We also see that Satan has the main goal of deceiving us and the whole world.

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1 Nobody Sins Like Me There are times when we may be discouraged. We reach a point where we feel that we have sinned too much or we have too many problems that we no longer belong within the church. Perhaps we feel ashamed of our failings. We see family members making wrong choices and we don t want to face the world because of the guilt that we feel. These feelings are not unique. There are times when we all experience similar feelings. The Bible is filled with people who did not always make great choices. Sometimes the choices were easily attributed to direct intervention of Satan. As we see in Genesis the 3 rd chapter, when the serpent misled Eve. Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, Indeed, has God said, You shall not eat from any tree of the garden? The woman said to the serpent, From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die. The serpent said to the woman, You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. 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 desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. (Genesis 3:1-7 NASB) 1

2 The seeds of doubt and deception are shrewdly sown in the question Indeed, has God said, You shall not eat from any tree of the garden? This is followed by You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Well, preacher, how do you arrive at the serpent is Satan? Read in Revelation 12:9. That is where John writes that the serpent is the devil and Satan. And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. (Revelation 12:9 NASB) We also see that Satan has the main goal of deceiving us and the whole world. Sometimes, we fall into sin through our decisions to alter God s plans. There are several examples of this found in the Bible. One comes to mind is found in Genesis the 19 th chapter. In this chapter, we find that God destroyed the sinful city of Sodom. Lot had two daughters who were to marry two men. When Lot told them to leave the city before its destruction, they didn t. So beginning in the 12 th verse of chapter 19, we read. Then the two men said to Lot, Whom else have you here? A son-in-law, and your sons, and your daughters, and whomever you have in the city, bring them out of the place; for we are about to destroy this place, because their outcry has become so great before the LORD that the LORD has sent us to destroy it. Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, and said, Up, get out of this place, for the LORD will destroy the city. But he appeared to his sons-in-law to be jesting. (Genesis 19:12-14 NASB) 2

3 We know that Lot s wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt. So Lot and his two daughters escape into a cave in the mountains. The two daughters are concerned about the continuation of their family take matters into their own hands. Then the firstborn said to the younger, Our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come in to us after the manner of the earth. Come, let us make our father drink wine, and let us lie with him that we may preserve our family through our father. (Genesis 19:31-32 NASB) It is easy for us to make wrong choices when we fail to include God in the thought processes. Then we find that we are left with problems that are not easily fixed. Sometimes we may be so caught up in our own self-importance that we feel that we are entitled to live and act as we please. Even people whom are chosen by God and are described as being a person after God s own heart. We will now consider David. When Saul was rejected as king by God, we read that God picked David. Let s turn to 1 Samuel 13:14. But now your kingdom shall not endure. The LORD has sought out for Himself a man after His own heart, and the LORD has appointed him as ruler over His people, because you have not kept what the LORD commanded you. (1 Samuel 13:14 NASB) In Acts, Luke declares in Acts 13: 21-22, that David was a man after God s heart. Then they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years. After He had removed him, He raised up David to be their king, concerning whom He also testified and said, I HAVE 3

4 FOUND DAVID the son of Jesse, A MAN AFTER MY HEART, who will do all My will. (Acts 13:21-22 NASB) I will share that David is my Bible hero. Not because he sinned but he is proof, to me, that even a sinner can find favor in God s sight. If we scan through the 18 th chapter of 1 Samuel, we find phrases like this: It happened as they were coming, when David returned from killing the Philistine, that the women came out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tambourines, with joy and with musical instruments. The women sang as they played, and said, Saul has slain his thousands, And David his ten thousands. (1 Samuel 18:6-7 NASB) But all Israel and Judah loved David, and he went out and came in before them. (1 Samuel 18:16 NASB) David asked for and received King Saul s daughter in marriage. However, he was not content and began acquiring more wives and concubines. Later Saul took back his daughter and gave her to another man. (Check 1 Samuel 25:24.) By the time we get to the 2 nd Book of Samuel, we read: Meanwhile David took more concubines and wives from Jerusalem, after he came from Hebron; and more sons and daughters were born to David. (2 Samuel 5:13 NASB) Here we have a man who is immensely popular; a man who was chosen by God to be the king over His people; a man after God s own heart; a man who has been blessed in all of his efforts and he no longer sees any limits to what he may do 4

5 within his kingdom. We now arrive at the 11 th chapter of 2 Samuel and we know the story well. Rather than going with his soldiers into battle, he stays behind and finds time to be looking out over the city and sees Bathsheba as she took a bath. Here is a man with many wives and concubines that is not satisfied with what is in his home but wants someone who is married to another. He acts on that urge and this leads to deceit and murder. We know that David repented of his sin and was always mindful of God s salvation. Yet, he fell victim to sin. His own self-importance trapped him into acting out that which would never had been possible to people of lesser status. The point of these three examples is that we realize that we all sin. We all make wrong choices. Sometimes the choices are through our attempt to hide a family member s poor choices, or our weak moments, or we have a moment when we feel entitled. At some point, we all must realize that we have sinned. Paul wrote to the church in Rome and started his letter with this declaration. For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH. (Romans 1:16-17 NASB) Paul then launches into an indictment against the Greeks. He cites their Hedonistic life styles and how they closed out any knowledge of God. They were too enlightened to understand the very nature of the universe that points to God. 5

6 Then, Paul turns his indictment to the children of Israel and reminded them of their failure to follow God. By the time we reach the third chapter of this book, Paul levels one of those axioms. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. (Romans 3:23-25 NASB) We have all sinned. This simple statement places all of us in the same category. There is no strata of dirty, clean, more clean, most clean, etc. we are all in the same boat. We stand before God in our sins. Our sins have made us all equals. God did not leave us in our lost state. Paul goes on to tell us that God, through Jesus, provided a way for us to be reconciled to Him. For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:6-8 NASB) Even Paul realized that he stood condemned before God. Without Jesus, Paul acknowledged that he was in sin. In 1 Timothy the first chapter, he said that he was at the top of the list. It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all. (1 Timothy 1:15 NASB) 6

7 This aligns perfectly with the Bible teachings about the sacrifice of Jesus. Jesus told Nicodemus the same thing. He used words that were almost exactly the same as the ones used by Paul. Look at the most quoted scripture of the Bible, John 3:16. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. (John 3:16 NASB) The crux of the gospel story is simple. God loves me. I have sinned and God still loves me. God loves me so much that He sent Jesus to die for my sins. We must never allow others to make us feel inferior. Those who choose to look down their noses at us and our sins, need to remember what Jesus had to say about the behavior of the religious leaders in His day. In Matthew the 23 rd chapter, Jesus list several woes as He take the scribes and Pharisees to task over their treatment of others. We will read just one of those found in the 23 rd and 24 th verses. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel! (Matthew 23:23-24 NASB) This morning we need to realize that we have all sinned and while nobody sins like us, nobody cleans our sins like Jesus. We are all equal in God s sight. We are all in need of the precious blood of Jesus to wipe away our sins. God loves us and has already provided for our salvation regardless of our sins. 7