Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Hello, this is Dominic. And welcome back to Sharing the good news. Today I want to talk about what is sin?
[00:00:08] What is sin and why is it so devastating? Why is it so harmful?
[00:00:13] And thankfully, like with all things that we need to know, God has made pretty clear to us what these things are. And he's made very clear to us what the consequences of giving over to things that are sin. Sin. And so, as we've been talking about, there's a judgment.
[00:00:30] If I, if I don't have my sins forgiven, I will be condemned. And so I have Christ as my Savior.
[00:00:37] But Christ came to turn us away from our sins. He not only came to forgive us of our sins, but also to turn us away from our sins.
[00:00:45] And one of the things that, that Christ has made very clear, we're going to look at it, a few scriptures here today, is that it's not acceptable for a follower of Christ to remain in sin. That would mean that you're not following Christ. Okay, and so let's first of all start off with defining what is sin. First John, chapter 3, it says very simply in verse 4, First John 3, 4, Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also, the law for sin is the transgression of the law.
[00:01:23] So God very clearly tells us that sin is when you cross the line of what I've told you not to do. So the word transgress. Think about, think about the word trespass, right when they say, no trespassing here, here's a line. Don't cross this line. If you cross this line, you're violating something.
[00:01:42] And so God is saying, if you break my law, if I've told you, hey, here's something that is not right, and you go and you do it, then you have sinned. That's what sin is.
[00:01:53] And sin is something that God does not like. And it's something that God will punish us for if, if we sin and, and if we remain in our sin.
[00:02:03] So God has also given us not only just the definition of what sin is, there's actually different places in the Bible where there's a list of types of sins.
[00:02:14] And one thing to keep in mind is the Bible is not just like this rule book.
[00:02:20] These things, the things that are sinful are things that are harmful.
[00:02:26] So God is not the kind of person who's just making a set of rules just for the fun of it, where it's like, you can't do this, don't do this. You have to do that. That's not who God is.
[00:02:35] The scriptures do give us rules, they do give us laws and commandments.
[00:02:41] But every commandment of God is actually for my benefit.
[00:02:44] And God is seeking for us to live a right life, a good life, the best life. And his laws are the way to be able to accomplish that.
[00:02:55] So one of the things that God tells us here in First Corinthians, chapter six, he starts off in verse nine. He says, know you not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God?
[00:03:08] Very straightforward, right? If you are not righteous, if you're not going to follow after my ways, you are not going to make it to heaven. It's not going to happen. And then he says the second, right after that, he says, be not deceived. Very interesting that he says that nothing that God says in his word is random. Okay? He's. He's telling us things because we need to know them.
[00:03:29] And he felt like that we needed to know.
[00:03:33] Don't be deceived to believe that you can still go to heaven if you're unrighteous, because many people would try to deceive you to believe that. And it sounds nice. It sounds nice to think that I can still do what I want and make it to heaven. But he says, don't be deceived. That's just not true.
[00:03:50] So then he's going to go on with a list of things that would be sins, things that God is against.
[00:03:55] He says, so be not deceived, neither fornicators. So fornicator is a word that we don't really use very much anymore. But basically what that word means for what it stands for is just premarital relations, right? Things that are impure sexually. God is against those things.
[00:04:16] God has designed marriage. And outside of marriage, all of those things are sinful. And marriage designed by God was between a man and a woman.
[00:04:26] So he says, if you're a fornicator, if you're in idolater, okay, there's many forms of idolatry. There's. Idolatry could be bowing down to a statue. Idolatry could be putting something before God that you would rather do this thing than do what God has said. And so you have lifted this thing up above God. He says, no idolater is going to make it to heaven, nor adulterers. So adultery, you know, we're pretty familiar with that. Somebody who is not faithful to their spouse.
[00:04:58] Nor effeminate, okay? Effeminate is a word that means a man that acts like a woman. God is not. That's not acceptable. Nor abusers of themselves with mankind. This is an old term for.
[00:05:11] For homosexuality.
[00:05:13] Nor if you're a thief, okay, if you're covetous, if you're a drunkard, if you're a reviler. A reviler is somebody who speaks abusively. Maybe they're. They're speaking down, cursing people out, you know, yelling things like that. Nor extortioners, people who are taking things unjustly that are not their own, whether it's through intimidation or things like that. He says, none of these shall inherit the kingdom of God.
[00:05:40] Now, this is not a complete list, but as the brethren, the. The Christians at the city of Corinth were being taught, they were just given a list of things as that, hey, these are. These are things that God has said are sinful. You can't do these things.
[00:05:56] Well, when you hear that list, it's like, whoa, most people have broken at least one or maybe more on this list. And this is just. This isn't even the whole Bible. This is just two scriptures, right?
[00:06:11] So if we've done these things, he's saying, you can't inherit the kingdom of God. Now, thankfully, as we've talked about, there's. There's forgiveness to be found. There's things in Christ which we spoke a little bit in the last episode, and we're going to go more into as we go further.
[00:06:29] The point is sin is bad and there's heavy consequences for sin.
[00:06:37] And I want to talk about the consequences of sin. First of all, what we've just read right here is one of the consequences of sin is you're not going to go to heaven. You can't be in these sins and expect to be rewarded and blessed by God with eternal life.
[00:06:53] One of the things that we're called to do as Christians is to deny the things that we might have a desire for that are sinful.
[00:07:02] That's a very fundamental truth that, that Christ came and he brought. Because all of these things are very damaging.
[00:07:10] All sin is damaging to me and God. Not only is it damaging, but. But God doesn't like it. And so it's something that we need to be fighting against and resisting.
[00:07:21] But I want us to think for a moment, well, what are the consequences today?
[00:07:25] Because on the last day, on the Judgment Day, if I. If I am in my sins and I have not been forgiven, if I'm not saved, then I will be condemned. And these scriptures are telling us people that are unrighteous can't go to heaven. They can't go to heaven in that state.
[00:07:41] But, you know, there's Consequences this moment for sin.
[00:07:46] And there's consequences, first of all, well, internally, right Things that, that I am, that the consequences that I bring into my life, problems I bring into my life. You know, just think for a moment about if someone were to commit adultery.
[00:08:01] Here you have this lifelong commitment of marriage that God has designed. And if somebody goes out for just a few moments of pleasure and violates this bond, the amount of problems that come from that are incredible. Homes are broken apart, children suffer incredibly.
[00:08:20] A spouse is heartbroken, their trust has been lost, they're hurt. It's so much damage is done by one sin.
[00:08:30] But it even goes beyond the consequences of sin today. Actually go beyond what it does to me as an individual internally and what it does to my children or my spouse or those around me. I want to read to you what God tells us that sin does to my relationship with God. And this is important to know because as we, as we go on this journey of learning the scriptures and learning the good news, we really need to understand the impact that sin has upon me.
[00:09:03] So when God was speaking to his people through the Prophet Isaiah, Isaiah 59, I'm going to read verses one and two.
[00:09:12] Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened that he cannot save.
[00:09:18] Neither is his ear heavy that it cannot hear. So the prophet starts off by saying, look, it's not like God can't hear you. It's not like God can't reach out and help you and save you. But he's going to say something here in verse 2.
[00:09:32] But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you that he will not hear.
[00:09:44] So this truth is actually found throughout all the Bible. There are many scriptures that make the same point. I just wanted to use this one because it's just very simple, straightforward, right? And the point is, is when you have sin, when you give over to sin and you haven't been forgiven and you're not saved, what happens is there's a separation between you and God.
[00:10:05] God says, it's not like I, I don't have the power to hear you or the power to help you. I do, but actually I choose not to because of what you're doing.
[00:10:14] So sin creates this wedge. It separates me and God. And this is one of the biggest problems, is that so many people, myself at times of my past included, that when we do things that are sinful and we suffer the consequences and then we try to figure out why is everything going so bad in my life, it's like, well, because that's what happens when you sin. And so part of the good news is to tell us, well, what sin even is. So that then what I can do is I can learn to avoid these things. I can learn how to get forgiveness through Christ from the sins that I've committed in my past. And I can get strength from Christ to be able to make sure that I don't go to them in the future.
[00:10:54] So sin creates a separation.
[00:10:57] And that separation is life changing in many ways.
[00:11:03] Actually, let me read you a scripture in the New Testament and the Book of John, the Gospel of John in chapter nine.
[00:11:10] And one of the points that was made here in John chapter nine. And I'm going to read to you just verse 31, there's a, you know, this is a wonderful chapter. But in John 9, 31, this simple point is made.
[00:11:24] Now we know that God heareth not sinners.
[00:11:28] But if any man be a worshiper of God and doeth his will, him, he heareth.
[00:11:33] So this man in the Gospel of John is making a point that he's like, we all know this. This was common knowledge to them at that time that God doesn't hear the prayers of a sinner. When you're in sin, there's a separation. It's not that he can't hear you. He chooses not to hear you. It's not that he doesn't have the power to hear you. But when we depart from God, we have to make it back to God. And God, he's there with open arms and he's told us exactly how to do it. We just have to do it. It's on us.
[00:12:04] And so understanding the significance of how much sin impacts our lives, it's a blessing for those of us that are true disciples, that are reading the Bible and studying the Bible, excuse me, and following after Christ. It's a blessing to find out what sin is.
[00:12:22] Because every sin that you have in your life is a sin that is harming you in some way.
[00:12:29] It's harming you, it's, it's hurting you. Sin is basically a spiritual cancer. It infects every part of you. And before you know it, it's, it's corrupting you. The good that you have is fading away.
[00:12:43] It's very devastating upon, upon the morality and the soul of man.
[00:12:49] So as we think about the good news, it's good news to find out that I have sinned because now I can do something about it, right? It's good to find out that this thing is sinful because now I can know and have knowledge that this is something that needs to be fought against, something that needs to be resisted.
[00:13:09] And then as we're going to go into in further episodes, we're going to talk more about how to receive forgiveness for for our sins.
[00:13:17] That's good news. It's good to find out how to receive forgiveness and how to begin to repair and to restore things that have been broken, things that have been lost because of past sins that we've given over to.
[00:13:29] So today was a short, quick overview of just what sin is and and some of the impacts that it has upon us. Stay tuned, stick around. We're going to continue to go into more things as we go further into the podcast. Don't forget to send me an email sharing the good news34gmail.com we want to connect with you personally one on one and continue these conversations on a deeper level.
[00:13:52] Have a great day.
