We have to take sin very seriously. We must learn to hate sin. We must learn to despise sin in whatever form it comes as measured by Scripture. Society accepts so much of it. Society even votes it into law and so on. That does not mean it's okay, right? Just because it's done in mass, just because society says this is okay and that's okay and we're not going to punish these things does not mean that it's okay. Because we live by the Word of God and what the Word of God says, we need to learn to hate sin.
Here is something else we have to keep in mind. We should not just hate everyone else's sin, but we've got to learn to hate our own as well. We are quick to say everybody else is sinning and not look at our own sin. Everybody else is doing this and everyone else is doing that. What are we doing? Are we trying to keep the attention off of ourselves? But the reality is we are just as capable of sinning as anyone else, aren't we? It can be in thought, it can be in action, but it is still sin.
We need to learn to hate it. The wages of sin is death the Bible says. A lot of times people don't think about what happens after death. They just kind of slide that on the back burner. Many people think well, I'm not dead yet, so I'm not worried about that right now. But that's not a good way to be thinking about this. I don't know too many people that plan their own death. We don't know. We don't know what tomorrow holds. Therefore we need to recognize that eternal life is what is promised us through Jesus Christ And that's what we have to hold on to and we have to trust.
We have eternal life with God by trusting in Jesus, the one who became a sacrifice for us, who died on our behalf, who took the penalty of sin so we wouldn't have to. Because sin is a horrible, horrible thing. In Isaiah 59 it says, “But your iniquities have separated you from your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He will not hear.” This is a message to Israel. Your iniquities have, your sin has separated you from God. I can't think of a worse situation to ever be in than to be separated from God, and this because of our choices.
In Exodus 32:33, “And the Lord said to Moses, Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book.” Those are the worst words we would ever, ever want to hear. No one should ever want to hear those words. And then in John 3:36, “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life, and he who does not believe in the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” God takes sin very seriously. And He takes eternal life very seriously.
That is why He sent Jesus. So we can't use Jesus or the idea of God's plan of salvation, we can't use it just as a “get out of jail free” card and pull it whenever we want. That's not how this works. How this works is, it works through a relationship with God that only comes by Jesus Christ, through Jesus Christ. It doesn't come any other way. You can do all the good you want but none of it will buy you a place close to God. You can volunteer anywhere you want. You can go to church eight days a week if you want. But what matters is your relationship with Jesus. That's how we get it. That's how we get to be believers and children of God.
God takes up residence, or habitation, within us. No one wants to deal with the wrath of God. God does not even want anybody to deal with His wrath. Have you ever realized this? God is not excited and just waiting to push the wrath button.
God is not at the control panel just sitting there waiting to unleash the storms, the demons, the pits, the fire, the whatever. He's not just sitting there like, “Oh I can't wait, I can't wait, I'm going to push this and I'm going to watch.” That's not God.
Unfortunately, there are some people that have the idea that He is something like that, but He's not. He's not at all. He doesn't want anybody to experience His wrath, because He gives us 500 ways to Sunday to avoid His wrath.
And so those are choices that we have to make. He provides everything we need, but it's up to us to decide what we're going to do with it. But He doesn't want us to suffer His wrath one day or eternal punishment.
Look at 2nd Peter chapter 3, verses 8 and 9. “But beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness. But listen to this, but is long-suffering towards us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
God is not wanting anybody to experience His wrath. He wants them to experience His love, His mercy, His grace, and an eternal relationship with Him. But sometimes we get it in our mind that God just wants to rule over us and punish us because this is the way the world thinks. Kingdom thinking is contrary to world thinking and that's why we need to be in the Bible so we understand what the kingdom mindset should be, what kingdom thinking is, because we need to think that way.
But a lot of people think that, you know, God's just ready to destroy. He's ready just to wipe everybody out and take Christians to heaven and everything is going to be good. It’s like people think God takes pleasure in His wrath and punishment, but He doesn’t. He doesn't think like that at all.
Why do you think He hasn't come back yet and end this whole thing right now? Why do you think Jesus didn't come back in the Apostles' time? Because there are more people to come into the kingdom of God. He wants people to come into the kingdom. He doesn't want to destroy anybody, but there will be those that have to deal with the wrath of God because they have not chosen to follow Him, as Scripture tells us.
But that's not what He wants, and that's not what we should want. You've heard me say this before. One of my pet peeves, and I know people probably aren't meaning this the way I'm taking it, so I understand that.
But one of my pet peeves, and I heard somebody tell me the other day, I don't remember where I was, I heard somebody say it. They were like, “come, Jesus, come, take me out of here.” And to me, that is one of the most prideful, self-centered statements we could ever say, if they mean it that way.
I want to see Jesus too and leave this crazy world, but more so, I want more people to come into the kingdom of God before He comes back. If I say, let's take me out now, well, then they're not going to get the chance. I mean, I know people just want to be with the Lord, and I understand that.
But we need to think of it like He does, and He wants people to come into the kingdom of God. That's what this is about, and that's where our heart should be as well, to see these people come into the kingdom of God. Sometimes we're so busy about ourselves because we're living life, and we're running households, and families, and jobs, and taking on so many things, and sometimes we don't really think about everybody else, but God does think about everybody else, constantly.
And I think He wants us to start thinking about everyone else and how we can share the light of Christ with them in some way. But this is why He allowed the perfect storm to happen, because He wanted to see people come into the kingdom of God. You remember when Jesus lived, He lived without sinning even once.
But yet, He knows more about what sin feels like than you and I. How could that be? How can a man who never sinned know what it feels like? In 1 Peter 2 and verse 21, listen to this, “For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps, who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth, who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return when He suffered. He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously, who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sin, might live for righteousness by whose stripes you were healed. So He took on, He bore our sins on the cross.”
He took on our sins. He didn't sin in life, but He took on our sin on the cross. In 2nd Corinthians chapter 5, “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
So He knows what it feels like. And more importantly, He knows what your sin feels like. He became sin while He was dying on the cross.
Not only does He know what it feels like, but He became it. The man that hung on the cross and died, died with your sin on His body and in His mind. That was our sin.
When we think of Jesus hanging on that tree, we look at Him in our minds or the depictions that we see through television and pictures and so on. When we look at Him on the cross, we can just assume we're the only one standing there. And it was our sin that He was suffering with.
We can also assume that we drove the nails. It is our sin that put Him on the tree. But you got to know it wasn't the nails that held Him there. It was His love for you and me, despite our sin.
What would it be like without God? I just told somebody the other day, and I don't remember the context of the conversation, but I was like, what would it be like on this earth if the Holy Spirit pulled out? It would be horrible. It would be terrible. We have no idea of all that the Holy Spirit is doing right now.
We are born into a world of sin and we have to do something about our sin. Sin will prevent us from being with God forever. Although we may try, there is nothing we can do about our sin problem. It is like a disease. God loves us so much that He gave us a way out of our sins. He gave us Jesus who was punished instead of us. So now, if we just believe in who He is and what He has done, accept His forgiveness, and do our best to live for Him, we can see eternity in Heaven!
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