The Things We Do In the Dark

Intro

Let’s do a little word association. I’ll say a word and then you say what immediately comes to your mind. Example: I say SPORTS. You say BASKETBALL.

ANIMAL ___________________,

FOOD_____________________,

HOME_____________________,

SCHOOL____________________

One more: But this time don’t respond out loud. I just want you to embrace what you associate with the word I say. Don’t try to choose another one but instead get a good look at the picture that comes into your mind.

SINNER

This is a rhetorical question right now—which means you don’t answer. But I wonder what kind of image came into your mind?

Was a person you don’t like? Or maybe it was a general image like a criminal or a villain off of T.V. Or a person that history agrees was a bad person.

Here’s what the Bible says about sinners: They don’t always look like some hardened criminal.

God’s Word says that sin is something that affects every single one of us—that means you and me too.

Sin reaches into our inner lives; it’s not just our words or our actions but it’s also the attitude of our hearts and the things we don’t say.

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

Here’s the good news. Sin doesn’t get the last word.

We’ve been talking about Plato’s Cave Allegory the last couple of meetings.

This week let’s return to it and think about the captivity and shadows in the cave and how that points to darkness. The biblical word for the darkness in Plato’s Cave is SIN.

This darkness, this sin, doesn’t just exist outside of us but it actually exists within us in our hearts and minds.

Here’s the thing—if we want to be people that know the truth in this world then we have to know and tell the truth about sin.

The Bible has lots of words for sin like transgression, evil, iniquity, idolatry, injustice. And images: darkness, missing the mark, debt, slavery, trespassing, and brokenness.

I know what you’re thinking right now: “This is such a fun topic! I’m so glad I’m here.”

But it’s something that we need to talk about. Understanding the truth about sin is part of understanding how God saves us in Jesus.

Understanding sin helps us see the truth of who we are and what our greatest need is.

Jesus calls us to repent—that means to turn away from—our sins so that we can turn toward God.

But we need to know what we are turning away from—so that we can do it.

Here’s a truth about sin:

Sin is tricky and we are usually really good at not seeing it in ourselves.

But talking openly about it—confessing our sins to each other—is part of how we grow in our ability to distinguish between our sin and who God is calling us to be in Christ.

And here is the best part about talking about our sin—we get to talk about Jesus.

Repentance, forgiveness, mercy and grace are the most beautiful words in any language.

But they aren’t just words—they are a reality in Jesus.

Our sin earns us death but God wants to re-route us. He has made a way for us, despite our sin, to find repentance, forgiveness, mercy, and grace in Jesus.

In Jesus we are forgiven and restored to God.

So let’s talk about sin.

1. Brokenness is all around us.

The world is very broken. You don’t have to spend very long looking on any given day to know that this is true. There’s some really messed up stuff happening in the world.

But if we are going to be honest about sin we have to acknowledge that we are part of the problem.

And the problem with our sin is that we can’t just will ourselves to never sin…we may be able to fight our sin in one way successfully but…

Pure willpower and determination cannot overcome our sin.

Sin is in our deepest nature—unfortunately it is our default.

Often times we just try to treat the symptoms of our sin. We focus on actions like lying, stealing, lusting, careless words, and violence.

Let’s pretend like I have a disease and one of the symptoms of the disease is orange spots on my face. And everyday I cover up the orange spots with makeup. Does that mean I’ve cured the disease?

No, the disease would still be there. I can’t cure the disease by covering up the symptoms.

We can’t cure sin by covering up the symptoms of sin— by controlling our outward actions.

We are not sinners because we sin; we sin because we are sinners.

Do you see the distinction there?

Here’s another thing about our sin—we have a hard time recognizing its symptoms as symptoms because we’ve gotten used to being sick and living in a sick world.

Whether we know it or not we struggle to tell the difference between right and wrong—between what is good and healthy and bad and destructive.

Isaiah 5:20 “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!”

We could say, to add our sickness & health metaphor...

What sorrow for those who say disease is health; and health is disease.

Just like we can’t just decide to be cured of our diseases; we can’t sort our right and wrong for ourselves either. We need help.

The only way out of the confusion of darkness is to step into the light of God.

If we step into the light our sins will be exposed; if we remain in the darkness our sins will remain hidden. It’s a big choice.

Exposure is scary and yet it is necessary—we can’t turn away from sin if we don’t know what it is.

And we can’t ask for grace if we don’t think we need it.

Some people do indeed choose to stay in the darkness—they prefer to stay where they don’t have to confront their sins. This is the worst thing for them.

John 3:19–20 “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.”

As followers of Jesus we want to live in the light.

Any discomfort we feel in the bright light is only the pain of our sinful nature dying.

Healing is a painful process but one we need—it’s one that everyone needs. Which brings us to point number 2.

2. All Have Sinned

Remember Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

We all sin—we all fall short of the glory of who God call us to be. We sin every time we think, speak, or act in ways that are against what God wants for us.

There are no excuses and no one gets a free pass on this—our temptations may look different but all of us experience the distance between us and God that our sin creates.

This gap can only be closed by God.

Isaiah 59:9–10 “Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not overtake us; we hope for light, and behold, darkness, and for brightness, but we walk in gloom. We grope for the wall like the blind; we grope like those who have no eyes; we stumble at noon as in the twilight, among those in full vigor we are like dead men.”

Isaiah 59:12–13 “For our transgressions are multiplied before you, and our sins testify against us; for our transgressions are with us, and we know our iniquities: transgressing, and denying the Lord, and turning back from following our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart lying words.”

This isn’t a pretty picture. And notice something…notice how Isaiah says, “us” “we” “our”. Isaiah is grouping all of Israel into this problem.

The biblical truth is that sin is always personal but it isn’t always individual.

Our individual sinfulness compounds into systematic sinfulness—our disease of sin doesn’t just infect individual people but it infects our political, societal, and cultural institutions and the result is widespread injustice like poverty, racism, and war.

The world’s idea that, “The choices of my life have nothing to do with anyone else.” is a lie.

This brings us to our last important truth...

3. Every conversation about sin can be a conversation about forgiveness.

Here’s the great news—even though our sin is serious and separates us from God—He has not left us to drown in our sin.

If we don’t turn to God our sin will rule over us.

Sin is powerful but it is no match for God—all things bow to the power of mighty God.

God takes our sin seriously but our sin doesn’t make God stop loving us. Look at Micah

Micah 7:18–19 “Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.”

When you ask God to forgive you of your sin you can be sure that God will.

How do we do that?

How do we apply our need turn from our sin and practice forgiveness?

1. We must come to Christ for forgiveness.

John 14:6 “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

You can’t deal with your sin until you come into the light and Jesus is the light that exposes our sin and simultaneously forgives us for our sin. If you’ve not taken this first step you can’t take the others. If you’ve done this…how do we experience the freedom from our sin?

2. Confess your sins.

Talk about your sin with a trustworthy Christian.

Someone who, when we confess our sins won’t condemn us but also won’t just pretend like our sins are “no big deal”.

Confess your sins to someone who will remind you of the gospel—that you are forgiven and freed in Christ to fight your sin. This is any leader here.

3. Seek forgiveness from those you’ve sinned against.

We talked about how our sin rarely impacts only us.

Sinning against God is tied to sinning against our neighbor—brother, siblings, people in this group, school, etc.

Our sins have consequences for other people.

We should go to them, apologized, and ask them to forgive us.

And when someone comes to us seeking forgiveness the right response is, “God forgives you and so do I.”

4. Extend forgiveness.

We want to be the hands and feet of Christ in this world and part of that is forgiving others because we have been forgiven by God.

Pray.