Week 1, Day 3: Sin Is Siding With the Enemy In this Week 1, Day 3 episode of In the Light, we slow down with a brief pause and then unpack another dimension of sin: it’s not only breaking God’s commands or betraying relationship with him, it’s also switching allegiance and siding with God’s enemy. We look at Adam and Eve’s disobedience as trusting the tempter’s word over God’s, and then turn to Luke 4 where Satan offers Jesus the kingdoms of the world—an offer Jesus doesn’t dispute but answers by worshiping and serving God only. We connect this to how humanity’s sin has, in a real way, placed us under the influence of powers opposed to God, and we reflect on Romans 6 where Paul describes offering ourselves as slaves to the one we obey. We end by examining the past 24 hours, confessing where we’ve sided with the enemy (intentionally or not), thanking God for forgiveness through the cross, and closing with the Lord’s Prayer.

00:00 Welcome and Theme

00:51 Pause and Prepare

01:30 Sin as Betrayal

01:56 Switching Allegiance

04:18 Luke 4 Temptation

05:39 Why Satan Has Power

07:16 Freed Yet Still Sin

09:06 Reflect and Confess

10:47 Lords Prayer Closing

Welcome to another

episode of In the Light.

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Today is week one, day three, and

today we're going to discuss how sin

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is actually siding with the enemy.

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Yeah.

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That does not strike us

as intuitive, probably.

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I think a lot of people don't

even think of it in those terms.

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I know I didn't when I was growing up.

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And our goal is to really unpack

what sin is and what it does so

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that we can recognize it and confess

it and receive God's grace anew.

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We know that, uh, uh, sin is a big,

big topic and so we are trying to

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break it into bite-sized chunks so

that we can reflect and confess and,

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uh, yield our lives to the Lord.

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Yeah, unless we see how much

we've been saved from, we won't

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appreciate our salvation as much.

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Yeah.

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So as we begin, as we've done the past two

days, let's begin with a time of pausing

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and use this to settle into the moment.

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Take some deep breaths, maybe pray

a breath prayer that's familiar

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to you, and invite the Lord to use

this time to help you grow in him.

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Okay, so last time we talked about that

sun has different dimensions to it.

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It's not just one thing.

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It is the breaking of a command.

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But then we also saw it's also

the betrayal of a relationship.

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Eve could not have taken the

apple in her hand unless she had

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already rejected God in her heart.

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That's the idea that it was a,

not just a breaking of a rule,

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it was rejecting God in his ways.

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So today we're gonna build upon that

because there's actually another

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aspect to this, and that is that sin

is not only breaking the command.

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It's not only betraying the

relationship with God, it's

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actually siding with God's enemy.

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The way you might wanna summarize

this is simply by the fact that Eve

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could not disobey God and refuse to

trust God unless she was also obeying

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God's enemy, the temperature, and

trusting his word instead of God.

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So it's not just that she had this

attitude towards God of rebellion.

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She also had an attitude of trust,

a willingness to follow Satan.

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The temperature and the guarded.

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So in many ways it was

a switch of allegiance.

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Now that's not really fleshed out too

much in Genesis or the Old Testament,

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but it certainly is in the new.

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But, uh, there was a passage I would

like you to go ahead and read there

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from Luke chapter four, if you would.

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Can I jump in here real fast?

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Yeah, go ahead.

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I feel like this is so significant too,

because oftentimes when we choose to

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sin deliberately, we may recognize,

okay, I'm disobeying what God's saying.

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I know that this isn't really what

God has for me or his good plan

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for me, but I don't know if I often

think I am actually choosing to

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trust Satan's plan for my life.

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Right.

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More than I'm choosing to

trust God's plan for my life.

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Yeah.

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So in that sense, it really ups the

ante helps us understand like this

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is, like we talked about on day one.

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This is really significant.

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Yeah.

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And we, we need to pay attention

here because siding with

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Satan is not a good thing.

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It brings all the things Satan loves.

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Yeah.

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Uh, you're right.

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We don't normally think that.

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And you know, we think of when we

sit and we're doing a light to Frank

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Sinatra song, I'm doing it my way, you

know, you know, like I'm exercising

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my autonomy, doing what I want.

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And I think both God and Satan are just

kind of saying, oh, you sweet summer

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child, how naive you are, you know?

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As Bob Dylan song used to say,

you, you gotta serve somebody.

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Yeah.

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I hope we can receive this.

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That we don't want to be serving Satan.

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Exactly.

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We wanna be serving God.

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And so not just obeying, but being

a A player on his team, so to speak.

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Exactly.

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Yeah.

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So you asked me to read this

passage from Luke chapter four.

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Where Luke unpacks a little bit

of how Jesus does it differently

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than Adam and Eve, right?

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So the context is Jesus is being

tempted in the wilderness, and it's

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a contrast in a comparison to Adam

and Eve being tempted in the guarded.

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So they had everything.

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There was just one

command prohibiting them.

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Jesus had practically

nothing in fasting, 40 days.

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He said the wilderness.

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So it's a, it's a contrast

comparison, and they were disobedient.

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They refused to trust God, and

he instead chooses to trust God.

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But there's a part here about

Satan's temptation, especially

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about the kingdoms of this world

that I'd love you to bring out.

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Okay, so in Luke chapter four,

there are three temptations.

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Here's the second one.

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This is in verse five.

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I'm going through verse eight.

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It says the devil led him Jesus up

to a high place and showed him in an

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instant all of the kingdoms of the

world, and he said to him, I will give

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you all their authority and splendor.

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It has been given to me and I

can give it to anyone I want to.

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If you worship me, it will all be yours.

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Jesus answered.

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It is written.

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Worship the Lord your

God and serve him only.

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Right.

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And if we're reading this

carefully, we should be asking

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the question, wait, why does Satan

have the power to make this offer?

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I mean, Jesus doesn't refute the offer

saying, oh yeah, that's not yours to give.

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Um, in fact, three times in the

gospel of John, he calls Satan the

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prince of this world, or the ruler

of this world, and then fits here.

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And Satan says, it has been given to me.

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Wait, well, who gave it to him?

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The answer is that we did through Adam and

Eve, our representative, head of humanity,

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through what we have done, our sin, we

are siding with him and actually in a,

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in a way, giving him authority over us.

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Humanity has done that wholesale,

and that's why in Ians, IANS

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chapter two, Paul calls Satan, the

prince of the power of the air.

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So he is a prince.

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He is a ruler of this

world according to Jesus.

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We don't take that

seriously enough, right?

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Yeah.

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So that's what I mean.

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This is not really fleshed out in

Genesis chapter three, but by the time

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you come to the New Testament, you see

that humanity sin somehow in a way that

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probably goes beyond our pay grade,

has put us into an allegiance with

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the powers that are opposed to God.

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So Paul talks about us being alienated

from God made enemies of God, and this is

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because of our sin and what we have done.

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Sin is not just a mistake, it is

given allegiance to the one who is

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opposed to God and at every level.

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So if I'm a Christian and

I've given my allegiance to

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God, how does that make sense?

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I can still sin, but also

give my allegiance to Satan.

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Yeah, I think, uh.

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The best way to understand that

is to picture an analogy where

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we have been freed from Satan.

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So one of the things God does at the

cross, through his victory over the

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evil powers, he now gives us a freedom.

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And the exodus is kind of the great

Old Testament illustration of, of that

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redemption, that freedom being freed

from God's enemies who are oppressing us.

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But we can still choose in our hearts

to go back to the ways of Egypt.

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We can still choose in our actions

to live like we haven't been free.

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So Paul talks about this in in

Romans chapter six, and in this

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context he says, Hey, shall we sin?

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Because we're not under law, but under

grace, by no means don't you know that

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when you offer yourselves to someone

as slaves, you are slaves to the

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one you obey, whether you are slaves

to sin, which leads to death, or to

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obedience, which leads to righteousness.

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And then he goes on to talk about, so

you have been set free, but now in our

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actions we have to live as free people.

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Those have been set free from

the power of the evil one.

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So I think that's the answer

is we are free in God's mind.

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We are free in fact.

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But we can still act as

though we were still under the

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allegiance of the evil one.

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Mm.

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And as we do, Satan is

able to use that to.

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Continue to unravel the world

that was created to be good.

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Yes.

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So let's not side with the enemy.

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No, no.

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We have been freed from that, thankfully.

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Yeah.

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Well, we know that sin is still at

work in us and so we wanna move into

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a time of applying this and just

like we've done in the past two days.

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I wanna give a little bit of space

for us to consider the past 24

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so hours and ask ourselves the

question, where have I sinned?

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And to ponder the reality that as you

sin, you are actually choosing to trust

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Satan more than you're choosing to trust

God, at least when we do it intentionally.

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So let's spend a few minutes

reflecting on the past 24 hours and

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ask the spirit to bring to mind the

things that you need to confess.

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And then after that, we will,

uh, end with the Lord's Prayer.

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Father, we pray that you forgive

us for the ways that we have

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sided with the enemy, both

intentionally and unintentionally.

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You know our hearts to follow you

and to have our allegiance being your

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kingdom, and not in any other kingdom.

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So forgive us and thank you that

you already have forgiven us.

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'cause we understand all of

this in light of the cross.

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We want to conclude our time

here with the Lord's Prayer.

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So pray with us as you're able,

when asked how to pray by his

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disciples, Jesus responded like this.

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This then is how you should pray.

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Our Father in heaven, how it be your name.

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Your kingdom come, 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 as we

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also have forgiven our debtors.

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And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from the evil one.

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Amen.

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Amen.