Why Do I Sin and How Do I Stop?

A very pleasant Holy Day to all of you. This Holy Day has astounding significance, because years ago, at this very moment, waters were rushing back together and crushing the Egyptian army at the very bottom of the Red Sea. We have just completed six days of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which picture your and my walk, our journey in this lifetime, through our whole lifetime, up towards an impenetrable end which we cannot escape from. And that is the physical human life. But this seventh day, this Holy Day, pictures the miraculous breaking of the heavens, as it were, a breaking of the limit of physical space and time, and the grand entrance of the first fruits into the spiritual realm of the Kingdom of God.

How do we get there? How do we come to the salvation that this day portrays? Well, as you and I fully well know, there's a process. There's a process that God has involved Himself in very completely through the life and the death of His firstborn. On His part of the Covenant, He is very involved. He is committed 100 percent. How committed are you and I to our part of that Covenant, to our part of the fulfilling of what will make us acceptable to Jesus Christ in that particular day?

There's a well-known Kenyan preacher up around the town of El-Duret in central northwest Kenya. And this preacher has been preaching for years. He's been preaching a gospel and leading people to love the Lord. However, just a little over a month ago, he was seen putting down his Bible and picking up a machete. And this collagen preacher was out hacking cuckoo use to death. Another tribe that had been peacefully dwelling with them.

In fact, he shopped in their shops. He had some in his congregation. But now, something inside switched to where a preacher of love is now an agent of death. In another example in western Kenya, two young adults were baptized about three years ago. I had the pleasure of performing their baptism and counseling them.

And in the small town they were from, they made very good leaders in our local congregation. Leaders in the sense that they were the first contacts, organized the church service, played the tapes, did some translation from the local people. Jobs are a rarity in Kenya because of the corrupt government and even a very corrupt police force to go along with it.

Well, in that small town some job openings on the police force came available. And both of these young men were selected to be policemen. We have not heard from them since. They have had no contact whatsoever with the church. Now, I use these two examples to raise the question, what causes Christians with God's Holy Spirit to commit sin? Why do we do that? Why do we do that? Paul raised that question, why do I do that? And he fought within himself. But the one who wrote more of the New Testament than anyone else still found himself sinning.

So here we are in this paradox. We're celebrating our liberty today with the return of Christ and the resurrection of the sons. We're celebrating a mini festival, as it were, of the festival of the first fruits, timing of the Feast of Trumpets. It's a really big day today. It really is. The question is, will I be there? Will you be there? Today, the title of this split sermon is, Why Do I Sin?

and How Do I Stop? I took the first spot because I feel this is an introductory message to the other messages that will come along today. And a good place for us to begin asking ourselves these questions of, will I be there? And if so, how will I become like that unleavened bread I've been eating all week? Sinless, humble, purified by Christ. But how will I do my part, fulfill my part? We're going to take a look today at some of the components of why we sin and how we can stop. I hope these are meaningful and cause you to stop and think as I have and begin to enact some of the mechanics or mechanisms of change that we all need as we go on from here.

First thing we need to realize is your nature, your human nature, is not inherently evil. It may have become evil, but it's not inherently evil. You didn't get an evil nature from your parents, in other words. You didn't have an evil nature when you were born. So our nature actually is not evil as the way God made it. You'll recall in Genesis 2 chapter that on the sixth day God created Adam and he created Eve. And after he created everything he said, this is good. This is very good.

So Adam and Eve, with a nature, were good. Jesus also said, unless you become as a child like one of these, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. So children don't have bad evil natures. We actually need to adopt some of the innocence, some of the willingness to obey, the willingness to do as we're told, to trust our parents as a little child would.

We celebrate unleavened bread as a symbol that we will not sin. Each day I hope you've been eating unleavened bread. Each time you put it in your mouth, hopefully the thought goes through, this is what I need to be. This is what portrayed Jesus Christ the night on Passover that I took it. Now he wants me to eat it for seven days portraying me as what I ought to be.

I ought to be Christ-like, like him. So as we've been eating that, we've said I won't sin. I don't want to sin. And I want to get any type of leaven, pride, vanity, ego, all of the agents of Satan's mind out of me. Yet somehow, I don't know if you've found it yourself, I have. I am a sinner. I have found this week myself saying things, making things that I've had to repent of.

Now how did that happen? Especially during the days of unleavened bread, when I've been eating something that tells me, you're not supposed to be like that. How does that happen? Well, sometimes we abandon our resolve to not sin, and we give in. Again, are we going to succeed in what that unleavened bread pictures tonight? Some of you, or some of us, will probably be out, maybe at dinner still, and somebody will bring along a nice, hot, steaming loaf of bread. Here, have some bread and some butter with honey in it or something. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Days of unleavened bread are over. We can rejoice. But before we do that, before we do that, let's just remember that piece of unleavened bread still is to tell us today that we need to be humble and sinless. We need to be not elevated by ourselves and puffed up, but rather God raises up those who are humble. Let Him do the elevating into the Kingdom, which is what this day portrays.

If we stay flat all week, God will raise us up in the end. If we're puffed up all week, we're going to die in the wilderness. We are not going to make it into the Kingdom. So let's go to 1 Corinthians 10 and verses 1-5. 1 Corinthians 10. And notice something that happened on this very day. Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud and all passed through the sea.

So essentially, there's a secondary lesson of this day. Once again, we can begin a journey like Israel toward the literal Promised Land. But what happened to them? They went into the sea, they ate the same spiritual food, they were baptized, as it were, into Moses, in the cloud, and the sea, just like you and I have been baptized. And now they're going to make a journey from there on to the Promised Land.

All ate the same spiritual food. You and I all have the same Holy Spirit from God. We all have that part of Jesus Christ and the Father living in us. So shouldn't we all just together go forward? They all drank of that same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. So we're to live, we're to eat the bread of life every day, we're to drink Him in.

Verse 5, But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. Now, I hate to be a little bit down and say that some of us aren't going to make it, but who was it that gave us the parable of the ten virgins? All of them were virgins. All of them did not mix in with false religions. So they were virgins, but five of them were foolish, remember?

So there's a warning to us. Jesus said, Many will come to me in that day saying, Lord, Lord, He'll say, Depart from me, You who work lawlessness, You who break the law. He said, Many are called, but few are chosen. So yes, there is a personal responsibility to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, the Apostle Paul tells us. So as we look at this, let's examine very carefully where we are weak and how we can be strong.

And then each take it upon ourselves, as individual men and women, to become responsible for putting sin out of our life. You and I, it turns out, have a neutral mind. We're not born with an evil nature. We have a neutral mind, however. It does not gravitate towards godliness and righteousness, nor does it necessarily gravitate towards sin and selfishness. It's neutral. We are created with a neutral mind. However, that neutral mind is very easily influenced. It's like a sailboat sitting out in the middle of a lake with the sails all up. Of and by itself, that sailboat doesn't go anywhere. But it's easily influenced by wind. And wherever the wind picks up, it will impact the direction that that sailboat goes.

That's what happens when you and I receive something called temptation. A thought comes to our mind. Now Christ was tempted in all things without sin. So you and I will also be tempted in all things. But what will we do? If a sailboat sits in the middle of a lake and the sails are up and a wind comes from the side and blows it, if the person at the till does not move the tiller, the sailboat will simply blow off and wander around over there. Now that's easy. It turns out that you and I are human and we're lazy.

We say, Oh, well, look at there. Now we're moving. Okay, where are we going? I don't know. But we're moving. We're a sailboat. Shouldn't we be going? Makes sense to me. Temptation comes along and then we add some logic to it. See something? Hmm, logic. Well, we think about this for a minute. How does this fit? How does this wind fit? How does this idea? How does this invitation? Well, we'll think about it. Hmm. And then with our human mind, we tend to think, how will it benefit me?

How will I profit from it? By using logic, it begins to sound reasonable and then profitable to us. However, if you say, Well, wait a minute, I have this other thought from God's Holy Spirit that says, I really need to be going that way. But to go that way, I'd have to push on the tiller and go 45 degrees into the wind. It would be a bit challenging. It would take some time going that way. It wouldn't be as fast. And I don't really see the point of profit for myself like I would over here.

See? And so chances are we come into the process that is mentioned in James 1, verses 14 and 15. And this is indeed what Paul found when he stood for righteousness, but he found that he would get involved in sin because the human mind would not resist and would start to interpret and then validate and then go ahead and form an action. It's the easy way, the logical way. James 1, 14 says, but each one is tempted. He's tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires.

I want something. Ooh, there's something that I want. Hmm, sounds pleasurable. Sounds nice. Then it says we are enticed to do that. Ah, so I think maybe that would be a nice thing to go ahead and do or to say or to think.

Verse 15, then when desire has conceived. Now wait a minute, so you have to bake desire. A little nine-month bake job there. And you think about that. Ooh, that's nice. That attention, that person, that substance, that action, that sounds nice. And the more you think about it, ooh, that sounds really nice. And that's going to work out really well. So you conceive this thing and when it really baits for a little while, doesn't always take too long, then it gives birth.

It gives birth to an action, to sin. And when it is full grown, it brings forth death. When a person then continues on down that path, we will not be in the kingdom of God. We will be agents of lawlessness, choosing to do that which we are drawn physically to and rejecting that which we are drawn by God to do. So the reason we sin is because we think about it and we ponder it. Then we act upon it and we create a deed. Now, let's just think for a minute. Do we have any input, any control whatsoever over that process?

You know, the carnal mind really doesn't because there's no alarm bells to go off in the unconverted mind. They find them just self-saying, well, maybe I shouldn't, but well, maybe I should and well, maybe I am and well, maybe I did. And then afterward, all the penalties come down and the whole thing goes sour and they say, wow, how did I get into that? I have to write myself a note next time. Not to do that again. Well, it turns out that the human mind is very easily led, very easily led astray.

But can we do something about it? We tend to follow what appeals to me, to myself. We tend to ignore what is responsible for others. We tend to not think about spouse and family when somebody else comes along and is right there in your eyes.

You tend not to think about what people will feel when anger is rolled right up there and your words are just ready to strike. We don't tend to be responsible for others. We tend to want to protect, take care of, and benefit ourselves.

And that's a real downfall. Going on in verse 16, it says, do not be deceived. So we are easily led. And what we're told here in this process is don't allow yourself to be deceived up front. This is not good. That little wind that blows, that little person that pops up, that little opportunity that's going to be so beneficial.

It's a lie! It is a lie! It is a screaming lie. Don't be deceived. Don't think that the glamour of Sin City, don't think that all the fun at night, don't think the fun in booze and drugs and sex and all that stuff, it sounds really good on the front end. Don't be deceived by it. It's a lie! It is a lie!

The one thing I appreciate about Hollywood movies is they are truthful. They take you into all this debauchery, and at the end they always bring you to ruin. But nobody gets it. You know, the lesson has been there in every Hollywood movie I think I've ever seen. Nobody ever glamorized Sin, and at the end they ran off happy. Now they get trashed in the end and it falls apart and lives are miserable. And at the end you think, wow, society will wake up when they see this one.

No. It just gets worse and worse and worse because people are deceived by the temptation of sin. But here he talks to my beloved brethren, those with God's Holy Spirit, right out of the chute when something comes up, we've got to say, that's deception. I'm being baited here. In Romans 7 and verse 25, the Apostle Paul tells us about two influences that are working on us. Romans 7 and verse 25, I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. He comes to this conclusion at the end of the wrestling with the nature that's inside Him and the Spirit of God that also is inside Him.

And he says, so then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. So the spiritual side of our mind will serve God and His law. It will be prompted to do that. But the physical side, if you want to call it that, the mind is not physical, but the physically oriented side of our mind serves the lusts of the flesh.

So here we have the neutral mind, and here we have the Spirit of God and its pull, and here we have the human carnal mind and its pull. And this physical side wants to pull you to do the lusts of the flesh. And the spiritual wants to pull you to do the righteous, loving, responsible acts that God teaches us. The question then results in a choice. You and I have a beautiful opportunity to choose. We are not sold into slavery anymore. We are released from slavery at baptism when we died with Christ and then we were raised to a new way of life, a potential new way of life.

And now Jesus Christ and God the Father will work in us to help us go forward. What do we want to? Do we want to? In Romans 13 and verse 14, we find that sin has a domino effect. If you step into the first aspect of the lust or the desire and you're compelled by it and you start to let it bake in your mind and you don't reject it there, then you go on forward to an action.

The domino effect here is like those little things you see sometimes where people set up thousands of dominoes. And it's not just one domino hitting another.

One domino hits another and it falls down, but soon you come to a branch and then you have two running and then three and then branches and then lots of dominoes are falling everywhere. Because first you make a choice to sin and hurt someone or hurt God, but the next thing that you do is you can continue to compound that and the hurt then goes against your character, goes against your reputation, goes against your relationship with God and your fellow man and other people after that. It begins to hurt other people as well on the other side. It's not beneficial. It's not just letting people down. It begins to actually hurt other individuals. And so the end result is a lot of pain for a lot of people. And here we find that we are to put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh. Don't make any provision to go down that way. You just stop. You put on Christ. You pray to God. You ask Him every day, help me not to be led into temptation. His Holy Spirit will be there to prompt you as soon as you say, whoo, that looks good. Another voice will say, get out of here. Don't do that. You'll only get one notification and then it's up to you to choose. If you say, oop, yep, not going there, you have not sinned. You have been tempted and walked away and God will help you do that.

But just don't put on any provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts. There's a way that seems right to a man and it seems really good. It's that way. It looks good. It's got all the opportunities, but it's worthless and it's empty. And you can take any icon who has lived that life to the full and look at the end of their life and see there's nothing there but death. Nothing at all. What we need is to be spiritually minded. The Bible tells us that to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Will you and I daily, hourly call on God and ask for His help to be spiritually minded, to begin our day reading and internalizing spiritual food so that we have the law of God written right there in the forefront of our mind. That we take on all of the armor mentioned in Ephesians, the sixth chapter of God, to work, to keep, to defend, to champion over this desire, this human quest that we have to sin and to go a self-centered way. We need to control our mind and to remove carnal thinking.

We can't just do it as a project or a plan or I'm going to do that in the future. We can only do it with the thought you're thinking right now. Ask yourself, is my thought sabbatical or am I lusting for time and thoughts of a day that's mine the other six days of the week?

Am I thinking godly thoughts today? Am I talking spiritual things with people? Or am I talking about my work and talking about my life and talking about you and what we'll do tonight or tomorrow?

See, it begins with the thoughts any given moment and how we're thinking about other people.

In Acts 24-25, Paul spoke of righteousness and self-control that goes along with that.

Matthew 24-6 No, sorry, wrong scripture.

We are to be spiritually minded. Spiritually minded is really well defined by Galatians 5, verses 22 and 23. The fruit of God's Spirit, the Spirit in our life will produce a certain fruit and that will be love, which is the fulfillment of the law and all the associated things of faith and trust and the diligence to perform the law in our daily life. We're to pray every day that God will feed us, that He will not allow us to be led into temptation, but to be delivered from the evil one. And we're to resist Satan in that mind. We're told to think whatever you think. Think things that are pure, things that are lovely, things that are godly. Don't allow the mind to be caught up in other types of thought. All of these things require self-control, a discipline, a controlling of every thought. And God's Holy Spirit will help us do that because self-control is one of the aspects of the Holy Spirit of God. We're also to stay away from sinners. Now, I'm a sinner. You can stay away from me if you want. But what this is talking about is people who are living an openly sinful lifestyle. Paul says if you see a brother sinning, breaking what you've been taught, then remove yourself from him. Don't even eat with that person because people influence us. And it's easier for a human mind to be dragged down into sinful things than it is to be brought up, up the difficult, higher, narrow road, which humans, we don't tend to like things that are difficult. We like to fill our homes and our lives with labor saving devices and take it easy in our easy chair and to be cool. So our tendency will tend to be to go the easy way to float along the water course of this world, the course of the devil.

So I wanted to bring these things to you today so that we begin to actually think, not just, oh, I kept the days of 11 bread, so I hope I'll be in the kingdom. I'm in the church, so, you know, God's Holy Spirit. I was baptized. Let's see. Check that one off. I think we're good to go. Because we could find ourselves wandering around in the desert for 40 years in our journey in life. And instead of reaching the right destination, we could fail. We could fail.

We could fail.

In conclusion, there is a battle going on in each one of the firstfruits.

And this battle is a real fight if we care to join into it. And those who will reign with Christ will overcome. That's a battle term. It means you win the battle.

To overcome sin means you finish it. You're the champion. Well, today we've seen why we sin. We've seen how we can stop it. I'd like to conclude by reading Galatians 5, beginning in verse 16. Galatians 5, verse 16. I say then, walk in the Spirit.

We have to walk. We have to march in this life. We can't sit still and wait. We have to march.

Just as all week the Israelites had been marching to get to the edge of Egypt, right there to the Red Sea, walk and walk in the Spirit. And you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary to one another so that you do not do the things that you wish. This is a journey we're on.

And not too far down the road, it seems, is the reward. And that reward will be wonderful and fabulous for the first fruits. And it's something that I want all of you to be part of and nobody to miss out. And I just feel I would be derelict if I didn't bring out some of these matters that you and I really need to be involved in very, very seriously every day of our life. Let's conclude with verse 25 of Galatians 5. If we live in the Spirit, if we respond to the things that God is encouraging us to do and listen to that small voice and say, no, I won't do that, but yes, I will do this. I will perform acts of righteousness. If we're going to live in the Spirit, then let us also walk in the Spirit. I hope your journey to the Kingdom of God is a very inspiring and wonderful one. And I look forward to being with all of God's people when Jesus Christ returns as we celebrate the victory that this day reminds us of where we are transported from an impossible place into the literal spiritual Kingdom of God.