There are a lot of differing standpoints on the theology of sin. We’re going to start by looking at two of them.

The first viewpoint, stands firmly on the idea that since we are created in Gods image, and God doesn’t make evil things, we are born inherently good and without sin. According to this viewpoint, sin is something that we accumulate throughout our lives, and if we can just scrape it all off, we’ll get back to our original state of goodness.

A more common theological viewpoint is the theology of original sin. This viewpoint claims that ever since Adam and Eve sinned, every human being ever born has been born in sin, with an inherent sinful nature, and are doomed for destruction because of this sinful nature, apart from Christ. 

Which argument is supported by scripture? Let’s take a look.

Psalm 51:3-5 – “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.”

We see here that we don’t even get to the part about thinking and living, before we are full of sin. Our birth and conception happen in sin. Our environment on this earth as a whole is fallen, and our sinful hearts swan dive into the quagmire of debauchery and disobedience the first chance we get, when our favorite toy is taken away or mommy says no. 

In Niel T. Anderson’s book “Victory Over the Darkness”, Anderson says this. “According to Scripture, the center of the person is the heart. It is the “wellspring of life” (Prov. 4:23) In our natural state, “The Heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.” (Jer. 17:9) It is deceitful because it has been conditioned from the time of birth by the deceitfulness of a fallen world, rather than by the truth of God’s Word.” 

Jeremiah 17:5-9 – Thus says the Lord:“Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord.He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.” The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; Who can understand it?”

If you’ve ever watched a Disney movie, you know the mantra: Follow your heart! This is a lie straight from the pits of Hell and Disney. Our heart is DESPERATELY WICKED. In our natural state we are not only at a baseline of wickedness, but we’re desperate for it! We all are guilty of trusting our own flesh/heart. 

Not only are we guilty of trusting our own flesh/heart, but are cursed for doing it! The wages of sin are death (Romans 6:23)

Romans 7:15-25  For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God,  in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am. Who will deliver me from this body of death! Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. 

So we see here that even as redeemed christian saints; as sinners who have been redeemed by the cleansing blood of Christ, our flesh is still striving to serve the law of sin. We have the desire to carry out goodness, but cannot in our own power. Our sinful condition is so innate and strong, that even after we are indwelt by the holy spirit, it still wages war against the holiness of the Lord that now dwells inside us. 

Matthew 15:18-19 – But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.” 

Our condition doesn’t stop there; at some ambiguous “heart” that we can imagine is tucked away and hidden from the world. Our actions are the fruit of the condition of our hearts. Our words reveal the condition of our heart, and we can all agree that our words are often a mirror that we would rather not look into for fear of what it will reveal about our hearts. 

Hang tight, because it gets worse! It doesn’t stop at our words either. Out of our sinful hearts come things I’m sure we’d all agree we would never be guilty of; Murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.

Surely none of us are guilty of sins as bad as that right?

Matthew 5:21-24 – “You have heard that it was said of those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. 

Matthew 5:27-28 – “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

Jesus broadens the parameters for sin to include the things that don’t even come out of us. Even the thoughts we let ourselves linger on count as sin. The eyeroll and muttered insult about an annoying family member is sin. The spike of anger when someone posts something we don’t like, or a child doesn’t listen as fast as they should.

Basically, any reaction we have that comes from our Human Nature instead of the Spirit, most likely is sinful at least in its motivation, if not in its very nature. 

Romans 8:1-11 – “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By Sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in face the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of CHrist does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised CHrist Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”

Alright, so can we all agree that we need Jesus and the Holy Spirit? On our own, apart from him, we are helpless to do any good, and on our own we decay in sin. But we have a great hope that I’d like to explore with you next. 

“So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God,  in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am. Who will deliver me from this body of death!”

We desire earnestly to do it rightly. To please our Heavenly father and walk the straight and narrow. But we just can’t seem to get out of the rut we’re in. Maybe it’s a chronic bad attitude, an over-reliance on alcohol, or a habbit you use to decompress after work that you know you’ve taken too far. Or maybe it’s something more serious. Maybe it’s an addiction to pornography, masturbation, same sex attraction that you aren’t fighting, or something that there isn’t even a label for, but that you know in your spirit is deeply sinful. 

In Mark Comer’s “The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry”, he sums up the tension between our flesh and spirit like this. 

“To be made in the image of God means that we’re rife with potential. We have the Divine’s capacity in our DNA. We’re like God. We were created to “Image” his behavior, to rule like he does, to gather up the raw materials of our planet and reshape them into a world for human beings to flourish and thrive. But that’s only half the story. We’re also made from the dirt, “ashes to ashes, dust to dust”; we’re the original biodegradable containers. Which means we’re born with limitations. We’re not God. We’re mortal, not immortal. Finite, not infinite. Image and dust. Potential and limitations. One of the key tasks of our apprenticeship to Jesus is living into both our potential and our limitations.” 

*Disclaimer* I do not recommend this book to an immature Christian who does not have a solid understanding of scripture and discernment. Comer has some bad Theology mixed in with some good ideas, but the reader needs to be able to weed through that.

So now that we’ve firmly established we are sinful beings from the start, and keep on sinning despite our deliverance, let’s turn the page. I love to make things tactical, guys. The first step in addressing a problem is to acknowledge it exists. The second, as we’ll look at next, is to look at how the issue comes to be. So let’s look at how we are tempted to sin.

So moving on to point two. How are we tempted? 

WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE TO BE TEMPTED AND GIVE IN TO SIN?

Genesis 3:1-7 – Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made.

He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise,^b she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.” 

WHAT ARE THE STEPS THAT LED UP TO EVE SINNING?

Eve was tempted to: 

• Question God’s word 
• Question the consequence of breaking God’s word
  • Will I really die? Surely not. Will it really hurt my kid if I yell at them? Will I really hurt my brain and damage my soul if I watch porn? Omitting truth isn’t really lying right? 
• Trusting her own Judgment 
• Lust of the eyes 
• To be equal with God in standing and knowledge 
• Legalism.
  • We see here that Eve really was the first Pharasee. When asked by the serpent what God really said, Even adds onto Gods word. She claims that God said “Neither shall you touch it lest you die.” but there is no written record of God ever saying those words. 
  • Bert Spalding used the analogy once, that God gives us a highway, and we give ourselves guardrails. I think that’s very true in this case; she added onto God’s word, which was one of the steps along the way that led to her sin. 

Eve wasn’t forced into sinning. Eve was deceived as she chose to lean on her own understanding rather than the words of the Lord. Now, this is going to be a big theme in this class, and really, the class all boils down to “Don’t listen to yourself, listen to God.” Class dismissed, we can all go home now. 

 The passage does not say “When Eve heard these persuasive arguments, she ate the fruit.” or “When the serpent put her in a headlock and shoved fruit down her throat.”  No, the passage says “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of it’s fruit and ate,”. Can you hear her reasoning it out? I can, and if I’m honest, it sounds much like how I try to reason out my own sin. On a fundamental level, the moment we choose to sin, we are simply saying that we know what is best for us in that moment, and the Lord does not. As hard as that is to hear, and as much as we might not want to believe it, that is what our actions say. Because we have victory in Christ and are no longer obligated to sin, every temptation is already won in Him, and we simply must choose to either walk in that victory, or to turn back to our sinful nature. 

Now, I acknowledge that temptation is brutal. We talk about it in these simple terms, but I know that the reality often doesn’t feel quite so simple. It is not a simple and off-handed thing that we can choose to listen to or not as easily as if it were a podcast episode. But it is also true that we cannot nuance our way out of good theology. Sometimes we work ourselves into such knots over our sin, that we need blunt reminders over how ugly our sin is, and how ugly our decision to keep choosing sin also is. This is where it’s important to remember that two things can be true at the same time: One truth is that our sin is horribly pervasive, difficult and gutting. But an equal truth is that sinning reveals our trust in our own understanding rather than God’s. 

Now, we cannot talk about the first sin without also acknowledging Adam’s role in it. Turn with me to Genesis 2. 

Genesis 2:15-17 – “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” 

Now seeing this, let’s look closer again at the account in Genesis three. When does the text say there yes were opened?

Their eyes were opened when Adam, the one God had directly spoken to, chose to sin…

Now, I’m not here to bash Adam and say it was really all his fault and Eve was some poor helpless woman. We can agree that both Adam and Eve sinned; it’s clear from the text that they did both know God’s word. But, at the end of the day, both sinned, and we’ve all been enjoying the not-so-great-fruits of that sin ever since, along with our own sin. In Adam, we see our own tendency to watch with rapt attention while someone else sins, and the temptation to join them in that sin when a bolt of lightning doesn’t immediately strike them.

Let’s look at another example. 

1 Samuel 13:8-14 – And Saul waited seven days for the time appointed by Samuel, but Samuel did not come to Gilgal, and the troops began to desert Saul. So he said, “Bring me the burnt offering and the peace offerings.” And he offered up the burnt offering. Just as he finished offering the burnt offering, Samuel arrived, and Saul went out to greet him. “What have you done?” Samuel asked. And Saul replied, “When I saw that the troops were deserting me, and that you did not come at the appointed time and the Philistines were gathering at Michmash, I thought, ‘Now the Philistines will descend upon me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the favor of the LORD.’ So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering.” “You have acted foolishly,” Samuel declared. “You have not kept the command that the LORD your God gave you; if you had, the LORD would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. But now your kingdom will not endure; the LORD has sought a man after His own heart and appointed him ruler over His people, because you have not kept the command of the LORD.”

What are the steps that led to Saul sinnin?

Again, we see Saul leaning on his own understanding. He knows what the Lord has commanded through Samuel. He has seen the Lord work to deliver enemies into their hands and give them victory. He has direct experience with the God of Abraham and Jacob, through his own personal prophet! 

Yet, he sees the troops begin to leave, and in his human understanding, thinks he must act in order to lock in the support of God. If I place myself in his shoes I can easily understand what brought him to this point. In human reasoning, a burnt offering equals the Lord’s presence. The Lord’s presence will equal confidence in the men. Confidence in the men will mean more of them stay. However, less troops equals less chance of victory. In this moment, Saul removed the character of the Lord, and the proven support and deliverance he had personally experienced from the equation. Saul decided that God couldn’t act unless he had the men he needed. When God is removed from our equation, we act in our own understanding, and as we in this scenario, it ends in disaster. 

John 18:10-11 – Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant and cut off his right ear. (The servant’s name was Malchus.) So Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?” 

Don’t we just love Peter? I mean, the man sees a problem, and doesn’t hesitate to just dive into handling it. There’s no mention of his taking time to wonder about the implications of his actions, fearing for his own safety…..or of him inquiring of the Lord what the Lord would have him do; the Lord that was standing right next to him.

There are many more examples in scripture that I could bring up, but I’m sure we all begin to see the trend here. Temptation increases our bent toward sin, when we lean on our own understanding instead of the Lord and His Word. The Enemy would be thrilled, if he could simply get every christian to rely on their own understanding, instead of inquiring of the Lord in every circumstance. 

Even if, in leaning on our own understanding, we do all the “right things”, it will all be meaningless if it is not empowered and motivated by the holy spirit. 

We see this in the example of Saul, right? Sacrificing was an objectively good thing to do. Seeking to please the Lord was an objectively good thing to do. But he did it in his own understanding, and motivated out of fear, and in doing so directly disobeyed the Lords commands. 

Even if, in leaning on our own understanding, we do all the “right things”, it will all be meaningless if it is not empowered and motivated by the holy spirit.

Another factor that I am convinced plays a major role in our sin, is “hurry.” We’re all aware that we are more susceptible to temptation when we are tired, hungry, alone, etc., But what about when we are hurried? Often, when there’s too much on our plates, and we’re left rushing from appointment to appointment, we can grow deaf to the voice of the Holy Spirit in our lives. This increases the bent of our hearts toward the cycle of relying on our own understanding. We’re in too much of a hurry to stop and pray; we need to rush rush rush. God begins to take a backseat to the next appointment we need to get to, the friend that needs our help, or the goal at work that we skip quiet time to go in early for.

 Our souls don’t have time to catch up to our over-tired and over-taxed bodies. 

To quote Comer’s writings again: “If the devil can’t make you sin, he’ll make you busy. There’s truth in that. Both sin and busyness have the exact same effect – they cut off your connection to God, to other people, and even to your own soul.” 

Walter Adams, the spiritual director to C.S Lewis says this: “ To walk with Jesus is to walk with a slow, unhurried pace. Hurry is the death of prayer and only impedes and spoils our work. It never advances it.” 

Proverbs 21:5 says that the hasty person comes only to poverty, and Proverbs 19:2 tells us the hasty person misses their way. 

God did not create you to rush through this life playing whack-a-mole with our sin as we juggle the other spinning plates in our lives. Our walk with him and our spiritual health is to be our priority. We cannot know our sin, know our temptation triggers, and take the time to invest in battling them if we are too preoccupied with the rest of life. We as a people, as a church, and as women need to learn to slow down and invest in knowing our spiritual battles fully. To do that, we at a baseline need to take time to be acquainted with our condition and struggles 

I am not advocating that we need to cancel all commitments to sit at home and read our bibles all day, or that we should fail to meet the needs of others that we feel convicted to do. This is not an invitation to laziness disguised as spiritual advice. However, there is merit to the practice of slowing down, and even having spiritual retreat days; something I highly recommend. I make it a practice to at a minimum have one day a month where I read, journal, and make a practice of sitting quietly before the Lord. Whether a whole day, an afternoon, or even a few minutes here or there throughout your day, we need to build habits of slowing down, and allowing our spirits to catch up. 

We are spiritual beings, and must not make a habit of existing and striving only as physical beings, which is what begins to happen when we neglect our spiritual care.

It is a fairly common occurrence in the Jewett household for a certain scenario to take place when there’s something that needs building. Usually, I will approach my husband with a request for say, a new nesting box for the chickens, or a shelf in the kitchen. I’ll sketch up my idea for him, and he without fail will have some improvement or additional idea, before agreeing to work on it. Being the perfectionist he is, he will take time to think over how the shelf will be used, if this design really fits the purpose, what kind of wood would be best, what kind of fasteners, etc. 

About two days into him putting thought into it, I get antsy, go out to the garage and find some scraps, and put the thing together myself. Bing, bam, boom, it’s done, I can move on with life, and onto my next hairbrained scheme.

There’s just one problem. I’m not an architect, and I don’t in fact know what I’m doing. Competency with a drill and hammer do not a carpenter make. I am, in my current state, ill suited to be making kitchen shelves. Usually my husband will graciously try to eke out some part of the project that I did well, and let it sit for a day or so before quietly taking it out to the garage to die and resurrecting it again as a better piece that actually suites our needs. 

I am ill equipped for this role. I have no knowledge or authority over tools of the trade. 

Not so for my battle with temptation. 

But there is one thing that all christians, and everyone in this room, is equipped to do. I can say this without a hairsbreadth of doubt, backed up by scripture, and know that I am categorically correct. 

Each and every one of us is equipped by God, through the Holy Spirit and Scripture, to battle temptation and be victorious. As Paul says in Ephesians, this is not of our own work that no one should boast; we have this power only as we lean on Christ for our every need and acknowledge our need for Him as our savior. 

Next week, we will be looking at how we see that example lived out in the life of Jesus Christ. But for now, I want to leave you with some encouragement as we conclude. 

Ephesians 2:4-7 “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses made us alive together with Christ–by grace you have been saved–and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,”

Psalm 3:5-6 – “I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the Lord sustained me. I will not be afraid of the many thousands of people who have set themselves against me all around.” Ephesians 6:10-13 “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, and against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of GOd, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day , and having done all, to stand firm.”

He who is mighty has done a great thing!

-M