War With Sin Part II: Romans 8:13

War With Sin Part II: Romans 8:13

Introduction:

Two men are bound and are pushed into the ocean from a ship. One of the men is dead and the other one is alive. What is the difference in the way the two men act? The dead man is peaceful. He is just as content in the water as he was on the boat. The change in geography has had no effect on him. The man who is alive, on the other hand, fights and struggles. He recognizes his surroundings are going to kill him if he doesn’t fight against his bonds, and fight to get back to the surface where he can breathe. Fighting against sin is like the live man who fell in the water. Because he was alive, he fought to live. Dead men don’t fight in order to be alive. Alive men fight because that’s what you do when you’re alive. In other words, the man’s fighting didn’t make him alive, he was alive and therefore he fought. So fighting is evidence of life. That is what is being taught in this text. This shows the nature of living as fighting.

If there were barriers or people who were preventing you from seeing your children or your spouse, you would fight to get to them. The reason you would is because you see them as lovely, they are valuable to you. If you see Jesus as lovely you will fight against anything that prevents you from being in close fellowship with Him, whether that is “service” (as we saw this morning) or idolatry, or covetousness, or lust, or any other thing that is not the greatest thing, which is fellowship with Jesus. To say it another way, new life in Christ means that you recognize what is truly valuable, and what is not. You will fight against what is not valuable in order that you may see and savor what is truly valuable- Jesus. This shows the nature of living as treasuring Jesus.

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

IV. Put to Death the Deeds of the Body By the Spirit- This is going to be an answer to the question "What does it mean to put to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit?"

1. The Nature of the Christian life as war- Not "let go and let God"
Here's what Ed Welch says about the warfare Christians are called to:
. . . there is a mean streak to authentic self-control. . . Self-control is not for the timid. When we want to grow in it, not only do we nurture an exuberance for Jesus Christ, we also demand of ourselves a hatred for sin. . . . The only possible attitude toward out-of-control desire is a declaration of all-out war. . . . There is something about war that sharpens the senses . . . You hear a twig snap or the rustling of leaves and you are in attack mode. Someone coughs and you are ready to pull the trigger. Even after days of little of no sleep, war keeps us vigilant.

This is where I ended last time, and this is where I pick up again this week. Warfare in the Christian life is not optional. There are no conscientious objectors to fighting sin. Conscientious objectors get slaughtered.

We identified our enemy last time, and that is “the deeds of the body” which is anything in us that is against God. Not other people. As Christians we don’t fight against other people, but against anything in us that would cause us to hurt other people.
a. Texts on fighting- I Timothy 6:12, Philippians 2:12,
b. Present and Active- The first “live” and “put to death” are in the present active tense. “Die” and “Live” are future tense- yet another argument for this death and life being eternal and not temporal.
c. Part of the new life given to us by the cross is that we are aware of our surroundings and aware of our own sinfulness. In other words the Spirit opens our eyes to see our own sinfulness and to see it as something to be fought against. This is part of what the new life looks like.
2. The method: Fighting Sin "By the Spirit"- Not "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps."
a. The world says the answer is inside of you and Christianity says the answer is outside of you. Not asceticism, not self-help, not will power. There are people in many religions that put to death the deeds of the body, and they are successful in some ways. There are monks who empty themselves of all desire. Achieve nirvana, but this is by emptying the mind through meditation. What is different about Christian meditation?
b. Texts that indicate God behind our fighting- Philippians 2:13, Gal 3:3
c. I Peter 4:11- The way we fight should cause God to get the credit.
d. The offensive weapon of Christians- Ephesians 6:17. Wielding the word in the fight against sin. If what I said was true last time, that sin (at it's root) is unbelief in the promises of God. Then one of the primary ways to fight by the Spirit is to use the Sword of the Spirit to do battle with sin.

So which is it? Do we fight, or does God do the fighting for us? Well, I guess I would say that God’s Spirit enlivens us initially and continually empowers us to fight the fight of faith. God’s work in us to cause us to fight against sin is primary, our effort in the fight against sin, while necessary, is secondary. Romans 8:13 calls us to do, what we can’t do, but must be done for us- that’s the logic of Scripture.


3. The Goal of our Fighting and The Means of our Victory: Faith in God’s Promises
a. Fight to hear- Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God (Rom 10:17). (Romans 10:14),
b. Fight to See, (I Corinthians 13:12- I John 3:2, II Corinthians 4:4)
c. Ultimately you are fighting to rest in God. The goal is that you would be so satisfied with Christ that sin becomes unthinkable. Resting in Him makes being at ease with sin unthinkable.
4. Practical Strategies to Fight the Fight of Faith By the Spirit: Just because our fight is “by the Spirit” doesn’t mean that the Spirit doesn’t use means to accomplish His good work in our lives.
a. The necessity of the word in the fight. The Spirit works through the word to conform you into the image of Christ.
b. Fight fire with fire- Sins offer you pleasure, God offers you superior pleasure.
c. Fight with confidence- Because you desire to fight against sin, be encouraged and confident that God will complete what He started in your life.
d. Put yourself under the preaching of the word- God did not make us to thrive in a vacuum, but to thrive in community. Putting yourself under the preaching of the word is how faith is cultivated and matured.
e. Preach to yourself- Adam wrote a helpful note on this this past week. He quoted Martyn Lloyd Jones.
Psalm 43:5 Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God.
“Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them, but they start talking to you, they bring back the problems of yesterday, etc.

Somebody is talking. Who is talking? Your self is talking to you. Now this man’s treatment was this; instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself. "Why art thou cast down, O my soul?" he asks. His soul had been depressing him, crushing him. So he stands up and says: "Self, listen for a moment, I will speak to you . . ."

The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself, question yourself. You must say to your soul: "Why art thou cast down" -– what business have you to be disquieted?

You must turn on yourself, upbraid yourself, condemn yourself, exhort yourself, and say to yourself: "Hope thou in God" -– instead of muttering in this depressed, unhappy way. And then you must go on to remind yourself of God, Who God is, and what God is and what God has done, and what God has pledged Himself to do.

Then having done that, end on this great note: defy yourself, and defy other people, and defy the devil and the whole world, and say with this man: "I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance, who is also the health of my countenance and my God.”

f. Accountability- Again, just like the method of putting yourself under the preached word, we weren’t made to thrive by ourselves, but to depend on others. Accountability is a difficult thing to subject yourself to because you have to be honest, but the Spirit uses other believers to encourage and exhort us.
g. Fleeing- Yes, it would be nice to be able to face all of your sins and stare them in the face and say “no” but we must realize that because of our frailty, in a lot of cases the best thing to do is run like Joseph did from Potiphar’s wife.
John Piper:
“The great error that I am trying to explode in these messages is the error that says, faith in God is one thing and the fight for holiness is another thing. Faith gets you to heaven and holiness gets you rewards. You get your justification by faith, and you get your sanctification by works. You start the Christian life in the power of the Spirit, you press on in the efforts of the flesh. This is the great evangelical error of our day. The battle for obedience is optional, they say, because only faith is necessary for salvation.
Our response: the battle for obedience is absolutely necessary for salvation because it IS the fight of faith. The battle against lust is absolutely necessary for salvation because it is the battle against unbelief. Faith alone delivers from hell and the faith that delivers from hell delivers from lust.”
If you find yourself in a situation where you do not put to death the deeds of the body and never have. If you are the dead man in the sea who is perfectly content with his surroundings, wake up. Look to Christ. He is your only hope. Do not try to put to death the deeds of the body because you are going to do it in a way that does not honor God. Run to Christ, flee to Him. Hope in Him. Trust in Him. Seek after His righteousness. Give up on yourself.
If you are a believer, fight the fight of faith by the Spirit with confidence, knowing that Christ has won for you what you could never win for yourself. Leave the fleeting pleasures of sin and run to the deepest and most lasting pleasures that Christ has purchased for you.