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"What Everyone Needs to Know About Sin" by Hiram Kemp · Cumberland Trace Church of Christ (Formerly Lehman Ave Church of Christ)

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Nobody's for sure how many words are removed and added, but it is true
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that on an annual basis, words are added to the dictionary and there are
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words that are taken out for various reasons. An article in the Reader's Digest
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suggests 3 reasons for why different words are on occasion taken out of
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the dictionary. Sometimes they say, number one, it's the evolution of language.
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Language changes, maybe due to slang or pop culture, the way
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people use words. And as the language evolves and continuously changes,
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human vocabulary is updated and certain words are considered obsolete.
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And so as the language evolution— evolutionizes, the words
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are removed. Second reason why words are sometimes taken out is the
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evolution of meaning. Sometimes, and you can think of certain words where this
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would be true, a word once meant something, but over time things have changed.
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People use the word differently, and as a result, the meaning has changed.
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And as that continues to happen, eventually Webster and others just decide
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it's a good idea to remove the word altogether.
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And then the third and final reason why this article suggests that there are words
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taken out of the dictionary, it's the aging of words. Sometimes words
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just become archaic and old, and you can summarize it by simply saying
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people just don't talk like that anymore. And as a result, words are
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taken out. The interesting thing about words being added and removed from the dictionary
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is most times you don't even realize this is happening.
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Just over time, people start using a word sort of differently,
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slightly differently than the way it had been used for decades before.
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People start saying different things about this word or maybe using it
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less and less, and then they remove it from the dictionary, and all of a
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sudden the word just sort of vanishes as if it's been permanently removed
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from the human conscience and people no longer use the word anymore.
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There are certain words that removed from the English lexicon really make no difference
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at the end of the day, but then there are other words that we just
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simply can't do to live without, and one of those words is the
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word sin. Now, maybe you don't realize this, but there
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is this idea that people have tried to just sort of remove the word sin
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out of the human vocabulary and out of the human lexicon, It can't be done.
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But if you just observe the world in which we live, you'd have to
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admit that we're trying really hard to do so. I mean, just about everything
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is approved these days, and really nothing is ever called sin
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anymore. We don't say things like, I've got pride.
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We call it confidence. We don't say, I'm bitter.
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We say, I'm still hurt about that. There is no
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fornication. These are just 2 people who are deeply in love and practically married
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by common law anyway. And so we just sort of let it go.
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It's not gossip, it's concern. In fact,
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probably the greatest thing in our society that is known as sin today
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is calling something else a sin. And as we think about
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this, we should appreciate we're not the first group in society to try to do
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this. In Isaiah's day, Isaiah chapter 5 and verse 20,
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Isaiah says, woe to you that call evil good and
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good evil, put light for darkness, darkness for light, bitter for sweet
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and sweet for bitter. In the days of the judges, Judges 17:6
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and Judges 21:25, we read, in those days there was no king in Israel,
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and every man did that which was right in his own eyes. Paul talked
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about the Gentile world in Romans chapter 1, and in verse 18, he describes some
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who he says they suppress the truth in their unrighteousness.
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And one of the indications that we are living in the last dispensation
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of time, according to 2 Timothy 3:1-5, is that people profess godliness
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with their mouth but not with their life, and they denote the power of
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godliness, but they ignore its power. Even if you could
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remove this word from the lexicon of the English-speaking world,
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you wouldn't be able to deny its behavior. Whether you're a believer or
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an unbeliever, the fact remains, you look out at the world in which we live
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and the behavior that people practice, it just makes it obvious
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that human sin, unrighteousness, and misconduct is what's wrong with
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our world. But this sermon is more than just about keeping a Bible word
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in circulation. It's about understanding what the Bible says about sin
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and what that means about us as human beings, but ultimately what it
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says to us about God. Because the truth about sin is a truth that
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everybody in the world needs to appreciate— what we've done to ourselves at the deepest
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level, how this affects the world in which we live, and the depths that God
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has gone to in order to get us out of it. Isaiah 59:1-2,
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Isaiah says, behold, the Lord's hand isn't shortened that it can't save.
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His ear isn't heavy that he can't hear, but your sins and your iniquities
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have separated you from your God. And have we been made friends
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again? It's only in appreciating the depths that we fall into in sin that
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we can appreciate the rescue that God has gone to in order
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to save us. So in the time we have remaining, here are 5 truths that
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everybody needs to know about sin, and here's number one: sin
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is not inherited. This idea that we inherit
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sin has had many champions down through time that have sort of popularized this
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idea. It started with Augustine in the 4th century. It was popularized
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in systematic theology by John Calvin, but even in more recent
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times in pop culture, people like Biggie and J. Cole have just sort of popularized
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this idea, and now it just sort of rolls off the tongue naturally.
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Born sinner. Born in sin, inheritors of
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Adam's sin, and all of those are simply ways of saying
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something that's false and not true.
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The Bible does teach that Adam introduced sin into the world. Romans 5
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and verse 12 says, for by one man sin entered the world, and death
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by sin, but death passed to all people because
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all people have sinned. The Bible teaches Adam introduced sin into the world, but we
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do not inherit his guilt. His transgressions, or the blackness
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of his stain is not on our soul as soon as we're born into the
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world. Romans 2:6, God says that he will repay each
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person in accordance with their works. One of the truths
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that everybody needs to know about sin is we, we do not inherit it
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from Adam or from anybody else. When you think about what
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happened when Adam and Eve sinned, when they transgressed and they fell, God shows
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up at the end of Genesis 3 and he starts doling out the consequences.
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And He says to Eve in Genesis 3:16, her consequence
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would be pain in childbearing, and her desire would be to rule
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over her husband, and he would reign over her. He says to Adam in Genesis
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3:17-19 that his work would now be difficult,
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and in the sweat of his face he would eat bread, and nature would no
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longer easily cooperate with him as it had been previously designed to do,
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Genesis 3:17-19. But one of the things God
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doesn't say to Adam is, oh yeah, and by the way, because of you,
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everybody is going to be born in sin and inherit your guilt. Because God
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doesn't say that and the rest of the Bible doesn't bear that out, it should
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be a corrective for how we view sin and the way it's made its entrance
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into our world. The Old Testament Law of Moses taught that the father wouldn't
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be punished for the sins of the son and the son wouldn't be punished for
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the sins of the father, Deuteronomy 24:16. In the historical
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sections of the Old Testament, ancient Israelite kings were taught that they
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couldn't look back at their fathers and say, I'm the way that I am and
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I'm an idolatrous worshiper because of what my fathers have done. 2 Kings 14:6,
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2 Chronicles 25:4. It was their responsibility,
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and it's ours as well. But I think the passage in the Bible that hits
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at this truth most clearly is found in Ezekiel 18. If you've got your Bible,
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turn to Ezekiel 18. And in Ezekiel 18, the prophet Ezekiel
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is dealing with ancient Israelite people who were struggling with the same thing that many
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modern Bible students struggle with today when we think about the entrance of sin
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into the world. Ezekiel 18:1-4, essentially what the people
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are saying to the prophet and to God is, we are guilty of sin,
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but we're guilty of being punished because of what our forefathers have done.
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They say, we— our fathers have eaten the sour grapes and our
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teeth are set on edge. And Ezekiel responds to them and to all
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people everywhere in verse 20 when he says, the soul that sins will
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die. The son won't bear the iniquity of the father, nor the father for the
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son. Righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness
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of the wicked will be upon himself. Translation: we don't
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inherit sin from anybody else, and everybody in the world
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needs to appreciate and accept this reality and this truth about sin.
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Before I explain this illustration, I just want to say Neil and I did not
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coordinate the back-to-back WNBA references for illustrations, okay?
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It's been viral for about 2 months. It doesn't seem to be losing any steam,
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but Sophie Cunningham was in a game. She's a guard for the Indiana Fever.
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And she was in a heated exchange with a woman by the name of Dawanna
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Bonner. And the exchange happened on the court because of a foul that was called.
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And you could hear Bonner saying to Sophie, don't point at me.
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And so you know what Sophie did? She pointed. But more
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than just point, she held it unbroken for 22 seconds.
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Coaches and refs were telling her to get off the— get off the court,
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and she continued to hold the pointed finger at Bonner, and she
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wouldn't break it. She wouldn't stop it. Like a kindergartner in elementary,
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basically saying, You can't stop me. I'm going to point. It went
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viral. It's been called the Sophie Point, and people were doing it in other sports
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and in other disciplines. It's been marketed. And for 22
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unbroken seconds, she just pointed even though she was told not to. I don't know
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if you've ever done this before. Pointing at somebody else for 22 seconds
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is pretty awkward and disturbing. But imagine pointing at
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somebody for thousands of years. Adam has
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his share of the blame, and the Bible will not let him off the hook.
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But I can imagine that Adam is shouting down through the hallways
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of time as we transgress, as we stumble, and as we rebel,
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saying to the masses of humanity, don't point at me.
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Psalm 106:6 says, we have sinned and rebelled
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and transgressed just like our fathers. Our transgressions are our own.
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And this is more than just about theological precision concerning
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where sin comes from. It's about the way that we see God. God would
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not place somebody else's debt on you. He's good and upright,
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Psalm 25:8. He's the judge of all the earth that
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will do right, Genesis 18:25. But more than
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this, it causes us to step back and then re-enter the Bible and then
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how we see the whole world. If we don't inherit anybody's sin,
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including Adam's, then that means we should change our terminology.
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It's not original sin. We're originally saved,
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Romans 9:11. It's not original guilt. It's original
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grace. We're born in a state of innocence and we choose
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later to go in the opposite direction of that, Matthew 18. 3 through
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4. I think the more you think about this point,
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the more disturbing and unsettling it might be. Because if
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this is true, and it is according to Scripture, if we don't inherit anybody
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else's sin, then that means we've got to deal with it. I think you can
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imagine why this idea might be popular and why people might want to
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believe that this is true when they're taught it theologically or in pop culture.
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Because if I'm not responsible for the reason that I'm in the mess
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of sin to begin with, then I'm less inclined to want to deal with it.
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If it's because of what Adam did thousands of years ago in Eden that I'm
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guilty of transgression, then I'll never want to fix up or fess up.
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I can just keep pointing back at Adam doing my best impression of Sophie
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Cunningham. But if it is my fault, then I've got
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work to do. You see, the Bible says that yes, your environment,
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your upbringing, and all of those things may have some bearing in explaining
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your struggles, but they don't bear the consequences for your sin and your actions.
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When Moses comes down from Mount Sinai, he confronts Aaron. Aaron can point at the
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people all he wants to, Exodus 32:23-24,
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but he made the golden calf. It was nobody's responsibility but
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his. This is challenging to us because it means we've got
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to confront the worst things about ourselves. But if we run in the other direction,
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we miss out, because it's not until we confront the worst
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things about ourselves that we ultimately learn the best things about him. That he's
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patient and long-suffering, abounding in steadfast love and mercy, not willing
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that any should perish, Exodus 34:6-7.
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The first truth that everybody needs to know about sin, sin is not
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inherited. So, where does it come from? That's number 2,
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sin is chosen. It's our choice. We decide
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on our own account. We don't— the world is broken because of
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Adam's sin, and the world is changed because of what Adam did, Sin came into
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the world through Adam, but sin has come into our own lives based on the
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way that we have chosen to live and go astray from God. The wise man
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says it this way in Ecclesiastes 7 and verse 29: Lo,
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this is what I found: God made man upright, but man
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has sought out many wicked schemes and inventions. Individuals have
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decided to go their own way. Yes, we're born into a state of innocence,
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but eventually every one of us goes astray from God. Paul says
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in Romans 3 and verse 9: Thus we've concluded that both Jew
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and Gentile are all under sin. We're not born as
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sinners, but we become sinners. Eventually we reach a stage
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or an age of accountability, and the Bible says nobody escapes
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that. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God, Romans 3 and
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verse 23. 1 John 1 and verse 8 and 1 John 1 and verse 10
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says even after becoming a Christian, there's these incidents and times where
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we sin, and if we deny that, we're a liar and we make God a
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liar. What everybody needs to know about sin is
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that sin is chosen. We choose to rebel, to defy,
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and to transgress God's law and his Word. Turn in your Bible to
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James chapter 1, and this is the place where Robert read for us from the
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scripture reading. And James in James 1, really 13 down through 16,
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unpacks where sin comes from in the individual life. And it's interesting
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that James will not let you off the hook or me. He doesn't. He says
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it's not God's fault. But if you read James 1:13-15, it's interesting.
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James doesn't even say what you would expect as a Christian. He doesn't say it's
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the devil's fault. James says, no, this one's on you. James 1:13,
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let no man say when I'm tempted, I'm being tempted by God, for God cannot
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be tempted with evil, neither does he tempt any man. But every
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man is tempted, in verse 14, when he's drawn away of his own lust and
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enticed. When lust is conceived, it gives birth to sin.
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Sin, when it's full-grown, gives birth to death. Verse 16, he says,
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do not be deceived, or do not err, my beloved brethren. Don't be deceived
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about what? Don't err about what? Where sin comes from and the fact that though
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we might not like to appreciate it as true, it's what we chose.
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In Joshua chapter 6, God tells the people, hey, you're going to go into Jericho
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and conquer this city, but under one condition. All of the spoils belong to
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me. A man named Achan steals from the spoils and takes for himself. When he's
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brought out and confronted by Joshua, Joshua, before his execution, says, Achan,
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why'd you do this? And in Joshua 7:21-23,
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Achan says, when I saw the Babylonish garment,
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I coveted. I saw the 200 shekels of silver and the
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gold weighing 50 shekels. He says, I coveted, I desired,
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and I took it. Achan, why'd you do it? Achan would say, it's because I
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chose it. And if you think about even all the words in the Bible that
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are used to describe what sin is by definition, it makes this point come alive
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even more. Sin is described as lawlessness or transgression, 1 John 3:4.
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That is, God has a standard, God has a law, and we just decide,
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I'm going to go past that. All unrighteousness is
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sin, 1 John 5:17. That means God has a standard
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of what's right and humanity decides, I'm going to do what I want.
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The Bible calls sin disobedience, Romans 1:20-23.
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But perhaps the word in the Bible that describes sin the best
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and most vividly, this word is used in both the Old and New Testament in
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their respective languages, languages is this idea of sin means missing the mark.
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It's the idea, not that we accidentally, that we attempted to
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hit the mark and we somehow missed because of human frailty and weakness,
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though that does happen. The word translated sin most often in the New Testament
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is this idea that we just went our own way and aimed at whatever we
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wanted to and we failed. Isaiah says rebellious children
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add sin to sin, Isaiah 30:1. To the
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one that knows to do good and doesn't do it, to him it's sin,
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James 4:17. What everybody needs to know about sin is sin
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is chosen. And maybe we don't like this. This makes us uncomfortable, the idea
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that we would see ourselves the way the Bible does, because this
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means that we're maybe not as good as we would like to think. Maybe we're
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worse off than we could imagine. And this is the Bible saying to you and
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me, if our lives are a movie with a strange plot twist that no one
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saw coming, then it means that we finally start to see ourselves
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as we watch the movie of our lives as the villain doing ourselves
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the most harm, that we never could appreciate or realize we're
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the ones choosing and going in the opposite direction. But it's only when we
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see that do we really start to appreciate what God's done for us. The word
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gospel is a Greek word that means the good news. But before we can appreciate
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the good news of the gospel, we've got to sit with the bad news of
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sin. We might not want to hear it, but we need to hear it.
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I mean, imagine you fall out of a tree. And you go into the doctor,
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you go to the emergency room, bone protruding out of your arm, and you approach
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the doctor, you get in to see somebody, you're in excruciating pain, and you say
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to him, Doc, what is it? What's happened to me? And he's a nice doctor
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and he doesn't want to hurt your feelings, so he says, I'm not going to
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tell you it's broken, but you've had an inconvenient change in your skeletal structure.
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You'd be frustrated. You say, listen, I don't care what you call it. I've got
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a broken bone. Tell me what I need to do. So I can fix it.
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And we come hobbling into God's presence and we're broken and
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we say, God, tell me what happened, it's hurting. And God says, I've got to
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be honest with you, you're broken and you did it to yourself.
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And I'm telling you the truth so you can fix it.
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Isaiah 53:6, Isaiah says, all we like sheep have gone
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astray. We've gone everyone his own way and the Lord has laid on
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Jesus the iniquity of us all. We've all chosen. Martin Luther says,
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sin is a turning in on oneself. It's doing ourselves damage and
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harm. And every time we sin, we always choose wrong.
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Deuteronomy 30:19, Moses says, I've set before you death and life.
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Choose life that you may live. But here's number 3,
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sin is deceptive and it's enslaving.
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Sin doesn't show up the way you and I might imagine just
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with bad— there are things Paul does say, the works of the flesh are evident,
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Galatians 5:19-21. But the primary way that sin
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shows up in the world, in our lives, is it's through a deceptive nature.
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What does that mean? It means it's not going to come with a name tag,
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a red suit, a pitchfork and horns. Hello, my name is sin and I'm
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here to destroy your life. It's not going to happen that way. Sin seems inviting
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and welcoming and happy and helpful. That's why the Bible in
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places like Hebrews 3:13 talks about the deceitfulness
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of sin, because sin doesn't look like it's going to ruin your life until
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it does. In Hebrews 3 and verse 13, the Hebrew writer says,
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but encourage one another daily while it's called today,
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lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of
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sin. It's this idea that you don't even see it coming.
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This is a picture of what's called a Lone Star tick,
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and they say Lone Star ticks can do great damage. Not just a bite like
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normal ticks, they can create in somebody what's called an allergic reaction called the alpha-gal
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syndrome. And that's after you've been bitten by this tick, if you eat red meat,
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not only can you have an allergic reaction, but that allergic reaction can
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ultimately lead to your death and your demise. In 2024,
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there was a 47-year-old pilot in New Jersey who
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died, and initially his death was ruled sudden and unexplained.
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They did some further digging, and he was bitten by one of these Lone Star
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ticks, and then after that, he ate a hamburger, and that's
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what led to his death. I mean, just look at this tick. I know it's
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blown up on the screen, but it's so small you could flick it into another
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galaxy with your middle finger. But if it bit you, It could
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kill you. And sin's like that. I mean, you could wave sin off with the
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hand just like Joseph does in Genesis 39:9 when he tells
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Potiphar's wife, I can't do this great wickedness and sin against God. But on
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the contrary, you could also extend the hand to sin and be welcomed in
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and ruined. Solomon paints a vivid picture of this in Proverbs 7:20-23
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when he says, you see this foolish young man, he's like an ox going to
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a slaughter, a bird caught in a snare. He doesn't know it'll cost him his
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life. Why? Because sin is deceptive. It sneaks up
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on you and you never see it coming. Turn your Bible
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to Genesis chapter 4, because I think in Genesis chapter— this is the first time
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in the Bible, in Genesis 4, that God actually calls something sin.
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And what God says and the picture God paints about sin,
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I think it was meant to stick with us the rest of our lives,
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is God says some things to Cain about sin, and the picture God paints about
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the deceptive nature of sin. You know the story of Cain and Abel
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in Genesis chapter 4 and how it ultimately ends. But before this, Abel's mad— Cain's
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mad at Abel because Abel's offering was accepted and his was not. But look
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at Genesis 4 and verse 7 and notice what God says to Cain.
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He says, do you do well to be angry? He says, if you do well,
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will you not be accepted? But otherwise sin is crouching at your
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door and its desire is to rule over you, but you must master it.
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This phrase, sin is crouching at your door, It's a Hebrew word that means to
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like lie down, to make itself seem smaller. You've— you
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maybe have a house cat and you've seen this happen. They try to sort of
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crouch down and make themselves seem smaller. Lions do this right
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before they pounce. God's saying, Cain, that's what sin's doing.
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Cain, sin is crouching at your door. Yes, to pounce and
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to ruin, but also to deceive and to pretend, to not look as
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big as it really is. You see, Cain, he's a human like you and me.
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In Genesis 4:5, he's just angry. That's all he has to think.
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I'm jealous. I'm angry. This is normal. God shows up
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and he says, Cain, tucked behind that anger is sin that is larger
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than it appears. It's massive. And when it finally stands upright,
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it'll devour you and it'll kill you. Oh, he just wanted to be angry.
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Cain had no plans whatsoever of committing murder, but that's
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what sin does. You see, sin's deceptive. And if sin could have
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its way, every lust would be adultery. Every envy would be robbery.
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Every self-pity would end up in idolatrous self-arrogance because sin
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crouches down. It makes itself appear small. It makes itself
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appear harmless. And then when it finally stands up, it's too late.
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Ask Cain how it worked out for him. It deceived him.
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And before long, Genesis 4:8, he's murdering his own
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brother. Because sin is sneaky, but sin
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is also enslaving. Jesus's favorite way to describe
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sin in John 8:34, he says, whoever commits sin
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is the slave of sin. Paul picks up on this in Romans 6:16.
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Paul says, whoever you yield yourselves as servants to,
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his servants you are to whom you obey, whether of sin that leads to death
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or obedience that leads to righteousness. Sin is deceptive and sneaky,
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but it's also enslaving. It'll grab you in its clutches and refuse
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to let you go. Proverbs 5:22 says that a person can
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be ensnared or trapped in the cords of sin as it literally has you bound.
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Kirk Franklin is a musician known for religious and gospel music. A couple
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years ago, he was interviewed on Oprah, and on this— in this episode, he was
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talking about his struggle and addiction to pornography. And he told Oprah,
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he said, you know, one day I realized I had a problem because
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I took the magazines that were causing me trouble and causing me to stumble,
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and I drove far away from my house And I wanted to be rid of
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it. And so I threw them in a dumpster because I realized that sin was
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an issue. But he underestimated the power and clutches of sin because
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Franklin says, at 3 o'clock in the morning, I woke up and drove to the
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nearby dumpster and jumped inside digging for the magazines.
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Imagine being so enslaved that you jump into a dumpster and
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you're digging in the middle of the night with your flip-flops on trying to find
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the very thing that'll wreck you. But if you're being honest with yourself,
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you really don't have to imagine, because how many times in our lives have we
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found ourselves running in the same direction of the very things
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that come to ruin us? 2 Peter 2:19,
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Peter says, while they promise you freedom, they themselves
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are the servants of corruption, of whom a man is overcome of
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the same thing, he's brought back into bondage. Flee lust and youthful temptation,
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2 Timothy 2:22, but it's difficult and challenging Because sin
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always comes to enslave. It starts off deceiving
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and crouching down, and then once it grabs ahold of us,
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it refuses to let us go. Quickly, here's number 4: sin
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is deadly. We sometimes sing a hymn,
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Love Lifted Me, and maybe you know how this song starts out. I was sinking
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deep in sin, far from the peaceful shore. I love that
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song. I believe in poetic license, but listen, what Paul's talking about is not that.
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Paul does not say, hey, you were sinking. Paul says, no, you were sunk.
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Paul doesn't say we were slipping. Paul says you slipped. Paul doesn't
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even say you were dying. Paul says you were dead.
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Ephesians 2:1-3, Paul says, and you has he made alive
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who were dead in trespasses and in sins, where in times
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past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince
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of the power of the air, the spirit now at work in the sons of
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disobedience, among whom we all had our conversation in times
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past. And the lusts of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and
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of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.
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Everybody in the world needs to know this 4th reality, that sin is
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deadly, that sin ultimately comes to ruin and to
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destroy and to end us. The Bible uses this language. Notice Paul in
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Romans 6:23 does not say the wages of sin will
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be death, as if it's future. Paul says the wages of sin is death.
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What does that mean? It means the wages of sin, yes, they will
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be death in eternity as people that fail to repent and trust in
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Jesus are lost forever and ever. But the wages of sin are death right now
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because there's a sense in which if a person is living a lifestyle of sin
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separate and apart from Jesus right now, they're already dead in
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their trespasses and sin. It's not on the way. It's being realized now,
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and it'll be fully realized at the end of all time.
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Whenever you're studying the gospel with somebody and you get to this point and you're
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talking about belief and repentance, you've got to try to get a person to see
26:20
what you once upon a time saw, and that is, hey, you've got sins you
26:24
need to repent of. And you start talking to people about repentance, and normally people
26:28
sometimes think, well, yeah, I think I've done some bad things here and there
26:31
before, but Paul's using stronger language than that. And maybe as you
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read in the Bible about sin being death, you think to yourself,
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I mean, this is pretty pretty strong language. I don't know, maybe the Bible's overdoing
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it, but if you think about a lifestyle of sin, it is just that.
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You've lost your 5 senses, spiritually speaking. You can't see,
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John 9:39-41. You're past feeling,
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Ephesians 4:19. You can't even
26:55
hear the gospel properly because your ears are shut off to spiritual truths,
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1 Corinthians 2:16. You can't smell
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the aroma of the good news of the gospel of Christ, 2 Corinthians 2:14-16,
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Paul uses this terminology to drive home the point that sin
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is not just dangerous, it's deadly. No wonder Paul says when
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you're baptized, you bury the dead man. It just makes sense. That's what
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you do to dead people. You bury the dead and then you rise to walk
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in this newness of life, Romans 6:3-4, that previously just
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couldn't be enjoyed. The Bible says that we are walking in newness
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of life because before Jesus and before his entrance into our lives,
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Sin had held us captive, but more than just holding us
27:37
captive, we were dead in our trespasses and sin. And it's only through what
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Jesus has done that we ultimately enjoy the new life that God offers through
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Christ. Here's the 5th and final thing: sin can
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be defeated. To only preach the first 4 points
27:53
of this lesson would be to simply give you the half-truths, but the Bible
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doesn't just say we're in darkness and that sin overwhelms us and
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that sin is deadly and addictive. The Bible also teaches that sin can be
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defeated, and that's in and through the person of Jesus. In fact, Jesus views his
28:08
triumph over death and the grave as his performing on our behalf.
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And so Jesus could say in John 16:33, be of good
28:17
cheer, I've overcome the world, because as he's overcome, everybody who
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puts their trust in him has overcome as well. In John 8:36,
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Jesus says, whoever the Son sets free is free
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indeed. And so that means a sermon like this is heard 2 different
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ways depending on which group you find yourself in. A person that's not
28:35
a Christian hears this sermon and says about their life in their sins,
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if I stay in my present condition, I'm doomed.
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A Christian hears a sermon like this realizing where they stand in Christ
28:47
and say, if I stay in my present condition, hallelujah, I'm delivered.
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Hebrews 2:14-15, forasmuch then as children are partakers
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of flesh and blood, Jesus took on the same thing, that through death he might
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destroy the one that had the power over us, that is the devil, and deliver
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us who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.
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In Christ, sin can and is defeated.
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Some of you in this audience maybe remember the G.I. Joe cartoon from the
29:16
1980s, and at the end of those episodes there was always this sort of life
29:19
lesson, this sort of PSA announcement where they would give this life lesson
29:23
and one of the children would say something like, now I know. And then what
29:26
would be the response? Knowing is half the battle. If you only
29:30
know the first 4 points of this lesson, you know half the battle, but you
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know the wrong side of it, because the New Testament also says that in Christ,
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those that walk in the light are continually cleansed, 1 John 1:7.
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If you confess your sins, every sin and every iniquity is forgiven
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right now. There is no condemnation in Jesus
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Christ to those who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit, Romans 8:1.
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Somebody says, but don't Christians still sin? Absolutely Christians
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still sin, but in the light of Jesus Christ, the blood continues to cleanse.
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And as a person's following Jesus faithfully, they retain none of their sins.
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All of our guilty stains are forever washed away, Hebrews 8:12.
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This means if you're a Christian, you're not a dirty rotten sinner who just hopes
30:13
to sort of sneak in past God at the judgment and just maybe make it
30:17
into heaven. You're not a sinner in a capital S way that the Bible describes
30:20
sinners. If you're in Christ, it means you're more than a conqueror,
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Romans 8:37. Right now you're being led into a
30:28
triumphal procession of victory through Jesus Christ, 2 Corinthians 2:14.
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And when you think about sin, it's not the case, well, we're all just a
30:35
bunch of sinners. Not those in Christ. Those in Christ
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look at the cross and realize that as Jesus was dying,
30:41
so was sin. When you were baptized into Christ, your sins
30:45
were literally drowned to death and they won't be resuscitated. You've been raised
30:49
to walk in newness of life, your sins forever cut off and separated from you.
30:53
And so long as you stay near to Jesus Christ, he'll never
30:57
bring them up again. See, what everybody in the world needs to know about sin
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is that in Jesus Christ, those sins that the world, try as they might,
31:04
can never overcome can only be overcome in Jesus. And maybe you
31:09
know people that aren't religious and they say, I don't need the church. I don't
31:12
need religion to be a better person. Listen, I can become a better person just
31:15
through sheer exertion and hard work and good effort. And to that we say,
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maybe you could. Maybe you can do some sort of behavioral modification
31:23
through just doing the right thing and trying to behave the right way. But here's
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the one thing you can't do that only Jesus can do. You can't bring yourself
31:30
back from the dead. See, that's the only thing that God offers that
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the world can never offer. That is, Jesus says, in me,
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I'll give you a brand new life now and an eternal one when this
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life is over. There are some words that people sometimes think
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we can just do without them. Maybe we can just remove them, but the deeds
31:47
and the actions are here to stay. And sin is one of those words.
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I know we live in a world that wants to stuff this down and we
31:53
found polite ways to say everything, but the Bible is honest with us
31:57
because Jesus says you need to know the truth because only in the truth can
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you truly be set free and liberated. John 8:31-32.
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If you're a Christian, hear this sermon and say, praise God,
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I'm delivered from sin forevermore, walking in the light,
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cleansed of the blood of Jesus, no longer guilty of the things that Jesus
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died to save me from. If you're outside of Jesus Christ,
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we encourage you, flee to him for refuge. If you believe Jesus
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is the Son of God and you're ready to turn away from your sins and
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confess them, I believe Jesus is the Son of God, we'd be happy to baptize
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you into Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins, Acts 2:38.
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The old man will die, be buried in that water. You'd rise to walk in
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newness of life. Kason's gonna lead us in a song to encourage us. If you
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need to respond to the invitation, come now as together we stand and as we