THE BATTLE AGAINST SIN

Yesterday we discussed the repentance that John the Baptist was preaching in the Judean desert. The reason we need to repent is sin. It is man’s biggest problem and is the reason Jesus came to this earth. He came to die for our sins, to make atonement for them. However, today our culture does not want to discuss the issue of sin. Rather, we have become a culture of victims. Psychology, beginning with Freud, has told us that we are victims of our upbringing. Our parents have messed us up, our environment has confused us, and our culture’s morals have limited our natural human expression. This therapeutic thinking has opened wide the doors for men and women to feel O.K. about sinning because they just cannot help themselves.
The Bible tells us something much differently about ourselves and about sin. It tells us that we are dead in our sins and trespasses and that we stand guilty before God. This is not because of something someone else did or did not do to us, but because we ourselves have sinned and are guilty, responsible, and have to face the sentence due our sin: death. But that is exactly what Jesus came to redeem us from - the consequences of sin. Jesus came to forgive us our sins and give us new life and eternal life with Him.
Our problem as believers, however, remains to be sin that so easily entangles us and prevents us from taking hold of that abundant life Jesus offers us. So how do we tackle sin? C.J. Mahaney, in the book How Can I Change?, offers two steps we must take in order to battle sin. First, he says, we must attack sin. Colossians 3:5 says, “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” When we are battling against sin we must be aggressive in our attack against sin and we must be on the offensive. We must go on the attack because if we wait, we will be in the defensive position very quickly.
The second point Mahaney makes is that we must avoid sin. Novel idea - avoid the sin you are attacking, putting to death. We far too often do not avoid it, but rather see how close we can get to the edge before we fall. If we are going to be serious about putting to death the sin that remains in us, we must learn to avoid it and avoid the things that make it easy for us to slip into the sins that so easily entangle us.
With you in the fight against sin,
Pastor Corey