“HOW TO” SERIES
#10: “How to Throw Off the Sin that Entangles Us”
SCRIPTURE: Hebrews
12:1, 2
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such
a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the
sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked
out for us. Let us fix our eyes on
Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith…”
INTRO:
He was minister of the largest
church in the small town. He’d been
there sixteen years. He was well-liked
and respected. No one would ever have
suspected that he had a problem with internet pornography.
He had confided in a fellow minister
and had asked him to hold him accountable for overcoming his addiction. He did.
That is, his fellow minister did hold
him accountable. When he discovered that
his addict friend was still going on line daily for a porn fix, he informed him
that he would have to report his behavior to the elders of the congregation. Over the protests of his sinning friend he
did.
The elders met with the
sin-entangled minister and confronted him about his addiction. At first, he denied it. Then, he admitted it and claimed that he
could stop and would. When the elders
requested that he get help, he refused.
They fired him on the spot.
Within weeks he was back in the
pulpit – the pulpit of a church whose leaders bought his defense – that he was
sorry and wouldn’t do it again. Chances
are, he’s still doing it. How do I
know? “The sin that entangles us” is
not that easily overcome.
Three ministers were out fishing one
day. The fish weren’t biting, so they
began to talk about their most besetting sins.
One of them said, “I’m so ashamed.
My language is just awful sometimes.
I just hope my congregation never learns of it.” Another of them said, “I just can’t seem to
rid my mind of immoral thoughts. If my
congregation knew what I thought about much of the time, I’d get fired for
sure.”
Finally, the third minister spoke
up. “My most besetting sin is gossip, and I just can’t wait to tell somebody
what I’ve heard today!”
Do you have a besetting sin that entangles you? Why is it so hard to throw it off?
I think we’re somewhat like the
monkeys I’ve read about. In some places,
monkeys are caught by cutting a small hole in a coconut, putting some kind of
fruit, like a banana, inside the coconut, and securing it to a tree with a
wire. The monkey can slip his hand into
the opening easily enough, but when he grasps the fruit, his hand won’t go
through the hole. All the monkey would
have to do to be free is to let go of the fruit, but he just won’t do it.
Some of us are caught by entangling
sins much the same way. We just can’t
seem to turn loose of the forbidden fruit.
Today, I would like to offer a
biblical plan for throwing off our entangling sins…
First of all, we need to
CONFESS
OUR SIN TO GOD AND RECEIVE HIS FORGIVENESS.
Christians have a wonderful source
of grace. John writes about it in I John
1:9…
“If we confess our sins, he (God) is faithful and just and will
forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
Confession does three things:
First,
it is an acknowledgement of our guilt.
Denial of our sinfulness exacerbates our sin and makes it impossible
for God to forgive us. Acknowledgement
of guilt is a part of repentance. It
is, literally, “agreeing with God” that
we are guilty. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 7:8 through 11:
“Even if I caused you sorrow by my
letter, I do not regret it. Though I did
regret it – I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while – yet
now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led
you to repentance. For you became
sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to
salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. See what this godly sorrow has produced in
you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation,
what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done.”
“Worldly sorrow” is what you
feel just because you got caught. “Godly
sorrow brings repentance…” and produces true confession.
Second,
confession enables God to forgive us.
Without true confession, there is no repentance, and without
repentance, there is no forgiveness.
Without forgiveness, there can be no purification.
Third,
confession enables us to be purified. Some see forgiveness and purification
as one and the same, but I believe they are two separate actions. God the Father forgives, and God the Holy
Spirit purifies.
Allow me to offer this simple
analogy to illustrate: When we have a
fever, an aspirin or other drug will make it go away, but if the source of the
fever – an allergen or infection – isn’t purged from the body, the fever will return. If we aren’t purified from the source
of our besetting sin, we’ll continue to be prone to return to it.
So confession to God is a
must.
Second, we must
DIE
TO THAT SIN.
Paul explains this in Romans 6:1
through 14:
“What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may
increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any
longer? Or don’t you know that all of us
who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through
baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead
through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
“If we have been united with him like
this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified
with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no
longer be slaves to sin – because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
“Now if we died with Christ, we
believe that we will also live with him.
For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die
again; death no longer has mastery over him.
The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives,
he lives to God.
“In the same way, count yourselves
dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies so that you obey
its evil desires. Do not offer the parts
of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves
to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts
of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you
are not under law, but under grace.”
Dead people don’t respond to
temptation or the sinful desires of the flesh, do they? So you and I must “die” to the temptation or
desire of the flesh that we are so susceptible to and that gives us so much
trouble.
For example, some people have a
predisposition to alcoholism. That
predisposition really never goes away.
So how do they overcome it? They
must “die” to alcohol. On a daily basis
they must respond to its beckoning call as a dead person would.
Our desires of the flesh don’t go
away. We must, on a daily basis, “die”
to sin and “live” for Christ. How do we
do this?
First,
we get control of our thoughts by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Proverbs 23:7 declares that we are
what we think. Everything we do
begins with a thought. In Romans 12:2 Paul
tells us that when our minds are renewed, our behavior
changes. How do we renew our minds? By getting into God’s Word and replacing our
thoughts with His thoughts. What is the
Word? Is it not of the Spirit?
Second,
we get control of our environment.
In 1 Corinthians 5:11 Paul admonishes: “…you must not associate with anyone who
calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a
slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler.
With such a man do not even eat.”
In 1 Corinthians 15:33 he
warns: “Bad company corrupts good
character.”
2 Corinthians 6:14 warns about being
“yoked
together with unbelievers.”
The bottom line: People who want to “die to sin” don’t “hang”
with people who want to “live” in sin.
Listen to what Peter wrote in 1
Peter 4:1-4:
“Therefore, since Christ suffered in
his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has
suffered in his body is done with sin.
As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil
human desires, but rather for the will of God.
For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to
do – living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable
idolatry. They think it strange that you
do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse
on you.”
Third, if we’re going to throw off
the sin that so easily entangles us, we must
BECOME
ACCOUNTABLE TO ONE ANOTHER.
The writer of Hebrews exhorts
us: “…encourage one another daily, as long as it
is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness”
(3:13).
Sin is so deceitful. Those who’ve been deceived can be heard to
say:
·
“I
can stop any time I want to.”
·
“Everything
in moderation.”
·
“I
can tell when I need to stop.”
·
“It’s
not doing me any harm.”
·
“There’s
nothing wrong with…”
One of the primary reasons God
formed the church into local congregations is so that we can each be held
accountable. James exhorts: “…confess your sins to each other and pray
for each other…” (5:16).
The value of accountability groups
and accountability partners is a proven thing.
We all need a congregation or a group within a congregation to which we
are accountable, as well as a Christian brother or sister in whom we can
confide and who will hold us accountable.
CONCLUSION:
Let me recap:
We all deal with the problem of
entangling sins from time to time. It’s
our nature. However, what we must really guard against is continuing in those sins.
A visitor at a fishing dock asked an
old fisherman there, “If I were to fall into the water here, would I
drown?” What he really wanted to know
was how deep the water was. The old
fisherman had a good answer: “Naw,” he
said. “Falling into the water doesn’t
drown anybody. It’s stayin’ under it
that does.”
Falling into entangling sin is one
thing, but stayin’ in it is another!
Throw it off before you drown.