Dr. Roger Parrott - Belhaven University Chapel Series Fall 2024

Christianity.

If it's false, it's of no importance.

If it's true, it's of infinite importance.

The only thing it can't be is moderately important.

And that's why we are focused on the essentials of faith this semester.

And today we're going to talk about the pain, the high cost of sin, The cost of sin in eternity, the.

Cost of sin in this life too.

Today's outline.

Here's kind of where I want to go.

I want to talk about the horrible cost of sin.

And the only way we see that is to see Jesus crucified.

I want to talk about the eternal cost of sin to your soul and to your eternity.

And then I want to talk about the present day cost of sin.

Now, I'm not going to talk about all the consequences of of sin, but.

There are consequences to sin.

You may not wind up in jail.

For your sins, but they're probably gonna cost you money.

They clearly will cost you relationships.

You may lose your job, you may get divorced, you may get your kids rebelled.

All kinds of horrible things happen because of sin.

And those consequences can't be put back in the bottle.

Even though we're forgiven by Christ, we have to live with the consequences of sin.

But I wanna talk today more about.

The spiritual consequences of sin in this life.

So that's kind of where we're headed.

In looking at this question.

Paying the high cost, Looking at the topic of sin.

Now, sin is not a topic we like to talk about, but we must.

If you don't want to talk about sin, you better tune this out, because.

That's what we're going to focus on today.

So tune it out and do something.

Else, because this is going to get pretty direct.

You see, God made us in his image.

And that means because of that, he gave us a free will.

He loves us that much.

He didn't want us to just be robots.

He could have made us all robots.

So we bow down to him and we worship him and we do all this stuff.

He didn't want that because of him forcing it.

He wanted that because we love him like he loves us.

But Adam and Eve disobeyed.

God gave him a command.

It wasn't a command to hurt them,.

It was a command to protect them.

And when they didn't want that protection and they went against it, they corrupted sin and brought it in the world.

And once it got into the world, you can't get it out.

It's kind of like if you had a pure jug of water and you put a Little bit of dye in there, no matter what, the color would still be in there and pollute the whole thing.

And that's what happened with what we call original sin.

And so the corruption of Adam and Eve were passed down to the descendants, nature.

See, God designed us to be holy and just.

And when sin's in our life, we can't be holy and just like God.

And something's got to happen.

Either we're going to break or we got to get restored.

And that's what we left off in Revelation 22.

Last week we were talking about heaven and how God restores us to bring us back into fellowship with him and gives us eternal life.

And in Revelation 22, he gives this very clear picture of what the future is like for us.

I told you to read the last chapter, and that was the last chapter, the end of the book of the Bible, where John wrote about a new heaven and a new earth.

And that vision of John, though, continues in the next few verses.

So let's pick it up with what we read last week.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth.

For the old heaven and old earth had disappeared, and the sea was also gone.

And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, look, God's throne is now among his people.

He will live with them, and they.

Will be his people.

God himself will be with them, and he'll wipe every tear from their eyes, and there'll be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain.

All these things are gone forever.

And the one sitting on the throne said, look, I'm making everything new.

But John goes on to write, but.

Cowards, unbelievers, the corrupt, murderers, the immortal, those who practice witchcraft, idol worshipers and all liars.

Their fate is in the fiery lake of.

Of burning sulfur.

This is the second death.

Last week we talked about heaven's for real.

Here's the other side.

Hell is for real as well.

We don't like to talk about hell, but hell is for real.

Jesus talked about hell a lot.

He talked about it in different ways.

He described it in different ways.

The lake of fire, the outer darkness, a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth.

He others talked about it being eternal separation from the blessings of God or a prison or a place of torment that just goes on and on.

Are those actual descriptions of hell or those symbols?

I think all scholars show us those are symbols of hell because the actual is far Worse than anything we can imagine.

Hell is for real.

You see, God is goodness and love.

And mercy and justice.

And aren't those the four things we want in our life?

Love and goodness and mercy and justice.

I wish this world was more just.

There's not much justice.

Those are the things God is in his character.

And those are the four things that we long for because we're made in the image of God.

Because of that, God hates sin and demands justice.

Demands justice.

You know, I don't think we hate sin very much.

I think we get so desensitized to it.

We see it around us.

We watch it in movies, we watch it in TV shows.

We get so desensitized to sin, we don't hate it very much.

I'll tell you the place where I do hate it is if a news report comes on about a little child.

Being abused or being hurt in a horrible way by their parents or some person in authority.

It makes me so angry, I can't watch it.

I have to turn it off.

I get so emotional about it because sin makes me so angry for all of us.

I wish sin made us more angry because Jesus said that the punishment for sin is death.

And hell, we say, is that cruel?

Would God do that to be cruel?

Well, cruelty involves inflicting a punishment that's far more severe than the crime.

Cruelty is unjust, and God is incapable of inflicting an unjust punishment.

So the punishment of hell is going.

To fit the sin of life.

And that's the reality of it.

So when we talk about paying the high cost of sin, we have to understand that eternal consequence.

We also have to understand what it looks like.

You see, we are separated from God because of sin.

God is perfect and holy.

And because of our sin, we cannot be in fellowship with him or even be in his presence or.

Or we make him unclean.

And so he's not going to allow that to happen because God won't be.

In the presence of unclean.

A number of years ago, I went to visit a donor, another school where I was who had a hog farm.

You ever been to a hog farm?

My trip, my first and only trip to hog farm.

I'd gotten up that morning in the hotel, got dressed, showered, put on some.

Clothes I thought would be appropriate for the farm, although everything was nice and clean.

And as soon as we got there, he said, hey, I want you to come see the hogs.

And we went out and stood next to the hog pen.

And it is the most filthy, disgusting, gross place there ever could Be those hogs live in the mess they create.

They eat, they sleep, they do what they do all in one spot.

And it is horrible and it stinks like crazy.

Now, I had been clean as could be that morning, but just going to stand next to the hog pen, all I could think about is, I gotta go take a shower.

I gotta change my clothes.

You see, that's kinda how God is with sin.

God can't be in the presence of the unclean.

God loves us so much, though, that.

He gave us Jesus to wash us clean of our sins.

Jesus came not to just teach.

I'm glad he taught because there's so much to learn and.

But he came primarily to be a sacrifice for our sins.

And he experienced a horrible, horrible death on a cross.

Completely unjustified, gruesome way to die.

But the worst part of it is.

In that he took on the sins of the world.

He took on my sins and your sins and the sins of everybody who's ever lived before us and everybody who will live after us.

And he took the sins of the world on him.

And when he did, he could not be in the presence of God.

And that separation from God killed him more than the physical torture.

Remember last week I said, he said on the cross, I thirst.

I thirst for the living water.

Because he was taken away from the living water.

That's what he was thirsty for.

He said on the cross, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Because God withdrew his presence from him.

Because he was filled with our sin on the cross.

Jesus was a bloody and broken mess.

We look at that and say, Jesus never deserved that.

He lived a perfect life of holiness and love and care and goodness and.

And just as he never deserved that.

No, he did not.

But our sin deserves that.

That's how serious God is about sin.

That he sent his only son to die.

A crucifixion.

The horror of the cost of sin is displayed for us on that cross.

And Jesus freely paid the sacrifice for.

Those sins to prove how far his love would go.

Pretty remarkable.

You cannot look at the cross and not see the high cross of sin.

If you look at the cross, then ask the question, well, can I keep sinning?

Well, yeah, you can.

But the better question is why would you want to?

That's how much God hates sin.

Picture that cross.

Picture that cross.

That's the depth of God's love for you.

To remove sin from our lives, we like to sugarcoat sin, but we can't.

Wages of sin is death.

The scripture is very clear.

Death.

Sin equals death.

When we sin, something dies in us every time.

And you know, the funny irony of that is the people who sin, the people who plot to sin, the people who want to sin and are pretty open about that, they say, but I just want to live.

I just want to enjoy everything in life.

I want to live, and so I want to do these things.

And in the process, they're slowly killing themselves.

To understand sin, you got to look to the cross, and then you've got to look to Scripture to see what God teaches us about sin.

Here's Galatians, chapter 5.

When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear.

Now let me stop that right there.

Look at that.

When you follow the desires, if you want to sin, if you're desiring to sin, if you're hopeful of sinning, if you're looking for ways to sin, if you desire sin, here are the results.

Sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties,.

And other sins like these.

Let me tell you again that anyone living that sort of life will not.

Inherit the kingdom of God.

Pretty straightforward, isn't it?

But then it goes on.

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our life.

So when the Holy Spirit comes into us, it produces this kind of fruit in our love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control.

There is no law against these things.

Those who belong to Christ have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful.

Nature to his cross and and crucified them there.

We've all sinned.

I've sinned, you've sinned.

We've all sinned.

But the Holy Spirit lives in us.

See, when Jesus was resurrected and then he said, I've got to go back.

To heaven, which would be the intermediate.

Heaven we talked about last week.

I've got to go to heaven because the Holy Spirit needs to come.

The Holy Spirit.

Is Jesus among us, just as Jesus.

Was among the disciples in person 2,000 years ago.

We've all sinned, but sin is pushed out of us as the fruits of the Spirit grow in us.

So either your life is going to be dominated by sin, or your life is going to be dominated by the.

Holy Spirit's fruits of the Spirit growing in you, one or the other.

So you've got to ask the question, is your life heading in the right direction?

Are you looking for ways to get away with sinning?

And there are A lot of people who are or are you looking for ways to get closer to God, it's going to be one or the other.

You're either going to look for ways to sin or you're going to look for ways to be closer to God, which drives you and dominates you.

And if it's sin, there is a high cost to pay.

There's an eternal cost.

We talked about that.

We see the horror of sin and the cross.

But let's talk about the cost now.

I want to tell you about the 12 costs of sin that I see that block out the fruits of the Spirit.

And then out of that there are two very predictable outcomes that will happen every single time, 100% of the time.

Time this will happen.

So look at these.

First of all, we've got these fruits of the Spirit.

This is what the Holy Spirit is trying to put into us.

This is what God living among us is trying to build into us.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,.

Gentleness and self control.

But sin takes over and begins to block those out.

Now there are really three levels to sin and they build on each other.

As I think about sin and as I've watched the pattern of sin in people's lives through the years, the first level begins here with selfishness.

Selfishness is always the first part of sin.

99% Of all sins are related to selfishness.

We are not made to be internally focused.

That's not how God designed us.

So we turn away from God's nature in us when we want to put ourselves before everybody else.

When it's all about what's best for me and it doesn't matter what happens to anybody else.

That's sin and that's where it takes root.

And then when you start with selfishness, then sin leads to lies.

There are always lies related to sin.

You can lie to others, you can lie to yourself, say it's not really.

That bad, everybody's doing it, it's not that bad.

And more often you put on a.

Pretending face and a mask and you.

Try to become somebody you're not in.

Order to keep up the facade of what you think those around you want to see in you.

And then that leads to shame.

There's always shame.

When you feel bad.

If you did something last weekend and you feel real bad about it, I.

Am so glad you see that's God,.

Spirit in you, trying to help you and correct you.

That is wonderful that God has given you a conscience to know what's right and know what's wrong.

You don't have to look it up.

I mean, it's in the Bible and you find it.

But you know, you know it in your spirit.

When what's right and wrong by your consciousness of guilt and shame.

Until catch this, shame goes away.

When you get really good at sinning, if you're really good at it, not much shame.

And that's a scary place to be.

And then we build in justification.

We reorder the facts in order to deal with the shame.

So I feel bad about what I did and so I reorder the facts.

It really was their fault.

They really started it.

I got put in a bad situation, it wasn't my fault.

And the reason was this and that.

So we reorder the facts and we justify why the sin was okay.

But look what's happening.

We're starting to block out the fruits of the spirit.

Fruits of the spirit can't control our life in the same way as this.

First level of sin has taken over.

And then we go to the next.

Level and that builds on that.

Scheming, scheming.

You know, there are people who wake up and think about, how can I.

Sin more this week?

How can I get away with it?

How can I take advantage of somebody?

How can I shortcut this?

How can I cheat on this?

The.

The scheming of sin begins to wrap their life in a way that, that.

Continues in a pattern to again block out the fruits of the Holy Spirit.

And then anger comes in.

Anger always comes in as it builds up this far because people who are sinning a lot get angry.

They take it out on others because they're frustrated with themselves and they can't even understand it.

They don't understand that they're pulling so far away from God and the fruits of the spirit are getting blocked out in their life.

And they get angry about that because it doesn't feel right.

It's not right.

And so they lash out at others around them.

Ephesians has a great verse, great life verse.

Put it away someday for when you get married.

In your anger, do not sin.

And do not let the sun go.

Down while you're still angry.

If you make that a pattern of life, it'll change your life, it'll change your marriage.

Don't ever end the day angry.

Figure it out before you go to sleep with the person you're angry with.

And then we've got resentment.

Resentment is like a cancer that builds in you and the more it's there, the more it controls your life and takes over and you start justifying why you need to get even with somebody, why you need to lash out at somebody, why it's okay to do that.

And that resentment builds up against them.

And you know, the funny thing about resentment is it can consume you.

And the person you're resentful about probably doesn't even know it.

But resentment takes over as sin takes root.

And then you get to unclear vision.

Boy, this is a bad place to be.

Unclear vision that you no longer see the people around you as children of God.

You see them as people to use and manipulate and to take for what you need out of them.

If you saw, if you were angry and you saw the person you're about to lash out at as a child of God, who God loves so much that he died on the cross for them because he cares so much about them, if you saw them that way before you lashed out, you probably wouldn't lash out.

If the person you want to take advantage of before you get ready to do that, if you saw them as a child of God, one that God loves so much, he died on a cross for their sins and he loves them just as much as he loves you.

If you saw them that way, you.

Wouldn't try to take advantage.

If the one you lust over or the photograph or the video, you saw that person as a child of God, who God loves, God died for, God wants redeemed.

It would change your viewpoint of them.

You see, you can't see clearly when sin builds up in your life.

But unfortunately he keeps going.

We blocked out most of the fruits.

Of the spirit, but this thing keeps going up to the next level.

And that's where we get into broken relationships.

This video talks home about that.

You break relationship with yourself and with.

God and the people around you until.

There's an aloneness that comes with sin.

And often you see that later in life that you just almost break all the bridges or you're alone and then.

There's self pity that comes with it.

And you know, you start to rearrange all of life's understanding.

So it wasn't your fault that you're the sinner, but it's their fault that you're the sinner.

It's their fault that you had to lash out.

It's their fault.

You got to fight for everything you got.

It's their fault.

You got to be aggressive.

It's their fault.

You got to take advantage when you.

Can because of what they've done to.

You and you deserve it.

And that's a scary place to be.

And then it's not sustainable.

You just can't live like that.

There's a cost to it.

You can't sustain it.

We are made to be people in balance.

And if you sin at this kind of intensity where you block out the fruits of the spirit entirely, you get to the point of exhaustion.

And that exhaustion leads to self medication, alcohol, drugs, sex, whatever it might be, some level of self medication, because it's not sustainable.

And you're looking to put life back in you.

And then finally it just brings you to turmoil.

Life closes in.

There is no peace.

It's just a vicious cycle of one thing after another and trying to balance all the lies and the deceit and the justification and the resentment and the anger and the self pity.

And you're trying to juggle all that and you cannot keep it up.

And it just leads to a life of turmoil.

That's the cost of sin.

But there are two outcomes every single time.

And these are the words of Jesus.

This is what Jesus said is going to happen if you live that kind of a life of sin and block out the fruits of the spirit.

The first is this.

You will not forgive others.

But if you refuse to forgive others, your father will not forgive you.

If you are caught up in that life of sin where the fruits of the spirit are blocked out, you will not be a person who can ever forgive others.

And so you will not be forgiven.

That's black and white, straight as be right from the words of Jesus.

That's one outcome.

Second outcome is also horrible.

You will not care for the least of these if your life is wrapped up in sin and the fruits of the spirit are blocked out.

While they can't live and grow and work in your life, you won't care for the least of these.

I tell you the truth, when you.

Refuse to help the least of these brothers and sisters, you're refusing to help me.

You will go away into eternal punishment,.

But the righteous will go into eternal life.

A high cost of sin for the wages of sin is death.

But the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.

And there is a way.

And that's the good news of the gospel.

I don't care if your sins are a hundred times worse than they are right now.

I don't care if they are a thousand times worse than they are right now.

They are no match for the mercy.

Of God and the grace of God.

And that's what we're going to talk about next week.

That's so amazing.

Grace.

Let's pray.

Thank you, dear.

Lord, for helping us see so clearly what you have taught about the high cost of sin.

Help us to seek you and the fruits of the spirit so sin does.

Not control our lives.

Your name we ask it.

Amen.

Thank you for listening.