The Devil Made Me Do it
- What is the best excuse you have ever heard?
- What is an excuse you give when you have done something wrong?
- He or she made me; if they hadn't . . . then I wouldn't have . . .
- Sometimes many of us can act this way about our sin, like it's not our fault. Almost like the devil made us do it.
- Why do we want to make excuses and blame something/someone else when we sin?
- Don't want to take responsibility
- What will people think/How will I look if they know what I'm like.
- Etc…
- But we are going to look at the Bible and see what it says about our sin and what's really behind it.
- The Heart determines behavior
- Luke 6:43-45
- From this parable- How do we know if someone is bad or good?
- By their fruit
- Like a receipt from the ATM shows the balance in our account, the fruit of our lives shows what's really in there
- What does Jesus mean by fruit here?
- whatever someone produces- their actions or words
- What are some lessons that can be learned from this simple parable?
- Bad cannot produce good
- Sin will hinder us from doing good
- Good cannot produce bad
- Ex.- If you had a dog that would viciously attack you and others; it bit you and your friends repeated times. So you decide to put a muzzle on the dog to keep it from biting. Problem solved? Did you change the dog from a bad dog to a good one? It would be a good dog as long as you had the muzzle on. But what if the muzzle came off? Did the muzzle change the character of the dog?
- The heart is the most important part of truly changing behavior
- If the Heart determines behavior, we must change our heart.
- How can we change our heart?
- Joel 2:12-13
- What does Joel mean by rend your heart?
- Tear your heart instead of your clothes
- How do people just "tear their clothes" instead of really changing?
- Just act religious, know all the songs
- How do we truly rend our heart or change our heart?
- By seeing the consequences of sin and letting it break your heart
- Look inward to see what's causing the sin
- Then Clean out the inside
- Don't make excuses and try to look good on the outside, be good in your heart and you won't need any excuses.
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