GETTING FREE
Sermon One: Living in Sin for Jesus
Wildwind Community Church
David K. Flowers
February 17, 2008
I’m so excited about starting this series today! As most of you know by now I went to Indianapolis for a couple of weeks in January to take some classes. While I was there, I had the most powerful, the most incredible, the most substantive spiritual experience of my life. In the next five weeks, beginning today, I’m going to be sharing bits and pieces of that experience with you. See, this experience I had completely renovated my understanding of God and how I am to serve him for the rest of my life. It brought hope to me, and brought me a kind of power I never knew I could have. Today I want each of you to have that some hope, that same kind of power for living as followers of Christ.
If you are not a follower of Christ this morning, I invite you to come ready to observe in the next few weeks. I’d love an opportunity to show you what it means for our lives not to be centered around a set of religious rules, but around a relationship with a God who is living, and who wants to give us the power to live the life he has called us to live!
My life has been the story of religious struggle. I became a Christian at a very young age – so young I barely remember. All I really know is I instantly began trying to figure out how God would want me to live, and trying hard to live that way.
As I grew older I struggled harder and harder for spiritual perfection. I tried to do every single thing I thought I should do, and avoid everything I thought I shouldn’t do. Heck at one point in my early 20’s, I had set a personal record of well over 400 days in a row that I had prayed and read the Bible. Can any of you say that? Have any of you ever read the Bible 400 days in a row without missing a single day? Have any of you ever been so rigid and legalistic that you have actually kept track?
Then, in 1990, I lost a friend in a car accident and was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, within a one month period. Suddenly my perfect Christian world began to crumble around me. What difference did praying and reading the Bible make now? It all seemed to irrelevant in the face of what I was experiencing. Suddenly God seemed – too small. So I rebelled and stopped believing for a few years. I stopped going to church. I even tried to stop praying, but I couldn’t! I claimed to no longer believe in God, but I kept praying if he was real he would show himself to me.
After a few years I began to see God again around the edges of my life. And I don’t want to go into this long story but when I moved back toward God, I just started doing more of what I had always done before. I read Thomas a Kempis and Brother Lawrence and Teresa of Avila and tried to emulate their lives. I failed. Then I beat myself up for being weak and undisciplined. Then I’d read a book about God’s grace and how we don’t have to perform, so I’d stop performing and then beat myself up for enjoying it too much. In the meantime I’m dealing with sin in my life – pride and ego and self-obsessions of various kinds and different kinds of addictions. And this is while I was a young pastor!
Do you hear what I’m saying? I’m saying not only was I in slavery to sin after I became a Christian, but even after I became a pastor. My heart was in the right place. Kind of. I didn’t WANT to sin anymore. I mean, I USUALLY didn’t want to sin anymore. But sometimes I still DID want to, and that’s when the struggle got brutal. And one day I created a church for other struggling Christian sinners and many of us have been struggling together ever since!
Because I know there are tons of you out there right now who are like I was. You are trying hard to do what you believe God would want you to do, trying hard to learn and follow Jesus’ commands, but just struggling brutally.
I know there are Christian men in this congregation right now who struggle – day after day, month after month, year after year, with pornography. You have given your life to Christ, you probably even were able to stay away from it for a while – but it has since then reared its ugly head again and again. And you’re either beat down by the constant struggle of staying away from it, or you’re beat down by the guilt of giving in. The problem is that even though you are a Christian, sin still has a hold on you.
There are Christian women in this congregation who, if they were honest, would admit that they enjoy talking about people behind their backs. They love gossiping and seeking the opinions of their friends about the personal situations of others. They know they should not do this, but the problem is that even though they are a Christian, sin still has a hold on them.
There are those in our church this morning that live their lives in fear and worry. They know that Jesus told us not to do this and they keep giving their anxiety to him again and again, but then they take it back up again. They are Christians but the sin of worry still has a hold on them.
There are some here today who have committed their life to Christ, but they are in slavery to gambling or other addictions. They are Christians, but sin still has a hold on them.
There are people here today who have critical spirits –who can always find a way to see the glass as half-empty. This is an area where we often say, “That’s just how I roll,” but the thing is, that’s not how Jesus rolled! Jesus didn’t have a defeatist attitude about everything, because he believed in God’s purposes, that God was leading him toward those purposes, and he trusted God. If you are a Christian with a critical spirit, sin still has a hold on you.
Some are nursing grudges and bitterness toward another person. You are Christians, you have committed your life to Christ, you are probably even growing spiritually in some areas, but you are still constantly struggling with sin in your life.
Some are trying to do what Jesus said we cannot do – serve both God and money. Some committed their lives to him, but just didn’t understand that that mean their money too, and now they’re struggling with the pull of money in their life. Sin has a hold on them.
Some have refused to step out of darkness and shine the light of truth on their marriages, on their finances, on whatever their pet sins are. Sin makes its home in darkness and illusion, so if you are refusing to face truth in your life, sin has a hold on you, no matter how much you may say you are a God-follower.
Some are caught in the cycle of attack and withdrawal. Those are the two ways we twist relationships – we either attack them or withdraw from them. Or sometimes we withdraw from them as a way of attacking them! Some of you do this habitually. Attack people and/or withdraw from them. Lash out at them, or go off into your cave or powder room and pout. You may be a God-follower, but sin has a hold on your life.
Some are slaves to what other people think about them. Are you one of those people? Practicing the art of image management 24/7? If so, sin still has a hold on your life.
Some are like me – thinking they are serving God but really serving the most brutal master of all – themselves. Beating themselves up for all the ways they fall short. Living in constant self-condemnation. Wanting to be perfect not so that they can love God better but in order to meet their own ridiculous standards. And holding others to those standards as well. You’ve probably even invented little names for it – excellence, attention to detail, whatever – but it’s the sin of perfectionism and it burdens you and everyone you know under its weight.
Need I go further? Have I given enough examples that most of us here have been able to identify ourselves in something?
My point today is that it is entirely possible for a person to have accepted Christ, to be intent on doing his will for your life, and yet to still be harboring sin in your life. In fact, it’s part of the natural progression in the spiritual life. We’ll get more into this as our series progresses, but for now I wish to share with you just one simple scripture and look seriously at it.
1 Corinthians 3:1-3 (NIV)
1 Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly--mere infants in Christ.
2 I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready.
3 You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men?
What I want to focus on here for today is mostly verse 3. Now remember, Paul is writing to the church. He’s writing mostly to Christians – to people who have accepted Jesus as the forgiver of their sins and leader of their lives. And what does he say to them?
“I could not address you as spiritual, but as worldly.” Verse 3, “you are still worldly.” And what is the evidence that they are worldly? There is jealousy and quarreling in the church. Jealousy and quarreling.
You say, “Dave, that’s only human – jealousy and quarreling are just human things.” My answer to you is “Precisely!” In fact, Paul says it. Since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men?” However, there is an expectation that we move beyond human things, and that’s the reason Paul wrote what he wrote. He wasn’t PLEASED that they were acting “natural.” After all, what’s natural to us as human beings is sin, and if we’re going to really move forward in serving God, we have to move well beyond what is natural and live our lives daily from a place that is supernatural.
Here’s what I want to show you this morning. It is perfectly normal (not good, but normal) for those who are Christians to still be showing signs that they are struggling with sin. Perfectly normal. It’s part of the cycle of salvation that I will teach you about later. The sign that we are struggling with sin is that we live our lives in perpetual sin, or in perpetual struggle against it, with our desires switching back and forth between wanting to sin and wanting to please God. It depends on our mood, or whether we got enough sleep last night, or whether we might have skipped a meal, or whether other parts of our lives are going well.
We come to faith in Christ. We experience his forgiveness from our sins. We often experience a lightness, a feeling of relief, excitement, or enthusiasm. But we quickly find ourselves being weighed down again by a lot of the same old things. Now that we are Christians we know we shouldn’t do those things and have those attitudes, but we’re still really drawn to it and we keep looking back at our old lives because the truth is that we do kind of miss our sin. Sometimes we might even feel sad that we have given it up. We keep reaching forward for Christ, but looking back at our sin. And you know the problem with that?
James 1:8 (HCSB)
8 An indecisive man is unstable in all his ways.
In this condition we are unstable. We haven’t decided fully to be God’s, and that brings instability to our lives. Christ has revealed our sin to us so we can’t enjoy sin with the abandonment we did before we became Christians. And yet we don’t experience much of the joy of serving Christ either, because we’re not really fully serving him as long as we’re always considering whether or not to pick up parts of our old life again. We are of two minds – one that is still with our sin, with the world and all its concerns and affairs, and another that is eager to learn about Christ and to move along on his way.
So Christianity can begin to feel difficult to us. It seems so hard! Well of course it’s hard, because we’re not really doing it yet! At least not the way Christ intended. Here’s what Jesus said:
Matthew 11:29-30 (MSG)
29 Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you.
30 Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly."
Is that your experience today? Does this describe your daily experience in living the Christian life? If not, either Jesus was mistaken, or we’re missing something. I think you know which one I think has happened!
Are you living in sin for Jesus? I know that sounds funny, but it’s the first time I’ve asked the question, and I’ve only asked it now that you can understand what I’m talking about. Did you see yourself in one of the examples I gave a few moments ago? Do you desire to serve God wholeheartedly, yet find yourself stuck in sin, struggling constantly with it, and sometimes even finding that you don’t really WANT to avoid it? Do you have days where it seems like you can’t worship God, like something is in the way? Do you experience the Christian life not as one of joy and peace, but of strain and difficulty and frustration? Do you feel like something hinders your prayers? Do you wonder what’s the matter with you? Do you try and try and try and try and find you can just never seem to really “do this”? Do you live day to day with a lack of the joy and peace God has promised?
Let me ask you this. Is this what Jesus died for? Did Jesus die so that we could all struggle with sin for the rest of our lives? Did Jesus die to set us partially free from sin? Did Jesus go to the cross so that you can serve him for the rest of your life but still wish some days you weren’t?
What about us as a corporate body, as a church? The Bible says the church is the bride of Christ, and it says Jesus is coming back one day for his bride to take her to be with him forever. Do you think Jesus is looking forward to coming back for a dirty bride? Do you think his plan is that when he gets here he wants to find his bride rolling around in the mud, her beautiful dress soiled and smelly and tattered and torn? Or do you think it is God’s intention to send Jesus back for a bride that is clean and fresh and whole and ready to be presented to him?
I think we all know the answers to those questions. And I hope that right about now you’re sitting there thinking “Great, now where does THIS leave me.” Let me tell you. Next week’s message is called The Weight Around Your Neck. Today we’ve looked at the fact that it’s there – next week I want to get into God’s Word and teach you about that weight. Where it comes from, why it’s still there even after you become a Christian, and how it continues to be a controlling principle of your mind and body for a period of time. The following week’s message is called Imagining Freedom and that’s where this starts to get exciting. That’s where I’ll show you Biblically that there is a way out of the cycle of sin and just get you dreaming about what your life, your closest relationships, and your church would be like in that condition. Week 4’s message is called Killing My Old Man and will show you the way into this freedom we’ll be talking about. Week 5 is the capstone of this series and it’s called On Being Perfect. Perfect is a scary word, but Jesus specifically told us to be it! I want to talk to you about what it is and what it isn’t.
And through all of this, I will allow you opportunities to respond to the Holy Spirit, that I just know is going to work powerfully in many lives. How do I know that? Because when I heard this message, God worked powerfully in mine. And since I’ve been sharing my story, God has worked in other lives through it. I know it is God’s desire to see the church and all of his children set free to live lives of power and effectiveness and get off the treadmill of the same old struggles, and when I teach you how you can have this life, I know God will move many of you to desire it more than anything – because I know we have people here who love God and will be eager to take this step once they hear about how.
I’m going to close in prayer and just like I promised, I want to invite anyone who wants to come forward to pray to do just that. You may have already found yourself hungry to hear more and maybe just want to come up and tell God you’re listening for whatever he has to speak to your heart over the next few weeks. Maybe you want to present yourself to him and ask him to have his way in your heart today and forever. Maybe you want to thank him for showing you something today. Let’s allow God’s Spirit to move among us in our closing moments and then I will pray…
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, the people of Wildwind have heard sermon after sermon after sermon about Holy Spirit living. In the weeks to come, I pray you would move mightily among us and show us the Holy Spirit power that is available for us to live in every moment of every day. Let us not simply talk about that power in the coming weeks, but let us find ourselves wrapped up in it, seized by the power of your great affection for us, and desiring to know that power as never before. Amen.
