Little Sins

Our grandchildren are visiting with us this week, or the last couple of days, and they're going with us to... three of them are going to camp with us this week. So they'll be headed off with my son-in-law, and we're going to camp to work, and we're taking the three of the kids with us and looking forward to it. But you know, we're having the little kids around and watching them and listening to their parents' stories, and it makes us, Kim and I, think about some of our stories, and watching them do things with their children, and remember what we went through with children.

And if you've been a parent, or if you are a parent, there's a common experience we have with most children. Now, there's a few children who aren't like this. But most children, and if you've been a parent, you've probably had this experience.

You walk in their room, I don't care whether they're four years old or fourteen years old, and the room's a mess. And you say, look, clean your room. They're playing. And you come back fifteen minutes later, and all the stuff that was in the middle of the room has been moved. And maybe, you know, some of the dust was wiped off of a few things.

Nothing was moved. There's still dust, but you know, dust a little bit. A few things moved. Maybe they ran the vacuum over the center of the floor, and maybe made the bed. And you walk in, you say, well, I thought you said, I told you to clean your room. And they say, why did? All the big things are done, right? You say, well, let me, you know, okay. Let's look under the bed. The three-day-old pizza under the bed is not a good day, okay? And these giant dust bunnies, and you know, all this stuff under the bed.

And you go over the closet, where all the clothes was just picked up and thrown in the closet. Now they're piled up in the floor. This isn't exactly cleaning your room. And they're sort of appalled at this. But I got rid of the big stuff. I moved it around. You can walk into my room now. You're making a little picky here, Mom. I got rid of the big stuff. And you say, yeah, well, taking these tennis shoes that smell like, you know, something died, and just throwing them in the closet isn't cleaning your room.

Some people are looking down right now, like, okay. Okay. And we say, no, no, no. It's not just the big thing. Moving around the big things, so getting rid of a few big things, cleaning your room is taking care of the little things. Dirt is a little thing. Now, have you ever wondered, see, if you had that experience with kids, which most of us have, or our parents had that experience with us, let me ask you, have you ever had that experience with God?

We just had the Days of Unleavened Bread, where we celebrated the removal of sin from our lives. We're coming up on Pentecost, which is a commanded holy day where we are to celebrate. We get together, we have services, we keep it as the Sabbath, the receiving of God's Spirit, so that we can be cleansed. Have you ever thought that maybe we have to be very careful about approaching life, where God says, I want you to clean your room.

So we take the garbage in the middle of the floor, and we throw it out. And we pack up a few things, and maybe we take some dirty clothes and throw it in the hamper.

But we never look under the bed. We never really clean the closet. I mean, those are the little things. We took care of the big things. The little things aren't that important. Well, that's what we're talking about today. We're talking about little sins. I mean, by little sins. We're going to have to define that. Okay? All sin is sin. But if we're not careful in life, and it's just human nature, we tend to classify big sins and little sins. And it is based on the consequences. I mean, big sins have terrible consequences. The problem with little sins is that the consequences are over a period of time, or they're not immediate, so we don't recognize them as consequences. We may suffer later and wonder why we're suffering. Because it seems so little at the time.

Now, to talk about little sins, we have to really look at sin in its greater context. And when I say that, what I mean by that is, we tend to look at sin and we look at, okay, let's look at, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness. Those are big sins. We have to get those out of our lives.

Because we have the thou shalt nots.

But the little sins are the things that are part of our nature, so we don't recognize them.

We have to stop looking at sin only in terms of the thou shalt nots. And we have to realize that sin is part of us. It's actually part of our nature. It's part of the way we think. It's part of the way we feel. So if we only look at, if we only look at sin as this list, we can try to keep the list. Now one day we can do a look at God's sake, but I did clean my room. And God says, oh no, your room's very dirty.

You did look under the bed. Oh, let's pull out this drawer. Oh, you just took all the dirty clothes and threw them in this drawer, pretending that you cleaned your room.

Or, you know, those shelves in your closet haven't been cleaned in years.

So when God wants us to be cleansed, being cleansed by God is more than being forgiven. We have to understand that. It's a whole lot more than being just forgiven. It is literally about being cleansed. It's removing the dirt. Sometimes we have this wrong idea, well, God's forgiven me, therefore it doesn't matter that there's garbage in my room. You know, God's forgiven me, so some garbage in my room doesn't matter.

I guess it's what it does, man. But it's just a little bit of garbage. Come on, Dad. I took out the trash can. So what? That there were some candy wrappers laying around the trash can. So what? I took out the big can of garbage. Are you really not picking about the other garbage? It just happens to be laying around it? Yes, it is. So we have to understand, we will defend the little sins.

We defend them, because it's part of our nature. This is what drove Paul crazy as a converted man. Let's go to Romans 7. I'm going to read this from the NIV just because it reads better out loud.

Romans 7. Verse 14.

He says, we know that the law is spiritual. He says, I know. I can look at the list and say, I have to obey these things. It is spiritual. The carnal mind doesn't even like the law. He says, but it's spiritual. But I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. Now, we just celebrated, you know, we're coming up with the 50th day of Pentecost. What did we celebrate seven weeks ago? We celebrated that we are coming out of our slavery to sin. This is very real to Paul. He says, I was a slave to sin. Remember, he grew up as what we would call today an orthodox Jew. He took obeying God very, very literal. And what happened is, he began to understand through Christ where God really wanted. He realized, wait a minute, it's, yes, I do these things or I don't do these things, but what about inside? Christianity is about the inside out.

So he says, I understand the spirituality of the law, but my problem is inside of me. And this is where the little sins, because there really are no little sins. But this is where the little sins get us. They are internal. They are not something we can do or not do and feel very good about.

Because part of us still wants to be this. It's actually invasive into our own personalities and our own characters. He says in verse 15, I do not understand what I do.

He says, I don't get this because certain times I say things and do things and act certain ways that I don't want to. He says, I don't even understand myself sometimes. Now this is a man who has had God's Spirit for years. This is a man who has God's Spirit. He's been converted for years. He's one of the greatest Christians of all time. And in his life, after years of being a minister, he says, sometimes I don't even understand myself.

He says, for what I want to do, I do not do. But what I hate, I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. In other words, I don't want to do it, so I see, ah, God's definition of right and wrong is true. He says, I understand the law is explaining. Don't do this. But I still do it anyways. He says, I'm having trouble. Now this is a man with God's Spirit. He's growing. He's learning. And that's why, you know, every time I do pre-Baptism counseling, I have the people study in depth, Romans 6, 7, and 8.

This whole process of learning and growing, and it's a lifetime process. And this is what he's describing.

He said, as it is, verse 17, it is no longer I, myself, who do it, but sin living in me. He says, there's part of me that actually my will, my brain, my desire is to not have envy or hatred. Or anger, uncontrolled anger. See, he's not talking about, he's not out stealing. He's not out killing people. But he's saying, those inner things, I know they're wrong, but I still find myself doing them. I still find myself with an unforgiving attitude. Or I find myself with this, or I find myself with that. And he was very frustrated by it. It's sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. Now, he goes on to explain that with God's help, he can carry it out. God helps him do it, because God is working with his Spirit, the inner man. So when we talk about little sins, we're going to have to dig deep into the inner person that you and I are. Now, what these weaknesses are will be different than every one of us. What may be a weakness in one person isn't in another person. That's why it's so easy to judge each other. Boy, how can that person have a drinking problem? They must just be weak. I'm glad they don't have a problem like me. I lose my temper five times a day. But outside of that, my mind's a little sin. My sin is not like that sin.

So when we defend these little sins, let's turn to Psalm 19.

So that means cleaning our rooms. And as we now approach Pentecost, our rooms have been cleaned. Right? That's what we celebrated. But what about the cracks?

You know, my wife, we had this beautiful Italian floor in our house in Texas.

And it was beautiful. And it was little panels on the floor. And it was made from Italian rock. And I thought, man, this is great. And I kept saying, this is a beautiful floor. One day she said, I hate this floor.

I said, why? It's beautiful. She said, because of the little cracks in between the tiles, mold gets in it, dirt gets in it, dirt gets in it. And she says, I can only get at some point, I think she had to use a toothbrush or something. She had to get, she said, it's the only way to clean it out. Or we have all kinds of problems with this floor. And all of a sudden I saw the floor in a different way.

I thought the floor was clean all the time.

Well, it was clean because she got down and cleaned out the cracks.

So, how about the cracks in our floor? But God, I swept it.

Here, but what about the cracks? What about what's growing in there? What about those things? Oh, that's the little things. That doesn't matter.

Psalm 19. You're probably there and I'm gone. Psalm 19.

And let's start in verse 16. 12.

This is a remarkable prayer by David. Who can understand his errors?

He said, who can really look at himself or herself and say, I get it. I understand my errors. Cleanse me. This is a remarkable statement. Cleanse me from my secret faults. God, get into the cracks. David asked God to go into the cracks.

To deal with the attitudes, the inner things that Paul said, those are the things I have the hardest time with.

He says, I'm not worshiping any idols.

I keep the Sabbath day. I worship the one true God. I don't steal. I don't lie. I'm not committing adultery. But inside, inside, I don't even understand myself sometimes. So sometimes if you look at your own Christianity and say, I don't understand why I don't measure up. I don't understand why I always don't obey God. You're in good company. We're in good company here. The Apostle Paul said the same thing. David said the same thing. So David says, cleanse my secret things. I don't know about these things. I don't understand these things. Then he goes on and he says, keep back from the things that you've done. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins and let them not have dominion over me. Now that's a remarkable statement.

To be presumptuous is to say, oh, it's not that bad. It's not that bad.

And he said, God understands. God understands me.

God understands that this isn't part of my background. This is just because my family was that way. This is just because it's not that important.

Presumptionless sins. But he says, don't let them control me and have dominion over me.

Then I shall be blameless, he says, and I shall be innocent of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, oh Lord, my strength and my redeemer. He even breaks this down. He says, okay, my words and my thoughts cleanse me. Get inside and clean out what's inside of me. And this is what God's Spirit does when God's Spirit comes into us. And this is what Pentecost is all about. It's about being guided by God's Spirit and led by God's Spirit. And it's about being cleansed. It's about God getting into all the cracks. Into the closet. Under the bed.

How many rooms in your house do you have closed off from God? Sorry, God. Can't go into that room. You can't go into that room.

But if God's Spirit comes into us, it's about cleansing everything.

Even the little sins. And David said he wants to be innocent. And I want to be blameless, even in my words and in my thoughts. And in the meditation of my heart, even in my emotions. I want my emotions to be blameless.

This is one reason why we see David committed great sins, and he overcame great sins.

We see God punishing him for giving him forgiveness. It's because of this attitude. Get inside and clean out. What causes me to do these things?

And it's Paul saying, I don't even understand myself, because I know what right is, and I know what wrong is, and sometimes I do the wrong.

He says, but it's not what I want to do. He says, by my very thoughts, by my very actions, I know the law is good. Remember he said that. By accepting this, I know the law is good. But why can't I will? Why don't I have enough willpower to do it? So Paul deals with there in Romans 7 and in chapter 8, why he didn't have enough willpower. It takes God's help to do it. He can't do it himself. He can't do it himself.

So we see that David and Paul, in their own ways, they talk about it differently, but they deal with the same thing. God, how do I get into the cracks? I can be so presumptuous about myself. Now, we're using our presumptuous about other people. It's easy to see their thoughts. The presumptuousness is about ourselves. And this is hard, because we have to go to God and say that Psalm 19 should become a prayer that we pray.

How do presumptuous sins manifest themselves? Well, let's look at a few ways. The first one, the first thing that we can really start to see if we start to looking at presumptuous sins, these little things, is what is usually called sins of omission. In other words, it's not about what we are doing. It's about what we are not doing.

It's not about what we're doing. It's about what we don't do. James 1, 27.

Look, God, I tithe. Look, God, I go to church every week.

Look, God, I... and you make the list. You say, well, look, God, I'm the most honest guy at my business. Everybody says I'm honest. I haven't stolen anything. Everybody says I'm honest. I haven't stolen anything. Those things are true. It's not like you're lying to God. That's true. But look, God, I don't commit adultery. Never committed adultery. And he says, that's good.

But let's get the flashlight and look under the bed.

But those are... that's not important. Those are the little things. Well, not the pizza that has mold growing on it. That's not a little thing. But you've left under your bed. You know, you leave things under your bed long enough, they'll make you sick. Right? They can't make you sick. Say, it's not little anymore. It's just you don't know why you're sick. And it's because of the environment we create. James 1, verse 27, well-known verse. It's quoted quite often, pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this. So this is what we want to be. This is pure religion. So we want a pure religion. We want all the cracks cleansed out. This is undefiled. That's what it means. It's clean. It's to what? To visit orphans and widows in their trouble and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. So what do we do? We zero in on staying unspotted from the world.

We understand we shouldn't dress certain ways like the world does. We shouldn't act the ways that they do. We understand there are different standards we have. And we forget the first part of that verse.

But God, I don't have time to visit widows and orphans. My time is all eaten up with this, this, and this, and this. Now, I understand that. I wrestle with that myself.

I went all week and never called or visited one widow. So I keep track of that. So I try, you know, I try to visit a couple widows a week. Now, that's part of my job, but I don't do it because it's part of my job. I do it because of this verse. Because that's undefiled religion. That's cleanness before God. He expects us to do that. See what I mean by sins of omission? We can be unspotted from the world.

And ignoring elderly people, widows, shut-ins, children that have no fathers.

We can be ignoring them, and even though they're part of our congregation.

Well, this gets a little hard, doesn't it? But it's easier to zero it on, but I don't commit adultery. And that's good before God.

I don't like that verse. It has something to it I don't like. You know, this is what sure religion is. Okay, good. I won't steal. It's more than that. It's the little things, too. It's the little things. Things that sometimes we can think are so unimportant that we actually look on it as, oh, come on. You know, the thing that God really cares about that. And you can feel that I've had people say that to me about everything. Come on. My marriage really has nothing to do with my religion. Oh, yes, it does.

Oh, come on. My fill in the button. Has really nothing to do with my relationship with God. But, yes, it does.

Look at chapter 2, here, James, verse 14.

I've had a couple conversations in the last two weeks about these verses, which I had already started working on this sermon, so they had nothing to do with me preparing the sermon, but it fits in. What does it profit my brother? And if someone says he has faith but does not have works, can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, departed peace be warmed and filled, that you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? There's also faith by itself, if it does not have works, it's dead. That's a remarkable argument.

Because what he's saying here is, and he's not using one of the big things, he's using a little thing.

If we know someone is suffering, if we know someone in the Church is suffering, and we do not reach out, or we do not care, we're in the little sin category. It's just dirt under the bed.

And here, James puts that in the context of faith, that our faith must produce these kinds of things in our relationships with each other in the Church. But that's not important.

Signing the card, I don't always sign the cards. I get busy, fortunately, my wife does. Although, usually when I go inside, when I realize it's signed twice, I sign once, she signs once.

But then I think I should sign those cards. Because if you've ever been sick, I've got a card with 50 signatures on it. It means a lot. It means a lot.

Someone's out here at church for two or three weeks in a row. Sometimes they may just be out visiting or can't come for various reasons. But you know, do we ever just look around and say, I haven't seen that person for a couple weeks. I ought to give them a call. You think, well, that has nothing to do with religion. Actually, it does, according to this. It has to do with religion. True religion. But those are sins of omission. We can live our whole lives with the right knowledge. We can have our whole lives with the right knowledge and be doing little sins. So sins of omission, we do it all the time. We don't even think about it. Usually, they're little compromises we do. A lot of times we can do these little, what we call little sins. It's because we compare ourselves with other people.

It's sort of like saying, but mom, why are you so hard on me? You know, Jimmy's room over here is a lot dirtier than mine.

So we look at our brothers and sisters rooms and say, God, why are you so on me about cleaning my room? Have you looked at that rooms of half the people of my congregation?

Man, alive! Why do you mean that's up on me?

Don't little kids do that all the time?

Yeah. But, you know, I've heard that. I don't know how many times in the last few days.

You need to go brush your teeth. But you didn't say so and so as a projectee! So let's let that person's teeth rot out, okay? Let your teeth not rot out. And who cares? You go brush your teeth! Brushing his teeth has nothing to do with you brushing your teeth. But it does! If you make me brush my teeth, you have to make him brush his teeth. Well, his turn will come right now. Why would he brush his teeth first? No, you're going to go brush your teeth!

Go brush your teeth.

Oh, he had this big thing one night because he couldn't find the... what is the toothbrush? Ant-man toothbrush. What's the toothbrush he was looking for? Eli was looking for a little toothbrush. What was it? It's Superman toothbrush or some Batman toothbrush? I don't know what it was. And he had to have it. Well, we have other toothbrushes. But I have to have that toothbrush! I can't brush my teeth without that toothbrush!

Unfortunately, we found it and there was peace in the world and everything was okay. Life went on and he brushed his teeth.

But how many times do we compare ourselves to other people? When God says, I'm working with that person, I know that person has a problem. I know that person has an issue with dishonesty. I know that person has an issue with pornography. I know that person has an issue with drinking too much. Yeah, but God, compared to the fact that I lose my temper and call my husband all kinds of names, that's little compared to that. And God says, no, you brush your teeth. You clean your room. I don't worry about cleaning their room. It's going to take a lot more work to clean their room. You clean your room.

And once again, it's that willingness to condemn what we see as big things. And I've heard this one before, too. And this is so... I heard someone say this one time to me, and it was a little bit of a shock because I thought, I've never said it that way, but I actually have thought that way. You know, I had different words, and I realized I had done that myself. The person said, oh, wait a minute, wait a minute. This person sinned. I'm not justifying my bad behavior, but this person sinned. Well, your bad behavior was sin, too. No, mine was bad behavior.

It's not sin.

Yeah, Second Timothy. Second Timothy 3. Now, it's a tough sermon today. This is, you know, this digs in pretty deep. See, around the Holy Days, we always get into a little... Okay, let's dig a little deeper.

Second Timothy 3.

Now, we read this so many times to talk about the world. And we read through this, and it's like, whoa, this is just like the world. This is the world we live in today. This is a prophecy that's being fulfilled. Well, let's look at it. First one. But, no, this Paul says that in the last days perilous times will come. For men will be lovers of themselves. We say, oh, yeah, look, people are so selfish today. They love themselves. They don't love others. Everybody just cared about how they feel. Yeah, boy, lovers of themselves. That's the world we live in today. Lovers of money. Yeah, look at all these people. They're all these people. All their greed and all their problems and all their issues.

I am a little worried. I just, you know, I just, it's going to cost me $200 a month for the payment on that new boat I just bought. But, well, I'm sure I'm not a lover of money. Bosters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents. As we go through here, and I go home and pray about this and read this list and say, okay, some of these are the big sins.

And you know how you'll differentiate between the big sins and the little sins in these lists? Because yours are the little sins. Exactly right. Because I can read this list and I always say, oh yeah, I got that one. But that's a little one. That's not like being a, you know, blasphemer. Well, blasphemer, disobedient to parents. Unthankful. Wait a minute. You can't put unthankfulness in the same list as being a blasphemer. Paul did. It's a little sin, right? It's sort of inside. It's not something that you obviously see.

But he says this is part of the bad qualities of society at the end time that's against God.

Unthankful. Unholy. That's an important issue, being unholy. Sanctification. And I'm working on a sermon on helping us understand the difference, you know, what salvation is, what justification is, and what sanctification is, and how they work together. Sanctification means being made holy.

It is the purpose of our lives to be made holy. As the children of God. He says people are unholy, they're unloving, they're unforgiving, they're slanderers. Oh, slander is just. It's the way of our society. Pick up a newspaper, turn on the radio, talk to anybody. Everybody's accusing somebody of something. Sometimes there's no proof. This person did this, this person did that. My favorite was that President Obama had concentration camps set up all over the country. And he was going to send us all to the concentration camp. I said, that's slander.

Now, I disagree with the man on a lot of things that I can prove. But that was slander. He didn't set up concentration camps all over the place, and neither did Mr. Trump. Now, there's lots of bad things to say about Mr. Trump that are probable. But we don't have to make up things, okay? That's the thing about slanders. Slander, he doesn't make it up. He says slanders without self-control.

Self-control is an emotional issue, a behavioral issue. All of us have areas in our lives where he likes self-control, unless you're very special. But all of us have issues with that. Brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure, rather than lovers of God. Having a form of God in this, but denying his power. In other words, worshiping God, what looks like true religion, but is not. He says that from such people, turn away. He says, don't even get away from these people. Well, before we can get away from them, we have to make sure we're not those people.

That list gets real hard when you start to say, God, well, wait a minute. Yeah, I have that one. But remember, being unforgiving is a little sin. It's not like being brutal.

They're on the list.

So we have to understand that when we consider little sins, it's just because the consequences are smaller and take longer to carry out. They're still sin. It's still against what God wants.

Which, you know, when you read through that, and then you think of what it says in Romans, you know, the first chapter of Romans is Paul's indictment against Romans society. He talks about idolatry. He really hits idolatry hard. It is one of the strongest passages in the New Testament about immorality and different things. And we just, oh, we love to read that. Because that slams so hard, Romans society, and you read that, you say, that's the United States today. And it is. But there's a verse in there that we don't always look at that has to do with the little sins. Let's go to Romans 1. So all of Romans 1 is this indictment against Roman society.

And how they have, oh, he says they have sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. The problems in Romans society. But then it says in verse 32, who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death. He just bully punches in Romans 1. He says people like this deserve death unless they repent before God. And he says, not only do the same thing, but also approve of those who practice them. He says, well, I don't approve of anybody who practices them. Well, do you ever vicariously live those things? Maybe in the books that we read? Or the movies we watch? We have to think about it. Now, you know, I'm not saying that you can never watch a movie that shows some kind of evil or something in it. My question is, what is the purpose of the movie? Or how much nudity is too much nudity? That's an interesting question to ask yourself. How much nudity is too much? Is like 30 seconds of nudity okay? Or is it like five minutes of nudity? Well, that's too much. Where do we draw the line on this? Where do we end up approving these things by what we do? By what we sort of vicariously live through? Well, you watch on YouTube all the time. We can, you know, one of the ways we can vicariously really show things about ourselves is on social media. You know, I don't go to people's Facebook because usually what I do, I find out things about them I don't want to know.

I'm shocked at what people reveal about themselves in social media. I counseled with a family once where I had to stop the counseling because they were in about three or four different Church of God groups and I couldn't get them all to stop attacking each other on Facebook. So, after a while, I can't talk to people. All you do is use Facebook that's slandered and tag each other. I can't stop this. If we all could sit and talk together, you could solve your problems. But you just can't. And there's sort of this vicarious, we'll do things on social media we would never do in public. We never do face-to-face, but we'll put it on social media. We only have 837 friends and they all read it or say it. And what does that reveal about us as Christians? What does that tell people? Even the pictures we post, what does that tell people about us as Christians?

I never, I can't say that, I very seldom check my, do what I post on my Facebook page or my Your Today program. And I usually, I've learned not to just friend everybody that asks for friends, you know, because I get them from all over the world. And my daughter-in-law called me the other day and said, you do realize that you have a Nigerian stripper that is advertising on your Facebook? Really? So I pulled it up and there she was. Oh! Yeah. So I, I removed it. Actually, she was. She was.

Is she going to be from Nashville? She's been what?

You know, I, yeah, actually she was. And I wondered if she was actually from Nigeria or that was a, I don't know, let's just say I got it off. I did not.

Hi. I'm glad you're on my Facebook. Can we talk? No, I, you know, please repent.

Let's go on before I just get in trouble here.

So how do we deal with our little sins? I deleted that one off my page as quickly as I could. First of all, we have to be actively aware of our need to be cleansed from sin. We have to be actively aware daily of God's involvement in our lives. That He is through His Spirit in the room, so to speak. He's cleansing us and He wants all the cracks cleansed out. And in this is work and, you know, no place does God say, I know you're going to be perfect right now. We're all suffering from imperfections, right? We're all suffering from imperfections. But God wants us to deal with those things. He's very patient about it. He's very caring about it. You know, He walks in the room, says, He doesn't walk in the room all the time and say, I told you to clean your room. It's only half done. I'm going to beat you. He walks in the room, says, it's only half done. Sorry, you can't play until you finish. Do some more. And every once in a while, He walks in the room and you've probably done this. You've looked around and the kids tried really hard and said, that's enough for today. We'll clean the rest of the room tomorrow. First time's God does that. That's enough for today. You're exhausted. But you did a pretty good job. We'll clean the rest of the room tomorrow. So He is with us. It's when we just refuse to clean it, we defend the dirt, then we have a problem. Let's go back to Psalm 19. Just for a second. I want to review that just again quickly. Because, looking at what we've talked about, you know, we started with this. This is a prayer that we should take to God. 1-12. Who can understand His errors cleanse me from secret faults? Clean me up from the secret things? The David says, I know the big ones. I don't get the secret ones. Paul's saying, I don't understand what I do sometimes. If I don't have the heart to do this or that or the other, give me the heart to do it. Maybe I don't have the heart. You look at yourself and say, well, okay, uncaring was one of the least that Paul said about the Romans. They're uncaring people. Maybe I'm not an uncaring person. So you go ask God to give you a caring heart. You actually go ask for it. I guarantee you when you do that, you're going to end up with a broken heart. Because He's going to help you care. And you're going to find out that hurts. You just didn't know it before because you weren't caring. You go ask, take the secret stuff. What is it about me that needs changed? Help me to change? Show me! Get rid of the secret stuff. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins. Let them not have dominion over me. Here's what happens when we presume, oh God, it's not that big a thing. Oh God, it's not that big a thing. Yeah, I know I drink a little bit too much once in a while, but it's not very often. It's not like I'm drunk. You know, I get together Saturday night with my friends. Yeah, I have six great beers. Six great beers. I can't drive? Yeah, okay. Of course, I can't drive after one beer. I don't have any reflexes anymore. I drink a beer. Someone else is driving me home.

Yeah, I'm going to get old. Because I never drink more than one beer anyways. But now I have a beer that's like, oh look how slow I am. I guess I better get somebody else to drive me home.

But we can, you know, that little extra alcohol is okay. And I've seen, you know, people start down that round of presumptuousness. And where does that go? I remember a person arguing with me one time, but I'm not getting drunk. I'm just going out on Friday nights to the honky talks because I like dancing. And I don't drink that much. By the way, do you understand what holy time means?

Well, I'm with people I like. That were having fun. Doesn't God want me to have fun?

Are you going to the honky talks to tell people to repent? Well, no! Well, then I'm not sure you're supposed to be there on a Friday night. Right? This started with a little thought. It got bigger and bigger and bigger. Until the person was literally arguing that it was okay to go out every Friday night and go to the honky talks and around drink beer and dance. And that was somehow keeping the Sabbath until two in the morning. And it's not. That's what the Sabbath is all about. That starts with a little sin. That isn't start the fact. It ends up with that kind of thought process. When I go to church, good. But are you prepared to get a church? Well, I'm tired because I got home so late. So, when the discussion came up. Yeah, I'm tired, but you know, it's because I get home so late. David says, then I shall be blameless and I shall be innocent of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength, my Redeemer. Get on your knees and read verses 12, 13, and 14 to God. Read it to me. I pray this prayer. I ask you to do this with me.

It's a tough prayer to ask if you really understand what it means. It's a tough prayer to pray. Forget on your knees and pray that to God. Read that to God. It's like God gets more involved in who we are supposed to be. And it's a daily thing. Because remember, the whole point of what God is doing is to have Christ developed in us. And Christ being developed in us is more than getting rid of the big things.

Christ was... He showed us, you're in perfection because He was God. He came in the flesh. But He showed us what it looked like. And it involved all the little things. It did involve just the big things. It involved all the little things.

That's a big job for us to try to do. And you know, I can't do that in a row. Let's go to Colossians 3. Sort of wind down a little bit here in the last couple of scriptures. Colossians 3.

Verse 1. It's a very in-depth passage. So I'm not going to go through all the details. I want you to think about just the overview of what Paul is writing here. But if then you were raised with Christ, and of course, if you say raised with Christ, you'd have to know Paul's writings even though what that means. He uses that in Romans. He talks about being raised with Christ through baptism. If you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above and not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ and God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also appear with Him in glory.

So he says, look, remember who you are and how you got here. Because God called us, God entered our lives, God touched us. All this other stuff that we think is important so much as time is not important. We get so wrapped up in physical things or how other people treat us. It's not important. But it's important is, am I acting like Christ? Am I being like Christ? Think about what Christ would have done if He would have been centered in on wealth, or if He had been centered in on how other people treat Him.

Think about that. Where would we be if Christ's life was centered on how other people treat Him? It was centered on how He was supposed to do it. What He was supposed to do. It was internal. It came from inside of Him. It wasn't easy. Dealing with the inner self is never easy. And that's where the little sins hide. And that's where we defend them because, well, that's just some bad behavior. And that's just why I am. I like to handle it with all like that.

And we hide there.

He says, therefore, put to death. That's interesting. I want you to kill something. I want to kill yourself. Put to death your members, which are on the air. That's interesting. The parts of you, the inner parts of you, that are on this earth, that are against God, He says, I want you to kill. This is a real strong statement. I want you to kill it. Take who you are inside and kill that person so that Christ can develop in us. God, through His Spirit, can develop in us the mind of Christ.

He says, fornication and cleanliness, passion, evil, desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these sins, the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience. In which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them.

He says, we were all this way. We're all coming out of this way. But now, you yourselves are to put all of these anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. And do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds and put on the new man who was renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who created him.

We celebrated the Days of Unleavened Bread about getting rid of the old man.

We now, and then we started, we, you know, the Passover was how God saves us. Days of Unleavened Bread was about removing, right, unleavened, or leavened, and taking in unleavened, and how this process of cleaning the house.

That's why we actually do a lot of cleaning. But the real, the real important message of those days of cleaning this house, and this house. But you and I can't do that without God living in us, so that the mind of Christ has developed in us. That's what next week we're going to look at.

We have to have God's Spirit in us for this to happen. And now we get down to not just removing the big things, but the little things. And that means we have to look for presumptuous sins in our lives. From our last scriptures in 2 Corinthians 10. 2 Corinthians chapter 10.

In verse 4.

This is what we have to remember daily. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. You and I are in a spiritual battle for our minds every day. We can forget that. We can get overwhelmed with all these different things. And once again, we're so exhausted at the end of the day, spiritually exhausted. We're cleaning out the little things, or the big things of our lives. But we're not dealing with little things. The problem is little things grow into big things. Little sins grow into big things.

Attitudes grow into actions. The way we think and feel grow into behaviors. So just dealing with the behaviors isn't enough. He says, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty and God for pulling down strongholds.

Casting down arguments at every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. We know we've taken care of all the cracks and crevices. We know that the closet is cleaned, none of the bed is cleaned, and all the drawers are cleaned. We finally know the room is cleaned. When every thought is what Christ thinks. I'm not there yet. I still have some dirt in my room. God keeps saying, carry clean up your room.

Hey, it's time to play! I don't get enough play. You never let me play enough. Clean your room.

And there's always more to be cleaned. Now that's not a negative thing, because in the end, God wants us to be His children. We are clean. It's just as cleansing as more than forgiveness. The cleansing is being cleansed. It's literally not having it anymore.

It's having it removed from us. Now it's not totally done until the resurrection. You and I carry some carnality with us as long as we are carnal, as long as we're flesh. We still carry some of that. But the region's a point. In that change, it's gone. Because in this process, in that change, we're clean and we'll never get dirty again. It's all clean and we'll never get dirty again.

So it's true that some sins have greater penalties, and they have greater consequences. But that doesn't mean we can ignore what we consider the bad behaviors, the little faults, the little sins. God wants us to clean the room. He's going to help us clean the room. He doesn't just have us do it. He shows us how to do it. Here's how you run the vacuum. Here's how you do what you do. He shows us how to do it. He comes in and He helps. We have to be participating in the cleaning of our room. The cleansing of our minds. So ask God to do what David said. Take that Psalm 19 and pray that prayer to God. Ask Him to show you your secret faults, to keep you from presumptuous sins, and to guide your thoughts and your words. And in doing so, what will happen is exactly what David said with him. You and I will become cleansed and blameless before God.