And what you do find is, there's not a lot of improving takes place. There's certain up-skilling takes place, yes, but the core problem doesn't get dealt with any time, because the core problem is a spiritual problem, needing a spiritual remedy - and there is a spiritual remedy, so we will try all our remedies first. So we'll try a little bit of religion, we'll go to church, some services, we'll get involved in some community - oh, community work, that'll be the way! I'll do some community work. I know what I'll do - I'll go and I'll get involved with one of the things in the community. I'll work hard and I'm such a good person, such an upstanding person in the community - it's a shame you found out about that sin I was hiding! [Laughter] But this is how I'm going to work it out.
I'm going to have these little scales, and my sin will be on one side, and my good deeds on the other side, I'll do a juggling act. The problem is, I never know how bad my badness is, and whether the goodness is going to balance it up. That's the problem. Are you doing enough good to balance up all the other stuff? Well of course you think well, I wouldn't be like that. Oh yes you are, far more than you realise it. I'll show you how it shows up in Christians.
Today, glory to God, I'm doing well. I've had a great prayer time, so I feel close to God - then tomorrow, I didn't have a prayer time. I actually really blew it, so I'll come to God now - oh God - and you see, so I've got no foundation at all. I'm still thinking that my works make the difference in the relationship with God, because if I did well today, or blew it today, is irrelevant. God has got a way to come near and solve my problem, and it's not me working harder and trying harder. You see, you've got to get that out of your system. We're all wired to perform better, wired to try harder, perform better - it's not the answer.
So the deal then is, how can I get free of the sin which has snared me, its right through my whole make-up, it's in my fabric. You don't even have to tell kids how to be selfish, they're just selfish automatically - have you noticed that? So God's established a remedy, and the interesting thing, you can't even use money to buy the problem of sin away. In Psalm 49, Verse 6 and 7, it said man's soul's so precious, there's not enough money in the world to buy it. So you can't solve it with money, you can't put enough money to solve the sin problem. You can't do anything like that, so what can we do? Well here's the answer: God has established a way to deal with it.
Now remember, God set in the physical laws, God set in the spiritual laws, God set in the consequences of sin, God also set in the remedy for it, and the remedy is called redemption. Now you don't hear that word too often, so I'll just explain the word so we know what it is. The process of dealing with the issue of sin is called redemption. I am redeemed! Right, see? Now what does that mean?
Well we sing the song, but what does 'redeem' mean? Since you don't hear the word too often, I want to get a good, clear definition. So how many of you saw on the news a little while ago that Somalia, some of the pirates there captured some people that were in the boats offshore? Have you noticed that - they caught some ships and captured all kinds of people? Now anytime someone fronted up with the money, and gave the money to the pirate, and then the pirate released them, and they got set free, that is redeemed. That is redeemed. A lot of people aren't redeemed. The ships are still in bondage, people are still in bondage, the crew's still in bondage, they're all still in captivity. They're in captivity to someone evil, and when you pay up the money you get free, that's what it is.
So to redeem someone is to pay the ransom - simply, that's all it means. It means a ransom, it's a price paid to liberate a captive, save them out of the power of someone else, which they couldn't do themselves. So in other words, you get possession back. Now you may have already owned it, but you get it back when you pay the money. God owned us because He created us, but He had to pay a price to get us back, and the problem with - this is the problem of sin: sin puts you in captivity, and you haven't got the power to get yourself free. Religion and all the other activities or works are about attempting to get free. It cannot do it, not by the works. No works we can do get us free. We need God's provision.