This morning, we will finish our mini-series on mankind, which is a part of our mega-series on what our church believes. The first message on mankind identified how we get our sense of worth and how we can achieve our God-given potential in life. The second message identified the fact that we are not living as God intended, but we can make the best of our situation, despite our faults and weaknesses caused by sin in us.
I recently loaned a friend a book about the Christian life. After reading about 100 pages, he told me the author is quite harsh to say that mankind can’t be trusted and that only God can be trusted. My friend believed that mankind is basically good, but that the socialization process and our institutions have messed us up.
There was a time when I would have jumped at that statement and begin arguing that we are not basically good. And by the time we get done arguing, we would both be examples of how we are not basically good. But I didn’t do that with my friend that day, not only because I was tired, but also because I’ve discovered that isn’t my job.
The Bible tells us in John 16:8, "When [the Holy Spirit] comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment." In other words, it is God’s Spirit who convinces a person about his or her sin, about God’s goodness, and about our need to ask God for help.
This is not to say that we don’t speak about what is right or wrong or that we don’t correct our children or those we have responsibility for. Yet, God is capable and has given His Spirit the responsibility of convincing others of their sin and need for God.
So if you believe you’re basically good, I won’t argue with you. I’m not going to tell you that you’re a sinner and that you need God. That’s God’s job. But if God is working in your life, and you’re aware that something in you is not right, and that you’re powerlessness to change, and you want help from God, I’ve got some good news for you. God wants to help. And He’s the only Who can. Let’s see how.
Our text comes from 1 Peter 1:1-25.
Some of you know that I had a bad cold three weeks ago, and the chest congestion lasted for three weeks. What you didn’t know was that I could have gotten over the chest congestion in few days. All I needed to do was take two Sudafed every four hours for a few days, and that would have solved the problem.
Instead, I chose to take one Sudafed a day for a few days and then do that again when the congestion got bad again. I wasn’t taking the full dose because Sudafed makes me depressed and unable to think clearly. The Sudafed helps me feel better physically but it makes me feel terrible mentally and emotionally.
God’s solution for sin helps every aspect of our lives, and His solution has no adverse reaction. Let’s look at what God’s solution involves.
First, God’s solution for our sin involved Father, Son and Spirit. We see this throughout the passage but first in verse 2.
When we studied what God is like, we learned that God is not like us, but that God is One yet He exists in three Persons, Father, Son and Spirit. And to deal with our sin, the Father, the Son and the Spirit were involved.
Someone tells the story of a boy who was rebelling against his dad constantly. This boy was destroying his own life by his rebellion, but he refuse to heed his father’s words.
One day, the dad said to the boy, "I want to show you what you’re doing to your life. I’m going to put a wooden post in our front yard. Every time you rebel, I will put a nail in this post. Every time you obey, I will pull out one nail."
The first thought from the boy was, "I’m going to do everything I can to fill that post with nails." And he did. In two months’ time, he filled that post with nails. But he also began to feel the damage he was doing to his own life and to his parents’ lives.
With true remorse, the boy began to obey his father. One by one, the nails came out. When the last nail came out of the post, the boy both broke down in tears. The dad asked, "Son, why are you crying?"
And the boy replied, "I got rid of the nails, but I can’t get rid of the holes."
God the Father saw the nails and the posts of our lives, and He saw our helplessness against sin. So He sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, to gather the nails and the posts from those who would let Him. And because of His love for us, Christ allowed Himself to be nailed on the posts, where He willingly paid the consequence of our sin.
Romans 6:23 tells us, "For the [consequences] of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." And this gift comes with God’s Spirit to train us to live holy lives.
First, God’s solution for sin involves Father, Son and Spirit. Second, God’s solution for sin involved our past, present and future. We read this in verses 2-7.
I have several Catholic friends who spend every moment of their days confessing their sins for fear that they may have missed one. And if they miss one, they won’t receive forgiveness for that sin, and they won’t inherit eternal life.
Maybe you’re not Catholic, but you are keeping track of the amount of good you do to make sure they outweigh the bad you’ve done. You hope that you can then have favor with God or whatever determines your fate after death.
God the Father says, "Trust Me, not yourself. I have made sure that every sin, past, present and future, in your life is taken care of."
1 Peter 3:18 tells us, "For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God."
Steve Brown retold a story about a woman who wanted to ask her boss for a raise. She asked her husband what he thought. He replied, "You should. You deserve a raise."
So she went to her boss and asked. He gave her a raise. She was thrilled. In the evening, when she arrived home to a magnificent dinner, the best china plates, silver settings and candles, set for her by her husband.
When she told her husband the good news, her husband handed her a card that read, "I knew you could do it. You’re the best."
Later on that night, when the husband was clearing the dishes, another card fell out of his pocket. She picked it up and read it, "You’ll get the raise next time. You deserve the best." The husband figured that the situation could have gone either way, but she would have still gotten the dinner.
John writes in Revelation 19:9, "Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!" This is the feast at the end of time when God has restored fellowship with mankind. If you accept God’s solution for your sin, whether you sin little or sin much in the past, present or future, when you meet God face to face, you will still get the dinner.
First, God’s solution for sin involves Father, Son and Spirit. Second, God’s solution for sin involved our past, present and future. Third, God’s solution for sin involves our spirit, soul and body. We read this verses 4-5, 8-9, 21 and 23
The Bible teaches that mankind is threefold: Spirit, soul and body. Because of sin, the spirit of man, the part of man that communicates with God, is dead from the beginning of our lives. The soul, which includes the mind, the emotion and the will, is corrupted by sin. The body is the visible material part of the human being, and is destined for the grave, because of sin. When God saves a person from sin, He saves all three: Spirit, soul and body.
Human efforts attempt to save the body or the soul. For instance, advances in medicine attempt to prolong the life of the body. Psychology attempts to understand the soul and help us feel better. But only God’s solution saves our entire being: Spirit, soul and body.
God makes alive our spirit to have relationship with Him. God renews our mind with His Words of truth. God will raise our body from the dead and give us a new body that will not decay. Only God’s solution for sin can make us right again, forgiving our past, present and future sin, and making alive and new our spirit, soul and body.
I’ve been reading the book by Don Richardson, "Eternity In Their Hearts." In the book, Richardson tells of how God implants His plan for mankind’s eternity into their culture. In one section, he wrote about the difficulty missionaries had in communicating the good news of Jesus Christ to the Chinese people. But one day, there was a breakthrough.
Richardson, writing about a missionary, said, "He was studying a particular Chinese ideograph, the one which means "righteous." He noticed that it contained an upper and lower part. The upper part was simply the Chinese symbol for a "Lamb." Directly under was simply a second symbol, the first person pronoun, "I" or "me."
Suddenly, the missionary discerned an amazingly well-coded message hidden within the ideograph: "I under the lamb am righteous!"
This startled the Chinese people. They never noticed it, but once the missionary pointed this out, they saw it clearly. The asked, "Which lamb must we be under to be righteous?"
[The missionary] replied with John 1:29, which is a description of Jesus Christ by John the Baptist, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"
"I under the Lamb of God am righteous." That is God’s solution to mankind’s sin problem.
