Our Prayer

Our Prayer

Heavenly Father, I know that I have sinned against You and that my sins separate me from You. I am truly sorry. I now want to turn away from my sinful past and turn to You for forgiveness. Please forgive me, and help me avoid sinning again. I believe that Your Son, Jesus Christ, died for my sins, that He was raised from the dead, is alive, and hears my prayer. I invite Jesus to become my Savior and the Lord of my life, to rule and reign in my heart from this day forward. Please send Your Holy Spirit to help me obey You and to convict me when I sin. I pledge to grow in grace and knowledge of You. My greatest purpose in life is to follow Your example and do Your will for the rest of my life. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.

Wednesday, March 17, 2021

Class Lesson March 21, 2021

 



Question 1:

What’s an early memory of being punished

for doing something wrong?




THE POINT

We are sinners, and

on our own, we can do nothing about it.



THE BIBLE MEETS LIFE

Kids are experts at “no.”
“Kids, get in the car.”
“No!”
“Hurry. We’re going to be late.”
“No!”

Nobody has to teach kids to do this. I certainly didn’t teach my children to do this! Admittedly, I frequently said no to my parents, and they didn’t teach me that. It is something we are born with.

By saying “no,” we are in essence rejecting the authority of whomever we are responding to. Kids can love their parents deeply, but in that moment, they are rejecting the authority of their parents. From birth, we all are good at rejecting our parents’ authority. We are also adept at rejecting God’s authority, saying no to what He wants, and doing what we want instead. It’s called sin, and we are born with a nature that leads us to sin.

Saying no to our parents’ commands often led to punishment, and the same is true when we say no to God’s commands. And no amount of good on our part will cancel out that punishment.

Thankfully, God did not leave us in this state.




WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY?

Isaiah 59:1-5

1 Indeed, the Lord’s arm is not too weak to save, and his ear is not too deaf to hear. 2 But your iniquities are separating you from your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not listen. 3 For your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers, with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, and your tongues mutter injustice. 4 No one makes claims justly; no one pleads honestly. They trust in empty and worthless words; they conceive trouble and give birth to iniquity. 5 They hatch viper’s eggs and weave spider’s webs. Whoever eats their eggs will die; crack one open, and a viper is hatched.

In 1990, President George H. W. Bush made a funny statement: “I do not like broccoli. And I haven’t liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I’m president of the United States and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!”1 Of course, President Bush was perfectly capable of eating broccoli. But as president, he now chose to have nothing to do with it.

God has a far-greater reaction to sin. He absolutely detests it. He hates it so much that it repulses Him. Look at how Isaiah described our sins: worthless, like “viper’s eggs” and “spider’s webs.” Because a holy God will have nothing to do with sin, “your iniquities are separating you from your God” (v. 2). Because of our sin, He hides His face from us.

What exactly is sin? Consider the first sin ever committed. Adam and Eve deliberately disobeyed God’s order not to eat from a certain tree (Gen. 3:2-7). As a result, God sent them out of the garden of Eden and they were separated from God’s presence. Previously, they had been able to walk and talk with God (v. 8), like a family together in one house, but now they never would be allowed back in. Humanity’s relationship with God was damaged from that point on.

Question 2:

What evidence do you see in this

world that everyone has sinned?


That seems a little extreme, doesn’t it? After all, it was just a piece of fruit—but the issue was far greater than it might appear on the surface. The issue was their disobedience. Let’s not confuse sin simply with “bad things we do.” Sin is so much deeper than that. Sin is what we do when we place our desires and our agendas above God. It’s not “just a piece of fruit.” By eating what God said not to  eat, we are placing our small choice ahead of God, and to place anything ahead of God is rebellion and mutiny.

Sin puts everyone on a level playing field. Since all rebellion is rebellion, we are all seen as sinful people. No one can justify his or her sin by saying, “At least I’m not as bad as that person.” Each of us has a sick heart set on rebellion against a holy and perfect God. As we shall see in the next session, it’s not that God doesn’t care or is incapable of helping us. As Isaiah said, “Indeed, the Lord’s arm is not too weak to save, and his ear is not too deaf to hear” (v. 1), but our sin is the barrier. God desires to save us, “but your iniquities are separating you from your God.”



Isaiah 59:6-8

6 Their webs cannot become clothing, and they cannot cover themselves with their works. Their works are sinful works, and violent acts are in their hands. 7 Their feet run after evil, and they rush to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are sinful thoughts; ruin and wretchedness are in their paths. 8 They have not known the path of peace, and there is no justice in their ways. They have made their roads crooked; no one who walks on them will know peace.

My house is slowly turning into a zoo. OK, not exactly a zoo, but we’re getting pretty close. We have a few farm animals that live outside, but two animals have a special place in our house: our dogs Annie and Nola.

The thing is, dogs tend to be messy, especially our Goldendoodles. They have a limitless supply of energy and, like most dogs, they are not bothered in the least by mud. When it rains and the dogs have been outside, they bring mud with them the second they come inside. If we don’t clean them up first, everything they touch in the house will need to be cleaned. It doesn’t matter what they do to try to clean themselves, they only end up making everything they touch a muddy mess.

That is the idea that Isaiah was pointing to in this passage. We can’t cover up our sinful works, because on our own we’re completely unable to repair the damage our sin does. Our “works are sinful works” and our “thoughts are sinful thoughts.” Even the “good” we attempt to do to cover our sin is marred with sin! We simply cannot “make up” for our sin. We can’t just do more good things to outweigh the bad things and call the relationship good. As the prophet Isaiah said later, “All our righteous acts are like a polluted garment” (Isa. 64:6).



IMAGERY FROM ISAIAH 59

Isaiah 59 is packed with vibrant imagery. 
Use the space below to record or draw some of the images that catch your attention most, and then explain what those images
communicate in the context of Isaiah’s teaching.








“I have come to the conclusion that none of

us in our generation feels as guilty about sin

as we should or as our forefathers did.”

FRANCIS SCHAEFFER




The picture Isaiah painted goes against how most people view themselves. Most people won’t deny they’ve made mistakes and done things they shouldn’t have, but they see themselves as basically good people.

Isaiah is clear; as he said in verse 8, we have made our own roads crooked. We’ve laid the road we walk on—and we can’t straighten it!


Question 3:

What are some common ways people

try to cover over their sinfulness?




Isaiah 59:9-13

9 Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. We hope for light, but there is darkness; for brightness, but we live in the night. 10 We grope along a wall like the blind; we grope like those without eyes. We stumble at noon as though it were twilight; we are like the dead among those who are healthy. 11 We all growl like bears and moan like doves. We hope for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us. 12 For our transgressions have multiplied before you, and our sins testify against us. For our transgressions are with us, and we know our iniquities: 13 transgression and deception against the Lord, turning away from following our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering lying words from the heart.


Isaiah was writing to people who were spiritually dead, given over completely to their addiction to sin. He described them as people who “grope like those without eyes . . . stumble at noon as though it were twilight” (v. 10) and “growl like bears and moan like doves.”

Isaiah also told us why they were like this: “our transgressions have multiplied before you” (v. 12). Instead of improving themselves (as many people think they can do), the people’s sins were only growing and multiplying. They couldn’t hide who they were. They were sinners and their sins testified against them.

It’s the same for us. The apostle Paul said it in a similar way. “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world” (Eph. 2:1-2a). We weren’t incapacitated or knocked down; we were dead.



Question 4:

How have you experienced

the futility of trying to deal with your sin by yourself?



Before coming to faith in Christ, we are all in the same boat: spiritually dead, enslaved to sin, and in possession of a debt far greater than we could pay on our own. We stand no chance of paying it back or of working our way back to life.

On our own, we were less than powerless—we were blind people stumbling down the street, dead people with no hope for revival. God decided that something had to change, and since none of us could do it ourselves, He would—and did. It was God who took the first step toward us. It was God who delivered a way for us to be free of the debt of our sin. It was God who made it so that our relationship with Him could be repaired.

Without salvation from the sin that infests our hearts, we are completely without hope. But as we will see in the next session, His intervention breathed hope and life into our dismal condition.


Question 5:

What are some ways our group can

help one another in our struggle against sin?


LIVE IT OUT

We are all sinners. In the next session, we will focus on the solution and salvation offered through Jesus Christ. For the moment, consider what you will do with the truth that you have a sin nature and are prone to sin. Choose one of the following applications:

  • Confession. Admit that you are a sinner who has fallen short of God’s standard. Confess your sin to Him and ask for forgiveness. He is faithful and just to forgive you.                                                                                                                                        
  • Prevention. Evaluate where you are most prone to give into temptation. Being tempted is not sin, but it can easily lead to sin. Draft some safeguards to help you avoid temptation in the first place.                                                                                                                        
  • Accountability. Reach out to one or two believers (of the same gender) in whom you can confide. Talk through areas in which you are weak and ask them to hold you accountable and walk with you so that you will not fall.

Though we will never attain a sinless life, with the help of the Holy Spirit and those around us, we can identify the spots where we need help and take bigger steps toward living in a way that honors God.

Teacher Notes:







The Most Effective Punishment Ever Created!


Beyond Meat, the plant-based meat alternative company, has announced a three-year partnership with McDonald’s to become the “preferred supplier for the patty in the McPlant.” Bill Gates is also bringing attention to plant-based meat alternatives, suggesting that “all rich countries should move to 100% synthetic beef” as part of the fight against climate change. Gates added, “You can get used to the taste difference.”

 

We can “get used to” many things when we forgo the original. A McPlant may taste a lot like a hamburger, but once you take a bite of an all-beef McDonald’s Quarter Pounder, the difference becomes clear. Whether you agree that giving up beef for the sake of climate change is a reasonable decision, it is hard to deny that beef is the taste-standard for hamburgers.

 

What does this have to do with SIN?

 

We often measure our actions and decisions against others, whom we think are setting the standard for behavior. Our mistakes and poor decisions don’t seem that bad when we compare them to the scandals in the news. However, politicians, celebrities, and our neighbors aren’t the standard for our behavior; God is. When we stop looking to God, we can “get used to” a lot of sins. But once we turn our focus back to God, the difference becomes clear, and we fail to measure up.

 

The Point: We are sinners, and on our own, we can do nothing about it.

The Passage: Isaiah 59:1-13

 

Isaiah 59:1-5

1 Indeed, the Lord’s arm is not too weak to save, and his ear is not too deaf to hear. 2 But your iniquities are separating you from your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not listen. 3 For your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers, with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, and your tongues mutter injustice. 4 No one makes claims justly; no one pleads honestly. They trust in empty and worthless words; they conceive trouble and give birth to iniquity. 5 They hatch viper’s eggs and weave spider’s webs. Whoever eats their eggs will die; crack one open, and a viper is hatched.


What exactly is sin?

·        Sin is described in the Bible as transgression of the law of God and rebellion against God. Sin had its beginning with Lucifer, probably the most beautiful and powerful of the angels. Not content with his position, he desired to be higher than God, and that was his downfall, the beginning of sin. Renamed Satan, he brought sin to the human race in the Garden of Eden, where he tempted Adam and Eve with the same enticement, “you shall be like God.” Genesis 3 describes Adam and Eve’s rebellion against God and against His command. Since that time, sin has been passed down through all the generations of mankind and we, Adam’s descendants, have inherited sin from him. Romans 5:12 tells us that through Adam sin entered the world, and so death was passed on to all men because “the wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23).

 

·        Let’s not confuse sin simply with “bad things we do.” Sin is so much deeper than that. Sin is what we do when we place our desires and our agendas above God. It’s not “just a piece of fruit.” By eating what God said not to eat, we are placing our small choice ahead of God, and to place anything ahead of God is rebellion and mutiny. Sin puts everyone on a level playing field. Since all rebellion is rebellion, we are all seen as sinful people. No one can justify his or her sin by saying, “At least I’m not as bad as that person.” Each of us has a sick heart set on rebellion against a holy and perfect God.

 


It's a God Complex


1.   Our sin separates us from God

 

It’s as if there is a huge chasm between where we are standing and where God is standing. There is absolutely no way to be in God’s presence because of our sin. God is holy and cannot allow sin into His presence.

 

How have you experienced separation from God because of sin?

 

Isaiah 59:6-8

6 Their webs cannot become clothing, and they cannot cover themselves with their works. Their works are sinful works, and violent acts are in their hands. 7 Their feet run after evil, and they rush to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are sinful thoughts; ruin and wretchedness are in their paths. 8 They have not known the path of peace, and there is no justice in their ways. They have made their roads crooked; no one who walks on them will know peace.

 

2.   Our sin can’t be covered up.

When we recognize our sinful condition, and realize that God cannot allow sin into His presence, we try to rationalize our actions. We try to cover up our sin— bury our sin—by doing a bunch of good works. Our thinking is that if we do enough good works, volunteer enough hours at a non-profit organization, or give enough money to charities that all the good will outweigh all the bad. The problem is that God doesn’t see things that way. Because of our sinful condition, any works that we do are, by nature, sinful works. And God can see right through our attempts to cover up our sin. He sees, and knows, that our hearts are still sinful and bent toward sinful activity.

 

What are some common ways people try to cover over their sinfulness?

  

Isaiah 59:9-13

9 Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. We hope for light, but there is darkness; for brightness, but we live in the night. 10 We grope along a wall like the blind; we grope like those without eyes. We stumble at noon as though it were twilight; we are like the dead among those who are healthy. 11 We all growl like bears and moan like doves. We hope for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us. 12 For our transgressions have multiplied before you, and our sins testify against us. For our transgressions are with us, and we know our iniquities: 13 transgression and deception against the Lord, turning away from following our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering lying words from the heart.

 

Isaiah was writing to people who were spiritually dead, given over completely to their addiction to sin. He described them as people who “grope like those without eyes . . . stumble at noon as though it were twilight” (v. 10) and “growl like bears and moan like doves.” Isaiah also told us why they were like this: “our transgressions have multiplied before you” (v. 12). Instead of improving themselves (as many people think they can do), the people’s sins were only growing and multiplying. They couldn’t hide who they were. They were sinners and their sins testified against them.

 

3.   Our sin needs a Savior

These verses describe the despair that comes from a realization of our sin. That realization leads us to groan aloud and mourn over our sinful condition. Verses 12 and 13 identify how our sin has multiplied before God. He sees it. We know it. Without God’s intervention, we are completely separated from God and hopeless in our inability to resolve our sin issue on our own.

 

  • The first step in deliverance from sin is confession.
  • As long as we are separated from God, salvation is far off from us.
  • God knows our sin; thus, it is useless to deny it.
  • No matter how it is expressed, our sin is against the Lord; therefore, salvation comes only by returning in faith to Him who has come to redeem us.

 

What do you do when you feel overwhelmed by your sin nature?

 

 

Conclusion: The bottom line is this: We are sinners, and on our own, we can do nothing about it. That sounds like awful news—and it is. But look back at verse 1. The Lord is not so weak that He cannot save us; He is not so deaf that He can’t hear our cry of repentance. The good news is that God is always ready to welcome and forgive the sinner who earnestly desires to change his or her ways. Redemption is possible—but there is nothing we can do to earn it on our own.

 

READ: From the very beginning, God told man what was right and wrong. To Adam in the Garden, God said, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die”. When the children of Israel came out of Egypt, God established His Law with them at Mount Sinai. The Ten Commandments were not the whole law, but a summary of all that God had to tell them. The entire books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy are devoted to revealing to the Israelites God’s laws. Jewish rabbis say that there are 613 laws in the Torah (Books of Moses). Of those, 365 are in the “thou shalt not...” category.

 

What are some examples of these sins? From the Ten Commandments we have false worship, idolatry, misusing God’s name, violating the Sabbath, dishonoring parents, murder, adultery, stealing, lying/libel, and coveting. In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7), Jesus took some of these same sins to a new level. Regarding murder, Jesus said, “Anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.... But anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell” (Matthew 5:22). Regarding adultery, Jesus said, “Anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). In Galatians 5:19-21, we are told, “The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Just these brief lists will give most people plenty of things to work on for a lifetime. In addition to the various lists that can be found in Scripture, we are told in 1 John 5:17 that “all wrongdoing is sin.” Not only does the Bible tell us the things not to do, but in James 4:17, we are informed that anyone “who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.”

 

When we try to compile a list of sins, we find ourselves buried under the guilt of our own failures because we discover that we have sinned far more than we realized. The Scriptures inform us, “All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law’” (Galatians 3:10). While that statement might seem self-defeating, it is actually the best news possible. Since we can never fully keep God’s Law, there must be another answer, and it is found a few verses later: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.’ He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit” (Galatians 3:13-14). The Law of God, or the lists of sins that we find in the Bible, serve as a tutor to “lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith” (Galatians 3:24).






































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