SERMON TITLE: Sin & Repentance
TEXT: Various Verses
SPEAKER: Ed Grable
DATE: 5.25.2025
Sermon Discussion Guide
Westminster Shorter Catechism
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Good morning! I bring you greetings from our North Main Campus. I want to welcome everyone worshiping there as well as our friends in Bucyrus. I am honored to be with you today! My hope is that everyone hearing my voice will leave today encouraged and empowered to live a life guided by biblical truth and have an overflowing love for Jesus and those he’s placed in their lives.
Today, I have the privilege of continuing our series on the Westminster Shorter Catechism. This year, we are continuing to examine the catechism's questions and answers. A few staff and elders examine each question and then explain the biblical answers to show us why it is important that we know and understand them. So if you missed any sermons from this series or any sermons from last year, I encourage you to go to gatewayepc.org/sermons and catch up.
Today, we’ll examine question 14 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism. What I have discovered in preparing for this message has deepened my love for the Bible and my love for God. My desire is that you will be changed today as well. Once you see God for who he is and how much he loves you, you can't help but want to love and worship him in return.
As we begin, I have a question for you. Have you ever had someone point out a sin in your life, and you dismissed them, telling them it's not a problem?
This happened to me around 2004. I’d just gotten out of the Army Guard and was going to school for ministry. My wife had said something about my anger and suggested I talk to my accountability partner about it. I said I would, but really did not see a need to do so. A couple of days later, my wife told me the oil light was on in her van. I told her not to drive it and that I would take care of it. The next day, I was heading to class, and as I was driving, I saw the van. I instantly got mad and was talking to myself, saying I told her not to drive the van. So I weaved in and out of Fort Wayne traffic, breaking the speed limit so I could pull up next to her at the next light. I pulled up next to the van, put my window down, and looked over. Ready to let her have it, but to my surprise there was a big bald guy with tattoos. It was at that moment I realized I was driving the van. I'm such an idiot.
You see I let my anger get the best of me, and my wife's words rang in my head as I drove away. At that moment, God tapped me on the shoulder and showed me my sin. The sin of anger which I was in complete denial of. You see, it wasn't until I recognized and owned my sin could I start on the path of repentance and work on not being such an angry person.
I tell you this story for two reasons. First, I want you to be honest with yourself about your sin because if you're not, you will struggle to repent of it and be free from it. Just so we are clear, repentance is not just about feeling sorry for our sin and avoiding its consequences, but a much deeper and more transformative process. It's a change of heart, a turning away from sin and towards God, fueled by the good news of the gospel. The late Tim Keller emphasizes that “True repentance involves recognizing our mistakes, choosing to not repeat them, and joyfully saying sorry, all within the context of God's grace and love.” We will touch on this again later.
Secondly, I share my story because I want you to see that even though I have the privilege of standing in this pulpit, I am still just like you, a sinner saved by grace and a work in progress. It is vital to understand right off the start that we are all guilty of being sinners. The first step to victory over our sins is to examine our sins. My hope is that by the end of our time together, you will find freedom from the bonds of your sins.
So, with that said, let's look at question fourteen in the Westminster Shorter Catechism:
Question fourteen is: What is sin?
Answer: Sin is disobeying or not conforming to God's law in any way.
So, this means we sin when we break God's laws or commandments. Now, the next natural question is what are God's laws or commands? For those of us who have been in church for any amount of time, we think of the Ten Commandments. Even though there are many more commandments found in scripture, there are God’s first. Moses was given these as he led the Israelites in the desert. They are found in Exodus 20:1-17.
The Ten Commandments are as follows:
Now we will not be diving into each commandment or focusing on any specific sins because, once again, I want you to focus on your own sins. I will be sharing some of my sin struggles for reference, but in an attempt to not call out a specific sin I will keep things very general. If you want to take a deep dive into the Ten Commandments, go to our website and watch the series Josh did. It's one of my favorites.
If you look at that list of commandments again, you will see that the first four commandments focus on our love and relationship with God, while the final six turn our focus to the relationship and love we should have for others. Breaking the first four fractures your relationship with God, and when you choose to disobey the last six commands, you fracture your relationship with mankind.
As I reflect on my life, I can point out how my sin has caused a fractured relationship with God and with the people in my life. In those times when I chose to break God’s commandments and not conform to his ways, I fractured my relationship with him, my growth as a Christian and my faith suffered. The longer I lived in sin, the harder it was for me to reconnect to anything to do with God and the church.
When we sin against people, we cause hurt and disappointment, and sometimes destroy a relationship beyond repair. This is why we see marriages fall apart, friendships dissolve, and even churches close. Sin affects and infects us all, from the infant in the nursery to the oldest saint among us. We are all sinners. Scripture tells us we are all sinful and have fallen short of God's standards. Scripture also states that none is righteous, not one. Jeremiah shuts down any hope we might have in believing we are a good person when he says the human heart is the most deceitful of all things, desperately wicked, who really knows how bad it is.
That may seem harsh, but hang out with a small child if you don't believe me. No one has to teach them to lie or steal or choose violence. No, they instinctively decide to do these things, and if they don't get their way they let you know they are not happy. They hold their breath and clinch their fists, and you swear they are literally going to blow up. Then they become teenagers, which is just great! Nope, not really.
Anyways, as we grow older, we just get better at hiding our sins and justifying them. If we are honest, we also often compare ourselves to others by saying, "At least I'm not as bad as that person." Have you ever noticed that those people will often flip to an extreme, like, "At least I'm not as bad as the ax murderer on the news," and you are forced to agree with them?
In today's world, sin is not a topic of conversation, and as long as you are not doing anything outside the laws of man, you are a good person. Sadly, there are many people today who live this lie. They believe they are a good person because they do good deeds, give money to the poor, and love everybody. This is true of people who claim to be Christ-followers, as well as people who don't want anything to do with Jesus or his Church. They believe they can earn their way to heaven, and as long as the good outweighs the bad, it will all turn out in the end. But once again, scripture shows us this is not true. John says if we claim not to sin, we are only fooling ourselves and are not living in the truth.
Do you know why we sin? It's because we want to. We sin because it brings us pleasure or gets a desired result. Take a moment and think about a sin in your life. Does it bring you joy or get you the desired result?
I also believe well-meaning Christians learn to keep their sins from the public eye, but at home, that impatient, unloving, and angry person shows up. Let's take this morning, for example. How many of you broke the speed limit on your way here because you were running late? Who lost their temper with someone they love because they were taking forever to get ready, or maybe you got in the car and the gas gauge was on E?
The reason I used these examples is that I had many Sundays like that when my kids were little, and as I shared before, I had anger issues, and getting ready for church was often the worst day of the week for me when it came to my anger. I’m screaming and yelling and made people cry. But as soon as we walked into the church, we were all smiling, and we looked like the perfect little family. Can anyone relate?
Let's return to my opening story. When I saw my wife's van, let's pretend I wasn't driving it this time, and I really did see her in traffic. I chose anger over grace the first time. But I could have waited until I got home and asked why she was driving the van even though I asked her not to. Maybe she had a good reason. One of our kids could have been sick, or she had to take care of her elderly grandmother, but instead of giving her the benefit of the doubt, I saw red and charged in like an idiot. I always justified my sin by blaming the situation, other people, and the pressures of life. I’d tell myself that I would not have gotten mad if they had not done this or that. But the truth is, I enjoyed getting angry because it gave me power and control of the situation momentarily.
For years, I wrestled with my sin of anger. This is what is called a habitual sin. I asked forgiveness from God and the people I hurt so many times, I lost count. I felt trapped in this vicious wash cycle of anger and shame. I wanted to stop, but could not figure out why I kept falling into the same trap over and over. I was sharing my struggles with a Christian friend, and he told me I was not alone and that the apostle Paul, a giant in our faith, struggled in a similar way when he said, “I don't understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do but what I hate I do.”
You see, Paul wrestled with his sin as well. In fact later, in the same section of scripture, Paul acknowledges that the reason he keeps missing the mark is that sin lives in him. Because of that sin, there is no good in him, but the evil in him keeps on doing the things he does not want to do. I heard a story that might help us see that we all have the potential to do evil and emphasize the importance of understanding how sinful we can be at our core.
Holocaust survivor Yehiel De-Nur fainted while testifying at the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann, a major organizer of the Holocaust. Shortly afterwards, De-Nur collapsed and gave no further testimony.
In a 60 Minutes interview in 1983 with De-Nur, Mike Wallace asked: “How is it possible for a man to act the way Eichmann did? Was he a monster? A madman? Or was he perhaps something even more terrifying? Was he normal?” Wallace brought up the fainting incident at the trial and asked if De-Nur was overcome by hatred or fear or horrid memories. De-Nur recounted that all at once he realized that Eichmann was not the god-like army officer that had sent so many to their deaths. Eichmann was just an ordinary man. De-Nur said, “I was afraid of myself. I saw that I am capable of doing this. I am exactly like him.” Wallace concluded, “Eichmann is in all of us.” This shows us that we are all capable of doing evil things if we aren't careful.
The other truth about sin is that it can snowball. We sin, and then we sin to try to cover up the initial sin. All of a sudden, you're so deep you feel trapped in a vicious cycle. This was the case for David when he got stuck in a cycle of sin. But before we look at David’s sin, I want to give you some important background history I found in my study. Now, between the time David was anointed King and the time he was crowned King, he had to escape to the wilderness to hide from Saul because he had grown jealous of David’s fame after he killed the giant Goliath.
David surrounded himself with thirty-seven men described in the Bible as David's mighty men. These are warriors much like a modern-day Delta Force. They did some incredible things and fought some great battles. Their loyalty and courage made them stand out above the other warriors that David had gathered to fight by his side. Many of their exploits, as well as David's cycle of sin, are recorded in 2 Samuel. It's a great read! Take some time this week and check it out for yourselves.
Scripture also tells us that David was a warrior King and did not shy away from combat, but for some reason, David sent his troops off to war in the spring while he stayed home. While he was home, he just happened to be on his roof when the neighbor lady, Bathsheba, took her bath. After seeing her, he seduced her and slept with her. Then, surprise, she became pregnant. To try to cover it up, David called her husband home from the war in hopes he would sleep with his wife during his visit.
His name was Uriah the Hittite. Remember David’s Mighty Men; Uriah was one of them. They knew each other well, they had gone to war together. But Uriah was a real leader and chose to sleep outside and not spend time with his wife because his men were not able to be with theirs. David asks him to stay another day, and this time he gets Uriah drunk, and sends him home in hopes that he would sleep with his wife, but once again Uriah refuses to do so, knowing his men were still on the battlefield.
Uriah headed back to the fight but little did he know, David had told his generals to put him on the front lines so he would die in battle, removing the chance of David's sin being revealed. When news of Uriah's death reached David, he dismissed it without a care. Then David took the grieving widow as his wife.
About a year later, the Prophet Nathan called David out for his sin. But before Nathan convicts David of his sin, he does not seem remorseful or repentant. In fact, he thinks he has gotten away with it all. But the prophet Nathan tells David a story about a rich man with many sheep and a poor man who only had one that he cherished. The poor man’s sheep ate with his family and slept with them, and it was loved like a daughter. One day, a traveler visited the rich man, and instead of using one of his many sheep, the rich man took the poor man's sheep and fed it to his guest. Hearing this, David was enraged and demanded that the rich man die. This is when Nathan revealed that David was the rich man in the story and he had broken God's commandments. David had sinned
David's response is found in Psalm 51.
1 Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins. 2 Wash me clean from my guilt. Purify me from my sin. 3 For I recognize my rebellion; it haunts me day and night. 4 Against you, and you alone, have I sinned; I have done what is evil in your sight. You will be proved right in what you say, and your judgment against me is just. 5 For I was born a sinner-yes, from the moment my mother conceived me. 6 But you desire honesty from the womb, teaching me wisdom even there.
7 Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. 8 Oh, give me back my joy again; you have broken me- now let me rejoice. 9 Don't keep looking at my sins. Remove the stain of my guilt. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me. 11 Do not banish me from your presence, and don't take your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and make me willing to obey you. 13 Then I will teach your ways to rebels, and they will return to you.
14 Forgive me for shedding blood, O God who saves; then I will joyfully sing of your forgiveness. 15 Unseal my lips, O Lord, that my mouth may praise you. 16 You do not desire a sacrifice, or I would offer one. You do not want a burnt offering. 17 The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.
David's pleas to God to restore his relationship with him and his desire to be forgiven are among the most heartfelt prayers in scripture. He bears his soul as an example of true repentance and brokenness. It wasn't until David took ownership of his sins and was truly broken that he went to God and repented. Many people today struggle to distinguish the difference between remorse and repentance. Let me give you an example.
If I were to get in my car and go down the freeway at 140 miles per hour, I would be remorseful if the highway patrol pulled me over. Why? Because I’d pay a penalty for my choices. I’d get a ticket and maybe even spend the night in jail. And my insurance rates would go up significantly.
But if I were to get in my car and do the same thing the next day, it would show that I was not repentant. There’s a difference between remorse and repentance. Sometimes we confuse the two. We’re remorseful when we’re sorry for getting caught. But we’re repentant when we’re sorry enough to stop doing the same thing.
A lot of people feel remorseful. Maybe someone traps them in a lie or catches them stealing. Or perhaps they sin in some other way, which eventually catches up with them. Thus, they’re remorseful. But do they change their behavior? If they simply plot a little more carefully the next time and hope they won’t get caught, that’s not repentance; that’s just remorse.
The Bible says, “For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation.”
We need to go to God, repent, and ask for forgiveness, knowing he can make us whole. We need to allow others to pray for us in our brokenness so we aren't alone in the battle. Repentance is the first step to healing and restoration in our relationship with God and the people we share life with. If not addressed, sin can eat at you and be destructive, no matter how well you think you are at covering it up or hiding it.
What was Peter's message to the crowd on the day of Pentecost? Acts 3:19 "Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out.” That is my hope for many of you today. Recognize your sin and repent.
Maybe you are hearing my voice, and this sin and repentance thing is all new to you, or you have heard it before, but you think you are too far gone and there is no saving you. You believe God could never forgive or love you because of all of your sins. Maybe you know the truth I have talked about today and even lived it at some point in your life, but you have gotten buried by your sin, and the lies have piled up so high you don't know what truth looks like anymore. Well, I have good news for you.
Listen, you're not alone. I've been there, and I can honestly tell you his grace is sufficient, and he still loves you. All you have to do is repent and come back to him. God, in his rich mercy, even though we were dead in sin, sent Jesus to pay a price we could not, then he raised him from the grave, giving us victory over sin and death, and he now sits at the Father's right hand interceding on our behalf. All you have to do is believe and receive his free gift of grace, mercy, and love.
I often picture God sitting at a big desk in heaven. There are all these files, and one says Grable. As God picks it up, he says, "Yep, he has sinned for the ten thousandth time. What are we going to do about this?" And Jesus says, "He is one of mine; he is good." What freedom is there in knowing his grace is sufficient and he has plenty of it for a broken sinner like me? Grace upon grace is mine each time I truly repent and throw myself at his feet and allow him to heal and restore me.
I knew I was a sinner at a young age. I also had heard the Gospel many times, but I had trouble with two things. The concept of grace and believing God would ever love me. You see, I am adopted, and before I was a Grable, I went through some horrible experiences as a child. Once I was removed from that environment, I was placed in three foster homes. It got to the point that I believed I was the problem, and I hid a brown paper bag with my clothes in it so I had something to wear if they sent me to a new place.
I took that bag to my new house even after being adopted. One day, about six months later, I got in trouble and was convinced my new parents were done with me, and it was time to move on, so I grabbed my brown bag and stood by the front door waiting for them to send me on my way. When my father saw me there, he said, “What are you doing, Eddie? And I told him I was ready to go to my next house because I was too bad for this one.” He knelt down and said, “You're not going anywhere. We love you, and you can never be bad enough that we will ever stop loving you. We adopted you, and you have a new name and a new life.” That was the first time I had felt loved unconditionally.
The other thing I struggled with was the fact that this grace was a free gift from God. I grew up in the 1980s, and I was always told you get nothing for free. There was always a catch. How many of you fell for that as a teenager or young adult? All I have to say is Columbia Records Club, right? I saw God's grace that way. I will take the free gift, but I’m going to have to pay it off little by little for my entire life. But thankfully, I was mentored as a young Christian by a man who showed me the truth.
He told me yes, you will sin and you will fall to temptation, but as a child of God, God will not disown you. You can never out-sin or outrun his grace. He loves you and his word says “For by grace we are saved through faith; and that not of ourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.” Allow your struggles and sins to cause you to run to Jesus instead of away. He is waiting and willing. He is the good shepherd, leaving the 99 to rescue the one.
Come on, black sheep rest in him and accept his love and grace today.
The weight of our sin keeps us from living and enjoying life to its fullest. I want you to hear me when I say that you are loved so much, your sins do not define you, and his grace is sufficient for you. I want you to know that you can have freedom from your sins today. Scripture says if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all wickedness.
So, if you are repentant of your sins and want to leave today alive in Christ, renewed and restored, come forward after the service, we will have the elders and prayer teams available at your campus. If you want to receive the free gift of grace and give your life to Christ for the first time, please come forward as well so we can pray with you and celebrate your adoption as a child of God today. Let us pray!
Father, we come to you humbled by your love and grace for us, a love and grace that is not deserved but freely given to those who love you and have accepted your freely given gift of salvation.
Jesus, thank you for your willingness to step out of heaven and pay a price we could not pay for our sins. You bore the sins of the world on the cross, dying a death we deserve. But we know that was not the end because you rose on the third day, defeating sin and death. You sit at the Father's right hand, interceding on our behalf. Someday, you will return and make all things right, and every knee will bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
Holy Spirit, may we listen to your voice in those moments of weakness and temptation and run from sin. But if we fall, I pray you convict us to a point of repentance and reconciliation, showing us the grace and love that only comes from God. Remembering that our sins have been forgiven, we can live a life knowing that our chains are gone and we are no longer slaves to sin. Amen!
May you go knowing your sins have been forgiven and you are loved as a child of God. Amen
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