#4 - Habits For life - Hate, Kill... sin

Power of confession

intro

What would it be like for you to beat sin?

To get a win over that one area of your life that keeps holding every part of you down?

Sin does not need to define you nor consume you.

Sin is exhausting, especially when you’re battling in secret, and you see no way to get a win.

You can’t hide it, deny it, or play with it another day.

You have to kill sin, and this is not some term unique to me. God invented the idea of dealing with sin by putting it to death.

God’s Word indicates that dealing with sin is like a bloody battle—something has to die (Col. 3:5; Rom. 6:11-12).

Colossians 3:5 (NIV)

5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.

Romans 6:11–12 (NIV)

11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires.

Hate it !

Hate is not commonly seen as a virtue, but it needs to be. Hating sin helps us deal a blow to corruption in our own lives.

Romans 12:9 tells us to hate or “abhor what is evil.” Hate is the precursor to “hold fast to what is good” (v. 9).

Without the hating of evil and sin, we diminish our ability to love. For us to “let love be genuine” (v.9), we need to hate some things deeply.

Romans 12:9 (NIV)

9 Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.

Knowing exactly what you’re hating is critical.

The biblical term “sin” is derived from the word hamartia in Greek or the word hata in Hebrew, which are archery or spear-throwing terms for “to miss the mark” or “flawed.”

Someone “hamartia-ed” when they did not hit the middle of a target.

Cultivating distaste for anything in our life that’s missing the mark is virtuous.

Bring to mind the ugliest sins that have a hold of you right now.

When I say bring your worst, I’m not hedging on the “dark sins,” “familial sins,” or “lifelong sins.” Bring them all: evil thoughts, sexual immorality, stealing, murder, adultery, coveting, pornography, alcohol, prescription drugs, pot, deceit, sensuality, racism, envy, slander, food, spiritual pride, gossip, bitterness, rudeness, boastfulness, and a slew more.

Instead of winking at sin, ignoring it, or dumbing it down, hate it.

We don’t like holding on to what we hate, so give it a go and hate away.

Now let me tell you where we’re going with these painful sins from here.

We’ll cover three biblical weapons for killing sin in this message. Wield them with spiritual enthusiasm, and I’m fully confident that the sin that has you by the throat today will be under God’s foot tomorrow.

STRATEGY FOR BATTLE:

HATE IT- Have a prayer talk with God or write Him a letter:

● Tell Him how much you hate your sin and how it’s affecting your life.

● Tell Him that as much as you hate your sin, you need His help to hate it even more.

Expose It

Exposing our sin to God and others is the first step of victory over sin.

That’s why if we ignore, justify, or hide our sin, God may freeze us out to get our attention (Ps. 66:18-19).

Psalm 66:18–19 (NIV)

18 If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened;

19 but God has surely listened and has heard my prayer.

He wants you to bring your sin into the light of truth by confessing it to Him and friends. When you bring sin into the light of truth, three powerful things happen.

1. The cleansing process begins, and it’s thorough, in-depth and detailed.

2. You realize you’re not alone/not the only one.

3. You live in an authentic community and are free from shame and isolation.

Look at the powerful effect of the confession of sin—exposing it gives us a new connection with God and people.

1 John 1:7–9 (NIV)

7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

James 5:16a (NIV)

16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

You can take a small step right now.

In just a few words, tell God what sin or sins have a grip on you.

He knows already, but authentic faith is relational, and your proximity to God will be tighter due to your coming clean.

Remember, you have never been more loved, and nothing can separate you from His love. PERIOD!

STRATEGY FOR BATTLE:

EXPOSE IT — Bring that sin to mind that needs to die. Courageously face it. Now you have two practical moves to make:

● Confess it to God and agree with Him that you have this in your life, and it has to go.

● Call a trusted friend, pastor, or mentor and confess this sin as well to them. Bringing this into the light will bring you unexpected relief.

Attack It

Attacking sin is all about taking extreme measures to put to death whatever sins are killing you.

This is where blood needs to be spilled.

But, as John Piper explains, there’s only one way to prepare for battle: “Until you believe that life is war—that the stakes are your soul—you will probably just play at Christianity with no blood-earnestness and no vigilance and no passion and no wartime mindset”

1. This is war, and Jesus got graphic in defining it:

Matthew 18:8–9 (NIV)

8 If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire.

9 And if your eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.

Jesus is not being literal.

He’s using hyperbole to make a crucial point: attacking sin at the source is necessary.

Killing sin might not be a common topic in conversation, but it needs to be.

We discuss sin, find accountability for sin, get counseling for sin, and deal with sin in ways that end up leaving the sin intact and us in pieces.

Exploring and being held accountable or even getting counsel around you is fantastic.

But all of this needs to come to the “Y” in the road of deciding to put sin to death and finding a strategy for how to do it.

In Proverbs 7, we find the story of a young man who got involved with a married woman—reaping all the short-lived moments of satisfaction. Early in the story, we see that he took the path toward her home. That’s where the battle was lost. He should never have gone down that path.

It was too much pressure. Cutting off the path to sin usually prevents us from walking into sin—preemptive strikes work.

Apply this same approach for anything that’s killing you and needs to be killed.

If you have a credit card weakness, leave it home, cut it in half, or melt it, but don’t have it handy. Ever!

If wine, beer, the stiff stuff, or other drugs are owning you, get them out of easy reach, and find those trigger points or trigger people and remove them as much as possible.

If social media is devouring your time, put limits on your electronics for this as well.

With God’s grace, courage, and the right support, you can put anything to death that’s killing you!

STRATEGY FOR BATTLE:

ATTACK IT — Take extreme measures to kill what’s killing you. Remember that limiting access is one of the most practical ways to starve the supply lines of sin.

● Write down a strategy to make this sin less accessible. Ask others to help you brainstorm if necessary.

● List the people, places, or things that need to be cut off.

Overwhelm It

Your life is finite. We all have a limited number of hours in a day, a certain amount of energy to expend, and capacity limits on friends we can have and money we can spend—life has its limits.

It’s the same way with sin.

If a day in your life is like a fifty-five-gallon drum that contains your day, you have fifty-five gallons of something to put in it.

The way to deal with sin is to overwhelm it with the Holy Spirit.

The way to kill sin proactively is to fill up (fifty-five gallons if needed) in the Spirit and leave no room for sin.

This is exactly what God prescribed.

Galatians 5:16 (NIV)

16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

Romans 8:13 (NIV)

13 For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.

Bottom line: Let the Holy Spirit’s filling defeat your sin cravings!

Sometimes we’re so fixated on not sinning we never get on with living.

Being filled with the Holy Spirit is about raising the sails of your soul and letting God fill them.

It’s about saturating yourself with so much good stuff that the bad stuff has no place to grow.

Joining God in spiritual disciplines fuels the Holy Spirit to give you anointing and power.

The Holy Spirit is God. He is here. He delights in helping you do the most supernatural things possible—overcoming this sin-wrecked world and showing up in heaven hearing, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”

We can be filled with the Spirit by memorizing liberating truth, singing songs that ignite our soul and lift it, participating in a Bible study that helps us meet with God in His Word, hanging out with people who are on the same path, and being mindful of the Holy Spirit’s voice because He is always speaking.

The best spiritual defense is a good offense.

If I fill my workplace with words of affirmation, there is less room for a critical spirit.

If I fill my stomach with good food, I have less room for junk food.

If I fill my heart with hope, my mouth speaks words of encouragement.

If I fill my mind with truth, I have less room for believing lies.

And if I am filling up with the Spirit, I am bound to starve sin.

STRATEGY FOR BATTLE:

OVERWHELM IT — It’s time to fill your life with the Spirit. Give God more of your life so sin has less room to run and grow.

● Memorize the promises about faithfulness to God.

● Fill your mouth with songs that produce praise.

● Invite God to read along with you as you’re in the Scriptures.

● Listen to the Holy Spirit and keep the conversation going.

● Surround yourself with people who are passionate about killing sin.