The doctrines of our faith serve the same function for our spiritual lives that the skeletal systems do for our physical lives. So the doctrines of our faith support and protect our beliefs.
The sixth doctrine is that sin is the thing that spoils or damages our relationship with God. People find it easier to rationalize their sins than to admit and confess them. Therefore sin is a problem that affects everyone. It is the thing that unites unbelievers and it is the weight that Christians often drag around that keeps them from glorifying God in their lives. Other than revelation of God, there is no subject in the Bible that is given more extensive treatment than sin.
To hear an audio of the sermon click on the YouTube image at the end of the manuscript.
Romans 5:12-21 CEV Adam sinned, and that sin brought death into the world. Now everyone has sinned, and so everyone must die. Sin was in the world before the Law came. But no record of sin was kept, because there was no Law. Yet death still had power over all who lived from the time of Adam to the time of Moses. This happened, though not everyone disobeyed a direct command from God, as Adam did. In some ways Adam is like Christ who came later. But the gift of God's undeserved grace was very different from Adam's sin. That one sin brought death to many others. Yet in an even greater way, Jesus Christ alone brought God's gift of undeserved grace to many people. There is a lot of difference between Adam's sin and God's gift. That one sin led to punishment. But God's gift made it possible for us to be acceptable to him, even though we have sinned many times. Death ruled like a king because Adam had sinned. But that cannot compare with what Jesus Christ has done. God has treated us with undeserved grace, and he has accepted us because of Jesus. And so we will live and rule like kings. Everyone was going to be punished because Adam sinned. But because of the good thing that Christ has done, God accepts us and gives us the gift of life. Adam disobeyed God and caused many others to be sinners. But Jesus obeyed him and will make many people acceptable to God. The Law came, so that the full power of sin could be seen. Yet where sin was powerful, God's gift of undeserved grace was even more powerful. Sin ruled by means of death. But God's gift of grace now rules, and God has accepted us because of Jesus Christ our Lord. This means that we will have eternal life.
Text:
Romans 3:22-23 CEV God treats everyone alike. He accepts people only because they have faith in Jesus Christ. All of us have sinned and fallen short of God's glory.
Introduction
This is the sixth in our series “The Doctrines Of Our Faith”.
The first doctrine we discussed is that the Bible is divine revelation, or the Living Word. The second is the doctrine that the One we believe in and worship does exist and He is Almighty God. The third doctrine is that God Almighty who we worship and who we know exists took on human form and came to earth and actually lived among his creation as one of us. Almighty God is also the Incomparable Christ. Our fourth doctrine is that the Holy Spirit is the third person in the Godhead, or Trinity and that He is equal with God The, Father, and God the Son. He was sent by the Father after the Son Jesus returned to heaven to complete the plan of redemption by seeing to it that every person feels a call toward God's saving grace.
Last week we looked at the doctrine of mankind from generation, to degeneration, ending with regeneration.
Man was created to live in perfect relationship with God, to be at peace with themselves, and to live in harmony with their environment.
But man forfeited this holy and blessed position through sin.
Genesis 3:22-23ESV Then the Lord God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—" therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.
Because Adam sinned, sin became universal; it was passed to all people and resulted in the loss of communion with God.
Romans 5:12-14 ESV Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
Today we want to talk about sin which is the thing that caused mankind’s degeneration. The doctrine today is that sin is the thing that spoils or damages our relationship with God.
When you say the word sin it has a hiss to it. People find it easier to rationalize their sins than to admit and confess them. Therefore sin is a problem that affects everyone. It is the thing that unites unbelievers and it is the weight that Christians often drag around that keeps them from glorifying God in their lives. Other than revelation of God, there is no subject in the Bible that is given more extensive treatment than sin.

The Greek word for sin in the Bible is hamartia and it means “missing the mark.” Hamartia is the word used in Romans 3:23, which describes all people as coming short of the glory of God.
Romans 3:23 CEV All of us have sinned and fallen short of God's glory.
The word is borrowed from the sport of archery. It depicts an arrow that has been released from a bow without sufficient thrust to reach its mark so it falls to the ground.
God has an ideal, a “bull’s-eye,” for people’s lives. They pull ourselves to their fullest height, take an arrow from our quiver, and pull the string of our bow tight. Then, with pride, we let their arrow of self-righteousness, good works, and human decency fly. But the arrow begins to falter and go off course, finally falling to the ground short of its target. Why? Our acts of transgression—stepping across the boundary of God’s law—produce a weakness, a condition of shortcoming. We can't hit the mark with their own strength.
David said;
Psalms 51:5 ESV Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.
This shows that people are born into sin. They are born into sin but not born as slaves to sin. They become sin’s slaves by voluntarily yielding to sin.
Paul said;
Romans 6:16 ESV Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?
Becoming a slave to sin is a choice.
Yes we are born into sin, but we are not personally responsible for that. Yes, Adam’s sin passed that sin's condition to everyone. But when we become sinners by practice, we are responsible to God for the sins we commit. So, contrary to the belief of some, it is not our environment that makes us sinners; it is our nature. Our natural tendency is toward sin, not toward righteousness.
Sin is the denial of God’s right to command us.
In the beginning God set boundaries within which we were to live our lives.
Genesis 2:15-17 CEV The Lord God put the man in the Garden of Eden to take care of it and to look after it. But the Lord told him, “You may eat fruit from any tree in the garden, except the one that has the power to let you know the difference between right and wrong. If you eat any fruit from that tree, you will die before the day is over!”
When Adam sinned he overstepped the boundaries God had established. People, by nature, resent being told that they cannot do something. It’s like waving red flags at an angry bull! Yet God must be supreme, absolute, and unconditional. When people deny God’s supremacy, they deny his very existence.
“If he is not Lord of all, he is not Lord at all.”
To compound the dilemma of sin, there is nothing we can do within ourselves to remedy the situation.
Romans 3:12 CEV They have all turned away and are worthless. There isn't one person who does right.
Isaiah 64:5-7 CEV You help all who gladly obey and do what you want, but sin makes you angry. Only by your help can we ever be saved. We are unfit to worship you; each of our good deeds is merely a filthy rag. We dry up like leaves; our sins are storm winds sweeping us away. No one worships in your name or remains faithful. You have turned your back on us and let our sins melt us away.
Jeremiah 17:9-11 CEV You people of Judah are so deceitful that you even fool yourselves, and you can't change. But I know your deeds and your thoughts, and I will make sure you get what you deserve. You cheated others, but everything you gained will fly away, like birds hatched from stolen eggs. Then you will discover what fools you are.
Jesus was the only one who could anything to help us out of our sin condition.
Isaiah 53:4-6 CEV He suffered and endured great pain for us, but we thought his suffering was punishment from God. He was wounded and crushed because of our sins; by taking our punishment, he made us completely well. All of us were like sheep that had wandered off. We had each gone our own way, but the Lord gave him the punishment we deserved.

It is because people will never understand their need for salvation until they comprehend the nature of their sin. A contrast between good and evil, light and darkness, spiritual life and spiritual death must be established in people’s minds. As God’s Word reveals the abomination of sin, we should be driven all the more to him because he can deliver us from our sin.
From Genesis 3 the Bible teaches that sin brought a curse on sinners.
Back to;
Genesis 3:16-19 ESV To the woman he said, "I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall 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 of 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 shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return."
What is that curse?
The curse on man was sweat, labor, work, toil. And this, for men, defines life. Life is work.
When sin came, came decay, came disease, came disorder, and death.
The thing that we can rejoice in however is that
Christ bore our curse.
Paul said that Christ actually “became a curse for us” on the cross.
Galatians 3:13 CEV But Christ rescued us from the Law's curse, when he became a curse in our place. This is because the Scriptures say that anyone who is nailed to a tree is under a curse.
Paul is talking about the scripture at;
Deuteronomy 21:22-23 CEV If a criminal is put to death, and you hang the dead body on a tree, you must not leave it there overnight. Bury it the same day, because the dead body of a criminal hanging on a tree will bring God's curse on the land. The Lord your God is giving this land to you, so don't make it unclean by leaving the bodies of executed criminals on display.
Christ became sin for us, but he did not become sinful.
Isaiah 53:4-6 CEV He suffered and endured great pain for us, but we thought his suffering was punishment from God. He was wounded and crushed because of our sins; by taking our punishment, he made us completely well. All of us were like sheep that had wandered off. We had each gone our own way, but the Lord gave him the punishment we deserved.
Though all of humanity’s sin was placed on him, he remained the sinless, spotless sacrifice. He had to be spotless otherwise there would have been no hope for us.
2 Corinthians 5:21 CEV Christ never sinned! But God treated him as a sinner, so Christ could make us acceptable to God.
Not only did Jesus become a curse for us on the cross, but he also provided for our cleansing—both initially, when we are born again, and continually.
1 John 1:5-7 CEV Jesus told us God is light and doesn't have any darkness in him. Now we are telling you. If we say we share in life with God and keep on living in the dark, we are lying and are not living by the truth. But if we live in the light, as God does, we share in life with each other. And the blood of his Son Jesus washes all our sins away.
Jesus keeps the cleansed clean! From the moment a person is born again, there is a continual flow of cleansing in which the person can, ideally, live every moment of his or her life.
How?
1 John 1:7 CEV But if we live in the light, as God does, we share in life with each other. And the blood of his Son Jesus washes all our sins away.
We receive the light of divine truth through the study of the Bible and communication with God in prayer.
Christ also remakes us.
The result of sin was the destruction of God's work. When sin came into people’s lives, God’s handiwork was marred, and his plan for people was ruined. But when a person repents of his or her sins, He takes the broken vessel and reshapes it.
Jeremiah 18:2-4 CEV “Jeremiah, go to the pottery shop, and when you get there, I will tell you what to say to the people.” I went there and saw the potter making clay pots on his pottery wheel. And whenever the clay would not take the shape he wanted, he would change his mind and form it into some other shape.
2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
To the end of our earthy lives, God works with us, shaping us into the vessel of honor we will become when one day we stand in his presence.
Philippians 1:6 CEV God is the one who began this good work in you, and I am certain that he won't stop before it is complete on the day that Christ Jesus returns.
Conclusion
Many times you have seen an apple with a wormhole in it. Did the worm begin to bore the hole in the apple from the outside or from the inside? Without thinking, most of us would say, “Why, from the outside, of course!” But a botanist would tell us that the egg from which the worm came was laid in the apple’s blossom, and the worm was hatched in the apple’s heart and bored its way out. That is exactly how the “worm” of sin starts its destructive, deadly work in human life. It begins in the heart and bores its way out. So unless the heart is sound, the life will be distorted and mutilated. Accordingly, God begins with the heart. He gives people new hearts when they confess their sins and put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Ezekiel 36:26-28 CEV I will take away your stubborn heart and give you a new heart and a desire to be faithful. You will have only pure thoughts, because I will put my Spirit in you and make you eager to obey my laws and teachings. You will once again live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God.
To get that new heart the heart of flesh here is all you have to do. It's in
Romans 10:8-10 ESV But what does it say? "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
Do you have that new heart of flesh or that old heart of stone?