What Does God Hate #1 - Pride Series

• I hate it when:

o When everyone asks me if I play basketball just because I’m tall.

o People slow down to 40 miles an hour on the interstate just to gaze at someone with a flat tire

o People who take more than 10 items in the express lane.

• What do you hate?

Ask crowd

• God hates sin.

• It is unbelievable to some people that God could hate…anything.

o Isn’t God “love?”

o Isn’t God “peace?”

o Isn’t God “mercy?”

o Yes, he is most certainly all of these.

• But to picture God as one who does not hate anything goes directly against the very core, the very essence of who God is.

• Even we in the Church, who have been saved by grace, who have had our sins covered under the blood, who have been redeemed by the mercy of God – have forgotten what it means to serve a God who hates sin.

• In recent days the Church has too often been ruled by the authority of popular culture, rather than by the almighty God.

o We are constantly bombarded with calls “to be tolerant.”

o We are constantly told that it is uncivilized to hate anything.

o We are constantly fed the notion that all ideas, all religions, all actions are equal, that none should be looked at with any malice whatsoever.

• I believe that the Church has placed itself in a very dangerous position.

o For many fear man more than they fear God.

o Many want to be more in tune with what is popular in society, rather than what is told to us through the Word of God.

o Many have desired to see a powerful move of God, but yet they have neglected to hate the things that God hates, and to desire the things that God desires.

J. Kirk Johnston, in the book, “Why Christians Sin”

1. Some Christians choose to sin because they have lost sight of what God has done for them.

2. Some Christians choose to sin because they have forgotten that God will severely discipline disobedient believers.

3. Some Christians choose to sin because they have lost their focus on the future.

But I would add a 4th:

4. Some Christians choose to sin because they have forgotten how much God hates sin.

• And that is why I come to you with a message from God: “It’s time to take out the trash: What does God hate?”

• For the next 7 services I will be telling you seven things that God hates.

• Each service, we will be:

o Exposing a different sin listed in the word of God

o Examining ourselves to see if each sin is a part of our life. If it is, we will ask God to bring us to repentance, and ask him to rid it from our life.

o Examining our church to see if each sin is a part of our body. If it is, we will ask God to bring us to repentance, and ask him to rid it from our body.

o Fourthly, we will reveal the things that God does love and the things God does desire in our lives.

“No Trespassing” sign in West Texas, with the ranchers name signed in blood red next to the warning:

STOP. I know you’re thinking about crossing this gate. What you should know is that if the Coyotes, Cactus, Mesquite, Heat, Dust, or Rattlers don’t get you, I will.

• We have been given a similar warning in our lives.

• Open up your Bibles to Proverbs 6:16-19.

Proverbs 6:16-19 (NIV)

There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies, and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.

• This is a warning that should be sticking out to us a plain as the warning to trespassers that I just spoke of.

• God is telling us, if the sin of pride, of lying, of murdering the innocent, of scheming to sin, of running to do evil, of lying to someone else, or of stirring up dissention doesn’t get you – I will.

• God has a clear message for us today:

Romans 12:9

Hate what is evil, cling to what is good.

• Before we expose what this first sin that is listed in the Word of God, let us first look at how this passage begins.

Proverbs 9:16

There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to him:

• What does this mean, “six things the LORD hates” but yet there are “seven that are detestable to him?”