Sermon Central
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Sanctification...does That Compute?
Contributed by Larry Brincefield on Jun 18, 2005 (message contributor)
Summary: A sermon comparing the spyware problem on a computer with the sin-problem in the life of a person.
Introduction
1. On Friday, Pastor Debbie was having trouble with her computer…
• And she asked me to help…
• With our new Helping Hands Ministry…
• I had planned to sign on to help with computer problems…
• So, I guess this was my first call for help!...
• In any event, what I found when I saw her computer was a HUGE mess!!
• Her computer had literally been taken over by spyware and adware….
• How many of you use a computer with regularity?
• Have you ever seen “popups”?...
• Popups are a result of small computer programs that are put on your computer…
• Sometimes without your knowledge…
• And, when you go to a certain webpage…
• Other pages just “pop up”…
• Usually trying to sell you something…
• Some of the biggies are pharmacy, mortgages, and sex.
• So, let’s say that you go to www.usatoday.com to check out the latest news…
• If your computer has been infected with spyware…
• You might get popups for buying anything from computers to Viagra to subscribing to sex sites.
• Of course their goal is to get you to come to their website and buy something.
2. In any event, Pastor Debbie’s computer was as bad as I’ve ever seen…
• As I was trying to help her…
• She was getting literally HUNDREDS of popups…
• It took gargantuan effort to be able to close all those popups and try to get anything done.
• Anyway, after that experience, I decided to make sure my computer was good and clean…
• And then I decided to send out a list of recommendations to keep your computer running smoothly…
• As I began to think about it…
• I began to realize that there was a correlation between what we are trying to do with our computers…
• And what we are trying to do with our lives…
• As with any illustration…
• It will break down if you try to take it too far...
• But I certainly hope to get some mileage out of this idea of comparing our computer to our Christian lives…
Read: 1 Thessalonians 4:3-8
I’ve entitled my sermon, “Sanctification…does that compute?”
To be honest…whenever I hear someone trying to explain sanctification…I always cringe…
• I feel like we have made sanctification so difficult…
• And the more we try to explain it…
• The more confusing it becomes…
• But…when you finally experience it for yourself…
• It all becomes so clear.
But, in any event, I intend to take your computer…
• And use it to illustrate the sanctified life.
Body
1. Before we get saved…
A. Sin is in control of our lives…
o We do what WE want to do…
o Not what GOD wants us to do.
B. This picture of sin is the picture of someone’s computer completely taken over by spyware…
o All the popups are popping up…
o And we are following them to our own ruin…
o In some cases, it is exactly the same as the pop ups on the computer…
o Chasing after drugs…sex…and material gain…
o But, at some point, people will find that chasing after those things does not satisfy…
o That is true in real life…
o And it is true chasing after all those different pop ups…
2. So we decide to try something different…
A. We get saved!
o We give our lives to Jesus…
o Now, instead of chasing after all those things…
o We are saying “no”…
o “no” to sin…
o And “yes” to God…
o And so, in our computer allegory…
o We start to close down the pop ups…
o Each of those little windows that pops up…
o Has a little red “x” in the top right corner…
o So, whenever we get a popup…
o We start closing it down…
o But, as with salvation…
o AND with your computer…
o You haven’t yet dealt with the underlying problem…
o You are dealing with the sins…
o But not the SIN…
o and the sins just keep coming!
o Computer-wise, you keep getting pop ups…
o And you keep closing them down…
o But, as Pastor Debbie found out…
o It can still be quite a battle…
o Dealing with the pop ups…
3. The answer for the computer…
A. and the answer for the Christian…
o You’ve got to deal with the underlying problem…
o Computer-wise, you’ve got to deal with all those little programs on your computer that are causing popups in the first place…
o So, you use a spyware destroyer/blocker…
o It searches through your computer and finds all those little programs and it rips them out…
o And then, the good programs will provide on going monitoring…
