The trap of sin

In this episode of the Bible Gal podcast, we go into Ephesians chapter 4 and dive into the warning that God gives us for getting caught up in acting like the gentiles, or in today’s terms, acting like the unbeliever, and the people who follow the law of the world. How dangerous that is, and how important it is to stay awake of what we are doing. 

In this episode we cover: 

1. Ephesians 4:17-24
2. Romans 12:2a
3. Romans 7:15-17

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to the Bob Comcast, and I'm the Gamma Emperor. I'm just a power 71 woman, empowering women to step into the on-the-fire for the Lord mentality. I'm encouraging us to live in our faith, to grow, and to believe in the calling that God has for us. My vision is to help women break the chains of their past of inner struggles and fears to create new chapters that only our father can write for us. I'm on a mission and passion to empower you and all the women out there. This is going to be your new favorite podcast for daily devotionals and Bible study chats.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Hey guys, welcome back to episode 25. So today we are talking about the trap of sinning and the warning that God has over for us of the trap that the devil wants us to so eagerly uh fall into. Uh-uh. But before we get started, I always want to start us off in prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, I so thank you so much for this podcast and trust in me to give these messages, and I just pray over every single listener that you open their hearts and their minds and fill them up with the Holy Spirit. Fill me up with the Holy Spirit. Help me have the words to say and give the message that needs to be heard today, Father. That we uh receive your daily bread today and that um we welcome your your presence. Amen. Alright, so we are in Ephesians chapter 4, um, verses 17 through 24 is the focus point of today. So um I'm just gonna go ahead and start reading and jump on in here. Uh so in Ephesians 4, um, starting off with 17 and 18, um, says this, so I tell you this and insist on it in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do. In the futility of their thinking, they are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. So before he they even say anything, before you know he starts in the point of the message, he starts the scripture by saying, Insist on this from the Lord. So, you know, he's saying, like, best believe the Lord said this, right? Um, and the word futility means useless, ineffective. Um, so we are warned to not think and to live like the unbelievers and the unfollowers of Christ, right? Um, by us um being useless and and ineffective, meaning we're just thinking things that just don't really matter. Right? And so in referencing um another verse here, Romans uh chapter 12, verse 2, and then A, because it's like the first half of the verse says, Don't copy the behavior and the customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. So he says here, because they choose to act as the world does, because they behave carelessly in sin, their eyes are blind, their hearts are hardened, they cannot see, they cannot understand God, they cannot see God, they cannot see what he is saying, they can't see his presence, they can't see his love. Why? Because they are thinking uselessly, they're thinking ineffectively, right? And I don't know about you, but that's some real harsh conviction there for me there. Um, because I personally fear that when I start to act worldly, that I will lose my eyes to see and to understand God and his guidance, and that he, you know, will get too quiet on me. And you know, there have been some times where that happens, and it's a really scary moment, and I am immediately like, you know, help me see where I went wrong, Lord, and and I, you know, and repent for that because I don't ever want to be stuck in that um where my eyes are and are hardened or my heart is hardened to not having that godly love in my heart. You know, in verse 19 says, having lost all sensitivity, have given them over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed. So by acting as an unbeliever, right? By acting as, you know, I guess you could say like an um somebody who doesn't follow the Lord, then you are you lose your sensitivity to the way of a godly life. And you know, you start indulging in all of the sin and all of the worldly behaviors and you know the way of the world and the law of how the world operates, and you become impure in your heart, and you start to be uh lose your sensitivity to feel that guilt, um, you know, uh of when we act uh you know worldly and we and we have that sin, you know, to be able to see a life of a godly view is now gone. We start to lose that vision of seeing the difference between you know living a worldly life versus living a godly life, and and this is really only something you know us as followers can really understand because as we know, when you're not a believer or when you're not a follower, you can't see the difference, right? You can't see um how what it's like to see ice through a Christian, right? Um, but then as we start to sin and as we start to indulge in, you know, worldly behaviors, we start to lose our grip on being able to see that and being able to tell the difference on that. We start to justify things that we do. Oh, well, it's okay that I did this because of A, B, and C. Well, it's okay because God's giving me grace because of A, B, and C. That is us losing our. That's that's the start of when you're losing, you know, that vision. I guess I don't want to say vision, but you're starting to lose those eyes, right? And that snowballs, and it continues to lead to more impurity and more sin, more sin, more sin. And then, you know, you start feeling more of creed greet with uh can't talk greed, which is um, you know, selfishly wanting more money and more power and more, more, and more. Well, why didn't I get the promotion? I want more money, I need more money. Um, I should have been the one that they called, I should have been the one that they chose. You know, I wish I was always skinnier, and you start thinking, you and and honestly, you just start wanting more all the time. Like whatever you have is just never enough. Oh, I want a bigger house or I want a more car. And I'm not saying that we can't be wishful and are thinking um in hopeful that you know we want to grow from here and you know, eventually one day do have a bigger home or whatever the case is. But the difference of that versus you know, obsessing over always wanting more and never being content with what we have, right? Being greedy, um, not being a giver, but you know, being selfish. And when somebody asks for something, we're like, ew, no, that's mine. You know, well, I need that. I don't know when I'm gonna need that, but I'm gonna need it one day and not giving, right? That's that's being greedy. And um, so it starts out small, but you know, it gets worse and worse. So, you know, by us indulging in sin, that opens the door to the devil. And I'm I'm getting ahead of myself here. Um, but as many of us know, this is how the unbelievers live, right? And we see as we're living um for God and we're living in his light and his love and his holy spirit in us, we get to see that. We see the difference um, you know, between somebody who lives of the law of the world and somebody who lives in the law of God, right? Um, like for example, when you know, I'll give this example when you have uh two people in a family, okay? For example, two people that are unbelievers in the family. They're arguing, they get into an argument about, I don't know, having a family hosting party. And they're going back and forth and they're arguing, and so then later they come out and they reach out to you, um, and they want to talk to you about it, they want to vent to you about it, they maybe their feelings were hurt um by some of the things that were said, and so they're coming to you for advice and to for support, right? And when they're non-believers, you know, often the advice that we would give is a little different, right? Because obviously, yes, we still want to plant seeds in that in those family members, um, and to talk about God, but obviously our advice is a little different because they don't understand the godly advice we would give them. So, yes, we might say, you know, hey, God's there for you, He loves you, you know, hey, can I pray with you? And I encourage you to pray with him, like he wants to hear your prayers, right? Like we can definitely for sure say things like that, but we can't give them certain godly advice because they're not going to be able to understand that, right? Like, you know, for example, if the that argument was happening, I would definitely say, hey, look, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter who was right and who was wrong. What matters is that we work towards restoration in our relationships. You know, Jesus would want us to work towards rest restoring our relationship and um forgiving that other person, you know, even if they hurt us, but letting it go and forgiving them, um, and really freeing us from that anger and that guilt, you know, and uh, you know, whatever that feeling is, you know, and just letting that go and giving it to God and really letting, you know, and forgiving and just like letting it go and saying, you know what, yes, they hurt my feelings, but I forgive them and it's and it's okay, you know. Um, and moving past that and saying, you know what, you don't need to have the last word. Um, you know, if you have nothing nice to say and you're getting caught in some angry thoughts, maybe it's just best if you don't react until you're calm and you can pray about it, and then you can come back and talk to them, um, you know, and sort some things out and say, hey, like I'm really sorry, you know, bite, bite your pride and say, I'm really sorry if I said anything to offend you. Um, you know, I really, I really did not mean to hurt your feelings. I really wanna, you know, I really want to pray with you, right? So like that would be some godly advice that you would give over somebody who had just recently had an argument. But if you have two, these two family members who just had this argument and neither of them are in faith, you can give them that that advice, but they're gonna be like, what, forgive them? Are you crazy? No, screw them, right? They're not going to understand um they're not gonna understand that godly uh view of of his law and his word and you know what that means, and they're not gonna see it that way. They're gonna see it differently. And um so that's that's kind of what I'm talking about here is, you know, we see that and we know the difference. But when we start to sin and when we start to get caught up in um you know, in sinning and being angry and being bitter and gossiping and being negative and complaining, right? And I can go on and on and on, unless all the sins, right, but it's not necessary here. Um then you start to lose that because you start to indulge that and you start to get greedy, and you know, you start to have unforgiveness in your heart, and you start to have gossip in your heart, and you start to have negativity in your heart, and you start opening the door to that, right? And so what we also need to see is that God has different dimensions to this word right now. So, because yes, the Gentiles live like this, and and yes, we know that you know the unbelievers can't see and and they don't under quite understand the word the way we do. But when we indulge in sin, when we are convicted, you know, not to gossip or to get drunk or to watch porn or to argue or to complain, you know, we need to make sure that we are not doing those things because by sinning and doing those sins, we fall into the trap when we get tempted and we do it anyway, right? So then even us as believers and followers of Christ, because we chose sin when we were being tempted and not, you know, by fighting it and not choosing that sin, we start to lose that sensitivity to see God. We start to lose that sensitivity to hear him, to hear what he has to say, you know, to see his word and to understand it. So then we quickly get hit with this domino effect of sin, and we don't notice it right away, right? But before we know it, we start feeling distant from God. You know, we notice over time we've fallen back, we don't hear him as much, we don't understand um, you know, his voice versus other things as much, and it's a very, very, very dangerous place to be. Um, I have uh another word reference that I want to use that this is uh honestly um one of my favorite words right now. It's uh taped on my desk at work. Romans uh chapter 7, verses 15 through 17. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I don't, but I hate what I do. And if I do what I don't want to do, then I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer myself who did it, but the sin living in me. So I know that's kind of confusing, and so I'm gonna kind of like break it down. It says, I do not understand what I do, right? So it says I don't understand why I sin. I don't understand why I have these desires. Because for what I want to do, I don't, you know, I want to be pure, I want to have kindness, I want to have godly love, but I don't. For I hate what I do, for I hate that I want to have the desire to gossip, I hate that I have the desire to get angry, I hate that I have the desire to want to watch porn, I hate that I have the desire to get drunk, I hate that I have the desire to complain or have the last word or whatever, fill in the blank, right? And then he says, and if I do what I don't want to do, so he doesn't want to make the godly choice, right? Because that's the sin that's in him convicting him. So he says, if I do what I don't want to do and I choose the godly way, then I agree that his law is good. But it's me as my no, I'm not the one who's doing it, but the sin that lives inside of me is what is tempting me to do this, that is convicting me to do this, right? Or no, you would be convicted not to do it. Um and so we need to fight the spiritual battle in the word, in our prayers, you know, with God all the time, every day, 24-7. That's a whole different sermon I'm not gonna preach today, but you know, so when we feel tempted to sin, we have to be very smart that we don't choose sin, that we don't let sin win. Because when we let sin win, this is what happens. We get trapped in the sin. Um, we in this domino effect, right? And so we're gonna go on to the next verse here, Ephesians um 4, 20, and 21. That, however, is not the way of life you learned. When you heard about Christ and you were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. So God starts it off right and he says, You know better, right? He says, We got taught y'all better than that, right? In my own words, because he says, that, however, is not the way of the life that you learned. For when you heard about Christ, you were taught, right? So he says, I taught you better than that. And then he says, When you heard about me, you were taught about me, you were taught about my mar my word, you were taught about Jesus. He says, You were taught about the truth, and you still chose sin. You know better, right? That's this is this is this very dad advice right now, okay? Um, and so he reminds us again of the truth that we know in Jesus. And yes, that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. Now that's a very surface level um statement right there, because yes, you know what? Jesus died on the cross for our sins. But I want to take it a different, deeper dimension on what he's getting at in this verse because he's saying that we know the truth in Jesus. Well, what's the truth in Jesus? Jesus came on this earth as a human. He felt every emotion, every temptation, every sin tried to get him to sin, right? Everything, every temptation tried to get him to sin. Everything came to him. It was like sin, sin, sin. Every trick that the devil could try, he tried it on Jesus. Yet, Jesus not one time gave in. Not one time did he sin. Not a single time. So Jesus gave up his life. He crucified himself when he had never sinned, not once. After he had gone through all them trials, all them tribulations, he was tempted over and over again. He felt all those emotions, and he still chose the holy way. And then he became sin before he was crucified. He didn't sin, but he became sin. He let the sin in his bones and paid the price on that cross that we all deserve from all the sin that we do, so that we could be free of every single sin. We could be free of all of it, so that we could walk around on this earth and be able to say that sin has no power because he had already won that battle for us. So when you think about it like that, on what Jesus did, the truth of what Jesus did for us, and what he taught us about Jesus, right? Then why do we sin? In twenty verse twenty-two it says you were taught with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires, to be made new in the attitude of your minds, and to put on the new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. So he says here that we were already taught, we were already told about ourselves, right? We were already told that we had to die our old selves. We already had to put away the worldly behavior that we used to have. We need to lock it up in a box and never open up those behaviors, attitudes, thoughts again. He tells us that by accessing our old selves causes us to be corrupt, it causes us to have sinful desires. He says right here, look, daughter. I know I've already told you, but I'm gonna tell you again. And I'm putting emphasis on the importance of letting go of the old you. I don't know what your old you is. What's your old you? What are old worldly ways that you would have done things previously to being born again? Anger? Gossip. Bullying. Maybe you have a smart mouth. I don't know. Let it go. Don't pick it back up. No matter how many times you're tempted. When a coworker crosses you out and you're tempted, keep it in that box locked away. Don't bring that back out. You're made nude now. You were clean, you're clean now. He tells us we've already been made new. So we can have godly character and holiness and his spirit living in us. We've got the Holy Spirit living in us. Girl, we can do anything. And I want to say that if you haven't been born again, if you haven't been baptized, I encourage you to seek out where and when you can do that. And I encourage you to take that step to be born again. And I want to um say that if you haven't given your heart and surrendered it to Jesus, and you haven't said to him, Look, I will shed off my old self and I will live for you. Then I want to open this opportunity right now, and I want to pray with you. Um So I'm gonna lead us in prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for this word. And I want to say that yes, Jesus, you are my Lord and Savior. I thank you for dying on the cross for me personally, my sins. I know that you died on the cross for me. And I want to say, I will accept you as my Lord and Savior. I will accept you, Jesus, in the world. Into my heart to guide me, to lead me. I will say I will let go of who I once was and I will let you make me new and become somebody new. Amen. Um I also want to open up the opportunity just at this time to repent um and to fix that sin that's been, you know, really convicting you um to let go and to change. Um so I just I'm gonna I'm gonna lead us in a repentance prayer. Um, and then um I just encourage you, I'm gonna just lead us in a repentance prayer, and then that's just gonna be the end of the episode. Um, and I encourage you to take this time wherever you are, whatever you're doing, to stop and to um open up this time of repentance um for yourself and to really talk to God and tell him, you know, what you're sorry for and the things and the sins that um have been weighing on you that you're gonna make it a declaration today to change and you're gonna say, I'm so sorry. Um so let me leave us out. Dear Father, we wanna repent. We repent for our sins. We are so so sorry. Not just sorry saying, Hey, I'm sorry, but I'm gonna do it again. But no, I'm we are saying we are sorry is that we're never, ever, ever gonna do it again, Father. We're so sorry for hurting you and for disappointing you, for hurting your feelings, for breaking your heart as we continue to live in our old self, that we no longer need to live in our old self. We have been born again, and we thank you so much for reminding us that, and we just repent and we say we are sorry, we are sorry for the gossiping, and we will never do it again. Father, help us, help us please to take away that desire and to fill us with your Holy Spirit. We repent of the anger, we repent of the smart talk, we repent of the complaining, we repent of the negativity, we repent of the bullying, we repent of the uh talking crap about other people, we repent about sitting in our anger and our bitterness and not forgiving. We repent for having an unforgiveful heart, Father. We repent and I say that help us, Lord, help us fix this. Every single person listening, Father, I lift up to you right now and I say, help us, help us, please forgive us. Do not take your Holy Spirit from us, and I ask that you help us today. Um, help us fix this, help us take away our sinful desires, fill us up with your Holy Spirit, your godly love. Help us love more like you love Jesus. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If you'd like to hear more, there are new episodes that drop every Monday and Thursday. If you liked what you heard, please help me gimbal up by leaving a review. You can also give using the link below. I'd love to pray for you. If you have any prayer comments, please send me an email to your gimbal gimbal, which is on some of the links below social media. And remember, sisters, this week I'm just with you every step of the way.