What is Sin?

A floor project gone wrong becomes the doorway into a bigger story: why life looks polished yet feels slippery underfoot. We open with a personal renovation fail and use it as a parable for skipping the foundations that keep us from sliding, then trace the source of the world’s pain back to a pivotal moment in Genesis when trust fractured and the dominoes began to fall—shame, conflict, toil, pain, and death. From there, we build a clear framework from Ephesians 2 that helps us see sin in three layers: the bent we carry in our nature, the choices we make against God’s moral law, and the patterns that grow into chains when desire is practiced long enough.

Along the way, we tackle a modern blind spot: the cultural habit of relabeling what God calls harmful. Greed gets dressed up as ambition, selfishness as self-love, lust as liberation, and constant busyness as virtue. We don’t stop at the “dirty” sins; we expose the “respectable” ones that corrode relationships and peace from the inside—people-pleasing, control, bitterness, and the endless scroll that numbs instead of heals. This isn’t about piling on guilt; it’s about getting the diagnosis right so the cure makes sense. When we acknowledge the depth of the problem, we stop placing god-sized hopes on human systems or personalities and start cultivating humility, repentance, and realistic expectations in community.

We also slow down on purpose. Before racing to the good news, we sit in the weight of what’s true. The prophets taught us that honest grief clears space for hope to take root. If sin is merely a bad habit, self-help could fix it. If sin is a master we’ve served, we need more than tips—we need rescue. That’s where we’re headed next, but for now we invite you to feel the gravity so grace can land as more than a slogan. If this conversation helped you see your story with greater clarity, share it with a friend, subscribe for the next part in the series, and leave a review with the moment that challenged you most. Your reflections shape future episodes and help others find a firmer footing.

Transcript

Warm Welcome And Life Update

SPEAKER_00 0:11

I feel my leg cramping. Too much excitement right now.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Well, good morning everyone.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

How are we doing today? Are we all unanimously sick of the snow? Yes, me too. Listen, I I if you don't know me, my name is Gian, and we we either you either know me or you haven't, because for the past month and a half I have not been here because we got this little peanut come early. Baby Sailor came a little bit earlier than anticipated, and so uh I just haven't been around, so I haven't been able to see all the new faces, but man, it it is crazy to see how like just what's been going

From Small Room To Sanctuary

SPEAKER_00 0:57

on. And um Thursday is like, man, I've I've been seeing like so much crazy stuff happen on our summit Thursdays. But something you guys maybe didn't know or you did know is that um we used to be in a small back room, the summit, right? In a small back room over there, and we maybe had like 30 people coming regularly. And so when stuff started to happen, all of a sudden we were like, oh, we need to consider using

DIY Renovation Disaster

SPEAKER_00 1:21

the other room. We didn't ever think we were, at least not for a long time, we're gonna need to get into the sanctuary. And so what happened is we you know, we we started looking at quotes for getting that back room um all set and because it was gonna be a bigger space, and every quote was just absurd. It was just like, you're gonna charge us that much to remove a rug and paint the walls. And I'm like, that doesn't make any sense. So, me being me, I'm just like, all right, I'll do it, I'll figure it out, you know, be a lot cheaper. And turns out I bit a little bit more often I could chew. Um painting the walls was a breeze, obviously. But when we came to removing the carpet, we realized, oh, underneath there's a lot of glue. And so we remove the carpet, and then it's like it's the middle of summer, there's no AC in that back room. And I'm like, all right, let's try using some chemical to remove all the glue. And so we start trying to remove it, nothing happens, and then all of a sudden it's like, oh, this is not going to be as easy as it looks. And so what do I do? I look online, I I Google, I go on YouTube, and they're like, Oh, you're gonna need to like grind down the concrete. And I'm like, I can't leave this like this, I gotta start. And so what I do is I go to a local shop, I rent out this big machine, and I have no idea how to use it. I am completely lost, and I start using it, and to my surprise, smoke starts coming up, and I don't know what's happening. And if you don't know, in that back room, there's a little uh smoke, well, on all the rooms, there's like this smoke alarm. And so all of a sudden the building starts beeping, beep, beep, and the the fire trucks are coming out, and I'm just like, oh, Pastor John's gonna kill me. Like, I I don't I don't know what to do. Like, this is gonna, I don't, is this gonna cost the church a ton of money for the fire department to come out here? I didn't know how any of it works, and so I'm freaking out. And so finally some people came out and they just like helped me because it was literally 100 degrees in that room. We covered up that and we got all the like we we we left the concrete there. It was starting to come together where we're painting, where we're painting the floor over the floor, where we're and then I'm like, all right, the last step is we got to put sealant on it. And so after all this work, I finally decide, all right, this is the finishing touch. It's starting to look, people are like, oh, it really looks good as is. I'm like, yeah, but the ceiling needs to protect the floor. And so I just buy a I watch a YouTube video, and the guy's just like, yeah, just throw the sealant on the floor and it'll be good. He didn't, he didn't say it, but what you're supposed to do when you put a sealant on, especially when that's outdoor, you're supposed to put in these little clear sand crystals. And it's in the fine print, but if you don't read the fine print, then you are going to just you know roll it on. And so what do I do? I I after all this work, after hours and hours and hours, I put on the sealant and it looks beautiful, and then someone takes a step and they start sliding. And it was like a hockey rink, and you couldn't do and all of a sudden, all this hard work is like we we got to the end and it looked good, but it wasn't functioning the way that it was supposed to. And if I had just read the fine print, if I had just stopped in a moment to consider like and properly thoroughly look how to do it, then it would have been good.

Series Aim: Foundations Of Faith

SPEAKER_00 4:44

But um, the reason I'm talking about this is because for the past past few weeks, we've been in a series on the theological foundations of our faith, which is a fancy way to just say things that Christians have historically and still to this day, mainline Christianity, Orthodox literal, uh Christianity believes. And so this matters because, like I said, man, God is doing something really cool, something really awesome here on Thursdays, on Sundays. People are coming to know about Jesus. And so the nature of that is as God starts moving and starts growing our church, there's a lot of you here for the first time you're reading the Bible. There's a lot of you for the first time, you're you're understanding kind of the things of God, but you really don't know much other than maybe like Jesus is the right answer when you're in church. Like that's what you you know. And so what happens is if we keep growing and we keep going and we don't kind of address this baseline, it can get a little messy. And so we we decided, hey, we're gonna slow down and we're gonna go um through some of the essential doctrines of the faith because the Lord in the Bible He tells us that he cares more than just a church experience. He says that he cares about us becoming mature. The apostle Paul in Ephesians um says that the goal is that we would all come to unity in what we believe and in knowing Jesus, and that we grow up into the fullness of Christ. That means knowing the debts and the love of Jesus Christ, um, so that he uses this word, not me, that we wouldn't be spiritual babies that get tossed by every really cool modern doctrine, this new idea, this new trend, this new persuasive voice, everything that you go on TikTok and man, that sounds really good, but is it actually true? Um said that we would have a solid, firm understanding of the essentials of faith so that when something comes our way, we're not being tossed, we're not being distracted, we're not being pushed away, and we're not causing division unnecessarily. And so this matters because what we believe, right? What we believe about anything about faith, about just the way life works, is going to shape how we live. It's gonna shape how we see the world, it's gonna shape how we treat one another, it's it's gonna importantly, most importantly, uh shape how we relate to God. So we started the first week with the question, who is God? And we we we had that A. W. Tozer quote Well, the most important thing about a person is what they believe about God. Then last week, Pastor John he talked about creation and our calling and our why we're here and just how you can see God's hand clearly in creation. And today I have the

Why Define Sin Clearly

SPEAKER_00 7:20

lucky pleasure of uh talking about the subject of sin. Um and I I know everyone in this room has heard that word, um, but we don't all actually hear it the same way. Maybe you grew up in church, you're a church kid, you know that church dance, I don't know, church clap, whatever, I don't I don't know what it's called. You know, if you know it, you know it. But when you think of sin, sin is basically the bad stuff, right? Sex, drugs, rock and roll, you're not supposed to swear, you're not supposed to do all these other things. Like that you think of sin as just like a list of things you're not supposed to do. Maybe you're newer to the faith, and the idea of sin is just that you know it's something Jesus saves you from, but you don't really know what it is. And like if he saved me from it, why do I still kind of have this pull? And so it's not really clear. And then some of you, you're not sure if you believe in any of this. Someone invited you here, man. We're happy you're here. But someone invited you, and you're just like, man, when you think of sin, you think of religious guilt. You think of it's it's a word that's been used to control people, to harm people, and you have a lot of baggage when it comes to that word. And you, your opinion is that people should be allowed to live as they please, and that honestly, your truth is your truth, and that's what's right, and it's right and wrong, it's just whatever you make of it. And so, wherever you're at, we need clarity because what you believe sin is is going to shape what you think is wrong with the world, what you think is wrong with you, and what you think Jesus actually came to do. And so, my hope today is that I can round out our view of sin, and like Pac said, week one, we are coming at this from a 30,000-foot view. I cannot cover everything, nor would it be possible to cover everything that there is to talk about sin in the next 30 or so minutes. It's just impossible. So, my hope is that you would have a framework, a structure to understand sin that you might be able to filter ideas through. That as you go into the text yourself, that as you read and you learn about God yourself, you might be able to discern what's actually being taught in the Bible.

Prayer And Posture To Listen

SPEAKER_00 9:24

And so, with that being said, we're gonna pray. And if you could stand with me for a moment, I believe we when we we pray, we it it is not just a mental thing, it is a full-body thing. And so if you could pray right now, just where you are, maybe you're you're you don't know how to pray, this is a simple thing. Would you just pray that God would speak to you? Would you pray now maybe for your friend or to the person to your left, to your right, in front of you, behind you? Would you pray that God would speak to them? And lastly, would you pray for me then? I'm a little tired. Would you would you pray that God would just speak through me and use me to bring truth to you guys and that I wouldn't get in the way of that.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

Father, we thank you for this time.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

Let us know more of you. We pray this all in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. And so today we're gonna be bouncing around a bit, but um before we get to our main passage, we're gonna need to find out our origin stories.

Sin’s Origin In Genesis

SPEAKER_00 10:47

Because if you are you like watching shows, you like watching reading books, origin stories are really, really important. How many people here have watched Star Wars? Okay, let's go. Right? You you if you watch the original three, man, you're kind of just thrown into this world and you have no idea who is Darth Vader, who is Yoda? Why is there a little green man in a swamp place? Like you don't know what's happening, and you're just thrown into this world. And so we need to have context. And so when you watch the the prequel, all of a sudden you're like, whoa, like I didn't know any of this. It opens up the entire world to make sense. But when you're placed in this new setting, all of a sudden you're like, oh, I have context for that. And so that's what we're gonna be doing here today. We're gonna be we're gonna be going to the origin story of sin. Where did it start? Because newsflash, sin has not always been here. Um, and so we need to find out where it came in. And so if you have your Bibles, um, we're gonna be going back to a familiar passage. We've just been in a series in Romans, and so we're gonna be starting off in Romans 5, um, and we're gonna go through verse 12. And so, can I get a thumbs up? Let me let me know that you guys found it. If you guys are on your phone or if you're just gonna follow on screen, that's also good. Um, but here we go. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. So we're gonna stop there because Paul is what he's doing right now is he's gonna point us back to the beginning. He's referencing the book of Genesis, the creation story and the story of the fall. And so, if you don't know what that is, that is literally the first few pages of your Bible. That is the book of Genesis, that is the beginning of everything. And so we're gonna start there because Genesis is basically our human origin story. Right? We we learned last week that God created everything from nothing, He created light, He created land, He created oceans, plants, animals, and then He created humanity. Adam and Eve. And he places them in the Garden of Eden, and it's not the surviving grind kind of place that we know. It's not this world where you gotta hustle and bustle. It's it's completely different. It's what you would imagine paradise to be. Right? It's the place where there is no death, there is no shame, there is no hiding, there it is no brokenness. Maybe you've heard the word utopia. This was that place. And so the biggest thing, though, is not just that there's perfection everywhere, it's that they're literally with God. In Genesis, you see consistently that God was walking among them in the garden. And that it was, it seems that you could imply that there was a regular occurrence of them dwelling with God and they had this closeness, this intimacy. There's peace, there's trust. And so then God gives one command, not a list of fifty, he doesn't give a bunch of rules, he gives one command. He says, You can eat from every tree here except one. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And real quick, people always say it's an apple. Um, it is not an apple. The Bible does not say that, it just says the word fruit. And so I just feel like apples get slandered, and so we're gonna cut that out today. Um, because it doesn't say that. Um but here's the pivotal moment that the command is clear, and all of a sudden, this talking serpent shows up. I know it's crazy, but it happened. And and we know that now to be Satan or the devil or Lucifer, whatever your choice of word is. He doesn't really even deserve to have too much of a spotlight here. Um and he doesn't come in loud though. He comes in really subtle and he starts twisting words

The World’s Broken Patterns

SPEAKER_00 14:26

and planting questions. He starts saying, Did God really say? Is God holding out on you? Can you really trust them? He starts planting these little kind of twists, half-truths, basically lies, right? That's what it is. And he and he starts putting them in this position where Adam and Eve come to a decision point. They can either trust what God has said or they can trust the other voice. And as you look around, it's clear what they chose. They chose the other voice. They they take what God said not to take and they cross the line. And so that's the moment when everything changes. That's when sin enters into our story. And so when Paul says sin came into the world through one man, he's not just doing theology, he's not just he's not quoting some myth. He's saying this is literally where the whole mess began. That there was a moment when they had a choice between to trust God and trust something else, and they trusted something else. And so sin enters, and right after that, you start seeing the dominoes fall real quick. Rip the page right after. Things that were working good start breaking. The relationship between man and woman gets tense. All of a sudden there's power struggle, there's blaming, there's there's just accusation. Shame shows up out of nowhere, they they realize they're naked, fear kicks in, they're hiding from God, there's distance from God, uh, and pain enters the picture. It says that uh I'm you know, I just had to witness it. My my wife during childbirth, it it got hard, it got difficult, and so pain enters into the picture. And then the last one, this is the the the biggest one, is death started to become a reality. God says, To the dust you will return. That's heavy, that's that's mortality. That's right. That's the reality that we're all at some point going to die. That's when it enters into the picture. And so when Paul says death through sin, he's saying, This is why life is like this. This is why history has always been plagued by the same stuff. If you've read a history book and you just read the same thing, it's the same thing: war, corruption, evil, poverty, injustice across every creed, across every race, across every language, across every time period,

Diagnosing Sin Rightly

SPEAKER_00 16:40

every every government system, everything. You always see the same things repeat. And you don't have to go searching for it, it's everywhere. And but here's the thing it's not just out there, it's not just some general thing, it's also personal. It's in our lives, it's in the people in this room. Every one of us has been hit by the follow-up of sin. Like some of you guys have watched your family fall apart. Some of you have have have been through divorce in your homes and you've seen divorce and you know the pain that that's happened. So some of you know what it's like to get your heart broken, you're you're so devastated, or you you've dealt with sickness that's been debilitating and changed the entire course of your life, or you've seen that in someone that you love and you just don't you feel helpless. Some of you have have lost someone, and that that memory is still fresh and it doesn't feel real. Some of you have battled depression, uh, and some are battling depression, anxieties, anger, frustration, stuff you don't even know how to explain. It's just there. Some of you have been hurt by people who were supposed to protect you, right? Maybe they abuse you physically, emotionally. They they broke your trust, maybe sexually, like they they hurt you. And some of you, you're just tired. Because life has been hard. It's just been beating and beating and beating on you, and you were like, what is going on? And at the same time, though, if we're being honest, we're not just victims in the story. We've played a part too. We've said things we shouldn't have said, we've done things we regret, we've hurt people, we've chosen selfishness, we've lied, we look for comfort in the wrong places, we've made messes, and so when Paul says that spread to all men because all sinned, he's saying, Yeah, this is universal. Like every one of us has felt it, every one of us has contributed it. It's literally in the grain of our nature, of our world. Like in Romans, it says, even the creation is groaning in the pains of sin. Like it's it's hurting, we're all hurting. It's a universal experience, and so we realize something is wrong. Whether you believe in God or not, you you you look at the world and you say, something is wrong. And now we know where it comes from, we know its name, we know the consequence, but what is what is it, right? What and what's the solution? And this is where I want us to lock in because at this point, how we define sin is going to impact how we deal with it. Like, remember, who who here remembers the good old days of WebMD before we had Chat GPT? If you if you would go on Google and you you put your symptoms, you'd you say, I have a cough and my my back hurts, and it'd tell you you're pregnant. Like that's the kind of thing that would happen when you went on WebMD. And so if we don't properly assess something, we we are gonna diagnose it wrong and we're gonna give it the wrong treatment. And so, like a doctor, my hope is to to properly define sin, so then the treatment makes the most sense. And so we're gonna we're gonna go right now to Ephesians 2, and we're gonna be reading through verses 1 through 3. And

Sin In Us: Bent Nature

SPEAKER_00 19:53

so I'll give you guys a moment to pull it up. We're also gonna have it right here on the screen. Um, and we'll start. Ephesians 2, 1 through 3. And you were dead in the trespasses and sin and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. So, what is Paul saying here? He is describing every single human to ever exist before what we're going to call the treatment. This is the first layer of sin, and this is sin, is something that's in us. Paul says you were dead, right? That that's a spiritual condition, and he says that we lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind. So what he's saying, he's saying we have something in us, right? Every single person has something in us that's bent the wrong way. Like there's an inner pull, a default setting. Um, the Bible calls it a sin nature. Um, sometimes you'll see it list like uh psalmists will use it the word iniquity or original sin. Psalm 51, 5 points to the idea where that David says, I was conceived in iniquity. It's not meaning that he did something sinful in that moment, but rather that in his very nature he was born a sinful man. And so we're all sinful from the start. And Jesus starts backs up that bigger point in the New Testament when he says, No one is good but God. And you can see that in Mark 10, 18. And so, in other words, the problem isn't just out there, it's in here. And this matters a lot because in 2026, the vibe right now is man, people are basically good. And they only become bad because of what has happened to them. And listen, I'm not denying that trauma is real, environments are real, injustice is real. Um, those things shape people, but the Bible's diagnosis is deep. Deeper. Even if you change the environment, you still haven't changed the heart. Reality agrees with this too, because if you ever have come across a toddler, you don't have to teach them to hit a kid. You don't have to teach them to bite. You don't have to teach them to lie. It comes factory installed. It is a preset in them. And so it's they're cute, but it's terrifying. Like, how could this little cute thing be so kind of twisted? The things they say sometimes is scary. And this starts to change how you see the world. Because this is what it means. It means politicians are gonna let you down. The ones you love, the ones you can't stand, like man, it they're all gonna let you down. It means your heroes will disappoint you, your favorite leader, your best friend, your spouse, your parents, and yes, even your kid, as sweet as they are, they're not an angel, uh, they're a sinner in a cute tiny body, but it also means this you and I have the capacity to do way worse than we think. And Jeremiah says the condition of the human heart is that it's deceitful, right? That it it we it's just it's it's broken. And so when we say I would never do blank, I never do that, right? That's that's the type of thing we we say. I never do, I can't believe that person, I would never do that. We should be careful. That's usually pride talking. I mean, Peter said that too. Jesus, I'll never deny you. I'm with you to the end, man. A few hours later, a little girl comes up. Aren't you with Jesus? No. Are you I thought I could swear you're with Jesus? No. No, you definitely are the one that's with Jesus. No. And then he starts cursing to make sure people know I'm not part of that guy's crew. And so here's the thing: the point isn't to live paranoid, right? And to be a skeptic of everyone. Like some of you are like, amen, I know I can't trust people. Listen, that's not the point here. It it I just want us to live in reality. I want us to live with a uh a clear view of the world. And this is the truth. You're always capable of drifting, you're always capable of rationalizing and doing something that you never thought you'd do. If the right pressure hits, the right temptation shows up, or the right fear takes over. And so, like, think about it. Think about historically, people always go back to slavery, they go back to Nazi Germany, they go back to all these points in time, and they're like, I can't believe those people did that.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

I I can.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

I mean, we're all capable of doing that, and that's what you need to understand is that we all have this capacity in us. I never thought I'd cheat on my wife. Man, I I really never thought it would happen, and it just happened. I ne I never thought I embezzled millions and millions of Oh man, I it happened. All this stuff starts with with a simple little prideful thing of like, oh, I'm not capable of doing that. No, the truth is you are. You need to you need to sit with that. You are capable, you and me too. I I I want to make sure I'm capable of doing some some really bad things, and I pray to God every single day that I know I'm capable of doing. I say, hey, Lord, please help me. And so here's the thing practically, this should make us more real, like realistic in relationships. Like as we start to grow, we're gonna have conflict.

Sin We Do: Moral Lines

SPEAKER_00 25:35

This is something we need to understand. We're gonna hurt each other, we're gonna misunderstand each other, people are gonna let you down, and you're gonna let people down. Um, and instead of acting shocked every time it happens, this should build a humility in us. It should make us quicker to repent, it should make us quicker to forgive, slower to cancel people, and more serious about being on guard in our own hearts. And and this is the ultimate reality is that it should stop us from putting ultimate hope in people to fix everything. Like people can help, uh, leaders matter, systems matter, family matters, but none of them are perfect, and our hope should not be in them. And so if our nature is bent, then it makes sense that when we act on that bent, sin becomes manifest through action. In the same passage, Paul says we carry out the desires of our flesh and the mind. And so what's going on inside eventually makes its way out. And so this is my second point is that sin is also something we do. I think most of us understand this one, but the way it plays out in our modern context is extremely flawed. Here's the truth. In the Bible, God has drawn clear lines in the sand for what is good and what is evil. We call that the moral law, and the Ten Commandments are the clear summary of it. You can find that in the Mosaic Law. I have the passage up there if you want to look at them. Um so we all know, right? It's wrong to lie, it's wrong to steal, it's wrong to murder, it's wrong to commit adultery. And what's wild is most people, even if they don't believe in God, maybe you're in here and you you're still wrestling with this idea of God, you still get that on some level. Yeah, like, yeah, those things are so wrong. Lying, stealing, cheating. Come on, that's that's that makes so much sense. Something in us knows it makes sense. The Bible explains why. It says, even though our nature is bent, we still have a conscience. Roman says that the work of the law is written on our hearts, so even if it gets distorted, um, because it's just just the nature of being in a broken world, it starts to get distorted, we know what's right and wrong, which is why we can look back at Nazi Germany and say, hey man, what Hitler did was evil. And we can say that not as an opinion, but as a fact. And here's the issue: if we don't have objective morality, then evil is just a preference. If morality is only subjective, then nobody can ever say anything is truly wrong. The strongest thing you can say is, I don't like it. You might think that what I'm doing right here, you can say you're doing something evil. If your basis is not in God, then that's just your opinion. And that's the lie push today. Sin is basically whatever you personally think is wrong, and everybody gets to make their own version. But here's the thing, nobody actually lives like that. Our culture contradicts itself consistently, right? Like it's not actually let live, and like we all have our standards of wrong. This is the standard that the culture sets and simultaneously breaks. So here it is.

Cultural Double Standards

SPEAKER_00 28:35

This is not gonna make me friends, but I love you guys truly, and so I'd rather be uncomfortable saying the truth than you know being front buddy buddy with everyone. Racism and discrimination is wrong except when it's towards white people. Murder is wrong except when it comes to abortion. Abuse of kids is wrong, except when it comes to mutilating them in the name of comfort. Cheating is wrong, except pornography is normal and harmless. Sexualizing and objectifying women is wrong except when it's female empowerment. Neglecting your family is wrong, except for when it's your career, your grind, I'm doing this for us. Don't judge is the rule until someone disagrees, then we destroy them. Lying is wrong, except it was for the kids, it was to keep the peace, it was none of their business. Greed is bad except when it's called ambition or securing the bag. Pride is toxic, except when it's packaged that's confidence. Selfishness is bad, except when it's called self-love. Gossip is wrong, except when it's prayer requests, or I'm just concerned. Coveting is wrong, except when we are scrolling on TikTok and Instagram and YouTube all day. Drunkenness is a problem, except when it's just one beer after work, after a long day, or wine, or just I deserve this and it's how I cope. Exploiting people is wrong except when it's business or the deal, or that's just how the work that's just how it works. That's just the industry I'm in. And this is what sin does. It becomes action. It takes what God clearly calls wrong, and then it convinces us that if we can rename it, justify it, and normalize it, then that's okay. And is the scary part is that it's not just those people out there, it's not one political party or one group of people, it's all of us. We all have categories where we excuse what God calls sins, and we all have sins we're tempted to call not a big deal. And that's why we need clarity on sin as what we do, because if we redefine sin, and we will also redefine what we think we need Jesus for, and it quickly becomes they need Jesus, I don't. They're the bad people I'm not. And so sin in this category is ultimately to disobey God and the standard he said, and so the question becomes where have I redefined sinned? Like, where are the areas that if I'm honest and put it next to God's word, I'd be guilty? And here's the thing there there are things popping in your head right now, and I know the temptation is to shut that down. And so I just want us to pause for a moment and just let that idea sink you for a bit for a minute. Would you just pray to God?

SPEAKER_01 31:17

Like, Lord, would you make that clear to me?

SPEAKER_00 31:44

And so we're gonna hop back in here. Ephesians 2, we're gonna go back to that same verse to kind of recap to make sure we're we're still following in the same track. And so you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind, and we're by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. And so if you will look at Paul's flow in this passage, he starts with what's in us. He says we were dead, driven by the passions of our flesh, the desires of the flesh and the mind. Then he moves to what we do. He says we walked in sin and we carried out those desires, so it's not just feelings, it's actions, it becomes a lifestyle. And then Paul takes it one step further. He says that we were following the course of this world. Following the prince of the power of the air. That word following is huge because if you keep walking in sin long enough, sin stops feeling like something you did

Patterns Become Chains

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and it starts becoming something you're under. Repeated sin turns into patterns, and patterns start to feel like chains. The same Pastor John has often said is that if you give sin an inch, it becomes a roll, a ruler. That's a bar. And that's why Jesus doesn't talk about sin like it's just a bad habit that you can drop whenever you feel like it. He straight up says, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. And you see, often sin, like this is what we need to understand, sin shows up as a solution. It's the bait. It's like just do this and you'll feel better, just do this and you'll be okay. And sometimes, you know, quite point blank, it's the dirty stuff. You just you know, just drink tonight. You you deserve it, and you need it to relax, you need to, you need it to sleep, you need it to cope, just get high, it'll take the edge off. Now you can't face stress without it. Porn is going to satisfy you. It feels like relief for a second, but it starts rewiring what you crave and how you see people, and and you're stuck in a cycle you hate. And maybe, maybe it's just for for the engaged and the dating couples in here, or it's just like, hey, just cross the line. It'll make you feel wanted, it'll make you feel better, it'll make you feel like this this is the right thing, and now you're carrying shame and secrecy. Just fit in and twist your personality a bit, right? And and and and all of a sudden you're living a double life. Just explode, right? Put them in their place, and now your temper is the thing people brace for when you walk in the room. Right? Those are the unacceptable sins. Those are the sins that we all clearly talk about, but what about the acceptable ones? The respectable ones. If I keep everybody happy, I'll be safe. So you start people pleasing, and now you can't say no without feeling guilt. If I just grind harder, I'll finally feel secure. So work becomes your refuge, and now you're never at rest. Man, if I could if I could control everything, nothing bad will happen, and now you're anxious because you can't actually control life. Just scroll for a moment. Don't think about the bad thoughts, just scroll for a moment, just check out, and suddenly you're numb all the time. Just by this, you deserve it, and you're chasing comfort and calling it therapy. If I stay angry, I stay protected, but bitterness is quietly running your whole life and ruining it. Some sins look dirty and some sins look respectable, but they're doing the same thing. Sin promises freedom, but it always, hear me, it always produces slavery. And this slavery ultimately leads to death. And that, my friends, is sin. And I know this isn't your typical sermon where everything gets wrapped up with a nice little bow at the end, and we all walk out feeling warm and fuzzy. But I actually think that it's important that we actually sit in this for a moment because if we don't rightly understand how broken this world is and how deep this runs in us, then the solution is not going to make sense. I could give you the solution right now, and for some of you would go over your head and you're just thinking about what's for lunch. I want you to sit with the reality, man, we are broken, and this world is broken, and I need to sit in that. The gospel will just sound like a religious add-on instead of the rescue it actually is. And so let me say clearly: there is hope. There's a reason we're here in the church right now, and we're going to talk about that hope in the coming weeks, and we're going to get to the good news. There is good news, but I don't want to rob you of the discomfort you feel right now. Because I truly believe that this discomfort

Respectable Sins Exposed

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is good for us. It's honest, it's reality, and it's all too often in the American church we want to move on to the good news without sitting in the bad. And I don't want our desire to feel something good in the moment to steal us from the deeper joy that comes from actually with from actually wrestling with something this intense. Something, sometimes the most loving thing is to just tell the truth and let it land. Like this is part of the spiritual journey. The maturing, and you're going to face hard realities in your life, and we have to learn to sit with them. And for those of you who already know the hope we have, I hope this does the same thing. Don't rush past this eater. Let it deepen your gratitude, let it remind you how glorious our hope actually is. Because the darker you understand the problem to be, the brighter the rescue becomes. And so this past year, I was reading through the Old Testament, and I and this thought just came to me right now. It's like whenever the prophets would come, they would warn them. They say, What you're doing, this world is it's messed up and you need to turn. And when the people actually did turn, you know what they did first? They would stop and they would mourn and they would grieve. They would feel the weight of what they'd done. And that was often the times where there was a glimpse of hope. Where you can see God moving and working is when the people would stop and actually sit with the evil they had done. But the times that it didn't go well was when they say, Yeah, we agree with you, prophet. Cool. But we want to go on to the good stuff now. Tell us how God is gonna bless us. I don't want that to be us. I want us to sit in the brokenness. Because there is hope, but we really have to understand what that hope. To get a full picture of what that hope is, we need a full picture of what we're dealing with. And so, if you could stand with me, we're just gonna pray here.

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Our Father in heaven, help us see.

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Help us see things the way they truly are, because when we see clearly, we will see you more as we are. Show us the brokenness in our lives and in our world, and let us feel the weight of it. Show us the consequences of our sins in our lives and those around us. Expose what's really going on in us. Bring to light the things you put in your place, the things we worship, the things that have quietly become our masters. Give us courage not to run from conviction. Teach us to mourn now that we may laugh later. Turn our grief into repentance and our repentance into joy. Mature us, Lord. Grow us up into the fullness of your love, into the likeness of Christ.

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Amen. You may go in peace.