Knowing God is Loving God Part 6: Sin

Sunday Morning | March 22, 2026 | John C. Majors | Louisville, KY

In Part 6 of the Knowing God is Loving God series, Pastor John unpacked the reality of sin by explaining what it is, where it comes from, and how believers are to deal with it. Drawing from Genesis 3:1–7, he described sin as multi-faceted—rooted in deception, distortion of truth, pride, irreverence, rebellion, transgression, and even passive indifference toward what is right. Sin originates both from our inherited nature through Adam and from within our own hearts, revealing that it is not just external behavior but an internal condition. Because of this, the solution is not merely behavior modification; avoiding sin alone cannot save us. Instead, Pastor John emphasized personal responsibility—urging believers to focus first on their own sin, actively “kill” sin through the power of the Spirit, and recognize that at its core, sin is a worship problem, where we elevate something else above God.

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Transcript

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Well, good morning Valley View. It's great to be with you today and it's great to continue in our series. We've been working through on this idea of knowing God is loving God. We've used the term theology big fancy word that just means the study of God. And the way we know him and study him is to study His Word. What is His Word say about who he is? What are some of the major things his word address that helps us understand him better? And the more we know about him, the more we love him and the more we can love others. So we've looked at things like the Trinity and humanity and the attributes of God. This week we'll be talking about everyone's favorite topic sin. Yeah, I thought that might be the response. More moans than clapping or excitement. But look, it's important to talk about. We need to understand what does the Bible say about sin? There's a lot of different thoughts about what sin is. In fact, I've shared before. I remember a conversation I had with a guy. He said, I think it's been about ten years since I last sinned. Now, he said that with all sincerity because his definition of sin was very narrow. I have not, to my knowledge, actually taken a step to contradict a clear commandment of Scripture over the last ten years. That was his narrow definition of sin. But that's not all sin is. Sin is much broader than that. And so we want to understand what does the Bible say about sin, not just what I think sin is. We all have our pet sins. We all have our really bad sins. But what does the Bible say about sin? And I'm not going to dwell as much today on specific sins. Individual sins. You know, we could go around the room and each of us can go or not raise our hand. Yeah, that's that's mine. That's a challenge. Now, instead, we're just talking about the can't the biblical concept of sin in general. What is it at? Its core? So to do that, we're going to start in Genesis chapter three today. If you have a Bible, you want to open it up, turn there. It's just in first couple of pages of the Bible. If you don't have a Bible, we have those out in the connection corner. We'd love to put one in your hands. We want you turning in God's Word, looking in God's Word, reading it on your own. And we want to start in Genesis chapter three, because that's where sin began in Scripture. And so many of the patterns we see in sin, we see right there. And so it's a good place to start, a good place to read, to get our bearings around. What does the Bible have to say about sin? And I'll be reading just the first 6 or 7 verses of Genesis chapter three, and we'll be unpacking. And we've outlined a number of different aspects of sin. We'll be unpacking those as we look at what does the Bible have to say about sin? What is it? In fact, we're going to take this in three big movements today. What is sin? What does the Bible say? Sin is how do you define it? Or try to put your arms around it? Where does it come from? And then lastly, how do we deal with it? What is sin? Where does it come from? And then of course, ultimately, how do we deal with it? What do we do with it? We're going to look at those three things today. So first let's look at Genesis chapter three. I'm going to start in verse one. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, Did God actually say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden. But God said, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden. Neither shall you touch it, lest you die. But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. Here we see sin manifest in a number of different ways. And I think as we talk about a definition of sin today, there's one word I want to use that I think will help us get our arms around sin. Because I think in the history of the church, many people have wanted to take one aspect of sin and say, this is sin at its essence could be pride, boasting, idolatry. There's a number of different things we could pick and say, no, I think this is the worst sin or the essence of sin, but I think one phrase that's been helpful for for me is to realize that sin is multifaceted, like a diamond. And this is a in your outline, in the notes, when you look at a diamond as you change angles on it, there are different facets and shapes, and the colors change in the way it appears to change. And so sin is much like that. It has different facets, it has different aspects. And what we want to do is make sure we're looking at it from all angles and seeing the full picture of what sin is. And I think the place to start here, this first letter D we see here in just in very first, the very first verse, sin is deception. One aspect of sin is that it is deception. It is deceptive. The enemy seeks to deceive and lead astray. In fact, it says the serpent was more crafty. Some translate that cunning. Everything he does intentionally is meant to lead the woman in particular, right here off the path. God has set forth a path, and he's he wants to lead her away from that, and he does it in a very cunning way. Notice he the way he words. This question is intentionally meant to lead her astray. Look at how it says it. Did God actually say, you shall not eat of the tree in the garden? Did you really say that? Even inherent is the question is we. Come on. Really? We know he didn't. Can you really trust what he said? It's meant to lead her astray, to deceive her. In fact, it's at the very core of who he is. Is the great deceiver. This is why there are so many warnings in Scripture to be on guard, to be watchful, to watch out. We're called to be the ones who are looking out for deception. First Corinthians 1613 in your notes addresses this be watchful. Stand firm in the faith. Be on guard. Also, first Peter five is also mentioned in your notes. Be sober minded, be watchful. The devil prowls about like a roaring lion seeking to destroy. Don't go through life just naive about the fact that the enemy's out there and seeking to deceive you. Don't go along with just whatever thing you hear. Hey, that sounds like a good idea. Let's go with it. Now be aware that there is a deceiver he's seeking to draw you off path. And so our mission is to know God's word, to know what truth is, to be in it so that we can sniff that out. A friend of mine was an FBI agent, and he said, you know, most people and he would teach self-defense classes. And most people, if they're walking down a city street late at night, which he said shouldn't be doing anyway, okay, if you want to protect yourself, but if they're doing that and they see a sketchy character coming towards them, their first reaction is to think, oh boy, this could be trouble. But yet many people are afraid to kind of make any corrective action because they don't want to offend that other person. They don't want that other person to feel like, hey, I'm judging you. I'm somehow looking at you and profiling you. And and he said, but listen, people look crazy for a reason. That's what he said, okay? Usually people look crazy for a reason. And he said, don't ignore that hint of intuition that says something is off here. Now, of course, be mindful of that in your personal life, but more importantly, have the spiritual intuition to know something is off here. How many peddlers of the Bible bring across deception, and they dress it up as something creative and new and fresh? I'm the only person who's ever thought of this. Let me present this to you. You've understood the whole Bible your whole life. But if you have a strong spiritual intuition, if you've been in God's Word, there's just something about that. You go, something is off. I don't I can't even put my words to it. I'm not exactly sure how to describe it, but something is off here. Don't ignore that. Make sure you're in God's Word so you can build up that spiritual intuition. So first sin at its core is deception. Now part of how the enemy goes about deceiving is the next word distortion. Look again at verses two and three. The woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden. But God said, not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden. Neither shall you touch it, lest you die. But the serpent said of the woman, you will not surely die. There's two aspects of distortion occurring here, and there's two ways to distort. One is to add to God's Word and one is to take away. And we see both happening here. First we see with the woman when he said to God, say not to eat. She says, yeah, don't eat, but also don't touch. But that's not in there. That's not what God said. We don't have record of him telling her, don't even touch it. She's adding to God's word now. I think that probably comes from a good place. All right. There's something I think wisely within us that goes, if this is the land, I'm going to take a step back from it. I mean, if I want to make sure I don't eat the tree from the tree, I probably shouldn't even touch it. I think that's probably starting from a good place. The problem is, is when we say that is God's Word, that is God's law. God said, don't even touch it. That's called legalism. And that's a gets a lot of churches in trouble. We take our laws and we make them God's laws. We say, no, this is from him. When it's not doesn't even show up in his word. That's a type of deception is legalism. But another we see is the opposite of adding to God's word is it's taking away. And Satan does this with her right away. He says, you will not die. He lies directly. He says the opposite of what is true. He says the opposite of what God said. You won't really come on. Are you kidding me? You really think that's going to happen? He is intentionally distorting the truth. In fact, one of the words you see in Scripture is this idea of twisting. When we were studying the book of Philippians, we saw that in Philippians 215, shine like lights in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, the enemy seeks to twist the truth into any shape that will be pleasing and acceptable to you. And a lot of times, here's the crazy part a lot of times there's a partial truth in that twisting of the truth. So when he says to her, you will not surely die. You know she didn't die right away. Part of her could go. You know what? He was right. We sinned. We didn't die right away. He's twisting the truth, deceiving intentionally again. All to distort the truth, mislead and lead astray. And he's the master of this. In fact, in John 844, it says he is the father of lies. He seeks to twist the truth in contrast to that, God is light and hidden in him. There is no darkness at all. So he seeks to distort, deceive, twist. The truth leads you off the path. Part of the ways he does this is through the next set of letters, this P and I refer to pride and irreverence, pride and irreverence. And here's how this shows up. Look at verse five. He said, you will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened. You will be like God, knowing good and evil. The serpent knows I can easily appeal to her sense of pride. Really, this is a very good thing. Think of what you're missing out on the pride of being like God. This is something that will actually be good for you. This is one of the ways truth is twisted, where people will call good evil and evil good. And this is what Satan is doing here. This is actually actually not following God's law. It's actually a good thing for you. There is a great reward waiting on you. Your eyes will be open. You will be like God, knowing good and evil. He's appealing to her pride and many say when when they speak of pride, they see that as maybe a foundational sin. And in Scripture. And of course, there is pride going on here. But there's something else going on, this idea of irreverence that I just mentioned, the pride and irreverence because behind this, underneath this, what he's getting Eve to do is to question God's goodness. In fact, behind this is the idea, you know what? God is actually trying to keep something good from you. Which, by the way, of any of us ever found that to be a struggle. You know, if I follow God's word, if I do what he says, I'm going to miss out on so much, so many other things this world has to offer. I mean, God's just trying to keep all these other things from me. Well, yeah, actually he is he's trying to keep pain and suffering, not all pain and suffering, but those that come from sin and addiction and brokenness. That's where that plate leads. That's what he's offering up. And to say that, you know, God is actually keeping something good from me. What he is convincing of Eve, of it's an irreverence. It's an irreverence that says God is not good and he cannot be trusted. And look, this trick goes. It all goes back to the very beginning. He doesn't have some new set of tricks because they work. They've worked. It's worked on all of us. But if I do what he says, I'll miss out. I have to give up all of these things. Listen, there's no greater joy than experiencing life to the fullness under Christ and avoiding a life up with sin. So there's pride and irreverence. And where this leads ultimately, for Eve is in verse six, and it's the idea of rebellion. When you think of sin, part of that is rebellion. But back at verse six, so when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and boy, by the way, in this verse, you see the same pattern you see in first John two where he talks about the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the boastful pride of life. You see this here when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was a delight to the eyes, the tree was to be desired, and to make one wise. When she saw that what was meant to be evil now in her eyes was good. She took its fruit and ate. This is the point where she said, and this is the idea behind rebellion. It's this idea that who is anyone to say that they can tell me what to do. I'm in charge of my direction. Nobody's going to tell me how to act. Who are you to make up these rules that I got to follow? I'll decide where I go when I end up in life. Don't. Don't bother me with your silly commandments and directions. I'll do what I want to do. This is this idea behind rebellion. And this is what Eve does. She chooses. In fact, the next word is transgression. That's a word we've often heard. You've probably quoted it in the Lord's Prayer. Transgression just means to step over, to pass over. And she does. Here's the line I know where it is. Thank you very much. I'm going to step right over it. Not even second guess, not even hesitate. And, for those of us who have had children, you know that some of them are wired more that way than others, that some of them may be a little more compliant. Some of them you draw the line, and so now they know exactly where to go. You know what I'm talking about with our oldest. If we were at home and we said, look, here's the fireplace, okay? It's got a glass front on it, and if you touch it, it's hot. Don't get even. Don't even get near it. We don't want you to touch it. Now. He knew exactly where to go. He never had any interest in the fireplace before in his life. Ever. But now he would look right at you. He'd make sure we got our contact here. Look at me, dad. And he would just go right up and touch it. Transgression. Don't tell me what to do. Behind this is another idea I think we see with sin. You've probably heard this the most common word for sand, translated as sin. All throughout the New Testament, you've probably heard this if you've been in church any amount of time has this idea of it's an archery term missing the mark. There is a mark, there is a standard, there is something to attend to. And you missed it. You couldn't get to it. You didn't follow it. And the key idea there with all of this is God's Word is our divine holy standard to follow. And it's good. And we should long to obey God and honor him in all we do. Now, let me let me balance out a little bit of this definition of sin, because we've talking about all the ways we intentionally sin. But there's another side of it. And this next word gets at this. It's this idea of passive indifference, passive indifference. When we worked on the college campus, sharing the gospel, our job all day long at U of L was to walk around and try to meet college students and tell them about Jesus. The main way we did that, we had a little booklet called The Four Spiritual Laws, and in it it talked about sin and the definition of sin in that little booklet was it is both active rebellion and passive indifference. You know, I've cited James chapter four in your notes to the one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it to him. It is sin. And so here's what's important for us to realize sin isn't just doing the wrong thing. It's also not doing the right thing. And this is so critical for Christians to understand. And if you're not a Christian and you're new to the idea of being a Christian, I think many people have this idea in mind that there's just a set of rules we got to follow. Christianity isn't primarily in a passive faith. Just don't do the bad things. Now we're called to be active. The golden rule, the very core of our faith. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It's not. Don't do anything bad to anyone, and just keep it safe. No. Go out, be active. Do. And so this idea of this passive indifference. Hey, man, I'm just going to let others take care of this. I'm. I don't want to step on anybody's toes. I don't want to overstep my bounds. I don't really want to fully engage. There is a time to step up. There is a time to stand for truth. Even when you don't want to, even when it's hard. And the example we have in Genesis chapter three is with Adam. He gave, she gave to her husband also, who was with him. That should have been the moment where Adam said, no, we're not doing that. We're not going there. He should have stood up and not been passively indifferent. He should have said, no, this is wrong. And I'm so grateful that there are people in the history of the church who have done that. I think of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was a pastor in Germany in World War two, and he joined a plot to assassinate Hitler. And many people around him said, what are you doing? You're a pastor. You're a man of peace. What are you doing? You shouldn't be doing that, he said. If there was a madman driving a car down the street, plowing through people, you would do whatever it took to stop him. To stand up right now is paramount. And then he said these words. To not act is to act. Sin is also passive indifference. No. When it is right to stand for truth and be ready to, and more than likely realize it will cost you something. It will. And that's part of the cost of following Christ. All right. So that's a lot about what sin is. There's a lot there. I didn't cover it all. By the way. I highlighted some of the main things that get at the core of what sin is, not even talking in that much about specific sins. The next question then is where does sin come from? How does it enter into our life? And the key word, the first word here is that to realize sin is first and foremost inherited. It has been passed down to every one of you, whether you want it or not. You didn't ask for it. Just like the genetics you got, you didn't ask for. You'd have anything to do with it. It's been passed down to you. Verse in your notes. Romans chapter five. Romans chapter five, verse 12. Sin entered the world through one man. And so death spread to all men, because all have sinned. Every single person has inherited this sin nature. Philippians two talks about this. We are all by nature children of wrath. Every single person has inherited this. It's been passed down to us through Adam. Adam God put in charge of the garden and he was the one he came to when he said, what went wrong here? Yeah, you've sinned first. But why did you go along with it? What went wrong? And because of that decision that's been passed down to us from generation to generation to generation, as a result, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Deep within us is this nature, this desire to sin. And so no one has ever had to teach their child the word no. It's never been an activity at school that we've had to work on. Come on, let's make sure you know how now to push back on your parents. Let's work on this. I want to see you really grow in this. No. Every single one of us has that built in and ingrained. And in fact, that's the next word. Where does it come from? It is inside of us. Sin deeply rooted inside of every one of us. In fact, flip over to mark chapter seven. Because Jesus hints at this and points to this in Mark chapter seven, when he's talking with the Pharisees and the Pharisees were all about appearances and the outside. In fact, the first couple of verses, the Pharisees are wondering how come it is that your disciples don't do the washing rituals and the things that we say are important to keep you clean spiritually? How come you guys aren't following the laws that we have laid down? The laws we've added to God's law? And then look at what Jesus says to them in verse six. He said to them, well, did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites? As it is written, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. But sin issue is a heart issue. It's not the appearances, it's not the outside that may be manifest from the heart issue, but sin starts as a heart issue. He goes on in vain. Do they worship me? Teaching as doctrines of the commandments of men. You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men. You think that by keeping the outside of the cup clean, you're following God. And he goes on to expand on this when he gets along with the disciples, he says in verse 18, do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart, but his stomach, and is expelled? Thus he declared all foods clean. He's addressing here specifically the Pharisees, teaching that certain foods, if you eat them, will make you defiled before God. But he says, it's not that. Verse 20, what comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of a man comes evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All of these evil things come from within, and those are what defile the person. James, chapter four is a great place to look, because there he says, what are the source and the quarrels of the fights that are among you? Is it not this that your passions are at war within you? You covet, you desire, you murder as a result. It starts in here. In fact, and this is kind of a disgusting word, but a friend of mine says we're all filled with pus, pride, unbelief, and self-love. All of us pride. Unbelief, self-love. It's in there. And this is hard to talk about. But it's important. It's important that we talk about what does the Bible say is sin. We all love to spin sin into our own little definition. That's manageable. So what's sin is where it comes from. Now what do we do with it? How do we handle it? What do you do? Sin is in the world. Sin is in your life. We've all struggled with it. What can we do? Well, number one, worry most about your own sin. Worry most about your own sin. Worry more about your own sin than the sin of others. If you ever find yourself made up with anger and frustration at the sin of others more than your own sin, that's a problem. And it's okay to be angry at sin and the sin that's in the world, and how it's destroying the world. That's okay. That's good. That's a natural response to sin. We don't want sin in the world. We should hate sin. God hates sin. But when it becomes how sinful they are out there and you forget how sinful I am in here, that's a problem. And let me tell you, it is so easy to stand up here all day long and preach about the sin out there. And so I could do that. And men, all of us, would be up and cheering and clapping and shouting praise. And then I might go into some sins that might be in here. And then we sit down and get real quiet, or sins that are in here. Make sure you're worrying first and foremost about the sin in here. And if we're all doing that, you want to know how that will transform the whole community. Man, that will change all of my station. If every one of us is first and foremost walking in repentance ourselves. That's how we change this community. So number one, worry most about your own sin. Number two, be killing sin or it will be killing you. Be killing sin by the power of the Holy Spirit, or it will be killing you. And I think we often get in these modes where we want to keep a pet sin around. Remember, we like to cuddle with it occasionally, like to pet it, make sure it's safe. We don't really want others to see it. We'll hide it when they're around. Sin will always be found out. It will always infest into all of your life. You have to be not just allowing sin, tolerating sin, keeping sin safe in your life. You have to be killing it. This verse in Romans eight is listed. It talks about the mortification of sin. Put it to death, put to death the deeds of the flesh, so that by the spirit you might live. And so, look, this is personal work for you to do. And in a minute we're going to do communion. In fact, if you're one of the men helping with that, you can go ahead and get that material ready during communion. I want you to be praying for this. God, what would you reveal to me what sin I have just been tolerating? I don't know what that is for you, but be praying God, give me wisdom on how to put it to death. Do not tolerate it any longer. You know, there's some pretty strong language in Scripture about this Romans Matthew chapter five. Jesus says, if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. If your eye causes you to send, pluck it out. And we think he's speaking in hyperbole, there an exaggeration. But however, we need to have that kind of mindset. If there is sin in my life, I got to do whatever it takes to get rid of it. I've got to be willing to do whatever it takes. And if that means I've got to put away devices, I've got to put away relationships, I got to change. I know a guy he was struggling with attraction towards a woman in his work. He had changed jobs because of that. I got to do whatever it takes to make sure that I'm putting sin to death in my life. Don't don't toy around with it. It's not a game. Be killing sin or it will kill you. And then number three, as I say that. And so that this whole message doesn't turn into legalism. Realize that avoiding sin is not what saves you. Yes, avoid sin. Please do. But that's not what saves you. Here's what saves you. Number four sin is ultimately a worship problem. Sin is a worship problem. The reason why we sin is because we think something other than God is what will bring us joy and hope and peace and everything we want. And so we put that above him. The Ten Commandments call that idolatry. You should have no other God before me. Sin is ultimately a worship problem, and the only thing that will help us bridge that gap is Christ. The reality is, when a relationship is broken, you need someone to mend that relationship. If I offend you, if I do something to sin against you, there's now a division between us. Something has to mend that told the story before of how this guy my mom was visiting. I was over there. I was a little kid. He showed me a rain gauge in his backyard. He said, don't touch this. As soon as he walked away, I had to touch it, broke it, and I'm sure he forgave me for that. I hope he did. Who knows, he may still be harboring that bitterness, but even if he forgave me, someone still had to pay the cost of fixing that. Either he would absorb it or he would make me pay it. And when you sin and defile the relationship of a holy God and you say, I don't want you, I don't want to follow you, I'm going to rebel against you. I don't trust you when that happens. Only the death and resurrection and forgiveness we have in Christ will bridge that gap.