How To Die In Your Sins

Pastor Mike will be preaching on “How to die in your sins”
He will be in John 8:22-30

You’re going to die in your sins without Christ. If you let pride rule your heart, if you let worldliness rule your heart, you’re gonna die in your sins. If you’re an unbeliever, if you refuse, willingly refuse to believe in Jesus Christ, you will die in your sins.

Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders from the Open Door Church, and this is Hope Worth Having. And we are so glad that you are with us today. We’re looking forward to a great program as we study the Bible.

And today we’re gonna be in the Gospel of John, chapter eight, and we are going to study verse 22 through 30. And I want us to learn today how to die in your sins. A little bit of play on words here, but simply want to show you how defiant and how difficult the Pharisees were towards Jesus, which Jesus reminds them if they continue this attitude, they will die in their sins.

And so we’re gonna learn together, what are those characteristics of people who refuse to believe and refuse to trust in Christ for their salvation? And so I want you to open your Bible up now, and let’s get a pen and paper.

Let’s start learning together so we can grow. And the goal here is let’s not die in our sins, but let’s live in the forgiveness and grace of Jesus Christ. You have your Bible, I want you to turn to the Gospel of John, chapter eight, verse 21 through 30.

We continue our study through the Gospel of John together, verse by verse, chapter by chapter. This morning I’ve entitled my message, how to die in your sins. And I know that sounds very morbid, and I thought of maybe some other titles that might be more uplifting and encouraging to you, but the more that I studied, text, the more I felt very firm in the title, how to die in your sins.

My hope is not that you would, but my hope is that you would understand how it happens and that you would choose a different path this morning. Because I want you to know this, that you either die in your sins or you die in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And that is what is before us this morning, as we reflect on these words of our Savior. Will we die in our sins or will we die in the grace of Jesus Christ? I heard about the story of a dad who took his young son to a carnival.

It was the son’s birthday and he was all excited. His son was allowed to bring six friends, so he got six friends to come. And the dad bought a roll of tickets for the carnival. every line every ride they came to he pulled off seven tickets he gave it to the boys and they had a wonderful time he came to the fairest will and all of a sudden there was an eighth little boy with his hand out and he looked at the little boy and the dad said well who are you and the boy said i am johnny and he said well johnny who are you who’s johnny johnny said i am your son’s new friend and he said that you would give me a ticket and you know what that dad gave him a ticket and that dad gave him a ticket because he was a friend of his son and i thought about how beautifully that illustrates our heavenly father who wants to give you a ticket to heaven this morning he wants to give you a ticket to eternal life but you must know jesus christ his son you must believe in his son jesus christ and what stands before us is that we have a great opportunity an opportunity to be saved to have eternal life to walk out of knowing 100 percent that we are born again believers and just like that little boy who knew the son all we have to do is be willing to go and ask and when we ask the heavenly father out of his great love if we ask for forgiveness eternal life and and uh salvation then i promise you that the father will never turn away anyone who comes to him this morning and i don’t want you to miss out on this opportunity i want you to make sure that you take advantage of this opportunity because the bible says this it is appointed to men wants to die but after this the judgment the opportunity is now today is the day of salvation today is the day to give our life to the Lord Jesus Christ we do not know what tomorrow will bring we do not know what the circumstances will unfold for our life in the next few hours or even the next few days but let us all walk away today with the assurance that we are not going to die in our sins but rather we are going to die in the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ when we come to John chapter 8 verse 21 Jesus begins a debate with the Pharisees He has been discussing with them the great opportunity that they have.

Remember that He has already declared that He is the bread of life. That if anybody spiritually hungers, that Jesus is saying to them, I am the one who will satisfy your spiritual hunger. He has already declared that He is the light of the world.

That anyone who walks in spiritual darkness can find that spiritual light by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. This opportunity is before the Pharisees. But I want you to note how they handle this, how they respond to those two great declarations of our Lord and Savior.

Verse 21 of chapter 8, the Bible says, then said Jesus again unto them, I go my way and you shall seek me and shall die in your sins. Whether I go, you cannot come. Then said the Jews, will He kill Himself?

Because He saith, whether I go, you cannot come. And He said unto them, you are from beneath. I am from above. You are of this world. I am not of this world. I said therefore unto you that you shall die in your sins.

For if you believe not that I am He, you shall die in your sins. Then said they unto Him, who art thou? And Jesus saith unto them, even the same that I said unto you from the beginning, I have many things to say and to judge of you.

But He that sent me is true and I speak to the world those things which I have heard of Him. They understood not that He speak to them of the Father. Then said Jesus unto them, when you have lifted up the…

The Son of man, then shall you know that I am He, and that I do nothing of myself. But as my Father has taught me, I speak these things. He that sent me is with me. The Father has not left me alone, for I do always those things that please Him.

As He spake these words, many believed on Him. The gospel of John is the gospel of belief. It’s the gospel of faith. It is the gospel that consistently and constantly invites us to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And yet, though there are many that believe in Him and have eternal life, there are many who reject Him and refuse to believe in Christ. This morning as I submit unto you how to die in your sins, it stands as a warning for anyone who has not believed in Christ.

It is an invitation to all who have not trusted in Christ for your salvation, but it is an affirmation to all who have believed in him already and that you will walk away from today with the assurance knowing that Christ is your Savior and heaven is your home.

How do we die in our sins? Number one, be prideful. Live a life of pride. Look at verse 21 and verse 22 again. Notice what the text says. Jesus again said unto them, I go my way and you shall seek me and shall die in your sins.

Whether I go, you cannot come. Jesus has already been arguing with them and he’s saying, I’m going to go my way and he is going to eventually go to the cross and he’s eventually going to resurrect and he’s eventually going to be ascended into heaven and he is going to go live at the right hand of the Father.

That’s where he’s going, but Jesus said, you seek me and whether I go, you cannot come. And what he is saying to them that the opportunity is going to slip away in your life. Notice their response to that.

The opportunity to come to Christ is going to slip away and this is what they said. Will he kill himself? Because he sayeth, whether I go, you cannot come. The question that they give to Jesus was a question that they wanted all to hear.

Everybody that was around the temple and everybody that was here in Jesus saying, I am the light of the world. They were doing everything they can to discredit him. his message to make sure that people were confused about who Christ was and is.

And so their question was sarcastic. Their question to Jesus was demeaning when they said, is he gonna kill himself? And what he’s saying is that are you gonna follow somebody who’s very confused and he’s not even sure about his future?

Are you gonna follow somebody? Rather than humbling themselves and recognizing that Jesus is saying, look, wake up. Your chance of salvation is slipping away. You need to now be saved or you’re gonna die in your sins.

You are going to end up trying to find salvation, but it will never, ever happen because you are so prideful. They misinterpreted Jesus’s claim. They misunderstood. what he said. They tried to trap him in his own words.

They were trying to re -characterize or mischaracterize what he was trying to proclaim to the people. Reminds us back in John chapter 5, go back a few pages if you will. In John chapter 5, remember what Jesus said to the Pharisees in chapter 5 verse 40.

John chapter 5 verse 40 he says you will not come to me that you might have life. You see there was a stubbornness. There was a pride in their heart, an unwillingness to come to God. Always trying to argue with Christ.

Always having to have the last word. Always trying to mischaracterize who he is and what his message is. Why? Because they don’t want anybody else to find eternal life through Jesus Christ. They want people to be deceived into a religious system, a work system of salvation.

The Pharisees pushed an agenda that you had to work your way to heaven, that you had to achieve something to get to heaven, that you had to be religiously at a certain level or you could not have eternal life.

And pride kept them from coming to Christ because you see there’s really only two ways. There’s only two ways to heaven and that is A, that you live a perfect life. Never break the law of God and that you live in perfection from the moment that you’re born into this world all the way to the end of your life or B, that you trust in the work of Christ on the cross for your salvation because he has lived that sinless life.

He has lived that perfect life and I put my faith and trust recognizing that I am a sinner in need of a savior. But here’s the thing, here’s what it takes. To come to Christ for salvation takes humility.

You don’t come to God on your own terms. You don’t come to God and say it’s gonna be my way or the highway, but rather you humble your heart before God and you say, Lord, I’m a sinner and I’m in need of a savior and I know that you have died on the cross for my sins.

That’s not the response that we get from the Pharisees. Out of nowhere, they make an outrageous claim. Will he kill himself so that they can cause confusion? Isaiah the prophet said these words in Isaiah 55 verse six.

Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. Call ye upon him while he is near. My friends, salvation, the Lord. God himself, Jesus Christ himself is available to you today. Do not be so prideful that you reject him today.

Do not be so resistant and stubborn in your heart that you will not hear the call of salvation in your heart that God is calling you. Seek him because he can be found. Call upon him because he is near to you even now.

Now, do not follow the path of pride. You know why? That 70% of Christians today say that they were saved before the age of 13. It’s because when you’re young, your heart is tender. When you’re young, your heart is open to the truth.

And the older we get, we kind of get stuck in our ways, don’t we? And the older we get, we get more stubborn and we kind of want it to be this way or that way. And we have to be careful. Now is the time.

Now is the time. And if pride has kept you from coming to Jesus Christ, I encourage you now to set that pride aside and receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior. The second way that we die in our sins is to be worldly.

Look at verse 23. Jesus said, you are from beneath. I am from above. You are of this world and I am not of this world. You see, Jesus was contrasting himself. He was contrasting himself as being from God that he was not of this world.

Yes, Jesus was in the world, but he did not belong to the world. He did not embrace the world’s philosophy. The Bible says in 1 John 5 .19 that we know that we are of God. and that the whole world lieth in wickedness.

You see friends, the world is under the spell of the devil. The world is blinded by the devil and worldliness. A desire to live for self, a desire to live for what you want is what keeps people from coming to Christ and dying in their sins.

The Bible says in Ephesians chapter 2 in verse 1 and 2, you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.

We should not be shocked that sinners sin because they are following the spirit of the world. They are the sons of disobedience. They are the children. of disobedience they are following the prince of the air which is the devil himself and we must recognize that if in our heart we love the world and we want to be more like the world then we need to really check our spiritual life and we need to make sure that we truly know Jesus Christ and that our love for him is supreme being religious will not save you trying to achieve great things in this world will not save you only Jesus can do that being worldly will not bring salvation to your life it is a manifestation of where your heart is Jesus said you can’t love money and God at the same time you can’t put other things before God and love them it only reveals where your heart really is are you here this morning because you love God are you here this morning because someone is making you come are you here this morning because you want to worship God and you want to praise God and you want him to be preeminent and number one in your life or are you just doing your duty so you can get your spouse off your back so you can get your parents off your back so you can get someone else to leave you alone are you here because you truly love Jesus Christ the ungodly person is a person who is full of this world and their desires are worldly and their passions are worldly and their heart is worldly and they pursue the things of this world but for the believer we hear the words of the and from it we await a Savior the Lord Jesus Christ.

Where are your thoughts today? Where is your passion? The Bible says that we should set our affections on the things that are above. God has called us to be mindful of Him and His truth in our life. And you see when people say to me, I’m not sure if I’m really saved.

I always tell them, look at your desires. If your desires are for the world, then you’re probably not a believer. But if your desires are for Christ, then you truly have been born again. That’s why in 1 John he tells us to love not the world, neither the things that are in the world, because your passions and your affections reveal where your heart really is this morning.

And this morning, if you say, my heart is for God, my heart is to worship Him, my heart is to praise Him. Listen, you don’t need a card or a date to affirm your salvation. What you need to know is that your heart, your spirit bears witness with the Spirit of God, that you are truly a believer because your passions reveal that God is number one in your life, that your desires reveal that your affections are upon Him and not the things of this world.

The reason we want more is because we were not created for this world. And what I mean is this, is that you were created to be in a loving and living relationship with Jesus Christ. You were created to live in a sinless world, but sin has entered the world and has marred the image of God upon our minds and in our hearts.

And therefore we follow paths of selfishness and sinfulness. But Jesus Christ is restoring us through the grace of God and through the word of God, He is changing us and the Spirit of God is transforming us into that beautiful image that God has intended for us.

And that only happens when we surrender our lives fully to Jesus Christ. But if you’re worldly, then you are letting the world mold your life. Remember what the Apostle Paul told us in Romans chapter 12.

He said, I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present yourselves as a living what? Sacrifice, which is holy and acceptable, unto God. This is your reasonable service. And then he says, be not conform to this world.

Yes, the world is always trying to shape us. The world is trying to mold us into the image of the world. But the Spirit of God is shaping us and transforming us. And the distinction is this, to be transformed by the renewing of your mind is in direct contrast to being conformed.

To be conformed is an outward pressure placed upon your life. But a transformation in the Greek, it’s the metamorphosis. It’s the inward change that’s going on. And this is the power of the Spirit. And this is the power of the Word of God in my life that is transforming me into the image of Jesus Christ.

My friends, if you pursue the world, you will die in your sins. But if you pursue Christ, you will die in the grace of our Lord and Savior. Jesus Christ. My third point that I want you to note this morning, how do we die in our sins?

Be unbelieving. We come back to our text and we look at verse 24 and we note that he says, I said therefore unto you that you shall die in your sins. Let me just help you that those of you love to study the Bible.

When you see a word, when you see a phrase repeated in the Bible, God is trying to get your attention. It must be noted there is a theme there that God is using. He is not being redundant. He is putting special emphasis.

Jesus already said, you shall die in your sins. The scriptures teach us that he already taught the disciples and he taught the Pharisees that they will die in their sins. We go back and we see in verse 21, he says you shall die in your sin.

He says in verse 24, you shall die in your sins. God wants to say something. Here’s what I want you to get. I said therefore unto you that you shall die in your sins. For if you believe not that I am he, you shall die in your what?

Again, he says it again. He’s repeating this because this is the theme of the text. This is why I could not escape the title. No matter how positive Mike wanted to be with you this morning, I could not escape the truth and the theme of the text that said how to die in your sins.

You’re going to die in your sins. without Christ. If you let pride rule your heart, if you let worldliness rule your heart, you’re gonna die in your sins. But thirdly, if you’re an unbeliever, if you refuse, willingly refuse to believe in Jesus Christ, you will die in your sins.

Go back to verse 24. If you believe not, that I am He. I want you to underline that phrase, I am He. The King James translation gets it correct when it puts the word He in italics, which lets us know that it was not in the original Greek, that it was added by the translators for clarification.

And here’s what the Greek really reads. If you believe not, that I am. What he is saying to the Jewish people, you will die in your sins if you do not believe that I am. Why is that significant? Because that is the Old Testament name of God, Yahweh.

It is the Old Testament name, you remember that name. When God appeared to Moses in Exodus 3 .14, he said unto Moses, I am, that I am. And he said, thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I am has sent me unto you.

When the Bible uses the Yahweh name of God, the Jews consider this name so holy, so divine that they did not even want to write those words down. That when they use the phrase, the Lord in capitals, capitalizing each letter, they would then the translators or the Jewish scribes would go and they would wash their body from head to toe because they felt unclean for even mentioning the word Yahweh.

Real faith is focusing on a real Jesus. And when we come to Christ, we have the responsibility to humble our hearts before God and to make sure that our faith is true towards a living savior. Jesus dealt with a group of people who were indignant, difficult, and defiant.

But praise the Lord, he shows us how his word masterfully works and exposes the Pharisee’s sin. But before you and I become judgemental towards the Pharisees, maybe there are things in our own hearts and attitudes in our own lives that are pharasitical and that expose what needs to be changed in our life to be more like Jesus.

So the goal is that we would live in Christ and that we would experience His grace and forgiveness in our hearts, that we would not die in our sins and today if you have never trusted Christ as your Savior and the Spirit of God is calling you to true salvation, we invite you to truly repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

And the Bible teaches us that whoever calls in the name of the Lord shall be saved. Friend today if you’ve made a decision for Christ I invite you to go to our website Hopeworthhaving .com. Let us know about your decision.

We want to send you some material to help you in your new found faith and we want you to walk faithfully for the Lord Jesus Christ. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you. that in Christ there is hope worth having.