Class Outline:

Wednesday January 25,2023

How do you feel about sin?

 

In the film Grand Canyon, an immigration attorney breaks out of a traffic jam and attempts to bypass it. His route takes him along streets that seem progressively darker and more deserted. Then comes the predictable nightmare: his expensive car stalls on one of those alarming streets whose teenage guardians favor expensive guns and sneakers. The attorney does manage to phone for a tow truck, but before it arrives, five young street toughs surround his disabled car and threaten him with considerable bodily harm. Then, just in time, the tow truck shows up and its driver - an earnest, genial man - begins to hook up the disabled car. The toughs protest: the truck driver is interrupting their transaction. The driver takes the leader aside and says, “Man, the world ain’t supposed to work like this. Maybe you don’t know that, but this ain’t the way it’s supposed to be. I’m supposed to be able to do my job without askin’ you if I can. And that dude is supposed to be able to wait for his car without you rippin’ him off. Everything’s supposed to be different than what it is here.”

 

How do you feel about sin?

 

How you feel about it has no bearing on your forgiveness. Forgiveness has always been, before Christ and after, based upon the crucifixion of Christ. We saw yesterday, that without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin (HEB 9:22).

 

How you feel about sin, and I do mean all sin, is not a judicial or legal matter, but a relational one. It will make the difference between a life ruled by God and lived with Him and a life ruled by the nature of sin and lived with it.

 

The prophets of the Bible knew that sin has a thousand faces. They knew how many ways human life can go wrong, and they knew this, like we should, because they knew what the right human life was supposed to look like. The prophets longed for and foretold of a time when God would put things right again.

 

The webbing together of God, humans, and all creation in justice, fulfillment, and joy is that the Hebrew prophets called Shalom (what we translate as peace).

 

The world of peace without sin - Shalom.

 

Shalom means universal flourishing, wholeness, and delight. Shalom is the way things ought to be. Sin is the contamination that has cursed man and earth away from Shalom. But because of Christ and because of forgiveness, the new creature in Christ is designed for Shalom to exist in his heart, and in many instances, in his immediate world.

 

It is one of the titles for our Lord: the Prince of Shalom (peace). In Isa 9, His great title and His giving of shalom to the world, should be read in context. He can’t just bring peace to the world. He has to break the yoke of sin first.

 

ISA 9:2

The people who walk in darkness

Will see a great light;

Those who live in a dark land,

The light will shine on them.

 

JOH 1:4-5

In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

 

ISA 9:3-5

Thou shalt multiply the nation,

Thou shalt increase their gladness;

They will be glad in Thy presence

As with the gladness of harvest,

As men rejoice when they divide the spoil.

4 For Thou shalt break the yoke of their burden and the staff on their shoulders,

The rod of their oppressor, as at the battle of Midian.

5 For every boot of the booted warrior in the battle tumult,

And cloak rolled in blood, will be for burning, fuel for the fire.

 

The oppressor could refer to the nations that enslaved and harassed Israel, or to Satan, but even if both of those are taken away, the sin problem is not. The yoke burden is sin and its resultant death. The resurrection of Christ has inverted the kingdom of mankind marked by its final end in death to the kingdom of God and its pure holiness of eternal life.

 

ISA 9:6-7

For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us;

And the government will rest on His shoulders;

And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.

7 There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace,

On the throne of David and over his kingdom,

To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness

From then on and forevermore.

The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this.

 

The Prince of Shalom will establish eternal shalom. He cannot do this without the removal of sin.

 

LUK 1:77, 79

To give to His people the knowledge of salvation

By the forgiveness of their sins, … To shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, To guide our feet into the way of peace."

 

JOH 14:27

“Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, do I give to you.”

 

But not without His cross and the remission of their sins.

 

COL 1:20

through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross

 

This should clearly show us how bad, evil, and destructive sin is. If its existence prevents the coming of the kingdom of God to make life the way it ought to be, what is it preventing in your life?

 

How do you feel about sin?

 

PSA 51:1

For the choir director. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.

 

The title to Psa 51 is helpful. David had committed, in a moment of weakness, a sin that would do his greatest harm to himself and others. He took Bathsheba, slept with her, and when she was pregnant, had her husband killed.

 

PSA 51:10-17

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

And renew a steadfast spirit within me.

11 Do not cast me away from Your presence

And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.

12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation

And sustain me with a willing spirit.

13 Then I will teach transgressors Your ways,

And sinners will be converted to You.

 

14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, the God of my salvation;

Then my tongue will joyfully sing of Your righteousness.

15 O Lord, open my lips,

That my mouth may declare Your praise.

16 For You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it;

You are not pleased with burnt offering.

17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;

A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.

 

Notice that David writes (vs. 12):

Restore to me the joy of Your salvation

And sustain me with a willing spirit.

 

He had lost his joy. He didn’t lose his salvation, but the joy of it. Why? Sin.

 

Sin will take you farther than you want to go, it will keep you longer than you want to stay, and it will cost you more than you want to pay.

 

It promises many joys and successes and has never once in human history delivered - and it never will.

 

So David reveals how after coming to terms with the sin, and internal weakness that had not been dealt with, his heart is broken and humble.