4 Truths About Your Sin Diagnosis:
- You are a sinner by BIRTH. (Rom 5:12-21)
- You are a sinner by CHOICE. (Rom 1:29-31
- Sin disqualifies you from HEAVEN. (Rom 3:23)
- Jesus was DELIVERED for our sin. (Rom 4:25)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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So I had this doctor's appointment, and the physician's assistant came in.
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And you know the normal things you go through when you go to a doctor's appointment.
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They check your weight, and they check your pulse, and they check my blood pressure.
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I remember the physician's assistant, upon checking my blood pressure, had this completely horrified look on her face.
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She said, "Are you feeling okay?" And I said, "Yeah, I feel great." She said, "Your blood pressure is completely out of control.
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"Look, this is as serious as it gets, and I need to talk to the doctor about this." And then she left the room.
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So I'm sitting there in this room on the little couch with the big sheet of tissue paper on it, and it seemed like she was gone for about three hours.
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And it was a time, I'll be honest with you, it was a time of serious reflection for me as I sat on that, thinking, "You know, I've had a lot of regrets in life, and didn't accomplish everything I've wanted to." you know, the things you reflect about in the face of your impending death.
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I thought about my love, Aaron. I thought about my kids.
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It was serious reflection time.
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And I thought, "What's going to happen to my family when I'm gone?" Well, the doctor comes in with the physician's assistant, and he said, "I'm really worried about your blood pressure." I said, "I wasn't either until, you know, a little bit ago." And he looked over on the cabinet, the little sink/shelf area thing they have there, and he said, "Is that the cuff that they use to take your blood pressure?" I said, "Yeah, it is." He goes, "Oh, that's the cuff they use on like six-year-olds." So he got a big boy blood pressure cuff and he took my blood pressure and I was fine.
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But I want to talk about going to the doctor, because Jesus said something about that.
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In Mark 2.17, Jesus said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick..." I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.
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And that's something for us to sit down and reflect upon tonight.
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When do people go to the doctor?
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You're like, "Well, when they're sick, right?" No. People go to the doctor when they know that they're sick.
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You see.
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And it's Good Friday.
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And I've got to tell you, as somebody that's been in ministry 20 some odd years, however long it's been, this gets harder every year.
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Not because the message isn't compelling, it's not that.
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It's not because the gospel has gotten old.
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The reason this gets harder and harder is because every year, We are more and more and more and more losing the concept of sin in our culture.
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Just go ask people. Just go ask people. Just go ask random people.
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What is sin? I mean, when you think about it, sexually, anything goes.
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Addiction, which is really a form of idolatry, is called a disease.
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Abortion has been approved by the government.
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Coarse joking and crude language is just normal.
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And today, really, the only thing that the world would agree on as sin is not accepting someone's unbiblical lifestyle.
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The reality is that we're all born sinners, and rather than acknowledge the truth, even in the church sometimes, we're more content to excuse sin or to justify sin, but we are ultra-resistant to confess it.
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because many people believe, in the end, "You know, I'm really not that bad of a person.
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God's just going to ignore my sin.
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Whoops! Nobody's perfect!" That's a terrible mindset, because it minimizes the wickedness of sin, and worse, it minimizes the holiness of God.
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So you see, we come to the cross of Jesus Christ and we miss the significance of the event, and you come to a Good Friday service, as is happening all in this area, and you have preachers standing up, saying, "Jesus died for your sin!" And you have people filling seats everywhere, going, "What does that even mean?" I'd like you to bow your heads with me, please.
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Father, as we turn to Your Word now, I ask that we would allow Your Word to define things, as we are a people unwittingly affected by culture.
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Father, I pray not only for this church, but I pray for every church in this area right now that is proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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I pray, Father, that 2019 would be a year of revival.
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It would be a year of people who are done living for themselves, and instead turn to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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Fathers, we turn to Your Word now.
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May Your Holy Spirit take the seed of Your Word.
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And Father, I pray Your Holy Spirit finds fertile soil right here, so that that seed would take root, and that seed would multiply.
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We pray these things in Jesus' name.
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We're in the book of Romans.
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Romans is the most comprehensive commentary on the significance of the ministry of Jesus Christ.
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Chapters 1-3 generally describe the problem, which is sin, and chapter 4 starts really describing the solution, which is God's grace.
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That salvation, God's grace, is appropriated by faith in the promises of God.
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And to illustrate what that looks like, when we get to Romans 4, Paul uses the story of Abraham.
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God made a promise to Abraham to bring life from death.
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And the promise that God made to Abraham made no human sense whatsoever.
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But Abraham believed God.
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And that's the very essence of faith.
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It's taking God at His word.
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Look at Romans 4.22.
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It says, "This is why Abraham's faith was counted to him as righteousness, but the words it was counted to Him were not for His sake alone, but for ours also.
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It will be counted to us who believe in Him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord." Stop there.
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You see, in Paul talking about Abraham, he's saying that Abraham's story is not a one and done.
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That it's for us today.
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Same God. Same faith.
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and it's faith in what God accomplished through Jesus Christ.
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What did God accomplish through Jesus Christ?
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Well, this year, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, we're taking a little turn from what we normally do.
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Normally we take a giant chunk of text and we work our way through it, but this year we're studying one verse.
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We're going to do half today, and we're going to do the other half on Sunday.
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And that verse is Romans 4.25.
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that says, speaking of Jesus, "who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification." What does that mean?
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Let's talk about the word "trespasses." The word literally means "fall beside." And it was used to describe someone who was on a path and deviated from the path that they were supposed to be on.
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That is trespassing.
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In our vernacular, we would say it is to cross the line.
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Here's the line.
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Don't go across that line.
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And trespassing is, "I'm crossing the line." I hear what you say, I see what I'm supposed to do, what I'm not supposed to do, but I'm doing it because I want to.
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That's what a trespass is.
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It falls under the category of sin.
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And when it comes to God, when it comes to the Word of God, God says, "Do this!" And we say, "I'm not going to do that." Or God says, "Listen, don't do this!" And we say, "I'm doing it." Mark 2.17, Jesus said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician.
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But those who are sick I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." So simply tonight I want to ask, Can we allow the great physician to rightly diagnose our real issue with sin?
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Can we put away our six-year-old blood pressure cuffs of the culture that are giving us a wrong reading of the problem?
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Can we put the big boy cuff on to get an accurate diagnosis?
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If you're taking notes, I want you to jot down four truths about your sin diagnosis.
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And these all come from the book of Romans.
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The first one, number one, is this.
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You are a sinner by birth.
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The Bible tells us that Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, and the Bible says that that sin is passed down.
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So understand, people, that you are born a sinner because your parents are sinners.
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You're like, "Wait a second, Pastor Jeff. I don't like you talking about my papa like that." Hang on a second.
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You know why your parents are sinners?
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Because their parents were sinners.
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And you're like, "I knew I shouldn't have come to that church.
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Now Pastor Jeff is ripping on my grandpa." You can trace this all the way back to Adam and Eve.
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And if I didn't offend you yet, I need to tell you, "Parents, guess what you passed on to your children?
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Your children are born with a sin nature." Now see, that might be a little offensive, but when it comes to parents especially, that's an easy sell, honestly.
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Because if you don't have kids, just ask any parent here, "Do your children know how to sin?" Parents, do your children know how to sin?
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Yeah. Do your children naturally know how to lie, how to sneak, how to steal, how to be selfish?
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The question is, who taught them that?
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Parents, have you ever sat down with your kids when they were real young and said, "Listen, listen sweetheart, you're going to find there are situations in life where you're stuck and you're just going to have to learn how to put together a really well-crafted lie to get out of it." Have you ever done that for your kids? I sure hope not.
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Do your kids know how to craft a lie to get out of trouble? Do they?
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Yes! And you didn't teach them. Where did that come from?
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And look, I'm not pointing fingers. I've got two kids myself.
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And I know I didn't teach them how to sin, and I'm pretty sure Aaron didn't.
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But look, it's something you're born with.
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And we inherited that from Adam.
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The reality is you're not a sinner because you sin.
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You sin because you're a sinner.
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You're a sinner by birth.
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And number two, is you're a sinner by choice.
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You're a sinner by choice.
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Sin is, at the very essence, it's self-centeredness.
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It's nobody tells me what to do.
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I'm in charge of my life.
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I do what makes me happy.
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And that's why there's a natural resistance to the Gospel.
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That we say, "Hey, get off the throne of your life and allow Jesus Christ, the rightful position, on the throne of your hearts." And we say, "No, because I want to live life on my own terms." You're a sinner by choice, and it's pervasive, it's external, and it's internal, it's acts and it's attitudes, it's what you do, it's what you think, it's what you say.
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We are not only born sinners, but we choose to sin.
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And you understand that's why God gave us the Old Testament.
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The purpose of God's law was to show us that we have a problem with sin.
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We're going to do a little exercise.
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We're going to boil the law down just to the Ten Commandments.
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And if you've ever violated any of these commandments that I'm going to give you, I just want you to give yourself a little checkmark.
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If you've ever violated them, just give yourself a checkmark.
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You know the first four commandments that God gave have to do with our relationship with God.
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God says, "You have no other gods before me.
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You won't make for yourself any idols.
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You won't misuse my name, using the Lord's name in vain." That's the third commandment.
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The fourth commandment is to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
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Make sure that you don't get so consumed with work and life, you never take time to worship.
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So let me ask you, has God always been the priority of your life?
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Has worship and adoration and prayer and thoughts towards God, has He always been a priority?
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If not, then you've violated the first commandment.
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Have you ever had anything in your life that even for a season was more important than your relationship with God?
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You're violating the second commandment.
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Have you ever said anything that misrepresented the name of God?
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You broke the third commandment. You keep in score?
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Have you always made it a priority to set aside time to worship that under the Old Testament law you've broken the fourth commandment?
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And you see, the rest of the commandments have to do with our relationship with one another.
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The fifth commandment is honor your father and mother.
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Have you always obeyed your parents perfectly? Have you? Have you?
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I see some kids looking at their parents right now.
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"Dad, is he serious?" "Yes, I'm serious." Have you?
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If you have not, then you give yourself a checkmark. Guilty.
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The sixth commandment is, "Do not murder." And you're like, "Yes! Yes!" I was feeling so convicted, I've never killed anybody.
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But hang on, hang on. You know what Jesus said about that?
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Jesus said if you've ever hated someone, it's the same as committing murder, because it comes from here.
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Let me ask you, according to Jesus' definition, have you ever murdered someone? Have you ever hated someone?
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If you've ever hated someone, you've got to give yourself a mark.
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The seventh commandment is do not commit adultery.
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And again, there's some people that are like, "Okay, all right, I've always been faithful to my wife.
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I've never committed an adulterous affair. I'm good there." Well, hang on a second.
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Jesus said if you've looked at a woman lustfully, you've committed adultery in your heart.
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Have you ever done that? Then you're guilty.
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The eighth commandment is do not steal.
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Have you ever taken something that doesn't belong to you?
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Give yourself a mark.
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Anybody doing well? Because this last one, there's two more, but these last two will catch you, even if you're doing really good so far.
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The ninth commandment is do not bear false witness.
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In other words, do not lie.
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Have you ever known what the truth is and you deliberately told a lie?
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Have you ever done that?
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Have you ever told a white lie, a magenta lie?
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It doesn't matter what color you call it, it's still a lie.
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Have you ever done that?
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Give yourself a mark.
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And the 10th commandment is "Do not covet." Have you always been totally satisfied with the things that God's provided you?
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Or has there ever been an instance where you've seen something that God gave someone else and you're like, "Man, I wish I had that. I wish my wife was like his wife.
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I wish I had that guy's car. I wish I had that guy's house." Have you ever had that going on? That's called covening.
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So how'd you do? How'd you do?
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According to God's law, according to God's Word, Is it true that you're a sinner by choice? Is it true?
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Number three, sin disqualifies you from heaven.
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Sin disqualifies you from heaven. Romans 3.23 says, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Sin disqualifies you from heaven.
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Now I want you to imagine that you're standing on the coast of California.
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It's you, and it's me, and it's...
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Who's like the Pirates ace this year? What's that?
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Who's the Pirates ace this year?
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Jamison Tyon? He's the Pirates ace?
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All right, prayer service for the Pirates will be next Thursday.
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But let's say, Jamison Tyon and you and I, we're standing on the coast of California, and we each have a baseball.
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And we're told we have to throw that baseball and hit Hawaii.
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How far do you think Jamison Tyon can throw that ball?
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Maybe he throws it 300 feet.
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Maybe you step up.
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Maybe you throw it 200 feet.
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And then I step up, bloop, five feet.
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The question is, which one of us made it? None of us.
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"Wait, wait, wait, wait, but James and Tiah made it way further than you did, Pastor Jeff." Yeah, that's absolutely true. He made it way further than I did, but he didn't make it.
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And see, that's what Romans 3.23 tells us.
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We've all sinned, we've all fallen short of the glory of God.
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Whether you've fallen a lot short or you've fallen a little short, you've fallen short. You have and I have.
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And God, you see, He's righteous and He's just.
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And He's not going to just allow an unholy person into His holy presence.
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Think about it this way.
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We did the little check marks here with the Ten Commandments.
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But I just want you to think, over the course of your life, how many sins do you think you've committed over the course of your life?
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Do you think it's in the thousands? Do you think it's in the millions?
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We're talking every word, every thought, every attitude, every action.
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displeases the Lord.
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Is it in the billions?
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How many sins do you think you've committed?
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However many you think you've committed, I want you to take that number, and imagine you showed up in a courtroom on the earth committing that same number of crimes.
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What kind of a judge is going to let you off?
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A really bad and dishonest judge is going to let you off.
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So whether you've sinned once, or a million times a day, every day, You're guilty and you've fallen short, and sin is a debt.
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It's an obligation that you have the inability to pay, and it disqualifies you from heaven.
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At this point it would be really depressing if I said, "You are loved. See you Sunday." But remember I said there's four truths about your sin diagnosis, and I said all that to get to the good news.
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Number four, Jesus was delivered for our sin.
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Look at Romans 4.25 again.
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"Who was delivered up for our trespasses." Stop there. Delivered.
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To be honest with you, when I've read this in the past time, I saw delivered and I just thought about somebody delivering the mail or delivering a message.
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I just thought of deliver as kind of a generic concept that it just meant handing something off to someone.
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But I did some studying this week and found that that word "deliver" in the Greek is a very technical term.
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Get this, the word "deliver" in the Greek literally refers to taking a guilty person and handing them over to the authorities in order to be punished.
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That's what the word "deliver" means in the Greek.
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Taking a guilty person, handing them to the authorities so that they might be punished.
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How is this word used in the Gospels?
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Well, it's used when Judas handed over Jesus to the chief priests.
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Mark 14.10.
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The Sanhedrin handing over Jesus to Pilate. Mark 15.1.
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Pilate handing over Jesus to the will of the people. Luke 23.25.
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And Pilate handing Jesus over to the soldiers. Mark 15.15.
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You're like, "Well, which one is being talked about in Romans 4.25?" And the answer is none of these.
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See, the glorious truth is ultimately the person who handed over Jesus in order to be punished was God Himself.
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We'll see that in Romans 8.32 this Sunday.
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So make sure you come back for that.
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God the Father handed Jesus over to the authorities to be punished.
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And there's also a real sense that Jesus handed Himself over to be punished.
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When you look at what Jesus said in John 10, Jesus said, "I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.
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No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.
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I have the authority to lay it down, and I have the authority to take it up again.
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This charge I received from my Father." So delivering up Jesus, you look at Pilate, you look at Judas, You look at the soldiers, you look at the crowd.
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They were just simply the mailmen organized by God to deliver His Son over to justice.
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You're like, "Wait, wait, wait, Pastor Jeff. I hear what you're saying.
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But according to your little Greek definition here, you said that delivering was handing a guilty person over to be punished, and Jesus Christ wasn't guilty of anything.
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But I am, and you are.
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We are the guilty who deserved to be handed over for punishment.
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And on the cross, Jesus Christ bore our punishment.
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Every act of sin we've committed was put on Him.
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And God gave Jesus the punishment that you and I deserve.
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Jesus Christ was delivered up for our trespasses.
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Do you believe that?
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Not just do you acknowledge that the event happened?
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Do you have faith in what this event accomplished?
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Because if you do, church, it changes you.
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Can you really look at Jesus Christ on the cross and the love of God being poured out?
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Can you look at that and really just go back to life on your terms?
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Can you really go back to living for your sin?
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Have you found that your sin offers you more than God offers you?
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Can you really walk out this door here tonight in a little bit and say, "God, I understand what you've done.
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You loved me so much that you were willing to hand over your son to brutally die on the cross, taking my punishment so that I would never have to face your judgment." Can you acknowledge that and walk out the door no different than you walked in?
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Can you be unaffected?
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Can you be unmoved? Can you be unchanged?
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And the answer is no, you can't.
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Not if you really get it.
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Not if you put your faith in Him and believe that Jesus Christ was delivered up for our trespasses.
Small Group Discussion
Read Romans 4:25
What was your big “take-away”? What stood out to you from this passage / message?
Who really delivered Jesus to die? See Romans 8:32. How does this affect the way you look at the cross?
What are some ways trespasses (sins) are redefined today? Confession time: Tell of a time you’ve made an excuse for something wrong you’ve done.