John 2:23-25 The Why and How of Repentance

Scripture Reading

Psalm 1 Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

Nashville Shooting Statement

Matthew 5:43-48 ““You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Ephesians 6:12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

Intro

How do you repent?

How do you live the Christian life?

My goal in this sermon is to get really practical about how to die to sin and live all of your life for Christ.

After all, that is what discipleship is all about.

How do you put your sin to death? What does that look like?

And here’s the Big Idea. The simple truth that I think if you memorize, if you take it, and make it the rule of your life, will greatly help you in moments of temptation and give you a clear road map on the path out.

And here it is:

Repentance is turning from sin to follow Christ.

This sermon is really inspired by the last few words of John 2:25. He needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.

What an amazing verse that all at once shows us:

The depth of our sin.

The height of Christ’s love and grace

And hopefully, hopefully...everything we need to desire, long for, and strive to put our sin to death wherever we might find it in our life by the blood of Christ and power of the Holy Spirit.

With the first two points, we are going to look at three motivations for putting sin to death.

Three things to remember and spur us on towards more and more godliness.

Then with the last point, we are going to look at the nitty gritty of what repentance actually looks like.

Let’s start with point number 1...

I. Christ Knows Our Sin

John 2:23-25 Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.

To give you a brief summary of what is going on in this passage...

Jesus is in Jerusalem after cleansing the Temple, and while there, he did many signs.

And because of the signs, many, John says, believed in Him.

But they did not believe with true saving faith. It was only a superficial faith, one that did not trust in Jesus totally and wholeheartedly.

It was a natural faith rooted in signs and not a spiritual faith in what the signs pointed to.

All the miracles...

Jesus opening the eyes of the blind.

Casting out demons.

Making the lame walk. The sick well.

Raising the dead.

All of Jesus’ signs were living breathing sermons that said Jesus was the Messiah.

The One who would reverse the curse and make all things new.

Who would take away sin and all of its curse and effects.

In other words, that Jesus was the Savior of the world.

That’s why, Jesus, on his part, did not entrust himself to them.

There is a word play going on here in the Greek. Jesus not entrusting Himself to them is the same Greek word as many believed in Him.

So the idea is, many believed in Jesus, but he did not believe in them.

He had no faith in their faith.

He knew it was a superficial faith that would be easily overthrown or abandoned the moment things got too hard or the cost became too great.

And how did He know? Because He knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for He Himself knew what was in man.

Divinity

This is a direct claim that Jesus is God. That He is God in the flesh. The Son of God incarnate.

Truly and fully God and truly and fully man.

Why? Because only God knows the heart.

1 Kings 8:39 For you, [Speaking to the Lord] you only, know the hearts of all the children of mankind.

We can only see what our eyes see, but Jesus as the One True God, God in the Flesh, has knowledge only God can have.

You see how John emphasizes this by saying He Himself knew what was in man.

None of us know our own hearts let alone anyone else’s.

But Christ does.

He sees the heart, and He sees all the way down.

Hebrews 4:13 All are naked and exposed. Nothing is hidden from His sight.

Proverbs 21:2 the Lord weighs the heart.

And Christ weighed the hearts of these would-be followers and what did He see?

Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it.

All He Christ saw was sin and unbelief.

He saw right through the facade of religion and professions of faith and saw what was really there.

Wicked hearts. Desperately sick. Sinful to the core.

And that is all of us outside the grace of Christ.

We might try to clean ourselves up and make ourselves look good, but Jesus sees it all.

And just 8 verses before this where Jeremiah is talking about how ingrained our sin is he said:

The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron; with a point of diamond it is engraved on the tablet of their heart (Jeremiah 17:1).

In the New Covenant, God writes His Law on our hearts by His Spirit so that we have new hearts that love God and love His Law.

So what Jeremiah is saying here is outside of God’s grace, sin is written on our hearts. Its our greatest love.

And its written with a pen of iron. Its engraved and its never fading away.

That’s why the Bible says outside of Christ we are all slaves of sin. Serving the will of our master all the while drinking in death like water just to do so.

This was all I could think about as I studied this passage. And why I wanted to preach this sermon.

It just leapt of the page.

Christ knows my sin.

He sees all of it. Every nook and cranny of it

And yet…He saw all of it. All of our sins…every single one…And he still died for us.

He did not give Himself to these false disciples, but He willingly gave himself to us.

And this is where I really want to land our focus today because if we are going to talk about putting sin to death in our life, before we get to the how to, we need to talk about the motivations for doing so.

And by looking at our sin, by looking at how grotesque and sick our sin actually is, we’ll do two things.

One, we will see our sin in all of its hideous ugliness, and in seeing how ugly our sin truly is, we will long to be rid of it no matter the cost.

And number two: seeing the ugliness of sin will show us just how amazing God’s love and grace for us is in Jesus Christ, and that great love will warm our hearts to not just put sin to death because its ugly and grotesque, but because Christ is beautiful and deserves all the glory.

So what is sin?

What is the thing that has so corrupted us and made us desperately sick worthy of God’s judgment, not His grace?

Bad News of Sin

The Bible uses all kinds of words to describe our sin (MacArthur, Biblical Doctrine, 452-453).

It can mean to rebel, or betray.

Trespass as in to step outside the bounds God has given us.

Sin is called lawlessness. Wandering. Straying. Breaking God’s commandments.

Falling short or missing the mark as when an archer misses his target.

but sin doesn’t just miss a target made out of straw. It misses the mark of God’s Law and His glory.

That’s why the Bible says For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).

And that’s the key. Sin falls short of loving God and worshiping God for all that He is.

There’s no better place to see this than in the Great Commandment.

The one before all others.

If sin is falling short of God’s glory and breaking His Law, than by seeing how far short we all come to obeying this one simple command we will see what sin is, how pervasive it is…the depth of it and just how far we’ve fallen.

Mark 12:29-30. Someone asks Jesus what is the greatest commandment in the Law, and Jesus said...

Mark 12:29-30 “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’”

This verse is the Christian life.

You want to live a life of repentance that honors God and glorifies him?

The answer is not in a bunch of religious activity. At least not religious activity for its own sake.

The answer is in loving God. Loving Him with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind, and all of your strength.

Loving God with all that you are.

Heart

The heart is the center of the person. Its more than just our emotions or affections.

It expresses our greatest loves and devotions.

Loving God with all of our heart means loving God from the core of who we are.

That our highest treasure and greatest devotion is Him, and Him alone.

In this way, the heart involves the will. What do we want and what do we desire most?

The Bible says it should be the Lord first and foremost.

Soul

The soul is the inner person. The spiritual seat of who we are.

In involves the our emotions and affections.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus said His soul was very sorrowful, even unto death (Matthew 26:38).

Psalm 42 As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God (Psalm 42:1-2).

Loving God with all of our soul means all of our affections, not just our will and devotion as with the heart, are set on the Lord.

Are given over to Him.

He is our greatest joy. Our longing.

The heart alone might give God a heart. But the heart and soul give God a joyful heart.

Mind

Loving God with our mind means submitting our thoughts and our way of thinking to Him.

In other words, submitting to and agreeing with God’s will as it is revealed in His Word.

Its thinking and living according to His Word.

That’s why sinners are darkened in their understanding and Christians are called to be transformed by the renewal of their minds (Eph 4:18, Rom. 12:2).

Strength

And finally our strength. This is our will in action.

In other words, we are called to love God in all that we do.

All of our actions are holy actions. The work of our hands serve the Lord, not our sin.

But who can say we love God like this?

All that we are?

All our heart, all our soul, all our mind, all our strength?

The sole object of our devotion. No room for anything else.

None of us. All of us have fallen short of loving God, and as Christians we know we fall short even today!

Sin has so corrupted us, defiled us that it infects everything we are.

Puritan Thomas Watson says sin is as pervasive in us as salt is in the sea! (A Body of Divinity, 144).

Were it not for God’s grace:

Our hearts are devoted to sin. Slaves to sin.

Our soul and affections delight in our lusts, not the Lord.

Our mind is darkened. We think we know best and live by our own rules instead of humbly submitting to God.

And we give our strength to the very sins that destroy us.

And even as Christians, indwelling sin still clings to us through the flesh.

We still battle with sin and will battle with sin the rest of our life.

We all fall short of giving God the love and glory due to His name.

Appeal to Non-Christians

For the Non-Christian, this means you are under God’s condemnation and death.

The wages of sin, what we are owed for our sin, is death.

If you have failed to love God with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind, all of your strength, even once, you are under God’s wrath and will be judged for your sin, every single one, even the secret ones because the Lord searches the heart.

But the good news is if you keep going with that verse...

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

Jesus can pay for your sin, die the death you deserve which we are going to look at in just a moment, and give you eternal life.

Believers

And for the Christian, this is where we see our first motivation for putting sin to death.

Motivation 1:

Sin is ultimately a failure to love God for all that He’s worth.

And that should grieve us.

We know how good God is. How holy He is. How much He has loved us in Christ. How worthy He is of all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our mind, and all of our strength.

And yet, all of us, every single day, fails to love God as we ought.

If you’re anything like me this cuts you straight to the heart.

How do I not love God with all that I am? What’s keeping me from loving Him, and why am I so content to allow it to remain in my life?

And here’s the kicker, when we start to see our sin as not just the bad things we do, but ways we fail to love God who has so wonderfully loved us, that starts to cut us even more because we know, deep down, even that doesn’t cut us quite enough.

Doesn’t grieve us enough.

Thank God for His grace to save us from our sin even when we are such fickle creatures.

Seeing our sin for what it is, knowing how wicked it is to deny God the love He rightfully deserves not only as our Sovereign Creator, but our Loving Father, should make us long to get rid of everything that might rob our love for Him no matter the cost.

Put it to death. Live a life of repentance.

So the first motivation is that Sin is ultimately a failure to love God as He deserves, and as Christians this should grieve us and drive us to repentance.

But we don’t stop there.

Before Christ, all of us were the would-be disciples from John...

Nothing in us but sin and unbelief. A hard-hearted iron will against Christ and following Him.

The evil of our sin might drive us to repentance, but the grace of Christ who knew our sin, every last bit, and died for us anyway, draws us to repentance.

Because unlike them, Christ did not hold us at arms length.

He brought us near and entrusted Himself, gave Himself, to us, by giving Himself for us.

And that’s point number 2...

II. Knowing our Sin, Christ Died for Our Sin

There is no place we see more clearly the depth and ugliness of our sin, and the height of God’s love and grace than when we look at the cross and see our bleeding Savior who suffered and died for us.

If you want to see how wicked and horrible your sin is, look no further than the cross.

How we would loath our sin if we knew what it cost our Savior.

He was whipped and scourged. Bloodied and then covered in a purple robe and a crown of thorns.

And they laid His cross on His, and He carried it up the hill to the place where he would die.

The perfect, eternal Son of God, clothed in majesty and beauty before the foundation of the world...all the glory of heaven, was stripped naked and nailed to a tree.

They drove the nails through His hands and His feet, lifted Him up, and dropped Him into the ground to suffer and die in the heat of the desert sun amidst the scorn of His enemies.

The blood, the sweat, the tears.

His body torn apart and ripped to shreds. Isaiah 52:14 He was so marred beyond human semblance that you wouldn’t have never been able to recognize him.

All you would have seen was a bloody mess condemned to die between two criminals in a death that was so grotesque, such a picture of shame and disgrace, even by the barbarous Romans it was reserved for the lowest of the low…the scum of the earth.

And that’s how Christ died.

Not to mention all the cries…screams...prayers...wails of pain…gasps for air…groans…and all the agony and grief.

No man suffered like Christ suffered.

Because His suffering was not just a suffering of physical death on a cross.

He suffered the wrath of God for all of our sins.

Galatians 3:13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.

Jesus had no sin of His own to die for.

He lived a perfect and sinless life, perfectly loving God as a man through the power of the Holy Spirit with all of His heart, all of His soul, all of His mind, and all of His strength.

Where we disobeyed, He obeyed.

And when He went to the cross, He did so to bear the weight of all our sins.

Isaiah 53:5-6 He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

When He died He became a curse for us.

He suffered the wages for our sin which is death, and God poured on Him the full wrath our sin deserved.

And He paid the last might.

He drained the cup of God’s wrath that our sin would have forced us to drink for eternity down to the dregs. All the way down to the very last drop (Psalm 75:8).

If you want to see how ugly your sin is and what your sin deserves…look no further than the cross.

Motivation 2:

And this is the second motivation for putting our sin to death.

Who could see what their sin nailed to the cross and still treasure it in their heart?

If you were drinking from a glass and found out it was full of poison, you would throw it as far from you as possible.

How much more should we throw off our sin that fills the cup of God’s wrath with something more bitter than poison?

Death and the judgment of God.

The second motivation we have for putting our sin to death is looking at the cross and seeing what our sin deserved.

Who would keep dear that which brings such utter ruin.

But the cross doesn’t just show us the hideous nature of our sin.

It also shows us Christ’s incredible love and grace which leads to our third motivation.

Height of Grace

Jesus died in our place for our sins.

And according to the Bible’s testimony, all of us had more sin than we can count.

Job 13:23 How many are my iniquities and my sins?

Psalm 130:3 If the Lord should mark iniquities who could stand?

Psalm 38:4 For my iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me.

We are literally drowning in sin and they are crushing us under their weight.

Our sin are more than the sand of the sea, and heavier than all the oceans combined.

And yet, going back to chapter 2…Christ knew what was in man.

He knew all of our sin. Every single one. And yet He still died for us.

Let me make it more personal.

He knew all of your sins.

All the ones you’re most ashamed of.

All the ones you wish weren’t there.

All the ones you wish you could go back and change if you could.

And He even knows all the ones you love.

The ones you don’t think you can live without.

The ones you sweep under the rug and think they are no big deal.

And He still died for you anyway.

He took all your sin, that burden that was too heavy for you to carry on your own, and He carried it all the way the hill.

He bore it on the cross.

He suffered the wrath of God on our behalf.

He cried out My God My God why have you forsaken me? so that you would never have to.

He suffered and died for you.

And when He did it, He knew exactly what it would cost Him. Remember...He knew what was in man.

And more importantly, He knew what was in you and He knew what was in me.

And despite all that, despite all of our sin and unbelief, He loved us anyway, and gave His life for our sin.

This is what I could not stop seeing when I was studying this passage.

Our sin separates us from Christ. Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them.

But in love, knowing the depths of my heart and all the crooks and crannies of my sin, everything that makes me ugly and grotesque...

Everything that makes me a leper crying out “Unclean! Unclean!”

Christ saw me and instead of keeping me at arms length or casting me off like any of us would have done, He said Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28-30).

And that’s true for every single person that trusts in Christ.

Motivation 3:

This is our third motivation.

Jesus is a God of pardons.

His wrath is held in a cup and His mercy is an everflowing fountain that never runs dry.

He takes our sins as far from us as east is from the west and makes them white as snow (Ps. 103:12, Is. 1:18).

Everyone who believes in Him and trusts in Him alone for salvation...

If you come to Jesus and say, Lord, I am a sinner. Will you please forgive me. I believe you died and rose again for my sins. Will you please save me? I want to follow you the rest of my life.

Jesus promises to give you eternal life.

No matter your sin. No matter how bad or dirty you think you are...

Whoever comes to me I will never cast out…everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life (John 6:37-40).

Seeing Jesus’ great love for us despite our sin, that He went to the cross knowing our sin, knowing what was in man, knowing what was in me, what was in you, who could possibly hold onto their sin and not love Him in return.

Who could see Him drenched in blood, crushed in grief, pierced for our transgressions and not forsake the very sins that put Him there.

They cost Him His life and were only paid for by His own precious blood...How could we who love Christ still hold on to them and treasure them as our own?

You want to put your sin to death, look to the cross. That’s your third motivation.

Not only does it show us what our sin deserves...

It also shows us how much Christ loved us.

That He knew our sin and still died for us anyway.

How much more should we love Him in return and strive to put that sin to death everywhere we find it in our life?

Well how do we put them to death?

Number 3...

III. Christ Died for our Sin that We Might Die to Them

1 Peter 2:24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.

When Christ died, He did not just deliver us from the penalty of our sin. He also delivered us from the power of it.

Once we were slaves of sin, but now we are slaves of Christ.

Or As Paul said How can we who died to sin still live in it (Rom. 6:2).

Holiness and repentance is not optional Christianity.

Its essential to the gospel because By God’s grace our lives become living breathing testimonies of God’s power to save.

That’s why a holy life glorifies God. It doesn’t say we are awesome, it says God is gracious.

The question we are trying to answer is How?

Motivations

We’ve already looked at 3 different motivations for repentance.

First, our sin fails to love God as He deserves and this grieves us as Christians because we know every time we sin we fail to love Him as we ought.

Second, the cross shows us what our sin deserves, and only a fool would continue to drink the poison of sin when they know it only leads to death.

And number 3, Christ knew our sin and loved us anyway.

He died for us, bore the punishment we deserved.

And see what that love cost, how could we not love Him in return and strive to put our sin to death everywhere we find it in our life?

Those are the motivations. The why.

Here is where we put those motivations into action. The how.

How

We started this sermon with...

Repentance is turning from sin to follow Christ.

And ultimately this life of repentance is a life of love where those three motivations come together to grow our love for Christ and empower us to love Him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Love powers the Christian life. And love powers putting your sin to death.

Not white knuckling it and will power.

So how does it work?

Here is a simple three step road map for a life of repentance.

1. Conviction

2. Confession

3. Watch and Pray

1. Conviction

This is a work of the Holy Spirit in the Christian’s life.

He makes known to us our sin and calls us to repent.

And in that moment we have a choice.

We can either confess our sin and turn from it, or we can grieve the Holy Spirit and ignore our sin and His conviction (Eph 4:30).

This where we just feel bad for our sin, but we don’t actually deal with it.

True repentance on the other hand responds to the Holy Spirit’s conviction with godly sorrow.

2 Corinthians 7:10 For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

Godly sorrow is sorrow we feel for the sin itself and not just the negative consequences or effects sin might bring.

And its more than just sorrow for the action of sin. Its sorrow for the want or desire of sin.

It grieves us that sin is still alive and well in us and we long for it to be put to death.

And you know when you have true godly sorrow verses worldly grief when the love and delight you had for your sin is purged out, and you hate it from the core.

In fact, in godly sorrow, we need to hate our sin infinitely more than we ever loved it.

And there is no repentance without godly sorrow because without a sorrow and hatred for our sin, we will never put it to death.

This is why true repentance goes beyond feeling bad about your sin.

It examines the heart in prayer, and takes it to the Lord and says I can’t fix this.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise (Ps. 51:17).

How often do we feel the Spirit’s conviction, but don’t actually move to joining in that conviction and mourning over our sin.

You know its wrong.

You even think to yourself that was wrong. I should not have done that or I should not do that in the future, but we don’t ever move from that, from the conviction of the Holy Spirit, to taking it to the Lord and dealing with our sin.

Its a fleeting moment of regret that is long forgotten after just a few minutes.

Instead, we need to respond to that conviction and take it to the Lord.

There needs to be a holy agony in us that drowns our sins with our tears.

Here’s what Puritan Thomas Watson says: There are two lavers to wash away sin: Blood and tears. The blood of Christ washes away the guilt of sin; tears wash away the filth (Watson, The Godly Man’s Picture, 61).

Godly sorrow, the tears of conviction, drive out our love for sin and makes us long for Jesus Christ.

And from there, out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (Matthew 12:34).

We confess our sins to God.

2. Confession

1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Confession is agreeing with God about our sin.

Now why would God want us to confess our sins?

He already knows everything. Why is godly sorrow not enough?

Because Confession is how we preach the truth to ourselves that sin is death for us.

Think about it like this. No one falls into sin, you slide there.

You know its wrong, but somewhere along the way you convince yourself its not that bad, and its ok, and you can do it even if its just this once.

Confession is how God undoes all that.

We carved a path to get to that sin, and confession is how we hike back out and put up a sign that says “Dead End.”

So confession comes to God, not to give Him a pound of flesh. He already laid all our sin on Jesus.

Confession comes to God. That was sin. I lied to myself to get there. I shouldn’t have done it.

Its not good for me. Its death for me. Will you please forgive me and give me grace to turn away from that sin.

Confession is more for our benefit than it is God’s because it forces us to preach to ourselves the truths about our sin, so that we would no longer believe the lies.

And conviction and confession need to go together. There is no repentance without it.

The hypocrite might confess their sin, but they still love it.

They long to have it. Even while they are praying, their flesh whispers, “But Lord, not yet. Let me have this sin, just a little while longer.”

There is no resolve to renounce our sin once and for all.

And if that’s you, let’s be honest, that’s all of us, then in that moment confess that even to God and say, God even as I say this, I don’t hate my sin as I should and would you forgive me for that as well and change my heart.

But true confession resolves to renounce your sin then and there.

The intention of the heart is to forsake that sin. Put it off.

Drop it and never pick it up again.

Any thing less is just half-repentance. Where we confess our sin and agrees that it is wrong, but there is no actual turning away from that sin in our everyday life.

Confession, true confession, is where we turn from sin to follow Christ.

And that takes us to the third step of a life of repentance...

3. Watch and Pray

This is where battle against temptation. We wage a holy war against our sin.

You must set yourself against sin and abhor it.

Jesus said...

Matthew 26:41 Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

We watch out for temptation by praying, first of all, against temptation.

The Lord’s prayer, Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil (Matthew 6:13).

How often are we praying that God would keep us holy and help us to be on guard against temptations that might come into our life?

And when temptation does come, we don’t just sit and say Don’t do that sin, Don’t do that sin, Don’t do that sin.

We pray in the Spirit and take our sin to the Lord.

Hebrews 4:15-16 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

We run to Christ because He knows the way out.

He knows how to fight sin overcome it because he never once gave into it.

This is what it means to put our sin to death by the power of the Spirit.

Romans 8:13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

The moment temptation comes, you run to Christ. You pray to Him and keep praying to Him until the temptation is passed.

And if it comes back even two seconds later, you hit your knees again and pray for God to change your heart.

And what is God’s promise?

God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. (1 Corinthians 10:13).

The life of repentance calls for a life of relentless godliness. A total war against sin where no sin, not a single one, not a pet sin or one that seems small and insignificant, is allowed safe harbor in your life.

Its total war or none at all.

Let the wicked forsake his way (Isaiah 55:7).

Watch and pray. Constant vigilance against sin taking every temptation as an opportunity to turn from sin to follow Christ.

And lest we forget, not by will power or white-knuckle grit.

But out of love for Christ who knew our sin, every single one, past present and future and still died for us anyway.

Let’s Pray