The Conflict Within the Christian
Desires, Pleasures, and the Christian Life • Sermon • Submitted
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19 but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.
44 You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves,
12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.
7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead.
14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires,
5 not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God;
6 For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions,
3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,
3 For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.
14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance,
2 so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God. 3 For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry.
4 by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.
10 and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority. Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones,
3 knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.
17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
16 These are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires; they are loud-mouthed boasters, showing favoritism to gain advantage.
18 They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.”
Conflict: With our depraved desires and pleasures
Jesus calls us in conflict (Matthew 11:25-30)
Jesus calls us to conflict (Galatians 5:16-17;24)
Jesus Leads us to New Life through conflict (Ephesians 4:17-24)
Burden before salvation
Burden as a new believer
Our desires to obey overcomes our desire for the sin
In maturity the pull of those sins loses steam
Intro: The reversing our desires and pleasures back to what is proper
The process is contentious but yields a harvest of true pleasures once more
Instead of immediate pleasure, we need to be willing to accept immediate turmoil that will yield a harvest of eternal pleasures
The calling out of wordly passion to new birth is one of conflict
Jesus calls you to conflict
28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Three things: The call is general (all), to those who are over loaded, and the promise is rest
Not really a call for everyone but to a particular people
25 At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; 26 yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 27 All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
Thus, the one who is not feeling satisfied with himself isolated from God is a sign of the Son’s first revealing
Whether that burden is following a sinful lifestyle or trying to be right with God by own power to follow law
The burden of doing it on your own is a sign that Jesus is revealing himself to you
This burden on the back of Christian is what drove him to leave the city of destruction
And Jesus will place a burden on your back to make you no longer desirous to be in the system of Satan’s adverse pleasures
1 Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 2 so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God. 3 For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. 4 With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you;
The rest Jesus offers is one born from internal turmoil of no longer be satisfied in the system you were born in
The one who has no internal turmoil is not in need of the one who gives rest
So the one Jesus is revealing himself to will begin the work of painfully coming to the realization that their desires and pleasures are starting a fundamental shift…and such a shift hurts
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
A yoke was something that kept two oxen together as they worked together for the goal: plowed the field
Three different ways you can be yoked up:
Sin with the goal of reaching pleasure
Laws with the goal of reaching right standing with God
Jesus with the goal of taking pleasure in God once more
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
What makes the yoke of Jesus good is that it is easy and the burden is light
Because his yoke is the Spirit that changes our desires to love God from the heart
Legalism doesn’t work because it doesn’t change the heart so it makes being right with God a burdensome impossible task
But with Jesus the yoke is easy because the yoke changes our heart to obey God from the heart…or take pleasure in enjoying God
The first major point here is that the calling of Jesus starts with conflict within your soul as you realize that there is no other way for you to go
Jesus presents himself not as the best option but the only option as he makes all other options a burden too heavy to bare
The very calling out of Jesus is making what used to be your desire and pleasure into a heavy load
Then as you come to Jesus with this heavy load you get rest
Rest
What is rest?
Kind of like the offer of peace in Luke 2 when the Angels declared to the shepherds
10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, 14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
Does this rest and peace mean we will coast through this life?
No, the rest and peace Jesus offers by his work is one with God
And to be at rest in him, and peace with him, means you open yourself up to conflict with the system of the devil
4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
So on the flip side, friendship with God means enmity with the world and its entire system…including within your very soul where you sinful flesh is hanging on for dear life
The calling of Christ is found in conflict with the desires of the flesh that he begins in you
Someone who is not warned that coming to Christ starts with conflict will cause him to perhaps go to a fake Christ
I have spoken to many people who came to a Christ that did not make them uncomfortable to their previous desire and pleasures in sin
19 but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.
Jesus calls you to conflict in calling you out
And when you come to him the conflict continues
Not only should there be conflict as Christ calls you into his kingdom, but life in the kingdom especially at the beginning should be heavy with conflict as your sins are being dealt with
This is the pathway to eternal pleasure of obedience
When coming to Christ and finding peace and rest, he will in his wisdom take certain desires of the flesh from you immediately
Jumping on my video games to play all day and night and immediate pain in my gut as I realized that Jesus was taking that pleasure away from me
But there are those he leaves hanging around
Now you might be tempted to say why not take all of it?
That will happen in glorification
But in sanctification, you have an opportunity to glorify Christ by having left over desire for sin, and yet for the firs time choosing not to for the sake of your love for Christ
Your love for Christ does not take the desire of sin away, but it is enough for you to not act on that desire…thus glorifying Christ more than if you had not the desire in the first place
This is the situation in Galatians
Paul is speaking against the idea of gaining rest, or peace with God by keeping the law
But says rest and peace with God is only by faith in Jesus
And he answers the question, what stops us from sinning if us not sinning isn’t what saves us
And he explains how the Spirit given strengthens us to work against sin
16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.
To not do what you desire to do creates conflict within you
And since sinful desires lead you to death, Jesus in kindness calls you to refrain from doing what you want to do in the flesh, by not gratifying it
And so the Christian life, especially at the beginning as you are trying to figure out how to live this new life is one of intense conflict as you now begin to say no to desires deep within you
And notice the power to say no is not walking by the law, but walking by the Spirit