Is Sin Serious?

What is our sense of identity bound up with? race, ethnicity family background political leaning education religion occupation

1. If God is real we have to face up to who He is and how we relate to Him. We will never have a true sense of identity and purpose unless we recognize that God created us in His image, and that we were created as a reflection of Him.

Gen 1 vs Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. v 31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.

2. A perfect relationship in a perfect environment. Gen 2 vs And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.

9 And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

B. What went wrong?

How easy would it be to keep just one rule? 1. A single prohibition Gen 2 vs And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "You may surely eat of every tree of the garden,

17 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." 2. One act of disobedience Gen 3 v 6

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, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

3. Disastrous consequences (i) Death Romans 5 v 12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned

Gen 2 v 17 - You shall surely die. (ii) Separation Isaiah 59 v 2 But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.

Gen 3 vs therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

(iii) Universal Rom 3 v 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God

Effects of the Fall Man and God Man and woman Man and nature

C. Is sin serious? 1. Depravity Jer 17 v 9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

Every aspect of our nature and character has been affected by sin. 2. Defilement Mark 7 vs And he said, "What comes out of a person is what defiles him.

21 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person."

3. Defiance I John 3 v 4 Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.

4. Desperation We are in a desperate state and cannot save ourselves. Tit 3 vs But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Saviour appeared,

5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, 7 so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.