How to Run from Sin

Brad Hixon · Faith Church · Aug 29, 2022

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Brad Hixon

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sin99jesus29god's word10god24young man8plan20life20serious19story17because16time15find15man15bible14solomon14commands14word14death13god's13sin leads5wants12community12good11wisdom11

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Rhetorical fingerprint · per 1,000 words · click to see examples · 31 scripture readings excluded

Repeated openers: “and i” (9), “i don't” (7), “and yet” (5), “i mean” (5), “we have” (5), “and so” (4)

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0.17 adjectives per noun

(upbeat music) - Hey y'all, you're listening to the Faith Church Sermon Podcast.

We are so excited that you're connecting with us today.

It is our desire for you to grow as a result of the resources we provide here.

Recurring structural signatures — click to read examples:

Argument map · logical progression through the sermon

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I / me (personal)

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Jesus ·21Solomon ·11Jesus. ·4Solomon. ·3brother Abel. ·2Jesus Christ ·2Jesus Christ. ·2Adam ·2Abel. ·1Abel ·1Solomon describes ·1Matthew. ·1

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Israel ·1Egypt. ·1Garden of Eden. ·1

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Story vs teaching: 1.5% narrative

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sin is crouching ·5this young man ·5leads to death ·5sin leads to ·5none of us ·5crouching at your door ·4sin is crouching at ·4how serious are you ·4and i ·9i don't ·7he says ·6and yet ·5

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Transcript

(upbeat music) - Hey y'all, you're listening to the Faith Church Sermon Podcast. We are so excited that you're connecting with us today. It is our desire for you to grow as a result of the resources we provide here. We pray that this blesses you today as you seek to know him more. - There's a story really early on in the Bible. It's about these two brothers, Cain and Abel. Maybe you know, Cain is the older brother of younger brother Abel. Abel's the favorite, he's the baby, he gets all the good stuff. And over time, Cain's jealousy grows and it grows and eventually it turns into anger. He's just mad at everyone and his brother Abel. And God sees this happening, he's watching what's going on, he's seeing it sort of boil up in Cain's heart. And so he pulls him aside, he wants to coach him a little bit, he wants to try and calm him down. And God speaks, he says He says, "Sin is crouching at your door. "It desires to have you, "but you must rule over it." God is like a good dad who sees something in his child, and he pulls him aside, and he goes, "Cain, "you're gonna do something dumb." I see that look in your eye. I know what happens when you start to get like this. You're going to see, he says, "Sin is crouching at your door. But then God says this other thing. He says, but you must rule over it. Kain, you have to find a way not to sin. And that story sets up what I want to look at today. I want to consider this question for us. What is our plan? What is your plan to not sin? And sin is crouching at your door. It wants to take over your life in the same way for us. Sin wants to infiltrate our lives. Sin wants to come into our lives and take over everything. Have you ever stopped and just thought, what's my plan to avoid sin? That's what I wanna talk about today. So if you got a Bible with you, get it out, turn it on, we're in Proverbs chapter seven. Proverbs chapter seven, we're continuing in this series called living wisdom. And in 2022, we're going through the Bible together a church family. We've got a couple weeks left in this section of the Bible and then we'll jump into the New Testament. If you don't have Bible with you today, I'd love for you to still get out your phone or something and follow along because this proverb is a little bit long and I want you to be able to see some of it for yourself. And I know that for a lot of you, you got up this morning and man before your feet even hit the floor and you got out of bed you thought, boy I want to talk about sin I'm going to give you some meat to chew on. But I think it's going to be really helpful because how many of us we're just sort of going through life and we don't want to sin. We don't set out to sin. And yet we just take this stance of kind of like flying by the seat of our pants, hoping that when we get into situations of temptation that will be strong enough that we won't fall into the trap of sin. for you and there are some things that you can actually put into practice in your life. So Proverbs 7, Proverbs written by a guy named Solomon. He's the king of Israel, the Bible says he's the wisest man to ever live and he's writing to give godly counsel and wisdom to his kids. Like any dad he wants good things for his kids. He wants them to experience a good life and so he writes to them to give them counsel and Proverbs plan for how to fight sin. Ready? Here we go. He says, "My son, keep my words and store up my commands within you. Keep my commands and you will live. Guard my teachings as the apple of your eye, bind them on your fingers and write them on the tablet of your heart." He's that I'm saying, he knows they're not going to listen to everything he says. To us, he's wise Solomon. To them, he was just dad, right? So it's easy to ignore. I know for me from, I don't know, maybe the age of like 12 to 25. I was pretty sure my parents were idiots. Like they didn't know anything. They had nothing to offer me. Everything they said is like, you're old, just move on, right? And then somewhere in my mid 20s, I was like, yeah, they've gotten pretty smart. They've picked up on a few things. I remembered it. I held these things in my heart and they were embedded there so I could draw on them. That's what he's saying to his kids. Verse 4, he says, "Say to wisdom, you are my sister." He's saying, "Make wisdom a companion, a partner with your life. Say to insight, you're my relative. They will keep you. Wisdom and insight will keep you from the adulterous woman. My teachings will keep you with her seductive words. He's drawing his kids back to wisdom. He's begging them, "Please listen to the things that I have taught you." And he mentions, and he's gonna tell a story about this scandalous woman. But scholars would say that what he's doing here, he's telling a story, but he's really doing something larger. He's talking about sin sort of more generically, or more generally. He's going to use this woman, this scandalous woman, as really a metaphor for sin. He's really trying to explain to them that sin is crouching outside your door like it was with Cain. And he's going to give them a road map for how to run away from sin. Let me read you the story that he tells. Verse 6. Solomon says that the window of my house, I looked down through the lattice and I saw among the simple. I noticed among the young men a youth who had no sense. something he witnessed himself out of this window. This young man, he says, verse 8, was going down the street near her corner. Walking along in the direction of her house, it was twilight. The day was fading. Dark of night was setting in. Then, out came a woman to meet him. She was dressed like a prostitute, and she had crafty intent. Again, he's telling this story that is likely a story that he actually saw. And perhaps he's warning his sons about this particular woman. He's doing something larger. He's using her as a metaphor for sin. Sin is crouching at your door. How are you going to fight it? He builds more of this plan for them. He says this woman is unruly. She's defiant. Her feet never stay at home. She's now in the streets, now in the squares. At every corner she lurks. She took hold of the young man and she kissed him. And with a brazen face, she said, "Today I fulfilled my vows. And I have food for my fellowship offering in my home. So I came out to meet you. I looked for you. I've found you. I've covered my bed with colored linens from Egypt. I've perfumed my bed with my murre aloes and cinnamon. So come, let's drink deeply of love till morning. Let's enjoy ourselves with love. My husband is not at home, she says. He's gone on a long journey. He took his purse filled with money. He won't be home until full moon. She seduced him with her smooth talk. All at once he followed her like an ox going to the slaughter. Like a deer stepping into a noose till an arrow pierces his liver like a bird darting into a snare. Little knowing that it will cost him his life and now Solomon is begging his sons. Listen, pay attention to what I say. Do not let your heart turn to her ways or stray into her paths. She has brought down her slain or a mighty throng her house is a highway to the grave And it leads down to the chambers of death So just sort of a warm fuzzy family friendly story to get us started there He's trying to warn his sons I saw it with my own eyes I Saw this young man and he didn't rule over it. Instead, he let it consume him. And I wanna use this story for us to sort of build or to understand how we could run from sin, how we could learn from this young man's mistakes because temptation is everywhere. So for you and I, how are we going to learn from his mistakes and stay away from these paths that lead to sin and as Solomon describes, that lead to death? I wanna talk just for a minute though, I want to talk just for a minute about sin in general because it's a word that we just sort of kick around like oh sin Okay, we know okay sin is is bad, but what does sin really mean? Is it a big deal if so? Why is it a big deal if you try and define sin you could probably find a gazillion Theological definitions of sin there's probably a bunch of people way smarter than me that are trying to pack it all together and come up with something It would probably drive you crazy. I'm a simple guy. So I have a simple definition. It's pretty much just this sin is commands, right? So God has given us commands, he's laid out these commands, these instructions, they reflect his character and as our father, us being his children, he expects us to follow his commands, right? He's given us these instructions, he expects us to follow. And when we don't, when we break his commands and we're disobedient, that's something called sin. Now if you think about parents, all the time, right, to their kids. I give out instructions to my kids all the time, every day. You know, clean your room, do your homework, put down the phone, whatever it is. Like I give out these instructions. Now, do they always listen to my instructions? No, they don't. So what makes that different? Then when God gives a command and we break his instruction, right, because the truth is, they don't follow everything I say. And sometimes, my kids, hey, you need to clean your room. If they don't clean their room, don't tell them I said this, if they don't clean their room, is it that big of a deal? Eh, yes or no, right? They should listen to their parents, not really that big of a deal. Why is it a really big deal then? If we as God's children break his commands? Well, let me frame it this way. Let's say I gave instruction to one of my children and they didn't follow that instruction, that command, right? They disobeyed that. that one of my other kids had to die. Would that change the seriousness of it? Yeah, right? I mean, that sounds kind of weird, but you see where I'm going here. God gave a set of commands. He gave a set of instructions, and we broke them. And because we broke his commands, and he's a perfect and holy God, he had to send Jesus Christ into the world. Jesus lived a perfect life, and he died on a cross for our sins. sin, it costs him the life of his one and only son, Jesus Christ. So you see why it's a little bit different than when my kids don't do their homework when they're told. And I say all of this because we are so quick to minimize and excuse sin. First we're living in a time and a space and a culture that says there really is no such thing as sin. There is no right or wrong. You get to decide that yourself. But this is said, we're so quick to excuse it. Ah, we have these cute little pet names. Ah, it's just a little white lie. It's just a little gossip. I mean, it's just one swear word. Like, oops, I made a mistake. We have these ways of justifying and rationalizing sin. But we have this perfect heavenly father who goes, I've given you these commands. They're for your good, by the way. They're not harsh. You may not level them, but therefore you're good. to follow them, but we don't. We break his command. It's something called sin. Now intellectually, we can go, OK, we know all of that. And we can say we know we shouldn't sin. We know sin is bad. And I think in so many ways, we don't set out to sin. And yet we do still break God's commands all the time. I mean, I do. And Solomon, in the way he paints this story, if you go back there for a second, some of that to us? It's a little bit tricky. Why would we know, don't sin, and yet we find ourselves in these same patterns, these same ways of thinking and behaviors, motives, all the time. So all the kind of explains a little bit about sin. Some things that I think are worth pointing out, what's so attractive about sin? If we know it's wrong and yet we're drawn to it. He gives us a couple of things that I just think are worth saying. Solomon says this, that sin, what's unique and attractive that you want, right? So you go back to the story, it's so attractive. The woman says, "Come in, I have made my bed. The finest linens that you could find, I've used. Come in, I've made my bed and perfumed everything." And she invites this young man into her home. But we find out, she's not just inviting him in for sex, she offers him something else. She offers him love. She knows that every person wants this deep intimacy, So she's not just inviting him to something that's sort of about his flesh, something deeper. Come in, you will experience love and sincerity and intimacy. Now can she offer any of those things? No. They can have sex, but she can't offer intimacy. And yet what sin does is it promises that thing that you need? I have it. I can give it to you. She goes on, she makes this kind of weird comment about I've just fulfilled my vows and I have She's basically saying, "Come in, we will feast." She's offering to meet his physical needs, his relational needs, his sexual needs, his emotional needs, his spiritual needs. Can she do any of that? No, but that's what sin does. Sin promises that thing you want. Here you go. I've got it for you. Second thing he says is that he says sin is lurking. Did you notice the woman says, "I saw you, I came out to meet you. I had looked for you." The Bible says that Satan is like a prowling lion. He's moving about, he's ready to attack and bring sin into our life. Now, that doesn't mean that the devil is hiding behind every bush and wants to trip you up. Okay, don't we hear it that way? But it does mean that Satan is real and evil is a thing and sin wants to destroy your life. He says this, he says, "Sin whispers. to know. She says to my husband's gone. He's not coming home anytime soon. You can come in, we can enjoy the night, no one will be the wiser. You know what I've found in my own life? There is oftentimes where there's sin going on in my life or that has gone on in my life, but it's true. No one else knows, but you know the problem I've experienced? I know. I know and God knows. And the weight of that, the heaviness of that. So far out ways, the pleasure or joy that sin promises that it will destroy you. And so sin will whisper to you, no one else needs to know. You can get away with this. And yet what we know is true, that Solomon so astutely says is the truth about sin is that it leads to death. Sin leads to death and there's a great proverb, 14, 12. You should look it up and read it. about others, things that appear to are flesh as right, but in the end they bring death. Romans says that the wages of sin is death. Sin leads to death, spiritual death. It can lead to physical death. It led to the death of Jesus Christ on the cross and our culture says, "No, it doesn't. Do what's good for you. Do what feels good. Do what's right. Do what will meet your knees." action Satan has. The first lie he tells, he tricks Adam and Eve, right? What happens? You don't really believe that you'll die if you eat that fruit, right? Well, God said, what? But if you eat that fruit, you'll die. You're not going to die. That's his lie. Sin's death to Adam and Eve, and it does the same thing in our lives today. So go back to the story with Solomon on that happy note about sin. Go back to the story of Solomon. And let's go back and look at this godly wisdom and try and explore this question of what is our plan to not sin. We know the sin leads to death. We know the sin leads to destruction. None of us want to experience that in our life. So Or do we have a plan? And if you remember, just the whole context of what we're starting, remember the series that we're living wisdom. We're trying to gain godly wisdom. We're trying to gain biblical training in our lives. We're not going to do this perfect. None of us is going to-- all of a sudden become sinless. I always says that all sin, all fall short of the glory of God. We have Jesus to pay for our sins. He does that on the cross. So if you believe that Jesus died and rose again, Each of us will stand before perfect God who must judge and punish sin. But for those of us with relationship with Christ, we don't have to fear that day because Jesus has already been judged. He's already taken on our judgment and our punishment for our sin. It's paid for it, but we need a plan. We need a plan to avoid sin because we have a heavenly Father who deserves our obedience and he wants good things for us. And we know that yes, our sin is forgiven can, sin can destroy lives, hours and the people around us, we need a plan. So if you don't have a relationship with Jesus, your plan can be to believe that Jesus, the Bible says Jesus died for your sins and he rose again from the dead. And if you believe that and you repent of your sins, that all your sins are forgiven. For those of us that have a relationship with Jesus, we're forgiven but we need a plan to honor our Father and to not Solomon lays out a plan for us how not to sin. Here we go, three quick things that he says. The first thing he says, if you don't want to sin or you want to stay away from sin, he says stay in community, stay in Godly community. I don't know if you caught it in the story that Solomon tells us, but he saw a group of people and then all of a sudden he sees this young man sort of peel off on giving into temptation, I would ask are you in community? Can you sin in community? Of course. But if the Bible is right and Satan is like a lion who is on the prowl wanting to attack and you think about lions, do lions attack entire herds? Or do they wait until they sort of peel one off and there's one who's weak and loves when you're by yourself. We say that we're serious about following Jesus and about keeping His commands, but then we make this an individual thing. Oh, I can handle this all on my own. I don't need people around me. Remember what goes on? First couple pages of the Bible, God creates man, He puts him in the Garden of Eden. It's perfect, but remember what He says? It's not good for Him to be alone. And we take that verse and we apply it to weddings and we think it's about marriage. It's so much bigger than that. That none of us are intended to do by ourselves. You see the young man in the story, he's alone, he's in a place that he's not supposed to be, he's there at a time of night, he shouldn't have been there, and you wonder what might have gone differently if he'd have stayed with his friends. What might have been different if he had in the outcome, if he had godly people in his life who said, "Whoa, wait a minute, you don't belong there, you shouldn't be there, that's trouble, don't go that direction." I wonder if you have this kind of community. I wonder if you are around people that are interested in godliness. If you have people in your life that actually want to pursue holiness, can you overcome temptation on your own? Yes. The Bible says that the spirit of God is inside you is more powerful than the enemy in the world. But we're not meant to do this alone and man, Satan loves, loves, like that. There's lots of ways, places you can find that kind of community, godly community, family and friends, church. One of the ways, shameless plug, we have something here called sermon based small groups. We have a new session coming up this fall. In the next couple of weeks you can find out more on the app or on the website. Just a place where people know your name and you know your need. Do life eat together. Lots of different ways that you could find community. But if you're on the fence going, "Man, I need a place where other people are interested in pursuing godliness and holiness and other people are going to be able to speak into helping me avoid sin and follow Jesus, lots of opportunities. But make sure you find community. Don't do things on staying community and then Solomon says run to God's word. Run to God's word. He's receiving wisdom from God. He's giving it to his kids. He's saying, hold on to these teachings. Hold on to my commands. This is wisdom from God. Run to God and his word. So often when we talk about sin we frame it as don't. Don't do this. Don't do this. Don't do this. Don't sin. Don't lie. Don't cheat. Don't steal. Don't. I don't know. of those kinds of things. I don't know about you, when someone tells me what not to do, it's really hard, like here. Don't think of a purple zebra, go. (audience laughs) If you see a whole herd of them going by, right? Yeah. It's hard, don't tell me what not to do, tell me what to do. And so Solomon goes, here's what you do, you run to God's word. And I hear the push bag, someone go, churchy. Well, you're in church, so I don't know what else you expected, first of all. But guess what Jesus did? Jesus is in the wilderness for 40 days. He's being tempted. Go read it yourself in Matthew. He's being tempted by Satan. And Satan's just lobbing everything he's got at Jesus. If you'll just follow me, I'll give you this, I'll give you this, I'll give you this. Everything you want, Jesus, everything in my disposal, it will be yours. What does Jesus do? He keeps over and over again. He keeps coming back to God's Word. He quotes God's word, not because it's like some trick or some ritual, but because it's so ingrained in him. Sin makes so many promises. Sin is so powerful. It's so attractive. You need a tool, a weapon that's stronger than sin. And that weapon is God's word. from a holy God that we're supposed to soak in. We're supposed to have embedded in our heart so much so that we're like Jesus, that when we're tempted, when we're confronted with sin, the way that we resist was by running to God's word. And I know that reading the Bible is hard work. And I know that it takes discipline. I hear you. But I gotta tell you, the truth is, if you're not willing to open the scriptures You're gonna have a really hard time following Jesus. And you're gonna have a really difficult time overcoming sin. I'll tell you what I do. I don't, maybe it'll work for you. This is what I do. When I'm tempted with sin, there are a few Bible verses that are just, man, they're in my heart and I will quote them. I'll go back to them every time. Sometimes I'll recite the Lord's Prayer. Not because of ritual, not because of religion, but just because it focuses me. thing that I think I want. Something else that I do, I have a friend who taught me this, I think it's so cool. He says that he goes through the alphabet and for every letter of the alphabet he assigns, you know, he describes a characteristic of God. I thought that's great. So I've started doing that recently and I love that when I'm tempted, if I feel my ego powering up, if I feel frustrated, if I feel angry, I go through the alphabet and a sign, a description of God. And it'll just go to A to Z, guide your-- and I'll change it up every time. Guide your awesome, and you're the bread of life, and you're caring. You're the deliverer, you're enough. Guide your faithful and generous, you're holy, you're independent of my circumstances, you're just, you're kind. You're the Lord, you're magnificent, you're never changing, you're omnipresent, you're patient. You're quick to forgive me. You saved me. You're trustworthy. You're unchanging. You're victorious. You welcome me with open arms. X is a bit of a problem. You're the same yesterday, today and forever. You're zealous for my love. I don't know. Find whatever works for you. That works for me. Steal that. Use that in your own life. Run to God's Word. We have to stop playing around with sin. I get myself in trouble when I forget how devastating and how serious sin really is. I will hear God. I will sense the Holy Spirit prompting me. Brad, don't tell that joke. Don't say that curse word. Don't gossip. It's like he puts up the stop sign and I just blow the intersection. And I justify, justify, justify, oh, the person I'm talking to who knows me, they know I love Jesus. They've heard me cursed before. Justify, justify, justify. Man, we play around with sin. We love the idea that Jesus nailed all of our sin to the cross. And we love to walk over to the cross and sort of play with it. Mess around with it. The young man in Solomon's story. Why was he on that corner? He knew where he was going. He knew what was awaiting him. And he thought to himself, I'll walk right up to the line. I won't do anything wrong. I'll walk by her block. She'll come out, we'll flirt a little bit, she'll flatter me. It'll feel good, but I won't cross the line. And then guess what? We play around with sin. We pray, Lord, lead us not into temptation, and then we put ourselves in these specific When we say we're serious about sin, one theologian said it this way. He says, "If we want to avoid the devil, stay away from his neighborhood." I like that. Another theologian said this, a guy named Jesus. He said, "If your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. Are you serious about avoiding sin and following Jesus? How serious? I mean, I don't think Jesus is really telling people to cut their hand off, but I think it's worth slowing down and going through the exercises saying, gee, how serious was he? Okay, but are you serious about sin? You're serious about wanting to follow Jesus and avoiding sin? None of us outgrow is the temptation to sin. The things that were tempted by might change. I'm tempted by different things today than I was at 30 or 20 or 10, but the temptation to sin is not something that we outgrow. How serious are you about overcoming sin? Example, let's say that gossip is a problem for you. Let's say it's specifically a problem at work. Some of the times the only reason you go is to hear the juiciest news that you can find. And you say you're serious about sin. How serious? Serious enough to find a new job? Let's say that money and material possessions are a problem. become an obsession to you. Financial security is your God. That's your idol. (congregation cheering) How serious are you? Jesus said the love of money is a problem. (congregation cheering) How serious are you about not sinning? Serious enough to give it all away? It's worth asking. If the things that you are looking at on the internet are a problem. doing that again. I'm not going back there again. And yet you continue to find yourself in these patterns where you're going, "Lord, that's the last time. That's the last time." How serious are you about not sinning? Serious enough to chuck your smartphone? You know, that I'm just trying to say that the Bible, God is really, really serious about sin and his sons and his daughters. We treat it like this cheap thing, like it's no big deal. And what we find out is it's not just that God's mean and he wants to put rules on us, what we find out is that we're like this young man in the story, that sin is killing us and we don't even realize it. It's destroying our lives and our relationships. But sin can ruin us in so many ways. And so I just want to challenge you. Because sin leads to death. I want to challenge you. What's your plan? Do you have a plan for how not to sin? I mean, I don't even know how to apply all this other than just kind of push it to you and go, maybe you need to spend a few minutes with the Lord and go, what's my plan? out, just kind of wing it and when temptation comes, I'll just, hold on, here we go. I don't know what's your plan. In just a minute we're going to finish our time together and we're going to recite as a family here, we're going to recite the Lord's Prayer just to stay in community and connect us back to God's Word. But you got to ask this question. What's your plan to not sin? Because sin And I know none of us want that. And God has offered something better. He's offered us forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ. And He's offered us His Holy Spirit inside of us to lead us and guide us. But we've got to stop winging it. We've got to stop just playing this thing by ear. We have got to have a plan. If you are serious about following Jesus and not letting sin rule your life, what's your plan? We're going to together recite the Lord's prayer to end our time. So we're going to throw it up on the screen and I want to invite you to stand. And again, just as our way of being in community and going back to God's Word, I think this is helpful. So, ready? Here we go. Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. forgive us of sins as we forgive those who've sinned against us and lead us not instantation but deliver us from the evil one. Amen.

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