Sin

Introduction:

If you have been coming to Hutong for a while, you have probably noticed a common theme in the sermons is that we often discuss God’s wrath towards sin as well as His Mercy towards sinners.

This has never really been intentional.

It has simply happened due to the faithful teaching of the text reveals these truths in virtually every section of scripture.

Today however, we are looking at the doctrine of sin with the sole intention of doing so.

This is because we are on our quarterly topical series this week, and since this years quarterly series is on salvation, it falls on me to teach the doctrine of Sin today.

This is an incredibly important doctrine.

Before we can grasp the beauty of God’s grace, we must first feel the weight of our sin. If we don’t understand the depth of our problem,

we will never see our need for a Savior,

nor will we treasure what Christ has done for us.

But what is sin? Sin is not just doing bad things. It is, as one writer put it, cosmic treason.

Every sin,

whether it’s murder or simply an unkind word,

is an assault on God’s majesty and His rightful rule over our lives.

When we sin, we do not just break God’s law.

We despise God Himself.

Sin is rebellion against His authority;

it is the dethronement of God and the enthronement of self.

The Bible uses many words to describe sin,

rebellion,

guilt,

iniquity.

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My favorite word it uses means to miss the mark.

It is an archery term.

As My friend George and I went to the archery range the other day, this imagery became more real to me.

Just as I constantly missed my mark when shooting with this horrible posture, sin is when we miss the mark of God’s perfect Holy standard of Himself.

But no matter the word, the point is the same:

sin is serious because it is against a holy God who is infinitely pure and infinitely worthy of our worship.

Unless we feel the weight of sin, the cross will never seem necessary.

If we don’t see how great our guilt is, we will never see how great God’s Grace is.

You see, sin isn’t just an external issue, something that shows up in bad behavior.

It is a power that rules us unless we are freed by Christ.

It spreads like a cancer,

corrupting our hearts,

our thoughts,

our relationships.

It brings death and judgment.

This past Sunday, a friend and I were talking about how both of us grew up in an enviroment where people were so scared of being judgmental, that they made sin seem not as big of a deal.

The focus was so much on god’s Grace,

which is good,

but it ignored the horrible ugliness of sin.

As a result, we both lamented that we don’t really feel bad much when we sin.

We don’t feel the seriousness of what we have done.

But I also grew up in churches that did speak heavily on sin,

but only really ever spoke of the evils of those outside the church.

Their sermons never really spoke to the evils of the sins that each of us need to repent of.

That is why we must look at sin seriously today.

Not to leave us in despair,

but so that when we come to the redeemer,

we will see how glorious and sufficient God’s grace truly is,

and have that Grace push us to repentance.

With that said,

The main idea of today’s message is…

Before we can rejoice in the greatness of God’s grace, we must first recognize the depth of our sin — sin that rejects God, enslaves every person, and brings death. But where sin reigns, Christ offers life, and where sin increases, grace abounds all the more.

We will see this with three main points this morning.

I. Sin Is a Rejection of God (Romans 1:18–32)

A. Sin suppresses the truth (vv. 18–20)

B. Sin replaces God with idols (vv. 21–25)

C. Sin corrupts the heart and behavior (vv. 26–32)

II. Sin Is Universal and Inescapable (Romans 2:1–3:20)

A. Religious or moral people are not exempt (2:1–5)

B. God’s judgment is impartial and inescapable (2:6–16)

C. The law exposes but cannot save (3:9–20)

III. Sin Brings Death and Demands a Remedy (Romans 5:12–21)

A. We are all united to Adam in sin (5:12–14)

B. Sin is both inherited and chosen (5:15–19)

C. Sin reigns and leads to death (5:20–21)

So let’s look together at the depth of our problem, so that we might more fully embrace the greatness of God’s solution in Jesus Christ.

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I. Sin Is a Rejection of God (Romans 1:18–32)

When we talk about sin, we must first see it for what it truly is: not merely mistakes or moral failures, but the deliberate rejection of God’s truth and rule.

Paul opens this section of Romans like a courtroom. God’s wrath is revealed from heaven,

not as a loss of His love,

but as His holy hostility toward all evil.

God will not tolerate sin.

He will not make peace with it, nor should we desire that He do so.

Let’s break this case down as Paul does in chapter one.

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first, by seeing how….

A. Sin suppresses the truth (vv. 18–20)

In verses 18-20, we see His eternal power and divine nature are clearly shown in creation.

Now,

I am not saying that through nature,

we are able to learn the exact personhood of God,

or who exactly He is,

that is what special revelation, or scripture, is for.

But The beauty,

order,

and complexity of the universe are like giant arrows pointing to its Creator.

No one can say they lack evidence of God’s existence.

This is why I love hiking in nature. this is why I was so excited to worship with you all in the mountains for Easter.

Whitney and I will be camping in a couple of weeks in Arkansas,

and that is probably what I am the most excited about,

outside of family and food of course.

In nature we see God as the great creator.

There is simply no way that I can see the vastness of His creation and come away thinking that it was an accident.

That is what Paul is getting at here.

He’s saying that the problem is not intellectual, but moral.

People reject the truth,

not because they don’t see it,

but because they don’t want it.

As John Stott put it, they suppress the truth to pursue their own self-centered path.

Their minds become futile, their hearts are darkened.

They claim to be wise but become fools.

This sin led people to replace God with idols.

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B. Sin replaces God with idols (vv. 21–25)

Instead of worshiping God, we see in verses 21-25 people “exchanged the glory of the immortal God” for images, for idols.

This is the great exchange or trade that’s at the heart of sin: the truth of God for a lie, the Creator for created things.

And this isn’t just about ancient statues or temples.

Today’s idols may look different, but they are still very present.

They are present in the little local restaurants and hotels hanging on the wall with fruit and incense burning.

They are present when we worship our jobs over worshiping the one who gave us the job.

Now, I want to be careful here.

Often, we want to claim that idols are simply misplaced priorities. I don’t think that is a good definition that is fair to the word.

But Idolatry is when we choose to worship something God has given us over worshiping the one who gave it.

Today, This is often our jobs, family, or anything else that instead of worshiping the God who gave them to us, we begin to worship the things He gave instead.

And the tragedy is this: when we worship idols, we begin to reflect what we worship. False gods produce false living.

Idolatry leads directly to immorality.

To put it another way,……

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C. Sin corrupts the heart and behavior (vv. 26–32)

Paul shows the devastating results of rejecting God.

Because people insisted on their way, God gave them over ,

not forcing them to sin,

but letting them have what they chose.

And what they chose brought destruction.

There’s moral disorder: people abandoned God’s design for relationships,

for sex,

for family,

and for community.

There’s unnatural desire: In verses 26-27, Paul names both lesbian and male homosexual acts as examples of this exchange of the natural for the unnatural.

There’s social collapse: in verses 29-31 Paul lists 21+ sins including…

envy,

murder,

strife,

deceit,

arrogance,

disobedience to parents,

ruthlessness,

the breakdown of relationships and society,

And more.

This is God’s wrath at work,

not with thunderbolts from heaven,

but by letting sinners reap the bitter harvest of their rebellion. God’s judgment begins now when He hands people over to their choices.

We see this all around us though don’t we?

The lifelong covenant of one man and one woman in marriage,

once honored even by those outside the church,

is now seen as outdated or even oppressive in the west, and increasingly more so even here in China.

Divorce is treated as a personal right,

not a tragedy,

with millions of children caught in the wreckage of broken homes.

Open marriages and polyamory,

once hidden in the shadows ,

are openly promoted in media and celebrated as freedom.

And confusion about gender,

something God made clear in creation,

is now taught to children as a matter of personal choice.

When God gives people over to what they want, the result is the unraveling of the very foundation of family and identity.

This is having real and active negative effects on the family and society at large.

Another example Paul gave as a sin was disobedience to parents.

I mention this specifically because can’t we see it in our society today?

Not just to parents, but to authority and the elderly in general.

In classrooms,

teachers report growing disrespect,

with students refusing to listen and mocking authority.

In public spaces, it’s common to see elderly people standing on buses and trains while young people sit glued to their phones.

I once gave up my seat for an elderly lady and a girl younger than myself rushed and takes the seat before the woman I gave it up for could sit down.

Respect for parents,

for elders,

for any kind of authority is fading fast.

Rebellion is celebrated as strength in much of the world

but it’s really just one more sign of cultures that have rejected God’s good design, and we are all paying the price.

We could go on and on, but my point is that this truth is not hard to see when we look at the world around us.

That is not to say that the world is more evil today than before.

I know that is a common idea, but as a lover of history, I do not hold to this idea myself. Regardless, that is not the point of this passage, because God is making clear through Paul that this has been an issue since sin entered the world.

And it will continue until Christ returns.

To summarize the point…

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Summary of Point 1:

From the beginning of the fall, humankind has fallen to sin.

Sin is rejecting God as Creator and King.

It is exchanging His truth for a lie and His glory for worthless idols. And when we reject Him, we invite moral decay, relational destruction, and spiritual ruin.

This is why the gospel is not just good advice, it’s good news for rebels in desperate need of rescue.

This leads us to point two.

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II.Sin Is Universal and Inescapable (Romans 2:1–3:20)

So far, what we have said is probably not too hard for any of you to hear. It has been directed at society as a whole, and most people already see society as evil.

Because of this, maybe at this point you’re tempted to think, “That’s right , the world out there needs to hear this.

That is likely what the Jews reading this letter in Rome were thinking at this point of the letter.

And that is exactly why Paul now shifts to his next point: sin is not just a problem for “them”, it’s a problem for all of us.

No one escapes sin’s grip.

No one can stand innocent before a holy God.

Paul turns now to the moral and religious people,

people like many of us,

people who might say,

“I try to do good,

I try to follow the rules,

I’m not like those people Paul just described.”

And what does Paul say to those of us who may be thinking like this???

First, we see that…

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A. Religious or moral people are not exempt (2:1–5)

Paul says in Romans 2:1

Romans 2:1 ESV

1 Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.

How often are we quick to point out the sins of others,

pride,

greed,

dishonesty,

and yet those same sins live in our own hearts?

God sees through it all.

And here’s the warning in verse 4:

Romans 2:4 ESV

4 Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

God’s patience is not permission.

It’s an opportunity, a call to turn from sin.

When we don’t, Paul says in verse 5…

Romans 2:5

Romans 2:5 ESV

5 But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.

This leads us to subpoint B.

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B. God’s judgment is impartial and inescapable (2:6–16)

Paul makes it clear in Romans 2:6

Romans 2:6 ESV

6 He will render to each one according to his works:

For those who by perseverance seek God’s glory , there is eternal life.

For those who are self-seeking and reject the truth, there is wrath and fury.

This is explained a bit more In verses 9–11, he says,

Romans 2:9–11 ESV

9 There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, 10 but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. 11 For God shows no partiality.

Jew or Gentile, those who had the law and those who didn’t… all will be judged fairly.

It does not matter what your nationality is.

It does not matter who your parents are.

It does not matter if you grew up in Church or not.

Verse 15 shows us that the law is written on our hearts.

We all have a moral code within our conscious. It is not the complete explanation of morality found in scripture,

but it does show us a general idea of right from wrong,

and even that, we violate.

We can’t even keep our own conscious.

We are that dead in our sin.

And that’s the very truth God’s moral law reveals.

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C. The law exposes but cannot save (3:9–20)

So Paul brings his argument to a climax in chapter 3,

showing that the law exposes,

but cannot save.

He says in Romans 3:9

Romans 3:9 ESV

9 What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin,

And then he strings together the verdict from from verse 10-18:

Romans 3:10-12: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”

Romans 3:17-18: “The way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

And so Paul says in Romans 3:19,

“Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.”

The law doesn’t save us.

It silences us.

It shows us who we really are.

It shows us that we have no hope of coming before a Holy God on our own.

Verse 20 concludes,

Romans 3:20 ESV

20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

That is the great purpose of God’s Law found in scripture.

To reveal to us our unholy sin compared to a Holy God.

To put it more concisly, let us summarize point 2 this way…

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Summary of Point 2:

Sin is not just the problem of “those people” out there.

It’s the problem of every person.

All are under sin, all are accountable, and no one can save themselves. God’s judgment is impartial and inescapable.

And that is why we need grace.

Now let us move to our final point

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III. Sin Brings Death and Demands a Remedy (Romans 5:12–21)

We’ve seen that sin is rejecting God.

We’ve seen that sin is universal,

that no one,

no matter how moral or religious they think they are, can escape it.

Now Paul shows us the ultimate consequence: sin brings death, both physical and spiritual.

And if that were the end of the story, we would be without hope.

But this section of Romans also begins to point us toward the remedy, the hope we have in Jesus Christ.

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So let’s begin in chapter 5, verse 12 and see how we are all United to Adam in sin.

A. We are all united to Adam in sin (5:12–14)

Paul writes in Romans 5:12…

Romans 5:12 ESV

12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—

Adam’s sin opened the door, and through that door came sin and death.

And that death spread to all humanity,

not because we merely imitate Adam,

but because we are united to him.

His guilt became ours.

I know this is a hard doctrine to grasp, I have struggled with it myself.

It flies in the face of many of our overly independent cultures and mindsets.

But in ways I honestly am not even going to attempt to fully illustrate to you,

because I don’t think we will ever fully understand this,

the sin of Adam and Eve utterly broke God’s perfect creation,

and through this sin,

each of us have been condemned.

Paul goes on in Romans 5:14

Romans 5:14 ESV

14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

Paul is furthering His logic here.

It’s not the law, or the knowledge of this law that brings death, because people were dying long before Moses was given this moral Law.

The consequences of sin was passed down to Al and that being both physical and spiritual death.

Many, if not all of us have had to face the ugliness of death.

Many of you know that my father died last Christmas.

My Granny is only alive by God’s sustaining Grace, but she will to leave us before too long.

All of this is because of sin.

That’s the seriousness of sin,

it has broken God’s perfect creation and brought death into it.

Again, this is not just physical desth, but spiritual desth as well.

Spiritual death being eternal separation from God.

And death shows us the depth of our problem.

Our next subpoint shows us more of that problem in that…

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B. Sin is both inherited and chosen (5:15–19)

Paul continues to compare Adam and Christ.

In Romans 5:18-19 he says…

Romans 5:18–19 ESV

18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.

We are born into sin because of Adam, we inherit his guilt and sinful nature.

But we also confirm that inheritance by our own choices.

We choose sin.

We are sinners by nature and by action.

If you doubt me…

Which of us has never told a lie?

Which of us has never stolen anything, even something small?

Which of us has never looked at someone with lust or held hatred in our hearts?

If we are honest, we see the teachings of scripture that claims that all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God to be incredibly self evident.

We are all guilty and deserving of the Wrath of a Holy Righteous God.

But here’s the glory of the gospel:

if one man’s disobedience plunged the world into death,

one Man’s obedience,

Jesus Christ,

brings life.

But we will get to that more soon.

First, let’s look at how….

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C. Sin reigns and leads to death (5:20–21)

Sin isn’t just something we do, it’s a power that rules over fallen humanity.

Paul says in Romans 5:21

Romans 5:21 ESV

21 so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Sin reigns, and its reign leads to death.

The law didn’t stop sin.

Instead, Romans 5:20 tells us

Romans 5:20 ESV

20 Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,

The law made sin clearer,

made us more aware of our failure,

and showed us how helpless we are to save ourselves.

But where sin increased, grace increased all the more.

The law shows us our need ,

but Christ supplies what we need.

To put it another way, let’s look at our point 3 summary.

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Summary of Point 3:

Through Adam, sin entered the world, and with it came death for all. Sin’s reign brings death, and no one escapes it.

But where Adam brought ruin, Christ brings life. The remedy is not found in us, in the law, or in our efforts.

The remedy is found in Jesus Christ alone.

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Conclusion: But Grace Is Greater

We’ve spent this time facing the reality of sin, that it is rejection of God,

that it enslaves us all,

and that it brings death.

If that were the end of the story, we would be left hopeless.

But that is not where God leaves us.

I know this is a sermon on the doctrine of sin but I can not just leave us with the problem, not when God’s solution to this problem is so amazingly beautiful.

I have hinted towards the solution throughout, because I just can’t help myself, it’s too amazing to avoid.

The wonder of the gospel is this:

where sin has spread its damage, God’s grace overflows even more.

God didn’t wait for us to clean ourselves up or earn His favor, as if that would even be possible.

Instead, He sent His Son,

Jesus Christ,

to do for us what we could never do for ourselves.

Jesus lived a perfect,

sinless life,

the life we have failed to live.

Then He went to the cross, where He bore the penalty that our sins deserved.

God’s justice was satisfied,

not by punishing us,

but by pouring out His wrath upon God Himself, Jesus Christ.

And now, through Jesus,

The Father offers us a gift,

the gift of being made right with Him,

not by works,

not by trying harder,

but by faith.

This is what grace means: that we are saved, not because of who we are or what we have done, but because of who Christ is and what He has done.

Sin once reigned over us,

bringing guilt,

shame,

and death.

But now grace reigns,

bringing forgiveness,

righteousness,

and eternal life.

So if today you see your sin, don’t stay there.

Look to Christ.

Trust Him.

Rest in His finished work.

The gospel is not good advice on how to live better.

It is good news that Jesus has done what you could not.

And in Him, there is life.

with these truths fresh in our minds, let us go to God in prayer. Today, we will not do group prayer. instead, we will all pray where we are. I want us to pray to God to reveal to us where we have failed Him this week, and take the time to see the weight and seriousness of this sin. I then want us to turn to a time of praise, worshiping God for His amazing Grace and forgiveness.

We will then have a time of worship through corporate song.