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Jeff Heine teaching on the topic: Light in the Darkness: the Persistent Problem of Evil. Jeff discusses the doctrine of Original Sin, the concept of the Fall, and how our view of sin influences our thoughts on forgiveness, justice, and salvation.
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
How's everybody doing? Good? Good. Well, it's that's about to change because we're going to talk about sin. We actually are.
Jeffrey Heine:I hope that if you're a guest of somebody that they explained what the topic was. Otherwise, this might be a bit of a surprise, or one of the most disappointing bar experiences you've ever had. Probably not. Probably not, but it might be up there. Tonight, we are continuing, our summer series, the theological talk back.
Jeffrey Heine:We we did one in May, June, July, and then this is the last one, for the season. And I hope that you've been enjoying them. I hope that you've been
Speaker 2:able to make it to a number
Jeffrey Heine:of them. If this is your first one, we're especially glad that you're here with us tonight. We usually say welcome to Redeemer Community Church, and and since that's the people and not that, domed building over there, welcome to Redeemer Community Church. We're glad that you're here, and, and that you're here with us, and that we're gonna dig into this topic together. The way that this works is we have a time of lecture, a time of talk, and then a time of talk back.
Jeffrey Heine:We'll take a little break and get some more to drink. Be sure and and TipWell, these are great guys. They've they've been helping us out a lot this summer, and they've been great to, for us to be having this here. And we're really thankful for Avondale Brewery, and so TipWell and be kind with that. So what the the order.
Jeffrey Heine:I'll do the talk, we'll take a break, and then we'll ask some questions, and we'll talk about these things together. You might have heard me say before that theology is best done in community. I really believe that. I think that that when we just kind of walk off on our own and just want to think about things by ourselves and not engage other people, that we actually start doing harm to ourselves. And and what is really helpful is when we can have these conversations together, where we can ask hard questions, where we can search the scriptures, we can pray about it, we can push back lovingly.
Jeffrey Heine:And so that's kind of the dynamic that we want for this, where we can take complicated, heavy ideas and really think about them. Theology really is just thinking about God, and we all do that, which means that we all are theologians in that sense. We all think about God, whether we know him or love him or care about him. Maybe maybe you don't, but you probably think about him. And thinking about god, especially in community, is a profitable thing.
Jeffrey Heine:And so our topic tonight is the fall and its effects. 1st, we will consider the story of the fall, Then we will examine the effects of the fall. And then we will wrap up with hope in the fall. In the little handout, there's, one side is just for you to take notes, something to write on just in case you didn't bring anything. And then on the other side, you have the scripture of Genesis 3, which will be engaging, throughout the evening, and so I I wanna make sure that you had a copy.
Jeffrey Heine:So that's why you've got that there. There's also a quote. Let me read that to you. It's a quote from Gerald Bray. He's a professor, at Beeson Divinity School in about a 100 other divinity schools.
Jeffrey Heine:He's he's all over the place, but, he he says this, there is no subject of greater importance to Christian theology than its understanding of the concept of sin and its effects. I don't think that we need a whole lot of convincing when it comes to the brokenness of our world, or the brokenness of other people, or the brokenness of ourselves. I don't think that we need a whole lot of convincing for that. We don't need a whole lot of evidence because evidence is really just all around us. And in us, g k Chesterton wrote that the doctrine of original sin is the only part of Christian theology that can be proved.
Jeffrey Heine:It's not a popular topic. It's not a popular thing to think about or to prompt other people to think about because it gets into some really murky places in our hearts. New York Times columnist, David Brooks, he wrote a piece a few years back called, When the Good Do Bad. Let me read a a brief portion of it. David Brooks, not Joel's brother by the way.
Jeffrey Heine:It'd be neat, but that's a different David Brooks. Equally as fascinating, but this one writes for the New York times. Alright. It's always interesting to read the quotations of people who knew a murderer before he killed. They usually ex express complete bafflement that a person who seemed so kind and normal could do something so horrific.
Jeffrey Heine:Friends of Robert Bales, who is accused of mastering 16 Afghan civilians, have expressed similar thoughts. Friends and teachers describe him as caring, gregarious, and self confident before he, and the vague metaphor of common usage, apparently snapped. As one childhood friend told The Times, that's not our Bobby. Something horrible, horrible happened to him. Any of us would be shocked if someone we knew and admired killed children.
Jeffrey Heine:But these days, it's especially hard to think through these situations because of the world view that prevails in in our culture. And this is what we need to 0 in on here. According to this view, most people are naturally good, because nature is good. The monstrosities of the world are caused by a few people, the Hitlers. They are fundamentally warped and evil.
Jeffrey Heine:This worldview gives an easy conscience because we don't have to contemplate the evil in ourselves. But when somebody who seems mostly good does something completely awful, we're rendered mute or confused. This prevailing world view that Brooks is writing about, it's a belief that people are naturally good. And the greatest benefit of this world view is that we get this easy conscience. We don't have to think about the brokenness or the evil within ourselves.
Jeffrey Heine:It affords us a great luxury. Everybody's good, which is really me telling me I'm good, and I don't have to deal with the evil in me. So what about you? What do you think about this? What's your world view?
Jeffrey Heine:This world view of, people being generally mostly good, It it goes in step with the world view of progress, that things are getting better. Really, if we get enough education, if we get enough finances, money, if we get enough money together, if we get enough technology and medicine, if we make these steps of progress, then we just get better and better and better, and the evil dissipates. So for, for any of you that have gone to college, you're in the 1% of the world who has that education. Resource wise, if you have a car, you're in 7% of the population there, of the world. So we have resources, we have access to health care, we have we have these things, we have education, we have all these elements of progress.
Jeffrey Heine:So how about you? How about the people that you know? Any malice or anger? Any slander? Any jealousy?
Jeffrey Heine:Anything evil at all left, or has it all just dissipated with our progress? I mean, really, the western world should be the most good society, right? Because we have all these elements of progress. And yet, I know and you know that your very own heart testifies against that truth, and it renders it a lie. It can't be true.
Jeffrey Heine:It's not true. And so we have to deal with these things. It it it might be helpful here at the start to define sin. And what I mean when I because I'm gonna say sin a whole lot. Get ready.
Jeffrey Heine:But it might be helpful to know what I mean when I say that. And as I've spent time trying to hone in on on a definition and reading other people's definitions, This has been one of the most fascinating parts of this study. And so I think if we begin here, maybe it will unfold in all the other places that we talk about tonight. So what I mean when I'm defining sin, when I'm saying sin, I'm saying that we are, it it's a life or it's an act that's living independently from god and his commands. Living independently from god and his commands.
Jeffrey Heine:Independent judgments about human welfare, how we should live, what we should do. And further, to get a a a biblical definition that kinda unfolds after that, is that everything not done in faith, everything not done unto god is sin. So it's not just about wrongness or badness. It's related directly to god and living unto him or independently. So, the effects of this, definition and and how we think about it, what and really how we relate to this.
Jeffrey Heine:I wanna read, another definition, by Francis Spufford. He's a he's a British author, and and for that, this is a heavily edited, version of me reading this. He gets away with words that I don't. I don't wanna have a meeting with Joel tomorrow. I've got a busy busy week ahead, and so, and really, I don't know that many curse words.
Jeffrey Heine:So I'm not gonna say any, so I'm gonna heavily dance around here. But, I didn't want you to be surprised if you check this out of the library, and you're like, oh, goodness. Lifeway used to do a thing, maybe they still do, where they put stickers on books, where they say like, read with discernment. Like, let's put that on every book. Okay?
Jeffrey Heine:Like, let's let's read and actually think. That'd be good for it. Put 2 of those on the bible even. That would be helpful. Anyway, moving on.
Jeffrey Heine:This is what he has to say about sin, sin nature. Really, these effects of the fall. This is how he puts it. He refers to it as the human propensity to mess things up. Or let's add another word here.
Jeffrey Heine:The human propensity to mess things up. Because what we're talking about here is not just our tendency to lurch and to stumble and to mess up by accident. Our passive role as agents of entropy, no. It's our active inclination to break stuff. Stuff here including moods, promises, relationships we care about, our own well-being, and other people's.
Jeffrey Heine:As well as material objects who whose high gloss positively seems to invite a big, fat scratch like most of your iPhones that I've seen. Now, I hope we're on common ground. In the end, almost everyone recognizes this as one of the truths about themselves. You can get quite a long way through an adult life without having to acknowledge your own personal propensity to etcetera, etcetera. Maybe even all the way through it, if you're someone with a very high threshold of obliviousness.
Jeffrey Heine:Or with the kind of disposition that registers sunshine, even when a storm is howling all around. But for most of us, the point eventually arrives when at least for an hour or a day or a season, we find we have to take notice of our human propensity to mess things up. Our appointment with realization often comes at one of the classic moments of adult failure. When a marriage ends, when a career stalls or crumbles, when a relationship fades away with a child only seen on Saturdays, when the supposedly recreational drug habit turns out to be exercising veto powers over every other hope and dream. It need not be dramatic though.
Jeffrey Heine:It can equally well just be drifting into the place of one more pleasant, indistinguishable, little atom of wasted When you're mourning like all the others, which quietly discloses to yourself. You're lying in the bath, and you notice that you're 39. And that the way you've been living bears scarcely any resemblance to what you've thought you've always wanted. That you got here by choice, by a long series of choices for things which at any moment temporarily outbid the things you say you wanted most. And as the water cools in the light of Saturday morning and summer ripples heartlessly on the bathroom ceiling, you glimpse an unflattering vision of yourself as being whose wants, as a being whose wants make no sense.
Jeffrey Heine:They don't harmonize. Whose desires deep down are discordantly arranged, so that you truly want to possess and you truly want to. At the same time, you're equipped and you realize the farce, the tragedy of all the happy endings undone, and the human propensity to mess things up draws you in. We have these moments where we realize, where we're stunned, where we're brought to our knees, where everything crashes like a fine plate on the kitchen floor, and we realize that things are not okay. When we get to this point, when we can be honest enough with ourselves, with God, with one another, that things are not okay.
Jeffrey Heine:That is the place that we can begin. The scriptures don't give us a theory of sin or a theory of the fall. It gives us a story. It gives us a story. It tells us what happened.
Jeffrey Heine:So as we have this kind of cosmic question, what what's wrong? What what happened to me? What happened to this world? What has gone wrong? God gives us a story as our starting point for understanding.
Jeffrey Heine:He gave it to us intentionally. He gave it to us on purpose. And he gave it to us in such a way, and phrased it in such a way, on purpose. I remember going to the movies. I was in Nashville.
Jeffrey Heine:I went to see the movie Punch Drunk Love. And it has, it's starring Adam Sandler. I had seen Happy Gilmore. I had seen Billy Madison. I know funny Adam Sandler.
Jeffrey Heine:He did not show up in Punch Drunk Love. It is a very dark, very disturbing, maybe comedy. It it Yeah. They call it a dark comedy. Very dark comedy.
Jeffrey Heine:P. T. Anderson, director and writer. And so it's it's a it's a dark tale. But if you went in and you expected Happy Gilmore part 2, or if you went in expecting Billy Madison part 2, you were gonna be very, very disappointed.
Jeffrey Heine:But that's not the movie he was making. He he didn't show up and and do his best Happy Gilmore, and it it unfortunately came into this really depressing guy who breaks a sliding glass window with a hammer and starts crying. Very strange. Well, it's not the movie he was making, and and we have to realize what story god is telling. There are lots of things he doesn't tell us in this story.
Jeffrey Heine:A lot of characters we don't get back stories on, a lot of questions. I don't have a lot of answers right there, But that's not what he's trying to do. Maybe he's not trying to answer the question that you're asking right there. So we have to be careful. We have to be careful not to shoehorn in our ideas and concepts and and reason into it.
Jeffrey Heine:We have to be careful. And so we take this story, the story of sin, as it comes to us. So let's look at it together. Let's look at it together. What's happened before we get to the top of it, if you're looking at the page that was handed out to you, what's happened right before this is that god has, god has made man and woman, he or he is he is creation has unfolded by God's authority and his power, and he has given direction about 2 trees that he's mentioned in chapter 2.
Jeffrey Heine:He's given direction. He says, don't eat of the tree of knowledge. He gives that command. He issues that to Adam. Adam relays this to Eve.
Jeffrey Heine:And here we are in chapter 3. Look at verse 1 with me. Now, the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the lord god had made. He said to the woman, did god actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? Notice he misquotes God.
Jeffrey Heine:God said, don't eat of one specific tree, and the serpent is now saying, did he say that you couldn't eat from any tree? He also changes say. What god did was he commanded something. God commanded something, and and the serpent is now twisting that to be, did he really say this? Did he really suggest this?
Jeffrey Heine:And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die. Verse 4. But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die. So now he lies. He contradicts.
Jeffrey Heine:Verse 5. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So 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 to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Alright.
Jeffrey Heine:Let's take a pause. This was willful disobedience by Adam and Eve. Yes, the serpent tempted them, but he did not force anything. He lied, but he did not coerce them. The serpent and Eve have their discussion, and then Adam and Eve go to the tree.
Jeffrey Heine:They check it out. They look at it, and it does not look dangerous. So they assess it to the best of their capabilities and they say, not dangerous. In fact, it looks it's delightful. It it it delights my eyes.
Jeffrey Heine:It delights the senses. It's beautiful to look at. And so she takes, she eats, and Adam with her, she hands it to him, he eats. This was willful transgression of god's will. His law, his command.
Jeffrey Heine:They were in a created order that god had called good. The warning from god was an indicator to Adam and Eve that they were both capable of making these choices, these free choices. They had moral discernment. That's why this command was given out. They could discern, like, they could hear it, they could discern it.
Jeffrey Heine:So it wasn't a question of them having moral discernment, they had a free choice. They had this freedom, and this is a perversion of freedom that they do here. They're not acting out of corruption, they're acting out of freedom. And that freedom was being perverted. And Adam and Eve, they they broke God's command, and now they know good and evil.
Jeffrey Heine:So what does that mean? This might be helpful to kind of, take these two images and and and hold them side by side. What the servant says is that they would know good and evil, that if they took an a a that they would know good and evil, knowing good and evil. No is brought up again in just a few verses down still in chapter 3 of, of Adam knowing Eve. It has to do with this intimate connection, this mingling of souls.
Jeffrey Heine:There's there's a being being really acknowledged in and known in, that capacity of closeness, and to think about how Adam and Eve knew good because they were in God's good creation that was declared to them even. God declared that it was good, that that was known, but they did not know good and evil. They didn't know evil in that sense. And here, after eating, after disobeying god, they know evil in this intimate level. This will be important as we move on in our study here tonight.
Jeffrey Heine:So moving on from that, the consequences of this sin. Look at verse 7. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. They heard the sound of the lord god walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the lord god among the trees of the garden.
Jeffrey Heine:When the lord god called to the man and he said to them, where are you? And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. He said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? And the man said, the woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree and I ate.
Jeffrey Heine:And then the lord god said to the woman, what is this that you have done? And the woman said, the serpent deceived me, and I ate. So one of the first things I want us to see in this section of the consequences of sin is a pretty blanket statement about our identity post fall, and that is this. Sin makes us hide. Sin makes us hiders.
Jeffrey Heine:We hide from god. We hide from one another. We hide from ourselves. We have all these broken relationships. An added broken relationship is creation, ourselves with creation itself.
Jeffrey Heine:But these these three things, these three relationships where we hide, we hide from god, we hide from one another, and we hide from ourselves. This first reaction is to hide from god. And maybe some of you find yourselves in that place right now or at least with that tendency to hide from god. We get angry at him about our circumstance. We get bitter.
Jeffrey Heine:We believe that he's controlling or that maybe he's mad at us, and and we hide from him. Romans chapter 3, Paul says this. None is righteous, no not one. No one understands. No one seeks for god.
Jeffrey Heine:So not only are we hiding from him, but we're not seeking him. But that is the nature of god, that while we are hiders, he is a seeker. Moving on. We hide from one another. The blame shifting that happens, Adam to Eve, Eve to serpent, Surely, that's familiar to you.
Jeffrey Heine:Surely, you know that game. You know those tendencies. As soon as someone calls you out on something, your knee jerk reaction is probably to think of the nearby dagger. It can be completely unrelated to the argument at hand. It can be completely unrelated to what is going on in that circumstance or in that fight or whatever is going on.
Jeffrey Heine:You just reach for the closest dagger, and you strike. We distance ourselves from one another. We hide, we blame, and we hide. And in our hiding, we hide, from vulnerability, We hide from intimacy. We hide from connection.
Jeffrey Heine:And what we see even from Adam and Eve hiding hiding from god, they're hiding from love, love himself. And we replicate that on our own human interactions as well. That our shame and our fear, our sin drives us away from each other and from love. Think about this. Think about the relationship where you have pledged yourself.
Jeffrey Heine:For those of you who are married, you have pledged yourself to another person. And yet, even in that relationship where you've pledged yourself in front of other people, in front of God, you still run and hide. Fear and sin drive us to hide, And we hide from ourselves. We are simultaneously self consumed and self haters. There is pride, and there is anxiety over not being enough, not being safe, not being secure, not being significant.
Jeffrey Heine:And then there's pride. I can do it on my own. I am everything. I don't need anyone. I especially don't need God.
Jeffrey Heine:And somehow, we live in this tension every day. We stand in between the 2, holding on, making that connection. Sin has this effect on us, This brokenness, this emotional brokenness, sexual brokenness, a brokenness with our jobs, a brokenness with our identity, a brokenness in our intimacy, a brokenness in our communication, the way that we speak and the way that we hear. How many arguments have you been in where you have to, like, come back to say, I don't think that you're actually listening to me. And then you realize that neither of you are listening.
Jeffrey Heine:You're just talking. You're waiting to talk, and then you talk over, and then there's not listening. There's not communication. It's broken. And we know this.
Jeffrey Heine:Sin confuses us, and it dulls our senses, and it blurs our vision. C. S. Lewis, in one of his fiction books, he he has a character, kind of an Eve character. She says this about sin.
Jeffrey Heine:There is a dark ignorance that comes from doing evil, as a man by sleeping loses knowledge of sleep. What's a way that we can forget that we are sleeping? How how can what's the best place where we can not know sleep? It's when we're sleeping. Like, that's the best place where we don't we don't even know what sleep is when we're sleeping.
Jeffrey Heine:And to think that sin, when we when we are living in sin, when we are actively pursuing sin, even it clouds our judgment that we don't even know that we're sinning sometimes. Or it dulls our senses to really care. There is, this rhythm to sin, this tone to sin. It's kind of like a lullaby that sin lulls us to forgetfulness. It lulls us to sleep where we forget about sleep altogether, where we forget about sin altogether.
Jeffrey Heine:It lulls us into complacency. It lulls us into a place where we just don't care anymore. We feel like we deserve to do whatever it is that we're doing, that we have some right, or that someone has wronged us in such a way that we can respond in such a way, and it lulls us. Sin has these tones, these rhythms of a lullaby. It often begins with doubt that god is something or has commanded something.
Jeffrey Heine:The doubt comes in and we question that, And then the enemy pro promises something, promises fulfillment in something that is lacking, and we are lulled further. And then when we get that thing that was promised, and we realize it's temporary, and it doesn't really fulfill all the things that we need that sin to fulfill, we start back again. Well, god isn't who he says he is. God must not be who he says he is nor command what he says he commands because I need something else. And we are lulled.
Jeffrey Heine:Consider this. The sickest parts of your soul are unknown to you. Those are the sleeping parts, the the places that have been lulled to sleep by sin. The darkest parts of our hearts are not known to us. We have no idea what we are capable of, and that is part of this consequence fall.
Jeffrey Heine:2 other things about the consequence. Corruption and guilt. 1, that there is a corruption that has come to us, that that nature is corrupt, that human nature is corrupt, that we stand as corrupt individuals. It's out of this twisted heart that we are inclined to sin, that our that our souls, that our hearts are sick with sin. It's the assertion, that original sin makes the point that we are not just sinners because that we sin, there is an identity issue at play.
Jeffrey Heine:It's not just sinners because we sin, it's sinners because that's who we are, that we have an inherited corruption. Secondly, an inherited guilt that in Adam and Eve, in the fall of Adam, that all of mankind bears that guilt. So an inherited corruption from Adam and an inherited guilt. We'll talk about those things further probably in the q and a time, but we'll we'll keep moving. The Westminster Confession says this, man by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation.
Jeffrey Heine:So as a natural human, being altogether averse from that which is good and dead in sin, is not able by their own strength to convert oneself or to prepare oneself thereunto. What that means is that this corruption has rendered us to where we cannot make our own way back to god in no way, Not by being good enough. Not by doing enough good activities. Not by studying things rightly or having great conversations. Not by being earnest in our hearts and our wills, not in any of these things can we make a way back to God.
Jeffrey Heine:We are rendered enabled. We can't do this. We have an inability to make our way back to god. That is this total depravity. And that is not a uniquely, Calvinistic idea.
Jeffrey Heine:That those those ideas also run-in the Armenian tradition as well. It unfolds in There there are distinct expressions of those things, but those kinda have They they share this common idea that we are not able to make our way back to god, and that we are totally depraved. A few more things on the consequences. The fall touches everything. There's not a relationship that you have.
Jeffrey Heine:There's not an activity that you are invested in that is not affected by the fall. Now, there are degrees, of course, but but I'm talking about the extent. It manifests itself in different degrees, in different places, at different times. But the extent of it, it in impacts everything. There's a wonderful slash terrifying Sufjan Stevens song about John Wayne Gacy.
Jeffrey Heine:And in it, he he's talking about I mean, John Wayne Gacy's serial killer. 2nd serial killer reference tonight. We're at an all time high here. So he's talking about how, I mean, John Wayne Gacy, he he had bodies underneath his floorboards. And it's a really terrifying song about this mass murder.
Jeffrey Heine:But then he ends with this comment about, if you were if you were to look beneath the floorboards of my life, and if you saw what I have hidden, you would realize that I'm not so different than him. I'm not that different than him. I remember, probably 10 years ago was it, when, there were a bunch of, I think, teenagers that were going around burning churches in Birmingham? Do y'all or around Alabama? Do y'all remember that, those of you who are Alabamians?
Jeffrey Heine:This was going on about 10 years ago, and I remember hearing all these people. They were just like, these people are terrible. They need to be strung up and shot, and they need to all, like, all these all these vitriol at these people, and I remember having one of these kind of John Wayne Gacy floorboard Sufjan Stevens moments thinking, what do I do to the temple of god? What do I do? They're they're burning down buildings.
Jeffrey Heine:What do I do to the very temple of god? The people of god is the temple of god, and then also to to my own body that god has purchased with his own blood. What do I do? How am I different than these people? I'm not.
Jeffrey Heine:And as soon as I start to think that I am the enemy, as one yet again. When I delight in the death of an evil man, the biggest danger is that I start to think that I'm not evil like him. It's a dangerous thing. The fall touches everything, and yet somehow somehow, there is hope in the fall. We're not gonna have time to get into it, but in in the curse that that that comes, as as god issues out these curses to the serpent and to man and to woman, there's a promise.
Jeffrey Heine:There's a promise that one would come, an offspring, a descendant would come who would crush the serpent. There is a promise. This is the first kind of gospel, glimmer that we have in the old testament. That one would come, and he would right the wrongs. He would break the curse as far as it is found.
Jeffrey Heine:This is the hope in the fall. Also, the fact that there is still beauty in the midst of this fall. There is still beauty here. That there are sunsets, and there are births of babies, and there are meals around tables that we wish would never end. There are hugs, and there's laughter, and there are first dates, and first kisses, and there are paintings, and songs, and dances, and god did not throw the world on a cosmic trash heap after the fall, and say good riddance.
Jeffrey Heine:He didn't throw us onto the trash heap, but he threw his son into our world. That through the cross and through the resurrection and through the ascension and his promised return, that beauty would rise from the ashes of the fall. And we bear witness to that. We are testimonies to that. Your liberated heart from the master's sin testifies that God is in the work.
Jeffrey Heine:He's in this business of bringing beauty back, building the garden. And in that garden, there will be a tree, a tree of life, the tree that Adam and Eve were cut off from as they were sent out and banished from Eden, that we would come back, and he would build for us a dwelling place, and that he would dwell with us, and we would not have to hide from him anymore, nor would we have to hide from one another, nor would we hide from ourselves, but that we could wholeheartedly live in to the goodness and greatness of God. Some of you might have read from Renee Brown's work before or just watched a TED talk. Sometimes it's easier to watch a TED talk than read a book. So maybe you've seen that, but Brene Brown, a a counselor, psychologist, researcher, she she wrote this in her book called, The Gifts of Imperfection.
Jeffrey Heine:Owning our story can be hard, but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky, but not nearly as dangerous as living, giving up on love and belonging and joy. The experiences that make us most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power in the light. This is the promise of the gospel.
Jeffrey Heine:It's the promise of the gospel that when we are given these eyes to see the darkness within ourselves, when that comes, it comes in tandem with the ability to see the light of god. It comes in tandem with the spirit awakening our hearts to see Jesus. We are not left alone looking at our wickedness and wondering what to do. We are not left alone looking at our sinfulness, trying to muster up the courage to make it better. When we are given the eyes to see the darkness in ourselves, we are also given the eyes to see the goodness and graciousness of Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:That's why considering the fall, thinking about original sin, what it means for how we treat other people and give forgiveness and live in the rhythms of grace receiving and grace giving, the reason that it's not a completely depressing topic Because god is still at work, and the promise of the gospel is true. I'm not sure if anyone has said it as succinctly or or wonderfully as Tim Keller, which is why you hear this quote all the time. But I think it's a good place for us to, take a pause for our break. But hear these words. It is his, his rendering of of what the gospel is in a in a really, brief word.
Jeffrey Heine:We are more sinful and broken than we ever dared believed. And we are more loved and more accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hoped. So with that, we'll take our break. We'll ask some questions, and dig back in. So I'm not sure if we, there's some empty seats now.
Jeffrey Heine:I'm not sure if we got rid of the the sinners, or if I just had the people who still wanna drink beer. It could go either way. 6 of 1, half a dozen of the other. We good? Okay.
Jeffrey Heine:So I I've got a couple of more things I'd like to wrap up from the talk. I wanted to make sure that we took our break at 8 o'clock for everybody. I've got a couple more things to to wrap up, and then we'll we'll do the q and a. Okay? So one of the things that I brought up in Adam and Eve knowing sin.
Jeffrey Heine:So at the start in the story, Adam and Eve, they know sin as a result of disobeying God. So as we come to 2nd Corinthians, which we did a study in, I guess it was last year or so we studied 2nd Corinthians together as a church, There's a there's a sentence that Paul writes in chapter 5. Let me read it to you. 2nd Corinthians 5 verse 21. For our sake, God made him, Jesus, to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Jeffrey Heine:So the only way there could be a rescuer, the only way that there would there could be rescue for humankind in any way, especially in light of the total depravity that we talked about. The only way that there could be a way back to God, reconciliation, the only possible way is if there was one who did not know sin. See, one of those things that's passed down, one of the effects of sin is that we all know sin. That's that total depravity as it makes its way to us, and and so what happens is god the father sends the son who does not know sin. See, we have a culture that thinks, like, if you don't know something, you can't really judge it, or you can't really have, like, a perspective on something unless you've you're tried and true.
Jeffrey Heine:Like, you've done that, and you've been there, or what whatever the thing is. Like, you can't knock Dollywood until you've been to Dollywood, you know. I'm sure that's what you were thinking of. But we have these, we have these these ideas that you can't you can't knock something until you've tried it. And what's amazing is that Jesus understands and sees the full extent of our sin better than we can.
Jeffrey Heine:Now, he doesn't know sin, but as God, he sees the full extent, the the the full outcome, all the consequences. He knows all of those things, and we don't. Which is why we can go back to those same things over and over and over and over again. Because we don't understand. And part of the reason that we don't understand is because the way that we vary the the way that we think, not just the things that we think about, but the very way that we think is impacted by the fall.
Jeffrey Heine:The way that we process things, the way that we think about things, the way that we view the world, the way that we try to connect dots, This is a broken system. It's a broken way of thinking. Which is why we need, as Paul says, a renewing of our minds. We need a metamorphosis, a transformation that the way that we think would change. Not just the things that we think about, not just a content change.
Jeffrey Heine:We need a transformation of the very way we think, the way that we see, the way that we listen, the way that we talk, the way that we engage. It has to change. Has to be transformed. And so it took the one who did not know sin, but who knew the full extent of it to become sin on our behalf, So that we might become, so as he's becoming sin on our behalf, we become righteous. We become righteousness in him.
Jeffrey Heine:All of this in him, which is another beautiful concept for us to tie back in. That we are no longer hiding from god, but we are hidden in Christ. That is where our identity comes from. That is where our security comes from. This is where this right thinking begins to grow in us.
Jeffrey Heine:A disdain for what is wicked and a love of what is righteous, putting to death sin in our lives, that's an active daily occurrence of hating sin, hating it more, putting it to death, putting it to the get to death again. Waking up tomorrow, putting it to death again. We can't put sin to death if we're not willing to look at something and label it as sin, to acknowledge that that is a transgression against what god has revealed. But when we submit, when we realize that we are no longer slaves to sin, but we are now slaves to god and righteousness, and we submit under that authority, and then we start to see the world as it is. We start to see the things that we used to do, that we used to delight in.
Jeffrey Heine:Now we grieve over those things. But we don't grieve even in this regard as those who have no hope. No. We grieve knowing the cross. We have to come back to that central reality that is through the cross that we are reconciled, reconciled to God.
Jeffrey Heine:We are rec we see that in 2nd Corinthians 517, that we are reconciled to God. We've been given this ministry of reconciliation that's also with each other. And in the in the renewing of our minds that we are being reconciled back to ourselves, not in a way that is prideful, nor in a way that's self hating, but seeing ourselves as sons or daughters of the living god. That restored identity in Christ, that we are valuable to him, and he has lavished his love on us. Also, that we don't, have to work to gain significance, like our jobs aren't trying to do that.
Jeffrey Heine:We can And and and then it also transforms another way. So that's in relation to the Christian community, ourselves, and to god. But in another way, it permits us to be compassionate. It permits us to be slow to anger. Permits us to be patient with people and peaceable.
Jeffrey Heine:Because we start to realize, she passed away recently, but I I heard Elaine Stritch. She was a broadway star. You might know her best as, Jack's mom on 30 rock, the old lady on there. She died recently. But she she said in the documentary, she she, was referencing her husband.
Jeffrey Heine:She said, everybody's got a sack of rocks to carry. We start to see that other people are struggling too. And those who reject God, either through, passivity, like, just They they don't really wanna talk about it. They're not, like, aggressive with it. They just don't they don't believe in him or trust him or wanna follow him, and and maybe they do it in a really, like, peaceable, kind way, but but that they reject him.
Jeffrey Heine:Or they do it in a really angry way that's that's, full of vitriol and they they they are very aggressive with it. Maybe that side of things, but but and then anything in between. We are able to interact with people in a way realizing that they are broken, and that the pain and the suffering and the effects of the fall are crushing them, and they are hopeless without Christ. That slows our speed in attack and maybe just straight up kills our attack. When we want to to argue viciously with people, we're not we're not being asked and peaceably giving a a a defense of what we believe, like we read in first Peter.
Jeffrey Heine:No. Like, I'm talking about the the times when we're engaging in a way that is ungodly, that is not like Jesus, and that is rude and mean. Like, that there's no room for that. When we realize that we are living in a broken world and and and ultimately, in that, in Elaine's words, that, everyone's got a sack of rocks to carry. Everyone has these burdens to bear.
Jeffrey Heine:And we can be far more patient and compassionate with people when we see the and and understand the fall and the effects of the fall. The last little statement is is on, victory over sin. Kinda hit on that, but I think it it bears, kind of repeating or emphasizing explicitly here that through the victory of Christ over the grave and over death and sin, defeating the enemy and doing all of that through the cross and the resurrection, ascension, and then fully in his return, that we also get to participate in victory over sin, that we can see sin put to death in our day to day life, that we can see struggles and, effects of the fall dissipate and fade through the work of the spirit in our lives. And that that would be happening in Christian community, that we would see those things. Some some fights are lifelong, and some victories are hard fought.
Jeffrey Heine:In fact, I would say most are hard fought. But there is victory through Christ and through his atoning work and life in the spirit, and we should be mindful of that as we look back at the fall and look at the effects of the fall and then, our hope in the fall. So we will, we'll kinda close out the talk there and and go into a q and a time. Now the way that the q and a time goes is if you can, stand up where you are. I'll point to you.
Jeffrey Heine:You stand up. Say your question as loudly as possible. I'll try and repeat it if it's if it's not loud enough. That way everybody can hear. And, I'll do my best.
Jeffrey Heine:If I don't have an answer, if I don't know an answer, I will tell you that. I'm not up here because I'm super smart. That's not why I'm here. And so you can most certainly, every one of you ask me a question that I don't know the answer to. So that's not going to be any fun though.
Jeffrey Heine:So, but but we're gonna we're gonna talk about these things. We can, if it goes a little bit long, we might put a pin in it, and, we can talk afterwards or something like that. But, let's talk about this together now. Alright. Questions?
Jeffrey Heine:Who's gonna be first? You. You've already forgot the first thing. No. No.
Jeffrey Heine:I'm talking to you, but to them. Standing some new thing. Talk to us both. Okay. So
Speaker 3:I've got a 2 part. First, did Adam have a belly button and then secondly, moment. Secondly, what you talked about, like, some of the we're creative is perfect. We have, you know, we go through the fall, and we kinda have a hope in this new kind of resurrection. There's gonna be a new earth.
Speaker 3:You have a new earth. What's kind of to ensure that all this doesn't happen again? The fall?
Jeffrey Heine:Yeah. It's a great question. I'll I'll phrase it like this. Raise your hand if I misquote you. So the question is, with, with God's good created order, which he ends with, this is good, he gives the the seal of approval, and then there's the fall, And then there's this restoration and renewal, reconciliation, recreation that happens as and and what what's to say that the cycle doesn't start over again, that there's a a second fall or a second rebellion?
Jeffrey Heine:And I'm try I'm trying to think of where maybe in scripture we could go that would would talk about that. And I I think that just general reality of security in Christ, that as the remnant that god calls out of humanity and brings to himself as sons and daughters, that the security and and even when when we hear that, that nothing can separate us from the love of god in Christ, when when we when we know that nothing can come, not the will of man nor, evil spirits or even angels or no heights, no depth, nothing like that can separate us from the love of god, I think that that irrevocable, victory of Jesus in purchasing us with the blood of god secures us to where nothing's going to change that reality. And that's where I would put my confidence that not nothing can take us from that position of being in Christ, hidden in Christ. Nothing can pull us out of that, not even my own stupidity or failings now, but that I have been purchased. I am no longer my own, which means I can't undo this, because I'm I'm owned by someone else.
Jeffrey Heine:And, and there's tremendous security and confidence that we can put in, the blood of Christ and in in our place in him. Does that answer? Next. They had 2 belly buttons. It was very confusing.
Jeffrey Heine:They were surprised when everyone else had 1. All right. Next question. Yeah. Yeah.
Jeffrey Heine:That's a good one. It's a good one. Yeah. So the question is, why would why would god do this? Why would God create anything if he knew that?
Jeffrey Heine:I mean, think about this. The lamb was slain before Adam and Eve took a bite. Before the very foundation of the earth, the lamb of God was slain. That's remarkable. Now, what what do we do with this?
Jeffrey Heine:Now, we we have to be careful because, if we think about this too long, we'll all just black out and lay down on the floor. Now, maybe they're used to that here, but it would still it would be it would be problematic. Nonetheless. So we have to believe that what god intends, where this is going, that god desires that to lead us through this, that what god intends with with being with his creation again restored, and with us having a really a a different relationship with him than than, was had in the garden, a different kind of interaction where there is a, a worship of the triune godfather, son, and spirit, being in Jesus, united with Christ, union with Christ by the work of the Holy Spirit, in a way that is v is very different than what we saw in the original created order. And that what this is leading to is desired by God, and because of his character, it is good, it is holy, and it is, of greatest value and worth.
Jeffrey Heine:And so, and that might be as far as I'm willing to speak into that maybe. We are here's the thing. Questions like that are wonderful for us to ask and to ponder, but we really, like, start to recognize our limitations very quickly when it comes to these things. And so we just kinda look at the arc of the of the scriptures and what God has revealed in them, but at the same time, there's a a a bart quote. It's probably attributed to a 100 people by this point, but he says, where god has closed his holy mouth, I shall not open mine.
Jeffrey Heine:That's a pretty good, pumping of the brakes when it comes to some of these things where, I I don't know, but there are certain things that we synthesize from the scriptures that lead us to that view. Question in the back. Yeah. So what would I say to to a Christian who does not believe in original sin? My first statement would be, how do you explain evil and sin in the world?
Jeffrey Heine:Because that's I'd like to know. Like, what is that how do you how do you construct how sin is in the world, your relationship to it, why you, are a sinner, why other people are are sinners transgressing god's law, why is it everyone? Could it not be everyone? Like, I think that there are implications there, but because it has what original sin, more than, like, first it it it the the term really means like the origin of sin, like where sin really began in humanity. And again, this is this is the question that that does the, you know, you you close your mouth because god didn't speak into this.
Jeffrey Heine:You know, god doesn't say where in the scriptures. It doesn't say where sin initially comes from, the heart of Satan in in his fall, the heart of Eve when she first listens to, the serpent and she starts to doubt the goodness of god, even before taking the apple? Was it was it when she's doubting god that sin or was it just in the transgression of the law? It's only in breaking a command that sin entered in. So, I would say that there are implications.
Jeffrey Heine:If you if you don't believe in original sin, I think that we we do have to answer for, sin in the world, and then, our relationship to it and how we explain scriptures like through through Adam's sin comes into the world and then through Christ. This is how righteousness, how we are redeemed. I think I think we have to deal with those, like what it but I I would really have to get to like what is the original what do they think? Like, how do they explain sin, and then we would have to deal with that. I know I keep backtracking to it, but what what would you do you have an answer for the the person who doesn't believe in original sin?
Jeffrey Heine:It's a good question, and original sin is something I mean, original sin was really, formulated as a as a theological framework by Augustine. But these these ideas of, like, what what was being passed down from Adam, I think that we do have to deal with what is the connection between Adam, and all of humanity, and that it's not just something picked up by each individual. Because then each individual would have the chance to choose good and, and not be fallen? So are you saying that the person does not have a they are corrupt but not guilty? Yeah.
Jeffrey Heine:Well, I think that we see guilt, talked about as being from birth, that, we see that in Psalm 51. And David, as he is repenting of sin, and he says, and sin did my mother conceive me. He's not meaning that conception was sinful. He's saying that I am sinful from from the get go. I'm broken from the start, and I didn't just learn into these things.
Jeffrey Heine:I didn't just see patterns of or, or have evil forces come around me and just negatively influence me. There was a problem from the very beginning, and and that innate in every person is this inability, to seek after God, to seek after righteousness, And that that is not just a learned activity or a learned response, but that is something deeply a part of human nature and that the heart is sick, that the heart is deceitful. And and these things are are I think it just a consistent rhythm throughout the scriptures that there is there is a problem from the beginning, and that it's not just circumstances or negative influences, but there is a a a position of inherited guilt and inherited corruption before god. And a devaluing sorry. There's another, a problem that happens when we devalue sin, and we think that maybe it's maybe it's less than than this, human race issue.
Jeffrey Heine:It's more of a context. Sometimes I make some bad choices. When we do that, when we devalue or undervalue or belittle what sin is, it has an effect on how we view the blood of Christ and what he has accomplished and the justice of God against sinners. So how God would would be just in condemning anyone to hell or or executing justice in that way, if it's just this, well, let's see if they're gonna be good or bad. Let's see if if we can just put enough good, social constructs around them, then maybe they might live into a good life, but rather seeing that sin is something it's not just what we're doing, it's who we are.
Jeffrey Heine:It is an identity issue, and that it has ramifications in God's justice and the significance of the the cross and the atonement and resurrection. Joel? Thank you for your question. Yeah. I'll repeat it.
Jeffrey Heine:He said, is sin really such a big deal? No. Pastor Joel asked if, if it's necessary to believe in a literal Adam to believe in original sin. I will speak personally here, because this is my view. And there are lots of Christians throughout history who have had different views on this.
Jeffrey Heine:People that we wouldn't question if they were a Christian or not. CS Lewis was one of them who did not believe in a literal Adam and Eve. I I believe in a literal Adam and Eve, and I believe that that connection to sin and the fall is an important one. I don't think that if you remove that, all the dominoes fall. Some people do.
Jeffrey Heine:Some people think that if you take that out, then, like, it's a whole big guessing game. But I do think it's an important one. Now, whether or not you have to believe in particular creation, perspectives, like for the, you know, can can you say that there's not it's a 6th day, and that I think that the 6th day doesn't really impact, I don't believe, the requirement of a 6th day for a literal atom and then for, a literal fall. But I I hold that view that there was a real Adam. Now one of the reasons why I do that is because it it it reads as though, especially Paul, but also in a reference from Jesus, that they viewed Adam and Eve as real people.
Jeffrey Heine:I think that's an an important hermeneutic, a way to to consider it. Now, you can make arguments that they were just using the milieu of their time or the way that people talk about things, but I don't I don't think so. I don't think that Paul was simply using a literary device to reference a metaphor and allegory of of, the fall. I think that he was really talking about believing that Adam was a real guy because he parallels him with the real guy Jesus from whom redemption comes forth. So that influences my thought.
Jeffrey Heine:I also, believe that part of the problem of the fall and the problem, that I experience in even trying to hold all these things together is that I'm broken. The way I think about it, I yeah, I get that it's it steps on its own foot in a 100 different places and trying to figure out the linear logic to all of these things. I get that. And I'm actually okay. Like, people used to be really, welcoming to mystery.
Jeffrey Heine:It used to be an important facet of the Christian tradition even. It was a beautiful part of the Christian tradition. And now it's this scandalous part that we have to, you know, build a case for Christ on. We have to have, like, I can file litigation. Jesus was this.
Jeffrey Heine:Like, I we don't have to do that all the time. It doesn't have to go in these different areas. Like, we I I really believe that there was a a literal Adam and a literal Eve, and I could be wrong on that. But I think the way that it unfolds into the way the New Testament engages these ideas and what their, sinful disobedience, their willful disobedience of god's law, transgression transgression of the law brought this iniquity, this sin that's in all of us. And and then from that, we see, like in Isaiah 53, which uses all the 3 kind of interchangeable, at times, words for sin, sin, transgression, iniquity, that he's coming, through the suffering servant to save us from those things.
Jeffrey Heine:And I I feel like that is a a a smooth progression there. Not an easy one, but but a, a transgression, a logical unfolding that happens, from a literal atom. Now again, that doesn't mean that one has to wholesale sign off on, young earth and and those kinds of things because there are people that, hold an old earth and literal Adam view. John Stott, Derek Kidner and, Timothy J. Keller are are people that have some of those, backgrounds.
Jeffrey Heine:Now, I don't think they're all exactly the same in those. They don't all 3 hold exactly the same view, but they're similar shapes, to viewing a historical atom. Question in the back. Yeah. So the question is, with Adam and Eve, that Adam was acting, in his free will, his freedom that he had, which was, this unique relationship with god where he truly had a free will.
Jeffrey Heine:His will was not in bondage. What we see later, particularly spelled out in Romans 6, is that there's a bondage of the will for humanity after the fall. That will the the will of man is is in that bondage, and you are a slave, every one. Either a slave to sin, the master's sin, the enemy, or a slave of God. There's not a place where you stand outside of that.
Jeffrey Heine:Now, what's unique in this in this context when it comes to Adam acting not out of corruption, but out of freedom is that his heart was not corrupt. He was not he was not guilty before God. He didn't have an inherited guilt, and he didn't have inherited corruption. He didn't have a leaning towards sin or a resistance of righteousness. He wasn't corrupt in those things, nor did they, were they missing a moral capacity to discern activity of being good or bad.
Jeffrey Heine:They they heard God say to do this, and they understood and and and this is where, you know, Jesus, I think in, in John 5 might be wrong. It might be 8. But Jesus is talking about Satan, and he he he says he's a liar from the beginning. And this goes back to this is the the serpent who lies, who who first casts a shade of doubt, he sneers and says, did he really say that? And then he brings in the lie.
Jeffrey Heine:He brings in the deceit. And he lies to them. And when that is ushered in and Eve begins to doubt in her heart and in her mind, and then they go to the tree, and then they transgress. They break the law. Then the corruption comes.
Jeffrey Heine:We see that corruption firstly played out in them seeing their own nakedness and then in hiding from god in their shame. So that original context was not one of corruption, but goodness and freedom that then lead then the corruption comes in the fall and in the transgression. Does that answer your question? Yes. I I meant to ask that after every question.
Jeffrey Heine:So for those of you who I didn't say that to, I hope I answered your question. Next question. Any more? Yes, Alan. So there's
Speaker 2:an inherent problem we've been talking about, the fall. And then now, I am we are new creations in Christ. Yeah. So how does that reconcile? To identify with Paul, why do I keep doing the things that I don't wanna wanna do?
Speaker 2:Yeah. If I'm in fact a new creation, that is something in being a new creation, that's something implicitly different than something that I was before
Jeffrey Heine:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Which was completely lost and completely blind.
Jeffrey Heine:Yeah.
Speaker 2:What's the difference? Why do I keep doing the things I don't wanna do?
Jeffrey Heine:So the question is, I'm a new creation in Christ. I'm I'm in Jesus. I trust him. I believe him, and yet I'm still doing things that I don't wanna do. I'm still sinning.
Jeffrey Heine:I'm still, living independently from God. I'm making these independent choices. I'm not doing everything in faith, which leads to, kind of unfolds to another question of not just do Christians still sin, but are Christians always sinning? The answer is yes, that we are. Because anything not done out of faith is sin, which means that we can still do good things.
Jeffrey Heine:Even a non believer can do a good thing. That doesn't mean that they're not sinning. Because the reason why we do things, like, in general, like, most people believe that lying is a bad thing. Like, that's not a good thing to do. You shouldn't lie.
Jeffrey Heine:Don't lie to somebody. If you're, you know, especially you're married, some something happens, don't lie about it. They would say that's that's wrong. And so someone is following one of god's commandments not to lie, But they're sinning because the Why are they not lying to their spouse? Because they don't want to get in trouble?
Jeffrey Heine:Because they don't wanna have a fight? Because they want, for once, just to have a nice dinner? Like, they have all these different reasons, like, why they're not doing it. But it's not living unto God, seeking to please Him, to honor Him, to love Him, to serve Him, to obey Him. It's not out of the trust of Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:It's not from those things. And then we have to say, do I ever do that? Do I ever do anything that's totally 100% for the glory of God, out of a love for God, out of a trust for God, obeying God? Do I ever do that to to every degree? And the answer is no.
Jeffrey Heine:Which is why my very best efforts, my very best activities are still these filthy rags before God. It's still busted up and sinful and something worth repenting of. And then, as you might have heard before, I have to repent of that repentance because that was selfishly motivated, or I wanted to feel less guilt, or what was, you know, what what was going on in that capacity as well? So to circle back, state the first part of your question again,
Speaker 2:please. There's an inherent problem. I one way, and now, I'm a new creation, and the problem remains.
Jeffrey Heine:Yeah. So the problem remains that I I still have this flesh. Is the way that Paul talks about it. I still have this flesh, I still have this body, I still have this corruption. Now sin is no longer my master, and I have to be clear on that.
Jeffrey Heine:I can still hear his voice. I can still obey him. But he's not my master. My master is God. I belong to him.
Jeffrey Heine:I've been purchased. I'm not my own. In fact, nothing about me is my own anymore. So as I am striving to live in these things, and also another reason why sin is still happening is the spirit is still illuminating sin in my heart. There's still stuff I don't know about.
Jeffrey Heine:As he's showing it to me, and I grieve over it, and I hate it, and I turn from it, and I trust God. So then, when we have to deal with this I'm just gonna unfold all these other questions then we have to deal with, is God gonna keep forgiving me if I keep coming to him with the same sin? Like, if I keep coming back to god and saying, I did it again. I did it again. I did it again.
Jeffrey Heine:Is he gonna keep forgiving me, or is he just gonna lock me up for good one time? You've seen those pictures of, like, the guy who's been arrested, a 170 times for the same thing, like, public drunkenness over and over again, And it's his mugshot over and over again. I feel like I've got a 1,000 mugshots from god, where I keep coming in and saying, I I did it again. I did it again. So is he gonna keep forgiving me if I keep repenting over the same things?
Jeffrey Heine:Yes. Because it's not about the quality of my repentance. It's the quality of Jesus' blood and his sacrifice. That's the quality that my forgiveness is based on. My forgiveness is based not on the quality of my repentance, but on the quality of Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:Now, that doesn't mean that I use this freedom for sin. By no means. No. I use that freedom now to live into this grace and obedience and trust that God has for me. So as I see, yes, even my best works are sinful.
Jeffrey Heine:And I see, yes, I keep messing up and doing the same things. But I hold fast to this. I hold fast to Christ and him crucified on my behalf. I hold fast to the quality of the blood of the atonement. I hold fast to the lamb that was slain.
Jeffrey Heine:Because in him is the full forgiveness of sins. Now if I deny my sin and I say that I am not a sinner, I make God a liar. But if I confess, he is quick, and he is just. How is he just? The blood of Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:He is quick, and he is just to forgive me. So I run to repentance. I delight in repentance. It's not this dark, gloomy thing of a of a of a dark confessional. It is the light of the brilliance of God's glory and his forgiveness being showered upon us, who don't deserve it and never will.
Jeffrey Heine:And we live in that repentance day in day out. So as we mourn and we say, why do I keep doing the things that I don't want to do? And the things that I should be doing, I'm not doing those things. We should mourn them. We should be aggressive in putting, sin to death.
Jeffrey Heine:We also are hopeful, and we are joyful because of the accomplished work of Christ that's applied to us, not because of the quality of our repentance but the quality of Jesus. How about we end there? Does that sound good? If you've got another question, if you would like to look at I always like to, at the Talk Back Coffeehouses, I like to bring, some of the resources or at least like 1 a representative from different areas that I, have been studying, because I need these things. Like, I'd it's, and I I enjoy reading them.
Jeffrey Heine:So here are a couple for you to take a gander at if you'd like to. If you'd like to talk about these things further, I'll be up