Unintentional Sin
Notes
Transcript
Sin is not an evil foreign idea that mars our life but usually something that we allow to take over First palce in our lives.
Sin is not an evil foreign idea that mars our life but usually something that we allow to take over First palce in our lives.
I do not love being overweight...I love to eat all the wrong foods.
I do not love being overweight...I love to eat all the wrong foods.
That is the honest truth. I love to exercise, I would love to eat right but more often than not I simply do not have the discipline to do either on a regular basis. When I do not follow through on these things I make excuses, I blame other things, and I double down on bad decisions instead of making a change for the better.
Then when all is said and done I simply give up by continuing the same destructive behavior that got me into this mess to begin with.
Food is not the culprit it is not evil... in fact food is important to survival. The problem is me giving food such a prominent place in my life. Instead of eating to live I have chosen to live to eat. Until I deal with this I will continue to struggle.
Now this is not just a time of pastor confession it is an perfect way of understanding what sin really is. We Sin is not some evil foreign foe it is usually something that becomes bad because we unintentional make it an idol in our lives.
We tend to want to name the sin as an activity smoking, drinking, adultry, murder, etc... we should avoid all of these things but the truth is the activity is a result of the Sin.
Anything I give control of my life to that takes me farther away from God and God’s plan for my life is sin. Once I give something other that God control of my life it is easier to make intestinal decisions to act in a manner that is not honoring to God.
God's Sanctifying power is what gives us the ability to choose God in the midst of trying to be all the other things we desire to be.
God's Sanctifying power is what gives us the ability to choose God in the midst of trying to be all the other things we desire to be.
We all have the ability to allow the good to get in the way of the important
We all have the ability to allow the good to get in the way of the important
Just like I know that live to eat many people live to make money, we live to be well thought of, we live to be the perfect mom or dad, we live to work. You name it we give good things such a prominent palce in our lives that we sometimes cannot even see the damage it is doing until it is impossible to ignore.
We have every thing we ever wanted but still feel empty, Everyone loves us and counts on us but we still feel lonely, we raise great kids but when they are gone we have no sense of purpose.
None of these things satisfy in the long run. Now we should strive in all these areas.
These are not terrible ideals but we must not allow our desire for those things to replace our desire to be more like God.
Genesis 3:1-11
Genesis 3:1-11
When we look at the fall it was not the desire to be like God that was wrong…
When we look at the fall it was not the desire to be like God that was wrong…
The problem in the fall was that somehow the creation became more important that the creator.
1 The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day he asked the woman, “Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?” (First Lie). God only forbid eating from one tree
2 “Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,” the woman replied. 3 “It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, ‘You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.’ ”
(Second Lie…God did not tell them they would die. He just told them not to eat of the tree)
4 “You won’t die!” the serpent replied to the woman. 5 “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.”
(Third Lie or half truth. The half truth was that they would not die right then. But Satan knew this would lead to death)
6 The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too. 7 At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves.
8 When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the Lord God among the trees. 9 Then the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
10 He replied, “I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked.”
11 “Who told you that you were naked?” the Lord God asked. “Have you eaten from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat?”
The lies and the desire for God’s creation led to disobedience, separation, blaming everyone but themselves, shame, Guilt, pain, and Fear.
Sin is still the telling and believing of partial truths and flat out lies with the idea that God really does not have our best interest in mind.
Even in the midst of Adam and Eve’s sin God continued to reach out to them in compassion. God was not running through the Garden to punish them. God knew what they had done.
Neither Adam or Eve intentionally wanted to disobey. It is just in a moment they stopped allowing God’s sanctifying power to direct their lives.
God’s immediate response was not punishment.In fact it could be argued that God was doing everything that could be done to reconcile creation back to their original state.
All it would have taken was a true repentance from the First family. Who knows how the story of humanity could have been rewritten?
This is the beauty of salvation and sanctification which we will get into next week. There is nothing that can separate us from the love of God. While God hates the stain of sin God has the means to wash that stain away…
We do not have to be a slave to Sin.
Your Sin is not Greater than God’s Ability
Your Sin is not Greater than God’s Ability
Let God Replace the Sin of Self Focus with the Love for God and Other
Let God Replace the Sin of Self Focus with the Love for God and Other
Develop Spiritual Awareness…We must look past our spiritual aspirations to our actual Spiritual condition….there is always room to grow…In fact Growing should be embraced not avoided.
Mark Wilson warned me my paper was not good…I ignored it becuase I had always gotten away with shoddy work before. I was convinced it was good enough…Dr. Basset handed it back saying it was not worth his time.
If I had listen to Mark instead of allowing my pride to drive me the story could have been different.
We develop Spiritual Awareness by listening to Holy Spirit instead of adopting a secular world view.
We can begin this process by discerning with the help of the Holy Spirit what things we have unintentionally made and idol.
We do not need to start by looking for the obvious…we know the things that are obvious we need to allow Holy Spirit to speak truth to us and we need to accept this and be willing to put it in its proper palce.
God may want us to remove that thing from our lives or God may just want us to minimize its importance in the light of God’s larger purpose for us.
Once we are aware of the things we need to put in its palce we can then disrupt the patterns in our lives that drive us to those things.
This means look for ways to allow God replace sin power over you with real power to become an overcomer.
The results of this will be obvious...
We were made to work for and improve the lives of God's creation.
We were made to work for and improve the lives of God's creation.
“Holiness is a reflection of the God of love who voluntarily accepts pain and suffering in pursuit of the good of others.” --Tim Crutcher--
“Holiness is a reflection of the God of love who voluntarily accepts pain and suffering in pursuit of the good of others.” --Tim Crutcher--
Humility begins to replace the desire for power, influence and material wants.
Humility is not thinking less of yourself, its thinking of yourself less”
The greatest antidote for the things we are facing right now is not political, financial or even militaristic in nature. It is the ability to put aside our pride and unintentional idols for the sake of the world.
This is not a natural act. This is only possible by the sanctifying work of God in our lives.
People who forsake the unintentional sin of personal focus become a people of community care. We repair the broken, encourage the marginalized, and value others by serving and loving everyone.
We become the embodiment of biblical relationships!
Communion is a wonderful example of how Jesus did this for us all.