What you do, MATTERS!!

False:  It Doesn’t Matter What You Do As Long As You Don’t Hurt Anybody (or don’t get caught)

Participation Act:            

Look at the person on the left.  Look at the person on the right.  Okay what I want you to do is at the count of three, I want you to point to the one that looks like they are the biggest sinner. Okay one, two, three, go. In culture today, people could argue the unpardonable cultural sin is to call someone a sinner. You will hear it all the time, maybe you've even said it or believe it and that is this, it doesn't matter what you do, as long as you don't hurt anyone. Doesn't matter what I do, it's not your business, doesn't matter what you do as long as you don't hurt anyone.

God never said that.

If I asked the same question today, what is the biggest cultural value of our world today, you could make an argument that the biggest cultural value might be tolerance, right. I mean pretty strong argument in that case.

What's interesting about, even the definition of tolerance has massively changed over the past decade or so.

Tolerance (Of Yesterday) - That all people have equal value.

Tolerance (Of Today) All ideas and all behavior have equal value.  

The definition of tolerance has changed, so much so in culture today that it is wrong and unacceptable to ever say that behavior is wrong, that is sinful. In fact culturally we've watered down and sanitized even what otherwise would be sinful terms and given the more acceptable phrases to help us feel better.

For example, pornography becomes adult entertainment. It sounds so much more acceptable. We're not going to say somebody committed adultery, that's almost too harsh, instead is ell they had an affair, doesn’t sound nearly as bad. We're not going to call premarital sex a sin in our culture today because oh ... in fact we're not going to call it premarital sex, we're going to say well that's fooling around, and everybody fools around. What I'm doing, I can do whatever I want as long as I don't hurt anyone.

Now what we need to recognize is that sin is very real and sin has dramatic earthly consequences and potentially damning eternal consequences. Today I want to talk about three cultural misbeliefs about sin and look at what God really did say.

1. I’m Not a Bad Person

I mean I'm not a bad person and well I may make some mistakes but I'm not a bad person and the reality is this is simply not true.

1 John 1:8-10  If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰ If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.

Now if we compare ourselves to other people, we may be tempted to say I'm not really bad because we can always find someone much worse. Chances are on one side or the other you may be sitting to one of those people right now. I am better than them so I'm not a bad person. Other people are not the standard to which we are compared. When we compare ourselves to a holy and a perfect God, we are horrible, filthy sinners, we are all bad people. Welcome to Hope Community where we want to make you feel good about yourself.  Okay, we're not good people; we are sinful at our core. In fact scripture teaches us this, Romans 3:10, there is no one righteous, not even one. You're not, I'm not.

2. All Sin is the Same

God never said that. What we need to understand and please hear me clearly, the Bible doesn't teach that all sin is the same. Now don't miss this, all unforgiven sin does lead to eternal death, period. All unforgiven sin does lead to eternal death but not all sin is the same. All unforgiven sin does lead to eternal death.

Romans 6:23  For the wages of sin is death.

Any type of sin, little sin, big sin, whatever kind of sin, any type of unforgiven sin leads to death. The good news is but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Also know all unforgiven sin does lead to eternal death but all sin is not the same. 

Shooting the people with a finger and shooting people with a gun are two different things.  All sin is not the same. All unforgiven sin separates you from God, but all sin is not the same. How we live; first of all it influences consequences on earth, right. If you are a blessing to other people they are more likely to be a blessing to you. If you are sinful there are consequences but again on earth all the consequences are not the same.

There are also different consequences in heaven, how we live influences rewards in Heaven. We have to recognize that God rewards certain Godly behaviors in heaven and there are rewards in heaven eternally for how we live and what we do or don't do on earth and the third thing that scripture heavily implies is that how we live influences punishment in hell. How we live to some degree or another and obviously we do not know the details but it influences punishment in hell.

Let me show you a couple of different verses, Luke's gospel, chapter 20, verse 47, says the Pharisees devour widows' houses. In other words they're taking advantage of those whom the churches called to serve and to love and to help. The Pharisees devour widows' houses and for a soul they make lengthy prayers. God evidently hates that type of hypocrisy and scripture says these men will be punished what? Everybody say it loud, they'll be punished most severely. In other words this implies there might be a less severe punishment for some people and actions and there might be a more severe punishment for others. Jesus said to Pontius Pilate in John 19:11, he said therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of what, of a greater sin.

Implying there is a lesser sin and there is a greater sin and then when you look at the category of sexual sin, Paul pulls us off to the side and here is what he says about sexual sin. First Corinthians 6:18 he says run from it, run from sexual sin. Why, he says because no other sin so clearly affects the body as this one. In other words, there is different consequences to this sin than there would be to other ones. He says for sexual immorality is a sin against your own body and it's just begging you don't you know your body was purchased by the shed blood of Jesus, so flee sexual sin. All the other sins he says fight, resist but not this one. Don't even try to fight, run forest, run, because this one impacts you in a very, very deep, personal and significant way. Doesn't matter what you do as long as you don't hurt anyone. God never said that.   How we live, what we do it matters on earth and it matters in eternity.

3. Since I have done it I might as well keep on doing it.

Well the teenage, really young adult well I'm not a virgin anymore so I might as well keep on doing it. I've done drugs and so well I might as well do it again. I cheated and didn't get caught and it seemed to help me so I might as well do it again. I already looked at something that well I probably shouldn't have looked at but I did it and so I managed to erase my tracks so might as well do it again. I've already done it once so I might as well do it again.

Romans 6:1 What shall we say then?  Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?  By no means!  We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?

He said should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of His wonderful grace. In other words, hey if God is going to forgive us any way why should I even stop? Should we keep on sinning that grace may abound? Should we keep on sinning because God will forgive us anyway and he says of course not, you're smarter than that, you're better than that. Of course not, he says since we have died to sin, how can we live in it? In other words since Jesus died for us and we came to him and because of our faith in him, our sin nature no longer has power over us, we now have the power of Christ. Why would we continue to go back into that which hurts the heart of God, hurts our own lives and has the potential to hurt so many people around us? Shall we keep on sinning because God's going to forgive us anyway? Of course not, you know better than that. God has something so much better for you. Spiritual maturity is not about how much we know it's about how much we obey. Spiritual maturity isn't just having more knowledge, but it's having more fruit. Spiritual maturity isn't just learning more, the original language or studying deeper theologian, spiritual maturity is letting the Holy Spirit take over and live through you. If you love Jesus you will obey him.

The most miserable people in the world are not non-Christians the most miserable people in the world are Christians who continue to live in sin. The most miserable people in the world are Christians who know the freedom that is available to them, who know the standard and intentionally disobey God. The most miserable people are those who know there is something better and continue to reject the will, the way and the purpose of God.

His spirit, I have dwelling within me the same spirit that raised Christ from the grave and therefore what is in me is more powerful than the pull toward the world. The closer you get to Jesus, the closer you get to the light, the more you recognize just how much darkness there is in your life. I don't want you to go around feeling guilty, horrible but here is what you need to recognize, sin is progressive. Sin grows; sin grows best in the dark.

Sin is progressive. It'll take you further than you want to go and it'll cost you more than you want to pay and keep you longer than you want to stay.

The moment you think it's not I want to tell you it is because it is costing you right now. How is it costing you? If you are a follower of Jesus and you continue to live in it, you will lose intimacy with God because sin and the holiness of God do not stay in it. You will lose intimacy with God. Suddenly you will not be as sensitive to his voice and you once were and when your heart starts to harden, this is when it gets so dangerous. When your heart starts to harden, suddenly the distance between hearing from God and the distance between sinning and repenting grows.

Here is what I want you to understand. It doesn’t matter what you’re trapped in, doesn’t matter how long you’ve been there. It doesn’t matter if you think you never could overcome it, God always gives you a way out. He always gives you a way out, there’s always a way out. Jesus is the way, he is the truth and he is the life. Jesus is the way out, he is the truth that set you free, and he is the life that endures us forever. Jesus is the way