The Problem of Sin

Before I begin what I have prepared, I feel like in praying, the Lord has given me a few things to start out by saying.

Number one, I felt strongly that someone needs to be reminded of God's words in your life, that God has specifically spoken to some of you concerning lifestyle decisions, and God is.

Pleading with you to heed his words concerning your lifestyle.

And number two, a reminder for all of us that we don't get so caught up in the doing that we miss him, because nothing is worth missing out on his presence and what he has in store for us. So if that means you just need to breathe it in tonight or just rest, then do that. Because no amount of doing can fix anything. Only he can.

All right, I want to preface this message by saying this was an extremely difficult message to. Right. It's something that the Lord has really been dealing with me for the past year or so and has been downloading to me since kids camp to formulate into a message to preach. And just for the sake of clarity, it's. It's a heavy one, you guys.

And I don't say that with any pleasure.

In fact, my prayer is that no one would feel crushed in this message because I can tell you, walking through it was no easy feat, and it has given me a lot of compassion in preaching it. But I will make two statements. One, I will not rescue you from. Rescue you from the conviction of the Holy Spirit. More like rob you.

I won't do that because his conviction is a very good thing and it will lead you to life and transformation.

And the second statement I will make is his own words that though he wounds us, he also heals us, though he inflicts us, he will bind us up again. So even in the heaviness you may feel tonight, if this applies to you, don't be crushed, because he does so with intention to bring healing into your life.

So be encouraged today that there is hope that he won't leave you too heavy. Okay, so I'll try to start out a little light, and then we'll work our way into it. I'm a big movie guy, so we'll start with a movie reference. Has anybody here seen the Matrix film series? The Matrix, okay.

It's one of the top grossing trilogies of all time. But if you've never seen it, I'll give a brief overview in the first film. And it opens up in the year 1999, and we're introduced to the main character, Thomas Anderson, aka Neo, who is a computer programmer by day and a hacker by night. And Neo constantly feels like he's out of touch with his reality, but the truth is so much deeper than he can ever imagine. That truth being that his whole reality is actually a computer simulation created by artificial intelligence who has achieved global domination over the Earth.

And the true reality is that he is mentally imprisoned in this simulation, but physically imprisoned in this type of pod being used as a battery to power this robot dominated world.

So we'll return to that movie reference later on, but I want you to keep that in mind as we progress through this sermon tonight. We're going to start with some scripture in the beginning, almost Genesis chapter two, starting in verse 16. And then we're going to jump to Genesis chapter three. And the Lord commanded the the man saying, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.

Jumping to Genesis chapter three, verse one. Now, the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that God had made. He said to the woman, did God actually say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden. Neither shall you touch it, lest you die.

But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. And she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin cloths. All right, so if at this point in the sermon you're like, what are we talking about?

We've read some scripture and you've given a movie reference, I'm gonna tell you tonight, we're gonna talk about sin. And more specifically, we're gonna talk about the problem of sin. So if you're taking notes or want to title this sermon, you can title it the Problem of Sin. And as we just read at this exact moment, sin entered into the world and began its devastating effect on mankind, which is death. But not just a physical death, no, a Much worse sort of death.

One of the spirit. You see, God told Adam, the day that you eat of the tree, you will surely die. Now, I don't know if you're reading a funky translation, but they didn't die that day that they ate physically, but spiritually they did.

And that's what I want to tell you and show you through Scripture exactly what this spiritual death looks like and what it does in our lives. But before I do that, I feel of the Lord the need to address our view of sin and make sure we are aligned in God's view of sin. And now I recognize that I'm probably preaching to the choir when it comes to sin.

And I would wager that most of us, if not all of us, know that all have fallen short of God's glorious standard, and that the wages of falling short of that standard is death, but that the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. And also I'm willing to wager that most of you know that God showed his love for us and that while we were all still sinners, Christ died for us. We know that, right? We've probably been raised on that. And that's good.

I praise God that we know that if you know that there's no other way to salvation except through Christ and that he died so that you could be free from sin and dwell with him in eternity, and your life accurately represents that, then I praise God. I would actually consider you to be a Christian. You know, I feel like that's what being a Christian means. But tonight I don't want to address the fact that anyone who is an unbeliever needs to come to the love of Christ and acknowledge their sin and repent of it. If you are not in a relationship with Christ, then I hope that you will still receive from this message what the Lord has for you.

But my purpose is rather to address a level of casual living and comfortability that frankly, the Lord will not tolerate and thankfully, because of his great love, will call us out on.

And honestly, I think the Lord's been calling me out on it for a while. And it's hard because sometimes you just gotta look at yourself in the mirror and say, God, I'm not where you called me to be. I'm not where you need me to be. And it's my fault, God, because I've gotten comfortable and I've slidden back, and then that's where I've been at. And to be honest with you, that hasn't been a fun process trying to work back to where the Lord wants me to be.

But I'm grateful that he could have just let me keep sliding all the way to hell, you know, because that's where sin will lead you. And what we're going to talk about. It doesn't have to be some great or extravagant sin. In fact, it's the little foxes that destroy the garden.

So can I share with you a revelation that the Lord gave me a few years ago in my first year of RDS?

If you will turn with me to Luke chapter 7, starting in verse 36.

I'm sure this is a familiar parable with or not a parable, it's actually a true story. There's a parable within this story, but I'm sure this is a familiar story to most of us. Luke 7, starting in verse 36, one of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisees home and. And reclined at the table. And behold a woman of the city who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at a table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wipe them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet and anointed them with ointment.

Now, when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, if this man were a prophet, he would know. He would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she's a sinner. And Jesus answering, said to him, simon, I have something to say to you. And he answered, say it, Teacher. A certain moneylender had two debtors.

One owed 500 denarii and the other 50. When they could not pay, he canceled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more? Simon answered, the one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt. And he said, to whom you have judged rightly.

Then, turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, do you see this woman? I entered your house. You gave me no water for my feet. But she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with my hair. With her hair.

She gave me no. You gave me no kiss. But from the time I entered, she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven.

For she loved much. But he who has forgiven little, loves little. And he said to her, your sins are forgiven. Then those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, who is this who even forgives sins? And he said to a woman, your faith has saved you.

Go in peace.

Allow me to paint a picture of what this verse is saying. I myself have always been a good lady, never allowing any intoxicating or illegal substance to enter my body, keeping myself sexually pure, not allowing obscene or vile language to come out of my mouth, maybe telling a little white lie here or there, and keeping little judgments in my heart, but none of the big ones when it comes to sinning.

Pastor Nathan, on the other hand, he's not here, so I'm going to pick on him. He's resorted to skipping church. But man, he has. Man, he is every grotesque and obscene sin you can think of, he has committed it. So based on our lives and lifestyles, we would say he's the one who's indebted 500 and I'm the one who's indebted 50, right?

That also means, though, that Pastor Nathan has the greater capacity to love God. Wouldn't you agree? Does that math seem to add up? Right? He has been forgiven the larger debt, so he is capable of loving God more.

But that doesn't really seem right, does it? That some people have a greater capacity to love God than others, and it never did to me. In fact, every time I would read this story, I would, like, get really bothered by reading this.

Like, it would offend me. Like this Pharisee was thinking thoughts like, what then? Am I supposed to go live a life of sin so I can love God more?

But I know too much to go do those things now? So am I just stuck here? Is this all the love I'll ever be capable of? Because I didn't live a crazy, radical lifestyle of sin or pursuing Satan? That doesn't seem fair.

But I guess there's nothing I can do about it now, and I would just kind of move on until the next time I would come across this passage and these feelings would get stirred up all over again.

And I want to ask you, don't you see the problem of sin yet? Like, in that way of thinking?

Let me explain to you what the Lord revealed to me. My first year of rds, I came across this passage again, and these feelings got stirred up all over again. And the Lord challenged me in my heart, and he began to speak to me and say, this story was never about the debts that they owed. It was addressing the lack of love in this Pharisee's life, the fact that he allowed Jesus to go rather unattended while this woman, who he thought was some lowly sinner, showed the greater display of love.

And the Lord began to convict me and confront me in my way of thinking, saying, no, son, you've missed it. You don't owe 50 and others owe 500. You don't even owe 500. But in reality you're all owed. You all owe an unpayable debt that is mentioned in Matthew chapter 18.

So God isn't contradicting himself by saying this new story and having the parable of the unpayable debt in Matthew 18.

In reality, our capacity to love isn't based on what we've been forgiven, but our capacity to love is based on what we believe we've been forgiven. You see, the little white lies and the judgments, that was an unpayable debt. We just like to put that in a little category of lesser sin. And that category doesn't exist in God's eyes.

But that's the problem of sin, you guys. That's what sin does. It gives you this false reality where you compartmentalize and assign value to your sin. And it's like, well, I'm a pretty good guy outside of the, you know, maybe I'll play favorites every now and again. Maybe I serve too much.

Sue me. You know, it's like, what is that? You know, that is not how the Lord sees us.

That is not how our reality is in reality. We're broken, we're damned if you will, just as much as Pastor Nathan going partying every night, you know.

But sin causes a spiritual death in us.

That's a double edged sword that it removes us from relationship with God and blinds us to see the space. So we think, oh, I'm right here. Me and God aren't that far apart, when in actuality we're not even in the same room as God.

We've fallen asleep to the fact that sin is sin.

And once we're in that space, the enemy's got us because we're crippled. We can't do anything outside of our position in Jesus Christ. Once we feel like, I'm okay, man, that's a dangerous place to be at. That's a place that I was in. And if it wasn't for my amazing wife, I don't.

I mean, she is incredible. If you don't have a Marielle in your life, you need one. But man, she would not stop calling me on my Sin, you know, and it wasn't this big thing. It was a sin of neglect, sin of not being intentional. That's sin.

And she could have just been like, no, I'm done. But she didn't let me. And I'm thankful for that. It was hard, I'm telling you, but it was freeing. And that's what the Lord wants to offer.

Because it doesn't matter how far you go in this journey, you're never not gonna be a sinner who needs Christ until you get on the other side of eternity. You're never not gonna be someone who owes an unpayable debt. Because once you feel like all good, that's when you become the judgmental one and you demand the debt to be paid from others, and you throw that debt right back on your head.

Cause once we're with Jesus, that's where his transformative work begins. And that is the gift of God, is that we get to be like him.

And we will completely miss that if we don't acknowledge and we have a casual or comfortable view of sin in our lives. And listen to me. I want to beseech you in this moment not to miss the truth of God. Listen, sin is in your life. I don't need to know you to know that sin is in my life.

And you don't need to know me to know that. I'm not here to say, oh, you should have no sin in your life. What I want to say is much deeper than just about sin being present in your life. It's your attitude towards that sin. Are you okay with it being in your life?

What is your posture towards that sin? When is the last time you brought true and genuine confession and repentance before the Lord? When is the last time you were broken over your sin? When you were grieved by it? Cause you recognize it was creating distance between you and your Savior.

And not just the big things. Not the pornography addiction, not the fact that you were engaged in violence in your home or drinking or whatever. It may be being addicted to drugs.

Because James 4:17 says that if anyone knows the good they ought to do and doesn't do it. Has sinned.

Cocaine addiction. Not doing what you knew you should have done doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter in the sense that if you don't confess it and repent and ask God to transform your heart, it'll still kill you.

In fact, I would say the cocaine addictions probably got a better chance because at least they know how bad what they're doing is. Where you could go your whole life and feel pretty good about. You know what? I'm a pretty good guy. I just sometimes don't come through on my word.

What about when you choose yourself over others?

What about when you take your anger or frustration out on your spouse?

What about when you weren't intentional with the responsibility God gave you in your job or as the man of your house or as the. The intercessor to your family or to the ministry he's calling you to serve in?

Oh, God, I just don't have time.

Well, I'm glad that wasn't what he said when God called him to the cross.

We got to acknowledge the sin, you guys. We can't justify. Oh, you know what I'm gonna get around to. No, that's not the point. God's not.

And don't listen to what I'm not saying. I'm not trying to call out every sin in your life. I'm certainly not trying to bring condemnation, for there is none in Christ. There's no condemnation here. I want you all to hear what I have to say, that we're all justified before him, and that is only by the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

Praise God, but don't cheapen his work on the cross by justifying your sin. Don't cheapen his gift of eternal life by being comfortable.

Don't do it because you're missing out on the. The fullness of what God has to offer. And that's for us to become like him. And every time you justify your sin, you're saying, I'm good to be like me, and he's not good for you to be like you. That's why he sent his Son.

That's what Jesus was saying to the church of Sardis. And if you didn't hear Janet Roberts message three weeks ago, you need to go back and listen to it. Because I feel like man. That message provoked me to look inwardly and say, God is the outside more glamorous than the inside. But if that's what he's saying to the sleeping church, to the sleeping body is to wake up, you've gotten casual.

Listen. He doesn't care about what we do or don't do. If we are unwilling to address our hearts, if we're unwilling to address the sin in our lives. That's why he looked at the Church of Sardis and said, you've got the reputation for being alive, but you're dead. And if that doesn't change, I'll remove your lampstand.

And he didn't say that in a maniacal or happy way. Like, he said that out of concern for his beloved. To be like, please, I'm begging you to wake up. I'm begging you to acknowledge that you're dead. It doesn't do me any pleasure to come and remove your lampstand.

It doesn't do me any pleasure to remove my presence from your life. But I will not tolerate a bride who is casual and sleeping whenever it's time to be sober and alert.

Now, thank God that he doesn't just leave us in our spiritual death, that he provided a hope for us.

We're going to go to Romans to read a couple more sections and we're going to get towards the end here. So Romans, chapter 5, 1221 When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam's sin brought death, so death spread to everyone. Thanks a lot, Adam. For everyone's sin.

Yes, people sinned even before the law was given, but it was not counted as sin because there was not yet any law to break. Still, everyone died from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even those who did not disobey an explicit commandment of God, as Adam did. Now Adam is a symbol, a representation of Christ who was yet to come. But there is a great difference between Adam's sin and God's gracious gift. For the sin of this one man, Adam brought death to many.

But even greater is God's wonderful grace and his gift of forgiveness to many through this other man, Jesus Christ. As the result of God's gracious gift is very different from the result of that one man's sin. For Adam's sin led to condemnation. But God's free gift leads to our being made right with God, even though we are guilty of many sins. For the sin of this one man, Adam caused death to rule over many.

But even greater is God's wonderful grace and his gift of righteousness. For all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one man, Jesus Christ. Yes, Adam's one sin brings condemnation for everyone but Christ. One act of righteousness brings a right relationship with God and new life for everyone. Because one person disobeyed God, many became sinners.

But because one other person obeyed God, many will be made righteous. God's law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were. But as God's people sinned more and more, God's wonderful grace became more abundant. So just as sin ruled over all people and brought them to death, now God's wonderful Grace rules instead, giving us right standing with God and resulting in eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. If that doesn't make you hopeful today.

In other words, Adam brought death into this world. A spiritual death immediately and a physical death to come. But God, through Christ Jesus, has brought new life, a spiritual life immediately and a physical, eternal life to come.

Does that make sense? A spiritual death was brought with Adam and a spiritual life is brought now. That doesn't mean we have to wait until eternity to be like Jesus. It means right now we have a spiritual life that we can step into, for we are new creatures in Christ. And the answer is found right here in Romans, chapter seven, starting in verse seven.

Well, then, am I suggesting that the law of God is sinful? Of course not. In fact, it was the law that showed me my sin. I would never have known the coveting is wrong if the law had not said, you must not covet. But sin used this command to arouse all kinds of covetous desires within me.

If there were no law, sin would not have that power. At one time, I lived without understanding the law. But when I learned the command not to covet, for instance, the power of sin came to life and I died. So I discovered the law's commands, which were supposed to bring life, brought spiritual death. Instead, Sin took advantage of those commands and deceived me.

It used the commands to kill me. But still, the law itself is holy, and its commands are holy and right and good. But how can that be? Did the law which is good cause my death? Of course not.

Sin used what was good to bring about my condemnation to death.

So we can see how terrible sin really is. It uses God's good commands for its own evil purposes. So the trouble is not with the law. It is 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 what is right, but I don't do it. Instead, I do what I hate, but I don't know what I am doing is wrong. This shows that I agree that the law is good. So I am not the one doing wrong. It is the sin living in me that does it.

And I know that nothing good lives in me that is in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can't. I want to do what is good, but I don't. I don't want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don't want to do, I'M not really the one doing wrong.

It is sin living in me that does it. And I've discovered this principle of life that when I do, when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God's law with all my heart. But there's another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to that sin that is still within me.

Oh, what a miserable person I am. Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God the answer is in Christ Jesus our Lord. So you see how it is in my mind. I really want to obey God's law.

But because of my sinful nature, I am a slave to sin. Moving into chapter eight. 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 sin's control over us by giving His Son as a sacrifice for our sins. He did this so that the just requirements 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 who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that pleases the Spirit. So letting your sinful nature control your minds leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads 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 him at all.

And Christ lives within you. So even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have 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. I know that was a lengthy passage, but the point I'm trying to get at is that there is hope today.

I think oftentimes this scripture in Romans 7 is used to justify sin, to say, oh, even Paul struggled. He was saying, I did things I didn't want to do and I didn't do the things I know I should have done. But I think that is a very ill interpreted interpretation of this passage because immediately he moves forward into saying, you know what? There is freedom in Christ. This is how it used to be under the law.

We did what we didn't want to do and there was no hope in that. But now there is an answer, and it is in the man Christ. Jesus and Christ didn't just die for us to go to heaven. He didn't. He didn't just die for us so that I could be a better husband, or so that you could be a really good employee, or so that you could have vision for your life or anything else.

He died so that we could be free from the sin in our life, so that we could be like him and be with him in eternity.

He had died so that we could address this sin, so we could have a solution for it. Not just feel, oh, what hope is there now? I can't do what God's calling me to do. I can't fulfill the law.

So to deny that we have sin or to be comfortable in that sin, it cheapens what he did on the cross. It's not living in the fullness of the life that he died so that we could have, that he bought for us through his suffering and through his blood.

Because it's hard, but it is possible.

And. And if you will allow him to come and address your heart, you will become more and more like him every single day and know what it means to be free.

Going back to the Matrix. Finally, there came a point in the movie when the main character, Neo, was confronted with his true reality of what was happened of the robots who had taken over the world and trapped all of humanity inside of this computer simulation. And at the same time he was confronted with his reality, he was confronted with a choice.

Two pills. The blue pill that would return him to his ignorance and enable him to live the rest of his days in this simulation. Or a red pill that would awaken him to the harsh, Weary reality and that would enable him to join the fight for true freedom for what is real. And I believe today that we're being offered the same choice by God to allow sin to lull us back into just being comfortable into this false reality that I'm good, I've got purpose. You know, I'll confess the big things to God, but I don't really want to be agitated too much or to be awakened to the sinful nature that still lives within us.

And to choose to fight for what is real, to fight to be free.

And it will be costly, and it won't be easy, but it will end in freedom.