Sin and God’s Sovereignty
Making Sense of Salvation • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Last week, we talked about God’s Sovereignty.
What is something that stood out to you from last week’s discussion?
Our overarching study for the coming weeks is about the topic of salvation.
What is it?
How does it happen?
What does God do?
What do we do?
Are we still working out our salvation?
So, we started with the topic first of God’s sovereignty.
Isaiah 46:10 “declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’”
Ephesians 1:4–5 “even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,”
In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will,
A couple of main points from last week, God is who He is regardless of your opinion.
We only understand portions of God infinitude.
God will accomplish all of His purposes.
If it happened, it was His will that it would happen.
Before we get into the 10 stages of salvation by Wayne Grudem, tonight, we are going to discuss the problem.
What is the problem that needs a solution for salvation to happen?
Sin.
I believe that we need a better understanding of what sin actually, what is the depth of sin in us before Christ, and where does it come from.
I believe that this is not going to be a heavy, guilt riddled conversation.
My prayer is that the better we understand the depth of sin that we were saved from and how offensive sin is to God the GREATER our appreciation for grace we will have and our praises will be raised higher and higher!
Look, if you are in Christ, talking about sin should not make you feel more guilty unless you are acknowledged, willful rebellion agaisnt God. And if thats the case, YOU SHOULD feel guilt!
Humble yourself before the grace of God and repent of that willful sin!
But if you are striving for holiness and you walk in the grace of God daily then you won’t feel guilt, you will feel praise rise up within you!
So, sin.
What words does scripture use to describe sin?
The OT uses three common words.
Sin- literally means to miss the mark. Its a weak definition because sin is not just an oops, I missed. Sin is shooting at the completely wrong target.
Transgress- or rebel means to defy authority. To know the instruction of the one in charge and defy it.
Iniquity- means morally evil. Its the idea that the morals of the person are not good but evil.
So, we have intentionally missing the target, defying authority and an inward morality being evil in its intentions.
Some of the OT words that describe sin are:
evil, wickedness, guiltiness, uncleanness.
People who refuse to hear God’s word
rebelling against the commands of the Lord
The NT uses three main words:
sin, unrighteousness and lawlessness.
But it also uses evil, transgression, disobedience and unclean.
How would you summarize these words and definitions about sin?
What are some of the chief motivations that cause us to sin?
The passions of the flesh
Physical gratification
lust of the eyes and flesh
sensuality
But not just the flesh but our spirits as well!
Pride and selfishness
The first temptation was, “you shall be like God.”
Lovers of self
Arrogance
But sin is not man-centered but God-centered!
Idolatry
“The great offense against which God’s wrath burns is man’s refusal to glorify his Creator and willingness to worship images of created things instead.” Beeke
Unbelief
The temptation in the garden hinged on the question, “Do you actually believe what God say or what God said He would do if you ate that?”
Unbelief is active opposition to God, who He is, His faithfulness, His promises and His Word.
Rebellion against His Word
Sin is not being willing to conform the commands and principles of the Word of God.
Not only doing the things that you know you shouldn’t, but not doing the things that you know that you should!
But its not only rebellion against His Word and law
Sin is hatred towards God.
“At the core of sin is hatred against God as our Creator and Lawgiver. Sin corrupts each part of the threefold office of Christ. Unbelief is against His office as Prophet. Idolatry is against His office as Priest. and Rebellion is against His office as King.” Beeke
How desperately do you need grace in your life?!
How does that make you feel??
Grudem defines sin as any failure to conform to the moral law of God in act, attitude or nature.
Sin can fall into three categories:
Actions
Attitudes
Nature
Actions are obvious. Direct disobedience to the laws and commands of the God’s Word and disobedience by omission of the instructions of God to His followers.
“ ‘You shall not murder.
“ ‘And you shall not commit adultery.
“ ‘And you shall not steal.
“ ‘And you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
What are some actions of disobedience or sins of omission that we can live out today?
Attitude are in both the Old and New testament.
“ ‘And you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. And you shall not desire your neighbor’s house, his field, or his male servant, or his female servant, his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.’
“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions,
Nature
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—
Who is this man that Paul is talking about in Romans 5?
Adam
Paul is drawing a comparison between Adam and Jesus.
Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 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.
Through Adam’s disobedience, God viewed all of his descendants as sinners.
Adam’s sin imputed upon us a sinful nature. Sinfulness to every aspect of our being.
You may say that is unfair. Well, you better get you might wrapped around it because the point of Romans 5 is to show that just as God imputed Adam’s sin on all mankind, God imputed Jesus’ righteousness to those who would believe in Him!
This principle of imputing goes both ways and I praise God that He sees me through the lens of Jesus’ righteousness!
Gruden says, “God regards the human race as a whole, as an organic whole, a unity represented by Adam as its head. And God also thinks of the new race of Christians, those who are redeemed by Christ, as an organic whole, a unity represented by Christas head of His people.”
You are either in this one or that one.
We inherited Adam’s guilt and sinful nature.
David writes the most pointient passage of scripture to show just how far back this sin nature goes.
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me.
Whose transgression is David talking about? His!
When did he sinfulness start? At conception.
Grudem, it is not just that some parts of us are sinful and other are pure. Rather, every part of our being us affected by sin, our intellects, our emotions and our desires, our hearts, our goals and motives and even our physical bodies are affected by our sinful nature.
(someone read these)
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.
To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled.
as it is written:
“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.”
“Their throat is an open grave;
they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of asps is under their lips.”
“Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood;
in their paths are ruin and misery,
and the way of peace they have not known.”
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
Not only all of that, we were actually incapable of even doing good!
Even good deeds by lost people are still sinful!
Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
Can you do “good” deeds apart from Christ?
I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
You can produce NO good fruit apart from Jesus!
Can you please God apart from Christ?
And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
And the verse that to me seals the deal for me before Christ and even to this life today is
For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.
So, before Christ, how sinful were you? What kind of picture does that paint of how sinful were were before Christ?!
How trapped were you in sin??
Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.
Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?
Listen, I know that I just hit your with a lot but when you hear all of these truths about sin, where are your thoughts at?
What are things that you have heard before?
What are things that you have never heard before?
Look this may feel like a downer and depressing, but I believe that we can think about sin and how sinful we really and truly were before Christ and not feel guilt but feel praise and gratitude!
The point of this is show the vastness between the perfection of God and depth of the sinful of man!
The point is to show that there is absolutely no way that mankind could ever begin to cross the great divide of sin.
Without God, without Jesus, without the power of the Holy Spirit, we are incapable to doing anything that resembles “good”.
That is how sinful we were. That is how incapable we were of saving ourselves.
That is not to say that every human is as evil as he could be but to say that everything that a person does apart from Christ is sin.
Two things to put in your mind about sin.
It is good to remember that salvation through Jesus is first and foremost, not salvation from hell. It is salvation from yourself.
It is salvation from the depths of sinfulness that affect you completely and wholly.
It is freedom from the slavery and bondage of sin infecting every part of us and effecting everything that we do!
There is no part of you that was not sinful. Even the “good” things that you did.
I know that is tough to wrap your mind around if you were saved when you were a kid. But its vital not to put yourself on a pedestal and suppose that you were less sinful, therefore more deserving of salvation, than a murderer on death row.
For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.
You don’t need to just be saved from your sinful acts. You need to be saved from your sinful attitudes and sin nature inherited from Adam.
You also and perhaps greatest, need to be saved from your guilt and sinful nature inherited from Adam.
But praise be to God that Jesus’ death on the cross redeemed our nature!
That the Holy Spirit gives us a new heart to redeem our attitudes!
And the Holy Spirit sanctifies our actions through the rest of lives to be transformed into the image of Christ!
The last thing to wrap our minds around tonight is how does sin and God’s sovereignty come together?
Does God allow sin and brokenness as apart of His sovereign will?
Simple answer is yes. And He can do it without being the source of the sin and also without being sinful Himself.
Let’s take a look at some instances in the Word that God allows sin and brokenness caused by sin to happen and even allows it to continue.
But Moses said to the Lord, “Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.” Then the Lord said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?
Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.
One of the dangerous things said, “I don’t think God would allow His children or the church to suffer the effects of sin?”
Have you read anything about church history?
Have you seen what is happening to the church is Africa today?
Have you seen pastor’s being arrested in South Korea and China?
Have you seen what happens to a Christian in the Middle East after meeting Jesus in a dream?
What do you mean that its not God’s will that the church will suffer the effects of sin?!
Jesus told us to rejoice when it happens!
(me read)
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Jesus tells us to persevere through tribulation and being put to death.
(me read)
“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.
The disciples rejoiced when they were beat for Christ!
Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.
Never fall for the lie, that to follow Christ is not going to cost you anything.
This is why I reject comfortable Christianity. If you are comfortable, then you are not being persecuted or suffering for Christ. And if you are not, you have to ask the question “why not?”
So, the big question, is does God allow sinful actions of mankind to be apart of His will?
Let me ask this question, what is the greatest sin every committed in the history of mankind?
Murdering the Son of God naked on a cross.
What that God’s perfect will?
What that still sinful?
Was God to blame for the sin of His Son being crucified? Absolutely NOT! Man’s sinful actions killed Him and my sins kept Him on the cross.
And that was the greatest display of the perfect will of God at the exact same time!
If that didn’t do it for you, look at the life of Joseph. People’s sin attempted to murder him, sell him into slavery, accused of rape and forgotten in prison.
But at the end of it all, he said, what you meant for evil, God used for good.
So, God is perfect.
He will is sovereign over all thinks. His plans are always accomplished.
Sin is rebellion against God. It is hatred towards God.
But God takes into account and allows sin and brokenness caused by sin to ultimately fulfill His perfect plan to His glory.
God’s will can allow sin and He can be not guilty of causing it or be found guilty of sin.
Only man is rightfully guilty of sin.
But God can use it for His glory and His purpose.
Now, does that give you liscense to sin? No!
Does that make you think that it doesn’t matter if I sin because God has taken it into account of His plan? NO!
Should this cause us to stare at God with greater wonder and appreciation for His ability to even turn my stupidity into some for His glory and His purpose? YES!
