Seriousness of Sin

Jude’s Concern

How many of you all get excited about vacations?

Breaks from school?

Camping trips?

Stay-cations?

Man.. As I get older and older, the more I like a good stay-cation. If you would’ve met me like 4 years ago, I was the guy who loved to go out and do stuff. Hanging out until like two in the moring, going home, getting like 30 minutes of sleep, waking up and doing it again like it was no big deal. But now? I LOVE a good stay-cation where I get to stay and home and do nothing. Those are the best.

So if you didn’t know, Angela and I missed last week because we we’re in Florida. We weren’t going to Disney or just hanging out on the beach, we we’re there for a funeral and a couple of the leaders were out last week too, for different funerals and while I was trying to decide what I wanted us to talk about tonight I thought we would look at Heaven and what we get to look forward to. How many of you get excited when you think of vacations? Disney world, camping, cruises, stay-cations? Where you stay at home and just relax? We all have those things that we look forwards to and we get excited when those things get closer and closer, like Christmas, right? That’s how I get when I think about Heaven and what we have to look forward to!

A place where there is no more heartache, no more pain, no tears, no sin, no worry, no anxiety, no illnesses, no COVID, no cancer, and even better than all of that- A place where we are with Jesus again. A place where we are home.

It sounds so good and that’s what I thought I wanted to talk about tonight, but last Tuesday I sat down to read my Bible. And I’ve been reading through 1 Samuel again, but for some reason I decided to go read the book of Jude. If we’re being honest I was just thinking about the name “Jude” and I like that name so I flipped over and started reading.

It’s one of the shortest books of the Bible, you could actually read through it a few times before I even get done talking.

But the book of Jude is written by one of Jesus’ four brothers and it was written to a Church. To beleivers. And he starts his letter by saying “I was eager to write to you about salvation....I felt compelled to write you and urge you to contend for the faith.”

Jude starts talking about these false teachers that are in the Church and it isn’t their teachings that he points out, it’s their lifestyles. Their moral compromise, he says that there are people who are using the grace of God and a “license for immorality”

They were saying “we are free in Christ so everything is allowable”

“God gives forgivness and abounds in grace so we are free to live as we please! It doesn’t matter if I sin.”

This directly betrays Jesus’ authoirty and teachings… this goes against the words we say when we say “Christ is Lord.”

But we aren’t like that are we? We don’t sing songs to God about how He is all we need and then turn around and live lifes full of everything but Him.

We don’t sing about His goodness and then keep it to ourselves, do we?

We don’t say that Christ is Lord and then live like the world… do we?

But Jude goes on and he starts to give examples of people in the past who knew the Lord at one time and then fell into darkness.

He talks about how the Israelites were lead out of slavary and then rebelled against God and died in the wilderness.

He talks about how some of the angels were once in Heaven actually rebelled against God and were judged because of it.

Then he talks about the entire cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and how the entire city was living in sin and how God destroyed them because of it.

And I was sitting up in bed reading the book of Jude and it just hits me how destructive sin is.

How evil it is and how there is not a single sin that doesn’t have an effect on our lives.

Every single sin that is committed seperarates us from the Lord.

It is our sin that makes us unworthy of God and His kingdom.

And there is not a single sin that does not bring death and consequence.

Here and in Heaven.

So what I want us to do tonight is look at a couple of stories and see just how destructive sin can be.

Open your Bibles to Genesis 19 with me.

So in Genesis 19 there’s a story about this guy named Lot. Lot is Abrahams nephew and a couple of Angles come to vist him in the town of Sodom. Once these Angles see how evil the town is, they tell Lot to take his family and flee, because they’re going to destory the entire place.

Genesis 19:12–13 KJV 1900

And the men said unto Lot, Hast thou here any besides? son in law, and thy sons, and thy daughters, and whatsoever thou hast in the city, bring them out of this place: For we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the Lord; and the Lord hath sent us to destroy it.

So of course Lot starts to gather his family up and one of the Angels gives them instructions on how what to do. The angel tells lot to “Genesis 19:17”

Genesis 19:17 (KJV 1900)

Escape for thy life; look not behind thee, neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed.

“Run to the mountains, don’t stop and don’t look back.”

and what we see next should show us just how seriously we should take disobidence to God.

Genesis 19:26 KJV 1900

But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.

God said flee and do not look back. Do not stop anywhere, just keep going, but we get down to verse 26 and as they were fleeing, Lot’s wife looks back. She becomes a pillar of salt. She was gone in an instant.

Now we read this story and I don’t know about you, but that seems like really severe punishment for a glance. Like all she did was look back and she dies on the spot.

There’s a lot to point out in that story but tonight what I want us to focus on is the seriousness of one sin before God.

Like one sin that we might even think is kind of small, right? Like not that big of a deal, there are worse things that Lots wife could have done right?

But sin is sin and sin is what destoryed the evil city of Sodom and sin is what killed Lot’s wife. One sin and boom. Death. Just the turn of her head and that was it.

Comparision- I wonder what Lot was thinking when that happened. I wonder if he tried to compare the sins of Sodom to the sin his wife commited. Sodom was an evil place, if you’ve ever read this story they were doing HORRIBLE things. Raping and killing and beating and living in disgustingly, evil ways. We look at them and say “Yup. They deserve punishment.” and then Lot’s wife comes along and just turns around. She looks back towards the city and is punished just like Sodom is. She recieves death, because she directly disobeyed the commands of God.

How often do we look at another person’s sin and think to ourselfs “well I’m doing alright because I’m not nearly as bad as that person?”

“I might be a liar, but at least I’m not a killer.”

There are even times when we say things like “I’m keeping the commands. I’m not doing the things that God told me to stay away from, so I must be doing alright.”

But one sin. In front of the infenitly holy God of the universe. Death.

There are two types of sin

Commision

Doing what God said not to do.

Omission

Not doing what God said to do

Sins of commision would be things like what is descrived in Matthew 15:18-19

Matthew 15:18–19 KJV 1900

But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:

Sins of omission are described in James 4:17 Another one of Jesus’ brothers says

James 4:17 KJV 1900

Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.

How many times are we in a position to do something good for some and we don’t take that opportuniy? How many times do we have time to read our Bibles or pray and spend time with God and we fill it with something else?

Both of these are sin and both are deserving of punishment. Both of these things seperate us from God and both of these things impact our lives and if we don’t think that sin impacts our life than we are flat out lying to ourself.

There are some sins that we sin the immedate repercussions from

Murder brings death

Gossip brings bitterness, emotional pain, and hard hearts

Drugs WILL destroy your life

Sin brings forth all kinds of evil things we see today. Financial ruin, broken relationships, death and destruction.

And for some reason we think some sin is okay. Lots wife turned her head and what happened to her? Death.

But this really shouldn’t suprise us. Do you know why we have illnesses today? Why we have natural disasters? Earthquakes and tornados? Cancers and death?

Because in the beginning we thought it was a good idea to eat some fruit. God told Adam and Eve they could eat anything they wanted to except for the fruit of one tree and whenever they decided to go ahead and eat from that tree, what happened? Sin entered the world and changed everything. One bite and now there’s death and disease. One bite and now there’s pain. One bite and now we are seperated from the Lord, we can no longer eat from the tree of life, because Adam and Eve decided their ways were better than the Lords.

One bite and there is condemnation. To all people. Forever. Like they ate a piece of fruit. That was it! It seems like there’s worse things they could’ve been doing, but from that one sin came condemnation to all people and all the effects of sin. War? It’s here because of one sin. Violence. Murder. One sin brought that to us. Sickness. One sin brought that to us. Natural disasters? One sin.

I want to look at one more story and then give us some tools to help us stay away from the destruction of sin.

In 2 Samuel, we find king David. This is the guy who fought Goliath with his a sling and a rock. This is the guy who grew up and became king. This is the guy who you can find writing the Psalms. This is the guy who the Bible calls “A man after God’s own heart.” This is that guy. I would love to be known as the guy who is “after God’s own heart.” Imagine if that’s how people described you after you were gone. Wouldn’t that be cool?

But the thing is we can look at David’s life and see him fail time and time again. There are times I look at David’s life and I’m comforted, because if a guy like David can mess up as bad as he does, and we’re getting ready to see that he messes up pretty bad, if that guy can mess up and still be known as “a man after God’s own heart, than so can I.”

And that’s true, David was known for being a man after God’s own heart, because once he is confronted with his sin, he repents. He turns away from his sin and turn’s to the Lord, but what I want us to see is that even the guy who is known for having such a desire for the Lord as he does, he still has to live with the destructive nature of sin.

So in 2 Samuel 11 David does some pretty messed up stuff. He see’s a very attractive woman named Bathsheeba during a time when her husband was off at war. Where David should’ve been. But instead of fighting alongside his people, David sleeps with Bathsheeba and gets her pregnant.

So David tries to cover up what he did and that didn’t work so then he sends Bathsheeba’s husband, Uriah, to the front lines of battle so that he would be killed. David essentially kills a man to try and cover up his sin. He sin’s in order to hide his sin. It doesn’t make sense, right?

But again, don’t we do the same thing?

We do one thing and then we try and lie to cover it up. Maybe if nobody see’s my sin, then nobody will be hurt by this and if nobody is hurt by this then it’s really not that bad and I don’t have to be humiliated by letting people know what I did and.. It just starts to snowball right? You know the snowball effect? If I take a snowball and roll it down a hill, it will start to grow the farther it rolls and something that started off small will eventually end up being huge?

That’s what David does and that’s what we do too. Maybe I can try and cover up this sin, but I have to sin again in order to make that work, but if it works than it doesn’t really matter than, right?

I bet God is just watching us. Shaking His head. It’s ridiculous that we try to hide our sins from God isn’t it? But we always have.

Going back to Adam and Eve. The first thing they did after eating the forbidden fruit? They tried to cover themselves. They tried hiding. And God comes to them and says “what are you doing?”

We always go back to that though. Trying to cover up our mistakes. David does that and you know what happens? 2 Samuel 11:27

2 Samuel 11:27 (KJV 1900)

But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.

Then God sends a prophet named Nathan to David and Nathan confronts David about his sin. David understands what he has done says “I have sinned against the Lord.” He acknowledges his sin and turns back to God. This is why he is known for being a man after God’s own heart, but where there is sin, there is death. David still had to deal with the consequences of his actions and Nathan the prophet tells David 2 Samuel 12:13-14

2 Samuel 12:13–14 KJV 1900

And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said unto David, The Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die. Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die.

2 Samuel 12:18 KJV 1900

And it came to pass on the seventh day, that the child died. And the servants of David feared to tell him that the child was dead: for they said, Behold, while the child was yet alive, we spake unto him, and he would not hearken unto our voice: how will he then vex himself, if we tell him that the child is dead?

The city of sodom sins and is destoyed

Lots wife sins and is killed

Adam and Eve sin and bring death to everyone

David sins, turns back to God. and a child dies.

Our actions have consequences and not just for us, but for those around us as well.

I don’t want us to get together tonight and just see how terrible sin is and go home. I think there are some things we should walk away with after looking at this.

If you were here for our small groups on sunday, one of the things we talked about was having an accountability group or partner. Having people in your life that you trust, and you ask to keep you accountable. Someone that check in to see how your doing with that one sin that keeps creeping back in your life. Someone that meets with you and asks how you’re doing with your faith. Someone that knows what your struggles are and will help you walk in the ways of the Lord.

I wish this was something I had in my life sooner. It would’ve kept me out of a lot of trouple and heartache, but I think it is one of the most imporatnat relationships that you can build. So be looking for someone in your life that can call you out on your sin, like Nathan did for David, and ask them to do that for you. Just finding someone you can go to and say “Hey this is what I struggle with. Will you help me live more righteously?” It can be a friend in this room, it can be a friend from another Church, it can a leader in this room, but you need someone in your life to help keep you accountable.

I also think we should look at sin and understand what it means for the world around us

Let’s look back at the book of Jude really quickly and then we’ll wrap things up. Jude 20-24

Jude 20–24 KJV 1900

But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And of some have compassion, making a difference: and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,

We should understand how destructive sin is and desire to warn others about it. “snatching them from the fire” with “mercy and fear” Mercy, because we ought not look down on someone for their sin. Lot’s wife turned her head and sinned. David killed a man and sinned. Both of them are sinners, just like we are sinners and just like the world is full of sinners. The only diffrence is that we are sinners with a savior. And we come to them with fear, because they have no savior and we understand what that means for them.

But you want to show someone the severity of sin? You don’t have to start flipping through Jude and 2 Samuel and Genesis and telling everyone all of these stories, if we really want people to understand just how serious sin is, we should show them the cross. A cross is an instrament of torture. A cross is pain. A cross is death and punishment. Crucifixions themselves were torture, but Jesus was tortured before His crucifixion even came. He was whipped and beaten. He was stripped of his clothes and humiliated. He was spit upon. Nails were drove into his hands and feet. When he was hanging there, He had to pull himself up with every breath in order to stay alive. The Romans had this proccess down to a science. I’m not going to get into all the details right now, but they made this the most brutal form of death that they could and they made it last for as long as possible.

And Jesus Christ willingly took that on, because it was the only way to pay for our sins. If there was any other way to do it, He wouldv’e done it. He even prays to God and asks Him to let ther ebe another way, but no. Our sin is what puts Christ on the cross. That’s how serious it is, that’s how seriously He looks at sin and that’s how serious we should look at sin.

The band can go ahead and come back up...

But one sin brought death into the world. One sin killed Lots wife. One sin. That was it. Now look at your life and look at my life and understand that we have sinned thousands upon thousands of times and understand that it is not something to take lightly. We have sinned against an infenitly holy and perfect God and we are 100% deserving of punishment. We deserve that cross. But this makes what Jesus did that much more glorious. At the cross He took all the judgement that we deserve. All the death that sin brings, He paid the price for, He took all the punishment of sin upon Himself for all who truly trust in Him, for all of those who give their hearts to the Lord, for all of those who have devoted their lives to Christ? He takes the punishment for. But for those who don’t trust in Him. Those who don’t know Christ as Lord. They will have to pay for their sins. They will have to endure punishment. They will be judged by their sins. So if we are Christians, let us praise Him tonight! Lets confess our sins to Him and praise Him for His forgivness! Let’s throw down all our sin at His feet and follow Him with everything we have. And if you haven’t given your life to Christ, I want you to think about this tonight… You’re sin brings death and it leads you on a road to Hell. If you’ve never given your life to Christ, Hell is awaiting you, but we have a savior that loves us enough to see our sin. See the state that it puts us in, become so bothered by that that He leaves Heaven, dies a on a cross, and takes away all the punishment that we deserve. If you’ve never given your life to that savior or if you want to know what that looks like, don’t leave this place without figuring it out. The band is going to play, but this is our time to respond to whatever God is laying on your heart.