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The world we live in is in utter chaos. What caused it to be like this? Why does racism exist? Or disease? Why do people do evil, selfish things to each other? Even when mankind can agree that there is such a thing as good and evil, why can’t they seem to agree on what is good or evil? And why, even when they can mostly agree that something is evil, do they commit evil acts in protest of that evil?

There have been many religious solutions offered to these problems with mankind. Some say that eliminating evil is a matter of doing things the right way. Some say it goes a bit deeper to thinking things the right way. Still others claim that evil is an illusion that can only be escaped by elevating one’s consciousness to a higher reality. And most perplexingly, some say that evil doesn’t exist outside of our individual perspectives.

The Bible makes the assertion in Genesis chapter 3 that evil is what happens when anyone rejects God’s plans and laws in favor of establishing their own. To be anything less than God’s perfect design is to be evil. After all, God declares after finishing His creative work that it is not just good, but exceedingly great - in other words, perfect. The universe is in harmony; mankind is living in a paradise with full authority over nature.

In the beginning, everything was perfection.

Sadly, the first man and woman on Earth decide to reject God’s perfection in favor of deciding for themselves what is good and evil. You’ve heard the story before - a tree, a serpent, and a garden full of goodness. But with a single act of defiance, everything went catastrophically wrong for man, woman, and all of creation - enter evil, sin, and death.

But wait a minute you might say - how did that one decision from a single man and woman affect the whole world? After all, it’s not as if I rejected God’s command personally and ate from some tree I wasn’t supposed to. How did I get roped into this problem with evil? The answer is,

You were born with a nature infected by sin.

How did that happen? Well, let’s use something were very familiar with in our modern computer age - an app, or computer program. Every computer program or app on your mobile device is possible because of coding - a digital language that specifies what that app does, how it does it, and when to do it. Coders use this digital language to tell your phone how to capture images using the camera, how to translate your voice into digital signal that can be sent to other devices, and how to translate that signal back into audible sounds for others to hear. It’s really incredible how complex a simple phone call is from the perspective of coding.

What does that have to do with humanity and evil? Well imagine that God is the master coder of the entire Universe. He not only wrote the code for every star, animal and plant, he also wrote the code for things like gravity and the concept of time. More incredible, he did all of it from within Himself - he was the coder and the computer and the machine that put it all together. Try wrapping your mind around the concept of inventing the concept of time!

Like the rest of creation, God wrote the code for humanity perfectly. But He gave humanity something special He did not give the other creatures - He directly inspired, or breathed into mankind. In that act,

God made man to serve as a representation of Himself

- sort of like a selfie, but with a life of it’s own.

So what’s the problem? The problem is, when Adam and Eve chose to rebel against God’s good decrees and laws, they crashed their own program! By rejecting the master coder, they rejected the source of their perfect coding and instead choose to try and write their own code. Even our most advanced “Artificial Intelligence” programs won’t do that because they cannot change the initial values we program to tell them what is “correct” such as 1+1=2. By rejecting the source of all truth, Adam and Eve rejected the underlying values that made them perfect. Since we are all ultimately copies of these faulty human applications, we carry the same defect within us, which the Bible calls sin. Each of us by default thinks and acts imperfectly.

For this reason, every attempt we as humans make to fix ourselves cannot ultimately solve the problem. Just like developers and coders have to continuously release updates which contain bug fixes and patches to correct problems in an app, our best efforts can never produce perfection and eliminate evil completely. Every human philosophy, religion, and government is marred by the imperfection of our coding. No matter what structures we use to ensure things go well for ourselves as individuals and societies, they ultimately fail at the point which the depend on us to act rightly.

Everyone is the problem with evil.

Well, what now? We seemed to have gotten ourselves into a predicament that we cannot escape from. We are like a child who climbed up a tree only to realize that we cannot get back down safely - that is, unless someone rescues us and shows us the way back down. Or in the case of our relation to God, the way back up. After all, God did not change his position of perfection in heaven - we are the ones who have fallen.

The good news is, because God did not change, only our relative proximity to Him, He is still good and choose to display his goodness to us. We often use the terms mercy and grace to talk about God’s display of goodness to mankind. Most coders, when they realize there is a massive problem in a program they are developing, will shut it down and start over. But not God. Although he has come close to simply wiping out humanity and starting over from scratch (ask a guy named Noah about it sometime) he instead decided to do something incredible - he wrote himself into human form and lived out a life amongst all the malfunctioning apps who call themselves “human” and created a way to reboot them through a process called salvation. This human manifestation of God was called Jesus, which means “God is Salvation”.

Jesus came to fix our problem with evil.

By living a perfect life, Jesus gave us access again to that perfect code God originally created us with. Then he did the most incredible thing - he sacrificed His life to make that code readily available to all who would receive Him as God, the Master Coder and source of Truth. Because Jesus code was perfect, when he suffered a cruel death at the hands of sinners he didn’t remain dead - he arose again to a new life. In other words, His coding was so perfect that no malfunction or malicious program, no evil glitch or “sin virus” could crash it. Instead, he turns everything on it’s head and overcomes evil with His perfect goodness.

So then, how do we get this new code to overwrite our old defective one? First,

We have to surrender our determination to do things our own way and instead do them God’s way.

That begins by accepting God’s Word as true and applicable at all times in all places. This means accepting that our initial nature, without God’s interference, is corrupted and evil. We are guilty of sin against God and His perfect will and law. This can be the hard part, because it goes against what the world tells us about ourselves. That we are special and perfect just the way we are, that we should follow our heart, our dreams, our path. Second,

We must ask for God to forgive our sin and evil, intentional and unintentional.

We have to throw ourselves on God’s mercy because without it, we are under justified condemnation. We deserve nothing less than to be punished like any criminal would be for their law breaking. But the punishment for breaking God’s ultimate and perfect law is eternal, because His law is eternal, and it results in the worst kind of suffering as a reflection of just how perfect the law we broke is. Finally,

We must allow His new perfect life to overwrite our old imperfect one.

This is where a lot of people stop short, because it means giving up a lot of things we think are enjoyable and easy (at least in the short term). But just like breaking God’s law results in punishment and eternal suffering, following God’s law results in justification and eternal joy. Remember, your old nature coding is faulty and so you can’t trust what it says is right or good, or pleasurable and fulfilling. Faith means trusting God is good, His Word is True, and then following through on that conviction.

The apostle Paul is a great example of someone who had their old life overwritten be Jesus. He started his life as a religious teacher in Jewish society. These teachers were convinced they knew God’s law, but they were the same ones who rejected Christ and had Him crucified! Paul obtained authority to imprison and kill those who followed Jesus and believed He was the Son of God. But on his way to do so in the city of Damascus, he had an encounter with God that changed him completely. Paul repented of his old life and became a follower of Jesus. God used him to write much of the New Testament, in which Paul, acting out his new coding, instructs others on how they can also live out this new nature in Christ.

Let’s read a passage from 1 Timothy 4 together to discover what this new nature looks like.

1 Timothy 4:6–16 ESV

If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed. Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe. Command and teach these things. Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.

Notice the five things he specifically list in verse 12:

Speech; Conduct; Love; Faith; Purity.

This week, we will spend each day focusing on one of these aspects of our new lives in Christ, exploring how God overwrites our old nature with the example of Christ and commands of scripture. As you interact this week with your small groups, your camp teams, and your leaders, look for opportunities to live out your new nature in Christ. When you could use with words of discouragement, use words of kindness. When you could do something vengeful, do something merciful. When you could keep something to yourself, instead share it freely. When you are tempted to break a promise because it’s inconvenient, keep your word even if it costs you. When you feel the pressure to join in with whatever the world says you should do with them, instead remain separate and holy to God.