When Sin is in the Church Pt1

Inevitability of Sin

Friends, every church. every gathering of believers. and every Christian family will have to deal with the contents of Matt 18 at some point, and in fact many points in their lives. Why? Because temptation and sin are inevitable. Why? Because we are all humans and we all have sin.

1 John 1:8 “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

So we all bring sin into the life of the church; the question is if our sin effects the body. You have heard me say before, no one sins in a vacuum. Sin gets all over everything if we allow it to, and often times the sin of one or the sin of a few feeds into the church a spreads all over everything like a cancer.

This is also why we need mercy and grace. There are times when in the life of the church someone’s sin becomes public and we all know about it. And as I have reminded quite a few people in the past when their sin has become public- whats the only difference between your sin and theirs? Yours is still private. So we need to deal with mercy.

Jesus knew that all of us, and that every church and ministry would have to deal with sin; because we all deal with people. So Jesus gives us a perfect method to work through sin in Matthew 18.

Radical Amputation

This leads Jesus to one of his hardest teachings in the Bible- radical amputation. Jesus is talking in hyperbole- he is not looking for one armed Christians; but his words are very clear- take it serious. Sin is not something to be toyed with.

Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

The wages of sin is death- do you play chicken on Rt81? Would you risk drinking poison? Anyone here like to play William Tell with a crossbow? Well those are all really good examples of what it is like spiritually when we play around with sin.

As the old saying goes sin will 1. TAKE YOU FARTHER THAN YOU PLANNED ON GOING. 2. KEEP YOU LONGER THAN YOU PLANNED ON STAYING 3. COST YOU MORE THAN YOU PLANNED ON PAYING.

Friends. If there is something causing you to sin- get rid of it. If there is a person then distance the relationship; if there is a place, stop going there; if there is a situation avoid it at all costs.

I know at least one man who carried around a flip phone and had no internet service at his home because he had a problem visiting websites he shouldn’t have.

I know of another person who got a new apartment to get away from the party scene.

I know of a person who got rid of cable to change the things they were watching on TV

Sometimes getting rid of sin is going to inconvenience you.

Ezekiel 36:26–27 ESV

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

The Cost of Compromise

But the question is, is it worth it? Jesus kinda says yes.

Jesus tells us that it would be better for us to lose things on Earth than to be whole here and be thrown into Hell. Hell here is the word Gehenna and Jesus uses it with a purpose.

Gehenna was located outside of Jerusalem. The books of Jeremiah and 2 Chronicles tell us that Gehenna was a place where people sacrificed children to the god Molech. By the time Jesus arrives on the scene Gehenna had become the local trash dump where people took their trash; there was a constant fire burning all the time; so you can imagine the smell and the feeling of this area.

So when Jesus is talking about the risk of being thrown into the eternal fire they had an image in their mind.

It can be hard for us to think about hell because we cannot imagine anything like it- but for Jesus’ listeners they had an image, and a smell, and a experience to draw from.

Friends, hell is a very real place; it is not a made up thing to scare us straight or to keep people on their best behavior. No, Hell is as real as Heaven. If we believe that Heaven is real because the Bible tells us it is, we must also then believe that Hell is real because the Bible tells us.

The Bible tells us that Hell was not made for mankind; it was made for Satan and his demons. Matthew 25:41 ““Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Hell was made for those who rebelled against God. The problem is that sin is rebellion against God and his will; so while people say that a loving God would never send someone to Hell; they are right. The problem is that when we rebel against God we place ourselves out of his grace and mercy, and Hell becomes our choice.

1 Corinthians 6:9–11 “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”

Notice that what separates the people in this passage is not the lack of sin, but the sanctification and justification of the Lord Jesus Christ!

How Much does Sin Cost?

Well, that’s a complicated question.

To the alcoholic it might cost his marriage

To the gossiper it might cost a friendship

To a liar it might cost their integrity

To the drug user it might cost their freedom

To avoid sin it might cost friends

It might cost Friday nights at the bar

But For God it cost his Son. The blood of Jesus. And every time we sweep sin under the rug, or we act as though it is no big deal; we attempt to discount the price that Jesus paid.