01/19/2025: Genesis 20 "Another Relapse"

In this engaging episode, we explore how Abraham's familiar struggles with sin reflect our own battles with faith and trust. By examining the themes of relapse, grace, and the nature of sin, we encourage listeners to pursue a deeper relationship with God amid their imperfections.

• The importance of understanding sin as more than mere actions 
• God’s unwavering grace toward Abraham despite his failure 
• Lessons from Thomas Brooks on relapse and daily repentance 
• The impact of sin on our relationship with God 
• The call to recognize our identity in Christ amidst weakness 
• Practical steps toward engaging in daily repentance and self-reflection 

We invite you to join us as we reflect on these powerful themes and the transformative grace of God.

Transcript

Abraham's Relapse Into Sin

Speaker 1 0:21

Amen. Good morning church. If you have your Bibles with you, I invite you to turn with me to Genesis, chapter 20. We stepped away from Genesis just before the season of Advent and so now for several weeks we have not interacted with the story of Abraham and his family. Today we jump right back in where we left off. In fact, the first verse of chapter 20 says from there Abraham. And so we know that he was somewhere and now he is going somewhere else. We drop down, as we're in the middle of something, and he's traveling from the now destroyed Dead Sea cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and he's heading closer to the coast of the Mediterranean, to this area called Gerar, and that's where we're going to pick back up in the story of Abraham in Genesis 20.

Speaker 1 1:13

But let's begin our time with prayer. Let's bow our heads together, our great God. We bow before you and we acknowledge, as the providential ruler of heaven and earth, that you are full of glory, and we pray that your Word would be timely for our hearts today and that you would teach us to trust you more. And we pray, lord, to learn the lesson that we would walk by faith rather than by sight and we would put sin to death in our body and that by some measure you would convince us of the truth before we even walk in it and live by it. Lord, speak to the hearts of some who are in the midst of the valley today. Speak to the hearts of those who are suffering physically or mentally or emotionally, and we pray that your grace would encourage them, that your care would drive them forward and that your Word might penetrate their hearts and encourage them. And we pray that you would receive all the glory from their trust, and we ask that your Spirit would teach us this morning, and we pray this all through the name of our Savior, amen.

Speaker 1 2:32

Genesis, chapter 20,. I'm going to read verses 1 through 11. It says from there Abraham journeyed toward the territory of Negev and lived between Kadesh and Shur, and he sojourned in Gerar. And Abraham said to Sarah, his wife she is my sister. And Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent and took Sarah.

Speaker 1 2:54

But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man's wife. Now, abimelech had not approached her. So he said Lord, will you kill an innocent people? Did he not himself say to me she is my sister. And she herself said he is my brother. In the integrity of my heart, in the innocence of my hands, I have done this. Then God said to him in the dream yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart, and it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Therefore, I did not let you touch her. Now, then return the man's wife, for he is a prophet, so that he will pray for you and you shall live. But if you do not return her, know that you will surely die, you and all who are yours. So Abimelech rose early in the morning and called all his servants and told them all these things. And the men were very much afraid. Then Abimelech called Abraham and said to him what have you done to us and how have I sinned against you that you might have brought on me in my kingdom a great sin? You've done to me things that ought not to be done. And Abimelech said to Abraham what did you see that you did this thing? And Abraham said I did it because I thought there was no fear of God at all in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife. This is God's word.

Speaker 1 4:18

Well, for those of you who don't know or use Spotify and were not aware, they come out with a year-end review of the songs that you listen to and the artists that you listen to, over and over and over again that year. So, for instance, in 2024, you get your top songs and they call it your wrapped. It's your end of the year. Wrapped, it's like a wrap-up of your listening habits for the year. If you're like me and I suspect you are if you use Spotify, you can go back over the years and your year-end rap looks pretty much the same year over year Same songs, same artists. I did a quick look at my rap from 2021 and then compared it to 2024. It's actually up here right now. Jimmy Buffett and Zac Brown are holding strong the same songs from both artists from three or four years ago.

Speaker 1 5:09

What's interesting to me is that in 2021, it was our last year in the frozen north and I think I was dreaming of like tropical locations, so that was reflected in my song rotations. I figured the Lord would move us to some beach somewhere, maybe Acapulco, and we would have the opportunity to work in a church there to minister. Here we are, name it and claim it doesn't work. Let me tell you that right now I'm still searching for my lost shaker of salt. But I got into the Black Keys a bit more last year until they made me angry because they canceled their concert that was going to be in Nashville in October. So I'm mad at them. I'm not listening to them. Actually I was listening to them this morning. So it's not necessarily true, but some of the same songs, many of the same artists and some Buck Owens in there last year, just for good measure, I guess.

Speaker 1 6:03

But we it just shows that we are creatures of habit and creatures of comfort. The same is true of television. You've got shows like the Office or Friends or even Psych, where they're comfort shows. I have seen every season of the Office and of the show Psych many, many times, and there's some good shows out there, but those are the ones we go back to because they're comfort shows and most of them were just made before. Television just became terrible and music's like that. I mean, I love Jimmy Buffett because there's no emotional cost for me to listen to him. I could just enjoy it. It doesn't build up angst or any other emotion other than just chilling out. Now, yours might be different, but I think we all have that. We all have that thing that we go to. That is our comfort.

Speaker 1 6:48

And so, as we read chapter 20, it's like we're watching a rerun, isn't it? It's almost like we're listening to a familiar song, and you might even think, hey, didn't we do this chapter already? What are you doing, goulet? You're going back and recycling sermons. I'm not. It's familiar to us, and it should be familiar to us because we haven't studied this chapter yet. But Abraham is back to his old ways again, and he's passing his wife off as his sister to protect his own skin. He's blessed by God again in the protection from the destruction of the dead sea cities, and he's again affirmed in the covenant. And now there's a timeline there's even a timeline for the birth of their son, and yet again, abraham relapses into his favorite sin so that he can protect himself. And so that's going to be our framework today to understand this chapter, and I want to consider this in three big chunks, or three big pieces. But let's start, though, by gaining.

Speaker 1 7:45

We need to have a solid theology of sin itself to understand the sin of Abraham and our sin. So let's start there with this idea of missing the mark. The word that we use to describe rebellion against God comes from the translators of the Bible and, of course, their contemporary languages. We use the word sin and it sounds like an old-fashioned kind of word, and it really is. The Old Testament, however, uses about 40 different words for sin, rather than the one general term that we use.

The Origin and Impact of Sin

Speaker 1 8:22

By the first century, the Pharisees had developed such a superficial understanding of sin and they reduced it to mere conformity to the law of Moses, and that, of course, was the big challenge that Jesus had with that whole crowd. Basically, their idea was that if you observed all the ceremonial regulations and performed all the prescribed sacrifices, then you were considered blameless. They were correct in viewing sin primarily as an offense against the Lord, but they missed the idea that sin goes to the heart, not just observable actions. In one particular interaction with the Pharisees, they wanted to know why the disciples broke their traditions. In fact, they're like why don't they wash their hands before they eat? Now, they weren't talking about hey, go wash your hands. You've been playing outside To the Jew. You had to ceremonially be clean and cleanse your hands before you ate. And Jesus said to them. And why do you break the command of God? For the sake of your tradition. For God said Honor your father and mother, and anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death. But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is quote devoted to God, they are not to honor their mother and father with it. And so you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition, you hypocrites. You take care of your parents. That's the commandment. Honor them. But the Pharisees would essentially say when they amassed their wealth, they would say listen, I can't use this to help my mom and dad because I have committed it to God. Essentially, they were using God to rebel against God.

Speaker 1 10:05

The outside of the cup was spotless, but the inside was pretty ugly. And so when the New Testament was written, which was written primarily in Greek, the word used was harmatia. 173 times it's used in the New Testament, and that word actually appears first in the Greek tragedies like the Iliad and the Odyssey. When an arrow was fired and it missed the mark, or a spear was thrust and it missed the person, it was called a harmatia. You're missing the mark, and so when the Bible was then translated into Latin, the word became pecatum or peccato.

Speaker 1 10:44

Now, of note, related to this, the Bible is not given to us through the ages like a game of telephone, and people say to me this quite often. You know, the Bible's been translated so many thousands of times we don't even understand what the original was. That's hogwash, it's garbage. We have the Hebrew Old Testament, we have the Greek New Testament, we have the Latin Vulgate, which is the entire Bible in Latin, and then that became German and then English. So translation from languages, nothing else. In fact, today the Bible is available in almost 350 languages, glory to God. And with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls we found that our modern translation of the book of Isaiah is completely consistent with a 2,000 year old copy. So translation into languages, not thousands of translations within one language.

Speaker 1 11:36

So we move from Latin to the Old English and the word peccato became this word, syngian, which sounds more similar to what we use, which is sin. But all these words find their origin in Hermitia, missing the mark, but with a lot more weight. And you're like okay, goulet, it's cold outside. I braved the wilds of Kentucky to make it here and you're giving me an egghead lesson. Listen, we can't understand our situation until we understand sin. It's more than a miscalculation. It is an offense against the God who rules the universe. We are unable to overcome it by our own sophistication or efforts. God alone can release us from its tyranny and from its guilt. That's why Christ died to pay the penalty for our sins and offers the gift of a transformed life by His power. And so, given that truth, we must understand that sin is not something created or authored by God.

Speaker 1 12:43

God creates a good cosmos, a good creation, humanity included. Genesis chapter 1 tells us this. All the way through Genesis, chapter 1, god says it is good and it is good and it is good. And then, on the sixth day, he said and it is very good. God takes nothing and he makes it into something and he says this is very good. And we read that all through the book of Genesis From nothing, god creates everything. And then the pinnacle of creation is, of course, humanity.

Speaker 1 13:16

Humanity is placed in that perfect setting. Knowing God, knowing good, knowing sweet work, a blessed procreation, god says. Basically, his commandment to Adam and Eve is have a bunch of babies and fill the earth and subdue it. One prohibition Donate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. That's for your own protection and your own blessing. So humanity is created good, blessed by God, more than we could ever imagine. Man has unhindered access to God and absolute freedom to flourish and enjoy God forever in the context of perfection.

Speaker 1 13:55

And so Adam and Eve made a choice and they did the one thing that God prohibited them from doing, and sin entered the world. So to blame God for sin, it's unfounded and it's quite unbiblical. God did not create sin. Sin is not original to creation. It has not always existed. And here's what's great it's not always going to exist. Amen, somebody. Sin's going away. Sin is defeated and it is going away.

Speaker 1 14:29

You see, matter, scientifically speaking, of matter, was created good. Sin, however, is not matter. It has no form. It is not something that is weighed and measured. Sin is a result, it is ethical. It's not tied to the cosmos, it's not tied to matter. Sin is ethics, it's a result of something else.

Speaker 1 14:53

What is the result of the free choice made by Adam to disobey one command of God Do not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And of course, satan's there and he helps the process along, but ultimately Adam is responsible and sin, the Bible says, enters in through one man. Sin is the result, and with that rebellion, with that missing the mark, there is divine justice. There is immediate shame, there is immediate disconnect from God. There's now fear of God, unhealthy fear of God. There's also an immediate disconnect between the man and the woman. Pain and sorrow follow Just a trail of devastation. Men and women are cast out. Men and women, rather, are cast out, cut off from the presence of God. And, what's worse, all the effects of sin become our family inheritance. Don't ever tell me listen, I don't have an inheritance, my parents had none. No, you've got something. It's sin and it comes from Adam down to us. And so life is challenging.

Speaker 1 16:00

Life can be full of pain, suffering and sickness and death, because we are shut out of the garden. And death, our greatest enemy, sometimes seems to make lives so pointless. Sometimes death is so pointless, isn't it? You have somebody that is so dear to you, and just they're gone, and it seems so pointless because death is an enemy, a life cut short, a prolonged suffering, a death that makes no sense. Death is the enemy. Sin is the enemy Paul says it in Romans 5,.

Speaker 1 16:45

Just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin and in this way death came to all people because all sinned, so in Adam sin enters, death spreads and reigns, and condemnation is the sentence. So, in contrast, in Christ there is righteousness and news, and condemnation is the sentence. So, in contrast, in Christ there is righteousness and new life and justification, and sin brings total corruption. Sin results in the reality of human suffering. Sin enters through Adam. Its effects and suffering is included. And just as God is not the author of sin, god is not the author of sin. God is not the author of suffering. Suffering is not part of God's good creation. It is the byproduct of sin.

Speaker 1 17:30

But here's what's most important about this backdrop, about sin. Sin is a backdrop, isn't it? Sin is never the point. Even here in this chapter, sin is not the point. Whether the sin is a backdrop, isn't it? Sin is never the point. Even here in this chapter, sin is not the point. Whether the sin is Abraham's or the sin is Adam's or the sin is yours.

Speaker 1 17:46

Sin is a temporary thief, it is an intruder. It doesn't belong. It makes a mess, it holds some people hostage, but sin is no match for what God has done for us through the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus has defeated Satan, sin and death. They are defeated foes, and by faith in Him we become heirs of the promise. Although we had an inheritance of sin, through faith in Jesus Christ we become heirs of the inheritance of eternal life. Through faith in Jesus Christ, we become heirs of the inheritance of eternal life. Sin might abound today, but I can tell you right now the super magnanimous, powerful, life-changing, eternity-changing, soul-changing, family tree-changing grace of God abounds even more in our lives because of Jesus Christ. When sin attacks, jesus is always there.

Speaker 1 18:50

So let's actually get to the text. This will be our second heading. We'll call this Abraham's relapse. Verse 2, abraham said of Sarah, his wife she's my sister. And Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent and took Sarah. Now this sounds just like Genesis 12.

The Impact of Sin and Faith

Speaker 1 19:11

Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because of the famine, and he was about to enter Egypt he said of his wife Sarah, I know what a beautiful woman you are. When the Egyptians see you, they will say this is his wife. They will kill me, but let you live, say you're my sister, so I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you. Now, ironically, just before chapter 12, abraham had been called by God. And here it's after. God reiterates His promise of a son. And then he gives Abraham a timeline Next year, but still Abraham goes back to trusting his own schemes.

Speaker 1 19:50

See, the ultimate cause of Abraham's sin was a lack of faith in God. The ultimate cause of our sin, of our backsliding, of our relapses, is a lack of faith in God. The ultimate cause of our sin, of our backsliding, of our relapses, is a lack of faith in God. Abraham did not believe that God would take care of him, especially because now it's a new situation. Hold on, God.

Speaker 1 20:12

Things are a little bit different today. I can't trust you to take care of me. That's been Abraham's pattern, isn't it? God has promised to take care of me, but I don't trust that he will, and that's our pattern of sin as well. God has promised to be good to me. God has promised good for me, but I don't trust that he's going to give me what I think I need, and so I'm going to produce that myself.

Speaker 1 20:36

How does that often work out for us? Quite poorly. In extreme cases, it can destroy your life. I was counseling in the jail this past week and the person had sought pleasure through the needle because they sought comfort by escaping reality. I'm not judging that person because I can say but for the grace of God, it would be me. But what I said to her is I said you tell me you're a believer in Jesus Christ, you tell me that you trust God, you tell me that you are heaven-bound because of Christ, but you are living like hell because you don't trust God. Trust God, have faith in God.

Speaker 1 21:19

When God says he's going to do something, he's going to do it. It's rarely ever on our timeline and it's rarely ever the way that we think it should be, and glory to God for that. Had God done all the lists that I've given to Him, who knows what my life would be like right now. It would be an absolute mess, because God sees the beginning from the end. And I think I'm wicked smart and I'm like, hey, god, hey, this is how it should all work out. But God's like no, wait, you're not going to Acapulco, you're going to Kentucky. And I'm thankful for Kentucky. I love Kentucky and I love you all, and the Lord's given me so much opportunity for the Gospel here. Glory to God. Every day the Lord puts something in my way and people are like, hey, can you do this? And I'm like yep. And then the next day the Lord gives me more opportunity with the Gospel and at the same time Satan's just hammering away at me. But the Lord's giving me more opportunity. So glory to God that he doesn't listen to me In the extreme of our sin.

Speaker 1 22:30

Ravi Zacharias said this, and whatever you think of Ravi, I think he was right. He said sin will take you farther than you want to go, it'll keep you longer than you want to stay and it will cost you more than you want to pay. You see, we tend to compartmentalize our lives, as if life is made up of these little airtight compartments. And you know, the sin that I do over here doesn't affect over here, and the sin that I've got going on over here isn't going to affect this over here. I tell you what it does Abraham's Exhibit A.

Speaker 1 23:09

Abraham had a lack of trust in God, and so he began to elevate himself. I can handle this, I can manage this, I got this. It's like the old theological seesaw example, isn't it? If our view of God is up, our view of ourselves will be down, god will be sovereign and wise and holy and we'll see ourselves as weak, foolish and sinful and we'll trust on God. But the problem is, if our view of God goes down, he becomes less than sovereign in our thinking. And our view of God goes down, he becomes less than sovereign in our thinking and our view of ourselves goes up and we begin to imagine that we're quite able to take care of ourselves and our plans are better than God's and we're going to do what we want to do. We're going to do what is right in our own eyes and that's what Abraham did. Okay, we're in a new land. We're going to move on. My wife's still hot. Move on, my wife's still hot. Can't go into this land with guys looking at her because I'm going to die. Sarah just say you're my sister, problem solved. And what's more, the guy comes up and he's like I'm taking your sister, and Abraham's like okay, and Sarah's like yeah, that's my brother, we're all good. What is going on? More than this, I think.

Speaker 1 24:18

As Abraham's opinion of himself rose, his sensitivity to other people went down and he began to look down on them when he didn't have any reason to, and I think this is his attitude towards Abimelech. In verse 11, I said to myself problem one a lot of times we have arguments with people in our heads and we get ourselves all wound up. You know, you're driving or you're in the shower when I see John, I'm telling him, but then you're with John and everything's fine. And you're having these arguments with imaginary people in your head and you're getting yourself all stressed out. This is what I'm going to do. And then you do this. Does anyone else? It's just me, isn't it? I don't want to argue with John in my head because I love John.

Speaker 1 25:04

But the point is, I said to myself, there is no fear of God in this place and they will kill me because of my wife Slander. On Abimelech, isn't it? Abimelech had a great deal of reverential fear for God and he had a very commendable sense of right and wrong. Abraham assumed, and he was blind to this because of his own pride and his own disobedience. And here's another great point.

Speaker 1 25:37

I think that we need to understand here Our sin, like Abraham's sin, abraham's lack of faith, abraham's lack of faith, our lack of faith, his sin, our sin, disturbs nothing as far as God is concerned. Abraham may have doubted God's ability to take care of him, but God's ability to do so was not altered in the slightest. Our God is in the heavens and he does as he pleases. Your sin does not alter the plan of God. He doubted God's grace, but God remained gracious and God remained as gracious as He'd ever been. You see, our sin does not nullify the power, the grace or the sovereignty of God. And I'm especially impressed by the way God showed His grace to Abraham, and he did so when he spoke to Abimelech.

Speaker 1 26:29

When Abimelech learned the truth he must have thought this Abraham guy is a coward, he's a hypocrite or worse. But God spoke of Abraham differently to Abimelech In verse 7, return this man's wife, for he is a prophet. He didn't say return this bozo's wife and I'll deal with him, because he's such a bozo he's like. No. Return the man's wife. He's a prophet and he'll pray for you and you will live.

Speaker 1 26:58

God was not indifferent to Abraham's sin. I don't believe that at all. He would deal with it, as he had on occasion in Egypt. But the sin didn't change God's view of Abraham. He was still God's man. Our sin doesn't change God's view of us, because when he looks at you he sees the blood of Christ. Your sin does not affect sees. The blood of Christ. Your sin does not affect God's view of you. We may run and hide, but God does not change you.

Speaker 1 27:31

Think about all the references to Abraham that we have in the rest of the Scripture. God doesn't bring this up again, does he? He doesn't bring up His failure. He doesn't bring it up in Romans or in Galatians. It's certainly not in Hebrews 11, the great hall of fame or faith, rather, where Abraham is keynote. And in fact in Hebrews 11, he's praised for having faith to leave his home, to stay in the land, even when it was dangerous, to believe that God would give him a son, and then, of course, be willing to offer up that son and understand that God would raise him from the dead.

Speaker 1 28:03

But not once did God say, or did God add or put a caveat or an asterisk and say but he was a bum and he sinned against me. He had little faith, he messed up and he went back to the same mess. You ever gone back to the same mess. You ever gone back to the same mess. You ever relapsed into your favorite sin. It doesn't change God's view of you. In Christ does it Glory to God Because it's forgiven and it's gone and it's forgotten. It is so good to serve a God like that, a God who remains sovereign even when we doubt His ability to care for us, a God who remains gracious even when we sin. In fact, to know that that is the God we serve is the greatest incentive in my life to keep myself from sin. Abraham is our example, and although we sin, god remembers it no more. It's been paid for in Christ. I don't think that's license to sin. I think that's opportunity to worship. And that brings us to this final heading, then, which I've just called the relapse remedy.

Speaker 1 29:16

It's helpful for us to ask the question how do we avoid these situations? What power do we have to keep from relapsing into the same sins in our lives? How do we keep going back to the mess? How do we keep making the same decision over and over and over again? And then what happens when we do fall back into the same sins?

Speaker 1 29:37

Well, I commend you a book this morning. People are sick of me commending books to you, but I'm not going to stop. They're like I have too many books as it is. Get another one. Listen, this one was written 500 years ago and it was written by a man named Thomas Brooks. It might be familiar to you, but the name of the book is Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices. I don't know if anyone's ever heard of that before. Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices, and the whole book really deals with this idea of relapse. That's why I went back to it this week.

The Battle Against Sin

Speaker 1 30:10

Brooks has several remedies in this book, but I wanted to share just a few with you this morning and then build upon what Brooks suggests. In fact, he tells us that because we tend to go back to the same sins time and again, satan will come to us and suggest that our hearts are not right with God or that our eternal state should be in question. Imagine the battle that Abraham must have had with the enemy. Satan might even suggest to you that you flatter yourself to think that God would ever love someone like you who can't keep straight, who can't keep walking towards Him, who can't repent of sin. How could God ever love someone who weeps and wails over their sin but is right back at it time and again? Brooks says this. I confess this is a very sad condition for a soul after he's obtained mercy and pity from the Lord, after God has spoken peace and pardoned him and wiped the tears from his eyes to set him upon his legs, that he would return to sin, they give Satan an advantage. They make the work of repentance more difficult, they make a man's life a burden and they render death by the very terrible under the soul. And so what do we do?

Speaker 1 31:28

Well, one of Brooks' remedies and I'm paraphrasing is to consider the fact that, with the sole exception of Jesus Christ, the entire Bible is full of men and women used in mighty ways by God but failing into the same sins that they had previously repented. There is only one perfect person in Scripture and that's Jesus. The Scripture is full of people with this problem. The authors of Scripture had this problem. The humans used by God had this problem. Paul had this problem. This whole book, this whole Scripture, is about the brokenness of man and the healing power of Jesus Christ. Just consider the book itself, the Bible itself Sixty-six books written by over 40 authors on four different continents over the course of 1,500 years. There's no other book like this. But the Bible is consistent, and it's consistent in telling one story the gospel of Jesus Christ. And the more we dig, the more archaeology discovers, the more we discover the trustworthiness of this book.

Speaker 1 32:39

If the Bible were just the writing of a bunch of guys and people say this to me quite often the skeptics will say well, that's a book written by men, read it. If this were a book written by men, read it. If this were a book written by men, it wouldn't sound like it does. It wouldn't be consistent. And I can tell you right now, men would write much more glowing stories about themselves. The book of Todd, chapter 1. Todd was a saint. That's what it would sound like, wouldn't it? You read autobiographies and they're not like hey, man, I was a terrible person. They're like, oh well, I did this and this. So if men, they would write much more glowing stories about themselves.

Speaker 1 33:20

That right, there is the internal evidence of the Scripture that helps me believe it's true. Instead, what do we see? We see broken men and women put back together by God and then used by god, although they are imperfect. Burke's also suggests that we need to know that god has nowhere in the scripture made any promise that those of us who are in christ would not fall again and again into the same sin, and that's a hard one for me. There's no biblical promise that we won't experience relapse, and Alistair Begg says that if the Bible is silent on something, we need to be silent on it too. And so we don't see a promise in the Bible that we won't have our pet sins. Some of you have the sin of gossip just coming in here this morning. Some of you have the sin of backbiting or anger or jealousy or lust or whatever it is. Instead, we are encouraged to keep as close to Christ as possible and fear nothing more than a relapse and a backslide away from Christ.

Speaker 1 34:23

I mean, we see this in Peter, don't we? I love Peter Because Peter is the one in the Bible that I identify with the most. Jesus told Peter listen, I'm going to be taken. Peter's like not on my watch. Peter stands up and he puffs out his chest and he does the gym walk and he's like it's not happening with me. Jesus, I'm going to take care of this. Jesus showed him his glory on the Mount of Transfiguration, didn't he? And then, of course, peter lies about who he is to a little girl around a campfire at Jesus' trial. Peter wasn't on trial, it was a little girl standing by a campfire going. Weren't you with him? And he's like I don't know who he is, I don't know who Jesus is, and then, of course, he does that a few more times, and then, after the ascension, peter would need correction from Paul, and Peter and Paul would have a bit of a falling out for a while.

Speaker 1 35:20

We have a whole volume of examples of those who love the Lord falling back into sin. We need to learn from them and not harden our own hearts, and so, finally, my suggestion to you is that you daily put these pet sins to death and daily repent of them before the Lord. Or, if I could say it the way Jonathan Edwards said it in his book, we need to seek the mortification of our sin, put our sins to death, daily repentance, daily mortification of sin. So we need to understand that even the Scripture was written by God through flawed people, and there's no promise in the Scripture that we would be flawless people. What we do discover, however, that until the Lord calls us home, we must put sin to death and daily turn to God in repentance.

Speaker 1 36:06

And Paul acknowledges this in Romans 7, doesn't he? He says I don't do what I want to do and I do not do the good that I want to do. Sometimes we read that and we're like huh Paul's, basically saying listen, I want to honor God but I don't honor God. I don't want to sin against God, but I do sin against God. And then he cries out what a wretched man that I am. Cries out what a wretched man that I am. Then, of course, he runs to Jesus in repentance. I mean sometimes, maybe even right now, you're writing in your margin ask Goulet, what is the exact number of sins that I can get away with? Or how far away from Jesus can I get before? It's an issue I don't know. I don't think it's a healthy question to ask, because I don't think we have an answer to it. But I don't think there's an answer to the fact that how much sinning proves that I'm not a Christian.

Speaker 1 37:08

Instead, I would say this to the degree that your confessing of sin has made almost like a fatalistic peace with the inevitability of your sin In other words, if all you're hearing me say this morning is oh well, sin is inevitable, we need to do it just because it's inevitable or to the degree that your sin falls into the category of premeditated unrighteousness, you say well, you know, hey, it's Friday night, I deserve this. I was good all week. I went to church on Wednesday, I'm going to go to church on Sunday, so if I do the calculations in my mind it's all good. I'll just confess the sin later on, I think. If that's you, I think you should be frightened that you are on a path that may well lead to destruction.

Speaker 1 38:04

But I would also suggest to you that the book in the New Testament that is perhaps the hardest on Christian sinning is also the one that warns most explicitly about the dangers of perfectionism. 1 John, chapter 1. He says if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. That's the warning against perfectionism, isn't it? Then he continues but if we confess our sins and that confession right there, I think that's real confession. He says he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And of course he goes back to the warning If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and the word's not in us. So we need a real repentance, we need a real confession before the Lord. That's the kind of confession, repentance that expresses the guilt and experiences the sorrow over sin and comes with a hatred of the sin that's within us and you want war with that sin and you aim, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to defeat it. You see, that's the plan, isn't it? That's no hypocrisy. That's how we avoid relapse into the same old patterns.

The Battle Against Sinning Less

Speaker 1 39:14

And I talk to a lot of skeptics about Jesus, and I've had people say to me you know, I can't be a Christian because Christians hate. Just, very generally said it like that I can't be a Christian because Christians hate. And I said to one man recently I said listen, the only thing that I hate is my own sin, that's it. The only thing that I hate is the war that goes on within me over my own sin. That's the only hatred I can afford, because I just can't afford to hate anything else. I want to put my sin to death Because I want to glorify Jesus with my life, and so I'll end this way.

Speaker 1 40:06

I think that if Abraham had his own Spotify wrapped of his life, we'd see the same sins popping back up again, and I think the same would be true of us. But Abraham, the father of our faith, who was chronicled in the great hall of faith, saw the same sins in his life that we would think he'd once defeated. So we need to take heart. Until the Lord calls us home and we stand glorified, with Him, we will battle with our own sin and we must battle. It's a battle. It's a war. We may not be sinless, but my prayer is that in 20 years from now you can say I sin less. My prayer for our family here and for myself is that those sins find less and less and less room on our playlists and in our lives and that we might glorify God with them.

Speaker 1 41:12

Before we pray and be dismissed, I want to provide some instruction for our family meeting. So, right after we conclude our time here, we're going to meet in the fellowship hall. Anyone's welcome to join us. Lunch is ready. You can go in and grab a plate of food and find a seat, and we're going to wait for everyone to be seated, and then we're going to have a working lunch so that we're not here until 5 o'clock tonight. So, fellowship Hall, grab food, have a seat and then we'll begin our session. But I'm going to pray for that and I'm going to pray for us this morning as well.

Speaker 1 41:41

Let's bow our heads together, our Lord and our God. There's so many in this place who can testify to your providence, how, in the moments of their greatest despair, you came to their rescue and you lifted up your countenance upon them and you lifted their heads up and you placed their feet on solid places. And so we pray that we would learn that you are the revealer of the future, that you are in control of our future. Help us as we walk through this weary land, as we battle with our sins, as we put our sins to death, to be reminded of who you are and who we belong to. And Lord, for our very first family meeting of the year, might you bless our time, make it sweet, bless our ministry, bless our food and be with us as we seek to glorify you even more in 2025 than we ever have before. We love you In Jesus' name, amen.