07-13-14 Why God Fights Against Sin

The farther we progress in this study

of the way in which our Lord

brings His people freedom from sin

the more I realize how many underlying issues there are

that have the power to affect what we hear.

We jumped into this part of our study

focusing on the HOW’s

when it might have been better for us

to begin with the WHY’s.

Why does God fight against sin

in the lives of His people?

I think possibly the first response

many of us would offer to that question

is that God fights against sin

because He is Holy

and sin offends Him.

In other words,

we see His goal in this whole sin thing

as being the elimination of sin - He fights against sin because He hates sin

and He wants to get rid of as much of it as possible.

Or we may find ourselves

seeing God fighting against sin

not simply because it offends Him,

but because it is a threat to Him

and to what He is seeking to accomplish on this earth.

We may see Him battling against sin

much as we would see

the general of an army in a great nation

going to war against some evil empire that threatens his own Kingdom.

Or we may feel that God fights against sin in our lives

so that He can form us into usable vessels

through whom He can then express Himself and accomplish His work.

If we believe any of those ideas,

and if those ideas form the basis upon which we then hear what God is saying to us about sin in our lives,

it will be a major hindrance

in His efforts to bring about

the kind of freedom He seeks to bring into our lives.

The truth is

sin never has been

and never will be a threat to God.

Sin has no power to defeat Him.

Evil has no ability to win against Him.

God cannot be conquered by evil,

He cannot be threatened by it,

and He is certainly not engaged

in a massive battle against evil on this earth.

God did not do what He did through Christ

because He hated evil

and hated sin

and wanted to somehow bring a decisive blow against it.

John 3:16 does not say,

‟For God so hated evil that He gave His only Son...”

It says, ‟John 3:16 “For God so loved US that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

God fights against sin in our lives

not because He is fighting against sin

but because He is fighting for us.

It is not His hatred of sin

that motivates Christ to fight for our freedom from sin,

it is His love for us.

Maybe an illustration would help.

You are a parent.

You notice that your ten year old child

is not feeling well.

His energy level is way down,

he’s sleeping a lot more,

he’s not eating properly.

You take him to the doctor

assuming that the boy is just fighting one of the viruses floating around.

The doctor runs a bunch of tests

and then gives you the terrifying news

that your son is in the early stages

of a potentially deadly cancer

that only affects children in their pre-adolescent years.

He tells you that there is

a highly effective treatment program,

with a strong possibility of defeating the cancer,

but it will not be quick,

it will not be easy,

and it will not be cheap.

And so, for the next eighteen months of your life

you invest all of your resources,

and all of your time,

and all of your energy into helping your boy fight this disease that threatens him.

Why?

Do you fight against the cancer

because you have a philosophical bias

against foreign growths in the human body?

Do you fight against it

because you are afraid the cancer

will attack and destroy you next?

Of course not.

You fight against the cancer

for only one reason -

because you love your son

and you will fight against anything

that fights against him.

And as long as I’ve gotten into this illustration,

let me take it a step farther.

In order for you and your son

to make it through the year and a half battle

in a way that strengthens your relationship with one another

it would be essential that your son correctly understands your motives.

Picture for a moment

how it would affect your son

if in the course of his treatment

you were to go into his hospital room to assist the physician in administering

an especially painful part of the medical treatment.

As the process begins

your son says to you, “Why are you doing this to me? Why are you making me hurt like this?”

And you respond, “I’m doing this because I HATE CANCER!!

I’ve always hated cancer,

and because I hate cancer

I’m going to do to you whatever I have to do in order to destroy the cancer inside you.”

How do you think that would affect your boy?

Would he draw strength from it?

Would he be able to draw strength from you and from your presence with him?

Or would it drive him away from you,

making him feel as though you viewed him as the enemy,

and you were furious with him

because something you hated

was inside him?

And yet, if we do not understand

what God is saying about sin

and why He says it,

we can find ourselves mentally

in a similar situation with our God.

We look at our own lives

and see ongoing battles

with areas of as yet unresolved sin in our lives.

And then we think we hear our God saying,

“Because I hate sin so much,

and because I see it as such a threat to My world,

I’m going to do whatever I have to do to you

to make sure this sin is destroyed.”

And if we see our God doing what He’s doing in our lives

because of His ongoing wrath against sin

the effect on our inability to hear His love

and respond to that love

will be devastating.

But let’s go back to that hospital room again,

and let’s respond once again

to that boy’s question,

“Why are you doing this to me? Why are you making me hurt like this?”

Only this time when the question is asked

you respond by saying,

“My son, there is only one reason I could ever put you or me through this pain,

and that’s because I love you more than my own life.

The cancer you have inside you

will take you away from me forever

unless we destroy it.

I never want to loose you,

and I love you far too much ever to let this cancer win.

This isn’t going to be easy,

but you and I are in this battle together,

and together we’re going to win.

I love you son. And because I love you

I will fight against anything

that fights against you.”

It is not God’s hatred of our sin

that causes Him to fight against it in our lives,

it is His love for us.

But how about that business

of His fighting against sin in our lives

so that He can then form us into usable vessels

through whom He can express Himself and accomplish His work.

Before I respond to that

I’d like to share with you a tool

that I have found to be of tremendous value in my own life

in helping me to recognize truth and error in my own thinking.

It’s not very complicated.

I simply take the idea I’m looking at

and then ask myself,

“If I accept this as true,

what does it tell me about my God,

and about myself,

and about my relationship with Him?”

And if the conclusions I reach about God

and about my relationship with Him

based on the idea I’m looking at are true,

then the idea I’m looking at is probably true as well.

But if the conclusions I would logically reach about God

and my relationship with Him by accepting the idea are NOT true,

then the idea has to be rejected as well.

Let me show you what I mean

by applying it to this idea that

God fights against sin in our lives

so that He can form us into usable vessels

through whom He can then express Himself and accomplish His work.

If I accept that as true

it means first, that God’s ability to work through me

is directly dependent upon my performance.

The better I am

the more God can use me,

and if I can get to the point of becoming a really, really good person

I can even become a Pastor!

and second, if I accept as true the idea that

God fights against sin in our lives

so that He can form us into usable vessels

through whom He can then express Himself and accomplish His work,

it strongly suggests

that one of God’s primary purposes

in doing what He has done for us through Christ

is because He wants or needs to use me to accomplish His work on the earth.

In other words,

it is a sort of bargain He works out

between us and Himself.

He will save us

and pay the penalty for our sins through Christ,

and we in turn sort of pay Him back in installments

through the things we do for Him.

Both of those conclusions are lies,

so I know the idea that supports them is a lie as well.

And let me show you why we know they are lies.

I’ll start with second one first - believing that

God’s primary purpose

in doing what He has done for us through Christ

is because He wants or needs to use us to accomplish His work on the earth.

There are obvious reasons why we are drawn to a belief like this.

For one thing,

God certainly does accomplish His work through His people.

He tells us clearly

that He equips each of us with gifts and abilities

that enable us to serve as His ambassadors in this world.

He calls us His priests,

and talks about the good works that He has prepared for each of us to walk in,

and most of the New Testament writers talk about themselves as being “the bond servants of the Lord”.

And given the obvious truth

that God does work through us,

our human logic just naturally moves one step farther

into the assumption that He calls us to Himself so that He CAN work through us.

We believe it helps us answer

a deeply troubling question in our lives -

the question of why God loves us.

I’m a Fraiser fan.

Yes, I know he’s been off the air for years,

but Sandee and I bought the DVD’s

and we still often end our day with

what is one of the best sitcoms of all time.

It’s always dangerous for me to say things like that

because I then run the risk

of some of you going home

and gathering your young families around the TV,

turning on a Fraiser re-run

and telling your children that “this is a really good show because Larry said he likes it.”

The truth is

the basic philosophies promoted by Fraiser are pagan to the core.

His attitudes toward dating,

and sex,

and women in general are hideous.

But having protected myself by saying that,

I do enjoy the show.

If you know the show

you know that for most of the show’s history

Fraiser’s brother, Niles,

was married to Marris.

Marris never appeared on the show.

But through the comments made about her by the other actors

everyone who watched the show

knew exactly what she was like.

She was a very rich,

very thin,

very selfish,

very controlling,

very pale,

very self-centered,

very strange person whom no one ever really liked or was drawn to.

I bring all of this up

because of a comment Niles once made

about why he and Marris had no pets- no cat, no dog, no bird.

Niles said, “Well, of course Marris has never been able to have a pet

because she instinctively mistrusts anything that loves her unconditionally.”

Folks,

that is an excellent description of us

in our relationship with God.

I believe one of the major reasons

we tend to be comfortable with the idea

of God seeking to remove sin from our lives

so that He can than make us usable for His work

is because we instinctively mistrust

a God who claims to love us unconditionally.

Our minds search for some reason.

We don’t love ourselves unconditionally.

We certainly don’t love any other human being unconditionally.

And we don’t know how in the world to relate to a God

who claims to love us unconditionally.

And so we are far more comfortable

providing ourselves with a reason.

But the truth is there is no reason

and He does love us unconditionally.

The New Testament writers come back to it again and again:

Rom. 5:8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Rom. 5:9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.

Rom. 5:10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life....

Rom. 8:32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?

Col. 2:13 When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions,

Col. 2:14 having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

Not once is God’s work for us

ever linked to what we can than do for Him.

In fact,

the only passage I know of

that even seems to approach the “why” question

actually ends up making it more confusing.

Eph. 2:4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,

Eph. 2:5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ ( by grace you have been saved),

Eph. 2:6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

Eph. 2:7 so that...

and with those two words, “so that”

we have a glimmer of hope -

here, at last God will explain to us

why He loves us the way He does

and what He gets out of it in return.

But then we go on to read what He says:

so that...

in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

Do you know what that says?

It says the reason He poured out His kindness on us through Christ

is so that He could gain the opportunity

to continue to pour out His surpassing riches on us throughout all the endless ages to come.

And then just to make sure we got the message

he goes on to say:

Eph. 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;

Eph. 2:9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

And all of that is to say simply,

that God does not work on our behalf

to remove sin from our lives

so that He can than use us for His work.

He does it simply because He loves us too much

to allow us to continue suffering the torment brought into our lives by our sin.

But surely that other point is true.

I mean, surely God’s ability to work through me

is directly dependent upon my performance.

And surely the better I am

the more God can use me,

and if I can get to the point of becoming a really good person

I can even find myself qualified to do great things.

And that, my friends, is the great lie of religion -

that there is any level of performance

that I could ever offer my God

that would qualify me for acceptance in His sight

or usability in His service.

I was deeply impressed

with an answer Billy Graham gave

to an interviewer who, a number of years ago, asked him

what the first question he would like to ask God would be.

He said, “I would like to ask Him ‛Why me?’

Why did You choose to honor me with the work You gave me to do?”

He knew there was nothing He ever could

or ever had offered God

that in any way qualified him

for the work God had chosen to do through Him.

Isaiah says simply,

Is. 64:6 For all of us have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; And all of us wither like a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.

We are involved in a study

of the way in which our Lord Jesus Christ brings us growing freedom from our sins.

And this morning,

with all these words

I have wanted to say just one thing.

Our God fights against sin in our lives

for just one reason -

not because the sin is any threat to Him,

and not because He wants to shape us up and make us usable,

but simply because He loves us with an everlasting love,

and He understands perfectly

the destructive power of that sin in our lives.

Is. 61:10-11

I will rejoice greatly in the Lord,

My soul will exult in my God;

For He has clothed me with garments of salvation,

He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness,

As a bridegroom decks himself with a garland,

And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

For as the earth brings forth its sprouts,

And as a garden causes the things sown in it to spring up,

So the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise

To spring up before all the nations.