what is Sin
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Romans 5:12-21
Intro
(tear and restore paper trick)
Back to essentials of the faith, what are hills worth dying on. Sin is a problem we all have to deal with and it is one of the things that we see in the church fails to get taught when the church starts to move towards becoming sensitive to seekers. After all we do not want to scare people away with teaching them that they need a savior because they are lost in sin. After all once they hear about their problem with sin it might just start to make sense why they are seeking things to fill a hole in their life, turning to alcohol, drugs, porn to hide the pain of sin in their lives.
We look to the scriptures to learn about what sin looks like and it’s effect on our lives. The history of the human race as presented in Scripture is primarily a history of man in a state of sin and rebellion against God and of God’s plan of redemption to bring man back to himself. Therefore, it is appropriate now to consider the nature of the sin that separates man from God. After all if we are all lost in sin, then we are all separated from God at some point in our lives and hopeless on our own to turn back to God.
Sin is a big problem, it causes us to focus on ourselves, to start to become not united anymore, to complain and argue instead of living according to the word of God. Even as followers of Jesus, though we have been saved from the consequences of sin that doesn't mean that we are exempt from falling prey to sin and temptation.
This is something that is essential to salvation, it is a hill worth dying on, we are all sinful from birth and in need of a savior, that is clear. If we where not sinful from birth there would be no need for a savior. Some of the things that we are going to look through today are going to be today is what is sin? is every man sinful from birth? what are the consequences of sin? is there hope for any of us then if we are all sinful?
What is sin?
What is sin?
Going back to a theologian that I read through sometimes, we can define sin as follows: Sin is any failure to conform to the moral law of God in act, attitude, or nature. When we go against the moral law of God, we sin. Sin is a failure to conform to the moral law of God not only in action and in attitude but also in our moral nature. The internal character, the essence of who we are can also be sinful. One thing that has been on my mind in the past few years is the idea of relying on your heart, praying from the heart, trusting in your heart when the Bible teaches that our inner beings are sinful. Rather we are called to trust in God to guide our hearts and change our hearts. Proverbs 28:26
26 The one who trusts in himself is a fool, but one who walks in wisdom will be safe.
Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Bible Doctrine A. The Definition of Sin
sin is more than simply painful and destructive—it is also wrong in the deepest sense of the word. In a universe created by God, sin ought not to be. Sin is directly opposite to all that is good in the character of God, and just as God necessarily and eternally delights in himself and in all that he is, so God necessarily and eternally hates sin. It is, in essence, the contradiction of the excellence of his moral character. It contradicts his holiness, and he must hate it
With this in mind we go to the book f Romans, one of the books we go to for finding out who God is and what He asks of us. A study of theology often goes back to the book of Romans.
Sin entered the world through one man
Sin entered the world through one man
12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death spread to all people, because all sinned.
This is kind of the core to what we believe about sin, that sin entered the world through one man and women. We go to the beginning of the bible to see this. If we are reading the Bible in context we need to do this. Sin entered the world through one man, and made all of us sinful. God created the world and everything in it knowing that we would sin and mess everything up. He created us knowing this and planning a way for man to be free from the sin that entangles us. Why would God create us knowing we would fall to sin and need a savior? He is God I am not, I am not sure why He would do this or what His plan was in setting this all in motion.
God created the world knowing it would fall to sin but that does not mean that He delights in sin. We have kids, we know the kids are going to give us grief, make us sad, make mistakes and do things we teach them not to do. It will sometimes be painful, and yet we have children anyways. God does not delight in sin even though He created the world the way He did. It did not surprise God that we sinned, it did not challenge Him, He is still omnipotent. He is not the origin of sin, He can not be blamed for our sin for it came from the willful choice of man to disobey God.
We are all inherently sinful from birth.
We are all inherently sinful from birth.
what this means for us, and what the Bible teaches us then is because sin and death entered the world through the first man and women then we are now all under the curse of sin. An imperfect illustration would be a genetic condition that is passed on from the parent to the child. For example, something that runs in my family apparently is something called Developmental dysplasia of the hip. I was born with my left hip socket not properly formed and my Hip was therefore dislocated. My Grandma had it and needed corrective shoes as one leg was shorter then the other. I, thankfully, had surgery at around 18 months old to fix it. Likely my chidlrens children might deal with it as well. I still have the massive scar! Something that could run in the family for generations, or so I have been told anyways.
Sin is something though that we have all inherited whether we like it or not. it says right here all have sinned. We are all guilty of transgressing the written and moral law of God. Jesus changed things when He was here and reminded us that it is more then just action but also a matter of the heart. Breaking the law of God comes from the heart as well.
Part of the essentials of the faith is understanding that we all have sin and the consequences of sin is death. Physical and if not dealt with spiritual death. We are here to teach life abundant to those that are lost and we do not like to dwell on the fact that we are all lost in sin and hopeless to get out of it.
3 The wicked go astray from the womb; liars wander about from birth.
4 Against you—you alone—I have sinned and done this evil in your sight. So you are right when you pass sentence; you are blameless when you judge. 5 Indeed, I was guilty when I was born; I was sinful when my mother conceived me.
3 We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also.
I could keep going, but I wont, we are all by very nature full of sin. People think that well I am at least a good person that does good things, but even that is not good enough in itself. In the book of Isaiah it reminds us of this.
6 All of us have become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like a polluted garment; all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities carry us away like the wind.
All of our righteous acts are like polluted garments, filthy rags. People need to know that they are lost, maybe clued in to the fact that their search for meaning apart from Jesus will not get them the hope that they so desperately seek for. On our own we are lost, inherently sinful unable to get out of it on our own.
If someone where to give you a pill and say you need this to live you would question why you need it right? Most people would not just blindly take it. But We do that when we leave out the current state of a person without Jesus, lost in sin, and try to tell them they need a savior. Why would they need Jesus if they first do not know they are lost?
the consequences of sin is death.
the consequences of sin is death.
lastly we move to the consequences of sin. First there is a bit we need to explain in this passage.
13 In fact, sin was in the world before the law, but sin is not charged to a person’s account when there is no law. 14 Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin in the likeness of Adam’s transgression. He is a type of the Coming One.
What about those that lived and died before the law of God was introduced in the Mosaic covenant. Was sin still sin even when the law was not there to tell them what sin was? They where not held to the account of the law because it did not exist yet.
Death still reigned though, the consequences of sin that we received from Adam and Eve still reigned, death. Sin was not present in the sense of transgressing the law. Though without the law to clearly define sin it was still there. The coming of the law made sin even more serious.
Sin can only be charged to our account when we consciously or knowingly disobey a direct command that prohibits that sin. Therefore it was a little different before the law of God came through Moses. What was held to their account before that was hearing the commands of God, which they did receive throughout that time. Physical death was now the rule. But for those that disobeyed God spiritual death reigned as well.
The consequences of sin is eternal death. This is what gives urgency to what we are doing in sharing the gospel, this is essential to our faith. The fact that we all die, but we can choose what happens when we die. The consequences of our sin is spiritual death as well. The eternal wrath of God for disobeying the commands of God.
But it doesn't end there. My sermon on sin does but I can not leave it at that for this passage does not leave it at that either. The consequences of a life lived in sin is death and separation from God.
14 Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who did not sin in the likeness of Adam’s transgression. He is a type of the Coming One.
15 But the gift is not like the trespass. For if by the one man’s trespass the many died, how much more have the grace of God and the gift which comes through the grace of the one man Jesus Christ overflowed to the many.
Jesus was a type of Adam, the true and better Adam. The meaning behind this is beautiful. Adam had communion with God and walked with God The consequences of this rebellion were devastating—nakedness, shame, confusion, strife, death. But more than anything, we lost the presence of God. And we continue to, eagerly, to this day. Adam spread to all mankind what belonged to Him.
Jesus did what Adam and Eve should have done. withstood the temptation of Satan. Like Adam, Jesus was tempted by Satan, but the temptation was way worse. Adam was in Paradise, Jesus was in the desert and had fasted for 40 days.
through Adam we got sin and death as a reward. Through Jesus the Grace of God has overflowed to all who believe in Him. Jesus gives to all who repent and turn to Him grace and forgiveness instead of eternal death. That is what this statement means.
So what?
There is a movement out there to be sensitive to those that are seeking for something and changing the church to make them feel comfortable. Sin and eternal death and wrath of God is not comfortable, it is not sensitive it is hard to hear but it is necessary. On one hand we don't necessarily want to scare people into making a decision. but people need to know what the consequences of there decisions are.
It can be looked at this way. We spend our lives seeking for something to fill our lives with something, to numb the pain of some of the things that we go through but nothing helps. We are on an endless cycle of trying to fill the void in our lives and numb the pain of our bad decisions.
We all have sinned, we all are born in sin and the consequences of sin will come to all those who die without making a decision to follow Jesus. We need to know this. But we have the true and better Adam who offers the free gift of salvation to all who call upon His name. Jesus came to give life abundant and free. We have a decision to make. We have something to teach. Will you put your luife in the messiah?