Human Nature

Human Nature (Sinfulness) - Burlington, November 5, 2023

Human Nature (Sinfulness) - Burlington, November 5, 2023

Scriptures: 1 Peter 3:15; Matthew 22:36-40; Matthew 12:31-32; Romans 7:15-24; Romans 6:7-8; 6:10-11; Romans 6:22; Matthew 6:24; Colossians 3:23-24; Romans 7:25-8:4; Romans 8:24-28; Luke 22:19-20; Hebrews 4:14-16

(SLIDE) Dorcas

I am grateful to be with you this morning again. It was difficult to be away, and not just because I was sick. My wife and family for decades will tell you, I don’t do sick. I just work through it. That of course wasn’t possible, so thank you John Parks for filling in last week. As we, as a congregation, as a family, have asked for prayer all week for many who have need, we had an answer to prayer yesterday morning. It wasn’t necessarily what some would have hoped for. When we ask the Lord for healing, as we have for many, we hope and pray that the Lord will give us more time here on this earth. Yet one of the ways God heals us is by bringing us home to be with Him, where there is no more pain or suffering. So right now, the details of when the service for our sister, our friend, our family member Dorcas are still to be worked out. Please keep Tom and their extended family in your prayers. Yesterday he asked that we just give him time with his family, and he and I have respectfully communicated that.

(SLIDE) Our Mission

(SLIDE - Graphic) We’ve been walking through a series of sermons that are important to what we, as the Church of God movement, believe. Laying the foundations so that as we go about our week outside of church, we might rest upon the strength of God’s word and the Holy Spirit moving through us. That we might strive towards increased Holiness, as God call us to, despite the fact that we are sinners. Now if you’re looking for a church, or a pastor, who every week is going to preach about sin in a way that has you crying on your way home because guilt is overwhelming your heart and spirit, that’s not me or this Church of God. Now don’t get me wrong, we understand that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

(SLIDE) But our heart, our walk is built upon a firm foundation of what we believe in God. In the Church of God (Anderson), because as we’ve talked about there are over 50 variations of Church of God that congregations or denominations use in their name, or label or branding. And even though we all may profess Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior there are different practices, traditions, theology, understanding of scripture, among the diverse body of Christ. We want to be clear about what we believe in our hearts and minds, so it comes out of our mouths correctly during the week, as members of the Church of God (Anderson) which grew out of the Wesleyan Holiness movement.

We’ve talked previously that we can absolutely believe there is a God, a creator of all that ever was, all this is, and all that ever will be. The foundation we’re building upon understands that the Bible is the Word of God, and it is reliable, useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. We understand that the Kingdom of God began at the moment of creation, and that with the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, it is here now, all around us. And two weeks ago we talked about God’s Nature (SLIDE – God’s Nature): How he is merciful, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, and keeping in steadfast love, and that He is forgiving of our transgression and sin through Jesus Christ. Why do we emphasize these things on Sunday? For this purpose, we look to the Word from the 1st disciple and early leader in God’s Church:

(SLIDE) 1 Peter 3:15. But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,

So while we understand that we came to the Lord as sinners, when you leave here on Sunday mornings, it is by the teaching of the word of God and the movement of the Holy Spirit in this place, and in your hearts, that what you should be experiencing is hope in our Savior Jesus Christ as the Holy Spirit enables us to grow in our ability to be Holy, as Christ is Holy. That’s why it’s called the Holiness movement.

(SLIDE) What is human nature? We believe, that as we seek after the Lord our God, as we allow the Holy Spirit to move within us, as we give ourselves up to Him in obedience, seeking after His nature, instead of our nature, we become sanctified and, as John Wesley put it, allowing us to enter a perfect love – “love excluding sin.” So maybe we need to consider what is sin, even beyond the obvious of though shalt not kill, commit adultery, covet anything your neighbors, etc. It’s a love that as Jesus said, simply boils down to this: Loving God, and loving your neighbor.

(SLIDE) We discussed this the other day with the scribe asking Jesus in Matthew 22:36-40. 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Actually we could probably just stop right there right. I mean because anything that we think, anything that we speak, anything that we do as Christians, as people who have professed that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior, that violates either of those two things, is sin. We don’t need any further definitions than that. But maybe we should look a little deeper into God’s word and see where He leads us this morning.

Many years ago, because of my troubled past, a member of the congregation where I attended and volunteered, asked me to go breakfast. In part because, well, here’s what he said. “I grew up in the church here, and I’ve never fallen away from God or committed any of the things that caused you to fall so I just wanted a better understanding of how God changed you.” Good man. Successful man. He’s passed now but his children and grandchildren are active believers in Christ, but here’s the problem with that kind of thinking.

(SLIDE) I believe that he was thinking that he’d never broke any of the 10 commandments that most of us can’t actually list. But in reality the Jewish law there are 613 commandments. Not 10. And I certainly couldn’t tell you which of those 613 commandments that God gave Israel, and they couldn’t uphold, that I, or you, that we, have broken somewhere at some point in time in either our thinking, our speaking, or in our doing.

So we’re going to talk about human nature and sin today and not in a condemnation kind of discussion. That’s not helpful for building the body up. By the end of our time together, I hope and pray, that you will feel uplifted in the power of God’s word and the Holy Spirit in ways that you may, as Jesus also said, “go forth and sin no more.” We are not going to do a human thing of ranking sins, one over another. That’s not biblical. (SLIDE) Jesus Christ told us there is only one unforgivable sin in Matthew 12:31-32

31 Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 32 And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

So let’s dig in and see where the Lord leads us today. (SLIDE - Earth) It is not hard, if we look around the world to see that we are a fallen species. A human race that might believe in God, but that doesn’t respect God or His creation. Consider an area smaller than the entire planet. If you look at our country, at our state, at our region, our community, we can see the effects, the damage caused by our sin everywhere around us. We can see it in our families, and if we are honest with ourselves, we know in our hearts, we still struggle with some level of sin on a daily basis. Now if your entire day is spent Loving the Lord your God above all others and loving your neighbors more than you love yourself, well, then you have already become all that God intended you to be. I think if we’re honest that is not how we exist continually throughout our entire day. Though certainly there are times throughout each day where this how we think, speak and act. God first, neighbor second, then whatever I need. He who is last shall be first.

Consider Paul, who had an intimate experience that changed him forever and then a lifelong relationship with Christ. Saul encouraged and oversaw the stoning of Stephen. After his conversion, Paul spent his life in ministry to the Lord. Authored 14 books of the New Testament, and was beheaded for his faith in Jesus around the same time that Peter was crucified. Paul wrote in Romans 7:15-24

15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

That is the basis of our human nature. We’ll come back to Paul later. Martin Luther wrote in his lectures on Romans. And by the way when we talk about studying the bible as opposed to just reading. It took Martin Luther two years, to write the classes that he taught, the lectures on the book of Romans. And it took three semesters and more than 90 hours of lectures for Dr. Luther, to teach just the book of Romans to his students. So if at times you think my preaching sounds like a college lecture, well, it’s clearly not up to that standard. (SLIDE) Martin Luther wrote: “Our nature (human nature) is so deeply curved in on itself that it wickedly, curvedly, and viciously seeks to use all things, even God, for its own sake.” We talked two weeks ago about God’s Nature.

(SLIDE) Our human nature, again so far away from God’s nature, even seeks to use God for our selfish benefit. And we don’t have to look far in the history of humanity, the history of the church, not the Church of God, but often the church built by humans that claims to serve God. How man’s selfish ambitions have used Gods word, have used God’s creation, God’s children, to justify our actions, our activities, to justify things like slavery, like spousal and child abuse, torture, separating mothers from their children, justify things killing left handed individuals because God only creates people who use their right hands, so left handed individuals are devil worshipers, even is simple as our judging of others from a distance, our hoarding of resources, the suffering we have inflicted on others, since two human being first fought over a piece of land, a piece of food, or piece of gold, or whatever else we coveted to possess for ourselves, more than we respected the Lord, and the fact that every other living human being is created in the image of God. Just as we are. Regardless of race, color, sex or ethnicity.

Let’s look at the teaching of Daniel Warner. DS Warner, one of founders of the Church of God movement in a sermon both wrote and preached these words that I’ve slightly updated because Warner wrote in old world King James.. Beginning with (SLIDE) Romans 6:7-8. " 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. "For in that He died, He died unto sin once; but in that He lives, He lives unto God. Likewise reckon you, yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 6: 10-11. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. And Romans 6:18. "He that is dead is free from sin."And this freedom is attained now in this life.

Hence immediately follow the words in Romans 6:8, " Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. And just as Christ lives unto God, a holy life, "likewise, in the same manner we should reckon ourselves dead indeed to sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. " (SLIDE) Not dead to sin prospectively, or only professedly, but DEAD INDEED UNTO SIN. Actually dead and oblivious to sin. Having no more part in the sins of this world than if literally dead and buried. (SLIDE) What can strongly and more positively express absolute freedom from sin than the declaration that we are dead indeed to sin? One might abstain from the commission of sin and yet not be really dead to it. But when dead indeed to anything that must be the end of it. It means that we have no more to do with sin than the dead who lay in the cemetery have to do with the business of this world. As natural death puts an end to all activities here on earth, so complete salvation in Jesus is the termination of all human actions of a sinful character. (SLIDE) Romans 6:22 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.

Sanctification, as a theological term we’ll discuss next week when we talk about how we can know salvation through Jesus Christ. But what D.S. Warner is saying here, what Paul is saying to the Romans, is that the ability to live a sin-free life exists in the power of the Holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ from God the Father. Do not mistake Slaves to God as something similar to the horrors of slavery that existed in this, and other countries. What did Jesus say? (SLIDE) Matthew 6:24 24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” Depending on your translation you might read that you cannot serve both God and wealth, or mammon, instead of money.

The Greek is mammōnas (#3126 μαμμωνᾶς). “Mammon” is an Aramaic term for wealth, property, or anything of value. “Mammon” was the Syrian god of riches. But consider this. The choice of deciding to pursue earthly possessions first, not in accordance to what God provides, but in that sense not trusting God to provide, and relying only on ourselves is self-centered. It is choosing my desires, over His desires for me. That’s not to say that God doesn’t want us to be productive, doesn’t want us to have nice things, or obtain success in this life, but there is a difference in how we go about that, if we are living for the glory of God, and not just self or seeking human recognition and reward.

(SLIDE) Last week we talked about how God is Spirit, and we are created in God’s image. Thus we are also spirit. Yet, We are not just spiritual beings that temporarily have to live in the flesh. As others have written or said, our soul miserably tethered to a decaying body. God originally created us in His image as a single unit, a body-spirit person made wholly for His purposes, made for God. And by the way He created them equally, male and female. That’s a whole different topic. The word doesn’t say He created one more valuable, or capable, or more loved, it says male and female He created them equally in His image.

(SLIDE) Finding our wholeness, our purpose, our reason for being only exists in God. God’s original design was for us to be Holy, like God, and always walk with Him, as it was before the fall in the Garden. Think of this for a moment. The garden of Eden really was a paradise. (SLIDE)Everything we needed to live, we can’t even say to survive, because there were no threats to us. Adam and Eve living in complete peace and harmony with the Lord God in His creation. We had One commandment. Don’t eat from this tree because you will certainly die. That’s it. And of course, many of us as we are today, leaders, decision makers, compulsive maybe, we’d be like, uhm. That tree’s a threat. Cut it down. No tree. No fruit. No problems. Humanity lives for all eternity with the creator, in perfect harmony.

But that’s not what happened as we know. The serpent tempts Adam and Eve. “Your eyes will be opened and you will be like God”. Our primary sin is wanting to control every aspect of our lives for our own benefit, for what we want to do with our time, talent and treasure. (SLIDE) What brings us satisfaction, or pleasure, to gain recognition from others, to increase our bank accounts, to our glory, rather than to the glory of God. It is because that fundamental central relationship to God has broken down that the unity of spirit and body has also broken down.

When we try to achieve in ways that seeks the world’s recognition, we are glorifying self, not glorifying God. And I’m not suggesting that we shouldn’t try to do our best at everything we do. As Paul said to the (SLIDE) Colossians 3:23-24. 23 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.”

Yet if we are honest, we spend most of our time trying to convince others that we are valuable, rather than just accepting the fact that our real value comes from God. (SLIDE) All of our value lies in the fact that God so loved the world that He gave his one and only begotten son as a sacrifice not to condemn the world but to save the world. To return His creation, humanity, to be able to exist in a spirit of oneness, of unity with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Jesus is the complete image of human nature without sin that God intended for us to be at creation.

I said earlier I’d come back to Paul writing to the Romans. (SLIDE) Romans 7:25 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Romans 8:1-4 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. (SLIDE) 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

(SLIDE) Romans 8:24-28

24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. 26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

God gives us a new heart and spirit that leads to obedience (Ezek 36:26-27). And our body is the temple of the Holy spirit within us for we are not our own but purchased by the sacrifice (I Cor 6:19) of Christ, who is the image of God (2 Cor 4:4). We are no longer slaves to sin as it is for freedom that Christ set us free (Gal 5:1). We always have a choice but choosing God’s precepts bring about freedom (PSA 119:45).

So let us wrap up remembering the New Covenant that we have received in Jesus Christ by celebrating communion today. Please come now, as I wrap up today’s message and take the bread and cup that we might share in communion together. As we began today we were reminded of Jesus words regarding the law the prophets. 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

(SLIDE) Overcoming sin does not rely on, or occur through self-achievement. We are not alone in our battles. So just as there are things I’m struggling with in my life that with the power of the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ, God is healing me that you most certainly are not aware of, there are things in your life, that God desires to heal you from as well that I am not aware of. Praise be to God that none of us needs to go through whatever it is, whether it is physical, mental or spiritual, alone.

Now with Christ of course we are never alone, and there is nowhere we can ever go that God is not fully aware of what’s going on in our hearts, and what we’re doing. But if our struggles are with depression, with doubt, with drugs or alcohol, with the inability to focus because of stresses in our lives, if we’re struggling to not go hungry, to pay our bills. Whatever it may be there is help available. God’s word tells us to confess our sins to each other, to carry each other’s burdens, to bear one another up. And yes, God can heal us in miraculous ways just by the power of His holy spirit. I have seen Him move that way, and many of you have as well, but that doesn’t mean that sometimes we are healed because He moves through those around us, who also believe and love the Lord. According to His purposes. … But God.

One last scripture before we go to communion this morning.

SLIDE: Hebrews 4:14-16 14 Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Luke 22:19-20

19 And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 20 And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

Closing Prayer.