Our Sin Nature
by Elizabeth
Filed under Apologetics, Christian Living, Evangelism, Faith
This is awesome, my pastor, Elder Lester Powell preached this message 12/11/2007; it is a timely word that blessed my soul. I pray that it will bless you as well.
-Elizabeth
Subject: Our Sin Nature
Scipture: Romans 7:14-16 (NLT)
“So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good.”
“I know that all God’s commands are spiritual, but I’m not”. Romans 7:14-16 can anticipate the response that is coming: Isn’t this also your experience?” Yes. I’m full of myself—after all, I’ve spent a long time in sin’s prison. What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can’t be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God’s command is necessary.
But I need something more!
Romans 17-20
“For if I know the law, but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.” (Message Bible)
The apostle Paul in this text says like many of us say. “I just don’t understand myself.” I know what not to do, but I do it anyway. We do things that we know are not good for us, but we do it anyway. We look at men and women that do crazy things. We call them crazy, but we do those same crazy things ourselves. For example, smoking cigarrettes. The label on the carton says these things will cause cancer, sickness, and even death, yet we smoke them anyway. We do self-destructive acts, but we feel that it won’t happen to us. We are somehow the exception to the rule.
Two wrongs never make a right. We try to handle problems in our lives by smoking, drinking, being critical of others, judgemental, depressed, lying, losing our problems in drugs–we do these things to get control over our lives and we try to handle our sin nature–we try to handle it OUR WAY!
In Genesis 3 verse 10, Adam and Eve told God –after they had sinned and eaten of the fruit–10 “I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. And I hid.” Their sin exposed them and they became naked. We live in fear that people will find out we are not perfect. When we walk in sin, we do our best to do everything right on the outside. We are afraid that we might blow it. We will never have all the answers. Some of us feel that we will always have control of it. But we never will. We want people to believe that we have it all together–but yet we go home and fall apart.
We fail, when we try to handle our sin by ourself. There is not one person that has done everything right. Fear causes us to fake it, to put on a false face. We smile and go through the motions because we don’t want anyone to know that we have failed. We know that we are not pleasing God and living right, but we know on the inside, we are a total mess. Some here today are afraid that some may find out about your true financial situation. We don’t want people to know that we watch the caller ID, and if the mortgage man calls we avoid them. We don’t want people to know that we are months behind on the rent. People don’t see how you have to fight your way out of the house, and the bruises that are underneath those designer clothes. We don’t want people to see the emotional abuse that you go through in your home. We don’t want people to know that we are on Food stamps. It is okay to be on food stamps, but seek God so that you don’t stay there.
We are afraid that people will find out our true Christian status. So we come and put on a performance. We know how to shake and dance, and we have a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof scripture says from such turn away.
2Timothy 3:5 says, “Don’t be naive. There are difficult times ahead. As the end approaches, people are going to be self-absorbed, money hungry, self-promoting, stuck up, profane, contemptuous of parents, crude, coarse, dog-eat-dog, unbending, slanderers, impulsively wild, savage, cynical, treacherous, ruthless, bloated windbags, addicted to lust, and allergic to God. They’ll make a show of religion, but behind the scenes their animals. Stay clear of these people.” (Message)
When the fast is over, where are you? Many fast, but has your situation changed. Has your position/status changed after the fast. It is not enough to serve in the church and die and go to hell. It is okay for folk to say good things about you– Oh, he/she is a great preacher….teacher……singer…..churchworker…..great personality…….but on the way to hell– because of his/her wrong relationship with God. It is hard to juggle things when we are the way we are. We can’t be one way with your church sister, and another way with your friend from back in the day. If you are going to be a sinner then be a sinner. If you are going to serve God then serve Him fully.
Paul says in Romans 7: 21 -23″It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.”
That is why satan wants to control your mind. Paul is frustrated with himself because of the struggle inside of himself. In Psalms 32:3 (the message bible) David said, “When I kept it all inside, my bones turned to powder, my words became daylong groans.” David had sinned and kept his silence. The silence was destroying him. It is hard because you know that you have sinned–and when you try to praise God–the enemy will remind you of that sin. So that when you try to stand and praise God, or speak of His goodness, the enemy will say…now remember what you did last night–you can’t praise God– you have sinned. But if you go to God and confess your sin, then you and me-we can go to God and confess and forsake that sin and praise God without restraint from the enemy. There is now no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus.
Then comes the failure. We know we aren’t right, and then the fear comes. Provers 28:13 says, You can’t whitewash your sins and get by with it; you find mercy by admitting and leaving them. (He who covers his sin shall not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them shall have mercy). It is not enough to confess our sin and go back to it. When we don’t deal with sin God’s way, we are bound to fail. It will be too easy to walk back into it. We can’t prosper. It might look like we are prospering, but after a while we will see–we are getting no where. We must stop denying our sin, and the fact that we need help. We tell ourselves, ” I don’t do any worse than anyone else.” That is denial. We say they aren’t living any better than me. No, let us do right and show others how to do it the right way. Don’t look at man, but look at Jesus Christ.
How bad to things have to get before we admit that we need JESUS? He is the answer and the way out. Don’t wait until we get fired, our marriage falls apart, some disease strickens us, our kids life is in a mess. How long before we cry out to God that we need help? God will let us go through it all and get to the edge of the cliff–until we cry out —Lord, save me! Lord, help me. Then and only then we will not care who hears us. Don’t wait until you hit rock bottom before you cry out to Him.
Today is the day of salvation. Today is the day of deliverance. Today is the day to cry out and realize that we can’t fix it–only Jesus can. If we don’t cry out for help–we will stay in the mess.
Jesus said “Come to me all ye that are heavy laden and I will give you rest.
In 1 John 1:9, God says that “He is faithful and just to forgive us of all of our sins, and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness.”
Moses, David, Daniel, Paul, John believed God in this matter. Jesus–there is no other name whereby men are saved. But only God can get rid of the old man. The old drug addict….liar….backbiter…hypocrite….fornicator…adulterer…alcoholic….if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. We become new creatures in Christ…no drinking, smoking,fornication,lying….. We can give God the praise and get joy out of going to church. Jesus died to bring us out of the miry clay of our sin. David said, I cried unto the Lord and He delivered me and established my going out and my coming in. The Lord is my rock and my salvation. Let us not continue to go on and leave our place with the problem. Jesus is the answer to my deliverance, my breakthrough, my way out, my answer to my way through. Call Him while He is near and seek Him while He may be found. Let Him in, don’t let it be too late. We don’t know what tommorrow holds. 7 people went into the shopping mall and did not know they would make it out. A gunman came in and stated shooting and left a note saying. I am famous now!
Tomorrow is not promised. Come to me all ye that are heavy laden and I will give you rest.
Be blessed!
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