a Bible study, something like that. Someone who shouldn't been doing the Bible study might have said, This is how we struggle with sin. Romans, now I want you to remember Paul is dictating, right? It's hurt. Yes, he's dictating. So this is Paul's voice right here, of course, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans, 714, so the trouble is not with the law for the spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I'm all too human, a slave to sin. I don't really understand myself. For I want to do it is right, but I don't do it instead. I do what I hate, but if I know what I'm doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good, so I'm not the one doing wrong. It is sin living in Me that does it okay. Key phrase to back pocket, slave to sin. Just put that in your back pocket for a second. But already, if you. Know the Bible, if you were here last week and paying attention, this should sound really weird. Coming from Paul, really weird. It just should not sound right at all. Right. Remember, Paul wasn't a slave to sin. Paul was a slave of Christ. Remember Philippians? There's a big difference. Christ is not he's slave of Christ can't be you can't serve two masters. So what's going He also described himself as
blameless, blameless.
What's happening here, right? So, weird, brief summary. He continues on this theme, right? I want to do what is right, but I can't. I want to do it is good, but I don't right. So I don't want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. She goes through this right? But wait. I thought that Christians can't keep sinning. Isn't that what John said? But he keeps going. And what I want to do, I inevitably do what is wrong all the time. This power makes me. He says it again, slave to sin that is still within me. Oh, what a measurable person I am. Now at this point, if you know Paul 13 books of the New Testament. It's like this doesn't sound like Paul at all. Like this is insanity. This is really weird, right? Remember Philippians? Rejoice always. What a miserable person I am. I know he had anxiety over the churches we talked about that. Yeah, he had some anxiety, but not a miserable person. Rejoice, always. Joy, Joy. Remember the theme in Philippians. Okay? So in order to understand what's going on here, you have to actually, well, we'll look at in a minute. You actually have to read all of Romans. Imagine that. So read Romans,
you kind of get it, but
it's a literary device called, we understand rhetoric, right? You hear a lot of rhetoric, so a lot of people think like that's when someone really exaggerates something, but they don't mean it. Yeah, and there's different rhetorical devices we talk about hyperbole, right? So one of them is called prosopia, prosopisa. It's literally two Greek words that mean to make a face. That's what it means. So it's like putting on a mask. Okay? So this is what Paul's doing here, right? It's rhetoric. So Paul, for a moment, takes, takes chapter seven of those chapters, and he goes and he puts on a mask of Adam. Context chapter five, Adam and Christ contrasted. So that's what he's doing here. So he's contrasting Christ and Adam. So now he's got the Adam mask on, right? So he's mocking him. So there's no contradiction. There's just a contrast that he's trying to create. Now we really figure this out if we had read from the beginning. So if we got a running start and we got up to chapter six, we would have seen this now. So remember what he just said? Remember the back pocket? Take it out. Slave to sin. Miserable person. I'm always doing wrong. Okay? One chapter before Romans, six, one well, then should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? May it never be, of course not. Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? Okay? So should we keep on abusing God? No, not at all. Of course not. We've died to sin. If we hop down to verse six, Romans, six, six, we know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ, we were set free from the power of sin. He's getting pretty redundant, right? So here we should have known going into chapter seven that we are not slaves to sin. So Paul must be talking about someone else, because the chapter before that, Adam, alright, it has no power over us. We hop down. Romans, 611 so you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ, Jesus. Do not let sin control the way you live. Do not give in to your sinful desire. Sounds like a different guy here, right? Really clear, like First John. All right, Romans, 617, thank God. Once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we have given you. Now you are free from your slavery to sin. You've become slaves to righteous living because of the weakness of your human nature. I'm using the illustration of slavery to help you understand all this. Previously you let yourselves be slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led even deeper into sin. Now you must give yourselves to be slaves to righteous living so that you'll become holy. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the obligation to do right. And what was the result? You're not ashamed of the things you used to do, things that end in eternal doom, but now you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves to God. Now you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. So there's that past tense again. And several times. So then what happens is, if we were reading it straight through, we get to that chapter seven thing I wrote you read you that people twist. That's where that would be alright, just so you don't run with it. Paul made sure he end capped it right. So he's going to make the point again in chapter. So after he does the mockery of Adam. He wants to make sure you know that this is not the way you should live. Romans, 81 so now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ, Jesus, and because you belong to him, the power of the life giving spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death. The Law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own son in a body like the bodies we sinners have, and in that body, God declared an end to sins control over us by giving his son as a sacrifice for our sins. He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us who no longer follow our sinful nature, but instead follow the Spirit. Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the spirit. So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death, but letting the spirit control your mind lives to life and peace. For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God's laws, and it never will. That's why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God. But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit. If you have the Spirit of God living in you, and remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to God at all, or him, and Christ lives within you. So even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you've been made right with God. The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ, Jesus from the dead, He will give life to your mortal bodies by the same Spirit living within you. Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do. For if you'll live by its dictates, you will die. But after the power of the Holy Spirit, you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God, but we saw we have that sin, yes, and I'm just reading the Bible, right? So those words are a little better than mine, just to let you know, right? We have a sinful nature. But it's crystal clear here, isn't it, Jesus not only dies to cover our sins, but also Jesus dies to put an end to that. Sins control over us.
If we're in Him,
we follow the Holy Spirit, right? So that's what he's saying here. Like, if
you don't have the Holy Spirit in you, you're not saved. Like, that's kind of a problem. So if you have him in you, well he'll correct that, right? So this destroys that Romans seven argument that Paul struggles with sin.
I don't think so, right?
Adam sin nature, that's what that's about. But the Holy Spirit's The key here. That's how we get it done, right? So we talked about it again. Sin nature versus the Holy Spirit. They're at odds with one another, and we can tell if someone has it right. We can tell who we worship by who we're serving, the sin nature or
the Holy Spirit, right? Now,
there are other places, like First John Romans, but again, like I said before, you are you will always achieve the same result by being true to the Word of God. Just by reading what it says, it will give you the answer. It's right there. Alright, so there's no contradictions here. So now the question comes to mind for a lot of people. They get to this and they go, is it possible to live a life free from sin?
Is that possible? Well,
we saw the Bible clearly calls for it.
And again, we saw last week called Paul called himself and mentioned it today, blameless. That's kind of interesting, right? According to the law without fault. And we saw that's really, really hard to do, really hard. So we're not under the Law of Moses, right, but the New Testament is calling us to live blamelessly. And we saw that. So just to look back again, Philippians 110 for I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ's return, may you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation, the righteous character produced in you in your life by Jesus Christ, for this will bring much glory and praise to God. So we have. Other sub that statement, you'll live blameless lives, showing the fruit of your salvation, which is what righteous character, and it's not the only place. So remember John the Baptist, right? Repent and prove it, he says to the Pharisees, right? Well, his parents were described the same way, Luke one five. When Herod was king of Judea, there was a Jewish priest named Zechariah. He was a member so this is John the Baptist. He was a member of the priestly order of Abijah. And his wife Elizabeth was also from the priestly line of Aaron. Zechariah and Elizabeth were righteous in God's eyes, careful to obey in Greek, it says living blamelessly according to all of the Lord's commandments and regulations. Okay? So we see in the New Testament that there are people living blamelessly. And then we saw the calls to do it were crystal clear in first John and Romans, be like Jesus. Remember, if we keep reading in Philippians, we saw that that's what chapter two is really all about. Make your own attitude that of Christ, Jesus, right, look out for the interest of other people, not just your own. Be like him. Be sacrificial. And he given in First Peter, we saw that he's our example. First Peter, 221, for God called you to do good, even if it means suffering. Jesus, Christ suffered for you. He is your example, and you must follow in his steps. He never sinned nor deceived anyone.
So there's an expectation. Jesus never sinned,
follow his example
again and again and again.
And I would call this an appropriate response to what Jesus did for us. If you've been a Christian church for a long time, perhaps a lot of Christians have been become numb to what Jesus has done. But when you keep this here, the Holy Spirit keeps this at the front of your mind, like, yeah, he died an excruciating death on a cross for you.
How should we respond to that?
Well, Bible tells us, right? Philippians 127 above all, you must live as citizens of heaven, conducting yourselves in a manner worthy of the good news about Christ. Again says, There it is, must live as citizens of heaven, not of the world,
serving Christ in a manner worthy.
Did you notice? Did you see that we must live in a manner worthy of what he did. Well, you
know, a lot of people would be like, wait
a minute, saved by grace. I'm all good.
Think about what he did, and if he's your master, if he's Lord, yes, I want to be worthy of you and worthy of this sacrifice. Jesus did not die so that we can sin.
He died to free us from its power.
We talked about a response to salvation last week in the form of good works. So sin is going the opposite way. It's the wrong response. And if you've never been to church, you probably know parts of a very famous example here of a of a response, right? That Jesus calls for. So religious leaders, when he comes back to the temple, Jesus is approached by the religious leaders. So these Pharisees, these religious leaders, they bring a woman who's been caught in the act of adultery, right? So that's what we actually know. Put in front of the crowd as a teacher, right? This woman been caught in the act of adultery. The Law of Moses says to stone her, kill her, throw rocks at her till she dies, right? So Jesus stoops down, writes in the dust with his finger. We can talk about his Bible study. Don't distract from the point. Okay, people will talk for hours about this, but, but then, you know, they keep going at it. And he stands up. He says, Alright, but let the One who never sinned throw the first stone. So probably know that. And he stoops out again. He writes in the dust with his finger. So when the accusers heard this, they slip away one by one, right? So I'm a killer. If you're without sin, God do it.
Alright. So the
oldest to youngest, they leave. There's no one there, just Jesus and the woman, John, 810, now here's the part here that we're going to hit, a part where people leave out. And Jesus stood up again, said to the woman, where are your accusers? Don't even one of them condemn you. No, Lord, she
said. And Jesus said, Neither do I
go and sin? No more, no more.
There's an expectation.
Jesus commands a response,
simple as that,
if you feel like it, you.
Nope, sin no more. This
is a picture of how He expects us to respond in saving us. Now, you know you never heard the gospel before I gave you a part he died right to save us. I am saved because I've accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Believed in it, in my heart and in my mind, He is my Lord. He died for me. I believe that. So my response in being saved like this, I'm the woman, right? I'm not a woman, right? I got to break it up with some comedy if it gets hit through so no different sermon. But I'm the woman that sense where he saved me from death, from what I deserve, right? So he says to me, Go and sin no more.
We have choices.
Or Yes, Master, I think if he's your Lord, that's probably the appropriate response.
Now,
clearly Jesus believes that that's possible.
Now let's look
at some of these consequences. I want to dip into something Hebrews 1026, dear friends, if we deliberately continue sinning after we have received knowledge of the truth, there is no longer any sacrifice that will cover these sins. There's only the terrible expectation of God's judgment and the raging fire that will consume his enemies talking about hell for anyone who refused to obey the law of Moses was put to death without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses, just think how much worse the punishment will be for those who have trampled on the Son of God and have treated the blood of the covenant which made us holy, the blood of Christ, as if it were common and unholy, and have insulted and disdain the Holy Spirit brings God's mercy to us. That's interesting. So, like, if you've been in evangelical Christianity for a long time, it's always this contrast, like, the law is impossible to follow, right now, that
kind of thing. Well, here, what's going on? He's
saying, Well, how
much worse?
Grace is better.
That's the idea here. The punishment for abusing grace is far worse,
far worse.
If they did it for the law without Christ's sacrifice, how much more should we be able to do it for our master with what Jesus did for us on the front of our minds. So there's an expectation blameless and we see some very serious consequences for sin we've trampled on Jesus,
insulted, disdain the Holy Spirit,
serious. The Bible tells us to take this very, very seriously. But again, of course, there's a punishment for that.
And notice something,
if we deliberately, if we intentionally so. Disclaimer, we all make mistakes. I am a pastor, and I make mistakes like that. Ask my wife joke again, so she has a list, right? So I make mistakes,
but I don't intentionally make them,
alright? So, you know, the toilet seat, right? So we have, we'll have one that automatically, anyway,
right? I'm not intentionally doing things to aggravate her.
She brings things to my attention, and I fix them trainable. That's what a woman. He's good.
That's what I do.
I got to, like, find out she hates something and do it on purpose. That's evil, that's nasty. Like, no, I'm so sorry. I
feel bad,
right? The Holy Spirit's like, hey, knucklehead.
Other words, sometimes
wake up. She's your wife. You made a commitment or didn't, doesn't matter, but she's beautiful or anything. She's your wife. You made a covenant with her. Serve her. Shut up. You don't have any problems.
Yeah, you're right. Thank
you. Are you being crucified? No, shut up. Serve her work. That's it, right? So, intentional, not intentional, right? So there's a difference. Like, I make mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes. Stub your toe. Say a bad word because you're from New York, right? So that kind of thing, it happens, yes, but when it's brought to your intention, you don't want to do that anymore. Oh, I'm sorry, right? So we talked about consequences a little bit last week. Uh. There are consequences for others, right? So we saw that. They were like, we're kind of in a business sense, right? We're brand ambassadors, right? That's what we are. Now, a lot of you're like, I'm a model, right? So brand ambassador, right? We represent Jesus when we're out there, right? And you're like, and some people like, I'm not a missionary, not an evangelist, right? Like, you've forgotten about the Jesus fish on your car, right? And then you end up cutting people off and then flipping them off and doing all these things, right, sinning, sinning, right? And then they're like, Jesus fish. I don't want to ever become a Christian, because if it makes me like that, no thanks. So he saw that our sin, because those are sins have consequences for other people, right? We misrepresented Jesus.
So sin is not a victimless crime.
Also, you know, if, if you've been here for a while, we have a heart for people in recovery, right? I'll let my wife share her own story in recovery from addiction and things like that. And so if you've been in this church, you know, we, we get in there, we roll our sleeves up, and we treat everyone as equal, and we, we try to serve one another and help others through this problem, where we can right and so, you know, if you've been here at the church for a while, we've experienced loss due to some people sinning, that's really what it is right now, just
because they have they're All welcome here, and again, we're
trying to help them right, gently and humbly, but sometimes they die because that's what addiction does to you. It kills you, and we saw that's not victim Hey, good for you. You're out, but the rest of us here have to grieve. You know,
it's not victimless,
you know, I just, I lost my cousin not too long ago. We weren't very close, so, you know, don't be like, oh, you know. So not very close, closer to my aunt, who is grieving, and he, we
lost him to addiction. He's just a little bit older than me. He's
mine. Killed him.
My aunt's Alright, of course, she lost her son.
She didn't expect that.
The addiction killed him.
So sin had a consequence, not only on him, but on his family. Have younger cousins that are like, how did what? Now you got to explain that to young people. Now here's what a lot of people do, and I've been there, I get it right. So you, you're like, yeah, yeah, but no, you're going to lawyer the pastor, right? And you're going to lawyer the Word of God, and you're going to be like, but that's not me. I don't do that. So now we're comparing sins, right? Oh, that is a dangerous road. No, they all lead to death. They all lead to death, alright, but I don't do that one. That's not me, you know, and my son's not going to cause me to die, or anybody. I
do mine in secret.
What does Jesus say about he's wise. You got to get that picture. It says, I'm watching you a picture of Jesus, right? He's he can see you. He can see you when you're doing some of those things you shouldn't be doing. But you might say, like, if it's secret, it's just between me and the Lord. It's just between me and the Lord. Okay, alright, so there's no misrepresentation here. There's
no package from that.
Again, there's no such thing as a victimless crime in Christianity. The Bible says so first, Corinthians, 316, don't you realize that all of you together are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God lives in you. God will destroy anyone who destroys this temple, for God's temple is holy, and you are that temple first, Corinthians, 619, don't you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who lives in you and was given to you by God. You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body. There's that sacrifice. Again, you should be thinking about high price. You must honor God with your body. All sin is an offense to God. All sin is a defilement of his, not your temple. You did not make yourself. I was like we did not right. So me too, Pastor gene,
I did not make myself.
I belong to God. God made me. I am his workmanship, created anew in Christ, Jesus, if we keep reading that part of Ephesians, right, for the purpose of good works, which God planned long before, right?
I'm not my own,
and I've been bought, redeemed.
The high price of the death of Jesus, God Himself,
sin is squandering that sacrifice.
Now, what a lot of people consider harmless actually has it. Now you will, let's just get practical. Selfish for a minute, right? So if, if, maybe you don't believe, I don't know, maybe you don't believe in Jesus, but if you believe in Jesus right now, and you have your head in your hand, good, right? This is what happens to me too, right? A couple times, holding back tears, right? This is not good, right? But maybe you know, well, let's be selfish, right? Or maybe you don't believe so there's an irony here. The things that we look to for pleasure are actually destroying us. There's an implication in those verses in Corinthians, they're actually destroying us. So drugs and alcohol, right? So that's obvious, right? So anybody, everybody's at least only, even if you don't have a problem with that, you're only, like, one or two people removed from someone who does have a problem. So we can relate to that. We've seen people die. We've lost people. We see the effects, right? Even if you don't, you've seen them, you know, in out in the wilderness, there, the city, you know, right? So you had interaction, you can see what that does. So that's really obvious, right? So, yeah, you're going to get messed up. You start drinking too much, you do too many drugs, you're going to get messed up. We get that. You could die. Definitely, right? Another one, but it's pretty simple, and the Bible does talk a lot about it, and so I will mention it. Just being faithful to God's word. I don't like it because people don't like me when I bring it up, but God's Word brings it up food. What do you learn? First grade, second grade, food pyramid. Don't eat them careful. Like you could cause health problems, right? Then you get to my age, what happens? You know, go to the doctor, and they're like, Ooh, yeah, lose some weight. Why? Well, you, you're a prime candidate for a heart attack. They'll say something like that, diabetes, something like that,
you're killing yourself.
Watch it. And remember, Jesus fasted a lot,
right? But no, we don't want to be like Jesus. Okay, that's your choice. But the doctor told you you're going to die,
you know? And again, this
also has effects on other people, right? So you might be like, whatever. That's nice. So your friends, your spouse, okay? You know sexual things, right? Diseases that you can get from doing that, the emotional harm that you cause other people by using them or supporting that industry. It also affects your prayer life, and we saw that. So go back and watch the messages in this series. The Bible is crystal clear, and I showed you just many we don't time today, but go to First Peter, many verses, even the New Testament, just quoting the old saying that when you're in sin, God's not listening. Husbands treat your wives well, so that your prayers will not be hindered. Read First Peter, that's what it says
over and over and over again,
Old and New Testament, right? So, but think about again. Think about Christ's sacrifice. But think about like, if he's a good father, right? He's not spoiling us, he's disciplining us. And so it's like going to him not doing your chores, and saying, Hey, can
I have my allowance?
No, do your chores.
Then we'll talk kind of what a good father does it just we start thinking of it rightly. It just makes sense. There's so much theology out there just makes no sense. And as we can see, it does not line up with the word of God. And we need more people today saying that it's nonsense. This is the only sense that's it, the only thing that makes sense. And we need to be true to this and stop coming up with all this complicated theology around it, because it's not right. Jesus expects a response to the relationship. It's as simple as that we talked about. This likely, genuine right relationship leads to genuine religion. We saw that it was that's another stupid thing. People say it's not a bad thing. James pure in genuine thre Skia in Greek, it's pure, it's genuine, it's good. And so pure relationship leads to pure religion, you're going to start getting it right now. Here's the thing. As a pastor, you can calculate the condition of someone's heart by how complicated they make the topic of sin. It's as simple as that. Sometimes they do it with theology, sometimes they do it with big words. Sometimes they do it with excuses, all designed to distract from the simple point. Jesus made it real simple. If you love me, you will obey my commandments. Jesus,
that's it. It's as simple as that.
Don't over complicate if we're in a relationship with Jesus, the love and the joy will overshadow any desire to do that stuff. Why? Right? So we're not seeking another relationship if we're in a relationship with Jesus, and yes, it's mutually exclusive, and it should be like a marriage, you should be absolutely committed to Jesus 100%
of course,
I can do that for my wife. Why can't I do that for God, almighty? If we love him, we're fully committed to Him, we're not seeking another relationship. We're not making it complicated. So people weren't like when they're doing all these relationships, right, they'll say, it's complicated. No, it's not. You're just doing what you want. It's pretty simple. It's complicated. So neither is this theology. It's not complicated. Alright, so that's it. Jesus sinning is cheating on Jesus.
That's it. It's that simple.
Remember the tree and the fruit? What Jesus said? Luke, 643, a good tree can't produce bad fruit. A bad tree can't produce good fruit. A tree is identified by its fruit. Figs are never gathered from thorn bushes, and grapes are not picked from Bramble bushes. A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart. So why do you keep calling me Lord, Lord
when you don't do what I say?
So it comes together, doesn't it? Right? There.
Jesus expects and deserves nothing less than our total obedience and our total commitment. Nothing less, and the statement he's making like if you're not obeying me, why are you calling me Lord?
How am I your Lord? Now
there's a scary implication when we read the full context of God's word, if Jesus is not your Lord,
He's not your Savior.
So what is this total commitment look like? Well, last week, you could draw the phrase out of the message, right? Like practice what you preach, you could draw that phrase today. We saw a couple things here. First, John 39 those who have been born into God's family do not make a practice of sinning because God's life is in them, so they can't keep on sinning because they're children of God. First John 518, we know that God's children do not make a practice of sinning, for God's Son holds them securely and the evil one cannot touch them. So we got that there. Remember, so devil didn't make you do it. So have you ever heard the phrase like, practice makes perfect,
right? Practice.
So let's get practical, right? So we'll start with the practical. How well practice. You get real good at whatever you practice, right? So if you know me real well, you know, I guess music, am I going to say I was like, real good. But, you know, after a while, playing guitar became second nature to me. I just didn't think about it at all. I just get up there, and that's why I can sing and play whatever, just it's just automatic. That's what happens when you practice 12 hours a day, right? So it becomes like just second nature, right? Maybe you've done so I did martial arts. You can't be thinking about your moves, right? No time for that. You have to make it second nature. Everybody, pretty much if you're over the age of 16, right? So if you drive, you don't think about it actually, that can get you killed, right? It takes too, too long. You have to just react or respond. Why practice? You just start doing things automatically. Well, sin nature becomes second nature when you practice it a lot.
That's it. Stop
practicing it. So
if you're at the very beginning and you're struggling with Stop, stop practicing it. Alright. But likewise, the practice of not sinning can also become second nature,
simple. Now, to be clear,
no person is good outside of God, right? So this is just kind of us working with God, because clearly Jesus commands something that we do, right? So there's something we have to do, right? So we have to take some part and responsibility in this, right? So, but to be clear with you, we can't save ourselves or save our faith in Jesus Christ by grace, by the grace of God, right? I get that, but the Bible seems to be saying an awful lot about proving it or living a life in him, or showing a response, right? So we can't win this war on our own. It's actually very kind of counterintuitive to us as human beings, because we have so much pride. Right? So
the key here is actually surrendering.
Alright? We have to kind of surrender and let God work in us. That's how the Holy Spirit begins to work. When we get rid of that pride, we say, Okay, I need You, Lord, help me. Help me, and he will. And that's the key here. That's how we receive the Holy Spirit. It's not complicated. It's as simple as surrender. That's it. I give it to you, God and the Holy Spirit wins that war against your flesh. So just to encourage you, you know, look, nobody's perfect. I'm not. Again. I make mistakes. I have to work on things. You know, when they come to my realization, I put them on the list and start working on them immediately and ask for God's help. Like, help me. I want to be better at this. And he does. He's faithful. He really does. But you have to have that desire. So this morning, you know, whatever it is, like, you know, you may be carrying a burden. You may be carrying something. It's just like you keep going to whatever it is, something that maybe has been brought to your attention, but you're still struggling with it, right? So that's my encouragement, my prayer for you. You're invited to give it to God. That's just so many stories here of recovery, where people are like, yeah, Emmanuel, the moment I just put my face on the ground. It was like, take it. Lord, take it. That's when it finally went away, right? And then once we get there, yes, there's a practical process we have to work through with God. So if you feel like you're in a fight, right, that you're always in, you're like, tired, because it's tiring, isn't it? Isn't it tiring, especially sin, it's exhausting because it's, you know, you get that moment of pleasure, whatever it is, right? But then after it the wreckage. Are you tired of the wreckage? Are you tired of the cleanup? Are you just exhausted from wrestling with it? If that's you this morning, alright? So you're invited to give it to God. Get off the hamster wheel of insanity. If that's you this morning and you're tired, you're exhausted. If you want to live in joy, you want to have that freedom. Just be free to not have to hide anything anymore that's making you tired. I want to be myself, alright? I don't want to cover these things up and lie upon lie and I don't even know what the first lie was anymore. It's exhausting. Wanna free up that mental energy. You feel like you're in bondage to something that's you, that's you. This morning, I invite you to come into a genuine relationship with Jesus Christ, who is the only one who can free you from that slavery to sin. We pray for you, Lord. I thank you for this church, for everyone who came in here to hear Your word, knowing that that's what we preach here. And I thank you for everyone's patience and the time and the fact that they stayed, because this is hard, and so Lord, we ask for your help this morning. We're all going through something. We have all sinned. We all have the sin nature in our flesh. So Lord, we just pray. Just take it from us. Take it from us so that we can be holy, we can be worthy of your sacrifice, and we can be vehicles that carry your love, your joy, your peace, your patience, your kindness, your goodness, your faithfulness, your self control out there into the world and have a loving effect on others, bringing glory to You. We ask these things In Jesus's Name. Amen. You.