Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / September 26, 2021 | Church Words - Depravity

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September 26, 2021 | Church Words - Depravity · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's Doug Will's birthday today, and he hates the fact that uh I said that.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: He's 39 and he has chosen the spank option.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: So just keep that just keep that in mind.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um we're starting a new series this morning.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's called Church Words.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: And uh if you're anything like me, you when you were first going to church, or maybe you've been in church for a long time, there's some words that the Bible uses that uh are pretty long.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they would get you a lot of points in Scrabble, right?
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: And uh but the problem is that some of these words they aren't um uh they aren't best used when we try and find a synonym for them.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: We need to understand what these words mean because God's message to us is specific.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I I was looking back and uh at the Scripts National Spelling Bee, which apparently has been going since 1925.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to give you some words that the winners had to spell, okay?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it's gonna start out, and you're gonna be like, I could have been a national spelling bee champ.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um in 1940, the winner had to spell therapy.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um 1970, croissant.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you're trying to spell that in your head.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: 2009, we had a Bible word.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: It was uh Laodician, which is taken from Revelation 3, right?
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: The church that is lukewarm, so it means somebody who is lukewarm.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh 2018 was Koinonia.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't uh we're not gonna do the spelling test for anybody who's in that group.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um they'll uh just write beneath us right now.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: But listen to 2019.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: There were eight winners because they went 20 rounds without misspelling a word.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Auslot, irispellus, buganvallia, aguilet, pendeloqui, palama, cernuis, odilic.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't know what any of those words mean, let alone how to spell them.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so, I mean, like, I messed up on confetti in my sixth grade spelling B.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's what knocked me out.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: So we are way past my realm of knowledge here.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: But the Bible can be kind of intimidating.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: And um, for those who are new to the faith, um, when we act sometimes like we know what propitiation means, um, then it can be intimidating.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't want to engage with our faith.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Rather, we want to just sort of sit back and pretend like we know everything.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: And for those who have been in the church for a long time, I really hope this series, as we look at some interesting words in the Bible that have a lot of depth and meaning, that you'll see that though the Bible is accessible to every single person, it can also inspire a lifetime of study.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so hopefully we'll go a little bit deeper.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: And this morning, we're starting out on a bit of a heavier topic.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: We are talking about sin and depravity.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it's important to start there because that is where our journey as Christians begins, really.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, let's talk about the beginning, right?
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Genesis 1:1, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and it was perfect.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: God had made it and it was good.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: He had created Adam and Eve, and they were in the garden, and God, as the king, set up some rules for his kingdom.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Some of these rules were that they were supposed to cultivate the garden and spread it beyond the bounds that it currently was.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: They were supposed to be fruitful and multiply, which they were more than happy to do, and they were also not supposed to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty simple rules.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: But they also had intimate fellowship with the creator of the universe, who was able to spend time with them, have a personal relationship with them.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: But then Satan came along and he turned the creation against its creator.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: And he gave the first lie, which was that what?
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: God is such a buzzkill.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't want you to have a good time.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: This stuff isn't gonna hurt you.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be fine.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Listen, he says that if you eat from this tree, you're gonna, you're gonna, what, like, gain all this knowledge?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's crazy.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so Eve being the first, and by the way, this this portrait's funny to me because it's like she's eating one and then going back for a second one.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: And also, I know this is really hard to see, this is more just for me.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's a labradoodle in the Garden of Eden.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's really, it's really difficult to see, but I'm pretty sure that's my dog right there.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: But sin um entered into the world at this moment, and that's it's really, really important.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it's also important to understand that this was a rebellion against God.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so let's start there for this morning.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: What is sin?
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Sin is rebellion against God.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just making a mistake, it's not just saying, like, oops, I shouldn't have done that.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I've hurt somebody's feelings or whatever, even I've done something serious, but it only affected the people around me.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Sin is breaking the rules of God's kingdom.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so we have to understand that when we sin, and that's going to be a theme this morning about understanding what that sin means, that when we sin, we are a rebel in God's kingdom.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: We are breaking his rules, and he's not okay with that.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: So this sin, though, it it this is in Genesis 3, it had a huge effect on the world.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: We would call this event the fall, the fall of mankind, right?
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: That this is when everything changed.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: Sin was entered into the world through Adam and Eve's sin, and from that point in time, everything was different.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely everything.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: In particular, there were two main areas that were affected.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: When Adam and Eve were created, they were made spiritually alive and physically alive eternally.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: They were going to live with God and be in his presence forever.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, when the fall happened, when sin entered into the world, there was a curse placed upon the land and the people for their disobedience.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so these things affected them spiritually and physically.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now they were no longer spiritually alive, they were spiritually dead, which is going to be super important as we keep moving forward, but they were also going to experience the effects of death, something that had not entered into the world up until that point for humanity.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: They were going, like every time that you get out of bed and your bones creak, the fact that I have to wear contacts because my vision is terrible without them, or the crabgrass in your lawn, right?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: These are all effects of sin upon the world.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Everywhere we look, it has been ravaged by this decision to rebel against the creator of the universe.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Excuse me.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so they have were spiritually dead, they're physically dying.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: And as we move forward into history, right, because we're sort of drawing a line from the garden through the cross into our current day, we have to understand our first really important doctrine, and maybe one of the biggest church words that we can learn.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that is something called original sin.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now, original sin has to do with the fact that we are connected to Adam.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: We are connected to him just like you have inherited from your family members.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you are more susceptible to cancer or heart disease.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, maybe you are more prone to addictive tendencies because of people in your family.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: We have inherited this from Adam.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: And why is Adam blamed?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because Eve was the one who ate of the fruit.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's because Adam was supposed to protect her and he did not.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so Adam is the one who is charged throughout all of human history with being the one who has brought sin into the world.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that affects us even to this day because we are all physical and spiritual descendants of Adam and Eve.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: They were still fruitful and multiplied quite a bit.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: So Romans 5.12 gives us a great understanding of this.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: It says, Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, in this way death spread to all people because all sinned.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is the idea of original sin.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: It is different than just the sins that you commit in your daily life.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Original sin is this connection back to the fall that every single one of us has to deal with.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: It is the fact that sin entered the world through Adam, and the penalty for that rebellion against God was death.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so the fact that everybody in this room is going to die at some point can be drawn all the way back to Adam and Eve's sin.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: You experience physical death.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: You experience decay.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: When your knees don't work anymore, like blame Adam, all right?
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because this penalty for sin has followed through that line.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, as just sort of an aside, this is also one of the reasons why believing in the virgin birth of Jesus Christ is so important.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because we would say that original sin flows through the father's side of the line.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that mothers are exempt from original sin, but the book of Hebrews says that Jesus was born innocent and clean.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that was because he had a virgin birth.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: So Jesus was exempt from original sin, but we are not.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that death has spread to all people because all sinned.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: David takes it just a step further in Psalm 51, 5.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Indeed, I was guilty when I was born.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: I was sinful when my mother conceived me.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Again, another aside, this is a great, uh, one of the strongest verses for the identity of a person in the womb that David said he was sinful when his mother conceived him.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Psalm 51 takes place after Nathan has confronted David about his sin with Bathsheba.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so he writes this really amazing psalm.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: If we had more time this morning, we would probably just read the whole thing.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um but it's this contrite heart that David has about recognizing that he is a sinner in the hands of a holy God.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so David, he recognizes that he was guilty when he was born.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: And this isn't just some kind of like um superficial language about him being dramatic.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: David says, when I was conceived, before I even had the ability to act, I was sinful.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: I had a sinful nature.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: And as soon as I came out, I was predisposed to rebel against God and to follow in the steps of my ancestors.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now you might say, that doesn't really seem fair to me.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: You might agree with the uh a story about a seminary graduate.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: He was uh he had just graduated, and after the ceremony, his favorite professor came up to talk with him, and he said, You know, you've been a fantastic student all these four years.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: You aced all the tests, you got all the theology, you wrote fantastic papers, but I've got one little problem is that you've said that you've rejected the doctrine of original sin.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: He says, the seminary guy was ready for it.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Yeah, that's right.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't think God would do something like that.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so they left on good terms.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: But 20 years later, the reunion came, and uh the professor sees the seminary grad across the way, and he goes up to him, congratulating him on this career that he's had, and he says, You know, you've you've done fantastic, you're always my favorite student, but did your views on original sin ever change?
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, you know, I've had a lot of time to think.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I've also had four boys.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I not only believe in original sin, but in demon possession as well.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, you can thank Jim for that.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: But we right, we see this though.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's a there's a kernel of truth in that.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you have been around a child, you know that you don't have to train them to want to steal or be selfish or lie or do any of these things.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: It is innate within us.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that's bothersome, and some people get really frustrated about this idea.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: They say, how is that fair that I've I I couldn't do anything about the fact that I've descended from Adam?
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: I can't do anything about this original sin.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: But then we have to remember our own culpability in the situation.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Romans 3.23 says, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: We are like salmon going upstream.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: It is inherent within us that we want to rebel against God.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: And though 95% of the salmon that go upstream to lay their eggs every single year are going to die, the next generation, having not had a chance to talk with mommy and daddy salmon, do the exact same thing, kill themselves as they head back up the stream to go and plant their eggs as well.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: It is just part of our nature.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: We are sinners twice over.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: First by Adam, second by ourselves.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: If you are frustrated by this idea of original sin, understand that even without it, you have chosen to be a rebel in God's kingdom.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: In so many different ways, we enjoy this.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Just like Adam and Eve found pleasure in rebelling against God and doing this thing they knew they should not do, we find the same pleasure.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Sin is thinking that you know better than God, and we often think that we know better than God.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now, to be clear, there are some different uh views here and how original sin affects us.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: A quick overview would be that, and kind of levels of decreasing impact all the way to concrete.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Pelagianism, which is an early church heresy, said that Adam was just a bad example.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: He was a bad apple.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: He was a bad example for Christians that came after him.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: And looking back at Adam, we see that he didn't set the best example for us, and so we like to follow in his footsteps.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's pretty weak.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's not very biblical.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: Moving on, you've got Thomas Aquinas, an early church father, who said that Adam weakened our virtue.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Original sin weakens our virtue so that it's harder for us to be holy than we would like to be.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: But once again, that that really doesn't fit with the biblical text here.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's things like in Psalm 51 and Romans 5 that we have this in us.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's part of our nature passed down.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: So then you've got the last two.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the first one would be uh Arminianism would say that uh the original sin within us has made it so that we are incapable of doing things that are holy and for God without God's intervention.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: Something they would call provenient grace.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so that one is a lot closer.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the most concrete example is Calvinism.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Calvin would say that we are very literal to Psalm 51, that while as soon as we come out of the womb and we are babies, we haven't even had a chance to take our first breath yet, that Adam's sin was imputed to us and we are deserving of his punishment and death just as he was.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's heavy.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: Those last two, though, are probably the closest to the truth there.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: But if all of that kind of is soaring above your heads, which is totally fine, this is what you can remember.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: You can think of this as low background steel.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: Steel is made by using the air around it, forced in to create this new metal.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: And ever since the Trinity tests and the bombing, the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and then the Cold War bombings out in the um Southwest, the world has been covered with radiation.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it is impossible to find steel even to this day that, or you can't even make steel to this day, that is not affected by the radiation of those tests.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so what they have to do if they want to make a a uh a machine that is able to be sensitive to radiation, they have to go and find the best source of it is old sunken World War II ships that were made before the atomic bombs dropped.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: That is the only way that they can go back and find pure steel, because even if you recycle the new stuff, it is still going to be corrupt and it is still not going to be able to be used for these sensitive projects.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't understand anything about original sin or don't care to, what you need to hear is that ever since the fall, there has been a corruption within us.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it has made us both desire to rebel against God and go ahead and follow through with that plan, and we have become rebels in his kingdom.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: So we've got one last um church word for you this morning, and it's probably the most important one that we could talk about, and it is total depravity.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, total depravity, right?
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Not just depravity, total depravity.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh depravity being the fact that we have a sin nature.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: We want to sin, we enjoy doing it, we are depraved, and in total, every single part of us is affected by it.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Our minds, our hearts, um, everything about who we are, even our bodies, like we've said, physically, are experiencing this decay.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you are um familiar with this term, you might know the T in total depravity represents the T in Tulip, the acronym for uh the five sacraments of grace in Calvinism.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's real that's not what we're talking about.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: It does fit into that, but this subject is way more important than some sort of um theological position.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Total depravity is us.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Total depravity is every single one of us.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: Romans 8, 7 through 8 says the mindset of the flesh is hostile to God because it does not submit to God's law.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: Indeed, it is unable to do so.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: Does that mean that no good happens in the world?
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like this is a pretty condemning verse.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: Those who are in the flesh, meaning those who don't have a relationship with Jesus, cannot please God.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what about all the philanthropies all over the world?
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: People who donate to, you know, humanitarian efforts, those who have no idea who Jesus is, but have been giving money to those who are affected by natural disasters.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: Is that not good too?
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: It is good.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: It is good in the sense that it is something that Jesus would like us to do as well.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: But because we are depraved, meaning because we have this sin nature within us, those things that we do outside of our desire to serve God and to honor Him and to glorify Him have no eternal significance.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: They are good in the sense that they are reflections of the good that God would want us to do, but because we can't win our way into heaven, they are not a way, a pathway, they're not currency for us to get on God's good side.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: Even our best actions, Isaiah says, are like dirty rags when we don't do them for the glory of God.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: And listen, this is this is a hard thing to take in.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's heavy because it's saying that even though if we were raised in that Christian home where we heard the Bible growing up and we went to Sunday school every single Sunday, and we believed in Jesus when we were seven, it still means that we were coming from a sinful background and were rebels in God's kingdom.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that without God, it's impossible to please God.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: That without God's grace to us, it is not possible for us to please him.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: We are rebels in his kingdom.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Charles Spurgeon says it this way As the salt flavors every drop in the Atlantic, so does sin affect every atom of our nature.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: It is so sadly there, so abundantly there, that if you cannot detect it, you are deceived.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um John Piper, who is uh has written on this before, has this uh puts the situation so well.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Because of this, there is an inevitable distortion in humanity's reception of God's creation, for it is not seen as in reality it is.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: The joy is absent that should arise from grasping the real identity of the creation as penultimate and seeing beyond it the beauty of God.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: Only the renewing work of the Holy Spirit can take the scales from our eyes and turn us around to appreciate the creation appropriately, for otherwise we idolize it for its own sake or denigrate it out of spiritual blindness and indifference.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: I needed a dictionary the first time I read that.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: But what he's saying, though, is the same thing that Romans 1 tells us.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Is that we see the beauty of God's creation, but because we are so depraved, because we have walked away from God and don't see clearly, we either worship that creation or we reject it as something that has been here for all time.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: We don't see God as we should see God.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: This is why I was having a conversation with somebody just this morning, and they were talking about one of their friends, and they're like, I don't understand why they don't see God as I see God.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is what we're talking about.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is our human condition.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is the fact that we love to reject God.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: And even when we know Jesus and have accepted his death on the cross, we still like to reject God because it's in our DNA.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: Thank Adam.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: Romans 5, 19 through 21, though, gives us hope.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: For just as through one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so also through the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: Just as sin reigned in death, so also grace will reign through righteousness, resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Right, so track with me that we have got this inherited flow from Adam all the way to us, every single one of us, common ancestor in Adam, that his sin has flowed through that line, and because of him, right, Paul's argument just earlier in Romans 5 is that we all experience the effects of that because of one man.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus comes along, fulfills the law, is obedient to God, and through one man, grace comes to the entire world.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: And if you have ever felt like it is not fair that your sin is coming from Adam and that that is part of who you are, then you also must understand that it is not fair or deserving that Jesus died for us, and that through him we can be forgiven of all of our sin as rebels in the kingdom of God.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: God has these two things that are going against each other, and Romans says that Adam was supposed to be the one who did it for us, but he failed.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone along the way has failed since him, except for Jesus, who then took the punishment that we all deserve and took our sins on the cross so that life can reign through him.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Grace will reign through righteousness, resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: That to me is sort of when the other foot drops on this issue.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like it is so I mean, just getting ready for this, you know, the message this morning, like my heart was heavy this week because all it is is like you are sinful, you are depraved, you don't understand your condition, you don't know how deep you are.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: You have we were born into a hole, and then you dug yourself deeper.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like you have made this situation yourself, and it is so acute, and so many people are blinded to it.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: And we, even as Christians who have been saved, we don't like to admit that this is our past because it makes us feel dirty.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: But we must understand the condition that we were born into, because otherwise we don't appreciate the cross, right?
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to think of it for a second this way.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if you appre like, if this is, I don't know what this is, but if you appreciate the depth of your sin this much, you appreciate Jesus this much, right?
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you appreciate your depravity that like through the floor, understanding how without God you cannot please God, like to the nth degree, what we're talking about, flip that on its head.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: That is what it is like to then appreciate and find joy in the cross.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: And for so many people who struggle in their relationship with God, who walk away from him, they're like, I don't understand what he's done for me.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like he's judging me.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I've, you know, there's nothing in him for me.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: It is a misunderstanding of our background.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: It is a misunderstanding of us coming to the negotiation table and thinking that we have leverage.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: And we really don't.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: God has come in and bailed us out out of a lifetime, an eternity of debt, and without him, we would have no hope.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, what are we supposed to do with original sin, total depravity, these church words that maybe you've heard before?
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, they can rest deep within you now as you understand your sin condition and your need for a savior.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: What are we supposed to do with them?
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I've got three words and they apply differently to those who don't know Jesus and those who do know Jesus.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: They are recognized, repent, and return.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: Little Baptist alliteration flair there.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: But we are supposed to recognize, repent, and return.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you how this plays out.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't know Jesus, meaning not like you don't know who he is as a historical figure, right?
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: Basically everybody does.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: He's about as widespread as Coca-Cola in the like general culture.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: But if you don't know Jesus as your Savior, here's where you stand, and here's what your options are.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to recognize that this is the truth.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: Outside of the Bible, you can look at, we already talked about it, little children, and you can see that without their parents doing anything, they like to hit their siblings, they want to run away, they want to lie, they want to steal.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: That humanity, when it is left by itself, it just spins into disaster.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you've ever been out of the room when a toddler was in another room and left him for a few moments, you go back in and it is just chaos.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: You don't even have to look at toddlers.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: You can just look at parts of the world that have no conception of who God is, and you can just see that evil reigns in so many locations.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: That this world is not morally good with pangs of evil, but rather that it is wholly evil with small glimpses of God's goodness.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: We live in a fallen world.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is true outside of the Bible.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: You should recognize that and also recognize that you are a part of that as well.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: Every single one of us is, but there are those who have stayed rebels in God's kingdom, and then those who have accepted the peace treaty.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: You can then repent.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: And if you feel convicted about your sin, which I hope you do, then you would understand that repentance means, that's kind of another church word, but all it means is we accept our sin, we admit to it, and then we ask for forgiveness, and we turn away from what we're doing in our past.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: There is no sin, like not a single one, that is so far gone that God cannot bring them back.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it is an affront to the cross to say that there is something that is so bad, a sin so bad, or sins, a lifetime of sin, that it cannot be rescued by Jesus' death.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Every single thing that we have ever done has been ransomed by Jesus on the cross.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so you can repent and turn from those things and then return to your king.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: You can return to the one who created you, return to the one who loves you so much that he died for you.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: And there are two ways that every single person on earth is going to return to their creator, either as a rebel or as part of his kingdom.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: So if you don't know Jesus, I've got to tell you, you are in a rough spot.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: And this is not like a scare tactic.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think that's great evangelism.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just trying to help you understand the state of your soul and where you stand in relation with God.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a heavy burden, and you shouldn't have to carry it any longer.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you do know Jesus, meaning if you understand that he has died for your sins, that you have been forgiven through his blood, right?
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: That uh moving forward you are seen as Jesus, as a co-heir with Christ, one of God's own children, these uh three words still apply to you, but in a different way.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: The first one is that we are still to recognize, but we are to recognize our background.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh, if you've ever heard testimonies, right, stories of people about um their conversion to Christianity.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they unintentionally make it seem like God's kingdom is lucky to have them.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: They they say, and I say unintentionally because I don't think that's anybody's purpose, but they sometimes, when we get ready for baptisms at TBC, we um people give us their testimonies.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I am not, I'm really not trying to criticize anyone's testimony, especially someone who just came to the faith.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes we get them, and it's like, like I said earlier, you know, I grew up in a Christian household, I went to Sunday school, I believed in Jesus, you know, before I could walk, kind of thing.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: And we act like there was nothing before that we were saved from.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: If you understand what I mean.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: That there are people who almost desire these gritty stories of being on the streets or struggling in life or, you know, doing something crazy and then coming to Jesus because it sounds like we have been saved from more, but in reality, our sin condition was the exact same.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so, even knowing Jesus, you've got to understand that you are still saved from a lifetime of punishment as a rebel in God's kingdom.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: Original sin does that sort of thing to us.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so, if you are a person who uh had the privilege and the blessing of growing up in a Christian home, be thankful for that.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: I wish more people had that experience.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: But just know that, you know, there is no VIP status in God's kingdom.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: We have all been saved from the cross, or excuse me, we've all been saved from sin by the cross, and every single one of us when we get into God's kingdom is going to understand that truth.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: We couldn't work ourselves in.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: We also need to repent.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: And this one, this might get a couple of you, because there are some people who would say that we believing in Jesus, having been forgiven of our sins, there's no more need to repent of what we have done.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: I contest that.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: I say the Lord's prayer, where he gives us the example of how to pray, includes forgive us of our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: We are continually supposed to be reminded of what we have been saved from, because, unless this applies to you, in which case, come talk to me afterwards.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: We need to make a video, that even though you've got the Holy Spirit within you, right, that God has given to you as sort of this um this wax seal that you are going to be secure until Jesus returns, even though you have God within you, uh, you're still not acting like Jesus.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm certainly not.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: Daily, there are still ways in which I step away from God's plan for my life and go and do my own thing.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: I still like to be a rebel in God's kingdom.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's important for me to continue this act of sort of contrition, this idea that I am not perfect.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: And although I am still washed by the blood of God and I am clean in his sight, and there's now therefore no more condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, I know that.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: But if I get so far into thinking that I'm just, you know, good to go, that nothing I do is, you know, ever wrong, then there are two problems.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: One is we fall into this trap that Paul outlines in Romans 6, where he says, we abuse the grace of the cross.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: That there are people who have been given like, think they've been given a million get out of jail free cards, and so say in the back of their head, I believe in Jesus, but as they're walking forward, their life looks nothing like it, and they just continue coming back to God and saying, Will you forgive me now?
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: And he will, he will.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing that you can do that separates you from the love of God or his forgiveness, but that is not what people in his kingdom are supposed to act like.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing it does is it makes us, like I said, not appreciate Jesus as much as we should.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: Even if you have been a Christian, you know, for 50 years, you're going on your golden anniversary here for believing in Christ, you've gotten your like golden watch for, you know, trusting in him and your retirement plaque.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like, even if you've known him for that long, you've still got to understand that every single day you are pinning him to the cross with your sins.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: Every single day.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: The last thing is that we are supposed to return to Jesus.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: And my biggest fear for the message this morning is that there are going to be some who just have that type of personality where they hear criticism way more easily than they hear joy or positivity in their lives, that they are their own worst critic, and so they hear an entire message about being depraved, and they just, you know, can't stand themselves.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: I've been in that spot before, and I've got to tell you, it's not comfortable, and it's also not where God wants you to be either.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: If you know Jesus, there should be no more shame for the things that you have done in your past life.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like we have all been saved.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you get the theme that we're running with here.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: We have all been forgiven of the things that we have done, but the things of that past life, we can still carry them around like a big ball and chain in an old-timey prison that prevents us from running forward in God's kingdom for his gospel.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it's holding us back.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so I want you to return to your creator, knowing that he is welcoming you with open arms, that John 3.16, that he loves you so much that he sent his one and only Son to die on the cross so that you would not perish but have eternal life.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: That he loved you so much that he did that, and he still loves you right now, today.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because there are some who are have accepted Jesus but just feel like they have a dunce hat in the back of the room, and that is not what God wants.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: He wants you to join in this fellowship, the Great Commission, and to be a part of his kingdom, not as a rebel, but as one who is trying to tell everyone else the good news of Jesus.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, first week in church words, a bit heavy, okay?
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: But also necessary.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: Next week we're gonna talk about the word atonement and what it meant for Jesus and his atoning sacrifice on the cross for you.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna look at that word, but before we again can appreciate Jesus, we have to appreciate where we've come from.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: We have to appreciate our own sin nature that still wrestles within every single one of us, and we have to commit to living a life that is trying to set and put that aside and walk forward in the freedom that is found in Jesus.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: Amen?
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go ahead and pray.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you for today.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: God, first and foremost, we thank you for Jesus.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you that he saved us.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: As Adam brought sin into the world, Lord Jesus has rescued us from that sin.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: Through death comes life.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: Through disobedience comes righteousness.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, please help us to understand the gospel in this way, knowing that your kingdom is not all the better because we have entered into it.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, but we have been saved from something severe.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: And we thank you for that.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I pray that that knowledge of your goodness and your mercy and your grace would just walk with us as ones who recognize that they are part of your kingdom, that we have been saved from all the terrible things.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: And God, that we get to be with you forever, restored spiritually and physically one day, like Adam and Eve, and to spend it all with our Creator.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: God, we love you.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: I pray for those who are listening right now that maybe are feeling guilt and shame, that you would help them to understand, that you would lift them up, that you would comfort them, that the peace that only you can give that surpasses all understanding would just rest on their shoulders, knowing that they too are forgiven by the blood of Jesus, if they would just accept it.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: God, we love you and we thank you.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it's in Jesus' name we pray.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: Have a great Sunday.