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Andy Stanley - The Fundamental List Part 3 Fundamental 3 · Andy Stanley Sermons

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So I want to begin with a question that you may have pondered at some
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point, or maybe not, but maybe it's a question we should all ponder,
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especially either those of us who have been Christians for a long long time
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or for those of you who are outside our faith tradition and kind of look
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in from the outside, and you wonder from time to time what drives these
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crazy people? And here's the question, what makes a sin a sin?
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What makes a sin is? And if you're on the outside of Christianity,
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it's like, yeah, where in the world do you guys get off deciding
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what isn't a sin? If you're inside the Christian faith tradition, you have
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wondered this from time to time. And if you don't think you have,
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by the end of our time together you'll realize, oh, yeah, I've
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wrestled with this question. And the reason is a big deal is in our
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homes. Like when you were grown up, your parents had rules for you,
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but when you broke one of their rules, they didn't say, son,
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you've sinned. They just said, son, you disobeyed your dad or
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your mom. Those of you with kids living at home, you have rules,
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but you probably don't when your kids break a really, don't. You
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don't say they've end right. We have state and federal laws, but when
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somebody breaks a rule or a law, we don't accuse them of sinning.
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In fact, if you've ever broken the law and gotten into big trouble,
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you went out and you found yourself a good lawyer, right, an expert
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in law. You didn't go out and find yourself a sinner, an expert
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in sin. Right. And I think there's a joke embedded in there somewhere,
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Okay, but we'll we'll just leave that there. So so sin,
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as you know, sin is associated with religion, you know, like God
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has house rules, and if you break one of God's rules, you don't
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just feel like you broke a law, like you you're a law breaker.
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You again, we're told that we're we're sinners. And of course all these
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sins vary by religion and they very very even within Christian faith tradition. And
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the other thing that that makes the other thing that makes this important is,
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you know, good parents make the rules clear. State and local governments are
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good. State and local governments. They make the laws clear. But here's
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the question we're going to wrestle with today. What about Jesus. Did Jesus
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make it clear? Was he clear? Did Jesus ever clarify what's a sin
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and what's not? And for many Christians we think or maybe you were raised
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to believe, well, that's what the Bible is for. If you want
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to know what's a sin and what's not a sin, that's why we have
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the Bible. And we're going to talk about that in a few minutes.
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This is an important question. This is an important question, especially if you
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are attempting to follow Jesus or if you are considering becoming a follower of Jesus,
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because if Jesus has house rules, you want to know what they are.
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And if Jesus has house rules and he's a good leader, then he
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would explain to us how he came up with those rules. Today we're in
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part three of our series, the Fundamental Lists, recovering the essentials of our
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faith. And in this series we are attempting to answer the question what must
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a person believe in order to be a faithful follower of Jesus, not what
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must a person do? We talk about the doing part all the time,
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and we will continue to because Jesus was very clear that doing is what actually
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makes the difference in your life, and doing is what makes the difference in
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culture and in the world. But at the same time, it's important to
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know what must a person actually believe in order to be a faithful follower of
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Jesus. In other words, what's essential and what's not. And this is
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an important question for lots of reasons, one of which is within the Christian
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faith tradition. As all of you know, within the Christian faith tradition,
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there are so many different rooms. There are so many different expressions, so
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many denominations. There's Protestant and Catholic and Greek Orthodox, and then even within
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those groups there are subgroups. Even within denominations there are subgroups. We're a
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Bible church where but we're not even associated with another, you know, denomination.
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So there are so many different houses in this big this there's so many
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different rooms, I should say, in this big house we call Christianity,
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and all of these different faith traditions. Within Christianity, they come with their
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own terms and conditions, they come with their own traditions, they come with
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their own Bibles. We don't even all use the same Bible. We don't
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use the same translation of the Bible. We definitely don't use the same interpretation
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of our Bible. So the question is how do we know, How do
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we know what's fundamental? How do we know what's essential? Because all those
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different groups of which we're apart, the only thing we really have in common
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is that we're all sure that we're right, and everybody else is only half
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right or partially right. They're just misinformed or they're uninformed, or give them
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them that and they'll catch up with us because we're onto the new thing that
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God is doing in the world. And this happens all the time. And
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then to make it even more complicated, in every generation, and this began
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in the second century. This isn't a new thing. In every generation,
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new and novel ideas get woven into different expression of the Christian faith. And
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they're not only just new and novel. Sometimes they're toxic and sometimes they're harmful,
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and this creates complications for people who want to stay inside a certain Christian
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faith tradition. And from time to time these new and novel and even toxic
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ideas and again you go back to certain periods of church history and it's just
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almost unbelievable what they elevated to the status of doctrine and dogma and theology.
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In other words, these new and novel and sometimes toxic ideas got elevated to
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the point where if you didn't believe these things, and if you didn't practice
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these things, you weren't a real Christian, or in modern day you know
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church, you aren't a real Christian, you're not a true Jesus follower because
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you don't believe these things. And these things are as important as all the
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other things. But here's the challenge, And maybe this is your story,
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or maybe it's the story of someone you love. When non essentials characterize and
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defined a church brand, when non essentials get woven in and they begin to
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characterize a church brand thoughtful and you're all thoughtful and honest, and hopefully you're
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honest, thoughtful and honest, people oftentimes feel like they have no choice but
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to step away from their church, or step away from their denomination, or
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step away from the network that they've always been a part of, to step
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away and just kind of clear their heads. And in some cases they feel
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like they need to begin to deconstruct, and by deconstruct, simply to sort
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out what's essential and what's not. In other words, I don't want to
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leave the Christian faith, but I don't think I don't think they're doing it
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right. I don't think they're believing it right, and I'm not sure they're
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practicing it right. I need to sort out the non essentials, to rediscover
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what is essential, what is foundational, what is fundamental? Again, this
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may be your story. He might be in the middle of it right now.
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You just sense that something's off. And I love these people. It's
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the tradition I grew up in, but there's just something off. It's as
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if the tone and the posture and the approach to the Christian faith it begins
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to feel kind of un christ Like. It's like the leaders in your church
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or denomination or your faith tradition. They definitely know the Bible, but you
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wonder sometimes, and I know this is kind of harsh for me to say,
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Okay, they know, they seem to know the Bible, but you
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wonder at times do they know do they know Jesus? So here's why we're
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talking about it. This is important. So what's what's fundamental, what's essential,
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and what's merely cultural, what's just familiar, what's comfortable? What's fashionable,
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but it's actually kind of peripheral. And again, this is so important,
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and I said this last week, but I want to repeat it.
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This is so important because when cultural and peripheral are considered essential, Christianity eventually
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becomes untenable and unlivable for someone. In other words, it's no longer good
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news of great joy for all people. It just becomes good news of great
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joy for some people. So far, we've discovered two fundamentals. On number
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one we talked about at the beginning of this series. Number one is that
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Jesus is God's son and is our king. And the reason we said this
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is because this is what Jesus said about himself, and if we're going to
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follow Jesus, we at least have to acknowledge who he claimed to be then
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as God's final king. Fundamental number two we talked about last time, and
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this is so important. And again all of these build one on the other.
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Jesus came to illustrate and demonstrate what God is like that the Gospels Matthew,
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Martin, Luke, and John are not Bible stories. Matthew, Mark,
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Luke, and John document what Jesus lived out and what he taught about
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what his Father is like. That Jesus came to reveal the Father to mankind,
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to make it more personal and to close some of the distance, to
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close the gap between human beings and God, the Father who is out there
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somewhere. Jesus came to make it personal and bring it up closer that we
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could understand what God is like. And then to be a follower of Jesus,
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our King, who came to explain what God is like. Today we're
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going to talk about number three, which is simply this. In order to
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be a faithful follower of Jesus, we all have to acknowledge and embrace jesus
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characterization of sin, or if you preferred, jesus definition of sin. In
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other words, what made a sin a sin? To Jesus, our King,
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the son of God, who came to reveal what God is like.
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I mean, if he's the king, he's the rule maker. So this
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is fundamental. Fortunately, fortunately Jesus actually, like a good parent and like
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a good government, made it clear. Unfortunately, sometimes not intentional, not
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blaming anybody. Unfortunately, sometimes the Church doesn't make it as clear because the
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church, and again I'm a church person, so I can share the blame.
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You know, sometimes the church has a habit. In fact, oftentimes
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the church has a habit. You know, not just the Church, but
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you know, just about every expression of Christianity has a habit of equalizing rather
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than prioritizing content in the Bible. Jesus did not do this when it came
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to his own scriptures. Jesus says, we're going to discover today, and
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this is going to be so liberating and so helpful for some of you.
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Jesus actually prioritized some things in his own scripture over others. In fact,
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Matthew records an incident where he did exactly that. A lawyer, an expert
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in the law, came to Jesus and had a question about the law.
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And if you grew up in church, or if you've been around here for
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a while, you're familiar with this little piece of narrative. The lawyer asks
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a question, Jesus answers the question, and you may be familiar with both
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the question and the answer. But the reason we're going to camp out on
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this for just a moment, the implications of the lawyer's questions and Jesus' response,
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not his answer, but just his response to the question are so loaded
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with implication that our tendency when we read this piece of narrative is to jump
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to the answer Jesus gave and misunderstand or skip over the implications of the fact
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that Jesus even was willing to answer the question. So here we go.
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Here's what happened. The Pharisee comes to Jesus. It says, teacher,
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which is the greatest commandment in the law. He's talking about the Law of
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Moses, six hundred plus commands, including the top ten? Right, And
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this is interesting. He says, which is the greatest? The Greek term
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here means the megas, the mega commandment. What's the mega commandment? What's
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the most important commandment in the law. There's six hundred plus, we got
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the top ten. But you know, what's the one that stands out above
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all the rest. Which one of the commandments is most essential? Which one
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is fundamental? Which one is the one if you don't do anything else,
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if you don't know what to do, just break the glass and just do
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this one thing. What is the most important commandment? And Jesus, this
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is the part I don't want you to miss. Jesus doesn't question the question.
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Jesus doesn't say, what do you mean, what's the greatest commandment?
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They're all equally inspired, therefore they are all equally important. He doesn't do
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that. He actually affirms the significance and the importance of the question, which
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means we are about to learn. If you didn't know beforehand, we're about
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to be reminded. In case we have forgotten. We are about to learn
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what bothered Jesus the most, which means what bothered God the most, which
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means what they both value the most. Jesus replied, some of you can
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quote this. Jesus said, the most important commandment is this, Love the
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Lord, your God with all your heart and with all your soul, with
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all your mind. He's quoting from Deuteronomy when Moses, after they'd wandered through
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the wilderness, reminded the people of what was most important. It was kind
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of a different way of saying, at the beginning of the ten Commandments,
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you know, have no other gods before me. I'm your God. Don't
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drift to these other pagan gods. If you do, you're gonna get in
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trouble. This was just another way of saying that the most important commandment is
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you lean into and you love God so much, you live your life to
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please God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind.
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And then Jesus say, this is the first, and the little Greek term
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here first means first in sequence. This is the first and the greatest,
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the mega commandment. This is the one that organizes all the rest. This
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is the one that all of them point toward. And just before the pharisee
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can respond to Jesus answer, Jesus smiles and says, and to which they're
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thinking, And what I mean? You answer the question? You ask for
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one, you gave us. He asked for one, You gave him one.
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There can't be an. And when he's asking about one, I mean
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the most important one. You've told us. You've answered the question. But
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Jesus had an end. And Jesus is about to reveal what's most important to
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him and to your heavenly father. And the second is like it, the
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second in sequence, not the second in importance, the second in sequence,
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not the second of importance. In fact, the second commandment he's about to
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give is evidence. The second is evidence of how well a person is keeping
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the first. If you're not keeping the second, you're not keeping the first
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because, let's face it, love the Lord, your God of all your
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heart, soul and mind, who knows right? How do you monitor that?
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How do you know how you're doing? Jesus as I'm about to tell
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you, how you know how you're doing? Some of you again can quote
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this. And the second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself.
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And then this next statement, Oh my goodness, it is so clarifying.
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This next statement is so prioritizing. It's amazing. He says this all and
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for this Jewish group of people, this Jewish audience that was sitting there listening,
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this was amazing. All the law and the prophets, that's all of
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Torah and all the prophets and everything mixed back in. You know that we
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would consider our Old Testament. They just refer to it as the law and
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the prophets. All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.
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In other words, this is the hinge. This is the thing that brings
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them together. This is the epicenter. This is the if you forget all
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the other ones, these are the two that you go back to over and
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over and over. These two define all the rest if you get lost in
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the details of all the other six hundred plus, you just come back to
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these two that love that love God and love your neighbor. The rest of
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it, it all hangs on those two. In other words, love for
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God is demonstrated and authenticated by our love for others. That your love for
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God is demonstrated and authenticated by your practical, everyday love for others. Not
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rule keeping. The way we say it around here is horizontal authenticates vertical.
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Horizontal. How I'm treating you authenticates vertical. How I'm following God. That
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horizontal, how I'm treating my neighbor and my enemies, and the people that
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are easy to love and the people that are difficult to love. My everyday
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practical response, the way I'm living my life authenticates whether or not I am
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truly following Jesus, whether or not I truly love God with all my heart,
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my soul, in my mind. Then throughout the Gospels, if you
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take this idea and use this as a filter for everything Jesus teaches, suddenly
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so much of his teaching becomes so clear. Case in point, in the
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Book of Mark, which we think Mark got his information about Jesus from Peter,
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So this is kind of Peter through Mark. Mark records another narrative where
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Jesus illustrates this and teaches this in a different kind of way, where he
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kind of doubles down on this whole idea. Mark tells us that one day
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Jesus and his disciples are traveling and they're moving, they're they're working their way
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through some grain fields, so they're sort of trespassing on somebody's grain field they're
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walking through. And it was on the sabbath, and of course you're not
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allowed to work on the sabbath. And this was a great This was a
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great law that God gave his people, and there's certainly implications for us today.
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On one Sabbath that Jesus was going through the grain fields and as the
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disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. So there's
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these stalks of grain on the top of the little heads that are coming right
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and they're picking them off and they're eating them as they moved through the grainfield,
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which was legal. They were sort of doing a minor harvest, but
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it was okay for people to do this. So they're walking through the grain
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fields, they're picking these heads. They're having a conversation and they're eating the
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grains off the top of the saws, and the Pharisees, who seem to
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be everywhere, it's like they just shadowed Jesus everywhere to go. Did you
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see that? Write that down? Did you see that? Write that down?
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Because later when they arrest Jesus, you know they have all this evidence.
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Well it's because they just there was always somebody spying. So they're walking
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along through the grain fields and they're thinking, Hm, I'm hungry too,
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but we got rules. So anyway, the Pharisees said to him, look,
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why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath. Well, the
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law said you can't harvest grain because that's worked. You can't harvest grain on
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the Sabbath. That was prohibited. So they considered, because of the oral
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tradition, not anything that was written, that picking heads of grain off a
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stalk of grain was considered harvesting. So Jesus, in his characteristic way,
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he just ignores the absurdity of this application of the law to make a broader
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point. And this is one of those statements in the New Testament that is
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so pregnant with meaning, but because of our culture, we just read right
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by it. But he is about to make a statement about the entire law
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of God that goes right back to what he said to the lawyer that day.
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Here's what he said. Jesus said to them, the Sabbath was made
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for man, was made for human beings. It was made for the people.
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The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. In
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other words, you teachers of the law, you got it all backwards.
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God did not create people so there would be someone to keep his laws.
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In other words, in the beginning, God didn't was up in heaven with
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all these rules and commandments and He's like, Wow, these are so good,
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but there's nobody to keep these laws. I think I'm going to create
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human beings so there will be someone to keep my laws. This is how
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they operated. This is how religion has a tendency to operate. This is
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the gravitational pull of so many faith traditions. This was the This was the
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religious atmosphere that Jesus showed up in. Jesus says, no, God issued
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his laws for the sake of the people he loves, or maybe you've heard
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me say it this way, before. Parents don't have children, so there
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will be someone to play with the toys. The toys are for the children.
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Or let's make it even more direct and contextual to what we're talking about.
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Parents don't have children because they have a bunch of rules for kids.
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But by golly, we don't have any kids. We gotta have kids,
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so there will be somebody to keep the kid rules. It's not how it
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works, but that is the gravitational pull of all almost all religious systems,
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and unfortunately, through the centuries, in many cases not all, it's become
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the gravitational pull of Christian traditions and the Christian faith. Jesus implication is you
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can't miss it. The implication is this, the people are the priority,
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not the rules, not the laws. In other words, and this is
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where he just would double and triple and quadruple down over and over there his
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ministry. If someone applies the law of God in a way that harms people,
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they aren't applying it correctly. If someone applies the laws that God gave
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in such a way that harms other people, clearly they are not applying it
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correctly. Because the laws are for the benefit of the people. The rules
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are for the benefit of the people, and if they aren't benefiting the people,
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you misunderstand and you aren't doing it correctly. In fact, this is
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what angered Jesus the most. In fact, this may be the only thing
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that angered Jesus. Experts in the law would justify. Experts in law would
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justify their mistreatment of people by pointing to the fact that they were upholding the
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law of God, which led them to ask the silliest questions. I mean,
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there's some questions that regardless if you're a Bible reader or not, or
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a Christian or not, you read these and you think, what were these
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people thinking. Well, they were just playing out of this this framework,
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this con text, this template where God has the laws, God loves his
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laws more than he loves people. Consequently, the laws are preeminent and the
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people are secondary. So one day, these teachers of the law, and
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you know, it's easy to be critical of him, but I'm gonna give
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you an example where we're equally as guilty, So hang with me. They
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come to him one day and they ask a question like this. I mean,
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this is to our modern sensibilities. This is so insensitive, but insensitive,
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but they were serious. I mean they were really trying to figure this
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out. Jesus. Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for
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any and every reason? Jesus, we're trying to figure out this divorce thing.
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And of course these are men, right. Is it lawful for a
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man to divorce his wife? See? Lawful? That's just awful, isn't
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it. It's like imagine that. I mean, do I really even need
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a good reason? You know, she burnt my food, you know she
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showed up late. You know I'm not attracted to her anymore? Can a
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man divorce his wife for any and every reason? Obviously that's the wrong question.
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That's the question you ask. And here we go with where faith traditions
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easily go. And just to be honest, I've told you this before.
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God had to work this out of me as a young Christian because this is
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where I went. I'm first born rule keeper. You know, nobody else
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can keep the rules as good as me. What's wrong with you? People?
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Just obey God? If you're not gonna obey God all time? For
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you, I was terrible, terrible. So I'm not going to be too
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judgmental. I've sat in that seat for far too long. Till God I
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feel like finally got my attention and broke me out of that is This is
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the question you ask when you are more concerned about a view than a you.
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This is the question you asked when you're more concerned about systematic theology and
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making everything be buttoned up and everything fit in a box than you are about
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the people that the question and the rule impacts. But where's we've asked similar
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questions? Don't raise your hand, but if you if you were raised in
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church, I guarantee you, at some point along the way, you've asked
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this question, Pastor? Does the Bible say is a sin? Does the
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Bible say blank? Is a sin? Don't answer this out loud? But
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why do we ask this question? Don't say anything outloud? Me. We
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asked this question because we want to do blank? Right? I want to
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do blank? But I want to know is God going to be mad at
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me? Is there anything in the Bible? Because I know the Bible.
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In the Bible, the Bible covers all the sins. So if so,
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I just want to know. I haven't read the whole Bible, Pastor,
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and I don't understand most of it anyway, So does the Bible say blank
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is a sin. And we ask this question either because we want to do
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blank, or we're trying to convince somebody else to do blank in some way
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that will benefit us. Oh, there's nothing in the Bible about that.
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That's not a sin. There's nothing in the Bible about that. The assumption
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is this, and this is the assumption, the assumption that Jesus came one
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of the many that Jesus came to challenge. The assumption is this, if
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the Bible doesn't condemn it, well, then God must condone it. Not,
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according to Jesus, who came to reveal the heart and the soul and
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the intent of his father. According to Jesus, what's good for people is
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what's good, and what's not is not. Jesus had no patience, no
25:45
patience for good people who weren't good to people. He had no tolerance for
25:53
good people who weren't good to people. WHOA do you? I love these
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phrases. We don't use this word enough. WHOA do you? I would
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love to incorporate that into a sermon. But he's a little strong for me.
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Okay, WHOA? But Jesus he can do whatever he wants. Whoa
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do you, teachers of the law. But it's like almost like a Gandalf
26:14
thing, whoa you shall not pass? You know? Whoae do you?
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Teachers of the law? And Pharisees, you hypocrites? You give a tenth
26:22
of your spices, which was required by the law, but even though you're
26:29
keeping God's law, you have neglected the more important matters. This phrase is
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so important. This phrase is an important phrase that actually matters. Here's what
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Jesus is saying. The intent, the intent, the intent of God's law
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is more important than the laws themselves. The intent behind God's laws are more
26:56
important than the laws themselves, because the laws of God flow from the intent,
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the goal, the purposes of God. So okay, well, so
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what are you talking about? And Jesus, I'll tell you what I'm talking
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about. Justice, mercy, faithfulness to those to whom you have pledged faithfulness.
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That is what matters to our Father in Heaven. That's what matters to
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Jesus, and that's what's supposed to matter to me and to you. And
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I've said this to you before, and you probably think I'm exaggerating to make
27:37
a point of promise. I'm not. I'm a first born rule follower.
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Oh my goodness, justice, mercy, faithfulness. Uh uh. I was
27:45
all about the rules because if I obeyed the rules, God would bless me,
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and I wanted to be blessed. And if you couldn't keep up,
27:52
hey, that's up to you. But I'm going to keep up. And
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I know what I know, I know what God wants me to do.
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Justice and mercy we're not even part of my vocabulary. It was all about
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fidelity and morality and tell the truth and be a good person because if I'm
28:07
a good person, it doesn't matter how I treat other people because me and
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God are good to go. It's so embarrassing. And then I began to
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actually follow Jesus through the Gospels and not be so focused on the sin list
28:23
and the epistles. And then I begin to understand the connection between those two
28:30
and my heart changed. And I didn't become liberal, and I didn't become
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you know who cares, just do whatever I think. I just became a
28:37
better person. I definitely became a better pastor and more compassionate. And I
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tell you what, And Sandra's sitting here today, I am so glad that
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I discovered this or that God did this in me before I raised my children.
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Because my children, who love the Lord, know nothing of legalism.
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In fact, when they bump into it, it's so offensive and I'm so
29:06
happy about it. They have no capacity for toxic Christianity and toxic faith.
29:12
When they bump into it, they're just like, what is that. I'm
29:15
like, I know all too well what that is, and it's not of
29:18
God and it's not of his son. So to Jesus, what made a
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sin a sin? And what does it look like for us? So?
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I have four suggestions. I made these up. They rhyme because I want
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you to remember them, and we're gonna post these around. How do you
29:40
know what's the sin? Right here? It is number one. If it's
29:44
not good for him, it's sin. That's it. Is it good for
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him? No, then don't do that. It's a sin, but it's
29:51
legal. But yeah, is it good for him? No? Everybody else?
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What is it good for him? Is it the best thing for him?
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No? Then don't do that. Don't treat him that way. It's
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a sin. Number two. If it's not good for her, defer same
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thing as this, but it just rhymes. Okay, If it's not good
30:04
for her. Defer In other words, if this is hey, men,
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look up your men. If it's not good for her, no, no,
30:12
just no, but Andy, the culture, but everybody else, my
30:18
other girlfriend. No, this is all the men are laughing. Good,
30:25
it makes me feel better. I just thought it'd be the ladies laughing,
30:26
or thought i'd get a female amen or woo who or perhaps the standing ovation.
30:32
Anyway. Number three, if it's not good for you, no can
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do. It's that simple. You know why look up here because your heavenly
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Father loves you. And if it's bad for you, it's a sin.
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You're sinning against yourself. And God isn't just concerned about how you treat others.
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God is concerned about how you treat yourself, your body, you know,
30:53
your future, anything that has anything to do with you, your character,
30:56
your reputation. Because God loves you you, it's a sin. And
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number four, if it's not good for them, it should be condemned.
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If there's a group of people in our culture or a society in the world
31:12
and they're being mistreated because of injustice or unfairness, are just some societal thing,
31:19
it is okay for Christians to speak out and objection to those things because
31:25
they are being sinned against by another group of people, or by a government
31:30
or who knows. This is part of it. Because what God values most
31:33
is not his rules. What God values most are people, And behind the
31:38
rules is his love for justice. We're going to talk about that, and
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his love for mercy and kindness and forgiveness and what elevates the status and the
31:47
well being of people. Do you know why Jesus and why his father carry
31:56
a should I say, do you know why Jesus characterized and defined send this
32:00
way? It's because, as I said before, this is how his father
32:02
in heaven does. And do you know why your heavenly father is against sin?
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Do you know why your heavenly father is against sin? Because he's for
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you and the ews around you. When Jesus showed up in the first century,
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the temple was absolutely corrupt. John the Baptist shows up and says,
32:25
don't even John the Baptist is so funny to me, because I love the
32:29
Bible. He's at the Jordan River doing at the Jordan River what they're supposed
32:32
to be doing at the temple. Come on down here with me, and
32:35
I'm gonna show you what forgiveness and repentance looks like. Don't go up there
32:38
to the temple. It is corrupt. It is full of snakes and vipers.
32:43
And the people from the temple came to see John the Baptist. He's
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like, you're gonna be so sorry you came down here to listen to me,
32:50
because I am offering what you should be offering up there, but it's
32:52
corrupt. When Jesus showed up, it was the Temple model and the temple,
32:55
and the message of the Temple model was this, when you send,
33:00
you break God's law. The Jesus model sounded like this, when you sin,
33:07
you break yourself and others, which breaks God's heart. So we shouldn't
33:17
be surprised that God is anti sin, because God knows what. All of
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us who are twenty five years are older and even younger than that. But
33:27
let's just be fair. Anybody's twenty five years older. Here's what we already
33:30
know from our own experience. Right, every sin, every sin comes with
33:35
a prepackaged consequence. They all come with a pre package consequence. Right.
33:40
I have a friend who just god his one year chip in AA and they
33:44
let him do a talk. You know, his testimony was so powerful,
33:46
and he used this phrase and I asked him, I said, is that
33:49
aas I haven't seen that in the Big Book. He said, I don't
33:51
know where I heard this. He said, I heard it at AA.
33:52
He said, all addictions start off as magical, then they become medicinal,
33:59
and then you become miserable. It starts off as magical, the best medicinal.
34:04
I need it, then miserable. How do I get out of it?
34:07
That's sin. It always starts off as magical and then you need it,
34:12
and then eventually he realize what you've lost. As a consequence, it
34:15
numbs the conscience, It harms our relationships, that destroys our self respect,
34:20
that it erodes our self control. Two days ago, I was up in
34:22
North Georgia driving around. I went by this little Baptist church and they had
34:25
to sign out with these sayings. I always they're amazing. I said,
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I'm going to use this one Sunday I had Sandra. I said it.
34:31
Sandra put it on her phone. I love this. Here's what it said.
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Sin is expensive? Who is paying for yours? Sin is expensive?
34:45
Who is paying for yours? Of course God is anti sin because he is
34:52
for you, and at the epicenter of how Jesus defines sin and how your
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heavenly father to find sin, It's how your behavior and mind impact other people.
35:01
So this is essential. It's fundamental that we view sin the way our
35:05
Savior views sin. So here's our list they build. Jesus is God's son,
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He's our king, which means he's the rule maker. Jesus came to
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illustrate and demonstrate what God is like. There's no space between Jesus and God.
35:17
And then number three Jesus to find sin is anything that harms you or
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others, whether it shows up on a sin list or not, whether it
35:28
appears in our Bible or not. So I want to ask you a terrifying
35:34
question and then I'm going to ask you to respond, which is going to
35:37
be even more terrifying. So don't tune out or go anywhere. Okay,
35:42
here's the question. Are you harming you or others? Stop it? Have
35:55
it a relationship? That is, the people who are depending on you and
36:00
loved you found out about a relationship that's moving slowly in a direction. And
36:04
if they knew that, it would harm them and undermine their confidence in you
36:07
and your fidelity in that relationship, a behavior that's shipping away your self respect.
36:12
You don't like who you see in the mirror anymore. A habit that's
36:15
beginning to chip away at your sense of self control. At first, it
36:19
will have this under control, You have this under control, and now you're
36:22
losing control, is out of control. Would you be willing to acknowledge that?
36:27
Would you be willing to accept Jesus' invitation to walk away from that?
36:32
Because this is baked into the invitation to follow Jesus? Would you be willing
36:36
This is his invitation because he loves you. Would you be willing to leave
36:42
your sin? Walk away? Not because God's going to get you, because
36:46
sin will break you. It's already breaking you, and it has the potential
36:52
to break the hearts of the people you care about the most. We say
36:54
that all the time. Would you be willing to walk away from your sin?
36:59
This is what it means to follow Jesus. So here's how we're going
37:02
to close the day. We haven't done this in many, many years,
37:06
but I think like I would be irresponsible not to do this. I'm gonna
37:10
ask you to do something embarrassing and humiliating in just a minute. Yet,
37:15
I'm gonna ask anyone here in all of our churches, or if you're in
37:19
a living room with your family. That's going to be really hard, But
37:22
come on, I'm going to ask anyone at any of our churches who is
37:25
willing to day to acknowledge publicly you have a sin that you need to walk
37:32
away from. In a minute, I'm going to ask you to stand a
37:37
relationship you need to walk away from, a habit, a prejudice, selfishness.
37:44
Men, it's usually men. We always got to be right, and
37:46
it's just alienating your family. It's like, you know, you're stubborn.
37:50
In the moment you kind of lose it, but you would just listen,
37:52
like I just don't want to do that anymore. It's hurting people I love,
37:58
And you're like, I want to be done with this. I don't
38:00
want to walk away from this. I'm gonna ask you to take your first
38:02
step and in a moment, stand publicly and declare I'm done. And then
38:12
when that happens, if anybody stands, and maybe nobody's gonna stand, you're
38:14
not embarrassing me. I just feel like I got to give you this opportunity
38:16
at all, of our churches. If anyone stands, I want us to
38:20
cheer for them. This is a big day. And then I'm gonna ask
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anyone in all of our rooms who has ever had to walk away from a
38:28
sin? To stand? And I'm already standing just so you know. So
38:38
anybody listening today and you're like, you know what, I get it and
38:44
I'm done with it. Who'd you stand? That's amazing, that's amazing,
38:52
that's amazing. Look at all these men I love that just remain standing.
38:58
Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness. And anybody else who's ever walked away
39:01
from a sin? Would you join us? And that is absolutely amazing,
39:07
absolutely amazing. Wow, Heavenly Father, goodness, goodness, goodness, thank
39:16
you for your grace and your mercy, for your forgiveness. Because the people
39:22
who stood this isn't the first time they thought about this. And you've been
39:25
so gracious and so merciful to give us the courage now to take the next
39:32
step, whatever that is. Give us eyes to see you the way that
39:38
you want to be seen, through the eyes of Jesus, the life of
39:42
Jesus, and give us the courage to walk away, put it behind us,
39:45
trusting in your spirit to empower us through that, because we've already tried
39:51
and we failed, and that was our hesitation to stand to have your way.
39:57
We want to be followers. We want to decide today to follow,
40:00
no turning back. If none go with us still, we will follow in
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Jesus name, Amen,