Whitten Q & A WHO IS GOD AND WHO ARE WE? - Part 2

What Sin Is: Disobedience and Missing the Mark

Hello and welcome to our two-part series on who is God and who are we with brother David McCown. Today is part two. What is sin? If you haven't seen our first part, check it out on Facebook or on YouTube.

What is sin? Well, a lot of times people will answer in this way, and it's not it's not that they're stupid, right? It's just we need to think bigger. All right, instead of just thinking about this, we need to try and think about all of this that encapsulates it.

Oftentimes the answer to what is sin is disobedience, disobeying God's commands, right? Being in violation of the thou shalt not and the thou shalt, right? But it's so much more than that. Yes, those things are sin, but what else is sin?

It's more than just disobedience, right? More than just disobedience. Sin is actually missing the mark. It's a better way to explain it, I think. Missing the mark. Think about archery, the bullseye. Missing it.

What is the mark? What is the bullseye? Well, the bullseye is the holiness of God, the perfection of God. As God has revealed himself in his word, right? And anything that comes short of that that doesn't meet that measure, it doesn't meet that measure, right?

It's sin. It makes us sinful. You know, I could sit here and say, well, you know, I've never killed anybody, so I'm not guilty of that. Well, unfortunately for me, if that was my thing that I'm hanging my hat on, you know, Jesus kind of killed that argument when he said, hey, man, if you hate somebody, it's just like killing them.

Same thing in God's eyes. Jesus even said this, to look at a woman with lust in your heart it's just like committing adultery, just like committing the physical act of adultery. You hear just those two things and you begin to see, you begin to see what God's essence is, right?

What God's holiness is all about, what God's perfection is. You study the life of Christ in the Gospels and you'll see perfection played out. The only time one man was perfect, right? And so Isaiah, now, he didn't need anybody to walk him through everything I just mentioned, you know, to explain sin.

Isaiah knew. He knew. And guys, I'm gonna tell you right now, if you are, if you are actively rejecting God, pushing God away, and if you've had people come up to you and go, you're gonna go to hell, you're a sinner.

No, that's a truthful statement. That approach may be not the most productive, especially when using that voice. If you are actively rejecting God, and when people, or you just hear, you know, about sin, and you go, man, psh, I ain't got time to hear all that nonsense.

Don't tell me who and what I am. Don't tell me what makes me bad. Don't tell me what makes, man, you can't tell me nothing. Okay? I felt the same way for a long time, for most of my life. Thing is, though, I had an encounter with God, right?

An Encounter with God and Conviction of Sin

Now, I wasn't in his temple. I didn't see the seraphim and all that, but I had that moment. I prayed, and it was in a moment of crisis in my life, personal crisis, and I remember praying before I went to bed one night.

My sister had been on me hard, hard, hard, hard. She had been a Christian for about a year at that point, and boy, she was witnessing and witnessing, and I didn't want to hear none of it. I laid down.

She had been at it again that night. I laid down. I stared at the ceiling. I said, God, if you're real, show yourself. Like, I'm talking burning bush moment, you know? Supernatural stuff, man, like up here, speaking the Charlton Heston voice or whatever his name was, you know, something, something major, something massive.

Show yourself to me, please. Well, I don't think I said, please, because I was very cocky when I said that prayer. I was very cynical when I said that prayer. The next morning, well, all that night as I'm sleeping, you know, it's, I'm pausing because it still gets me to this day.

Everything that my sister had been talking to me about, everything that Brother Jeff had talked to me about, which I think we had only like met once at that point, um, it's like it all just kind of permeated my thoughts, my dreams, my everything.

I get up the next morning and all that, you can't tell me what to do, all that garbage for the first time was gone. First time. And so I began to actually ask my sister some questions. And then I, I began to seek God through prayer.

And I was working for Frito-Lay at the time and I'm driving down, uh, I -55, heading south down 55, getting ready to turn off on Goodman. And somebody, some preacher was on the radio. And that's not something I ever really did.

But for like that week leading up to that, I had that. And to this day, I don't remember who was on the radio, what they were saying. All I know is one moment I'm half listening to somebody on the radio and I'm half paying attention to the road.

Uh, 50 of my old employers at Frito-Lay are watching now. I mean, I was completely paying full attention. That's a lie and that's a sin. I'm somewhat distracted, right? Not by anything in particular, but just so much was going on.

And all of a sudden, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, it wasn't a car that hit me. It wasn't anything. It was a clear road. All of a sudden, I get the image of God in my head. The beauty and the glory of God fill my heart.

I had never experienced anything like that. I thought I was like having a flashback from acid or something. And it's not something I can describe in visual terms. In that moment, God revealed himself to me.

God revealed a sliver of his glory to me. Man, for like a good solid 16th of a second. I was like so cool. And after that 16th of a second was done, I immediately saw the brokenness of myself. I immediately saw the depravity of myself.

And I had one option and one option only. I had to jerk that steering wheel and pull off the shoulder, come to a dead stop, put the truck in park. I was being safe. Put my flashers on. No, I probably didn't do that.

As a matter of fact, I know I didn't do that. I was doing good just to get it in park. And there's a little step side van, so I get out the driver's seat and walk towards the back of the truck, made it maybe halfway down, fell to my knees, and then fell all the way down prostrate and cried out to God for forgiveness.

Just like Isaiah, woe is me. I am undone. I am ruined. I am a man of unclean lips. And I live among a people of unclean lips. And because my eyes have seen the king. Guys, it's real. It's real. Yes, I can discuss things apologetically.

Yes, I can go through Romans and discuss things doctrinally. But you know, sometimes you got to discuss things supernaturally because that's how God deals with us. And that's when you know, that's when you know that your calling is sure, that your salvation is sure.

Right? When God has spoken to you, when God has revealed himself to you in a supernatural way, and you have immediately seen how far, how short you fall on the mark. You thought you hit the bullseye? You didn't even hit the outer rings.

Matter of fact, you didn't even get within a mile of that. Right? That's how far off you are. Now, let's move for just a moment and I'm going to wrap this up kind of quick. I'm looking at my counter. I really was hoping I could do it in 30.

Sorry, guys. You know what? I'm gonna quit saying sorry. I am who I am. I talk a lot. I ramble sometimes and I get excited about the things I talk about. It's how God made me. I'm content with it. All right.

Put me on like the time to thing. Maybe it'll make it go quicker. So we're going to move now to Zechariah. And I want to make sure that I'm in the right section here. Yes, Zechariah. And as I mentioned, Zechariah, he's a prophet of God.

Joshua the High Priest and the Burning Stick Snatched from the Fire

Okay. Some people refer to him as a minor prophet because the book is smaller than some of the other prophets that are called major prophets. It has nothing to do with the importance of people. All right.

Zechariah chapter three, starting in verse one. Then he showed me the high priest, Joshua, standing before the angel of the Lord with Satan at his right side to accuse him. The Lord said to Satan, The Lord rebuke you, Satan.

May the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you. Isn't this man a burning stick snatched from the fire? What's the deal with the burning stick? Huh? Why even bring that up? You know, I've never really thought of that before.

I've got to give credit to my boy Sproul again because something he brought up in this, I hadn't heard it in any of his other lessons that he gave on the holiness of God, but I heard it on this one. He mentions how, you know, when you're out, when you're cooking out and not cooking out, when you're camping out and you're cooking over a fire and, you know, you put things at the end of a stick, you're cooking, you get your little marshmallow on there and you're supposed to just lightly toast it.

You get a little impatient, shove it in there, let it catch on fire. All right, go to take it off and, you know, you got this kind of like grimy stuff on you and then especially the next day or that night, you know, you're going to kill that fire.

Pick up a stick, just any stick out of that fire. Just run your hand across it. You open your hand up. It's going to be full of soot, just filth and soot, right? Well, this is kind of what's being explained here.

All right, and I'm going to read that verse again. Verse two, the Lord said to Satan, The Lord rebuke you, Satan. May the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you. Isn't this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?

Now verse three, Now Joshua was dressed with filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. So the angel of the Lord, and we'll pause, look at this here, right? The filthy clothes and look at Isaiah. Woe is me, right?

I am undone. I am ruined. I'm a man of unclean lips. I dwell among a people with unclean lips, right? Verse four, or I'm sorry, I'll read verse three again. Joshua was dressed with filthy clothes as he stood before the angel, right?

He's a burning stick full of soot, all that stuff. Verse four, So the angel of the Lord spoke to those standing before him, Take off his filthy clothes. Then he said to him, See, I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with festive robes.

Then I said, Let them put a clean turban on his head. So a clean turban was placed on his head and they clothed him in garments while the angel of the Lord was standing nearby. Here's what's cool. Yeah, you're a sinner.

If you're drawing breath into your lungs, you're a sinner, right? If you are anyone besides Jesus Christ, you're a sinner. Okay, we all are. Even post salvation, we still sin. We try not to, right? We try to honor God, to bring glory and honor to his name.

But we fall short all the time. And even when we have our moments like Isaiah did, and Zechariah here, he's in these filthy clothes standing before the Lord, calling him a soot-filled stick. Man, that's a man of sin.

Just like Isaiah was a man of sin, just like I'm a man of sin, just like you're a man or a woman of sin. It's in your nature. It's who you are, you know, the old example, or maybe it's not old, you may have never heard this, but you know, do you have to teach a kid to be good?

Yeah. You do. Little baby, little toddlers, you have to teach them to be good. You have to stay, you know, you give them all these lessons, you give them parameters, but do you have to teach them to be bad?

Never. They already know right out the womb. They already know, right? All of us are like that. We're all in the same boat. Like Isaiah, all of us say, woe is me for I am ruined. But what do we do about it?

I mean, is that the end of the story? God's great. We suck. The end. The gospel. What is the gospel? I'm not talking about a choir. The gospel means the good news. What is the good news? Well, here's the good news, guys.

We don't have to clean ourselves up. As a matter of fact, we can't clean ourselves up. As a matter of fact, as we read Romans chapter five, read that chapter. It will blow your mind. You'll love it. Actually read one, two, three, four, five, six, all the way through to 16, but read four, five, six, and seven.

Those four chapters right there. That's a whole nother lesson. We can't clean ourselves up. We just, we don't have the ability to do it. We can't. It's not in our nature, but yet God justifies us. Right?

He puts us in right stead with him again, as he did here with Zechariah. He says, I have removed, I'm sorry, take off his filthy clothes. Then he said to him, see, I have removed your iniquity from you and I will clothe you with festive robes.

Then I said, let them put a clean turban on his head. So clean turban was placed on his head and they clothed him in garments while the angel of the Lord was standing nearby. Now, if we roll back to Isaiah, I should have told you guys to keep a finger there.

I'm sorry. We roll back to Isaiah chapter six. Right after Isaiah has made his statement, we look here in verse six and it says, then one of the seraphim flew to me. This is Isaiah speaking. And in his hand was a glowing coal that he had taken from the altar with tongs.

He touched my mouth with it and said, now that this has touched your lips, your iniquity is removed and your sin is atoned for. Now those two examples, who's doing the work? Man or God? Well, from the examples we have here, we see that God is doing the work, right?

Justification by Faith and Christ's Death for Sinners

And then we see, I'm going to move as quick as I can. I said I wasn't going to do it. Ah, man, I'm a liar, which makes me a sinner, which proves that sin is a thing. All right. Therefore, Romans five one.

Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Now I learned that in another translation. And it says, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God, right, through our Lord Jesus Christ.

What does justified mean? To be justified means to be declared innocent. All right. It's not the removing, right? It's not the removing of the sin. It's not the atoning of the sin. It's the declaration that that sin or that it's the declaration that you are now righteous.

But here's what's true. A declaration. Right. That declaration is made while you're still a sinner. But that's the way that God operates. And then I bring that up because I really wanted to get to verse eight.

Oh, I'll go ahead and start in verse six. This is Romans five, starting in verse six. For while we were still helpless at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For rarely will someone die for a just person.

Though for a good person, perhaps someone might even dare to die. And then verse eight. This is my absolute favorite verse in all of scripture. But God proves his own love for us. And that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

What is man? What is God? What is the gospel? God is holy, holy, holy. Right. God is clean. God is righteousness. God is perfection. That God is also omnipotent, all powerful. Right. He's omnipresent means he's everywhere.

Right. He's omniscient. He knows all. God is a God of grace, giving things that you don't deserve. He's a God of mercy, not giving you things that you do deserve. And he's a God of love. But he's also a God of justice.

Right. God has to deal with sin. Sin must be dealt with. It has to be. Right. This is God's creation. Me and you and everybody and everything in this world is all of God's creation. And we're all filled with sin.

And sin must be punished. It has to be. Well, if God didn't punish sin, then God would be unjust. Right. So to retain his justice, something had to be done. And that something was a someone. And that's Christ.

That's Jesus. That's God in human flesh who lived the perfect life that we are incapable of living. Followed every law. Right. Followed all obedience. Even got baptized. John the Baptist said, what? You want me to baptize you?

Huh? Man, I'm not even fit to like mess with your sandals and stuff. And like, no, man. I don't blame him. I mean, I'd have said the same thing. Totally would have said the same thing. And Jesus said, it has to happen.

Right. It has to happen. To fulfill everything, to fulfill the prophecy. Right. But also to fulfill righteousness. He had to be obedient. Even to the point of death, death on a cross. Jesus was the scapegoat that we read about.

And this is something me and John Everett are actually going to be going over. I don't know if it's going to be next Saturday's or the one after. But that's going to be a lot of fun. We're both really looking forward to it.

And it's a major reason why we had to do this one first. But we're going to be looking at the sacrifice, the blood sacrifice in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. Right. In the Old Testament, they had what they call a scapegoat.

Right. The priest would lay his hands on this goat and it would symbolize transferring the guilt and the sin of the people to this goat. And then they'd send them out. Right. Well, in the New Testament, that was Jesus, but in a much more brutal way.

A perfect man who knew no sin, was tempted as we are. Was tempted. But committed no sin whatsoever. Lived a perfect life of obedience and holiness. Did it all. Did it all to glorify and honor his father.

To honor God. And then he gave his life. See, no one could take it. He gave it willingly. He laid his life down. Right. Why? He died so that we could live. He died so that we can live. Romans 5a. That God demonstrates his own love towards us and that while we are still sinners, Christ died for us.

So that wrath of God, the punishment of God, the justice of God should have been and still should be given to all of us. Because we all deserve it. Every second of every day with every sin that we commit.

But instead, that wrath was poured out on the head of Christ. The one who didn't deserve it. The only one who didn't deserve it. Right. He died that we may live. Guys, there's so much more to get into.

But this is at the heart of the gospel. This is truly what the gospel is all about. It's admitting that, man, you ain't number one. And that was a song when I was in my 20s. You know, I am number one.

No, I'm not. I'm number two. Like for real, I'm just a big steaming pile of number two. God is number one all the time. I acknowledge that. I admit that. I believe. I believe that Christ died and rose again.

And I believe that all of that was done so that we may live. So that I could say, like Paul said in the book of Galatians chapter two. And he said, I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live.

My life's done. It's Christ who lives in me. Right. Ah, but man, I still mess up and I still fail. Guess what? Jesus don't have to get up on that cross and die every single day. Does that give me liberty to sin?

No, it doesn't give me permission to just go out and sin however I want. But if I'm a true child of God and the Holy Spirit's within me and I've been saved, I've been redeemed, I've been atoned, I've been justified.

And one day I'll be glorified, right? Then I shouldn't even think that way. That, well, you know, my sin's been forgiven anyways. Now, does that mean that I don't at times willfully sin? I do. You do.

We all do. There's a major difference. I don't think I'm getting one over on God when I do. Right. It hurts on a level that I ain't never felt hurt before when I, when I disappoint my father. It's not guilt.

It's the conviction that the Holy Spirit's telling me, hey, hey, you know you're not supposed to do that. You know that's wrong. And guess what? That lesson that God's been teaching you over and over and over again, that's just going to be another smack on the head.

That's going to be another hurdle that you're going to trip over instead of jump over, man. You need to get back up and you need to do the right thing. Because it's going to go easier for you if you do.

I, I had to address that because I don't want anybody thinking that, you know, I said, hey, we can just all go sin because our sin's paid for. So in conclusion, at one hour and 15 minutes, holy, like I said, God is number one.

We're number two. And he gave us, he gave us the best gift. He gave us the best thing. And he didn't, he didn't have to, he wasn't under, you know, the threat of death. He wasn't doing it to prove something to intellectuals.

He did it out of his great love and out of his great mercy. So if you're sitting there and you're watching this, you're hearing this, and you're going, man, forget that crap. I don't need any of that crap.

You know, I don't, I don't need to, I'm having more fun doing all this other stuff. I don't need anybody to tell me what I'm doing wrong. Okay. Okay. But think about it. Those words, I don't need anybody to tell me what I'm doing wrong.

Well, why is that? Because logically, you already know what you're doing is wrong. Is my call to you to just stop doing wrong things forever? No. My call to you is to surrender, to surrender to God, surrender to Christ today.

Why today? Because man, I don't know if you got a tomorrow. I don't know if you got a five seconds from now. I'm not saying that to scare you. I'm saying it's because it's the truth. We're not promised any amount of time.

We're not. Today is the day of salvation. Today is the day to quit making excuses. Today is the day to quit all that garbage, have some humility, be honest with yourself, be honest with your God, surrender all that garbage, trust in Christ, and like Isaiah, just like Isaiah, you know, have the honesty to make the statement.

He said, woe is me. I'm a man of unclean lips. I'm ruined. When you're at that point of humility, when you're at that point of realness, then just like God did with Isaiah, just like God did with Zechariah, just like God has done with countless people throughout the ages, he will remove those filthy rags, right?

And he'll dress you with colorful garments. All right, I'm going to keep going forever and ever and ever and ever. I hit on a lot of what I wanted to, and I didn't hit on some stuff that I did want to hit on.

But I hope that something, just one thing at least, I hope something has stuck with you. I hope something spoke to you. Not my words, but God's word. And my prayer is that God's word penetrated your heart.

And see, that's another cool thing about the Bible. See, the Bible says that God's word will not return void. In other words, it's going to accomplish what it set out to accomplish. I just hope and pray that part of that, part of that will of God is that you be saved today, that you surrender all that garbage today.

Prayer for Forgiveness, Salvation, and Final Blessing

Let's pray, and then I'm done, y 'all. God, God, we thank you. We thank you so much for your love. God, we thank you for your grace. We thank you for your mercy. God, forgive us. Forgive us for our sins, Father.

Lord, you know them. You know the multitude of them. Father, we thank you. Lord, that you don't just show off how great you are and then mock us at how bad we are. But God, that you take us out of our filthy rags, and God, you place clean robes upon us.

God, we thank you that you remove our iniquity, that you put us in a right standing before you. God, that you will glorify us one day. And God, we thank you and praise you for the promise, for the hope that we have in heaven.

God, Lord, one day we will be with you, and we'll be somewhere where there's no more pain, no more sickness, no more disease, no more tears, no more sadness, no more sin, no more disappointment. God, all that remains is love, holiness, and rejoicing.

God, we love you. We thank you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen, amen, and good night.