A few weeks ago I visited my family physician, Dr. Stuckert. After a few minutes in the waiting room the nurse took me back. The first thing she did was weigh me, then she took my temperature. Then she asked, why I had come to see the doctor. I told her, I was having headaches for the last week, and my sinuses were all stopped up, and I was having difficulty breathing. She wrote all this down on my file. She then left, after promising the doctor would be in to see me soon. A few minutes later, in walked Dr. Stuckert. He read my chart, and also asked me about my symptoms. He then took out his little light and looked in my ears, up my sinuses, and down my throat. After he had gathered all the facts, he diagnosed the problem. “You have a serious sinus infection,” he said. Then he prescribed a cure, ten days of antibiotics.
What does that have to do with this message, you might be thinking. Well, sometimes, as a pastor, I have to look at people like a doctor, a spiritual doctor, and diagnose the problem and suggest a cure.
So here we go. Turn in your bibles to Ephesians chapter 2.
Verse 1
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins,
Paul begins by looking at life before Christ. LIFE BCE BEFORE CHRIST ENCOUNTER. Before we encountered Christ, Paul said we were dead.
A few weeks ago I downloaded the movie,
Night of the Living Dead, on Vongo. You remember the scene where the dead come up out of the grave yard.
Well Paul says that is what we are like spiritually. We are the dead walking. Physically we are still alive, but deep down inside us we are dead. We feel like there is something missing. We are empty, barren, hollow. We are just a shell of a man or woman. We are dead.
But that should not surprise us. God told Adam and Eve if they disobeyed his commands they would die… and they did spiritually. Life without God is death.
Paul not only said we were dead BCE before our encounter with Christ, he goes on to say, we were dead in our transgressions and sins. The idea behind transgressions and sins is we cross a line on purpose.
I was clicking through the stations last week and came across a documentary on a women’s prison. A guard explained how the visitors for their own safety needed to stay on the gray painted lines. The inmates could not reach them if they stayed on the gray painted lines. Catch this, staying on the gray paint for for the visitor own good.
This is what God has done for us. He has drawn for us guidelines to live by, for our own good. Guidelines like, don’t lie, don’t steal, don’t kill, don’t commit adultery, don’t have other God’s before me
When we cross these guidelines we hurt, either, God, ourselves, others. You can not cross these lines with out hurting someone. When we cross these lines we crush friendships. When we cross these lines we destroy relationships. When we cross these lines we shatter our own lives. God has given us guidelines for our own good.
However, Paul says, we, before we encounter Christ and give our lives to him, we cross these and other lines all the time. In fact we are habitual line crossers.
You know what I mean, we start out to do the right thing, then something within us pulls us to make the wrong decision, and we find we have crossed another line in our life, and someone is crying and in shambles.
But Paul tells us the bad news does not stop there, he says before we gave our life to Christ we, according to verse 3, were “gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature”
And the really bad news is how easy it is to gratify our sinful cravings today. We are exposed to people acting in deceitful and hateful ways every week on shows like survivor, and now they are adding one called pirates. When will it ever end, never as long as people can treat each other with contempt, and seek to gratify their sinful natures.
But that is not all. The biggest industry in the United States cater to the sinful nature. The porn industry. Do you realize they make over13 billion dollars annually? That is more than the NFL, NBA, and Major League Baseball make combined. It is the fastest growing business in the history of the United States.
Pornography is easier to get today then ever before. Not to many years ago pornography came in a brown paper wrapper in the mail, or you had to stop at a seedy store on the side of the highway. Not any more, it is a close as you family computer. Just one mouse click away.
.A man may start out with just a mouse click to satisfy his curiosity.
I read an interview with man addicted to pornography. He said it started as harmless fun. His wife had gone to bed, and he was staying up late to finish a report. Just a quick peek, he thought, and then back to the report. But one peek, enticed him to look at one more picture. Then, before he knew were the time went, it was morning. He had had spent the entire night clicking from one to the next. And now it was morning, his report was still unfinished, and he was consumed with guilt when his wife kissed him good morning and asked how the report went. He lied, and felt even more guilt. It became a cycle for him, an evening of lust staring at the computer screen, followed by guilt and fear he would be found out.
Pornography will hurt you.
Dr. Reisman wrote: "UCLA neuropsychologist Dr. Margaret Kemeny’s research implicates pornography as precipitating ’a cascade of changes in the body that have an impact on health.’ This supports former Surgeon General Everett Koop’s diagnosis of pornography as a ’crushing public health problem.’... Gary Lynch, University of California at Irvine said, “Brain research, shows viewing pornography can produce the same devastating changes in the brain one sees in persons with [brain] damage.’ Pornography hurts you.’
Part of the problem is we don’t see what we do as sin.
We commonly have a wrong idea of sin. We would readily agree that the robber, murderer, the razor-slasher, are sinners; but, since most of us are respectable citizens, in our heart of hearts we think that sin has nothing to do with us. They are sinners, we are not.
. There are few experiences that equal biting into a crisp, flavorful apple,. There is nothing like that first bite of a first ripe apple of the summer. Sweetest fills you mouth, and juices run down you chin.
But few experiences are worse than finding half a worm in the remaining portion. Sin is like the worm, which is really codling moth larva. On the outside of the apple you might see a small hole; a little blemish. But when you open the apple up it is ruined.
Sin will destroy you life from the inside out just like the codling moth larva, or apple worm. You might be able to hide the blemish from the rest of the world, but you are ruined on the inside just the same.
You know everyone who sees you is seeing a mask, because you are too guilty to show them the real you.
But there is good news. Christ came to save us from sin and death. We can have a Christ Encounter. Before our Christ Encounter our life was death, pain and sin. What is it like after our Christ Encounter.
LIFE AFTER CHRIST ENCOUNTER (ACE)
After Christ encounter we are given a new life.
Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:5
(God) made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
Listen to what else we are told.
Colossians 2:13
You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. 14 He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross.
For a long time I thought God wanted to rob me of all fun, all joy, all life. I never knew God wanted to give me life. To make my life complete.
Jesus said, (John 10:10) The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy,
Does that not sound like sin to you; it come to steal your time, your life, your soul. It kills you from the inside out. It destroys everything you hold dear to you.
Jesus said, The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy, I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
Life to the full. Life Over and above, any thing we could ever dream.
Jesus wants to take away the guilt and free you live a life of love and respect. Jesus wants to give you life.
This morning ,I believe that most of you are already living a life after an encounter with Christ, you are living a life ACE.
But there might be someone here today who is living a life BCE, before your Christ encounter. As I was talking about the power of a sinful nature, you said that is me. I am controlled by my desires, I do not control them. I am driven to gratify my sinful nature.
If that is you this morning I have good news for you later.
But there also might be someone here who is living a life After your Christ encounter, but you feel like you are fighting a losing battle against sin.
This morning if you are living a BCE life and would like to invite Christ into you heart I invite you to pray a short prayer with me in just a minute.
If you are in your ACE life, you are sure you are saved, but still sinful desires seem to get the upper hand you can also pray this prayer
You can pray in your heart, because God will hear and answer your prayer.
Dear Jesus,
I am tired. I am tired of losing the battle over sin. I am tired to trying to do the right thing and always ending up doing wrong. I am tired of the guilt that comes from trying to hide my sin. This morning I give you permission to take this sin away from.
I invite you to come into my heart and forgive me of all my sins. I confess them to you, and confess I can not make it with out you in my life. I believe you are the Son of God and that you have saved me. I will live my life for you.
Amen.
