We believe the sinfulness of mankind

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Good morning church. It's good to be here and gathered together as you will have picked up already the team's done a wonderful job at prefacing it this morning we're going to look at one of the more uncomfortable topics in our faith we're going to look at one of the issues which is a little bit closer to home we're going to be looking at the condition of humanity of ourselves but before we do that I want to begin by asking if I was to say you could have three words three words and three words alone to describe all of man kind all of humanity the entirety of the human race present and past what would those three words be it's an almost impossible task to distill the thoughts of billions of humans into three words but imagine I didn't ask this question to us here in church on a Sunday morning imagine instead we were down the road at morfield shopping center talking to the public and we ask in the same question three words describe all of humanity once again it's still a little bit of an impossible task but I gave it my best shot throughout the week trying to figure out what's important to us as a people and what I came to in our contemporary setting the way that the average person on the street would probably describe Humanity there's probably going to be some differences and similarities but I think the most prevalent thing that Humanity thinks about itself is that we're intelligent we're intelligent we're so much smarter than any other creature or organism or anything that's on this Earth we are intelligent and because we're intelligent because we can think we're Unstoppable we want to get to the moon we can't breathe in space no problem give us some time give us some space to think we'll create a suit that gives us air so we can go to that place where we weren't able to go we get hit with a global pandemic like covid-19 that our bodies aren't equipped to resist yet no problem give us some time and some space we'll put our minds together we'll think about it we'll come up with a cure we're Unstoppable there's nothing that we can't do if we really put our minds to it if we really think about it if we really pursue it with everything that we've got because we're smart and while there's some difference in this third one depending on who you talk to as a whole I think the majority of people would say that humanity is good we've had some world wars but they're outliers we've had some conflict but as a whole we try to find peace we try to bring an end to it we try to live in harmony of course there's some people who do some outrageous things but they're the outliers the most of us we would never never do things like that and so as a whole Humanity we've got our flaws but we're good we're we're intelligent Unstoppable and good there's probably words that you would change there but as a whole that's what I came up with during the week if you've been traveling along with us you'll know that we're going through as a church a We Believe series we're looking at our doctrinal statement as a church we're looking at what it is that we believe because what we believe directly impacts who we are what we say and what we do and this morning more than ever because because it's what we believe about ourselves there's a very direct link between what we believe about ourselves who we are what we say and what we do and so everyone's got their Church constitution in their pocket I hope section 3.1.4 that's just to say the fourth part in our doctrinal statement says that we as a church believe the Fallen sinful and lost estate of mankind to put it a little bit simpler we believe the Fallen sinful and lost condition of all mankind and so if Kabula Baptist Church was to describe mankind describe the entirety of humanity in three words we would say Fallen sinful and lost that's pretty dark and gloomy compared to intelligent Unstoppable and good isn't it and yet yet we see that the reason that we describe ourselves this way is because it's revealed in scripture as we reflect on this together we're going to see that even in our own lives we can relate to the fact that we're Fallen sinful and lost but before we do this would you join me in prayer Lord God we thank you for being able to gather together this morning we thank you for the reminder this morning in our praise to you that we do have hope father God that you sent Jesus you love the world so much that you have made a way despite the fact that we have fallen sinful and lost Lord God that there is a way to have restored relationship with you there is a way to come back to how you originally designed us to be father God would you lead us and guide us by your Holy Spirit as we open your word and delve into this topic together we pray in the name of Jesus Christ amen the Fallen sinful and lost estate of mankind let's tackle it one word at a time Fallen I I don't know what comes to your mind it's not really the first word that I would choose to describe Mankind and yet it's the first word that we do choose to describe Mankind and when you think about this word Fallen I don't know what thoughts you get my first thought was well if we're Fallen where did we fall from I've never just ended up on the ground and gone oh that's cool I've always gone how did I get here so if we've fallen down where where did we come from if you've got your Bibles open up to the very beginning Genesis 1 we're going to read verses 26- 31 then God said said let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the Earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth so God created men in his own image in the image of God he created them male and female he created them and God blessed them and God said to them be fruitful and multiply and fill the Earth and sub do it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth and God said behold I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of the Earth and every tree with seed in its fruit you shall have them for food and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth everything that has the breath of life I have given every green plant for food and it was so God saw everything that he had made and behold it was very good and there was morning and evening the sixth day Humanity was created very good they were created by God we were created by God as we continue reading Genesis 2:15 to9 we get a bit of a picture of what it was like in this earth time we see that the law of God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it and the law of God commanded the man saying you may surely eat of every tree in the garden but the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it you will surely die I don't know about you sometimes we think that God's strict and has all these rules on us and it's just because he wants to be strict and have rules seems pretty clear here that that was put in place for our benefit right the day that you eat of this fruit you will die it seems like it's not unreasonable for God to say Don't eat of that fruit and the Lord God said it is not good that man should be alone I will make him a helper fit for him now out of the ground the Lord had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them and whatever the man called them that was its name what do we see in these opening chapters of Genesis we see Perfection everything working in the way that God had designed it human was very good but not only that we see perfect relationship between God and Humanity God was with Adam God brought the the animals to Adam for Adam to name there was per perfect relationship there was no sin there was no death there was no pain there was no suffering I wish we could say the same for our experience of life right now and so if this is where we fell from the second question that comes to my mind is why did we fall if this is as good as it reads if if we had everything the way that God had designed it if everything was perfect why did we fall why is our current situation not the same very simply we rebelled against God chapter 3: 1 now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made he said to the woman did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden and the woman said to the serpent we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden but God said You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden neither shall you touch it lest you die see Eve knew what God had told her Eve knew that hey actually we can eat of any of this but God's warned us he said don't eat of this because it's going to be bad for you it's not beneficial for you to eat of this fruit don't do it the moment that you do will be the moment that death enters but the serpent said to the woman you will not surely die for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil a half truth so when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise she took of its fruit and ate she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves clothes in this perfect world that God had created Humanity being very good no pain no sin no suffering and one guideline God said don't do this lest you die humanity rebelled and when it can't be that bad we're going to do this and we see that the moment that that happened death entered the equation it wasn't an instant striking down but very truly what God Said would happen did happen we read of the consequences for the disobedience in Genesis 3 13 and onwards to the serpent God says because you have done this curse to you above all livestock and above all the beasts of the fields on your belly you shall go and dust you shall eat all the days of your life I will put conflict between you and the woman and between your Offspring and her Offspring he will bruise your head and you shall bruise his heal to the woman he said I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing in pain you shall bring forth children your desire will be contrary to your husband but he shall rule over you and to Adam he said because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you you shall not eat it cursed is the ground because of you in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you and you shall eat the plants of the field by the sweat of your face you you shall eat bread till you return to the ground for out of it you were taken for you are dust and to dust you will return again what's happened here we've seen this Perfection state of living perfect relationship with God no pain no suffering no sin be turned as a result of disobedience to a world that involves conflict pain toil for little gain curs land and death and I don't know about you but when we think about these things conflict PL pain having to work hard to survive and death that summarizes our life right we experience all of those things and so it's easy to reconcile this idea that all mankind is Fallen because we can relate we know very really that in our life there will be conflict there will be pain we will have to work hard to survive and when it all is said and done one day we will die all of mankind is Fallen and so if we acknowledge that then we look at the second word that we use to describe mankind which is sinful and quite simply what we mean by being sinful sin is rebellion and Disobedience to God and as a church we believe that all mankind is sinful it's easy to see with Adam and Eve right God gave them a very explicit command hey eat of whatever you want except for this one thing what did they do they ate of the one thing they disobeyed God they rebelled against what he had said and you might be sitting in the pews going well Dylan it's a little bit of a stretch for you to say that Adam and Eve sin so all of mankind sinned it's not really let's look at scripture let's work through this together in fact let's do a case study for us in the room if we're saying that sin is rebellion against God it's Disobedience to God then what is it that God has told us to do remember he was our creator he created Humanity very good and being the Creator he also knew how we were designed to live he knew the way of life that would be good for us and like the tree he knew what would be bad for us and so it would make sense that God would very clearly give us some direction in how to live we call them the ten command Commandments if you've got your Bibles you can look in Exodus 20 I'll put them up on the screen as well the Ten Commandments the way that God says this is how I've designed you to live I'm not giving you these 10 rules because I want to impose them and be mean I'm giving you these guidelines because this is how I have designed you to live if you live according to this you will have your best life because it's how I created you God says you shall have no other God before me quite simply because there is no other God besides me God says you shall have no other God besides me and you shall not make any Idols to Worship You shall not take the lord's name in vain remember the Sabbath and keep it holy honor your father and mother you shall not murder you shall not commit adultery you shall not steal you shall not bear false witness and you shall not covet quite simply when Jesus was on Earth he distilled this he distilled all the law and Prophets and he said it can be summarized in these two Commandments he says love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself and so I want to give you a moment now let's reflect let let's do this as a case study reflect on just this week just this week days of your life have you been able to fully submit to fully follow these Commandments this guide from God I know I have and I can say with confidence that there's no one in this room that has cuz even if we think that oh yeah I didn't murder anyone this week have you been angry with someone because Jesus says it extends past the physical he says if you're angry with a brother or with another that anger you've murdered them maybe not physically but the heart intent was there and so I'll be the first to admit that this week I've disobeyed God I've rebelled I can say with full confidence that there's no living human being that has ever been on this Earth other than Jesus who can say that they live their life in complete submission to God the Father who can say that yes I have lived according to the way that God set out for Humanity to live why can I say that with such confidence because it's true of ourselves if we look within ourselves we know it to be true for our lives and the Bible tells us it's true if you've got your Bible there I'll will invite you to flick to Romans 3 chapter 10 here Paul is summarizing a lot of the Psalms and some of the prophets he's giving a defense for this and he says as it's written in scripture none is righteous no not one no one understands no one seeks for God all have turned aside together they have become worthless no one does good not even one their throat is an open grave they use their tongues to deceive the Venom of apps is there under their lips their mouth is full of curses and bitterness their feet are Swift to shed blood in their paths are ruin and misery and the way of peace they have not known there is no fear of God Before Their Eyes now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God for by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight since through the law comes knowledge of sin see when God gave us these guidelines when God told us how it is we were to live we became fully aware of just how short we fall when God clearly lays out for us this is how I've designed you to live we can look back each day each week each month each year and go you know what I've broken that I didn't love God I didn't love my neighbor in whatever way that took place and by consequence of that we're sinful he continues on he makes it so clear in verse 23 he says for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and so we've done our test case study no one in his stood up and be like Dylan I think you're wrong I actually haven't sinned this week I've done nothing wrong I I am Perfection so I'm going to assume that we're all on the same page here but when we look into sin it's much deeper than that as well see when we look back when we remember the very beginning where we fell from God created man and woman in His image Adam and Eve created by God and all of humanity was birthed then through woman after they had been exiled after there was sin and so Church the reason that we can say this with such confidence is because sin isn't just this foreign thing that we stumble into it's something that we are born with we are inherently sinful from birth if you've got your Bibles there open up to Job 14 veres 1 to 4 he says man who is born of a woman is few in days and full of trouble he comes out like a flower and Withers he flees like a shadow and continues not and do you open your eyes on such a one and bring me into judgment with you who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean there is not one see before the first human birth both Adam and Eve had sinned you can't then bring something holy out of something which is both sinful Psalms 51:5 says surely I was sinful at Birth from the time my mother conceived me see all mankind is sinful that's what we believe as a church we're unable to live according to God's design we choose to Rebel and be disobedient it's part of who we are from birth and so we move on to the final word that we use to describe Humanity lost and I want to suggest this morning that being lost is a consequence of being fallen and sinful because if we're Fallen then we're separated from God our creator our designer the one who knew exactly how we were supposed to live as he designed us to be and not only are we separated from him we're rebelling against him see the purpose of humanity in Genesis when God created mankind good he created us to have dominion over his creation to be in relationship with him perfect relationship and to worship Him and and yet we fell we were sinful the wages of sin is death Paul tells us and so we're lost we're lost because we've been separated from he who created us and we're lost because we refuse to listen to the guides that he's given us if we were at the shop shopping center once again and I asked our general public what is the purpose of your life I have a hunch because we live in a very individualistic contemporary culture that it would probably go something like this they'd say well we've got to get a good education so that we can get a good job so that we can then get a life partner so that we can buy a home so we can build a family and so we can just have lots of money to do the things that we want to do all revolves around us and yet we put so much effort into chasing these things chasing this promotion chasing the things that we think are going to make us happy and then if we die it's meaningless no one's ever died and being like Oh I was this close to a promotion no one's ever died and G I had $30 million in the bank you can't you're dead and so humanity is lost we're chasing our tals we're chasing the wrong things we we think we've got the directions and yet we don't because if the punishment of sin is death then death makes a life that revolves around us of no lasting purpose I've been told that I can be stubborn I I I have I've been told that I can be stubborn particularly when we're driving and we've been to that place before the reason I say this is because if I've been there before I've got I've got it in my mind that I can get there again I've already got the road map I've been there I've traced it out and yet more often than not I can get 80% of the way there 80% and then there comes a point of realization I try not to let it show but there comes a point of realization where I go I'm kind of guessing now is it left or right up here I'm just going to suck it and see and usually zy cotton on to this and she'll be like hey Dylan do you want some help do you want some directions and as I said I can be stubborn usually I'll say no I've got it don't even worry about it I'm sweet and about 10 minutes later once I've done every possible route and figured out no I am truly lost I am truly helpless I'll have to turn to Z and be like hey do you think you could get me those directions and she being the gra gracious wife that she is she'll get them up and we'll we'll get there the reason I share that is because we can only ask for help when we've realized there's a problem in your life in your workplace whatever it is when do you ask for help when you can't do it yourself if you're cooking Pastor in the kitchen and you can't get the lid off the jar you wait until you fully give up before you then hand it to someone else and say hey can you please open this if you're at work working on a project and you've been tasked with this assignment and you're trying to do it you wait till you truly can't figure it out before you ask for someone's help we have to come to the decision of going I need help before we will ask for it see Jesus while he was here on Earth he said the son of man referencing himself came to seek and to save the lost when we're driving somewhere zali comes to seek and to save me when I don't know where I'm going she has the answer answer and yet it's not until I ask that I get the directions see we as a church believe that mankind is Fallen sinful and lost if you're a Christian here this morning you'll remember your helpless estate you you do good to remember the fact that we are Fallen sinful and lost and that doesn't take anything away from what Christ has done if anything it gives us a deeper appreciation for it because if I'm truly lost if I'm truly hopeless if I'm truly fallen and sinful how good is God that even in that state he sent Christ to die for me what gift of Grace is it that Christ says if you believe in me your sins are forgiven but church it's only when we realize that we have fallen sinful and lost that we can ask for help there's so many people in Kabula in morfield in the world who like me are stubborn they might not be willing to accept the fact that they're sinful fallen and lost maybe they know maybe they don't but Church Jesus tells us go proclaim the good news and part of that is bringing the realization that that's who we are see just like it's our choice to rebel against God just like it's our choice to be disobedient it's also our choice to ask God for help God goes I've paid the debt for all the world here is my free gift of Grace I'm not going to force it on you you don't have to take it but if you realize that you're lost you're sinful and you're Fallen it's yours if you choose to accept this it's yours and so this week take a moment however uncomfortable it is do a self evaluation how has God designed me to live how have I been living it's probably going to not be so good a reflection of us right we're probably going to realize hey I'm messed up I'm sinful give it to God as a church we believe the Fallen sinful and lost the state of mankind but we also believe that there is hope hope in Jesus Christ that's what we'll be covering next week and the weeks to come but if you can't wait till then if you want to come have a conversation please send me or one of the pastors we'll be readily available for you we'd love to have a chat would you pray with me Heavenly Father we thank you for your word Lord we thank you that despite how hard it is to acknowledge and realize that we mess up that we rebel against the way that you've designed us to live that we're disobedient that we are sinful father God thank you for Jesus Lord thank you that despite how messy our lives may be that your promise is that whoever believes in Jesus will have their sins forgiven that there is coming a day when Jesus will return where we will be restored to perfect relationship with God father God as we continue here on Earth would you remind us not only of who we are but of who you are and Lord God who we are when we accept Jesus into our lives father God that whilst we are still fully sinful whilst here on this Earth that you call us righteous that through the blood of Jesus you make amends Lord God I I don't know where anyone's at in this room here this morning but in the week to come would you help us to take account to wrestle with what it is we truly believe about ourselves and to come to the decision of do I need help or not and Lord God if and when we come to that decision would you just give us the right people to talk to would you be leading us and guiding Us by your Holy Spirit [Music] we thank you for all it is that you've done in the name of Jesus Christ amen