Understanding Sin: The Heart's Condition and Redemption

Summary

In today's gathering, we explored the concept of sin and how we often categorize it into "big" and "small" sins. We began with a light-hearted text poll, asking which minor infractions people considered worse, such as speeding or telling an innocent lie. This exercise highlighted our natural tendency to compare and rank sins, much like we compare prices or features when shopping. However, this mindset can lead us to underestimate the significance of what we perceive as "small" sins.

I shared a personal story from my youth, illustrating how we often rationalize our actions by comparing them to worse offenses. This story set the stage for a deeper discussion on how God views sin. We examined Matthew 5, where Jesus teaches that anger and insults are as serious as murder in God's eyes. This passage reveals that God is concerned with the condition of our hearts, not just our outward actions.

We also looked at James 2:10, which states that breaking even one law makes us guilty of breaking all of them. This challenges the notion that small sins are insignificant. Instead, it emphasizes that all sin separates us from God, highlighting our need for Jesus' redemptive work on the cross.

The sermon concluded with practical steps for addressing sin in our lives. We were encouraged to pray for God to reveal areas where we have become numb to sin and to avoid imposing our personal convictions on others. The analogy of a virus, like Ebola, illustrated how even small sins can have a significant impact, but the blood of Jesus offers healing and restoration.

Key Takeaways:

1. Comparison and Rationalization: We often compare our sins to others, rationalizing that our actions aren't as bad. However, this mindset can lead us to underestimate the seriousness of our own sin. God calls us to examine our hearts and recognize that all sin separates us from Him. [06:32]

2. The Heart of the Law: Jesus' teachings in Matthew 5 reveal that God is concerned with the heart behind our actions. Anger and insults are as serious as murder because they reflect a heart condition that separates us from God. This challenges us to focus on our inner transformation rather than just outward behavior. [14:33]

3. The Weight of Small Sins: James 2:10 reminds us that breaking even one law makes us guilty of breaking all. This underscores the importance of addressing what we consider "small" sins, as they can have significant spiritual consequences. [18:35]

4. Practical Steps for Holiness: We are encouraged to pray for God to reveal areas where we have become numb to sin and to avoid imposing our personal convictions on others. This helps us maintain a heart posture of humility and grace as we pursue holiness. [22:41]

5. The Power of Jesus' Blood: The analogy of a virus illustrates how small sins can have a big impact, but the blood of Jesus offers healing and restoration. This reminds us of the transformative power of the gospel and our need for Jesus' redemptive work in our lives. [35:36]

Youtube Chapters:

- [00:00] - Welcome
- [04:13] - Iconic Family Story
- [06:32] - Comparing Sins
- [08:18] - Myth of Small Sins
- [10:42] - The Impact of Gossip
- [14:33] - Jesus Restores the Law
- [18:35] - James on Breaking the Law
- [22:41] - Calluses of Sin
- [29:01] - Avoiding Legalism
- [30:04] - Personal Convictions
- [33:51] - Small Sin, Big Impact
- [35:36] - The Power of Jesus' Blood
- [37:13] - Living a Holy Life
- [37:46] - Invitation to Follow Jesus
- [40:08] - Closing Prayer and Worship

Study Guide

Bible Study Discussion Guide

Bible Reading:
- Matthew 5:21-22
- James 2:10

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Observation Questions:

1. In the sermon, what was the purpose of the text poll about minor infractions like speeding or telling an innocent lie? How did it relate to the main message? [06:32]

2. What personal story did the pastor share from his youth, and how did it illustrate the concept of rationalizing sin? [04:13]

3. According to Matthew 5:21-22, how does Jesus compare anger and insults to murder? What does this reveal about God's view of sin?

4. What does James 2:10 say about breaking even one law, and how does this challenge the idea of "small" sins? [18:35]

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Interpretation Questions:

1. How does the comparison of sins, as discussed in the sermon, affect our understanding of our own sinfulness and need for Jesus? [06:32]

2. In what ways does Jesus' teaching in Matthew 5 challenge the traditional understanding of the law, and what does it reveal about the condition of our hearts? [14:33]

3. How does the analogy of a virus, like Ebola, help us understand the impact of small sins in our spiritual lives? [35:36]

4. What practical steps were suggested in the sermon for addressing sin in our lives, and how can these steps lead to a deeper relationship with God? [22:41]

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Application Questions:

1. Reflect on a time when you compared your sins to others. How did this affect your view of your own sinfulness, and what steps can you take to focus on your heart condition instead? [06:32]

2. Jesus emphasizes the importance of the heart behind our actions. What specific heart attitudes do you need to address in your life to align more closely with God's standards? [14:33]

3. Consider the "small" sins in your life that you might have rationalized. How can you begin to address these areas and seek God's forgiveness and transformation? [18:35]

4. The sermon encouraged praying for God to reveal areas where we have become numb to sin. How can you incorporate this practice into your daily routine, and who can help keep you accountable? [22:41]

5. The pastor shared a personal conviction about alcohol. What personal convictions do you hold, and how can you ensure they don't become legalistic or judgmental towards others? [30:04]

6. How can the analogy of a virus help you understand the importance of addressing even the smallest sins in your life? What steps can you take to prevent these "viruses" from spreading? [35:36]

7. Reflect on the power of Jesus' blood to heal and restore. How can this truth encourage you to live a life of holiness and seek God's grace in overcoming sin? [35:36]

Devotional

Day 1: The Danger of Comparison and Rationalization
We often find ourselves comparing our actions to those of others, rationalizing that our sins are not as severe. This mindset can lead us to underestimate the seriousness of our own sin. God calls us to examine our hearts and recognize that all sin separates us from Him. By focusing on the condition of our hearts rather than the perceived severity of our actions, we can better understand our need for God's grace and forgiveness. This understanding challenges us to stop comparing ourselves to others and instead focus on our personal relationship with God. [06:32]

"For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?" (1 Corinthians 4:7, ESV)

Reflection: In what ways have you been comparing your sins to others, and how can you shift your focus to your own heart condition today?

Day 2: The Heart Behind Our Actions
Jesus' teachings in Matthew 5 reveal that God is deeply concerned with the heart behind our actions. Anger and insults are as serious as murder because they reflect a heart condition that separates us from God. This challenges us to focus on our inner transformation rather than just outward behavior. By addressing the root of our actions, we can align our hearts with God's will and experience true spiritual growth. This perspective encourages us to seek inner change and to be mindful of the motivations behind our actions. [14:33]

"Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life." (Proverbs 4:23, ESV)

Reflection: What is one area of your life where your outward actions do not align with the condition of your heart? How can you begin to address this today?

Day 3: The Weight of Small Sins
James 2:10 reminds us that breaking even one law makes us guilty of breaking all. This underscores the importance of addressing what we consider "small" sins, as they can have significant spiritual consequences. By acknowledging the weight of these sins, we can better understand our need for Jesus' redemptive work on the cross. This realization calls us to take all sin seriously and to seek God's forgiveness and guidance in overcoming them. [18:35]

"Whoever keeps a command will know no evil thing, and the wise heart will know the proper time and the just way." (Ecclesiastes 8:5, ESV)

Reflection: Identify a "small" sin in your life that you have been overlooking. How can you take steps to address it and seek God's forgiveness today?

Day 4: Practical Steps for Holiness
We are encouraged to pray for God to reveal areas where we have become numb to sin and to avoid imposing our personal convictions on others. This helps us maintain a heart posture of humility and grace as we pursue holiness. By seeking God's guidance and being open to His correction, we can grow in our spiritual journey and become more like Christ. This approach fosters a community of grace and understanding, where we support one another in our pursuit of holiness. [22:41]

"Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!" (Psalm 139:23-24, ESV)

Reflection: What is one area of your life where you have become numb to sin? How can you invite God to reveal and address this area today?

Day 5: The Power of Jesus' Blood
The analogy of a virus illustrates how small sins can have a big impact, but the blood of Jesus offers healing and restoration. This reminds us of the transformative power of the gospel and our need for Jesus' redemptive work in our lives. By embracing this truth, we can experience the freedom and healing that comes from a relationship with Christ. This understanding encourages us to rely on Jesus' sacrifice and to live in the light of His grace and mercy. [35:36]

"In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace." (Ephesians 1:7, ESV)

Reflection: How can you embrace the healing and restoration offered by Jesus' blood in your life today? What steps can you take to live in the freedom of His grace?

Quotes

1. "We compare like, hey, this is worse. What's worse? And we do that in life, right? Like if you go to buy a pair of shoes, shoes, you're going to compare prices. Even online, you're going to look at some different websites. You're going to compare the ratings. What stars did they get? This one got a lot of five-star reviews. I'm going to get that one. If you go to buy a car, you're going to compare prices. You're going to compare ratings. You're going to compare like the different accessories that the car has, you know, the different things that they've got. Like this one's got like crash prevention technology that'll slow you down. We look at those things. If you're looking at churches, like you compare churches like sermon and music and kids programs, student programs, young adult programs, that's normal. All those things are normal. That's okay. It's good. We should do that. That's wise. But we subconsciously live in this comparison mode where then we start to compare sin." [00:06:36] (54 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)

2. "And this is why we compare, because if you gave me the option, hey, I will murder you or steal $20 from you, I'll just give you the $20, right? I mean, I don't want to be murdered. And so we do that comparison, and it makes sense to us because some sin and some decisions have different consequences, right? They feel different, and we might place them as big sins, medium sins, small sins. All of those things you texted about were probably all, in most people's mind, like small sins, lower level. The question, as we talk about myth busters, the myth we're trying to bust is God doesn't really care about the small things." [00:08:18] (38 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)

3. "So you're probably not having this myth. You're probably not having this myth discussion at work. People are probably like, well, I heard the Christians say God doesn't care, but it's probably not. But it's something that we wrestle with in our lives. Is there a difference between small sin and big sin? We're going to look at Matthew chapter 5. You can flip there in a second. If you don't have a Bible, don't worry. We're going to put the verses up on the screen. But before we do, let me just give you an illustration, though, of a small sin that we might go, hey, it's not that big of a deal, but see it from a different perspective. This is a true story about Michelle and Sharon. Michelle and Sharon were co-workers together. Good friends at the office they worked at. And on their lunch break, one day they go across the street to the restaurant that's like right across from their office. They go there quite a bit. They walk in, and before they sit down to order, they go into the bathroom to freshen up, touch up their makeup. And they're in, and they've been talking as they've walked across the office to the restaurant. They've talked as they walked into the restaurant. They've talked as they've gone into the bathroom. And it's just small talk. And amidst the small talk comes a conversation about, like, who drives you crazy? And Michelle's talking, and she starts talking about Beth. She's like, Beth drives me crazy. Beth drives our entire team crazy. Beth is like a diva." [00:09:10] (67 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)

4. "Red in the face, angry and embarrassed. Eye contacts made, nothing said. Beth walks out and then Michelle and Sharon have a fairly awkward lunch after that experience. Michelle goes back to the office and she's like, has this, like, I need to say something to Beth, but I also don't want to see Beth. You know, you kind of felt that, like, I don't know what to say here. She doesn't see her the rest of the day and she thinks, okay, that's kind of good. She's going home because Michelle's a believer and Michelle's like, the spirit of God's wrestling with her and she's like, I've got, I've got to, I've got to apologize. I've got to fix this. And so she starts praying like, God, would you just, you know, give me the words to say when I'm going home. And she's like, I've got to see Beth tomorrow, but she doesn't see Beth tomorrow. She doesn't see Beth the next day. So she goes to her supervisor and says, I haven't seen Beth. I've been looking for any talk. And they said, oh, well, Beth came in from lunch three days ago and resigned." [00:11:02] (47 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)

5. "That's what Jesus is doing in this Matthew chapter five. He's going back and he's restoring what the original intent of the law is. The people have begun to understand the law. They begin to put it into sections. They begin to put it in big categories and small categories. And they said, hey, we know we're not to murder. That's one of the top 10 and the 10 commandments that God gave. Don't murder. And Jesus says, right. Murder brings judgment. But I said. The original intent of the law, what God would want you to know, it's not just about, hey, I murdered and I didn't, so I'm good. He says when you have misplaced anger at somebody, that's going to bring you into trouble. When you call someone an idiot or you call somebody empty-headed, that's the literal translation of that word. You call somebody, we have problems." [00:16:06] (48 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)

6. "When you curse somebody, he says you're in dangers of the fire of hell. That word in the Greek is Gehenna. It was a place right outside of the city that had been known years before for idolatrous worship, where people of other countries worshipped false gods. And so the Jews were like, man, we don't even go. They just saw the entire place as unclean. They saw it as separation from God. And God says, hey, it's not just murder. It's about your heart. It's not just about the action. It's the big deal. Like when you speak ill of somebody, when you curse somebody, when you call them a name, when you've got misplaced anger, the heart of God is that that separates you from God, just like actually murdering somebody does. And he gives that through adultery and divorce and all kinds of things. He restores it so we can get the bigger picture. It's not just about avoiding the big things. It's about our heart and the small things. The small things matter to God because God is a holy God. He's separated. There's no sin in him. There's no sin in heaven. And when you, when I, when we were two years old and we disobeyed the parent, the authority that God put in place of him for us at that time, when we disobeyed that parent, we disobeyed God and sin entered us and sin in us doesn't enter into a sinless heaven. And we had a problem. And God said, you might focus on the big things, comparing yourself to other people, but you're not comparing yourself to other people because here's what you'll find. You'll always find someone who's worse off than you. And you always find somebody who's better off than you. You're not comparing your sin to someone else. You're comparing your sin in your life. You're comparing your sin to someone else." [00:16:54] (101 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)

7. "The person who just does one thing is as guilty as the person who did everything. See, the Jews thought of sin often like we do, compartmentalized. Like, I've got this, but not that. I did this, it wasn't a big deal because I didn't do that. Or, I'm not doing great in this area of my life, but I'm doing fine in the other areas. If I'm doing fine in the other areas, we'll just kind of focus and live over here. We're not going to talk about this area over here where I'm not doing real well. It's this idea, like, it's kind of the reverse idea. Like, have you ever been bowling? And you throw that bowling ball down the lane and you hit that 10 pin, the one on the corner. You don't want to do that in bowling, right? You want to get them all. But you hit that 10 pin and just one pin flies off, but the rest of them are still there. And we look at that and that's kind of how we're like, yeah, I messed up here, small thing, but I'm doing good everywhere else." [00:20:03] (51 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)

8. "The other nine pins and we kind of function that way one's not so bad if you got the other nine but what james says he says the person who got the one pin the person did the one small thing it's not like bowling hitting one pin it's like throwing a bowling ball at a glass window it shatters everything the glass is no longer usable it's not like hey there's a piece of it that i'll use and a piece of it that i won't it breaks the whole thing that's what he says when he says uh the person who keeps all laws except one is guilty as a person who's broken all god's laws because one broken law one small sin shatters everything we can't live as if god doesn't care about the small things because it shatters everything and it separates us for all eternity from god because he's perfect and we no longer are now if you're a follower of jesus you're believers there's there's been a point in your life where you came and you realized hey you realize hey i i am a sinner you realize i've i've messed up before i've shattered the whole glass and and i've asked jesus i've received the gift that he gave us on the cross that's what the gospel teaches that jesus died on the cross his blood was shed so that a just god could punish sin and remain just because like if something happened to you if something unjust happened to you somebody stole something somebody did something and and everyone knows it's unjust and you take it to court and the judge is there and and everyone agrees that what happened is unjust and the judge favors the other person the unjust person that judge is now no longer a just judge because he chose injustice over justice god cannot do that because by his nature he's just he cannot just close be close his eyes to sin it has to be punished it was punished in the form of jesus on the cross that's why we celebrate easter his death death on the cross covered my sin and his resurrection brought life that's that's the good news to the bad news" [00:20:18] (122 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)

9. "If you're a believer and that experience happened, you have heaven in your front. That's where you're headed. You have a relationship with Jesus. The small things still matter because the small things, even if you're a believer, even though God sees you as righteous, the small things impact how we relate to him. It impacts our intimacy with him. Because what it does is it develops like a callous on our heart. It does. It allows us to start rationalizing. What we do is we go, here's the line. Here's the line of sin. And I'm walking holy. But I look and I go, this isn't that bad. And I've crossed the line. Sin, but it's a little sin. It's not that big a deal. What I did is I moved the line, which I can't literally do, but I moved the line of holiness in my mind and I set it over here. This isn't that big a deal. That's the big deal. What happens, though, is now I'm much closer to the big deal and something happens. Temptation comes and I'm right close to that line. You know, it's not that big of a deal. And I move the line once again. And over time, sin finds a natural home in a place it should never find, a redeemed follower of Jesus. That's why it matters to eradicate and deal with a small sin and not just go, hey, it's not a big deal, because it brings calluses. We stop feeling things that we're supposed to feel. When I was right out of college, right out of college, I decided I wanted to learn how to play the guitar. I love music. I love concerts. I love, like, even my, my kids go crazy because they're like, we're driving the car and I turn the music all the way up and they're like, we can't hear each other. And I'm like, exactly." [00:23:13] (95 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)

10. "You know, it's interesting trying to think through this idea of small sin and big impact. And I thought about the idea of a virus, right? The Ebola virus. I actually looked that up on some of that stuff. The Ebola virus starts, if you get it, 8 to 12 days after you get it, you start feeling symptoms of, like, the flu. Just headaches. Nausea, achiness. And then it progresses. It gets a lot worse. Turns into diarrhea and vomiting and crazy things like you'd see in the movies, like people bleeding out of their eyes and bleeding out of their ears and death. The mortality rate is 50%. If you get Ebola, you've got a 50-50 chance of surviving it. That's why it's such a scary virus. But it's so tiny. It's so tiny. That little tiny virus. That little tiny virus gets into your body and creates all that kind of havoc." [00:34:02] (59 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)

Chatbot

Transcript

What was the most surprising thing in this sermon?

Were there any personal stories shared?