Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Sharing the Good News.
[00:00:03] I'm excited about what I want to talk about today, because the topic that I want to discuss briefly is about happiness. And happiness is one of those things that who doesn't want to be happy, right? Who doesn't want to experience joy and live a prosperous and good life and be blessed?
[00:00:26] And I want to delve into a little bit how we are blessed by turning from our sins, because we've spoken about what sin is and how damaging it is to us. But I want to read today and talk a little bit about what Christ came to do in relation to revealing sin to us, and then the blessing that comes as we learn what sin is and then as we turn away from it. So I want to read here a scripture to you. It's in the book of Acts, Acts, chapter three.
[00:01:01] And he's talking about Christ here. And he says in verse 26.
[00:01:05] Well, we'll start in verse 25. He says, you are the children of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, and in thy seed shall all kindreds of the earth be blessed. So he's speaking to Jews here and he's saying, look at you're the children of Abraham. And a prophecy that came was that, look at the whole world is going to be blessed through the lineage of Abraham because Christ came through the lineage of Abraham.
[00:01:31] And it says unto you first, God, having raised up his son, Jesus sent him to bless you and turning away every one of you from his iniquities.
[00:01:44] So iniquities is another word that's going to describe things that are wrong, sinful things, unjust things along those lines, right? So he says, God sent Christ to bless you by turning you away from your sins.
[00:01:59] So let's step back for a minute. What does it mean to be blessed? Well, to be blessed literally by definition means to be made happy, okay? To have good things happen to you, to be prosperous, to have a good life. You know, people say it's like, hey, I'm blessed. It's like, what are they referring to? Positive things, right? Good things that are happening. And he says, I sent Christ to bless you.
[00:02:23] And the way he was going to bless you is he was going to turn you away from your sin.
[00:02:27] Because sin is the opposite of a blessing. It's a curse, right? There's a scripture in the Old Testament that says a blessing if you obey, a curse if you disobey. And that not only comes from God, but it also is something that we ourselves suffer consequences in our own lives if we choose to follow after sin.
[00:02:47] So I wanted to talk for a minute as we look at this blessing, about what is repentance? So this is a word that we've. We've all heard, right? Repentance.
[00:02:58] And what repentance is, is. Repentance is when you. There's a few. Let me give you a few different definitions, right? So one definition of the word repentance is to feel sorrow and remorse for wrong things that you've done. And that would be repentance.
[00:03:17] But in addition to that, sometimes there's not always the sorrow attached to it, but sometimes it's just that you've acknowledged that this thing is wrong.
[00:03:27] And in the Bible, when it talks about repentance, what it's referring to is at a minimum, an acknowledgment that what you have done is wrong, combined with a willingness and a determination and an effort to stop doing that thing right. So when somebody repents, what they've done is they've. They've come to realization that something is wrong, and then they determine to no longer go back to that, right?
[00:03:55] So he says, I sent Christ to bless you by turning you away from your sin.
[00:04:01] So let's think for a minute about sin, because sin is, as we talked about already, is very destructive, right? Sin is one of those things that. It is a cancer. It eats away. It destroys all things that are good.
[00:04:17] And I want us to think for a moment about sin for what it is. And sin is a thief, okay?
[00:04:24] A thief because it robs you of peace, it robs you of joy, it robs you of being able to be blessed.
[00:04:33] God wants us to live a good life.
[00:04:36] But sin, what it does is it is. It makes it impossible for me to live the good life that God wants me to live.
[00:04:43] And so Christ came to reveal this right? And then to bless me by showing me what sin is, forgiving me of my sins, and then showing me what is right. And this, this is a great blessing.
[00:04:57] And so it's. It's liberating to be able to learn what sin is. And this is the thing, is that I want us to really think about the right way to look at sin.
[00:05:07] A lot of times we have a negative mindset towards things, right? We're. We're not seeing something for what it really is.
[00:05:16] And oftentimes when, when we're shown that we're wrong, we don't see that as a good thing.
[00:05:22] But in reality, it's a very good thing, right? It's actually A blessing. It's a blessing in disguise. Because again, if you, if you learn where you're wrong, what does that mean? The doors have been opened for you to be right?
[00:05:34] So sin is a thief. And what sin does is it robs you of your joy, of your happiness, of your prosperity.
[00:05:42] And I want to talk a little about how that is. And the blessing that comes as we turn away from our sins, right? This is what Christ came to do. Christ, he didn't just come to say something that sounds nice and you walk away with fuzzy feelings that that's not what he came to do. The truth, it hurts, okay? It's hard. It's hard to hear the truth. But the good that comes from it is, is rewarding.
[00:06:08] So I want to read something to you here. This is going to be found in the book of Proverbs, okay?
[00:06:13] In the book of Proverbs, I'm going to read Proverbs chapter 5, a few verses here in Proverbs chapter 5.
[00:06:20] So Proverbs chapter 5, and I'm going to start reading in verse 3, Proverbs 5 and verse 3.
[00:06:30] And I want to give you an example, because sin is an illusion, okay? It appears to be something that it is not.
[00:06:39] And what these scriptures are going to talk about is the illusion of sin, that it's not what it appears to be.
[00:06:45] So here in, in this chapter in Proverbs is talking about falling into the sin, giving over to the sin of whether it's adultery or premarital relations, things along the lines of doing things that are. That are only reserved for marriage with somebody of the opposite sex, right?
[00:07:05] Just in, in general, things that are along the sexual lines.
[00:07:10] So he says in Proverbs 5, 3 he says, the lips of a strange woman drop as in honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil.
[00:07:20] So it talks about how good it sounds, how good it feels, what it seems like, right? And then he says in verse four, but her end is bitter as wormwood, wormwood, sharp as a two edged sword. Her feet go down to death and her steps take hold on hell.
[00:07:38] And then it goes on and it says in verse seven, hear me now, therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth like I'm trying to give wisdom to you, okay? Proverbs is a book of wisdom.
[00:07:49] Remove thy way far from her and don't even come near the door of her house, lest in verse nine, you give your honor unto others. So now he's saying, look at, if you do this, you're losing something very Valuable, you're going to lose your honor. And he says, and you're going to give your years unto the cruel the rest of your life. Or from this point forward, right? There's going to be things that you're going to suffer if you do this.
[00:08:17] That's a blessing to be able to have that knowledge. And let me explain this to you, because when you don't have that knowledge, what happens is you fall into a vicious cycle, a cycle that is self destructive. A cycle that you pursue things because they feel good, right? Sin feels good. It feels good to do drugs, it feels good to get drunk. It feels good to go have sex, right? These are things that feel good. But what is the outcome?
[00:08:45] It's not a blessing. So picture this scenario, okay? Let's say somebody's married and they have a wonderful spouse. I'm just gonna, I'm gonna talk from the perspective of a man, right? So let's say a man has a wonderful spouse. They've got children together, they have a beautiful life together, right? And then that man turns around and maybe one day he meets a very beautiful woman. And all of a sudden it's like he's interacting with this beautiful woman and he's attracted to her and things. Sparks are starting to fly.
[00:09:16] And before you know it, he commits adultery.
[00:09:20] That felt so good but once.
[00:09:24] But see, sin, it doesn't end up good.
[00:09:27] It's a curse.
[00:09:29] So then imagine he commits adultery and his wife finds out. Well, first of all, he's going to be devastated, right, that he, that he got to this point, he's going to bear guilt, he's going to bear shame. He's internally, he will not be the same.
[00:09:44] Then let's say his wife finds out and all of a sudden now she wants a divorce.
[00:09:49] And the misery that this man will suffer him, and not just him, but now his wife, this woman that he cared about, who's a good woman now, she's suffering, she's heartbroken. Now you have these children who. What's going on? Why are mom and dad so mad at each other? Why is everything chaotic? Why has my whole life been turned upside down?
[00:10:11] What happened? We were stable. We had a good home. All of a sudden it's like now, you know, mom and dad live in separate houses. And now all of a sudden it's like they're going to court and they're fighting over things and you know, now the kids is like they're back and forth, back and forth, packing bags.
[00:10:26] All that from something that felt so good.
[00:10:29] But see Sin, this is the illusion.
[00:10:34] It feels good in a moment, but the outcome is horrible. It's terrible.
[00:10:41] And so it's a blessing to have this knowledge, right? To know that, look at.
[00:10:48] There's a lot of things that feel good, but they're not good, okay? So we can't live our lives based on how does something feel?
[00:10:57] Because whether or not something feels good doesn't mean it's right, doesn't mean it's profitable, doesn't mean it's helpful. And if you don't have that knowledge, then what happens is you keep living your life doing things that feel good, getting terrible results, having a miserable life, and then you repeat the cycle because you're not connecting. You're not understanding how is this happening.
[00:11:19] So Christ came to bless us, to save us from that vicious cycle, right?
[00:11:27] And so I want to read another scripture here in Proverbs, chapter six, right? We're here in Proverbs. Let's go a little bit further down. And In Proverbs, chapter 6, look at what he says in verse 23.
[00:11:37] He says, the commandment is a lamp, okay? Now think about this. A lamp.
[00:11:43] The law is light, okay?
[00:11:48] So the commandments that God has given, the laws that he's given, these are things that open up our eyes.
[00:11:55] They imagine if you're in darkness, right? I remember one time I was a kid, and I went into this cave. It was a deep cave.
[00:12:02] It was up in the mountains in Arizona. And I remember that we had one flashlight, and we dropped the flashlight and it went pitch black.
[00:12:10] I could not see my hand in front of my face. It was. I was scared, okay?
[00:12:15] When you don't have the knowledge of the truth, you don't know what's around you. You don't know what's in front of you. You don't know.
[00:12:22] You don't know that you're walking off a cliff, right? Like that guy who met that beautiful woman. He doesn't know that you are walking off a cliff. But then the commandment, it illuminates us, and it's like, wait a minute. No, no, this is a sin.
[00:12:35] I want to bless you by letting you know this is wrong. Don't do this. Resist that temptation, right?
[00:12:41] Don't do it just because it feels good.
[00:12:43] Resist it. Run from it, right? Don't give up your honor. Don't give up the good life that you have for this moment of pleasure.
[00:12:52] That's a blessing, because sin always leaves you empty.
[00:12:56] All you live your life having moments of pleasure and then just depths of despair.
[00:13:04] Moments where it's like, you're having fun, you're at a party, you're doing this, whatever it might be, you're making money. And then just depths of despair, deep darkness, depression, anxiety, all kinds of bad things, right?
[00:13:17] That's. That's where sin leads you. So it's a blessing to be able to break that cycle and to know that, hey, these are things that it's a sin. And if it's a sin, there's consequences, right? I don't want to go down that path. So let me give you another example of sin, right? And the blessing that it is to know this. So the Bible talks about to, to put away anger, right?
[00:13:41] And if you do get angry, it says, don't sin. Don't let it take you to the point of doing something wrong.
[00:13:46] So let's say that, you know, you know, when somebody does you wrong, it feels really good to get revenge, doesn't it? It feels good to just jab back. And there's a lot of ways that we do that, right? So let's say, you know, maybe you. And maybe somebody makes you upset, they offend you, right?
[00:14:02] And maybe they actually did something wrong. I'm not talking about somebody who's easily offended because we, we gotta develop a tough enough skin, right? But let's say somebody actually does something wrong, something hurtful to you, and you get angry. And that anger is like this boil. It just boils. You're, you're. It's building. It's building and boom, there's an explosion, right? And the explosion might be violence.
[00:14:27] It might be a word. It might, you might, you might just leash. Unleash your tongue, right? And start cursing and calling somebody names and, you know, or maybe you just jab at them in your anger by. It's like, fine, I'm gonna ignore you. I'm give you the silent treatment, right? Right? But here's the thing, is that anger, like all other things, when we take it to the point of sin, is destructive.
[00:14:50] It doesn't lead me to a good place. It only hurts me, and it hurts those around me.
[00:14:56] Once you let those words out of your mouth, you can never take them back, right?
[00:15:02] Once maybe you turn to violence. You can never undo what was done.
[00:15:08] But the blessings of God in revealing these things to you is like, look, it don't go there, right? Hold your tongue.
[00:15:15] If this is a temptation, walk away, right? Don't allow this to take you into sin. And it, and it spares you. Because if you do allow yourself to do something wrong, Once the situation dies down, once things have settled, once you're not in the heat of the moment, you know, what you start feeling is regret.
[00:15:34] Man, I can't believe I said that again, right? Also, you start wishing you could take something back, but you can't. Maybe you've. Maybe it's broken. Maybe you burn that bridge, right? And it's like this person that you like, this maybe this friend or this, you know, maybe your fiance or maybe your spouse or whatever, and all of a sudden, it's like you said these things that were just. They were so cruel, and you've done it so many times that it's done, it's broken.
[00:15:58] And now you're. Now you have regret, you have remorse. You wish you could take it back, but you can't because it's too late.
[00:16:05] It is a blessing to be able to have the light to see. Don't do this. Don't go there.
[00:16:13] You know how much of a blessing it is that it's like when you're in temptation, when you really want to do something wrong and you don't, and then everything settles down and you look back and it's like, yes, I didn't let that thing take me.
[00:16:25] You know how much joy that brings? You know how much that helps spare problems and anxieties and just so much strife in your life.
[00:16:34] This is the blessing that Christ came to bring. And so as we hear about sin, as we learn about sin, we're going to talk about sin because Christ talked about sin. He talked about sin because he wants to bless you. He wants to bless me. He wants me to know what it is that I don't fall in that trap, right?
[00:16:52] So I want you to have the right perspective of sin, that when you hear things, it's a blessing because now you have direction. Now. You have now the commandment, the law has brought light.
[00:17:02] You can see, it's like, oh, man. Now I can see like I'm about to walk off this cliff, right? I'm going to go punch this person or go say this mean thing. And it's like it's just going to be a downward spiral, and I'm going to be stuck in a pit again that I. That I just barely got myself out of the last one or whatever the case might be, right?
[00:17:22] So God wants us to live a good life.
[00:17:25] He wants us to live a happy life, a prosperous life.
[00:17:28] And part of how that happens is by revealing to us what is sin and then telling me, turn away from it. Don't go down that path.
[00:17:38] Because in order to be blessed, in order to be happy, you've got to stop self sabotaging, right? You've got to stop sabotaging all the good things that happen to you. It's like, maybe you get a good job, but you've got anger. And so before you know it, you, you let off at your boss and you're saying stuff to your co workers and it's like you're fired again, right? Or maybe it's like you're in a, you're in a relationship and it's like you got a good person, but you can't. You keep messing up. You keep saying unkind things to them and you're driving a wedge, you're creating a separation and you're about to lose something good.
[00:18:13] No, God wants to bless you. He. He wants to show you how to keep relationships intact. He wants to show you how to have control. He wants to show you the value of not going down the path of sin. And so the commandment is a light.
[00:18:29] It's showing me. It's like, hey, here's the path, here's the way. Walk down this path. God didn't say it was going to be easy, but he's showing us the way and he's going to help us in that way. And when you follow that path and when you go down that way, you are blessed, you are made happy and your life is changed.
[00:18:48] So reach out. We have a lot more coming, but we'd like to talk to you in person. My email is going to be in the description below. Sharing the good news34mail.com we would love to connect with you personally and to be able to talk more about the Scriptures and talk about the plan of salvation and all the good things that Christ came to bless us with. This is just one of many blessings that we have as we turn to the Scriptures as we follow these things. So stick around for more content and hope you have a great day.
