Why Do I Still Struggle With Sin?

Introduction

how people change

Jcurve

What We Are Up Against

sin - plantinga

a tenacious enemy

life in the wilderness - tripp page 115

2 Corinthians 3:17–18 “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.”

part of how we change is we open our eyes to see the reality of where we are in the fight

we have been positionally sanctified- justified

We are righteous right now legally before God because of Christ

We have perfect sanctification promised - glorification where our position and practice are pefect

but we have to take the veil off our eyes and see we are in the already not yet of the process

overcoming sin and regret - the process sanctification - justification positionally sanctified - glorification at the end perfect sanctification (position and practice align in righteousness) - in between though is progressive sanctification in the chrysalis the caterpillar is genetically being broken down into something new broken down and built back up slowly - 2 corinthians 3:17-18

Transformed metamorphosis 4 times 1 romans 12:2, 2 corinthians, and 2 at the transfiguration

Not just freedom from but freedom too do things

instead of here are 3 steps to deal with your porn addiction?

Who is god ? who am i in relation to him? How am i to live before this god (what rights does he have over me what has he given me to live this life he has called me too?) What does my union with christ mean? We don’t even know the resources we have being unified with Christ

How People Change

The Art of Dying And Rising With Christ

“If dying and rising with Christ is the new normal, then when we encounter dying, we don’t have to collapse or withdraw into ourselves. We can be weak, even depressed. This frees us from our tendency to be depressed about our depression. Because depression avoidance is such a high value in our culture, when people are depressed, they think something is wrong. It’s a relief to realize that if we’re dealing with hard things, we should be depressed. Jesus models depression for us in his Passion as he is overcome by the weight of his coming death. Our modern obsession with creating a pain-free self lays a great burden on us.” Paul Miller

How we stay in the fight

life in community

The daily practice of repentance and forgiveness

union with Christ

Quite frankly God has a messier less eifficient plan for your life to make you who were meant to be

Its only when you know how the story ends that the plot twists start to make sense - Paul Tripp