Mortify

Well good morning, it’s nice to be back with you. I distinctly remember in my teenage years as I was starting to grow and try to understand the things of God, I remember starting to see how sinful my heart could be. And In that time I remember going to this event, I can’t remember where or what it was, but I remember going and hearing this guy talk about his conversion story. He talked about how before he knew Jesus he was into some dark stuff, some deep sin. And then he came to know Jesus and immediately his old desires for sin went away and he never struggled with any of it again. And everyone is clapping and praising God.

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And I’m sitting in the back starting to drown under the weight of guilt and doubt because that isn’t my story. That isn’t my story. My story was that I grew up early as a Christian, but then I started to struggle with sin. Then I grew up and matured in my faith and the struggle did not leave. So here’s this guy saying he met Jesus and it all evaporated away, sin and struggle. And my story is I am coming to know Jesus more deeply and I still feel like I’m struggling with sin.

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And so I just felt defeated, like maybe this Christian thing wasn’t working for me. Because maybe you are supposed to come to know Jesus and never wrestle again.

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Have you ever felt that before? Do other people struggle as much as me when it comes to sins? Or maybe you just grew up thinking following Jesus would more quickly change your heart? And that every day you’d grow, your sanctification chart would always be up and to the right, just continual progress. But most of us, if we are honest, it’s actually a lot of ups and downs.

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Today I want to show you from the text that there is a way to both not feel crushed as you struggle with sin but also feel empowered to fight and grow in your sanctification.

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Turn to Galatians 5:24-25 and as you turn there I’ll catch you up with where we’ve been. As we’ve walked through Galatians we have gotten to this section where Paul begins to talk to followers of Jesus about life in the Spirit. When Jesus went away he granted us the holy spirit that dwells within us, God’s spirit. And in the life of a follower of Jesus Paul says in v16-18 that you have the spirit and the flesh. And these are at war within each other. The works of the flesh is this long list of self-gratifying, unloving, selfish works which can allure any of us in here. And then last week we looked at the fruit of the spirit, that we cultivate as we abide in Christ as he exhibits the fruit towards us perfectly, that helps us yield to the prompting of the spirit. And now we arrive in verse 24, a continuation for Paul of this whole section of what it looks like for us to live in the Spirit.

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Read verse

“And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” 24 Now this is such an interesting verse, maybe not at first glance, but the more you meditate on it, it becomes more rich. IF you write in your bibles, I would circle “belong to Christ Jesus” and then circle “crucify the flesh” and here we find our first point.

‌1. You cannot have belonging to Christ if you also do not crucify your flesh

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And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh… for Paul, you cannot have one without the other. Now, I have to start by saying this because our hearts are so prone to it, Paul is not talking about legalism here. IF you think, the way I belong to Christ is through killing my sin, you are buying into what Paul has written this whole book against. He said in chapter 2:15: yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ,

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You do not save yourself, Christ has saved you, died for you, and loved you while you are sinful, and because of what Christ has done, you now belong to Him. Notice the order, those who belong… have crucified.

How you might lean

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Life is never just as black and white as this though, we all come with different upbringings, ways of thinking, personalities that make us lean certain ways when it comes to this text, and a lot of us have responded to Christian culture of our upbringing. You probably lean one of these two ways

Some focus more on the belonging to Jesus but are light on the killing sin part

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For all kinds of reasons this could be you. You come to church, you know God loves you and forgives you, maybe you love worship and spending time with God even. But when it comes to deep, costly repentance, when it comes to being honest with yourself about your sin and how God feels about that, regular confession of sin to a trusted friend hasn’t been a practice you’ve implemented. - you don’t consider those things much. Your discipleship of Jesus is light on sin in varying degrees.

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God is more than this, he loves you deeply, yes, He forgives and delights in you as his son and daughter, yes. But He is also deeply holy and His heart is set on you becoming more and more like Him. Now you might not be that extreme, but you might lean this way and be on various levels of on this side of the spectrum.

Some focus more on the killing sin part, but are light on the belonging to Jesus part

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For all kinds of reasons this could be you. This is often me, I’m having to grow out of this. What seems most important in the life of a believer is killing sin, it’s the only way I know how to relate to God. All my prayers, all my thoughts, all my ideas of God are centered around killing sin and growing and getting better. It is easy for this person to slide into legalism. These are all needed things in the Christina life, but if it is the only way you relate to God, you have a very narrow understanding of who God is. God is simply more than a drill Sargent. One of the beauties of the Gospel is that we now have a place, a person to belong to, who wants us. If you only view God through the lens of growing and killing sin, you undercut a major part of the Christian faith from your heart.

Find the middle ground

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If you consider your life with God, which way do you lean in this text? Paul is reminding us here, find the middle ground. You don’t get one without the other, both must be active in your life. So take stock, which way do you lean? Which side do you need to grow in? Hold both in tension, find the middle ground in your discipleship where both are important components, for you cannot have one without the other.

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Now, I’d love to talk more about the belonging to Jesus part of this verse, but I don’t think it is the highlight for Paul because this section is about our relationship with sin. But if that’s the side of the spectrum you need to grow in, belonging to Christ, I would encourage you in your quiet times this week to read psalm 103 and pray about this. Our focus today though, is on crucifixion of the flesh.

2. Is crucifying the flesh a past or present event? (and why that matters for you in your day to day life)

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Remember, he’s talking about our life in the Spirit but also the flesh within us that produces sin and death. So what is he getting at when he says “have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires”? Some scholars think he is talking about the past event done for us when our old selves (our old Adam) were killed with Christ and now the new Adam, Jesus will live within us. But some scholars look at this verse as a present event we must do continually.

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Now I really wrestled with this and came to the conclusion, that it is both. We’ll look at the past event and what it produces in us and then the present event of crucifying our flesh.

‌The past event

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Paul has said in Romans 6:6 that “We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.”

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Now that is a passive past event, something done for you in the past. So that is a reality, that when Christ died, your old self, your flesh was also placed up on that cross in a sense.

This eliminates shame and slavery

I don’t know if you are prone to this, but I am. The enemy can really get into my heart and discourage me by bringing up old things in my life that I regret. There was a season in my life where I just lived in guilt and regret over things I had done long ago. I’m just prone to this, I don’t know why, deep discouragement and guilt over past sins.

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The things that pop into your head and make you go “Did this make God leave me?” You got those sins, memories? For me, this theological idea that my old self has been placed up on the cross with Jesus and been crucified, is a helpful and freeing reality that I must preach to myself in those moments where the enemy assaults me with accusations of my past that are true.

I have to remind my heart that one of the beautiful truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that when Jesus died on that cross he took my old self up there too. So that old Josh is dead along with his sin and shame.

Oh what freedom this truth can produce in you. Your old self died up on that cross and anytime you feel the guilt of sin assault you remind your heart, that old me is dead. Do you struggle with guilt and regret over old sins, last year? Last week? Yesterday? In the Gospel of Jesus that old you is dead, so apply new Gospel mercy to your heart this morning by reminding yourself of that past reality.

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I’ve said this before, you should ask hard questions of the text. So if im sitting in your seat here’s what I’m saying - that sounds great. That helps me with my past struggles.

If my old self was crucified, why do I still struggle with sin presently?

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Perhaps that is what Paul is getting at when he mentions that our flesh is crucified, the imagery is of the act of torture the Romans used to eventually kill criminals and Jesus himself. This is the already not yet paradox. Just because the dominion of sin has been defeated, does not mean it won’t scream and squirm and still fight against the Spirit in me until that final day when Christ returns and sin dies totally.

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This is what teenage Josh needed to know back in those days, that yes, my flesh was crucified with Christ and a decisive blow was made against it. Sin will not have final victory of me, neither will death, because Christ now lives in me. But my flesh will still fight until that end day. SO we must be equipped to fight. Some of your sins and sinful impulses will be dealt with at conversion, but some will not be. They require, for reasons only God knows, longer battles. Longer fights. The war has been decided but there are still a few fights to be had.

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So when we consider our present sinful selves, our pulls towards lust, our deeply selfish hearts in marriage and friendships, our greed, our idols of success and entertainment and safety and anything else that we sacrifice more for than we do Christ, how do we drag them up the hill, put them on the cross, and drive nails into them?

The present - mortification

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Let us look back at our text, “and those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires”

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Do you notice the difference here about who is doing the crucifying? We have, and the continual nature is revealed in verse 25, let us also keep in step with the spirit. You must make daily war with your sins until the day you die, there is an old theological term for this called Mortification.

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One pastor defines mortification:

‌“Mortification is the theological term used to describe the call for those who are united to Christ and living in the power of the Spirit (i.e., Christians) to put to death (mortify) lingering sinful impulses that arise from within and resist temptations that surface from outside of the believer.”

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This is not an add on to mature Christian living, this is Christian living. As you belong to Christ He empowers you through all we talked about last week to yield to the Spirits influence in killing your sin.

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In verse 11 of Romans 6 - Paul says “so you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God”… you must consider yourselves what you are, you must remind yourselves what is true. The dominion of sin has been crucified, it no longer has ultimate power of your life anymore and on the day of Jesus’ return it will be killed once and for all. But until that day, it still has some influence. So how do we deal with this influence that we can find without ourselves, these sinful impulses and passions?

3. How do we crucify the flesh on a daily basis?

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So how do we do this, practically?

Recognize you are sinful

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First, we must recognize we are sinful and that we have sin within us. Some of you, you’ve got no problem with this. You are so aware of it, maybe too aware of it because you have such sensitive consciences and you need to look more at God’s grace.

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But some of you, right now, might be going I don’t know that I have any big sins in me that need to be killed. I feel like I’m doing alright. And so here’s just a thought if that’s you, just because you do not sin in ways that are taboo in our current Christian culture, does not mean you are not sinful and God is not calling you to kill your sin. You might have sins that our current Christian culture have no problem with, so you give them no mind.

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Do you love anything before God? Does your heart get attached to his things more than Him? Food? Money? Security? Success?

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Maybe you don’t have big flagrant sins in your life like embezzling money or massive sexual sin, but more subtle sins of the heart at the desire and passion level, isn’t that what the text says? Kill the flesh with its passions and desires.

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I’m not trying to discourage you here, maybe a mental image will help. Tie a rope around the grace and love of God, and then repel down into your heart and you will find more sin than you ever imagined. Our current problem is we just think as long as it isn’t adultery, embezzling money, or not hurting others it isn’t a big deal.

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I’m not trying to harp on sin right now, I just want you to see that God delights in the purity of our hearts as His followers, He wants us to take this seriously. And I just know from my own experience, if I’m not doing flagrant sins I feel ok. And there are seasons where the battle is lighter, thank God, but this text is a reminder for us all, kill your sins. All of them.

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Or your sins will kill you. They will grow and kill you. All sin starts off small, seemingly safe, controllable. But there is a reason God wants us to take sin seriously, it isn’t because he’s just a kill joy or some tyrant in the sky. It’s because He loves us and doesn’t want us to be enslaved to something that is not good for us..

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Sin starts off as a cub. Cute, something I can handle, but it turns into a lion after a while and consumes me. Some of you might be messing with something right now, it’s not a huge deal but you’re messing with it. Kill it in the cub stage. Don’t coddle it. God, as a loving father, is pleading with you to kill it. To make a decisive choice right now to submit and trust Him.

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It’s not too late, repentance now is easier and always harder later.

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What sins tempts you with their passions and desires?

‌How?

Ok, so how. We notice a sinful action or desire tempting us in our lives. How do we kill it?

A- Confess it

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Some of us are sinful in our confession of sin because we are just not honest. “Oh, I’m sort of struggling with my phone”. No, you must confess honestly and bring it into the light. Confess honestly.

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This is incredibly painful and hard because it brings up so much shame and guilt in us. Our greatest fear is people knowing the weakest parts of us, the ugliest parts of us. But do we actually want our church to be a helpful place for people to struggle and grow? Or do we want to just fake it and play the game. Honest confession, as scary as it is, is a pathway to deeper love because Christ knows all of you to the core and isn’t going anywhere, how beautiful when your christians friends do the same.

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You can only deeply and honestly confess if you have the assurance of God’s grace. And we will look more at this next week, but I think we need to grow in this area. Confess. When was the last time you actually confessed sin to someone?

B- Starve it

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Cut off your access to it. Get rid of the computer, put a blocker on your browser, take the alchool out of your house. Stop watching sin inducing content. Ask your friend to look at your budget so you aren’t so greedy. Ask your friend to look at your screentime so you can starve your idol of entertainment.

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If you need help with this, talk to a friend or please email me. I’m not perfect I have to do these. But we cannot expect to make progress in killing sins that we keep feeding. Just because you have sinful inclination does not mean you have to give into sinful action. Starve it.

C- Preach the truth to yourself

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When you are wrestling with a sin, if you try on your own, it will overpower you. This shows how belonging to Christ is tied to crucifying sin. This is what I have to do, and Jesus taught us in his temptations in Matthew 4, I have to find specific promises in the Bible regarding my specific sin. And I have to write it down on an index card, and then I look at it all day. I take it to work with me. I put it on my desk.

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A few years ago I was in a season of just all out fighting and temptations to lust were assaulting. And I had to get my index card and write down Psalm 4:7 You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound.

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And when that temptation would crop up, I had to get my index card and enter into prayer and preach to my heart you god, you put more joy in my heart than anything the world can offer, even sexual pleasure. There is more joy in YOU, help me want you! I DON’T want this sin, even though my flesh desires it, I want you! And i had to preach that to myself and just preach it till I put that thing on the cross.

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Do you do that? Do you fight your sin with specific promises from God’s word? Or do you just let your temptations talk to you?

D- Replace the pleasure of sin with a greater pleasure

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Consider the anguish of Augustine, a pastor in the 400’s as he sought to fling off his lusts of 30 years,

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I was held back by mere trifles. . . . They plucked at my garment of flesh and whispered, “Are you going to dismiss us? From this moment we shall never be with you again, for ever and ever.” . . . And while I stood trembling at the barrier, on the other side I could see the chaste beauty of purity in all her serene, unsullied joy, as she modestly beckoned me to cross over and to hesitate no more. She stretched out loving hands to welcome and embrace me.

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We give up things for better things. We give up the pleasure of sin for a greater pleasure in knowing Jesus.

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This is what Augustine finally saw, that a superior pleasure had conquered his pleasure for lust.

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How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys [his lusts for sex] which I had once feared to lose! . . . You drove them from me, you who are the true, the sovereign joy. You drove them from me and took their place, you who are sweeter than all pleasure, though not to flesh and blood, you who outshine all light, yet are hidden deeper than any secret in our hearts, you who surpass all honor, . . . O Lord my God, my Light, my Wealth, and my Salvation. (Confessions, 181)

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“You drove them from me and took their place…” Surely this is what it means to taste and see that the Lord is good! Better than anything. Better than years and years and years of unbridled sexual pleasure to the max. Better than all the money in the world. Better than all of your deepest insecurities fixed! We fling off our sins and our lusts when the joy and pleasure of God stands before us. We fight the allure of sin with a greater pleasure.

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This is why we must focus on belonging to Christ, because as our intimacy with Him becomes sweeter, more beautiful, as He loves us and draws us in we find a greater more full pleasure in relationship with Him rather than what temptation offers and we choose to kill our sin because God is better. That’s the only reason you kill your sin.

It will be loss - but also gain

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If you actually touch the nerve of your sin and begin to kill it, it will feel like loss at first.

Cat story

Maybe that is how God feels about us and our war with sin. He sees us fighting, killing our sins, and in those places where it is hard and in the moment of a decisive choice you make to confess or starve your sin, it feels like loss. We feel like the cat, where we’ve left what is comfortable and nice. And God is reminding you in this moment, in this text and in the good news of the cross of Jesus Christ that though it feels like loss, there’s more peace and more love and more freedom on the other side of this struggle with your sin than you could ever imagine.

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So don’t give up. we fight sin not to earn God’s love, but because of God’s love for us.

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And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

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God is with you in the process of sanctification. He is with you in your slow journey of growth. You belong in the loving arms of Jesus Christ, He has you safe and sound, and he also calls you to work and kill the sins within you. God is not against your pleasure, but for it in fullness. Remember, Self-control does not come in pill form. Growth does not come without spiritual sweat. Dependence on God is not born without a situation that depletes you of your strength. Whatever God is doing in your life in regards to your sanctification, trust Him… and count it all as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Him. There is more joy found in obedience than the slog of sin. Always.

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What step today do you need to take to kill sin instead of coddle it?

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Give time to repent and pray - maybe you have sinned against someone and you need to confess, maybe you need to do business w/ God