Visuals for Day 1

Week 1, Day 1. Romans 5:12 emphasizes that sin is the fundamental problem underlying other problems, and that understanding sin highlights the greatness of salvation in Jesus—his life, death, resurrection, and ascension—anticipated during Lent and Easter. This episode outlines four biblical dimensions of sin, primarily from Genesis 3: breaking God’s command, betraying relationship with God, siding with God’s enemy, and forfeiting the life and wholeness (shalom) God intended.

In application, listeners are invited to examine their posture toward sin, pray for awareness, and reflect on confession, with a reminder from 1 John 1 about God’s faithful forgiveness. The episode ends with the Lord’s Prayer.

00:00 Welcome to In the Light: Launching the Podcast + Episode Theme

00:29 How This Lenten Devotional Works: The P.R.A.Y. Rhythm

00:52 Pause: Breathe, Pray, and Enter the Moment

01:52 Reflection Story: Deadly Marbles

04:01 Sin Isn’t Trivial: Romans 5 and Why It’s the Root Problem

06:16 Four Dimensions of Sin (Genesis 3 Preview): Command, Relationship, Allegiance, Life

08:23 Application: Examine Your Posture Toward Sin

09:54 Yield: Confession, Assurance, and Closing with the Lord’s Prayer

Welcome everybody to the

In the Light Podcast.

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I'm sitting here with Daniel.

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Hello, it's me and my name is Nathan.

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This is week one, day one.

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We're really excited to

launch this podcast together.

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Today's episode is called

Whatever Happened to Sin?

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Yes.

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And the background of that is a

book titled by that, named by Carl

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Menninger, who asked that question.

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He felt like we as a society we're

minimizing sin to our own detriment.

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Yeah, and we felt like to talk about it,

this Lenin season would be really good.

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40 day devotional podcast.

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So let's go ahead and dive in.

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Each day we're going to

follow, uh, the prey acronym.

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We will pause and then we'll

reflect, and then we'll apply and

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then we'll yield to the lower.

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And so just starting now,

we wanna begin with a pause.

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And this is because we realize that.

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We don't know where you're at.

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You may be driving on your way to work,

or it may be the last thing you listen to

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before bed, or maybe you're getting ready

or it's your lunch break or whatever.

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But just stepping into this

moment, we want to be sacred.

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So we want to give just a couple seconds

for you to take a couple deep breaths to

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pray and invite the Lord into your time.

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And so let's go ahead and do that now.

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Go ahead and take some deep

breaths and then we'll begin with.

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Moving into our reflection.

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Okay.

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I wanna begin by telling a story.

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Story I read about a man who lived in

north of Mexico and he was a scrap hauler.

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So basically he would go north of

the border, this was sub years ago,

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and he would collect whatever metal,

he could take it back to Mexico,

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and then he would, uh, sell it.

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So he did that one trip.

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He went and he'd found

a lot of scrap material.

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Some of it was from a dentist office.

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And so he took it back and he had

in the back of his pickup truck,

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and as he went down the highway.

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There were these round metal balls.

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Think of large marbles that fell out

at some of the machines, and they

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rattled around the back of his truck.

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And of course when he got back

to the village, he unloaded the

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big pieces, but the balls were

still rolling around the truck.

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And pretty soon the village Sjogren

saw these and they were delighted

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with them because now they had some,

uh, new Uber marbles, as it were.

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And so they were playing games

with them, uh, like they often

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did with the other marbles.

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And these became a real treat because

of their size, but also because of

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their appearance and their weight.

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And it wasn't until sometime

afterwards that people in the village

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began noticing that, uh, there was

a lot of sickness going around.

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And eventually several people got sick.

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Many people got sick, and

several people actually died.

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And what they finally found out

was that these marbles, as it were.

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We're gradually radioactive because they

were parts from a Dennis x-ray machine.

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What was regarded as trivial and

even fun turned out to be Dudley.

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And that's a pretty good introduction

to understanding sin because we live

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in a culture that abuse sin is just

these little rules that you break.

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Um, for the most part, they are the

fun things that we enjoy, but the

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Bible has a very different view.

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These are what causes our death,

spiritually speaking and physically.

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So what seemed like toys and just

fun things to play around with are

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actually poisoning and killing us.

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So that's what we're

gonna talk about today.

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Yeah.

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As we do, we thought it would be

apropos to bring this verse before you.

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This is from St.

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Paul in Romans chapter five, verse 12.

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He writes, therefore.

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Just as sin entered the world through one

man and death through sin in this way,

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death came to all people because all sin.

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So as Daniel's illustration points

out, this is a really serious thing.

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Yeah.

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And not something to take lightly,

but rather something to understand.

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Sin isn't just a problem.

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Sin is the only problem.

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Sin is the.

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Biggest problem and all of the problems

that we experience have their roots

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in this small little free letter work.

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Yeah, exactly.

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And we might seem overstating it to

say that sin is the only problem,

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but in one sense, as you said, the

other problems pull out of this.

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This is the fundamental break with

reality that Jesus came to fix.

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And uh, it says in one John,

chapter three, Jesus came to

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undo the works of the devil.

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And so that's why Jesus says cow.

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And part of the reason we wanted to

focus on this is not just so that we

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feel bad because hey, we're big fat

sinners, but so that we understand

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the greatness of our salvation.

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Something we can take for granted.

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It's far too easily.

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If we don't understand what we're

saved from, we won't understand

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the glory of being saved.

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Yeah, and I think that's really what I

hope to get out of this podcast, uh, for

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me personally and for everybody listening.

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That to understand that problem x

the solutions to the problem, namely

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Jesus Christ and his, uh, coming

to the, the world, his life, his

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death, which of course is what we are

moving toward in this Lenten season.

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And his resurrection, which

is what we joyfully anticipate

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and expect on Easter Sunday.

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Um, and then his ascension.

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So I'm, I'm really

excited to lean in here.

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And I think that this will be a good

practice in remaining sober about this

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reality, which everyone is touched by.

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Yes.

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Right.

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And I, I think we're not gonna do a

deep dive into one particular aspect

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of that today, but we do want to

introduce that there are actually,

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biblically speaking, at least four

dimensions of sin, four different ways

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that sin affects us and destroys us.

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And we're gonna look at each one

of these in the following days,

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primarily based upon Genesis chapter

three, which describes the, the fall

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of mankind through the temptation

and the sin of, of Adam and Eeb.

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But if you look at those four, sin is

first of all, the breaking of a command,

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and that was probably the most obvious.

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And that has its own consequences,

but at the same time, it is also

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the betrayal of a relationship.

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So it was Adam and Eve rejecting God,

refusing to trust him and destroying

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the relationship because of that.

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And we inherited that part also.

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And then third, it's not only

breaking the command and betraying

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the relationship with God is

actually siding with God's enemies.

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Adam and Eve could not disobey

God without obeying God's enemies,

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the evil one, the tempter.

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And there are a lot of consequences

to that that we'll explore.

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Then fourthly, sin is forfeiting the kind

of light that God desired us to have.

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Nathan already read that death comes

because of sin and it's a forfeiting of

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the good life to shalom the wholeness that

God desired for mankind's life to be like.

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And Jesus came to restore that.

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He can undo all these four dimensions.

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So again, we're gonna look at each

one of those, but I think the main

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part today is just to realize.

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Sin is not just this, okay, I am

breaking some list of rules in the sky.

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No, it's far deeper.

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We do that, but at the same

time, we're rejecting God's way.

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What we know God wants us to do,

we're betraying that relationship.

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We're siding with God's enemy,

and we're forfeiting the kind of

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life that God wants us to have.

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The good whole life,

every time that we sin.

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Sin is not a trivial thing.

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It's a deadly serious thing.

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As we move into a time of application.

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We really want this time to not just

be something that remains in our heads,

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but is able to move into our hearts.

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We want this to be something that moves

into our hearts and gets into our bones.

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As we mentioned at the beginning, sin is

not just a problem, but it is the problem.

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So what does it look like to apply

this reflection to our lives?

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I think the natural place for us to begin

is to examine our own lives and see how

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significant the problem of sin is to us.

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To ask God to help us recognize the

breath and the depth of this challenge.

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Yeah, I think that's true.

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One of the things I hope comes

out of this is that we just take

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time to pray and say, God, I have

not taken this seriously enough.

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I want you to open my eyes and help

me to see what you've saved me from.

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Yeah.

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So what does it look like to do that?

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Well, each day we're gonna have time

for you to reflect on your own life.

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Prayerfully and to ask God to help you.

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So today we want to give you 30

seconds or so to just reflect

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on your own posture towards sin.

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Is it something that you feel

really significant about?

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Is it something that you grasp the

weight of, or is it something that you

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kind of feel more flippantly about?

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Do you take it seriously?

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When's the last time that you

sought a confession for your sin?

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How often do you do that?

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So let's take a minute or so now to just

reflect on our own posture towards sin

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and to bring that before God prayerfully,

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as we continue this time of yielding,

remember that the scriptures tell us in

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one John one, if we confess our sins,

he is faithful and just to forgive us

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and cleanse us of all unrighteousness.

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But what a beautiful

gift God has given us.

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Amen to that.

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So remember, as you confess your

sins, you have been forgiven.

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We thought it'd be good to end with the

Lord's Prayer because it's a prayer for

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daily needs, as well as daily confession.

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Jesus taught us to pray this way.

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Our Father in heaven,

hallowed bee your name.

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Your kingdom come and your will be

done on earth as it is in heaven.

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Give us today our daily bread

and forgive us our debts.

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As we also have forgiven our debtors,

and lead us not into temptation,

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but deliver us from the evil one.

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Amen.