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Colin Smith: We all do wrong things at least some of the time. But Ephesians chapter 2 is going behind the fact that we all do wrong things some of the time, and it's asking the question why? Why do I sin? Why did I do it? That's the question.

Steve Hiller: Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. I'm Steve Hiller. Glad you're listening today. And Colin, we're tackling a big question: Why do we sin?

Colin Smith: That's a pretty big question, isn't it?

Steve Hiller: It's huge.

Colin Smith: There are really only two possible ways to go with the answer. Either the problem is out there, or else it's in here. In other words, either we're going to default to saying that it's my circumstances, it's my environment, it's other people, it's just the lot that I've been given to carry. It's always someone else's problem.

Or we're going to say that there is something internal at work within me that causes me to respond in certain ways, and I'm responsible for it because it's part of me. Now, the Bible takes us to that second reality, the reality that sin dwells in all human beings and its remains still dwell within a believer.

So that as a Christian, no Christian is able ever to say, I am without sin. If we say we're without sin, we deceive ourselves. Now, it's pretty important to understand where this is coming from and then to to know what it is that we can do about it by the grace of God.

Steve Hiller: Well, that's what we're going to look at in today's message, what we can do about that with the grace of God. So if you can, join us in Ephesians chapter 2 as we begin the message: The heart wants what it wants. Here's Pastor Colin.

Colin Smith: Well, we're continuing our series that's entitled The Inside Story and we're asking the question, why is the world as it is today? If you're just joining us in this series, we started in Ecclesiastes chapter 7 and verse 29, where we read these words: that God made Adam upright, but men have gone in search of many schemes.

So, God made Adam upright, but men and women today are not upright. Something has changed. We are not as Adam was. We have followed the story in the Bible to see how it is that this happened. And we have looked in Genesis at how Adam and Eve were tempted.

Sin was outside of Adam when he was in the garden, but after he committed that first sin, sin got into him, and when Adam and Eve's children were born, they were born not only in the image of God as Adam was made, but they were also born in the likeness of their father Adam. In other words, from Seth onwards, we find that the generations of human history are in fact marked with the impulse of sin already within the nature that we inherit from our father Adam.

And so we saw from this that all of us today live with what we call the enigma of the double image. The enigma of the double image. That is, you are made in the image of God, which is what gives your life meaning, value, and worth. But at the same time, we are all born in the likeness of our father Adam, which means that by nature we are messed up and we are vulnerable. That's what we've learned so far.

Now, over the last few weeks, a number of you have asked or commented about the riots that broke out in various parts of Great Britain last month. Some of you have picked up on the fact that one of the hotspots for these sad troubles was Enfield, which was the small suburb on the north side of London where Karen and I lived for 16 happy years.

I've got to tell you, when you hear news of such violence breaking out literally around the corner from the home where you have lived, it is really hard to take this in. Watching the news and knowing that the rioting was on the very streets that I walked from our home to the church every day in life, I found myself asking, you know, how can this happen? And who would be doing these things and why?

Well, of course, in the aftermath of these events, all of the common explanations that are often repeated have been rolled out again. You know, is it deficiencies in education? Is it deficiencies in housing and employment and so forth and so on? But then just last month, I read a piece in The London Times that really got my attention, and I'd like to read from it to you.

This is the front page of The London Times on August the 12th of this year. And the newspaper led, national newspaper led with a five-word banner headline: "Why did I do it?" Why did I do it? And I read to you from the article as follows:

"Last month, Natasha Reed's parents watched with pride as she graduated from university and prepared for a career as a social worker. Yesterday, they were picking up the pieces of her shattered life as she sobbed inconsolably in her bedroom, ruing the wrong turn that had added a criminal record to her degree and had jeopardized her dream of professional success.

Reed, aged 24, from a comfortable upbringing in Edmonton, North London, walked in brazenly and stole a flat screen television when she noticed that the Enfield branch of Comet, Comet's kind of like Best Buys, okay? So Best Buys was prized open, if you think of what that image is like in in this main town. She walks in, she steals a flat screen TV when she noticed that the Enfield branch of Comet had been broken into on Sunday night.

Reed's mother, Pamela, told The Times last night that her daughter was, quote, 'baffled by her criminal behavior.' The mother says she didn't want a TV. She doesn't even know why she took it. She doesn't need a telly," she said, adding that a 27-inch television already hangs in her bedroom in the family home.

Speaking from her home in Rosemary Avenue where a huge legally acquired TV dominates the living room and an Audi sits in the driveway, Reed's relatives said that she bitterly regrets the, quote, 'apparently spontaneous theft that at a stroke has put her future career in jeopardy.'

Reed said that she had been on her way to McDonald's in nearby Enfield on Sunday night when she noticed that the Comet store had been broken into. Caught up in the hysteria of the riots, she made a split-second decision to join the intruders."

Well, you know what happens? Here's this girl, she's just graduated from university. She's going to be a social worker. She comes from a very good family, a prosperous family. And she has a telly already in her own bedroom as well as a huge one in the living room. And here's this hysteria that's going on, and she makes a split-second decision, in she goes, she walks out with a flat screen TV. It's all of course recorded on the video cameras. And a few days later, the police are knocking at Natasha's door.

I end the quote here. "Natasha's family told the reporter, she hasn't slept since Sunday night. She hasn't eaten this morning. She's bawling her eyes out. She says, 'I just don't get it. Why did I do it?'"

Have you ever asked that question? Have you ever said something that just came out of your mouth and you knew immediately that it was a hurtful thing and you should never have said it? You said, "Why did I say that?" Last week we looked at words from Jeremiah chapter 17 and verse 9: "The heart is deceitful above all things and it is beyond cure, who can understand it?" Do you understand your own heart? Do you understand all that you do?

And David says in Psalm 19, he asks the same question, "Who can discern his errors?" So here's David the king, and here's Jeremiah the prophet, and they're both making exactly the same point. They have discovered from their own experience, I've discovered from mine, I'm sure you have from yours, that there is something going on inside of me that makes me a mystery to myself. I cannot understand all that I say, I can't even understand all that I do. Why did I do that?

There isn't a thoughtful human being alive who has not asked that question.

Steve Hiller: You're listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith, with a message called The Heart Wants What It Wants, as we take a look at why we sin. We're going to pause here, but we'll get back to the message in just a bit. Well, Open the Bible is listener-supported. We do depend on your generosity to keep this teaching on the air. And as you give a gift of any amount this month, we want to send you a copy of Lincoln's daily devotional. And Colin, tell us about this book.

Colin Smith: Well, the first thing that's absolutely fascinating to me is that Abraham Lincoln had and used a devotional. He read scripture and had it in his mind and in his heart. And I discovered this because a friend of mine a while ago gave me an early edition of the actual devotional that Abraham Lincoln used, and it's brilliant.

It lays out each day a verse or two of scripture, they're organized topically around a month, and they go through the experience of a Christian believer, our joys, our sorrows, our temptations, and of course our final hope and blessedness. I was absolutely thrilled to discover that all these years ago Abraham Lincoln was reading and meditating on a verse of scripture each day.

And then I discovered that the book's been reprinted, and it's been beautifully reproduced. And so, Steve, it's a joy to make this available to folks. It's in the old King James version, which of course is so beautiful in the way that it expresses the word of God. I've found this just to be very wonderful and rich. I think people will treasure having a copy of the devotional that Abraham Lincoln himself used to meditate on the word of God.

Steve Hiller: Well, we want to send you a copy as our way of saying thank you for financially supporting Open the Bible this month. You can give a gift online at openthebible.org, or when you call 1-877-OPEN-365. That's 1-877-673-6365, or again, our website is openthebible.org. Let's get back to the message. Here's Pastor Colin.

Colin Smith: Now, would you open your Bibles today to Ephesians in chapter 2? Ephesians in chapter 2. Because God speaks directly to this question, "Why did I do that?" in these verses that are before us today. Ephesians chapter 2, I'm going to read just the first three verses and our focus will be on verse 3.

Ephesians chapter 2, from the beginning we read these words, "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of the world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air and the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient."

Then Paul says, verse 3, "All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts." I want to make just two observations from this verse today and then to apply them to all of our lives.

The first very obvious observation is that sin goes everywhere. Do you notice in this verse, verse 3, that sin clearly inhabits our thoughts, our desires, and when it refers to the cravings, it is clearly referring there to the heart. So you've got the mind and the will and the heart, you've got the thoughts, you've got the desires, and you've got the affections.

And what the Apostle Paul is saying here is that sin penetrates and corrupts all dimensions of the human personality. It is pervasive. It affects what we love, it affects what we want, it affects what we think. All of these things are shot through by the impulse of sin.

Which is why our Lord Jesus says, "This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men have loved darkness instead of light." It's not just our failure to believe the right things, it's our failure to love the right things because sin goes pervasively through the whole of the personality.

And so, this issue of sin that we're trying to get our minds around in this series, it runs deeper and it is wider than we may often think. Not only are we sinners because we sin, but what we are learning here is that we sin because we are sinners. And most people grasp the first statement, you know, we all do wrong things at least some of the time.

But Ephesians chapter 2 is going behind the fact that we all do wrong things some of the time, and it's asking a question, why? Why do I sin? Why did I do it? That's the question. Where does this come from? And the answer that we're gaining here is that we sin because we are sinners. It comes out of us. There is a nature within us that produces sin.

So if you think of that awful image of the oil well that seemed to take forever to be capped, and every night earlier this year we were hearing of of oil that was spewing itself out into the gulf. See, that's what the sinful nature is like, it's always producing, always producing, always throwing up some new way of wrong thinking and wrong affections and wrong desires. And if you're a Christian, you're battling that all of your life.

So to repeat the analogy that we used from last week, the problem of sin, it's bigger than crayon on the wall. You know, a kid crayons on the wall, you can wipe that off or you can paint it over. But the problem of sin is bigger than crayon on the wall. It's more like mold in the wall. You can't just paint over that, it's a living thing. It spreads, it grows, and unchecked, it will take you to your destruction.

In other words, the Bible's teaching is that sin is in us, not just around us, not simply environmental. It's not that we're sort of born really good people at heart, but then we're put into a bad world and that's where the problem lies. No, the problem lies in us. Which is why we read the words of Jesus from Mark chapter 7, where he says, "From within, out of men's hearts, that's where greed comes from."

That's where malice or deceit or envy or arrogance or folly comes from. In other words, Jesus is saying quite clearly, foolishness comes out of your heart. Putting other people down, that put down line, it came out of your heart. The endless desire for more, where does that come from that drives so many men? It comes out of the sinful heart. These things are in us. That's where sin comes from. That's the Bible's answer to the question, "Why did I do it?"

So, sin goes everywhere, and here's the second very simple observation this morning, sin is in everyone. Notice verse 3 again, "All of us." All of us. Very important words. The Apostle Paul writing, and he includes himself. "All of us also lived among them at one time." That's we were all in these sins, in this pattern of disobedience, gratifying the cravings of the sinful nature and following its desires and its thoughts.

This is very significant. You notice how Paul moves from "you" in verse 1 to "us" in verse 3. There were particular forms of darkness that no doubt were part of the Ephesian past with the gross immorality of the culture. And the Apostle Paul, as a Pharisee, was not part of that.

But notice by the time he gets to verse 3, he very deliberately includes himself. So that this problem of sin and of the sinful nature, we cannot simply say it is with the rebel out there. Here's the Apostle Paul, who was the most religious man you could imagine. Folks, this was about the most conservative man you would ever meet. This was one of the most moral men you would ever meet. This was one of the most disciplined men you could ever meet.

And he poured his life effort into being a good person. And for many years in his life, he he felt that he was righteous. And the strange thing is that his own religion actually reinforced that impression within his own soul. But then he had a living encounter with the risen Lord Jesus Christ. And he discovered how far from righteous he really was.

And everything changed. And Jesus opened his eyes, Paul's eyes, to see how lost he really was. And so he writes under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in this verse, "It's not just you, it's not just people who are pursuing an openly immoral life out there, as it were, it's all of us." It is all of us. The Apostle includes himself.

By the way, here's a great question. When did you first realize that you were totally lost? I think I'm going to suggest that question for membership interviews. We got a new membership class coming up, you know. We ask people how did you become a Christian, you know, and people say, "Oh, I think I long time ago." All very vague. Here's a specific question: "When did you first realize that you were totally lost?"

Do you realize that apart from Jesus Christ, that's your reality now? When did you come to the place of seeing for the first time, "I am a sinner by nature and by practice"? Is it clear to you today, as you sit in church this morning, apart from Jesus Christ, I am absolutely lost for all eternity, even if judged at my best? At my best. Is that clear to you?

Friends, this is what the Bible teaches. This is what a true Christian believes. Is it what you believe? All of us, all of us. Now, these are the two simple observations then. Sin goes everywhere in the human personality, and it is in everyone. There are no exceptions. This is my reality and yours, by nature, sinners by nature and by practice.

Now, let's try and look a little more closely at what this means in practical terms for us. Here's what this looks like. And again, two observations. Here's the first. The sinful nature produces what the Apostle Paul here calls sinful cravings. Notice what he says in verse 2, as we focus in more closely, "gratifying the cravings," very strong word, "the cravings of our sinful nature."

Now, a craving, of course, is a strong desire or an intense longing. A few years ago, I decided to try the Atkins diet. Now, I'll tell you why this appealed to me. This is the one where you can eat all the protein that you want, just so long as you eat no carbs.

Now, think about this. It appealed to me. A diet in which you can eat as much steak as you want, and burgers and sausage. I mean, this is a guy kind of a diet. I thought, I'm going to try this one. Well, I have to tell you, it didn't last long for me for two reasons. Number one, my wife was implacably opposed to it.

And number two, if you've tried it, you will know this. After a few days, my whole body was crying out for just one slice of bread. Crying out. A craving. The craving, strong desire, intense longing.

Steve Hiller: Boy, a powerful reminder today of how sin does go everywhere in the human personality. And sometimes we do find ourselves asking that question, "Why did I do that?" Really a compelling look at that today. Our message is called The Heart Wants What It Wants, and it's part of a series called The Inside Story of Human Life. And if you ever miss a broadcast in this series, come and listen online at openthebible.org.

Well, Colin, there may be someone listening today who thought that he or she was a Christian, but they'd never come to that place of seeing that they were a sinner by nature and practice until today.

Colin Smith: Yeah, and I think that's very often a person's experience. Think of it this way, the sun rises slowly. It doesn't turn in an instant from night to day. And so many people have the experience that they begin to be drawn to Jesus Christ. They have some form of faith and it's emerging, it's growing, it's developing.

But then you begin to see not only some great things in Jesus that you're drawn to, but you begin to see some things in yourself that show you, "I really need Him more than I thought." And that's called the conviction of sin. It's one of the great works of the Holy Spirit. And what it will do is it will drive you towards Christ with greater intensity. It'll warm your heart in love towards Him. And it will give you the real sense that you're given the Holy Spirit because you are in a fight. Welcome to the Christian life.

Steve Hiller: Yeah, and that's good to know going in, is that it is a fight. It's not a life of ease.

Colin Smith: Yeah. See, the problem is so many folks have got the idea that Christianity is simply a belief system, and that I believe certain things and now I've got a ticket to heaven. And actually, what we're learning today is the gospel takes us much deeper and it goes right into the realities of life.

Steve Hiller: Well, we're going to continue to explore those realities next time, so I hope you make it a point to join us. If you ever do miss a program in our series, you can come and listen online. Our website is openthebible.org. For Pastor Colin Smith, I'm Steve Hiller. Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll join us next time. This program is a listener-supported production of Open the Bible.

Colin Smith: At Open the Bible, we're grateful for like-minded organizations committed to sharing the gospel around the world. And to that end, I'd like to commend the work of Global Fingerprints. You know, in the book of James, God calls us to help orphans in their distress. That's a clear command, but it's not always clear how we should obey it. And this is where Global Fingerprints comes in.

Through Global Fingerprints, you can sponsor a vulnerable child to help meet their physical needs and ensure they hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. I want to commend Global Fingerprints to you. They're focused on equipping the local church to care for children. And where there is no church, they help to plant one. If you'd like to help a vulnerable child, you can find more information on Global Fingerprints at our website openthebible.org/gf. That's openthebible.org/gf.