Fight Sin in your Life

Transcription

1 DISCIPLESHIP - LEARNING TO CHANGE: Fight Sin in your Life Hebrews 12: 4 10 August 2014 Readings: Genesis 4: 1 7 Psalm 51 Hebrews 12: 1 4 Matt 5: Our text for today is verse 4 in Hebrews 12: In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. It is interesting to me that in the cross referencing, this verse is linked to persecution and martyrdom. And we live in an age where people who are standing up for Jesus against wicked and murderous assault are dying for their faith. In fact, in 2014 Christians are by far the most persecuted believers on the earth. There may be a time when we do put our lives at risk against structural sin and injustice lying down in front of bulldozers intent on destroying people s shacks where the poor are not being offered space to live. We may put our lives at risk defending someone else who is being attacked by an abusive person, or in some other crime. But in the context of these first 4 verses, the writer has just said: we are to throw off the sin that so easily entangles. And this verse follows it: in your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the shedding of your blood. So I am going to speak into God s call to us to deal with sin in our lives. It is a disease in us and we need to address it with the seriousness it deserves. A. GOD TAKES SIN SERIOUSLY From the beginning, from the point that Adam and Eve reject God they can no longer live in Eden. As God puts it, they might stretch out their hand and take and eat from the tree of life and then live forever. We are not fit to live in God s presence. Not one of us. And to live forever unredeemed is a frightening thought. Unless God fixes me and you, we would ruin eternity for him and everyone else. And we are born as sinners from conception we carry the sin of our first parents. Augustine called it original sin. That is why it is not enough to be forgiven for what we have individually done wrong we need to be saved from all sin: that which we have done and that which we have inherited through the family. We are born fallen and need to be saved. And sin earns a wage: Death (Romans 6: 23) Someone has to pay if sin is going to be addressed in my life. Without Jesus, the only Saviour, I will pay for my sin for all eternity. That is what hell is an eternity of separation from God, an eternal death, an eternal payment. I need to be saved. And in order to forgive us God does not say: Sin doesn t matter. He does not just brush it aside. He pays! Romans 3: 25 God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement through the shedding of his blood to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished. He did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. Even though in the past people had effectively been forgiven and saved from judgment, it was because God was looking forward to the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. Because of the cross, the judgment that they deserved was stayed. God takes sin so seriously that he is prepared to pay with his blood, shed on the cross.

2 B. WHAT IS SIN? The liturgy gives us these words: We have sinned in thought, in word and in deed and in what we have left undone. The scriptures give us many definitions which all add into the picture: Sin is lawlessness (1 John 3: 4) There is right and there is wrong and no shade of grey. In God s eyes there are no white lies. All lies proceed from the father of lies. When we do not live according to God s ways, God s Torah/Word, we are a law to ourselves. We are lawless. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3: 23) Sin is a falling short of the mark; a missing the perfect for the imperfect. We are not living in the image of the one in whose likeness we were created. Whatever does not proceed from faith is sin (Romans 14: 23) This speaks about living independently of God, living our lives and not his life. Sin is rebellion Genesis 3. It is not trusting God. It is going astray, walking our own way. It is about what is going on in our hearts, not just our actions: Matt 5 lusting is adultery. Hate and gossip are murder. Unforgiveness is unforgivable. Anything and everything that makes us less than God s plan for us is sin.. C. WHAT SIN DOES Sin is the great separator. Isaiah 59: 2 Your iniquities have separated you from God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear. Genesis 3 describes this fall for Adam and Eve and because of them, for us: Separated from God, separated from one another, at odds with creation, ashamed of self separated from what I should be. It kills. I die by degrees. I am less and less what I was intended to be. The more I sin the more I die. And at the end, eternal death awaits me unless I turn to the Saviour to save me. It puts us under God s wrath and judgment. His sentence hangs over our lives. It destroys our conscience and shipwrecks our faith 1 Tim 1: 19 Wherever we exercise influence, it leads others into sin because they take permission from our model. Those under our covering become vulnerable. If I live a sexually immoral life, all of you are vulnerable, because your protection has been taken away. Matt 18: 6-9 It grieves the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian God is hurt by our sinful behaviour (Eph 4: 30) It makes us slaves of sinful behaviour we become bound, addicted and unable to live as we should Romans 7, John 8. God gives us over to our sin, abandons us to our wickedness Romans 1: 28ff Sin robs we choose bad over good, and the good over the best. Sin deprives us of blessing:

3 Jeremiah 5: 24, 25 They do not say to themselves: Let us fear the Lord our God who gives autumn and spring rains in season, who assures us of regular weeks of harvest. Your wrongdoings have kept these away; your sins have deprived you of good. Sometimes it is easier to see in others how bad choices have done serious damage in people s lives, led them into lifestyles of destruction. In counselling we are dealing with the pain caused by sin. When we see its effects, it makes us long to walk in truth and freedom with God. D. FIGHT SIN We have to take sin as seriously as God. D.1 CALL SIN, SIN I have never forgotten a word I once heard: We judge the world by their actions and ourselves by or intentions. We have various defence mechanisms to avoid facing our own sin: I didn t mean to. He made me do it. In our minds, we rewrite the episode so that it reflects better on us; we adjust the truth to protect ourselves. It is when I face sin, own up, take responsibility that I have hope. So the first thing to do in fighting sin is to name it sin, acknowledge the darkness, the death that we embraced. Repentance is exactly that it is facing the truth, changing our mind to agree with God s mind and turning away from what has been. D.2 SHED BLOOD! The writer to the Hebrews sees that none of his recipients have yet shed blood in their struggle against sin. In our gospel reading, Jesus challenges us: If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out. If your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. From my observation, not one of us has taken our sin that seriously either! But perhaps Jesus is urging us to feel some pain some sorrow, some grief over our sin. I am less likely to repeat something that I have grieved over, chosen to feel the enormity of it. And not just our sin and the damage it has done to us and to others, but especially to God. Earlier in this letter, the writer said that in our falling away from God(6: 6) we are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. No pain, no gain. And look again at the cross and remember it cost Jesus his lifeblood. Every sin added to the cost he has paid. It is our sin that nailed him there. Do we not say we love him yet we do not spare him. Feel the pain. D.3 CONFESS TO ONE ANOTHER This too is costly. There are things in my life that it would be painful to share with others. I am ashamed. What will you think of me if you knew some of my thoughts and foolish actions.

4 There are things I am not proud of, Some of us would rather cut off our hand than own up to someone what we have done. But God understands that bringing something into the light is the best way to deal with sin. So let s kill our reputations, let s take off our masks of goodness and pretence and face up to our sin. Let us bare ourselves to one another and trust our God who still loves us even though he knows the worst about us. D.4 PRAY FOR ONE ANOTHER Praise God that in our battle with sin, we are not alone. Having owned up to someone, we put ourselves into their hands and into the hands of our saving God as they pray for us. Prayer can break bondages, prayer can heal some of the damage we have done to ourselves. Prophetic words can strengthen and defend us. When we do not allow ourselves to be prayed for, we lose out on God s plan. If you are one of those people who finds it hard to share weakness or need, if getting prayed for is the last thing on earth that you would consider doing own up and seek help. God never intended you to battle on your own. D.5 CHOOSE LIFE NOT DEATH It is so easy to believe Satan s word to Eve: You shall not die. That is why we choose what looks appealing, attractive, exciting. Pause and consider: Will this bring life or death? Do I want this in my life? What damage will this short pleasure do to me? And to someone else? Will this damage them or build them? I get to choose. Although all sin is against God, much is then against others as well as me. Pause and choose life. D.6 CHOOSE JESUS! There is an old chorus: Turn your eyes upon Jesus. It reminds us that if we are really battling in some area, the only way for some temptation to lose its power is to take the focus off the temptation and to look at him. Give him our hearts. Remind ourselves that he alone satisfies. E. LIFE BATTLE When we were saved, we were saved from sin s penalty - death. From that day on, we have been in a battle over sin s power. This is what sanctification is being remade after God s likeness. Moving into deeper and deeper freedom from sin s power. Things that used to tempt us have lost their power over us. One day we will die and be saved from sin s presence. We will spend eternity where there is no more sin. But that day has not come for any of us yet. We are called to struggle and to pay whatever the cost, even to the shedding of our blood because sin will destroy us; it will cut us off from God. If you are serious about following Jesus, sin has to be faced and dealt with.

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