Is He Worthy? - We as Sinners are Unworthy

In this message from the Is He Worthy? series, Pastor Scott Wiens leads us through a candid exploration of our shared human brokenness and the extraordinary grace available through Jesus Christ. Scott begins by grounding us in Romans chapters 3 and 5, where the Apostle Paul exposes the stark truth that everyone—Jew and Gentile, ancient and modern—is under the weight of sin. None of us can claim righteousness on our own. We are, at our core, unworthy.

This might sound discouraging, but it’s precisely this realization that allows us to embrace the fullness of Christ’s work. While Adam’s sin opened the door to death and condemnation for all, Jesus brings a new and radiant hope. He offers grace, forgiveness, and a righteousness we could never achieve through our own efforts. In fact, it’s this “unfairness” of Jesus taking on our penalty that reveals the depth of His love and mercy.

Scott doesn’t shy away from exploring the nuances of sin. Drawing from the rich imagery of Hebrew words for wrongdoing—chatta’ah (missing the mark), pesha (willful rebellion), and avon (a twisted, distorted state of mind)—he shows how sin isn’t just a single misdeed. It’s a progression, one that can lead us into deeply ingrained patterns of thought and behavior. Just as David’s heart-wrenching repentance over his transgressions with Bathsheba reveals the gravity of sin, it also points toward the power of genuine, broken-hearted confession.

In a culture that often shrinks from admitting our failures, Scott encourages us to be honest before God. A repentant heart is never turned away. By acknowledging how far we fall short, we open ourselves to the transformative grace Jesus provides. Rather than remaining stuck in patterns of guilt or shame, we’re invited to step into a life marked by forgiveness and freedom.

Whether you’re new to faith or have journeyed with Christ for decades, this message is a chance to realign your understanding of sin and surrender to the hope and cleansing Jesus offers. If you’re searching for a fresh start or deeper assurance of God’s love, listen in. Let this teaching spur you on to a renewed commitment—trusting that as we recognize our unworthiness, we’re set on a path toward true restoration and everlasting grace.

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Chapters

• 0:05 Origins of Sin and Grace
• 14:38 The Nature and Progression of Sin
• 32:17 Restoration Through Repentance and Forgiveness
• 38:22 Hope and Restoration Through Repentance

Transcript

Scott Wiens: 0:05

some time around 57 AD, the Apostle Paul wrote a very, very long letter to a church in Rome. This church was made up of Gentiles and Jewish converts. Some of these Jews were having a little bit of a trouble understanding fully grace, and they were believing that they had to hang on to some legalism. And in the first part of the book of Romans, paul decides he's going to make it clear that neither Jews nor Gentiles were righteous. And so the first part of this book says some very clear things about the heart of man, and no more clearly is it stated than in Romans, chapter 3. And so I'm going to we're going to turn to Romans, chapter 3 to open the message today. Romans, chapter 3, beginning in verse 9, and I'm going to read from the New Living Translation what then? Are we Jews any better off? Remember he was a Jew? No, not at all, for we have already charged that both.

Scott Wiens: 1:19

All Jews and Greeks are under sin. As it is written, none is righteous, no, not one. No one understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside Together. They have become worthless. No one is good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. In their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.

Scott Wiens: 2:11

Father, as we go into this sermon today about well, it's about sin and it's about our unworthiness, lord, I pray that you would help us all to have an open mind, to hear the truth about what Scripture says, about what we were in our fallen state. And, father, your Holy Spirit moves among us and I pray that he would do his work, that he would show us any hidden things that we need to deal with, that he would give us the spirit of David as he repented before you so many years ago. And that, father, as we look at this and realize how unworthy we are, that we would realize just how worthy your son was. And so we pray this in Jesus' name Amen. So I pulled the short straw. I wear black for a reason.

Scott Wiens: 3:13

I get to talk about sin. You know, this passage of Scripture is actually he's quoting from the book of Psalms and Proverbs and actually even's quoting from the book of Psalms and Proverbs and actually even a couple from the book of Isaiah, and they paint a pretty bleak picture, don't they? And you're like Scott, isn't this supposed to be a Christmas series? Aren't we supposed to be talking about really happy things? Well, we are, we are. Well, we are, we are.

Scott Wiens: 3:50

But we have to understand that understanding our fallen nature is vital to understanding the magnitude of what Jesus Christ did for us. And every one of us, every one of you that claims to be a Christian, had to come to a point sometime where you realized just how black your heart was, just how dark your heart was, just how corrupt you were, and how unworthy we are of the grace that's given to us, and that's really important that we understand this. So, even though we don't like to talk about this often, it's really important to grasp the unworthiness that we are in order to magnify the worthiness of Jesus Christ. So, in today's message, that's what we're going to do. We're going to do three different things. First, we're going to look at how mankind became unworthy. Secondly, we're going to look at how mankind became unworthy. Secondly, we're going to look at how the Bible describes sin, which makes us unworthy. And then, finally, we're going to talk about the hope that we have in spite of our unworthiness. So we'll do those three things and we'll jump straight into it. So how did mankind become unworthy? How did we become unworthy? Well, in order to understand how we are unworthy of the grace of God, we have to understand the source of how this happened. And since the Apostle Paul is doing such a good job of telling us how we are unworthy, we're just going to jump a couple chapters ahead and read a little bit more about how this all happened. So we're going to jump to Romans 5. And I'm going to read this in the New Living Translation. It's a little bit easier to understand. So Romans 5, verse 12, we're going to read a few verses here.

Scott Wiens: 5:34

When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam's sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned. Yes, people sinned even before the law was given, but it was not counted as sin because there was yet no law to break. Still, everyone died, from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even those who did not disobey an explicit commandment of God as Adam did. Now Adam is a symbol, a representation of Christ who is yet to come.

Scott Wiens: 6:04

But there's a great difference between Adam's sin and God's gracious gift. For the sin of this one man, adam, brought death to many. Welcome to the many, by the way. But even greater is God's wonderful grace and his gift of forgiveness to many through this other man, jesus Christ. And the result of God's gracious gift is very different from the result of that one man's sin. For Adam's sin led to condemnation, but God's free gift leads us to our being made right with God, even though we are guilty of many sins. For the sin of this one man, adam, caused death to rule over many. Again, welcome to the many. But even greater is God's wonderful grace in his gift of righteousness For all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one man, jesus Christ. Yes, adam's one sin brings condemnation for everyone, but Christ's one act of righteousness brings a right relationship with God and a new life for everyone. Because one person disobeyed God and many became sinners, but because one other person obeyed God, many will be made righteous.

Scott Wiens: 7:24

Four times in this passage of Scripture, paul places the blame for sin coming into this world on one man's shoulders, and that's Adam. Now, this doctrine I think a lot of you probably recognize this this doctrine is called the doctrine of original sin, and we're going to take a look at when this happened, because of course we have to go all the way back to the garden and that fateful story of what happened. And we're going to turn to Genesis, chapter 3, and I'll read it very quickly, but we all know the story right, verse 1 of chapter 3,. Now, the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman did God actually say that you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent we may eat of the fruit of the trees of 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. You ever told a toddler not to touch something A comedian one time said the definition of a two-year-old was any human being under two feet tall with four foot long arms.

Scott Wiens: 8:41

I've experienced that. But the serpent said to the woman you will not surely die, for God knows that, when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So the woman saw that the tree was good for food, lie, that it was a delight to the eyes lie, and that the tree was desired to make one wise a lie. She took of its fruit at eight and she also gave some to her doofus husband who was with her at the eight. I'm sorry doofus is not in the original text. Is that the first time doofus has been used from stage? I think it might be. Then the eyes of both were open and they knew that they were naked. So they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

Scott Wiens: 9:36

I know we chuckle, but that's painful to read, isn't it? It's painful to read Because we know that Eve was deceived but Adam sinned. See, when God made Adam and Eve, he made Adam first and he made Eve from his rib and he placed Adam as the authority, as the one that was responsible, and so he was. That's why you don't see that when Paul talks about this original sin, he doesn't say the sin of Adam and Eve, he says the sin of Adam. He was responsible.

Scott Wiens: 10:14

So what's the result of Adam's sin? I mean, if you look back at that and if you keep reading in chapter 3 and in 4, obviously there's a couple of things that happened immediately. But one of the first things is they were no longer righteous. See, up until that point they were righteous, they were one with God. Remember, they said they walked with God. No longer were they righteous. And secondly, there was a separation from God, not only physically were they told to get out of the garden and they could not enter again, but even their contact with God was limited after that point in time. And if we go back to Romans 5 and look at the consequences that are listed in there and I won't read that whole passage, but I'll just summarize Verse 15, it says through Adam's sin, many died. Verse 17,. Death reigned. Verse 18, condemnation for all man. And verse 19, many were made sinners. Adam's sin was imputed on everybody. That sucked air from that point on. That's you and me.

Scott Wiens: 11:27

Now, the concept of the consequence of Adam's sin is often referred to as the doctrine of federalism. You probably have heard a pastor or somebody say that Adam was our federal head. Well, federalism has to do with one person acting as a representative for others, and we talk about our federal government, people that are elected officials. Federalism basically states that Adam was the representative of all of mankind. But get this, and not only do we fall under the consequences of his sin, but we are also viewed as actually having committed that sin and that's disputed, by the way, by some theologians. But the reality is we're all guilty. It's like we did it ourselves In these two passages in Romans that we talked about. I'll just refresh here Romans 5.12,. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin Romans 5.12, and verse 19 says it even more clearly we were made sinners. Notice that Paul clearly states that Adam's sin brought sin into the world, made all of us sinners and brought the consequence of death.

Scott Wiens: 12:56

Now, if you're a good American, you might be saying that's not fair. It's not fair. I mean, after all, if Tyler gets a speeding ticket, I don't get a speeding ticket just because I'm an elder, right? What's that all about? Why is that happening? And you know it's really interesting. Anytime we dive into something like this, we all have this sense of fairness, right? You know how many times, when you're a kid, you look at your parents and say that's not fair. That's not fair.

Scott Wiens: 13:31

I remember when I was a kid I grew up in Saskatchewan, canada, and we had a lot of snow and the bulldozers would come and they'd push all this snow up from the parking lot in our school and these hills would be like 15, 20 feet high, but usually what would happen is they'd be at the top and then we'd go lower on the sides, right? Well, they had this competition where we were supposed to roll a tire over the hill and I practiced and practiced and practiced and practiced and I was good at rolling that tire. You know, I had my hand behind. I would roll snow was. I was good at it. And it came to competition and I lined up in the middle part of that hill and one of my teammates lined up over here where the hill was half as high as mine and when they said go, I went over that hill but he beat me and they gave him the prize.

Scott Wiens: 14:29

I the injustice of it all. I was infuriated. I was like that's not fair.

Scott Wiens: 14:38

I think we've heard quotes like life's not fair, get used to it, right. But we have this sense of fairness and it's easy to look at this and say I mean, why did God choose Adam to be my representative. Why did I have to deal with that? Well, the reality is, god chose the right guy. You want to know why? Because if he chose you, you'd be the right guy. Do you realize the audacity for one of us to think, if I had been there, I wouldn't have done that? Yeah, I don't think so. Adam was our federal head, you would have been our federal head.

Scott Wiens: 15:22

But you know what's really not fair. If you really want to know what's really not fair, it's the fact that one of the Godhead came to this earth, emptied himself, became a man, lived a perfect life, got arrested, got tortured, got hung on a cross and, if that wasn't bad enough, had the one part of the Trinity that he had never been without turned his back on him so that he could carry all of your sins and my sins. You want to talk about fairness. That's not fair. So the reality is that perfect righteousness of Christ that's given you and me when we give ourselves over to him. That's the most unfair thing you're ever going to come across. So that's how sin came into the world.

Scott Wiens: 16:29

Let's now look at what sin is. You know, the simplest definition of sin is in 1 John 3, 4. Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness. So sin is the breaking of God's law. Right, and we think of God's law, we think of the Mosaic law and the Jews of Jesus' day. They had and they proved this through many scriptures they had a pretty narrow view of what that was. I mean, they added all kinds of laws on there, but they had a very narrow view. Remember the rich, young ruler? He said all of these things I have done since my youth. And then comes the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus says have you ever looked at somebody and hated them? Murder, you're guilty of murder. Say what have you ever looked upon a woman and lusted Adultery? You've committed adultery. What Blew their minds? That's what sin is, and you know it's interesting when we look at that.

Scott Wiens: 17:39

There's many Hebrew and Greek words for sin in the Bible, but there's three that we always think about and actually these three came up in our Bible reading program not too long ago. Mary shared something that was really good about that program. Not too long ago Mary shared something that was really good about that. And these three really show us something very clear about sin. They're not just different definitions of sin. They paint a picture of the progressiveness of sin, and that's what I want to focus on. And these three words, they're listed all through the Old Testament together. In fact there's many places they come together, but I want to go to Psalms 51. Because can someone tell me what's important about Psalms 51? Yeah, david's prayer of repentance, right, so I thought this was pretty poignant. So there's three words. So let's read Psalms 51, verses 1 through 2.

Scott Wiens: 18:36

By the way, this is David had just been confronted by Nathan the prophet, and he finally got convicted that, yes, I've sinned. And so he reads this, or he writes this Psalms, verse 1, have mercy on me, o God, according to your steadfast love, according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. So the three Hebrew words we're going to dive into here the first one is sin, and it's shataha. Can everybody say shataha? Shataha, you think you didn't speak in tongues? Now you do, but it's a known language. That's sin, transgression, it's a little bit easier. It's pisha. Everybody say pisha. And the last one is iniquity, and iniquity is avon. Can you say avon is iniquity and iniquity is avon. Can you say avon, yeah, and there's a progressive relationship between these. And we're going to start with the word sin, shataha, verse two. He says cleanse me from my shataha, from my sin.

Scott Wiens: 19:47

And it's the most common word for sin in the Old Testament and, by the way, it's the plural word, just like we say there are deer in that field. Sin, it's plural, right, it's not sins. When it says when you see sin, it's plural and it's got a relatively simple meaning it's to miss, to miss the mark. It's to miss to miss the mark, to incur guilt on you, to forfeit purity from uncleanness, so you become unclean. So that's what it is. It's to miss the mark and in essence, it's a failure to meet a standard, right, and David, he's obviously using this word because guess what Right. And David, he's obviously using this word because guess what His sin with Bathsheba? He failed to meet a standard, didn't he? He failed to be the standard. He was supposed to be righteous. Forget that. He was a king. He was supposed to be righteous and follow God's laws, but he actually committed adultery. And the application for us as Christians is pretty interesting, because oftentimes we fall short and a lot of times these are not premeditated sins, they're sins that just kind of get us right.

Scott Wiens: 21:04

Ever caught yourself telling a lie to somebody I mean you're talking about? You know the whole joke about the guy goes fishing. He said I caught one this big Really it was only this big, but he says this big. It's a lie, right? Maybe you're like me. You drive in traffic here in Knoxville and get a little frustrated by the fact that the majority of Knoxvillians don't know that there's a signal light in their car. Guys, it's crazy, and I find myself going flash of anger, right. Sometimes it's judging somebody in an ungodly way. You look at somebody, you cast a judgment on them. Then you catch yourself like, oh, what am I doing? Lustful thoughts, the cashier makes a mistake, gives you more change back and you walk out.

Scott Wiens: 22:08

Those are shataha, those are sins. Sometimes they bubble up quickly, we catch them, sometimes they can progress, but that's what sin is. Shattah is missing the mark. You're missing the mark of righteousness that we're called to be as Christians. Now let's go to Pesha, which is transgression. In the last part of verse 1, he says according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions, my pisha.

Scott Wiens: 22:42

And this word gets a little stronger than shataha, though, and the reason is because it has a meaning of more of a premeditated action of stepping over a line. In fact, one of the definitions is stepping over a line. Stepping, in fact, one of the definitions is stepping over a boundary, okay, and if anybody has ever raised teenagers, heck, if anybody has ever been a teenager, which would include most of you that are. Some of you are experiencing this right now. Well, sometimes teenagers will step over the line that you've given them. We don't want you doing this. It's not good. Okay, are they gone? Steps over the line, right, we've all been guilty of that. It's not just, by the way, I'm not picking on teenagers. I'm just trying to help them understand how teenagers think. Some of them are so old they forget you purposely step over a boundary and it happens a lot, unfortunately and the connotation of this sin of pisha is rebellion. It's a rebellious nature. I know what you said, god, but I'm still going to step over that line.

Scott Wiens: 24:02

In the Old Testament, this word's often used to talk about Israel's rebellion. There were plenty of examples I could give. The one that I thought was really interesting was that the dedication of the temple. When Solomon dedicates the temple in 1 Kings 8, verse 50, he says "and forgive your people who have sinned against you and all their transgressions, which they have transgressed against you". Transgressed against you. If anybody's ever read Exodus, that's all these people seem to be doing is rebelling against you. If anybody's ever read Exodus, that's all these people seem to be doing is rebelling against God. They're always rebelling. They're always doing exactly what they were told not to do. Moses goes up in the mountain. They're okay for a little while and suddenly everything that they've been told, everything that they saw, including the parting of the Red Sea, the pillar of cloud, all that stuff they forget. Let's make a golden calf that's a good idea. Willing rebellion. They're stepping over that line. They know better.

Scott Wiens: 25:05

And for us, as Christians, we're all guilty of this to some degree. Now I'm going to go. I'm going to step into meddling here. Expository preaching is you take the scripture, you look at what it said to the people at that time and then you apply it to us today. So that's what I'm going to do.

Scott Wiens: 25:33

I believe that if we were honest and I asked the question, how many of you have good Israelite blood going through your veins? Most of us would have to go yeah, that's me Because of the imputed sinful nature that we inherited from Adam. We find ourselves at times in open rebellion against God, and it can come in a lot of forms. How about refusing to forgive somebody? You know what God says about forgiveness, you even know how much you've been forgiven, but you just can't bring yourself to do it, and then you hold yourself in that jail cell called bitterness and unforgiveness. You know, you know how about refusing to follow God's teaching on morality Right, paying your taxes? I've had Christians tell me before yeah, I know how to get around that one Not legally, by the way, but literally. They're just doing things that were wrong, that are morally wrong. How about on sexuality? This happens a lot, especially a lot of people that are Christians that decide that you know what God's laws on sex before marriage. That's really, that's just. That's kind of old school. After all, they did it. They're happily married.

Scott Wiens: 27:20

Pesha, open rebellion, stepping over a line that you know is wrong, and we all can fall into this. We can fall into this. Sometimes, by the way, it's even a sin of omission things we know that we should do, but we don't. Forgiveness, of course, would be one of those. We need to ask ourselves if we are guilty of the sin of Pesah. And, by the way, these sermons aren't fun to give Because I qualify in pretty much every one of these and I've had to do some repenting on my own. How about scrolling through that feed and you know what might be coming on that next video and you're like I shouldn't do this. But Pesha rebellion.

Scott Wiens: 28:16

The last one is iniquity. Iniquity is avon, avon. And in verse 2, it says wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, from my avon. And this one is really interesting because this means to bend or to twist and distort. Okay, to bend, twist or distort. In the context, how it's often used in scripture, it's showing the result of living a life of sinful behavior and open rebellion. So there's shataha, there's pisha and if it's unrepented it can move into avon. And that bending and twisting you might say well, what's the application there, scott? Well, it's a bending and twisting of our minds and our hearts. You've run across this, haven't you? Some of you may have even experienced it, because without repenting of those things, a person can find themselves across this, haven't you? Some of you may have even experienced it, because without repenting of those things, a person can find themselves in avon, in iniquity.

Scott Wiens: 29:21

Think about David for a second, because we're reading his Psalms. Think about him. He goes out on his patio. There's Bathsheba, the first example of voyeurism I think we've gotten in the bible. He goes that's nice, go get that. She comes back. Now.

Scott Wiens: 29:45

I don't know much about Bathsheba, but you could probably say he raped her. I. I mean, let's just be honest, he's the king, she's not going to say no, but she gets pregnant. He's like uh-oh, I've sinned. Now Pesha, he willingly walked over that. Remember he had the shataha moment when he looked down and he began to lust. It moved into Pesha where he walked right over that line, and now he's starting to step into Avon. Because what he's starting to do now is I got to get out of my sin and I'm not going to do it by repenting, I'm going to do it through my own thing. So what does he do? Hey, uriah, bring Uriah off the line so he can go and sleep with Bathsheba, so maybe he can pretend that's his child. Uriah, a man of much more character at that time than David, refuses to go into his wife. Plan B let's send him to the front of the line so he can get killed in battle. He gets killed in battle. Now I'm going to take Bathsheba as my wife.

Scott Wiens: 30:58

Months went by you guys, with the king of Israel in Avon Because somehow he was trying to twist in his mind that this was okay, this was okay, I've worked it out, or whatever. But behind him was a trail of pain and he was about to experience even more pain. Ezekiel 18, verse 30, says this Therefore, I will judge you, o house of Israel. Everyone, according to his ways, declares the Lord Repent and turn from all your transgressions. Progressive nature. Listen to this, lest iniquity be your ruin. Move away from your Pesha or you will fall into Avon, which can bring you to your ruin. That's the progressive nature. That's where David was. But God wasn't done with David and he repented, and that's why we have this beautiful psalm. He repented.

Scott Wiens: 32:17

Unrepentant sin and transgression can lead us to that place where our minds get twisted. We start thinking that it's okay. You know, neil Silverberg and I have been doing a class called Falling Away. We're going through a book called the Deconstruction of Christianity and this book has been really interesting because it talks about those people who start by questioning their faith, which, by the way, is okay. If you should question, if there's things you don't struggle with. That's okay to ask questions. We as a church, want you to ask questions. If you're struggling with something we've said, please come see us, come talk to us, find somebody that you can trust. It's okay to ask questions.

Scott Wiens: 32:58

But what happens is they start asking questions, and sometimes they're asking questions they don't want answers to, and then out there because everybody's got a smartphone which gives you access to lies and lies and lies, and so they get on there and they start running into these deconstructionists People that have already gone through all that process through Avon, and now their minds are so twisted and warped that it's not so much that they have left their faith, but they've got to bring everybody with them. So they put these sites on and you can get on their blogs and you can hear all their reasons for why the Christian faith, the true gospel, is garbage. And that's what happens. As I was reading this and studying this scripture, it just hit me this is exactly what happens in the deconstruction movement, but, by the way, it doesn't happen with everybody, because even if you step into a bone, god can bring you back. God can bring you back, and that's why we got to talk about point three, which is the good news.

Scott Wiens: 34:11

When we look at this progressive nature of sin, we have to realize that not all hope is lost. There's great hope and although I'm putting one foot into next week's sermon forgive me, tyler I couldn't leave like this, though you can't leave this subject without hope, because there is great hope. If you read romans 5 as we did, I focused on adam's sin, but all through there was the rest of the story. Romans 5 17. For sin came for the sin of this one man, adam caused death to rule over many. But even greater is God's wonderful grace and his gift of righteousness for all who receive it. It will live in triumph over sin and death through this one man, jesus Christ. Amen. So even us as Christians who've missed the mark, who stepped into rebellion, willingly stepping over a boundary and even to the point where sometimes our minds get twisted and truth gets twisted, we can receive forgiveness for that. He can restore us. Psalms 32, verse 5,.

Scott Wiens: 35:40

This is David again, look at what he says. I acknowledged my sin to you, repentance. I did not cover my iniquity, didn't make excuses for it. I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Wow, that should give you hope. That should give you hope. God restored David from all three of those types of sins, all three of those progressive sins. He was forgiven, he was forgiven.

Scott Wiens: 36:30

So I want to conclude by just talking quickly to two groups of people here. I'm going to start with us as believers. So, as you sat there and you heard me talk about sin and you heard me talk about the different types of sin, maybe the Holy Spirit was doing His job today in convicting you of something. Maybe there's some shataha that he revealed to you. Maybe there's some pisha where you see some rebellion in you, things that you're doing that you know you shouldn't. Maybe you realize, and the Holy Spirit began to cut through the confusion of the iniquity that's in your mind, the avon, and if he's showing you that, repent. You know.

Scott Wiens: 37:19

John MacArthur said something one time I'll never forget. He said the most miserable person is not the person that does not know God, it's a person that knows God that has walked away from God, because the Holy Spirit will not leave you alone. Can anybody say amen, I've been there. If you repent and ask forgiveness, it's going to be given to you, because later in Psalms 51, we read this beautiful statement from the same guy that just outlined the sin he was guilty of all three of them. He says the sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart. Oh God, he won't reject that. You give yourself over to him. You get on your knees, you get on your face and you repent, and he will restore you.

Scott Wiens: 38:22

Now maybe you have never given your life to Christ. Maybe you've never taken that step where you said I am yours, lord, and you are dealing with some element of sin. It could be any one of these things. You are out of the grace of God. Well, if the Holy Spirit's been working with you, I got really good news for you. All that shame and guilt and all that stuff and the garbage that you've been carrying around, you can give that up today. You can, but, by the way, not unless you're ready to really walk away from it.

Scott Wiens: 39:03

If you just come up here and say a prayer to pacify your conscience, you're missing the point, because repentance means I've been walking this way with my shataha, my pisha and my avon. I'm going this way. Repentance means I walk this way and I'm covered by the blood of Christ and my life changes, because the Holy Spirit comes into me and begins to change me and regenerate in me and, as we see in 2 Corinthians, if any man is in Christ, he is a what New creation. That's what you have to look forward to. That's what you have to look forward to. You can experience that today, if you want, and we have a prayer team that comes up here.

Scott Wiens: 39:44

Let me just say something about this prayer team. They don't have any special powers you don't have but they got one thing and they have the Holy Spirit and they love you and they love to pray for you. So afterwards, if you want to come up here, if you want somebody to pray for you, if you want to just pull one of the pastors aside or somebody else, we'll pray for you, we'll encourage you, because none of us are told that we have to walk in this sin without hope. Amen, please stand to your feet, oh Heavenly Father. Without you we are wretched. Human beings, our federal head, adam, did a good job. Human beings, our federal head, adam did a good job.

Scott Wiens: 40:38

Father, we all stand before you, guilty, and if any man does not feel they are, does any person does not feel they're guilty.

Scott Wiens: 40:42

Father, you can get through to them. I know you can, just like you got through to us. But, father, I thank you and I rejoice that, even though this was one of those dark sermons where we had to talk about sin, we had to talk about the reality of sin that there's always hope. There's always hope For the prodigal that's in the pigsty eating the food the pig is eating, which is symbolic for us in the world living a worldly life. You can restore, you can restore us, father. I pray that all of us, father, that you search our hearts and you show us what we need to see, what we need to repent of and, as we go into this season, that we rejoice that you, jesus, are indeed worthy and that your worthiness gave us and placed your righteousness, you imputed your righteousness on us. That we can stand before you, father, completely cleansed, before you, father, completely cleansed, no longer under sin. Help us, father, hear our prayer of repentance and we thank you that we can pray this in the powerful name through whom it came Jesus Christ, amen.