23-0528a Transcript

Preacher: Tom Freed

(1:21) Hello. I thought I’d take it easy on Roger, since Jim gave him a whole chapter. Last week I only wanted to give him a verse, so he could thank me later for that. (1:38) Jim did a great job last week preaching about David. I got some similar stuff.

I didn’t copy him because I had written my sermon (1:47) before I heard his, but for part of it, it almost feels like I did, but I think that’s how the spirit works. You know, we get a certain theme and a lot of us preach on the same stuff. My sermon is called No Excuses.

(2:05) Everybody makes mistakes in our lives. We all stumble, fall short in sin, many times in our Christian journey. So what do you do when you’re caught in a sinful situation and called out? (2:18) Do you make excuses and blame others, or do you take responsibility for what you’ve done? The idea for this sermon came last week when I was at work.

It wasn’t a huge mess up, but I made a mistake and it was enough to slow the shop down. I work at a steel mill and they’re all about production, so you know, if you cost them a little bit of time, they get mad. (2:42) The first thing I did when I was questioned by our shift manager was to point the finger at other people.

It wasn’t completely my fault, but in the end, I was the one who should have double-checked everybody else’s work before we started up. (2:58) So I looked to blame others first before I finally took responsibility for not checking and making sure everything was in order. So I’m sure you can all relate to this at your job or in relationships or at work or in any other area of life when sometimes we make a mistake, but we don’t always take blame.

(3:21) We look immediately to blame others or, you know, point the finger at somebody else or make excuses. So this takes the responsibility off you and allows you not to have to look at yourself and make any changes. It’s much easier to point the finger at somebody else than to stand up and take responsibility for your actions.

(3:44) This happens in a lot of areas in life, and even as Christians, many of us might look to others to blame others when we sin and fall short in our walk with Christ. It’s their fault, they made me do it. Does this sound familiar? Do any of you blame somebody else? (4:06) We can look all the way back to the beginning when Adam and Eve first sinned and brought death and corruption into the world.

They had only one simple rule to follow, do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We all remember the story, Satan deceived Eve to eat the fruit, then she gave it to Adam to eat. (4:29) Even though Eve did eat at first and tempted Adam with it, he still should have known better than to eat it himself.

So God specifically told them both and Adam knew better even though Eve ate it first. (4:44) Genesis 3 verse 6, when the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some of it and ate it. She also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate it.

(5:02) So instead of taking responsibility for their actions, what did they do? The man said, the woman you put here with me, she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it. Then the Lord said to the woman, what is this you have done? (5:19) The woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate it. Genesis 3 verse 12-13.

You can see that both of them immediately pointed the finger and blamed other people. They didn’t take responsibility for their actions. Adam blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent.

(5:38) Even though they were tempted and deceived, that is still no excuse. All of humanity is descended from Adam and Eve and I think the majority of us take after them. Most of us struggle with taking responsibility for our mistakes.

We look to point the finger and make excuses whenever we are caught in sin. (6:01) We can look back to Abraham who was a great prophet and the founding father of the nation Israel. He didn’t tell Abimelech the whole truth about Sarah saying that it was his sister and the king took her for his own.

God had to intervene threatening Abimelech and his family’s life if he did anything with her. (6:25) What did Abraham do when confronted with a situation by Abimelech? He didn’t take responsibility. He made every excuse in the book.

Genesis 20 verse 11-13. Abraham replied, I said to myself there is surely no fear of God in this place and they will kill me because of my wife. (6:50) Besides she really is my sister, the daughter of my father though not of my mother and she became my wife.

And when God had me wander from my father’s household I said to her this is how you can show me your love. Everywhere we go say of me he is my brother. (7:08) So it was his sister but he didn’t admit it was his wife.

It was a lie of omission. He didn’t tell the whole truth. He wasn’t completely honest and it led to some big problems.

When our sins find us out we can make excuses or be a grown man or woman and take responsibility for what we have done. (7:33) You don’t grow and become a better person let alone a better Christian if you don’t take responsibility for your actions. We need to ask ourselves what excuse is God going to accept when we stand before him in judgment.

We failed to do what he told us through his word. (7:51) Do you find any excuse that God is going to accept when we stand before him in judgment day? You know there is no excuse that he is going to accept for us failing to become a Christian, falling into sin and not repenting or worse yet walking away from the faith. He didn’t accept Adam, Eve or Abraham’s excuse when they fell short and I guarantee you he is not going to accept yours.

(8:20) Through life we are all going to make plenty of mistakes and fall flat on our face countless times. No one is perfect. Every single human being that has ever lived has sinned uncountable times except Jesus.

Romans 3.23. (8:38) We are all in sin and falling short of the glory of God. The question is not whether we are going to sin or sin or not. It is how we handle the situation when it does happen.

Like I said before do we look to make excuses? Do we look to blame somebody else? Or do we step up and take full responsibility for ourselves? (9:04) If we want to make things right with God, learn from our mistakes and grow as Christians we need to take responsibility for the sins we commit. If you make excuses and blame others it doesn’t leave any room to grow and change. There are many temptations in the world and the devil will use different situations and people in our lives tempt us with sin.

(9:28) A lot of times we don’t plan on sinning but when the right opportunity at the right time presents itself we often take the bait. We can see that as Christians especially we don’t always want to sin but if we are weak at a certain moment or certain circumstances happen it is easy to sin. (9:48) It is a lot easier to sin than to deny yourself and say no.

We cannot be tempted by God. God tempts us the devil tempts us. Jim did a great job of using Hebrew and Greek definitions showing us how tempt has two different meanings.

(10:12) When tempted no one should say God is tempting me. For God cannot be tempted by evil nor does he tempt anyone. When each one is tempted by his own evil desire he is dragged away and enticed.

When after the desire is conceived it gives birth to sin. And sin when it is full grown gives birth to death. (10:37) So God tempts us for good to help us grow and become stronger but the devil tempts us to destroy us and make us weaker.

So we are tempted by our own desires and dragged away and enticed. (10:54) Verse in James shows that sin starts in our mind it doesn’t start with physical action. So it starts in our mind and eventually grows till the time it comes when we give birth to it.

So it is a good illustration here where it starts in our mind just like a pregnant woman the baby starts in your body so you can’t see it. (11:17) It grows and grows till it is time to give birth. Just like with sin it grows in our mind and our thoughts until it becomes big enough where we can’t hold back anymore and it turns into action.

So giving birth to sin means it has gone from thoughts to actions. (11:33) If those actions continue it becomes full grown bringing death. So then after we have committed the sins physically if we continue on it brings addiction you know pain and death.

(11:49) Romans 5 verse 12. Therefore just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin and in this way death came to all because all have sinned. You can see with Adam and Eve it brought death into the world.

(12:05) You know it brought not right away physical death but it brought spiritual death. You know then later on physical death. So we can see when we sin we die spiritually and we need to be saved.

That is why we need to repent and become Christians and wash away our sins. (12:25) We all have different things that tempt and entice us in life and the devil will do his best to present those things to you at your weakest moments. He is like a roaring lion looking to pounce on you when your guard is down.

(12:39) 1 Peter 5 verse 8. Be controlled and alert your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. So a lot of times as Christians you might get bored or become complacent. You might become lukewarm and that is the time when the devil will pounce on you.

(13:00) So a lot of us have been Christians for a long time. I mean I think I might have been a Christian for 20 years now and a lot of times we are on fire at first. You know and a lot of times it seems like we are a lot stronger and more faithful early on.

(13:16) As time goes on you get bored and you say no I can’t do anything. You might get complacent or you might not do the same things you have done. At that time the devil will take advantage and he will tempt you with sin and a lot of times he will take the bait.

(13:34) You know lions attack the weak when they hunt. They look for the young or stragglers from the flock to go after. They usually don’t go after a large group held tightly together or the biggest and strongest prey.

They go after the young, they go after the weak, they go after those that are injured. (13:54) We need to be diligent and stay alert because the moment you let your guard down the devil will tempt you. None of us are immune to sin and complacency.

Even the most faithful people have ever lived and struggled and committed horrible offenses. (14:11) Like Jim preached about last week, one of the first people that came to mind was King David who fell into sin. He was on fire for the Lord almost all his life and no one seemed to be more passionate about God than him.

You can see his passion. (14:31) They brought home the Ark of the Covenant. He loved to worship God.

His daughter was even mad and ashamed because he was dancing so hard that I think he was exposing himself when they were walking through the streets because he was so excited. (14:47) But even him, he even fell into sin. He is the only one in the Bible that God said is after his own heart.

Acts 13.22. After removing Saul he made David their king. He testified concerning him. I have found David the son of Jesse a man after my own heart.

He will do everything I want him to do. (15:11) He was a righteous man who almost always made the right choices. But eventually he would make some big mistakes.

So you can see throughout the Bible there are many times where he made a choice that a lot of us couldn’t make. He made the right choice, the hard choices. (15:32) But he became complacent.

He was on the roof of the king’s house when Bathsheba was bathing. So he sent for her and committed adultery which resulted in her getting pregnant. So he could have stopped there and stepped up and admitted his wrongs.

But he didn’t stop there. He committed even greater sin to cover that one up. (15:58) So he sent for Uriah to go to the front line and he told the commander to pull the troops back.

So he gave a completely innocent man a death sentence to cover up the sins that he committed. And Jim did a good job telling the entire story of that. (16:17) So we do this a lot of times.

You know many times if you sin instead of stopping there, we sin more and more to cover that other sin up. Especially with lies. If you lie, one lie you have to keep telling lies to cover the other one up.

(16:34) So he forgot one thing when he was caught up in the cycle of sin. God sees everything you do. You cannot hide from God.

Jeremiah 23-24. Can anyone hide himself in secret places so I shall not see him? Says the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? Says the Lord.

(16:58) God is everywhere. From the highest heights to the deepest depths. Psalm 139, 7-8.

Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend into heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in hell, behold, you are there. (17:18) That’s a verse they memorized from the Chosen, if you remember that.

But you cannot hide from God. He’s everywhere. He sees everything.

You know we’re naked before him. And there is no creature hidden from his sight. But all things are naked and open to the eyes of him to whom he must give an account.

Hebrews 4-13. (17:42) So even if we do something that we think is in secret, we tell nobody else. You know our sins are still going to find us out a lot of times.

God is still going to find a way to call you out on it. So you’ll never be able to get away with your sin completely. (18:01) You know we’re lucky that he doesn’t call us out and punish us for every sin we commit.

But at a certain time he is going to call you out and expose you. Even though David was a very special person and a king of God’s people, he still had to be held accountable for what he had done. (18:21) Nathan confronted David in a parable and exposed him for what he did.

He was worthy of death through his own admittance for the things he had done. When Nathan confronted him he could have denied it, made excuses or even killed the prophet for calling him out. A lot of lesser kings would have done that.

If you’re a king, you can do anything. If people call you out, a lot of times the king won’t listen or you’ll have that person killed. (18:49) But David did the right thing.

He immediately took responsibility for his actions. 2 Samuel 12 verse 13. Then David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord.

Nathan replied, the Lord has taken away your sin. You are not going to die. (19:08) For everything he had done wrong in this situation, we had to give him credit because he took full responsibility for his actions.

Because of this the Lord had mercy on David and let him live. But he still punished him for what he had done. (19:24) The child conceived in his adulterous relationship would not live and his son would take the kingdom for a short time and lie with his wife for everybody to see.

So we can see that even though David committed horrible offenses against his people and more importantly God, he still did the right thing in the end when he was called out and he admitted it and he took responsibility. (19:51) The Bible says if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.

1 John 1 verse 9-10. (20:10) So God will be willing to forgive us for whatever we have done as long as we confess to him. If we deny it, if we hide it, if we don’t take responsibility, then he has no reason to forgive us.

Just because God forgives your sins and watches you, God forgives you and watches you to answer for the crimes or sins you have committed on earth. (20:32) If you commit murder and have a life sentence, it won’t go away just because you repented. You can see with David, he was forgiven of his sins, he didn’t have to die, but he did have to face earthly consequences.

(20:47) The bottom line is we have a choice to make when we sin. We can blame others and make every excuse in the book or we can step up like David did and take responsibility. Things will go a lot better for us in life and we will be forgiven by God if we confess our sins and do everything we can to make things right.

(21:08) So we have a choice. We can be honest, we can step up and make it right with God or we can continue on and sin and make excuses. Even though there are many tempting things in the world, there is still no acceptable reason to sin.

We don’t ever have an excuse to sin because God always provides a way out. (21:32) 1 Corinthians 10.13, No temptation that seeth you except what is common to man. And God is faithful.

He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out for you that you can stand up under it. (21:52) So God will not allow us to be tempted with something we cannot walk away from and he provides an escape.

The problem is some temptations are really strong to us. We often fail to choose the way God has provided. (22:07) So think about the times in your life when you were really tempted with something you really wanted and you knew that thing was wrong.

If you remember that time, I guarantee you there was an opportunity you could have seen where you could have walked away. (22:25) A lot of times it is not easy for us to walk away because the temptation is so strong but we can easily walk away if we choose to. Just like with David, he was on the roof.

He could have walked away at any time he wanted to. It would have been simple for him. (22:47) But instead, the temptation was so strong, he committed a sin.

Sexual sin is one of the hardest sins to overcome. Even a great man like David, however many beautiful wives he had, still wanted more, still wasn’t pleased. (23:07) So most of the time, like I said, we could just walk away.

We could just resist the temptation. But many times we are not strong enough or want to sin too much to walk away with the way God provided us. (23:25) Like I said, it is much easier said than done.

I have fallen short many a times. I can look back and say, I had the chance. I had the chance to walk away.

God made it easy for me to walk away but I chose not to. (23:42) A lot of times we have to live with that. We have to live with the sins we have committed.

We have to pay the consequences. (23:52) So we need to look at Joseph as an example. He didn’t just walk away from temptation.

He ran. (24:01) That she caught him by the garment saying, lie with me. But he left his garment in her hands and fled and ran outside.

Genesis 39.12 (24:12) If only we could be like Joseph. When he was faced with sexual temptation, he turned and ran. The Bible says to do what Joseph did and flee from sin.

(24:24) 1 Corinthians 6.18. Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that man does is outside the body. But he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.

(24:37) We can see that God’s way is always the best way. We will save ourselves a lot of pain and heartache if we take His advice. (24:46) But better yet we shouldn’t even look lustfully at anyone like Jim talked about in his sermon.

(24:53) Everything happened to David because he first saw. So he could see Bathsheba but seeing is one thing but like Jim made a good point that saw is a whole other thing. (25:08) If you see certain things that you can’t avoid and turn your eyes from it and try to think of something else you can avoid sin.

(25:15) But if you continually look, look lustfully, let that sin start and build in your mind, a lot of times you’re going to give in. (25:25) Like I said before, every sin happens in our mind and it grows until we give birth in physical action. (25:33) That is why Jesus said, whoever looks lustfully at a woman has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Matthew 5.28. (25:42) You already committed a sin if you look lustfully. Even if you haven’t physically done it. (25:48) But you can still save yourself a lot of problems and pain if you repent and get rid of the thoughts right away.

(25:56) He knows that sin starts in your heart. So we need to discipline our body and beat it into submission. (26:03) 1 Corinthians 9.27. No, I beat my body and make it a slave so that after I preach to others, I myself will not be disqualified to the prize.

(26:16) This is an allusion not only to boxers but as the wrestlers in the same games as we learn from the Greek word to beat which signifies a hit in the eyes. (26:27) An enslave which signifies a trip and gives the antagonist the fall and they keep him down as he was down. (26:36) And having obliged him to acknowledge himself conquered, make him a slave.

(26:41) So they beat their opponents into submission and made them give up. (26:47) This is what we need to do to our bodies to control it. (26:50) The apostle considers his body an enemy with that he must contend.

He must mortify it by self-denial, abstinence and severe labor. (27:00) It must be a slave of his soul and not the soul a slave of the body which in all regenerate men is the case. (27:09) So we can see that you’re either going to control your body or it’s going to control you.

(27:16) It’s not an easy thing to do but we can control ourselves. We can beat our bodies into submission. (27:24) We must conquer our flesh but if we fail to do so we must repent and confess and take full responsibility for what we have done.

(27:35) We can see that one day we’re all going to have to stand before God and answer for everything we’ve done on earth. (27:40) 2 Corinthians 5.10 (27:43) For we all must appear before the judgment seat of Christ. (27:47) That each one may receive what is due to him for the things he has done in his body, whether good or bad.

(27:57) Every arial word spoken we’re going to have to answer for. (28:02) Matthew 12.36 (28:03) But I tell you that men will have to give an account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. (28:11) The good thing for the Christians is that we’ll be found flawless before God and our sins will not be remembered.

(28:20) I, even I, am he who washed out your sins and transgressions. (28:25) For my own sake and remember your sins no more. (28:28) Isaiah 43.25 (28:32) You will again have compassion on us.

(28:34) You will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea. (28:40) Micah 7.19 (28:43) Though he puts our sins away as far as we can imagine. (28:47) As far as east is from west.

(28:49) So far has he removed our transgressions from us. (28:54) Psalm 103.12 (28:57) Come let us now reason together, says the Lord. (29:00) Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be white as snow.

(29:04) Though they are red as crimson, they will be like wool. (29:07) So we can see that God gets rid of our sins. (29:11) He doesn’t remember them.

(29:13) They’re the deepest ocean. (29:16) So we can stand before him and we don’t have to answer for all the things we’ve committed on earth. (29:22) If you aren’t Christian and have done what he said to be forgiven.

(29:26) You know, we all have to be standing before God and it’s a scary thing. (29:31) Even as a Christian, but especially if you’re not a Christian. (29:35) It’s a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

(29:38) Hebrews 10.31 (29:40) There were the times when God overlooked ignorance of the law. (29:44) In the Old Testament. (29:46) But now everybody’s accountable.

(29:49) In the past God overlooked such ignorance. (29:51) But now he commands all people everywhere to repent. (29:55) For he has set a day and he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed.

(30:00) He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead. (30:04) Acts 17.32.31 (30:08) We can see that we’re all going to be held accountable. (30:11) We all have to answer.

(30:13) We have proof that Jesus is God because he rose from the grave. (30:18) There’s not many stronger apologetics than that. (30:21) You can find the bodies of Mohammed, Buddha, and Confucius.

(30:25) But you cannot find the body of Jesus Christ. (30:29) He’s the only one who remains. (30:31) You cannot find.

(30:33) Because he’s the only person that has defeated death. (30:37) 2 Timothy 1.10. (30:40) It has now been revealed through the appearing of the Savior Christ Jesus. (30:44) Who has destroyed death and brought life and immortality to life through the gospel.

(30:49) And the only reason he was able to do this is because he truly is God. (30:54) Matthew bears witness. (30:56) He is not here.

(30:58) For he is risen. (30:59) As he said. (31:01) Come see the place where the Lord lay.

(31:04) So we have a ton of eyewitness testimony. (31:06) That we’re talking about in our apologetics class. (31:09) There’s over 500 that have seen Christ.

(31:13) There’s over, you know, how many people that have written the first hand accounts. (31:18) The testimony that Jesus has rose from the dead and they’ve seen him. (31:22) And eyewitness testimony is powerful.

(31:26) His remains are not on earth because he’s seated at the right hand of God. (31:30) Romans 8.34. (31:32) Who is he who condemns? (31:33) It is Christ who died and furthermore is also risen. (31:37) Who is even at the right hand of God who also makes intercession for us.

(31:43) So you have to ask yourself. (31:44) What excuse is God going to accept for you not obeying his word and becoming a Christian? (31:51) Through creation he has made abundantly clear he exists. (31:55) So we are without excuse to believe in him.

(31:58) Romans 1.20. (32:00) For since the creation of the world his invisible attributes are clearly seen. (32:05) Being understood by the things that are made. (32:09) Even his eternal power in Godhead.

(32:11) So that they are without excuse. (32:14) So we can see from creation if you look at the world. (32:17) You do any kind of research on it.

(32:20) You can see that it had to be created. (32:22) You know nothing this great with however many things could have randomly happened. (32:30) If you have failed to become a Christian.

(32:32) Or are willfully in sin and refuse to confess and repent to God. (32:37) Then you will have a day of reckoning. (32:40) The hour is coming before we all have to stand before God.

(32:45) You will either be resurrected to life or eternal damnation. (32:49) John 5.28.29 (32:52) Do not marvel at this. (32:54) For the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear his voice and come forth.

(33:00) Those who have done good to the resurrection of life. (33:03) And those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation. (33:08) John 5.28.29 (33:11) It could be tomorrow.

(33:13) It could be any day you do not know. (33:15) And if it is not. (33:17) If he does not come back while we are alive.

(33:18) You are still going to have to answer to him when you are dead. (33:22) No matter what you have to answer to God for what you have done. (33:27) The last word you want to hear from Jesus is.

(33:30) I never knew you. Depart from me you who practice lawlessness. (33:34) Matthew 7.23 (33:37) There is not going to be any kind of money, smooth talking or excuse in the world.

(33:43) That is going to allow you to make it to heaven on judgment day. (33:47) You know you are not going to be able to talk your way into heaven. (33:50) You are not going to be able to give an excuse to allow you into heaven.

(33:54) The only way to be saved is to obey the gospel of what God commanded us. (34:00) So if you are not a Christian. (34:02) What are you waiting for? (34:04) Arise and be baptized and wash away your sins.

(34:06) Calling on the name of the Lord. (34:08) Acts 22.16 (34:11) If you are a Christian and caught up in sin like David. (34:15) Take responsibility for your actions and make things right with God.

(34:19) There is no better time than the present. (34:22) And today to take action and obey God’s word. (34:27) Behold now is the accepted time.

(34:29) Behold today is the day of salvation. (34:32) 2 Corinthians 6.2 (34:35) So if you want to be a Christian. (34:38) Or if you want to come forward and need the prayers of the congregation for anything.

(34:44) Now is the time to come forward. (34:45) Thank you. (34:46)