Beyond Spin: As Long As You Don’t Hurt Anyone

Good morning church! Today, we are wrapping up our series, Beyond Spin: The Reality of Truth by looking at an idea that many people espouse, “As long as it doesn’t hurt anyone what does it matter?”

To get started, I’d like to ask you to take a look at the people around you. Take a good look at those in front of you, beside you, behind you. Take a really good look. I want you to think for a moment about all the people that you just looked at and at the count of three, what I want you to do is to point at the one that looks like the biggest sinner. Ready? One, two…No, we probably shouldn’t be pointing at other people in church, but you have to admit it would have been interesting to see what would happen.

What I want to talk to you about today is a commonly held belief about right and wrong and about sin.

Now, if you’re new with us, I want to review some of the key terms that we’ve studied in the last few weeks. The first key term is relativism. What is relativism? It is the assumption that there is no such thing as absolute truth. Truth is evolving. It is changing. What used to be wrong, well hey, it’s a different world today. So what used to be wrong may be right today. You don’t have a corner on the truth so what is true to you may be not be true to me, what’s true to me may not be true to you. There is no such thing as absolute truth.

This leads to a second very common belief, which is subjectivism. Now, what is subjectivism? It is the belief that I the subject have the right to determine what is right and wrong without submitting my judgement to any authority outside myself. In other words, you have no right to tell me what’s right or wrong; since there is no absolute truth, don’t you try to impose your truth on me. I will determine for myself what is true and what is not true because what is true to me may or may not be true to you.

Relativism and subjectivism have led to a huge shift in the way people live and what they believe at their core. Here’s a great example; let me ask what do you think is the most commonly quoted Bible verse in the world? What do you think? I want you to think for a minute. Now, how many of you would have said John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Now, if you said that 10 years ago, you would have been absolutely right, but not today.

The most commonly quoted Bible verse today, according to studies, is not John 3:16, but is instead Matthew 7:1, “Judge not lest you be judged”. In other words: Don’t judge me. Even non-Christians use that one all the time. It’s misused in order to justify what we’re doing.

During the time and life of Jesus, historians tell us that there was one virtue that stood above all others. What do you think was the most important virtue during the life of Jesus and for centuries before? According to historians, the most common and popular virtue was that of justice. God is a just God. An eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. You do something wrong, you have to pay. If you commit some kind of sin there will be a penalty, Justice.

Well, today the most common virtue in the world is not justice. In fact, according to 85% of the cultures in the world today, what do you think the most important virtue is? Not justice, but tolerance.

Now, if you’re my age or older, when you think of tolerance you think of putting up with someone or something that you don’t really like. How many would say that’s how you grew up? For instance, Pastor Brian is a graduate of the University of Texas so I tolerate him. I don’t generally like Longhorns, but Pastor Brian, I’ll tolerate. Love you, Brian.

Well, today there is a new definition for tolerance and the new definition is basically that all beliefs, all values and all lifestyles are equal. It doesn’t matter what you believe, it doesn’t matter what you do, it doesn’t matter how you live, as long as you don’t hurt anyone. You can do whatever you want.

“Don’t judge me, I won’t judge you, there’s no truth anyway, you can’t tell me what’s right or wrong, I’ll make the determination, therefore I can do whatever I want and lets all tolerate whatever beliefs or lifestyles that everyone has because they are all absolutely equal.”

We find that mindset captured in scripture in 2 Timothy 4:3 when Paul said to Timothy, “For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear.”

“Hey it’s your body you can do whatever you want. It’s your life don’t let anyone tell you how to live it. Hey, maybe it is wrong to them, but it is not wrong to you. The bottom line is you should be happy; God wants you happy so do whatever you want to be happy.” Itch, itch, itch, scratch scratch, scratch,

2 Timothy 4:4, “They will reject the truth and chase after myths.”

I want to show you three prevalent beliefs about right and wrong that exist in our world today. Let’s start with, “I’m not a bad person”.

“I’m not an axe murderer. I’m not nearly as bad as a lot of people.” I’m not a bad person and in order to justify my belief that I’m not a bad person I’ve got two tools that help me do it. One is the tool of comparison and the other is the tool is repackaging.

Comparison: “Well, you know I don’t cuss as much as you, I don’t curse and say bad words like you do. I do every now and then like maybe if I hit my thumb with a hammer or if I get pulled over by a police officer or if I slice the golf ball into the woods, but not like you. I mean, you do it all the time.” So I’m not a bad person because when I compare myself to someone there’s someone much worse than I am. I’m not that bad of a person, I mean look around, there are a lot of people a lot worse than me.

Another thing I can do to justify my sinful behavior is I can repackage sin. I can kind of baptize the sinful words and make them sound much better. For example, don’t say I lied. Instead, I say it was a white lie, just a fib, just exaggerating. You know everybody else does it. I’m not a bad person.

You Have No Right To Tell Me What To Do

This is born out of the statement that there is no absolute truth and belief number two: Since there is no absolute truth then you have no right to tell me how to live.

“Who are you to judge me? It’s my life; I can do whatever I want. Besides you’re doing some bad stuff yourself there buddy. Don’t you get in my business. It’s none of your business how I live. Don’t tell me it’s wrong because you have no right to do that and besides if it is wrong, I mean God is going to forgive me anyway, right. We got this deal going on, God loves me, he sends me to Heaven and that’s just kind of the way it is. I can do whatever I want, right? It’s not a big issue.”

Now, what I want to do is show you when you take belief number 1 and you add it to belief number two, you get a dangerous conclusion. Belief in number one, I’m Not A Bad Person, plus belief in number two, You Have No Right To Tell Me How To Live equals the belief that I Can Justify Doing Anything I Want To Do.

This is exactly where tons and tons of people are living today. “I’m not a bad person. You can’t tell me what to do, therefore I can justify doing whatever I want to do.” As your pastor, I can give you one of a bazillion different examples. Let’s just a pick a few.

“Hey, we’re dating and I know they used to say that you shouldn’t live together before you’re married, but hey you know that everybody does it now and you can’t tell me what’s right or wrong. We’ll probably get married anyway. But, we’re really in love, and I’d just say it this way, we are married in our hearts, okay? So we are moving in together. I mean, it’s just a piece of paper anyway. Don’t tell me how to live.”

Or, let’s do say after you do get married, then 18 years and three kids later you’re like, “You know what you’re just not making me happy. I’m not happy. I know I promised that deal before God, you know for better or for worse, but let’s be honest I’ve gotten better, you’ve gotten worse. You’re just not making me happy and so since God wants me happy and you’re not making me happy, then I can justify doing something that otherwise would be wrong in the name of happiness because, hey I’m not a bad person. Who are you to tell me what to do?!”

How about music? “I’m not going to pay 99 cents to download a song I like. Everybody else does it for free, right? Now, I know some teacher in school said that was stealing, but that’s not stealing. It’s not stealing when everybody does it. There is nothing wrong with that. Everybody else does it.”

Just a raw stat, just for fun, since I started talking just a few minutes ago, just since I’ve started talking about 1,388,000 songs have been downloaded illegally around the world. Just since I’ve started talking.

“Why, I’m not a bad person. Who are you to tell me what’s right or wrong?” Therefore,“I can do whatever I want to do.” Now, for those of you that are not Christians, I really have no problem with you living that way. I really don’t, because if you don’t believe in God and you don’t believe in Heaven and Hell and you don’t believe that your actions and beliefs today impact your eternity, you might as well do what you want. Truthfully, you might as well do what you want.

The one’s that I have a problem with are those of you that call yourselves Christians, that actually believe that your actions and beliefs determine your eternal destination and basically what you are saying is, “Well God, I know what you say, but I’m going to do whatever the heck I want to do.” And there is a generation of so called Christians that have that mindset.

In the first week of our series we looked at Romans 1 and how people exchanged the truth of God for a lie. I want to revisit Romans 1 and look at some verses that really seem to capture our current generation.

Romans 1:28-32, “Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy. They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too.”

We know what’s right and wrong but we continue to do the wrong thing. Why? “I’m not a bad person. Hey, who are you to tell me what is right or wrong? Therefore I can justify doing whatever the heck I want to do. It’s all good, wink wink, God you’re still going to take me to Heaven, right?”

So, we’re in this really gray world. I acknowledge that. But, I want to give you two black and white truths about you that you can take to the bank all day long and the first one is this:

You Are A Bad Person. You’ve got to understand this. You’re a bad person, I’m a bad person. Welcome to LakeRidge where we like to try to help you feel good about yourself. Seriously though, we’re very sinful in the eyes of God. Scripture is really clear about this. In 1 John 1:8, it says, “If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth.”

Jesus came to seek and save the lost and until you realize you’re lost you are not going to realize you need to be found. Until you acknowledge that you are a sinner you are not going to see a need for a savior.

You might say, “But I’ve got a good heart.” No you don’t! Scripture says your heart is deceitful above all things! Apart from God, we’re nothing. “Oh but I do good works, you know, I gave a little money in the Salvation Army kettle in front of the grocery store when that woman was ringing a bell at Christmastime. I’m a greeter at church. I do good things.” No, no, no. All of your righteousness together, it’s horrible in the eyes of God. This is what the scripture says, just pointblank.

Isaiah 64:6, “all of us have become like one who is unclean”. All of our righteous acts are like what? The Bible says they are like “filthy rags”. Black and white truth number one: You are a bad person.

Black and white truth number two, You Can Find Forgiveness and Healing through Christ. You can do that today. I promise you. Forever, you can be different through Christ. Scripture says this, 1 John 1:9, “But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.”

If you go before God today he will cleanse you. He will forgive you; he will purify you from all unrighteousness. What leads us to that true and honest confession before God? 2 Corinthians 7:10, says, “For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death.”

When the holy light of God shines in the darkness of my heart, as I get closer to God, the reality of my sin becomes clearer to me and as a result there is a sorrow. What I see today across our broader culture is not sorrow. It is, “Hey, I hope I don’t get caught”. It is more like, “Forgive me, I’m going to keep doing it anyway”. It is not godly sorrow, godly sorrow leads to repentance.

What is repentance? It is, “I’m lost in this low sin”. Re means to turn the other direction, pent is the highest. It is like the penthouse. I turn from the lower sinful things to the higher way from God. I am turning away from my sin, I’m not going to come back to it, I’m turning away, I’m turning to God and he’s going to heal me. He’s going to cleanse me; he’s going to forgive me.

This is as if I’ve never sinned before. It’s gone. He forgets it. When I call out on the name of Jesus I become a new creation. Behold, all the old is gone, the new is there.

I’m filled with the power of the Holy Spirit; I don’t have to live in sin anymore. I can overcome it, not by my own strength but by his power. He forgives me, but it’s not this “Hey, God, dude yeah, we’re buddies. Hey, I’m still doing what I want”.

It’s supposed to be, “I’m growing close to you. You are real. You are holy. You are pure. You are right. You are truth. I want to live to please you” and when I don’t there is a deep conviction of, “Oh God I’m sorry. I’m sorry”. I’m not going to hold back anymore.

When there is no such thing as absolute truth, I can determine my own destiny. That is the most dangerous, subtle, deceitful plan of the enemy to take you from God.

There is a truth, there is a way, there is a life, his name is Jesus and you settle for anything else you are settling for a cheap imitation of the truth that can set you free.

God, may we be a people who know the truth, see the truth, live the truth, experience the truth of your son Jesus and glorify him in all that we do.