You Do Not Have To Sin, But If You Do, Just Ask For Forgiveness.

First Church of god in Harvey

Sunday Morning – October 2nd, 2011

Let us pray

Welcome..

This is the day which the Lord hath made, we will rejoice and be glad in it…....

Last Sunday we talked about Jonah, a prophet of God who was given a command by God, but Jonah chose to disobey God and was on the run. In our Bible class on Wednesday night we were told that Jonah was displeased when God brought revival to the city of Nineveh, and in his displeasure he wanted to die. Jonah was given a second chance by God, because of the mercy of God, and we are here today, because we too were given a second chance. How many of you are thankful for a second chance? Are you really, really thankful? I heard that last week a young girl was killed by a car that crashed into her house while she was sleeping. What an awful thing to happen……

All of us here today make decisions ”based on the options that we are faced with.” When we are tempted, we make a decision based on the two or more options we have, and we chose one of them to act upon. If you and I can control the options we give ourselves in a given situation, “then we can control the possible outcomes that the situation will have.” As Christians, as children of God, we need to control the options that we give ourselves “so that sinning is not a possible outcome.” Today we are asked the question, Is Sinning An Option?

Our scripture reading will be taken from Romans 6 verses 1 through10.

Our topic for today is, Is Sinning An Option? Do we have to sin? There is a misconception that apparently is being held both inside and outside of the church that gives the excuse that we have to sin, because there is grace, the grace of God. So in our defense we will quickly go to Romans 5: 20b, But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:

In our text for today, the apostle Paul starts off by asking two questions, what shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? Does grace give a person a free reign to sin? Can a child of God just go ahead, and do what he or she wants “expecting God to forgive him.” There are many people, even believers who somehow thinks that “if we are forgiven by grace and not by law and doing good, then sin does not matter that much.” They tend to believe that, “we do not have to worry too much about the law of God and righteousness, just so we do a fair amount of good.” There is the belief we can do “pretty much what we want, for God is going to forgive us anyway.” Christ died for our sins, no matter what we do he is going to forgive, all we have to do is ask him, but what if we did not get the chance to ask him. That young girl who was killed by a car that crashed into her house while she was sleeping, what if she did not know the Lord, and did not have the chance to say, Lord forgive me. Thank God for grace, and we should not continue in sin, because sinning is not an option.

It seems to me that in the church today, there are two words we do not like to talk about anymore. I believe these two words are sin and hell. It seems that there is a popularity contest going on in some churches, and so the words sin and hell are not popular words. You see, some people like to hear how to prosper. Some people like to hear something that will give excitement. Some people like to hear something that will make them feel comfortable, but to speak about sin or about hell that’s the old fashion gospel, but someone has said that old time religion is good enough for me.

In our Unity service last Sunday, the speaker mentioned that churches are using all kind of gimmicks to get people to come, but we are commissioned to go and tell others about the Lord. I want to encourage everyone here today to tell someone about Jesus. If your husband or wife is unsaved, tell them about Jesus. If your son or daughter is unsaved, tell them about Jesus. If your co-workers are unsaved, tell them about Jesus. If your boss is unsaved, tell your boss about Jesus. Tell them the stories of Jesus, stories that I trust they would love to hear Tell them how God’s Son left his glory and came to this sinful world because of his love for man. Tell them, how he took upon himself man’s sin, and died on a cross so that man could be saved. Tell them, how he was buried, but he rose again, and he is alive for ever more. Tell them because Jesus died, they can repent of their sins, and accept Him as there personal Savior, and become a new person in Christ. People all around are waiting to hear from you, and from me, so let’s get out and tell them about Jesus. Talking about baseball is good. Talking about football is good, but somebody is waiting to hear us talk about Jesus……..…