Sermon Cloud

·        I’ve recently been bitten by the running bug.  As much as I love mountain biking, I’m just not able to do it enough to keep me sane, so I’ve started running again.  I gave pounding the pavement up about 10 years ago thinking that my knees and joints couldn’t take it much longer, but apparently the time off has been therapeutic.

• With 40 less than two years away, I want to get a marathon in beforehand, so I’ve been training with the goal of running in the Charlotte December Marathon.
• I try to hit the road as early in the morning as I can so as to fend off the worst of the Summer heat.  The key to running whether in Summer heat or not though is hydration which doesn’t come easy to me.  I would much rather drink coffee than water. 
• In staying hydrated, a couple of things are key:
  • Since I run in the morning, I have to drink water before I go to bed or otherwise I wake up dehydrated for my run.
  • I have to drink water when I wake up, so my body will have something to use during the run.
  • As soon as I get home, I have to drink water to start replenishing what my body lost.
  • Eventually, I’ll be running far enough that I’ll need water along the way.
  • The other day, I went for my normal Saturday morning long run.  Despite getting out at 5:30, it was crazy humid, and with this mop of hair, I was sweating like a pig. 
    • When I got home, I was completely spent.  The first thing I did was grab a bottle of water out of the fridge, and I practically drank the entire thing in one gulp.
    • I noticed two things as I did that:  drinking the water simultaneously caused me to realize just how thirsty I really was, while at the same time it refreshed and revitalized me.
    • The water showed me I was thirsty while quenching my thirst at the same time.
    • Well, scripture often speaks of itself in the same way.
      • Ephesians 5:26 speaks of our being washed by the word as in the same way water washes.
      • Psalms 119:9 speaks of our being guarded, protected, refreshed, and cleansed by the word of God. 
      • By God’s intention, water and the word of God work in very similar ways: 
        • Water makes you see your need while simultaneously meeting your need.
        • Scripture also shows you your need of God in light of sin while at the same time offering to you relief from your sin as the scriptures speak of Jesus who by the way also describes Himself as Living Water.

• But for some reason or another, the temptation once you believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sin is to not really study your Bible.  We all know half of verse here or half a verse there.  Sometimes our ignorance shows up when we think things like “God helps those who help themselves” are in the Bible which BTW it is not. 
  • But the Bible shows us our need and simultaneously meets our needs.
  • We need to know both right?  We need to know what our needs are because we are so often blind to them, and we need to know how Jesus Christ meets our needs.
  • Both of those things are found in the scriptures, so why would we not study it?        
  • With that thought in our head, let’s answer this big picture question:

Big Picture Question:  While living under grace, what is the Biblical motivation to love God’s word and obey God’s word?

7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead.

• We pick up here last week after Paul was emphatic that all believers in Christ are no longer to live a life of slavery to sin.  Why?  Because we don’t live helpless to the written word of God anymore. 
  • The person who has faith in Jesus now has the Spirit of God to empower their obedience.  You can hear a command like, “Don’t return evil for evil but return good for evil” and think, “Oh with God’s help I don’t have to yell at my spouse anymore.”
  • In addition, the word of God comes alive in the life of the believer through the Spirit.  New insight into self, others and world is gained through the scriptures. 
  • Without these things, without the Spirit, the word kills and enslaves.
  • But as we move into verse 7, Paul makes an incredibly important point that we need to be aware of.  Though the scriptures enslave the non-believer, though they are impossible to obey without God help, that doesn’t mean they are bad.  The scriptures are not sin.  No, look at verse 7. 
  • Paul asks the rhetorical question, “Are the words of God sin?  No.  Though people sin when they hear the word, that doesn’t mean that the scriptures are sin”.  For example, Paul says,
    • Without the Law of God, we would have sinned but we would not have called it sin.
    • Paul gives a very practical example.  Everyone here covets, right?  We’ve all seen a house that we said,
      • “Wow, that house would be so much nicer than my house.”
      • Or,
        • “That car would be nicer than the one I have.”
        • Sometimes I desires are more sinister though.
          • “Than man would be a nicer husband than the one I have.”
          • We have to be careful because our coveting can often just mask themselves as every day thoughts. 
          • Now if you are like my guy Paul Pagan, he wanted a better life for himself, graduated high school, dropped some lbs, manned up, finished boot camp, and has a better life for himself.  That is not coveting.  That is being faithful to the skill set that God has given you and using for service.
            • Now motivating yourself to achieve things is not inherently wrong depending on the motivation and what you are trying to achieve.
            • But I will say this:  any motivation other than, “I want to do that or acquire that for the glory of God,” is suspect. 
          • How do we know?  Well, when we read the scriptures, and they say, “You shall not covet,” our hearts are revealed and laid bare.  The intention of the scriptures is for you to read them and then find greater depths of knowledge about your heart.
            • Perhaps you didn’t know you were motivated by jealousy or coveting. 
            • Perhaps you didn’t know God even cared about those things.
          • The problem is that sin resides in your heart.  So you are already coveting or whatever your sin of choice is, then you hear the heart of God expressed in scripture against coveting and your heart says, “Go covet some more.  Get what you want.   You deserve it.”
            • Trusting the Spirit’s help in situations like that, you can walk in obedience.
            • Without the help of God you are helpless.
          • You see, residing in your heart, is your sin, your enemy.  This living breathing time bomb, this parasite, this monster exists in your heart.  And you know what happens in you when you hear scripture?  It awakens the giant.  Look at the second half of verse 8.

For apart from the law, sin lies dead.   9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10 The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

• Paul goes on to explain how sin and scripture interact, and for this, we are going to have settle in for a minute to see if we can understand what he is saying.  Paul makes 3 points.  Let me walk us through them and then we’ll explain them.
  • Paul says apart from the law, sin is dead and each person is alive in some sense apart from the law.
  • Once the law or the exposure to scripture comes, you die because the word of God promised life but brought death.
  • Sin deceives you when you hear the words of God and kills you but the word of God is still righteous, good, and holy.

• K, there is a lot to sift through here.
  • When Paul says that sin is dead, the Greek word there really implies stillness or inactivity not deader than a doornail dead.  Sin is always alive, but a particular sin in your heart may not be actively beating you down.  You may not be aware of it.
  • Scripture exposes that sin and sin reacts violently.  Sin is like a vampire exposed to light or dormant hornet’s nest that attacks when disturbed.  
  • Sin sits just beyond your attention, but expose it to scripture, and it goes nuts.
    • I’ve told some of you this story before, but while we were preparing to take Amy to the hospital to deliver Emma, I was walking around the back yard on the phone coordinating the babysitting for Meredith and Landry.
    • I was pacing back and forth and inadvertently stepped into a giant red ant hill.  They quickly swarmed my ankles and bit me so badly that I eventually had to go to the Dr because of infectious ant bites.
    • The ants were quietly underneath the surface of the ant hill lying dormant.  When I stepped on them, they sprang to life and started biting my ankles.
    • That’s the way sin works in your heart in light of scripture.  The sin resides there, and as soon as scripture tells you not to do something, sin springs to life and you all of a sudden want to do what the scriptures prohibit or not do what the scripture commands.
    • Now this is very important for you to remember.  The words of God don’t create the sin; the sin was already there.  The words of God reveal the sin.
      • I see this all the time while refereeing the kids.
      • If you ask a child why they yelled at their brother or hit their sister, they will say, “Well because she took my toy from me,” or “because he hit me first.”
      • But you can’t blame someone for your sin.  The sin is there all the time.  The circumstance just brought the anger to light. 
      • Same things works for all of you. 
        • Let’s say you become insanely jealous around your spouse or girlfriend.  You can say, “Well I’m jealous because of the way you are acting.” 
          • No, the jealousy was there.  The circumstance just brought it out.
• You can be yell and scream at your children or your spouse or brother or sister and then say its because they know how to get under your skin. 
  • No, the anger was there all the time.  The circumstance brought it out.
• You can hold debts over people’s heads and refuse to forgive them.  You can say you are that way because the other person has hurt you so badly.
  • No, your unforgiving Spirit has always been there. The circumstance just brought it out.
  • Scripture works the same way.  In verses 9-10, Paul talks about the scriptures killing the person by revealing sin.  That death is the judgment against sin promised to Adam and reiterated in tons of places in scripture.  Sin merits death. 
  • But that killing nature of sin is also the painful process of your heart coming to a full recognition of just how helpless you are and how powerful sin is in your life.
    • To be honest, very few of you are willing to walk the road to discover those two things:  recognition of the power of sin and recognition of your helplessness.
    • Exposure to scriptures makes you aware of your sin and condemnation.
      • When you hear that, you might wonder, “Well, why in the world did God give the scriptures then if they just kill us.  Paul answers, no the scriptures are good and holy.
      • However, you may not be convinced.  For you, Paul gives verse 13.  And let me just say this.  We might be in this section for two weeks; there is so much here.

13 Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.

• Paul asks, “Are the scriptures responsible for sin?”  His answer is no and for this reason.
  • Sin and disobedience produce death.
  • The good law reveals sin and sin increases because of the law.
  • In fact, sin runs to its full measure.
  • As we see sin for what it is, then and only then can we properly interact with God in light of our sin.
  • But this is your dilemma and it is also why many churches and pastors refuse to talk about sin in any serious way.
    • If you listen to scripture, you are going to get busted up.  Your heart is going to be torn in two.  You are going to have to face the depths of your sin.  You are going to have to face the fact that you must own your responsibility and sin in every relationship and with God.
    • You are going to have to read scriptures or hear a sermon, and when scripture rebukes, you have to say, “Oh that is talking about me,” and not think, “Oh I know someone who really needs to hear this.”
    • In other words, you are going to have to admit you are a thirsty.
      • You know, I can only remember facing dehydration one time.  It was years ago when I was in sales.  I would run up and down Raleigh in a suit (yes, I do own one) trying to make a sale.  It was the middle of Summer, easily 100 degrees every day.  I spent the past few days subsisting off of coffee and pretty sure I had no water in me at all.
      • On Friday night, we traveled to Rocky Mount to eat dinner with the in-laws.  Amy’s brothers wanted to get a pick up game of football together, so we launched into a game as soon as we got there. 
      • About 10 mins in, I couldn’t catch my breath.  I was sweating profusely.  I couldn’t talk.  After getting tackled, I had a hard time standing up.
      • I was humbled that I could only play 10 mins.  I didn’t want these punk teenagers to show me up, but I had to go get water.  I grabbed two bottles of water, crawled into a bathroom floor and sat there for prob 30 mins drinking fluids and trying to cool down.
• Now I was thirsty long before I made the poor decision to run onto the field with those guys.  I was thirsty while running up and down Fayetteville Street trying to make a dollar.  I had been thirsty for days.
• It took my getting my butt kicked and nearly passing out before I had enough sense to go and get some water.  But guess what?  I didn’t learn my lesson then either.  Less than a year later, Amy and I are at the beach, and I’m going out and playing basketball in the sun every day.  I get so dehydrated that I get a massive headache and begin puking my guts up leading to dehydration and a lost day of vacation in bed.  It took playing basketball in the sun to realize that I needed water.
• That is what scripture is for us folks.  You are already thirsty.  In fact, you are flat out dehydrated.  You need water, and you don’t know it.
• You think you know it, but if the circumstances of your life have not made you dependant on the word yet, you don’t know it.
  • Reading the Bible seems like the last thing you want to do. 
  • You would rather drown your sorrows in porn, alcohol, sinful relationships, backbiting, jealously, slander, bitterness, ice cream, gossip, criticism, self-righteousness, and on and on.
  • I preach the scriptures and you would rather pick apart my sermon or criticize me for a decision I’ve made than do the hard work of applying the scriptures to your life.
  • Or you hear them and you know everyone in the world who needs to obey this verse and you never get around to the hard work of applying it yourself.
  • Now, SK is a church that gets two things very well:  we love each other and we love our community.  That is a rare commodity for a church these days.  It truly is a blessing of God that we do those two things.  But let me give you a strong word of encouragement or maybe the better word is warning.
    • We cannot be satisfied with being a church that just does great things.  We must be a church that grows Biblically and in Christ like character.
    • We must know our scriptures and be transformed by them.
    • The proper question to hearing of the preached word and the study of scripture must be, “What about me must change in light of these truths?
      • Ask yourself, “What am doing or not doing in light of this scripture?”
      • What am I believing or not believing incorrectly in light of this scripture?”
      • We will ultimately be eternally effective only to the degree that scripture crushes us and restores us.