Sermons
Joy Lost In Sin
Series: Joy RobbersJOY LOST IN SIN
Sermon By Terry Siverd
Cortland Church of Christ / January 06, 2019
Our thanks to Vic Rossi & Brian Alfred for teaching and preaching last Sunday.
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ONE AND ALL!
We want to continue with just a few more lessons in our current sermon series on Job Robbers.
Thus far we have noted a few “robbers”: people … circumstances … worry … and things (possessions).
This series sprang from a sermon back in November, A Pervasive Joy.
That sermon was the conclusion to our series on, “The Way Of The Cross”.
Acts 13:53 notes that the disciples were continually filled with joy.
For our first-century brothers and sisters joy wasn't a once-in-while mindset, it was constant.
They were FILLED with joy. Their joy was PERVASIVE.
It impacted every nook and cranny of their lives.
In spite of the fact that their decision to journey with Jesus included a host of trials and hardships.
SHALOM, which includes a sense of peace accompanied with joy was not just a hackneyed greeting.
It reflected a deep trust in the Lord, that all is well for those who intentionally follow Jesus.
I fear that the passing of time (we are now 2,000 years removed from the first-century) and the
absence of determined discipleship has caused a great gulf to be fixed between us and them.
We must make it our aim to be a joy-filled church.
To do that all of us must resolve to live joy-filled lives.
Not just joy on Sundays (Happy Hour), but joy throughout the week - - an everyday joy.
If joy only pops up on Sundays, it will testify against us, that we are not authentic and genuine Christians.
So we've been speaking candidly and Biblically about things that tend to rob us of our joy.
This morning our topic is, Joy Lost In Sin.
Billy Sunday, a famous preacher from a bygone era, used to say:
“If you have no joy, there's a leak in your Christianity.”
If I could tweak that quote just a bit to underscore the point I'm trying to make throughout this series,
I would say, “If joy is not pervasive in our walk with the Lord, we have some leakage going on.”.
Henry Ward Beecher was fond of saying,
“The test of Christian character should be that a man is a joy-bearing agent to the world.”
This JOY is part of being light and salt. It is an indispensable ingredient to being a city set on a hill.
More than people, circumstances, worry and possessions, SIN is the biggest thief of them all.
The Hebrews had a book in their canon that was quoted more than all the others.
It was the book of Psalms - - 150 of them all total. The first verse of the first Psalm open by declaring - -
How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked,
Nor stand in the path of sinners, Not sit in the seat of scoffers...
HOW HAPPY ARE ALL WHO STEER CLEAR OF SIN!
Or, stated just a bit differently,
Ps.32:1/NCV / Happy is the person whose sins are forgiven, whose wrongs are pardoned
There is a HIGH cost to LOW living.
When we dive to “the bottom” in search of pearls, it is usually gravel that we bring up.
Sin's consequences often rob us of much happiness and bring pain and suffering into our lives.
And, ever so sadly, this pain, this suffering, this absence or lessening of joy, comes self-inflicted.
One might argue that there is pleasure to be found in sin, and that is true, but to borrow from the text of the
NT book of Hebrews, it is fleeting at best - - passing pleasures. In Heb.11:25, the writer notes that Moses chose
to endure ill-treament with the people of God, (rather) than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin.
Whatever pleasure we may derive from some sinful behavior, it is not long-lived,
and it is far out-weighed by the JOY of living a life of obedience in the sight of God.
As Prov.28:13 notes - - He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper,
but he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion.
Over and over again the sacred writings inform us that there is a high cost to low living.
In the Old Testament (Judges 13-16) we see the story of the strong man Samson.
When Samson, a gift of God given to Manoah and his wife, aligned himself with the wicked uncircumcized
Philistines through a hasty and impetuously-demanded marriage, his good life began to unravel.
Samson lost his wife to his friend, but more importantly, his loyalty to God began to erode.
He then sought solace in the arms of a harlot.
His downfall finally came in the form of a dalliance with a woman named Delilah.
God granted Samson grace and mercy, but he brought upon himself sorrow upon sorrow because of His sin.
In the Old Testament (2Sam.11) we also read the story of King David.
David represents a high point for the people of Israel, but his life was robbed of considerable joy but his sinful deeds.
This low point in his life begins with a restlessness that gives way to lust.
He covets another man's wife named Bathsheba. He commits adultery with her resulting in an unexpected pregnancy.
One bad choice after another finally leads him to attempt to hoodwink a loyal soldier, Uriah the Hittite.
Uriah was Bathsheba's husband. David calls his captain Joab and demands that Uriah be sent home.
David's plan was for Uriah to sleep with Bathsheba so that his sin would remain hidden.
Uriah refuses to cooperate. Not because he knows what has happened, but because he's a man of integrity.
He refuses to engage in conjugal privileges while the ark of the covenant and his fellow soldiers are in harm's way.
Finally, in an effort to cover his sinful acts, he orders Joab to facilitate the death
of Uriah by placing him on the front lines of the battle and withdrawing support.
Nathan the prophet is sent by God to deliver a severe message to David.
It comes in the form of a parable (you can read it in 2Sam.12).
Finally David confesses, “I have sinned against the Lord!” (2Sam.12:3).
What we don't read in 2Sam.11-12 is the price David paid for his sin in terms of the joy he lost.
Psalm 32 spells out the havoc wreaked on David because of his sin.
His journal begins with words of gratitude for God's grace given to him after he repented.
Ps.32:1-2 / How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, who sin is covered.
How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
What follows is David's diary (in the form of a psalm or song) about the awful pain he suffered.
Ps.32:3f / When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long.
For day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me. My vitality was drained way as with the fever heat of summer.
His account continues in another psalm - - Ps.38:1-8.
I am not just talking today about the sinfulness of sexual immorality.
Whatever sinful deeds we participate can take a toll - - in robbing us of joy.
It might be sinful acts we sometimes categorize as rather benign.
Things like constant grumbling, spreading gossip, holding grudges, fill in the blank.
Any and all sin that is not repented of comes with negative consequences.
Someone has written: “It doesn't take much sin to eradicate a lot of joy. A little sin that
remains unconfessed can expand like a little yeast, and squeeze out all of our joy.”
Our problem is we often rationalize. Sidney Harris writes: “Once we assuage our conscience by
calling something a 'necessary evil', it begins to look more and more necessary and less and less evil.”
Once a college student enrolled in a class on ornithology (the study of birds). When it came time for the final exam
the professor asked everyone to take a blank sheet of paper and number from 1 to 15. They were then to walk up to
the long lab table and identify the birds on display. Fifteen birds were laid out and numbered, but all of the birds were covered - - heads, bodies and feet. The students were charged with classifying the birds based upon observing their legs.
One student went to table and quickly returned to his desk, gathered his books and headed for the exit. The professor
called to him asking his name. With exasperation he defiantly raised his pant leg and told the professor, “You tell me.”
I thought of this story when I read a news clipping recently.
That story was to make you laugh, to cut the tension of a pretty heavy message.
But the following story conveys a really important principle.
This comes from a few years ago. It's like a world series of weeds, a Hula bowl of herbicides, with agriculture students
from U.S. And Canadian universities competing to identify problems in farm fields. This year, Iowa State took
top honors in the Collegiate Weed Science Contest, which tests students' abilities to identify weeds and the right
chemical to kill them and diagnose herbicide failure. 'They need to be able to recognize weeds when they are tiny,'
said James Worthington of Western Kentucky University, president of the North Central Weed Science Society.
'When they get big enough that anybody can recognize them, it's too late to do anything about them.'
There is a deceitfulness to sin as Heb.3:13 makes clear.
Someone has said, “Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you
longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you are willing to pay.”
We will save ourselves a boat load of grief and sorrow if we can learn to nip it in the bud, as Barney Fife used to say.
I close with two exhortations, both of them extremely important.
First, God is all knowing. We know that, don't we?
In Num.32:23, Moses admonish the children of Israel not to disobey God and sin. And then he gives them a very sobering warning: if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against the Lord, and be sure your sin will find you out.
My second and closing exhortation is indeed a word of encouragement.
God is longsuffering and His mercies are new every morning.
Even when we fail to detect a weed of sin in its early incipient stages, even when we blunder
upon blunder (as did Samson and David and a hosts of others), God is eager to forgive us.
Much of what we do is in secret (not hidden from God, but hidden from others).
I don't know what's going on in the more intimate parts of your lives.
I have enough trouble wrestling with the sin in my own life.
The important thing is for us to have a heart like David.
When Nathan told him the parable, he was at first slow to get the point.
But when he got it, he quickly came to have a change of heart - - a penitent heart.
That was what endeared David to God and caused God to call him “a man after my own heart” (Acts 13:22).
Whatever sin you are wrestling with (or hiding), repent of it.
In so doing you will be able to say with David, Make me to hear JOY and GLADNESS (Ps.51:8).
Why would we deliberately chose to continue to let sin rob us of the abundant joy that God has planned for us?
The song we're about to sing is straight-forward and touching. If your sin is public and needs forgiven,
you need to respond publicly. If it is a private matter you can go to God in the privacy of your home.
