Is Sin a Big Deal?

Is Sin a Big Deal?

The concoction of our age is a “God” who looks the other way, who just doesn’t get it, or who gently pats our heads and winks at our sin. A God who was rather grumpy in the Old Testament but has now become kinder and gentler.

Do We Take for Granted?

–We can have God’s favor if we rest in what Christ has done for us rather than what we do ourselves…that’s called grace.

-Grace is God’s blessing in your life your sin—based on the merit of the blood of Jesus Christ.

• Only by grace do we stand righteous in God’s sight.
• Only by grace do we have in this life.
• Only by grace are we destined for heaven for eternity.
• Only by grace can we live righteously in this journey called life.

-To understand grace, you must understand the grossness of sin.

-Sin is what man from God—both now and for all eternity.

-Sin is the reason God’s love sent Jesus to the cross.

-Sin is what causes and destruction in your life and in the world.

-Sin, no matter how photoshopped, is always deadly.

*Sin will cost you more that you wanted to pay, keep you longer than you wanted to stay, and take you further than you wanted to go.

-It is God’s grace alone that forgives sin and erases its penalty.

-Unfortunately, many people see God’s grace merely as their get our of jail free card.

-Grace does not minimize or erase the reality of sin—grace embraces the reality of sin and covers it with Jesus’ blood.

*God’s grace offers real forgiveness for sins!

• Every sin is heinous and should grieve us.
• sin is beyond God’s grace to forgive.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

Four Debilitating Lies About Sin:

1. Who think I am matters more than who I really am.

-Self-projection refers to a person who places their confidence upon what they look like/appear to be in the eyes of others…their perceived worth is in what they think others think about them. (Luke 11:37-40)

1) If a person is more about what they like to others than what they are before God, they’re well on their way down a road away from God and His grace!

2) Cleanliness of the outside means absolutely nothing if the heart is not cleansed by the blood of Christ!

–of the delusion of thinking that if your life appears good, then you are good!

Matthew 23:27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.

-God’s grace is needed both for the fake we present to others as well as the depravity we know to be inside!

*Discuss: Why is this an important concept to understand in your human relationships and in your walk with the Lord?

2. My sin isn’t really that bad.

-i.e. When I see the sin of others, I’m not even close to that extreme.

-Sobering Truth:

• Romans 3:10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one
• Psalm 51:5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
• Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked

-Our hearts deceive us into thinking that the great sins of others will somehow make ours significant.

-There are no little sins—every sin is condemning—no matter the size.

-(J. Bunyan) One leak will sink a ship; and one sin will destroy a sinner.

-The only suitable object of comparison is the of Jesus Christ.

–We don’t, we can’t measure up. But Jesus does. And further, when we rest in Him and receive His obedience, His perfect life of no sin, He takes upon Himself the deserved punishment for our rebellion. And we are wiped clean. The chastening due us has fallen upon Jesus.

• Psalm 32:1-5 Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile. When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah. I acknowledge my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah.

3. God could/would never forgive me for what I’ve .

-Sometimes its easier to forgive others who sin than it is to receive God’s forgiveness for what we’ve done.

-Sometimes it is a feeling that in order to be fully accepted by God again, one must do something specific to atone for their sin.

-This self-delusion leads one to think that they are somehow, someway able to be/do to get back in good standing with God.

-There is one (and only one) solution that can/will erase guilt over sin—the blood of Jesus Christ.

–At Calvary, God heaped upon Jesus all the punishment for all the sin of the world.

• Romans 3:25 Whom (Jesus) God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; 

There is a fountain filled with blood / Drawn from Emmanuel’s veins

And sinners plunged beneath that flood / Lose all their guilty stains.

The dying thief rejoiced to see /That fountain in his day

And there may I though vile as he /Wash all my sins away. (W. Cowper)

4. I walk in consistent victory over sin.

-Satan uses this lie—that consistent victory over sin is impossible—to hold countless believers in bondage.

-The Apostle Paul knew this struggle:

I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? (Rom. 7:21-24)

-Even after salvation, our flesh struggles with God’s Spirit Who lives in us.

The Spirit says: Forgive.

The flesh says: Hold a grudge.

The Spirit says: Be controlled.

The flesh says: Eat/do whatever you want, whenever you feel like it.

The Spirit says: Spend some time in the Word and in prayer.

The flesh says: You’ve had a long day; chill out in front of the TV.

The Spirit says: Hold your tongue. Those words are not necessary.

The flesh says: Tell it like it is!

-Victory over sin has indeed been through Jesus’ finished work on our behalf:

Romans 6:18 & 8:2 Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

Grant me never to lose sight of

The exceeding sinfulness of sin,

The exceeding righteousness of salvation,

The exceeding glory of Christ,

The exceeding beauty of holiness,

The exceeding wonder of grace. (Valley of Vision)

*Study from Lies Men Believe by Robert Wolgemuth & Lies Women Believe by Nancy D. Wolgemuth