Be Killing Sin

On the Mortification of Sin

Quitting a bad habit - smoking or drinking...

You may quit cold turkey, but the desire is something you have to overcome and fight the rest of your life. You surround yourself with others who have broken the habit, to encourage you and hold you accountable, you find new and healthy options to replace the unhealthy practice - so that eventually the impulse, the desire, is so weakened that it has no power.

You say, I quit that 20 years ago, but I’m still recovering...

“Put to death what is earthly in you...” This is the life we’re called to. We must be about mortifying sin in our own lives.

Mortify means to deaden, it means deliberately to attack, it means to starve to death; make no provision for them, in other words. Another good way of mortifying something is not to use it.

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Why must we mortify sin

Because of it the wrath of God is coming

Romans 8:7-8 “For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”

Romans 8:6 - to set the mind on the flesh is death...

Because You Belong to Christ

Sin is already dead to you; it belongs in the ground not to the things above

Tabletalk Quote - "God's message to Christians is not 'you are not yet holy, work on it until you get there,' but you are holy, be what you already are in Christ.

To be mortified unto sin is a higher and holier mystery than to be delivered from any mere acts of sin. It consists of having union and communion with Christ in His death unto sin (Rom. 6:10, 11).

Arthur Walkington Pink

The choicest believers, who are assuredly freed from the condemning power of sin, ought yet to make it their business all their days to mortify the indwelling power of sin.

John Owen

It has no part in Christ, so out of love of our union with Christ, and by nature of that union with Him, we go about mortifying, actively seeking to starve out sin in our lives.

Do you mortify; do you make it your daily work; be always at it while you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you.

John Owen

That which belongs to the Earth

The Sin of Immorality

Listing the sins

Sexual Immorality - fornication - It is any sexual activity outside of marriage between one man and one woman.

It means every kind of immoral sexual relation.

Impurity - uncleanness. This is more subtle than physical immorality, for it goes to the lurid imagination, speech, and deed of a sensual heart or filthy mind

Passion - or lust, the shameful emotion which leads to sexual excesses.

Paul used the same word to describe the “passionate lust” of:

The Gentiles who do not know God (1 Thessalonians 4:5), and

The “shameful lusts” of homosexuality (Romans 1:26).

Evil Desire - even our desires, un-acted upon, are still sinful

Covetousness - greed - Curiously added here.

Not merely the desire to possess more than one has, but more than one ought to have, particularly that which belongs to someone else.

The need to address this

Why does the church always talk about this? Because the Bible does.

Sexual sins were particularly common among Gentiles in the first century, and they can be some of the most difficult transgressions to resist, even today, as sex-crazed as our society is.

We identify ourselves by our sexual orientation and behavior, rather than by what God’s word says of us. Our culture celebrates sexual freedom, anything goes; except when the church proclaims God’s call to sexual purity, that’s judgmental, out-dated, repressive, and harmful. Children are being mutilated in “Gender-Affirming” surgeries, all in an attempt to rework God’s creation.

These are idolatry -

Idolatry - when we look to anything other than God for our identity, security, happiness, satisfaction. People’s ever-increasing desire for more and more sexual pleasure, denying the design of God’s good gift and remaking it as we see fit; this is nothing other than idolatry

The Sin of Anger

I recall in my first Church, when I was fresh out of seminary, preaching on a passage similar to this, addressing the issues of our culture with the word of God over 20 years ago, when two 80 year old women of the church came to me and said, “Pastor, we haven’t struggled with those sins in a long time...” Great! Let’s turn to the next list, it may cut a little closer to home.

Put away:

Listing the Sins

Anger - described here is growing, inner heat, like water in a pot that is rapidly boiling

Wrath - is that anger boiling over. We see it in a quick temper, fury, rage

Malice - viciousness of mind - thinking evil and vengeful thoughts of others, rejoicing in their harm and downfall

Slander - hurtful speech which defames one’s character

Filthy Speech - with the others unchecked, foul and obscene and abusive speech will flow from our lips

Lying to one another - to deceive or be false with one another

Why are these sins listed -

They are rooted in Pride, a lack of humility and love

They lay right under the surface and are easily provoked.

What we say, and how we say it, reveals the nature of our hearts

Mark 7:20-23 “And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.””

An unforgiving heart, angry and full of rage, demonstrates an unforgiven heart

Matt 18:23-35 The parable of the Unforgiving Servant

When the Bible says, “Mortify your flesh,” it means your ego, your old man, that self, that evil that is in you.

A. W. Tozer

The Sin of Division

The Dividing lines

Greek/Jew The Jews saw the world in two camps - Jew and Gentile/Greek; those Circumcised and those Uncircumcised. Dividing on Religious heritage and custom.

Barbarian and Scythian

“Barbarians” were considered to be the uncouth peoples who did not speak Greek and lived outside the Hellenic regions

Scythians appear to have been similarly conceived and perhaps seen as even worse culturally

A division on culture and refinement.

Slave/Free -

That which divides today

We are easily split over political, economic, racial, educational

How to Kill Sin -

How do we mortify, weaken, the power of defeated sin in our lives?

Recognize and Repent of your Sin

Paul’s list is not exhaustive -

These sins are universal, all have been affected by them, and all have a great need to turn from them

You once lived in these things You died! And you’ve been raised. You have a new identity, you are remade, you are alive to God

The Necessity of the Holy Spirit

To call any one to do this on their own is self-righteousness and impossible

Moralism, which leads to self-righteousness, is just as destructive, and worse, it is delusional. Mortification from a self-strength, carried on by ways of self-invention, unto the end of a self-righteousness, is the soul and substance of all false religion in the world.

You must be born again, which only comes through dying with and rising with Christ

It is we that are to mortify the deeds of the flesh. It is our duty, but of ourselves we cannot do it; it must be done in or by the Spirit.

John Owen

Every method put to use to mortify sin which is not by the Holy Spirit is doomed to failure. Every system which attempts to deal with sin without Christ and the Holy Spirit is legalistic and miserable.

John Owen

It is the Spirit alone that can mortify sin; he is promised to do it, and all other means without him are empty and vain. How shall he, then, mortify sin that has not the Spirit? A man may easier see without eyes, speak without a tongue, than truly mortify one sin without the Spirit.

John Owen

Only the Holy Spirit, working in those who are in Christ, can weaken the power of sin, and to bring us into life in Christ.

The expulsive power of a new affection

You put off the old in order to put on the new -

It is not enough to just stop, you must put on that which is Christ - Next week’s message

The Holy Spirit - helping to get you dressed

Haiti Clothes

Christ is all, and in all

Being renewed in your new life through knowledge after the image of its creator

Focus on Christ, think often of Him - look to his life which was lived for you, look to his sacrifice for your sins

Gal 5:24 “And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”

Do not love the nails, they were your nails driven which pierced his hands and feet

Do not love the cross, it was meant for you and is the sign of God’s wrath

Love Christ, who took the nails, who bore the cross, for you and for your salvation