Children of God: Sin Has A Name - George Solomon

Hey guys, Pastor James Murray here and I want to welcome you to the Abide Sydney podcast. This whole podcast is designed to help you on the journey of discipleship and our mission is to make disciples of the people of Sydney. But maybe not from Sydney, we hope this blesses you so sit back, relax and enjoy this podcast. When we talked about the Antichrist, I want to talk about the Antichrist, I want to talk about that but what you will notice through the book of John is that he's been warning us about sin, about deception, about walking in darkness and really the test of true love. This is the book of John to the church. But now John shows us what happens when sin moves from our hearts into our relationships. What does sin look like when it takes hold of the human heart? Have you ever considered that? And today I want to look at just two simple things. Number one, how not to love, according to the book of John. And number two, what does love really look like? Pretty simple, right? Okay, cool. So I have a title and a message is sin has a name. And John puts a face to that sin and we'll know what it is, who it is. Let's go there. First John. Chapter three. Is it up there? We put it up? Cool. For this is the message that we heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. Not as came who was the wicked one speaking of Satan and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brother's righteous. But do not marvel my brethren if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life. Because we love the brethren, brothers and sisters. He who does not love his brother abides in death. That strong language whoever hates his brother is a murderer. And you know, you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By this we know love. How do we know it? Because he Jesus laid down his life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for one another. But whoever has his world's goods and sees his brother or sister or anyone else in the church in need and shuts up his heart from him. I think this is a rhetorical question. How does the love of God abide in him, my little children? Let us not love in word or in tongue, but indeed in truth. And by this we know that we are of the truth. And our hearts shall have confidence before him. So when we stand before Jesus, we should have confidence. John reaches in this passage all the way back, 6,000 odd years to the book of Genesis. Not simply to tell us about Cain's story, but to show us what sin can do when it takes hold of the human heart. This isn't a problem at about a bad person, nor a good person. Cain exposes a problem that all of humanity shares the problem of sin within the human heart. True story. Can you put my friend up? Anton Yates is not my friend. I wish he was. It looks cool. He's crazy. He's absolutely crazy. In 2003, this man made their headlines for all the wrong reasons. In a bizarre story, he checks himself into a hospital because he has wounds to his arms, to his legs, to his neck. And when he goes to the hospital, he tells the doctor that he was attacked by his pit bull. Really confused, there is no way they think that a pit bull could make these kind of wounds. So what do they do? They ring the authorities. They ring the authorities and the authorities come to his apartment. What do they discover? Can you put the picture of the pet that he had in his room, the little one? He had a little tiger in his room. Has nothing wrong with that in the New York apartment, right? What do you want to cat? Or a dog? I want to tiger. I want to tiger. But what happens? This little cat did not stay a little cat. This cat became a really big 425 pound cat. Where do you keep it in his bedroom? Can you put the picture up off the big cat? That's me to the left in the bedroom. This is the New York fire people with a tranquilizer gun. How am I going to get this big thing out of my room, out of the room? And this is what made the headlines in 2003. It wasn't a little tiger. He had a 425 pound tiger sitting in the room. But my mate Anton decided to do something really crazy one day. He brings a stray cat home. And he throws the cat in amongst the tiger. What are you thinking? And the tiger bounces on the cat. I mean, it doesn't take long, right? And Anton in his wisdom jumps into the middle of it. And me turns on Anton and goes for his neck, his arms, and his legs. There was no stop in this. This is how he gets his flesh runes. What makes this story so remarkable is that something completely abnormal, a 425 cat, became part of his normal life. He thought he could hide this thing in his bedroom. He thought he could live with it. And he did for a little while. And James, the book of James reminds us of the very same thing. Listen to what James as a disciple says. Each one he's tempted when he was drawn away by his own desire and enticed. Then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And when sin is fully grown, it brings forth death. Then he says, "Do not be deceived," my beloved brethren. That's crazy. Sometimes the most dangerous thing about sin is that we lived with it for so long. We stop recognizing how dangerous it really is. We think that sin is only what we do wrong, but the scripture shows us that sin can be refusing to do what love requires. Yet, we can allow all of these kind of things into our hearts and convince ourselves that it's under control. We can allow sin into our heart and think it's under control. We give them a room like Anton. We feed them. We let them fester. We get comfortable with them. And eventually, we forget the dangerous. Sin is never satisfied at being the guest. It wants to become the master. So John tells us the very first thing, how not to love. Where does John go? Back to Genesis to show us the face of Cain. And he says this, verse 11, he says this, "I think we have it. You can put it on the screen." But this is the message you heard from the beginning that we should love one another. How do we not love? Not as Cain who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. When you hear Cain, what do you think of? You just read it, murderer. But you might be thinking, well, I'm going to say, John, I'm not Cain. I haven't murdered anyone. Why are you talking about? Why are we going back six hours? Why are you being so historical and bringing it into our present? Something like we do in arguments, right? Get historical, bring it into the present. Hey, what does Cain have to do with me, John? Everything. Absolutely everything. Cain may be ancient history, but the condition of the human heart isn't. We are still dealing with the same problem. John looking behind. or looks behind the murder, and he asks "what was growing underneath Cain's heart?" And if murder became the fruit, what John is alluding to is the root. What is the cause of it? What is the cause of everything that we see is ugly in life? What is the cause of evil in our world? John tells us, very simple, one word, hatred. We don't hate anyone with Christians, right? John says this, whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know, or you should know, that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. So you have no life in you if you hate someone, that's what he's saying. But he relates hate to murder, and it's cool when we're not murderers, I'm not Cain. Okay, so John's not looking at the hands of Cain. Call the murder. He's looking at the heart of the person. How do we know? How do we know that John's looking at the heart because God confronted Cain before he murdered Abel? Listen, God confronted him, and he says this, Cain, why are you angry? Oh, why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? His face literally changed. And God warns him, listen, maybe that's something that Ming, Anton should have heated to. Sin crouches at the door, and its desire is for you, it's exactly what James was telling us. But you should rule over it, Ming should not rule over you, you should rule over it. The tiger weighed into pounds, the sin was crouching at the door, God was warning Cain, deal with what's happening in your heart before it takes control of your life. Yeah. Yet we want to hide it in the room, we want to feed it in the room. We don't want to confront the truth, we don't want to confront the person that hurts. John's same warning, back then, is exactly the same warning to us. Don't wait until what's in your heart becomes an action, take it seriously. Patriot doesn't always begin with murder, that's what God was alluding to. You're angry, and I know where it's going to take you, you need to change what you're thinking about, and he doesn't. Don't wait, don't let hatred become something greater than you can control. But it's not just hatred. It's not about gossip, I know gossip in the church, let's move on, criticism, I know criticism in the church, never had a critical point about church, about people, about one another, you're all half, you're all half, because I have. The good thing is when God convicts you of it, and you say, "Waiter, I say that, wait all right, that's good, that's healthy, that means the spirit of God is still working in you, we have criticism about everything, we judge everything, what church should look like, what these questions, doesn't wear, we're out of control. What about envy? They've been envious, jealous, without selfishness, resentment, anyone resented anyone? Had a few. What he's alluding to is a settled posture of our hearts, a refusal of love, good will and concern for others. Are you going to get angry? Yes you are. Are you going to get envious at times? Yes you will? Were you criticized? Yes you will, but it cannot settle in our hearts. It cannot settle in our hearts. So we have to ask ourselves, what about the person I can't forgive? What do I do with that? What about the person you resent? And I know Christians don't resent. I get that. The bitterness we carry for so long that it's settled that we actually call it normal, yet you can't walk into the same room with that person, you can't look at the person in the same way has the little pet tiger becoming the 425 pound thing that's ready to pounce to come out of your life. Come on, we've all been there, but we just can't stay there. How do we deal with it? You can't. Because you're talking about a heart situation, only God can. But what if I tell you God can't even fix your heart if you don't let him? If you keep big men in the dark room, God cannot help you. It's a heart that says, I can't let go of what they did to me. I've been there. I don't want anything good for them. It's very difficult to pray for someone when you've been betrayed, and that's the very first thing you don't want to do. And it's the very reason why you won't pray, why I didn't pray. I remember God telling me you need to pray for that person, I said, no, this is the voice of the devil. This is not God. No. Was it about the person? Was it about me? Was it about both of us? It was about me being free from the feelings that I was feeling, the connection, the ugly spiritual connection I had to that person, and God said, you need to pray if you want to be released from it. So my prayer was bless them. No word of a lie. That's all I could get out. That began the evolution of coming out of that place that I was attached to, tied into. I was feeding it. I had given it a room. You know the feeling you walk in, and you see the person, you're stomach just inside of you. How do you deal with that? Took me only two years, but I got there. It was good. What about this one? I didn't care what happens to them. I didn't care. You know what, in fact, I hope something bad happens to them. You might not say it out loud, but you wish that. Man, did you hear about such a chance? Of course. They failed. I'm so good. That's what's happening on the inside. You don't say it. Oh, that's a shame, Shana. That's so sad for you. I love you, Shana. But why does he take it so seriously? Why? Why? You're so serious, John. It's just hatred. Okay, well, he tells you, because you're abiding in death. You're dying on the inside, and you don't know it. You want to hold back, think it'll bring life and freedom, but it's killing you. But it's only anger. It's only I, just a little bit of resentment. It's just a breadcrumb of bitterness, like, no, no, no, no, no. The issue is not just what hatred does to the other person. It's what it's doing within me. It's what envy is doing within me. What jealous he's doing is what bitterness is what my ugly feelings inside of me that shouldn't belong in that room that will grow into a tiger that you will not be able to control. Let me define something for you. Or maybe you can define it. What is sin? Is it right or wrong? Is it just that? Is it just murder? Well, it's good that the Bible gives us actually a definition. Listen to this. Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, it is sin. He who knows to do good, does not do it is good. I laugh because I've been there so many times. Every time I write a message, God, that's me. It was me. I'm getting a lot better at things, but I can tell you that right now. What was that? Man, I learned to apologize to you. Even when I'm right, I still apologize to you. I die, I die. I struggle for a long time to apologize. My wife would always make the first move. That's love there. Even though she wasn't wrong, she would come and apologize for something that I did. I'm like, "Yes, thank you." But that's love. That's what love does, right? Sometimes we think sin is only what we do wrong, but the scripture clearly tells us the sin can also be refusing to do what love requires or what God requires. We know we should forgive, but we choose not to. We know we should serve, but we choose self instead. We don't hate doing. Do we get angry? Have we been angry? When you want to go there, Jesus goes there. Let's go a little bit deeper. Let's see what Jesus says about it, because he takes us a lot deeper. He leaves none of us an easy way out. Jesus says in Matthew 5.21, "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not murder.' But I say to you, 'He who is angry with his brother, without a cause, sorry, I'll just look at the clock. That's wrong. I don't have four minutes left." "Course shall be in danger of judgment." Whoever is angry without his brother, without a cause shall be in danger of judgment. I can tell you that's not good. Danger is when anger is fed and nurtured, it will eventually become hatred. He qualifies this, but let's callifies this. He says, "Anga with that course, isn't it?" Is there a reason for us as Christians to be angry? Absolutely. I mean, Jesus flips some tables and whips some people, right? But it's a righteous anger. It's an anger against injustice and evil and the things against God. That's the righteous anger that he says it. Listen to what Paul says. Be angry. But don't stop there. He says, "But do not sin." Oh. So the Scripture allows for a righteous anger. It's against evil, against cruelty. It's against what happens to one another. When it comes to relationship, Jesus doesn't tell us to wait for the other person to make the first move. He tells us to take responsibility for pursuing reconciliation. Oh. Come again, Lord. Like I'm waiting for them to come to me. He says, "No, no. You go to them." Listen to what he says. "Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar and remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift at the altar. Go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, then come and offer your gift." In other words, what God is saying, "I don't accept your gift." Good news. You know what? Forget praying. I'm not accepting that either. What? No, no. It's in the Bible. In those days, they would literally in their church setting, so to speak, when he's talking about this, the Jewish people knew exactly what he's talking about. Because they would literally walk into the church and bring a gift to the altar. So what he's saying is, "Hey, you're bringing your gift, leave it there and walk away." And everyone would know, "You got a problem with God and with people. Go reconcile it, come back, offer them your gift to God." Like this would be put in your face. Listen to what Roman says, "If it is possible, Paul writes this. As far as it depends on you, live peaceably with each other." Did you hear what he said? As much as it depends on you. In other words, you do everything that you can. But the truth is, it won't always reconcile. Truth is, friendships won't always be the same. And you might need to put boundaries in place with people, yes, I understand that. But he's saying, "At least make the attempt. At least go to them and reconcile whether they hear you or not is not the lesson. It is to go. It is to go." So what does John say, "Love looks like"? Well, he tells us. John says this, "By this we know love because he laid down his life for us. Easy." So we should also do the very same thing, laid down our lives for our brethren. Not so easy. Not so easy. The cross doesn't just show us what love looks like. The cross changes everything, including our relationship with him and with sin and with people. It should. It should. Listen, Corinthians, when Paul writes on the Church, he says this, "For he, God, made him, Jesus, who knew no sin to become sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God, that we might be in right standing with God." He became sin for us. He took the judgment we deserve. That's his mercy. Well, that's mercy given to us. He gave us the righteousness we can never earn. That's his grace towards us. So what does Paul say in relation to this? Listen, he goes on and says this. Sin shall not have dominion over you. Why? Because you're not under the law. You're under grace. Oh! Grace doesn't just forgive. Grace changes what rules over us. That's the difference. It's not just a gift and a favor. It's empowerment. It's grace that breaks sin power over our lives. Sin may still crouch at the door. Temptation is always there. But because of grace, it will no longer rule over our lives. Don't open the door. You look at Cain. You look at Jesus and you see two contrasting pictures. Cain took his brother's life. Jesus lays down his life. Cain says, "What can I get?" Jesus says, "What can I give?" The world says, "Lift for yourself." Jesus says, "No, no, no, deny yourself. Pick up your cross and follow me." So how does that kind of love show up in everyday life? Well, what does it really look like, well, quickly? And then I'm going to start closing. James puts real simple. Real simple. My little children let us not love in word or in tongue. Bless you. Have a great day. Are you broke? I maybe get fined someone. I don't know, I get fined in a bin or I don't know. No, no, no, look at what he says. Not indeed, not in word or tongue, but indeed, and in truth. And by this we know, listen, that we are of the truth. And shall assure our hearts before him. What does deed mean? Simple. Love becomes visible through what we actually do. Not by what we say. You can tell your wife, your husband, your lover, we do nothing for him. Eventually they'll catch on and go, "No, you don't." John isn't saying words are bad. He's saying, "Love cannot stop at just words." If it does, you've been deceived. You can say, "I love you. I'm praying for you, but if love never moves beyond that, then John says something's missing in your life." Question, can people see the love of Christ in the way that we live our life? 'Cause he says it starts here first. Starts here first. Pray here, serve here, give here. That's what he says, that's biblical. Love is practical. He goes on to say this, "If your brother is in need and we have the ability to help, then do it." But if you don't have the ability to help, if you don't have the ability to do it, get someone that can do it. Find someone else. That's why collectively we come together. We had a moment this, I think, a couple of weeks ago when a single lady in our church, I don't know what, she had no. I don't know the context to it, but we knew it was genuine and she had no money for something. So we gave her money out of the church and then we gave her money personally. Like, how can we just say, "Oh yeah, cool." Like, what is the purpose of the church? If we don't help, and it is biblical and scriptural, to we must help our own family first, listen, forget God in Africa. Forget it. If there are people in the shire within our own church that are struggling, we the church need to help them. Not just me, but we, not just connect groups, but yes, the money that goes into our bank account must come out out of our bank account to help the church. What's the point of church? If someone's destitute and broke financially because they've been made redundant, or something's happening in their life, then it's way out of their control. We know their circumstances. How can we just close our eyes and not listen to anything they say and say, "Oh God, bless you, let me pray for you." And Jehovah Jairah, he'll be your provider. That's a lot of croc. It is, you know it, I know it. We can't do half as much. It's what we should be doing, but we will be doing. Love is practical, listen, love is practical. If your brother is in need, you have the ability to help do it. Sometimes love will cost you time. It will cost you money, cost us convenience, and cost you your pride. Real love costs something. Love that never costs us anything, it's only words. Even King David, the great king said, "How can I offer God that which costs me nothing?" No. John says, "Whoever sees his world, the world's goods has the world's goods, and sees his brother in need, shuts up his heart from him. How does the love of God abide in him?" What good is love if it never becomes visible? What is real on the inside will eventually become visible on the outside. I'm gonna finish with this. I'm just thinking of a story, let's do it in my mind. Let's go Judas Jesus. Judas Jesus, outside of the cross, maybe one of the most incredible love stories, right? You would never think so. What do you have in common? What is compatible about you too? Think about it for a moment. Jesus is having a meal with a man that will betray him and he knows it. He knows it, yet he lets him sit at the table. But he goes one more step further. And I want to do this. He takes off his shoes and he begins to wash the betrayer's feet. But they're wearing sandals. You know how dirty they're feet are? But Jesus in humility and an act of grace and mercy, and love and compassion towards the one that would betray him and he knew it, would bend down and say, you could almost hear Jesus going, Judas, change. Don't do this Judas. There's another way to do this. This is not love. I know it's money and I know you think it's going to give you life and the sort and everything that you need. But no, it's going to ruin you. This is the danger. This is the pet that's been in your heart for all these years. You've been robbing from me and I know it. But I didn't say anything, but it's grown. It's become that tiger. It's going to pounce on you any moment. But I love you and I'll wash your feet. Like what an incredible story of love. Judas and Jesus. And we have to pray about God will I serve you. Really? God will I give to you? Stop praying about what you should do and do and do. Just do it. It doesn't matter what it is. Tabitha, the beautiful woman that died, did not have a platform. She didn't preach to a group of people. She didn't run even a connect group. You know what she did? She was known as a person. who closed people, a person who's so linen and you know when she died, the women wept and the people wept and you know what they said, she closed us. That's what they remembered. They, she closed us, she put clothes on us. It's like what Jesus almost echoes Jesus. If you give a cup of cold water in my, in my name, you will have a reward. When did, when did we do this Jesus? When you saw the hungry and you fed them and when you saw the naked and you closed them, we, we in the Western world are way too comfortable right now. We are, I'm telling you the truth, me too. What will they say about us? When they go to remember us and you'll energize us, the whole man, he was such a great guy. I've preached that message, but what will they say? But more importantly, what will he say? What will he say? He cost me everything and you had to pray about opening a door for someone? What? I'm just saying, I'm speaking the truth. You know, as, as I said to you as a church, we should help and I truly believe that and we are working towards that and you're going to see a lot more that's going to come out about that. And we do want to feed our local community literally and close them and we are working and we're working towards that. But we don't want to say anything yet because we want to show you as a church where we're really at what we're doing with the money and everything. We're going to show you, don't worry. But we're not even halfway there. We can do so much more when we do it together. Can we stand? You know, remember one preacher and it took me a while to get there. But I remember Dave Wilkinson from New York Times Square Church said this, I would rather people hate me and go to heaven than like me and go to hell. I thought, man, because we scared sometimes it preached the truth. Oh, just look at Johnny walked out the door because we talked about hell. I wonder what Johnny will think when he stands before God and says, man, that was the truth. So what am I saying? Well, we're not showing it away from the truth. We're just not, but we do it in love. Jesus did not show it away from the truth. He provoked people, he pierced people, but he laid down his life for the people. We have to learn to love better, not in word, indeed. You know, there's an old saying, shut up or put up. That's the world. Shut up or put up. It's the truth, but you're money, where your mouth is supposed to be. Let's do this. Man, we have 300 people at our church, we have 60 serving. Where's the rest of the 240? Like, where are you? Like, I'm not saying anything, please, it's not a advertisement or anything like that. I'm just telling you reality, I'm just telling you reality. It should not be that way. And it's not just, we have to have 60s incredible. Actually, I have 60s incredible. Compared to other churches, we are spiritually healthy, we are emotionally healthy, we are financially okay. We're doing great in a sense, but we can do so much more better. We haven't scraped the subtle and shy yet. We haven't. We haven't. We're going to start here first. Jesus said, "Del know." If you love one another, you won't even have to tell them, "Del know." We need to make that known. You know, someone once said like, "If this church goes will, will anyone in the community care?" Probably not. My question is, if this church was not here tomorrow, would you just go find another church? Okay, sit in that church now. No. So sad to see any church close. So sad. We can do more. God's called us to do more. We are more than conquerors. We can do all things through Christ. We are His children. And the greatest gift, and I said it to someone this morning, is servanthood, because Jesus said it. Not prophecy, not preachy, not anything. Just get down and let's wash some feet. So to speak. Every eye closed, every head bow just for a moment. What do you take a moment of reflection? And if you're being convicted right now, great. That means God speaking to you. That's good. That's healthy. About anything. Anything. What's in your heart right now? And maybe you just need to ask God to forgive. Say, God, forgive me of the life that I lived, or what I didn't do, and I know that I should do it. And God's Word is just, He is just, and He is faithful to give us our sins immediately. He picks us up. He lifts us up. He sings over us. He extends His arms towards us. He comforts us. He graces us. His long suffering, not willing that any parish, but all come to know Him. What will your Eulogy be? Father, I just thank you. Thank you that we can come in freedom and speak about you. Thank you for your spirit. Thank you for the cross. Thank you for the resurrection. That we have life. We have truth. And one day we'll see you face the face. And we know we've been changing to your glory, to your image. And we have been coming like you because we belong to you, because we believe in you. You never leave us, not for sake us. You do not leave us orphans, but you call us children, little children. Father, I just pray that you would bless every single person here today in every single possible way, in their workplaces, in their businesses, emotionally, spiritually. But I know God that they need to take a step as well. And you'll do the rest. I pray that the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face shine upon you. Be gracious towards you. The Lord lift up His countenance, give you peace in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Hey, we're going to close. Yeah, we can shout like that. Come on, Christian. Let's get excited. We got the answer, man. We got the truth. We won't leave here forever, but we'll live with Him forever. If you want prayer for absolutely anything, please come up the front. Let us pray for you. If not, have a great week. If you don't have a great week, remember God is still with you. Well, we hope this podcast has inspired you on your journey of discipleship to Jesus. If you want to know more about our church, just go to abide.sitney. We'd love to get to know you. If not, you're from another place. Hey, why don't you share this with someone else and hopefully it helps them as they continue to follow Jesus. Have a great week.