It Isn't That Bad!

How many times in your life have you heard people say that nobody is going to tell them what to do? Many people have this false assumption that they are in control of their lives and they do just fine in the management of how they live.

I say that is a false assumption, because every human is under the direct management of somebody. It might be your parents; it might be your teachers; a boss; or even the government. But no matter whom you have over your life, all of us have one of two ultimate bosses: God or Satan. We might not realize it, we might not care, and we might even deny it, but that is the truth of the matter.

Last week, I told how we spend our lives telling God to just leave us alone! We don’t go to church; we don’t read the Bible; and we don’t even like to hear anything about God. We think we can manage our lives just fine without Him.

I am reminded of the story about a young couple who were raised in the backwoods of Kentucky. They married and moved to a nearby big city to live. Shortly thereafter, they were invited to a church.

It wasn’t long before both had accepted Jesus and were baptized. In that church, they both went to the same Sunday school class, and they noticed that on the first Sunday of the month, all the people wore a dark blue shirt. So the wife went home and being the good seamstress that she was, made them both shirts that matched the color of the shirts the other people wore.

Come the first Sunday of the month, they proudly wore their shirts, but noticed that everyone else’s shirt had a little saying over the pocket area. When she got home, the first thing she did was to embroider a little saying over the pockets of their shirts. Since she couldn’t read, she sewed three words she had seen in a store window.

The next time they wore the shirts, everyone "oohed" and "aahed" over their shirts! They said those shirts described their new lives in Christ Jesus better than anything else they could have sewed on them. The words she sewed on their shirts very aptly read, "Under New Management."

Today, I would like to talk about something most people hate to hear about. It is a subject that instantly puts a negative feeling in our minds and spirits. It is something that we all do and many see no harm in it because they justify it.

Today, I want to talk about biggest and most profound problem we have in life. Today, I want to talk about sin, and how our view of Christ corresponds with the amount of sin we let into our lives.

Our biggest problem in life is our ...

1. SIN

There is a short passage in the Bible that tells us what we are like when we try to live under our own management. Please turn with me to …

EPHESIANS 2:1-3 – (The Message Version)

’It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us.’

Without Jesus, we are mired down in that old stagnant life of sin. That is the only kind of life the world can offer. The world really doesn’t know anything about real life, as the One who gives real life is not a part of the world. And when we take what this world has to offer, we become just like this world; corrupt, evil, selfish, and rebellious against God.

And it really is a wonder that God didn’t lose His temper and do away with all of us! Aren’t we glad that God treats us better than we treat each other? And aren’t we glad that God loves us more than we love him?

Most people say they aren’t "that bad", whatever "that bad" means. To me, "that bad" means telling God to leave you alone, to live "on purpose" away from God. But who does that? The answer is: We all have the capability of doing that. And when we live without God, we are inherently evil.

In 1960, Israeli undercover agents kidnapped one of the worst killers in Hitler’s army from his hideout in South America. His name was Adolf Eichmann. They took him to Israel to stand trial for crimes against humanity.