Walking in Purity
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Purity means freedom from contamination - a state of being faultless, uncompromised, and unadulterated.
I. The Effects of Sin
I. The Effects of Sin
A. Internal Impurity
A. Internal Impurity
So the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry?”
That word angry there means to say that Cain had some inner turmoil. That he replayed that day over and over in his mind and it affected his spirit so deeply that it consumed him in anger.
The Hebrew word used there tells us that Cain wasn’t just mad but he was boiling hot! And so the Lord asks him, “why are you ‘burning hot inside?’”
Cain was going to be a murderer in action, but for now Cain is a murderer in the heart.
You see, sin always begins internally. It doesn’t come from God, it doesn’t come from the devil, it comes from within you.
Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone.
But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.
Now, Satan can entice us, he can tempt us, but he does not cause us to sin, we choose to sin.
And every choice to sin is a choice that begins internally.
Once sin has been wrought inside of us, it begins to spill out.
B. External Expression
B. External Expression
So the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen?”
Cain was so angry that it was written all over his face. His countenance fell and what began internally has now made its way to the external.
Look there in v. 5, where it says, “his countenance fell” it literally means that his face collapsed. He began to frown and scowl, and every where he went he lived in displeasure. His internal anger affected his entire personality.
My Middle School English Teacher
I used to have a teacher like that. I was in middle school, in the 8th grade, and I had English first period.
This woman was mean. I was bad, and we deserved it, but she was mean to the good students too!
And when you walked into class she looked like she had just gotten done with an upside-down botox injection. Instead of her face being lifted she looked like they turned her upside down when they did it!
For years I thought, “Maybe she just wasn’t a morning person!”
One Sunday morning not long after I graduated high school, I went to visit another church for their morning service; you can imagine my surprise when she got up there to sing the special that day with her eyes glowing!
She must have just retired because I remember she sang that old Hymn, “Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty I’m free at last!”
When sin has taken hold of a person internally, it presents itself externally.
It works the same way when the Holy Spirit is present in a person.
You might not be able to name it or put your finger on it, but when a person is filled with the Holy Spirit it is externally expressed and externally visible.
I heard of a skeptic that wanted to get up close and personal with the evangelist Billy Graham. He was in a room where Billy was going to meet some folks, and he said, “When Billy Graham walked in, I can’t explain it, but from then on I was sure that God was real.”
Now, that had nothing to do with Billy Graham necessarily, but it was the affect of the Holy Spirit on his life. When he walked into that meeting to prepare to preach, the Holy Spirit had anointed him and it was obvious.
While Cain is the expression of internal sin, Abel is the expression of the Holy Spirit’s anointing.
The name Abel literally means “breath”. When we study the Holy Spirit, we will find that the Bible illustrates Him as wind and breath. So, Abel is a picture of a righteous man filled with the Holy Spirit, accepted by God.
Jesus calls Abel a prophet.
Therefore the wisdom of God also said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill and persecute,’
that the blood of all the prophets which was shed from the foundation of the world may be required of this generation,
from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah.
What was the prophecy of Abel? That when we are covered by an acceptable blood sacrifice, we are then accepted by God.
Abel was the foreshadow of what it means to live as a saved person filled with the Holy Spirit, just like the countenance of Cain fell, the countenance of Abel was anointed.
II. The Power of Sin
II. The Power of Sin
A. Unacceptable to God
A. Unacceptable to God
If you do well, will you not be accepted?
People just want to generalize God and say that He will accept us no matter what. That’s not true.
When we do things God’s way, then we are accepted by Him; if we don’t do things God’s way, it’s not that He doesn’t want to accept us, but because of His goodness and His righteousness He cannot accept us.
That’s the Power of Sin; that it makes us unacceptable to God.
Sin is so unacceptable to the Father that even the Son of God was unacceptable and the object of the Father’s hatred against sin. That’s why Jesus asked on the cross, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
God doesn’t want us to be unacceptable, and this verse proves it.
When Cain was angry over the reality that his sacrifice was not accepted, all he had to do was ask God how to be accepted!
He didn’t do that. Instead, he internalized anger against God and he directed it toward his brother.
When Cain did not ask God, in His great mercy, God contacted Cain.
This is exactly what God has done to give you the opportunity to be acceptable, He has contacted you. He sent His Son as the witness, He gave us His word as the source of truth, He has appointed churches, preachers, and teachers to show you the path to life. If you think you’re here by accident, you’re not. God is actively trying to contact you, even while you’re still in your sin.
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
When Christ died, His blood was spilled. It is by blood, it is by the sacrifice that Abel foreshadowed, that we are saved. When Jesus shed His blood, He shed His blood so that by His blood we can be accepted.
The Power of sin is that we are made unacceptable to God, but the power of God is that we can be made acceptable through faith in the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus.
B. Undetectable by Man
B. Undetectable by Man
If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door.
Sin is always there, yet without the Spirit of God, we can never detect its presence.
How does a person who doesn’t know about spiritual things know that they are in sin?
Because, God in His mercy contacts them with His Holy Spirit to reveal their sin.
Who is in sin?
Everyone in the world, unless they have been washed by the blood of Jesus, is still under the bondage of sin. - To say that they are under bondage is to say that they are owned by sin as a slave of sin.
The reason that sin is undetected in the life of man is because sin comes naturally because of what Adam did. Adam disobeyed God and sold the world to sin. Everyone that is born of Adam is a sinner.
Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned—
Washing My Dog
I have a dog at my home, and every once in a while we bathe him, but most of the time we don’t bother.
Why?
Because he’s an outside dog, and he doesn’t want to be bathed.
We bought this coconut shampoo for him and it smells good, it smells like the beach.
But every time we get done bathing that dog, the first thing he does is he goes and rubs himself in the dirt, because he just can’t stand the thought of being clean!
It’s not his fault! He was born as dog! He was born to be dirty, and he chooses to stay that way.
Such is the way of man:
Just like the dog is a dog by birth, a dog by nature, and a dirty dog by choice; a man is a sinner by birth, by nature, and by choice.
This is why God warns us by His word that sin is deadly and constantly within us, and if we don’t get clean from it, when we open the door to sin, we can’t control what we let in.
If you would have asked Cain at another simpler time, “would you ever kill your brother?” He’d say, “Absolutely not!”
No man or woman gets married and wakes up and says, “I think I’ll commit adultery today.”
No toddler has in their mind, “I’m going to be a murderer someday.”
No person wakes up and says, “I think I’ll start being a thief today.”
Sin lies at the door, and when we compromise we open that door.
With a lustful look, we open the door to adultery.
With a hateful heart, we open the door to murder.
With a pride filled life, we open the door to thievery.
Sin is in you, and it is largely undetected. And if we are not actively aware of our sin, it will push the door wide open!
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
So, just as God did with Cain, God gives us His word to remind us that sin is ever-present in our lives.
C. Uncontrollable in Consequence
C. Uncontrollable in Consequence
As the saying goes, “We can choose our sin but we cannot choose it’s consequence.”
We can choose to view pornography, but we cannot control the damage it does to our mind or the harm it brings to our family.
We can choose to commit adultery, but we cannot control the response and the hurt of others including our spouse.
We can engage in frivolous sex outside of marriage but we cannot control the damaging scars that it will leave upon our hearts.
We can engage in gossip and in lying but we cannot control the damage done to our character.
We can promote abortion but we cannot control the guilt and shame that young women feel afterwards.
Sin is a very deadly and dangerous thing and we cannot control the impact of sin in our lives.
Sin is Like a Fire
In the last decade, there have been over 3,000 wildfires in the state of California. These fires have consumed over 7 million acres. 95% of them have been caused by people.
In 2020, the largest wildfire ever recorded, broke out and burned over 1 million acres of land and lasted close to three months.
Sin is a fire.
Once we strike the match, toss it into the brush, the fire goes where it wants to go, and try as we might, there isn’t enough water to extinguish its flames, the fire just has to go out on its own. And when it does, there will be nothing left.
III. The Enemy of Sin - Grace
III. The Enemy of Sin - Grace
Sin isn’t all powerful, sin has an enemy. What is the enemy of sin?
If I was going to summarize it in one word, I’d say the enemy of sin is grace.
Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better!
There was a Gatorade commercial that used to come on TV and it featured Michael Jordan and somebody else.
And they were constantly in a competition, and they were singing that song, “Anything you can do I can do better!”
Well, God looked at satan and God said, “Satan, you think you’ve ruined creation? You just watch this!”
And what God did is He gave us His great grace.
By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us.
When sin had us trapped, Jesus said, “take me instead, and let my people go free.”
And when we trust in the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and in His resurrection from the dead, the Bible says that we are saved.
What happens when we get saved?
When we get saved, the Holy Spirit of God enters us, cleanses us, and revives us back from the dead.
What does the Holy Spirit empower us to do?
He empowers us to be enemies of sin. We can forfeit that right anytime we want to, but when we live by the Spirit of God, we live as enemies of sin.
A. Grace Gives Self-Control Over Sin
A. Grace Gives Self-Control Over Sin
If you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.”
In our Christian walk we have to exercise self-control. If we don’t then sin will rule over us. And once sin rules, there is no putting out the fire.
How do we practice self-control when we are staring down the barrel of temptation?
1. By Drawing Near to God
1. By Drawing Near to God
Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.
Friend, if you’re battling with temptation, you already know it’s wrong. If you didn’t know it’s wrong there wouldn’t be any battle. You’d just be a dog rolling in the dirt after a clean bath, it would seem natural to you.
But when we know that what we are about to do is sinful, we must pull away from what is so obviously evil and embrace what is so obviously good.
What does it mean to draw near?
A Baby and a Stranger
Have you ever seen a baby mistake someone for their parent that isn’t their parent?
To the mother’s surprise, their baby reaches their arms out to be held by a man with a beard and wearing a hat…but when that little baby gets up close, their face changes, and they start thinking, “this ain’t right. My dad is the other guy with a beard and a hat.”
And with urgency and decision they fling their arms back to their mother to get away!
That’s what it means to draw near to the Lord. That with urgency and decision we fix our mind on the will of God.
2. Obeying His Word
2. Obeying His Word
How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word.
To heed means to give careful attention to.
If we are giving careful attention to His word that means that we are studying His word and applying His word.
Instead of just showing up on Sunday to get our fill, it means that everyday we are actively seeking God’s will.
Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You.
It is God’s word that gives us the strength to practice self-control in the midst of temptation.
B. Grace Leads to Repentance From Sin
B. Grace Leads to Repentance From Sin
We’re going to mess up: The important thing is not that you’re perfect, but that you’re reliant on the grace of God.
The grace of God simply says, “Admit your sin, admit what you did, and I will forgive you.”
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Now, repentance is more than just regret, repentance is more than just “I’m sorry”. Repentance is a “change of person.”
It is the enemy of sin because sin wants to dominate your heart and mind, and to fill them with evil, but repentance allows God to fill your heart and mind with goodness.
When it comes to repentance:
We are to be washed.
We are to acknowledge the wrong we’ve done.
We are to recognize that we’ve sinned primarily against God.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, And cleanse me from my sin.
For I acknowledge my transgressions, And my sin is always before me.
Against You, You only, have I sinned, And done this evil in Your sight
Conclusion
Conclusion
We are contaminated by sin, but we can walk in purity by the grace of God.
Sin is at the door every moment, waiting for us to let it in. It lies dormant in our hearts unless we kill it every day.
But the Bible says that if we do well, we will be accepted by God.
How is it that we can do well?
It’s not by our own goodness, it’s not by our own effort, but it is only because the grace of God that we can do well.
