The Cost Of Sin

Notes

Our sermon will be on Romans 6:23

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Songs

How Beautiful Heaven Must Be - 700 - C

The Old Rugged Cross - 165 - F

Feel The Nails - F

The Cost Of Sin

Introduction

There is a nursery rhyme song that goes like this:

Five little Monkeys

Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed one fell off and

Bumped his head call the doctor and the doctor said

No more monkeys jumping on the Bed

The song continues on until there are no more monkeys.

The Cost Of Sin

Listen, if there was ever a dad that knew about little monkeys jumping around, it was me.

I walked by the boys room one day and out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the boys doing a back flip off the top bunk of the bed. He landed with his back on the rail of the bottom bunk.

You would think that once they got older, you wouldn't have any more issues.

A few week ago, I went upstairs and the bottom bunk was lopsided. I asked around to see what happened and I didn't get a clear answer.

I tend to think that someone was plopping down on the bed hard and eventually it broke.

So I had them take the bottom bunk off and I welded it back together.

However, after I welded it back, I wanted to paint it so that it would be somewhat protected.

What I didn't know was that the nozzle was busted. When I painted the frame, I got black paint on me.

Here's the deal, often when we do something wrong, someone pays a price. Sometimes, it's not the person who did it.

Romans 6:23 NKJV

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We Hurt Ourselves

When we sin, we are hurting ourselves.

For example, If someone starts drinking and drinking a lot, and 10 years from now their liver is pickled, they can't blame anyone but themselves.

If someone else tries meth for whatever crazy reason they would and 5 years later they look 20 years older and have no teeth, then they are paying the price of their sin.

Sometimes we think we we are going to get away with it. I watched "Operation Finale" a week or two ago. It's about how a group Israeli secret agents arrested SS Officer Otto Adolf Eichmann.

He got away for awhile, but the long arm of the law caught up with him.

His sin of murdering millions of Jews ended with a rope around his neck and he was hung.

But sin is sneaky ... it draws you in and entices you.

What happens is that we become slaves of sin.

This is what Paul has been saying in the verses before verse 23.

Jesus said the same thing in John 8:34

34 Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.

We Hurt Ourselves

I want you to think about it. Think about what it does.

You think, it won't hurt anybody. Nobody is going to know.

I used to work with a guy who was very proud of his porn collection. A few years later, I read in the paper that he was arrested.

I’m sure he is still paying for it in some way

We Hurt Others

In almost all of those scenarios that I talked about before, those people didn't just hurt themselves.

The alcoholic is leaving behind a family. The meth-head as well.

The guy that I worked with, he had a wife and I think 4 little girls. They are grown by now and I'm sure they are still paying for it.

There is a moral ethic that basically says "No harm, no foul".

The problem is that just isn't true. No one is isolated from harming others. We are not islands.

I made a mistake the other day. I was trying to make an alliteration where I had protagonist and some other word that starts with a "p". I should have used "antagonist." Luckily, my boys caught my error and made sure that I was aware of it.

I was talking to someone else the other day about the incident between David and Bathsheba. They were using it as an example of how God doesn't play by his own rules.

David sinned with Bathsheba and the baby they had died. It was pronounced as a judgment from God.

David tried to cover up his sin - he even had Bathsheba's husband killed.

When I was talking about it, I went the wrong direction. The truth is that the child died as a result of his father's sin.

Doesn't this happen all the time?

How many children have died because their mom or dad decided to drive drunk.

Just a couple of weeks ago a 14 year old boy stole a truck, ran from the police, and in the process hit another vehicle and killed a teenage girl and her mom.

Or how about abortion ... In that a doctor and a mom are directly responsible for the death of a child.

Our sin doesn't happen in a vacuum. It affects others.

Now, back to David and his baby boy. We have to understand that after this public announcement of what happened, there had to be consequences.

David's son died because of his father's sin.

But God's son died for our sin.

We Hurt Jesus

Isaiah 53:4 says:

The New King James Version Chapter 53

4 Surely He has borne our griefs

And carried our sorrows;

Yet we esteemed Him stricken,

Smitten by God, and afflicted.

Isaiah 53:5

The New King James Version Chapter 53

5 But He was wounded for our transgressions,

He was bruised for our iniquities;

The chastisement for our peace was upon Him

And Paul tells us in Colossians 2:14

The New King James Version Chapter 2

14 having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

We Hurt Jesus

Sin has a cost, "The wages of sin is death"

But there's another part of the verse that I don't want to forget

The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The other part is that there is another life after this one.

It manifests itself differently, but we all have this natural desire to make a mark in this life.

It causes kids to want to be some kind of famous youtuber or tiktok'r or whatever is the thing they want in life.

It causes others to dive into their religion so that their afterlife is better.

The point is that we all have this natural desire to do more because of this knowledge within us that there is more.

For us Christians, the truth that we know in Christ is that if we believe in Him, we will have eternal life.

The Cost of Sin

Conclusion

So that brings us back to David's son.

If you want to blame God for this, I can understand. But I want you to think about something. If God is the author of life and death, then he can take life as he wants.

Maybe he knew what would happen to the child if he had lived. Scripture seems to tell us that God knows what will happen as well as what could happen.

But there's something else that we are leaving out.

David says in 2 Samuel 12:22-23

The New King James Version Chapter 12

22 And he said, “While the child was alive, I fasted and wept; for I said, ‘Who can tell whether the LORD will be gracious to me, that the child may live?’

The New King James Version Chapter 12

23 But now he is dead; why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.”

The Cost of Sin

David is saying here that he will see his child again.

The point I'm making about David's son is that we see a life ending, but God sees it as eternal life beginning.

The Cost of Sin may be death,

But God is with us for each breath

When we die, it's the beginning

Of a new life that's unending

It may seem unfair to the child, but if you ask the child, I don't think he'll say so.

It was unfair for Jesus to have died for me, but if you ask him, he'll say that it was worth it.

I know that one day, I'll be able to ask David's son and I'll see what he says.

And I'll ask Jesus, was it worth it for me?

I believe, I trust, and I have faith that he will say

"Well done, good and faithful servant"