The Dark Side - Part A

People who have not confessed their sins should feel guilt. Put it this way.

If your sickness can fast you should feel guilt because it's been forgiven, but if your sin is unconfessed.

You should feel guilt because you have address the real problem everyone in the world is waiting to be redeemed from today on connect with Skip Skip soon made shares about his notorious hope you have in Christ on the counter's faults and sins first. If you want to stay up-to-date on the latest from his ministry and from Skip by you to follow Skip on Facebook, twitter and Instagram find important announcements and great encouragement from Skip that basket hijacked at Skip HPI to CIG will in Romans chapter 3 as we dive into our study with Nate Heights. Although we are created in the image of God and that dutiful and wonderful to think about. We think about that truth. For me it's a comforting thought to think about that but there is a dark side to us is in there. It's not all gumdrops and lollipops. I wish that whenever somebody looked at my life or look to any of our lives. They just saw Jesus. That's not the case as it why because we have a dark side and that's the title of this message this weekend. It is the dark side and end just because it's following week and I'm not really talking about Star Wars or Darth Vader. This is about the dark side, which really is our very nature, which is the fall retirement the fall of mankind and the sin nature that each and every one of us has one way that I like to describe this sin nature or this fall. This dark side that we have is what we have eternity in our hearts, and were striving for more were striving for greater we desire this relationship with our eternal Creator. Sometimes it feels like we just hit an invisible wall doesn't bear felt that like you still want to be better. You still want to be good. You still want to follow Jesus, but sometimes it feels they just hit a wall. You can't understand why that is, it repels us will the problem is with mankind. The problem is with you and I and it's called sin. Now sin is a word that's gone completely out of fashion. People don't want to talk about sin anymore. People don't want to be told there a sinner and I want to be told they are wrong they want to be petted and in a swash and told that there great and beautiful and unique snowflakes. Nobody wants to be told that there is sinner in this day and age and another word that regularly accompanies the word sin is another word that people don't want to think about and that is the word guilt. Sin and guilt are two things that our society today wants nothing to do with. And that's because we like to believe that as humans were basically good.

Don't we.

We like to think that that were okay that we've got it all together and that belief is reinforced by psychologist by counselors and even by a great many religious leaders and an outgrowth of that is self-esteem self-esteem. Now self-esteem is the operative phrase of the day. People don't want to talk about sin or guilt. They want to talk about self esteem and a survey conducted in 1940, 11% of women and 20% of men agreed with the statement I am an important person jump to the 1990s. Those figures jumped up to 66% of women and 62% of men believing that they are an important person jump today that number is around 80% of people will agree with the statement I am an important person. Another poll done by Gallup.

90% of people surveyed said that their sense of self-esteem is robust and healthy, yet amazingly as we look at society today the fabric of society is deteriorating. Things are getting worse and worse and yet were feeling better and better about ourselves. Isn't it interesting how that correlation is happening.

Society the fabric of society, the fabric of what you and I hold dear. Seems to be slowly unraveling and deteriorating yet self-esteem is thriving, but Matthew question does self-esteem make us better people. Does thinking were good. Make us good does thinking were righteous. Make us righteous does thinking that everything's okay make everything okay. An article by USA Today hit on the other side of this coin and at an article told self-esteem's dark side emerges in the says this is we squander money building students egos. We feed crime. We've heard it so often that none of us question whether it's actually true.

You've got to feel good about yourself in order to succeed.

The crusade to improve self-esteem has invaded every sector of life, public and private, but nowhere more pervasively than education school reformers of spent millions of dollars in the past two decades trying to raise the self-esteem of poor achievers and now a new study published in American psychological Association suggests that raising self-esteem might actually be dangerous, especially among individuals whose inflated sense of self-worth doesn't comport with reality were like.

Of course participation trophies don't help anybody that according to three research psychologist who evaluated dozens of studies of violent behavior, high self-esteem is more often associated with violence than low self-esteem is an interesting right now we have a generation of fragility, a generation that doesn't ever want to be told that they are wrong.

They never want to be told that they failed.

They never want to be told that they can't do something and we have a generation that gets participation trophies in sports that they're not good at a generation that doesn't want to get an F in a class that is want to be told that if they try hard enough that they're going to succeed. We have a generation that is told. If you believe in anything. Sincerely enough that it can be true in the second someone tells them that they've lost or that they are wrong or that they don't get their way or they fail they lose their minds. I challenge you try this you might not want to but it be funny this week in 2020.

Try telling anybody that they're wrong about anything.

Oh my goodness, the vitriol and hatred that you get from them because they might be wrong about something, anything that could be anything. And if you tell them that they're wrong they just can't handle that that truth or that reality.

There's a possibility that they've made a mistake and so they blame other people, somebody else must be to blame somebody else must be wrong. I can't be wrong, you must be wrong. You know the Bible tells us that this is one of the very signs of the end days in second Timothy chapter 3 verse one to be on the screen that says this there will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash conceded lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God having a form of godliness but denying its power does not sound like it was ripped from the headlines of 2020 like a perfect description of society today, but we say I'm not responsible for my actions. I'm a victim I have in this order. I have a disease in his book a nation of victims, Charles Sykes writes this, the politics of victimization have taken the place of more traditional expressions of morality and equity.

If you lose a job you can sue for mental distress of being fired.

If your bank goes broke the government will ensure your deposit if you drive drunk and crash you can sue someone for failing to warn you or cutting you off our problems today are a result of being a victim which is the result of some syndrome or disorder.

There is always someone else to blame. No one is guilty anymore and it really leads us to this pesky thing that we talked about before, which is called guilt. Nobody likes feeling guilty for anything know he likes to feel shame for something they've done is matter fact, Angelina Jolie, the actress said I don't believe in guilt. I believe in living on impulse, I think you should live completely free.

Obviously she doesn't think the branches of completely free because he lived on impulse and she didn't want him to, but she should. Why is it that we feel guilt and ask you, maybe a better question should we feel guilt, should we experience guilt. Is it good or like society is telling us is it a bad thing.

What about sin is sin real. Is there somebody who's defining and setting a list of things that are right and wrong, or are we all just victims with diseases and is self-esteem. The answer to our problems today want to know about you but I'm sick and tired of hearing was society. Hollywood has to say about this topic.

So let's see what God says let's turn Romans chapter 3 and reverses 10 through 20.

There is none righteous, no not one.

There is none who understands, there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside. They have together become unprofitable. There is none who does good, no not one. Their throat is an open tomb with their tongues they have practiced deceit, the poison of asps is under their lips whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood destruction and misery are in their ways 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 says to those who are under the law, that every mouth might be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God.

Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in his sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. Stop there and read the rest of those verses in just a second, but here Paul addresses the issue that is this man feel guilty for one reason they are.

You and I feel guilty for one reason we are. We are guilty we should feel guilt, we should feel shame because we collectively as a society, as mankind have done things that we should feel guilty about see that guilt feeling is only the symptom of the real problem. The real problem is it guilt the real problem is sin. Now I do believe that there is a problem to a certain extent with self-esteem. In this culture, I think it's good to be sure, and who God created you to be. It's good to have a steam in God and who God made you to be. And I also think that some Christians really struggle with guilt in an unhealthy way. I've known a lot of people who come they give their lives to Christ are forgiven of their sins, they repented of their sins, but they can't get away from the guilt of what they've done in their past and so they're constantly living in their past, rather than in the new creation that Christ has made them to be and that's unhealthy, but the opposite is also true of people who have not confessed their sins should feel guilt. Put it this way. If your sin is confessed, then you shouldn't feel guilt because it's been forgiven, but if your sin is unconfessed. You should feel guilt because you haven't addressed the real problem and all the psychological counseling in the world cannot relieve a person of this kind of guilt you can pretend it's not there you can find someone else to blame for your problems, but the only real and effective way to remove guilt is to get to the root of the problem which plainly is sin Donald Gray Barnhouse put it this way. He said man stands before God today like a little boy who swears with crying tears that he has not been anywhere near the jam jar with an air of outraged innocence pleads the justice of his position in total ignorance of the fact that a good spoonful of the jam has fallen just on his shirt under his chin and is plainly visible to everyone but himself. The perfect description of society of mankind. We like to plead our innocent say that were good say that we haven't done anything, all the while the jam is sitting on her shirt showing the world and showing God that we indeed are guilty in this passage is as though we are in God's courtroom and Paul is allowing us to give our defense and he patiently waits as each and every person gives every known excuse for why they've done what they've done or why they deserve to go to heaven. Well, it was my ringing.

That's why I am the way that I am I'm not actually that bad. There's other people who are worse than me. I didn't know that this was the truth. No one told me that there was right and wrong and then with absolute precision. He systematically destroys every potential argument that we have for why we think were good, and that's what a good chunk of Romans is about and at the end no one is left standing. The Holy Spirit shows through Paul that every single one of us has sent everyone the ignorant pagan who doesn't know the difference.

The religious person who thinks that they're doing a number of religious things and asking to make them good.

The moralist who thinks that if there just a good person and are kind to people that that's going to be enough. Beginning with verse 10 and continuing through verse 18 Paul introduces before the current court, as it were a testimony.

The testimony of God's Word as revealed in the Old Testament is a better first point, and that is that you and I are charged by our conduct. Let's read verses 10 through 17 again as we do see that Paul breaks this section up in the 13 different charges in their presented in three different categories. The first category verses 10 through 12 is concerning the character that is to say the innermost being, not the outward man that the world sees, not the outward actions of good and bad, but the inward heart.

Next Paul transitions to the conversation. In verses 13 through 14.

He addresses things that come from our lips things that come from our mouth and then finally he addresses our conduct in verses 15 through 17. This is the outworking. This is the outward actions that the world actually sees as we go through this is important to understand that he put this in order for reason because there's some people out there who say I am a good person because I do good things than the question is okay you do good things, but do you always say good things when you're in a room with certain people. Other things that come out of your mouth you tear people down. Do you live do you slander do you gossip and then Paul carries it is is okay. Maybe you do good things and you say, good things, but what about your heart. Do you think bad things do you think evil things. Where is your heart in the situation.

So Paul systematically gives us an understanding of if you want to be a good person and go to heaven based on your good works in your law.

This is the criteria let's read again. Verses 10 through 17. There is none righteous, no not one. There is none who understands, there is none who seeks after God.

They have all turned aside. They have together become unprofitable.

There is none who does good, no not one. Now Paul moves from the character and he addresses the conversation. Their throat is an open tomb with their tongues they have practiced deceit, the poison of asps is under their lips whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness and now verse 15 is rep. 17 he shifts to our conduct, their feet are swift to shed blood destruction and misery are in their ways in the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. In verse 10, Paul started off he says there is none righteous, no not one.

Now I don't know about you, but it's easy to read that say Paul, that seems a little extreme. I mean there's some righteous people in the world right I mean you've gotta be righteous. Paul, the apostles have to be righteous.

There's gotta be some good people some righteous people in the world, but it's essential to know that what Paul is speaking of is he speaking of something that is not under your control, because again he's not speaking of outward righteousness. He speaking of inward character and he speaking of a built in sin nature that you have absolutely no control over because somebody named Adam made a choice thousands of years ago that brings that sin nature is built into you because of the decisions that Adam and Eve made within the garden essential to understand this, because again he's talking about the inner most being this is a sinful nature we inherited through Adam, the dark side to this way. My sins don't make me a sinner. My sins are simply evidence of the truth and that is that I am a sinner or put it this way, we are not sinners because we sin, we sin because we are sinners. The reason you and I said is because we have a built-in sin nature.

You don't teach a baby had a sin that built in sin nature ultimately gets expressed because there sinners.

David recognize this when he wrote in Psalm 51 behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin my mother conceived me a similar description of our sinful nature is found in Psalm 58 verse three he says the wicked are estranged from the womb. They go astray as soon as they are born. Speaking lies Paul again affirms this when he says we were by nature the children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. You and I are born with the sin nature now of course we don't all commit the same sins. You and I eat struggle with unique things that are hardwired into us because of that sin nature there certain predispositions that you might have. Because of that sin nature, and I also believe in the even though all sin is level the foot of the cross and it's viewed the same by Jesus.

There are some sins that are in many way worse than others because the physical consequences that they bring. And certainly there is an innocence in a child, especially a small one when here's had kids before or has kids now number holding your baby the first time in looking at your baby the first time it was so innocent and pure unit. Look at your baby for the first time and say you little sinner felt that I didn't even come to your mind that they need to do no wrong. It was perfect.

But not for long. Given a few months and that sin nature becomes manifested in its actions, it begins to do things that you didn't have to teach you have to teach it to live.

You have to teach it to steal it enough to teach your baby how to throw a tantrum when it doesn't get what it wants the sin nature is alive and well in each and every one of us. Verse 10, Paul says again there is none righteous, no not one that he carries it out a little bit further in verse 12 and he says not only is there none righteous, but there's no one who does any good. There's no one who does good, no not one elegant we can read this and say Paul is a bit melodramatic. There's a lot of people who do good things. There's a lot of people who do kind things have nurses and doctors. They do good things we have strangers to help little old ladies across the road. That's a good thing to do that what Paul is saying again. He's not addressing our outward actions. Remember he's addressing our inward character and he's addressing what the definition of good is and also who gets to define the definition of what good is see this does not mean that man does not do commendable things because there are people who are great humanitarians and heroes today. I like you have met many nonbelievers who were good people, honest, caring, considerate, sometimes by the way, even more so than professed Christians, which is a serious indictment on the church but that's not what this message is talking about. That's not the issue being dealt with here. God is not saying that there is no good in man in general. Rather, he saying that there is no good in man that can satisfy God.

That's the distinguishing factor here. There's no good with inside you or me that can satisfy God. Paul said in Romans eight verse eight. Those that are in the flesh cannot please God. The word righteous means one who is such as he ought to be when the Bible says there is no one righteous he's not speaking so much of behavior but again of inner character see God's standards are high, to say the least. God standards if you want to know what God's standards are for you to get into heaven based off of your own works is that you must be absolutely perfect, absolutely perfect.

Not just in your outward conduct verses 15 through 17. You must always do good. You must never do bad, you must perpetually do good, you must also perpetually speak good you can never say anything bad about anybody never slander anybody and also your thoughts. You can never think bad about anybody.

You can never think evil thoughts or impure thoughts or selfish thoughts. You must be 100% absolutely perfect.

Jesus described in Matthew 548 a step further and said you are to be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect eventually the message from the series 20 want to share about a resource purpose and hold fast to your faith. You can make an eternal impact on the world. People find comfort in the status quo.

Others just can't wait to challenge it. If this were a recovery meeting, I would begin by saying my name is Skip and I'm a nonconformist. You fill with the flow swim against the current truth is going against the status quo can be difficult. Finally, Jesus requires that the account of Daniel shows how can transform my one person's willingness to define what's normal. I like to think of it this way when the ways of life came crashing down.

Daniel decided to go surfing, to write these waves if these waves are the will of God for my life to learn how to master these things and I want to get propelled forward. Learn to sort of the status quo escape. I think the define normal way of saying thanks for your gift of $35 and more to help connect more for the cats part. And when you get will also include the booklet 100 and I here for requiring these two resources will help you stand out from the crowd for God's glory is a connect escape.com/comfort to get online securely today or call 892 1888 tuning tomorrow is Skip soon made shoes above the freedom and hope you have in Christ alone. That's what the law is a mere for us to look at go, that's me, that's what I look like things I struggle with who have ears like that should do something about civil law, as a preparation for the gospel. The gospel, the law is system operation. The gospel, the gospel is the provision of