What is sin?  Any physical, mental, or spoken action that falls short of God’s holiness, God’s righteous. Sin is missing the mark, God’s mark of perfection, failing to uphold God’s law, disobedience to God

Who has sinned?                                Have you sinned?

Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God

What is the consequence of sin?

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Isaiah 59:2 But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God,

     And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.

h    Sin has a two fold problem.  First we are guilty of sin, we each have committed sin.  This is our first problem because we are no longer innocent, but guilty.  Second, we are unrighteous, which is the result of committing sin.

h    This is a problem because God will not let any form of sin in His presence.

h    Therefore, as if you need me to tell you, WE HAVE A SERIOUS PROBLEM!

h    We have characteristics that are totally contrary to the Characteristics of God; holy, righteous, perfect, unblemished... .

 What is holiness?  To be set apart, sacred, pure, no blemishes (faults)

 What is righteous? To always do right, according to the perfect standards of God.

 John 8: ³⁴Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.

 Romans 3: ⁹What then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin; ¹⁰as it is written,

     “There is none righteous, not even one;

¹¹  There is none who understands,

     There is none who seeks for God;

¹²  All have turned aside, together they have become useless;

     There is none who does good,

     There is not even one.”

Romans 5: ¹²Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—

We all have a problem that we can not fix.  We are guilty of sin; there is nothing we can do to undo this guiltiness.  We are unrighteous; we can not do enough good deeds to cover over our unrighteous acts.  ***Besides, we are not good so how can we do good deeds.  Remember the standard of good is not what we think but the standard is God. We therefore are hopeless in ourselves in trying to make our situation with sin, right.