I struggle with sin… a lot! I wish I didn’t. It would be awesome not to have pride, not to lust, and never get angry again. Not to mention lacking love for God, not sacrificing for my wife, and struggling with consistent training and discipline of my children! How about you?
This series of posts is based on my reading through the New Testament during the 40 day #LentChallenge. You can read my take on that HERE. The #LentChallenge was created by Margaret Feinburg. You can read about that HERE.
On Thursday I wrote, Why the Struggle of Romans 7 Should Not be Applied to the Christian Experience. If the Apostle Paul was not talking about his struggle as a Christian, then what’s up with the struggle with sin we all have?
This is my attempt to lay out why we continue to struggle with sin, even after receiving new life and becoming a new creation in Jesus.
The Problem with Sin
No one claims to be perfect. Not hard to admit we struggle. We sin all the time, every day, MUCH more than we realize.
The core “commandment” is to love God with all our heart and love people as ourselves. Matt 22:36-39
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37 Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
How are we doing with that one?
I believe it was Phillip Yancey who said, “On my best day I might go an hour without sinning!”
Is there victory in Jesus? Is there power for living the Christian life? In my next post I will talk about that. Here I will address the reason and the source of our struggle with sin.
The reason we sin
Overly simplified reason: Christians struggle with sin to keep us desperately in need of Jesus. When we sin we need His grace and mercy. Our desperate need for Him fuels a trusting relationship, which is what God has always desired.
In 2 Cor 12:7-10 the Apostle Paul lays out a theology of weakness. It’s in our weakness that God’s power can become strength in us.
Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
God’s grace is given to those who humble themselves. When we sin and confess our weakness God’s grace has room to work.
James 4:4-10 addresses that directly:
You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us ? 6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
“God opposes the proud but shows favor [gives grace] to the humble.”7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
The Source of Sin
1. The flesh
- James 1:13-15 When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; 14 but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
- Hebrew 4:15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.
Jesus had the same weak body of flesh we all have. The main difference… Jesus lived without sin!
- Galatians 5:17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.
- Galatians 5:19-21 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
What about 1 John 3:9?
No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God.
God’s seed is the indwelling presence of God. Sin cannot be in God’s presence. Therefore, the place within us where the Holy Spirit dwells cannot sin. The unfortunate thing is that the Holy Spirit is that the rest of us cannot escape the presence of sin. We live in a fleshly body that is fallen, tainted by sin.
On one hand we have holiness indwelling our bodies. On the other hand we live with weak sinful flesh.
Therefore, I do not believe John meant that Christians do not sin. That’s ridiculous. But there is a part of the Christian that cannot sin (i.e. the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit).
2. The world
- 1 John 2:15-17 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. 16 For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.
- 1 John 4:3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.
- The world is always over promising but under-delivering. There is no lasting satisfaction or joy in the world. It’s always temporary and fleeting at best.
3. The devil!
He is a Lion:
- 1 Peter 5:8 Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
He is an Angel of Light:
- 2 Corinthians 11:14-15 And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. 15 It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve.
He is a Tempter
- Matthew 4:1-3 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him…
- 1 Thessalonians 3:5 For this reason, when I could stand it no longer, I sent to find out about your faith. I was afraid that in some way the tempter had tempted you and that our labors might have been in vain.
Conclusion
The flesh, the world, and the devil are strong influences in our lives. We can’t get away from our flesh. We live in the world. And the devil is seeking to devour us!
Allow the struggles you have today to drive you to Jesus. Pray UP, IN, and OUT. UP to God when you know you will be tempted. Pray when you’re IN the midst of temptation or even sin. Pray after you sin and thank God for His grace and mercy.
In the next post I will share how we can grow in our walk with Jesus, in the power of the Holy Spirit, and experience the NEW LIFE Jesus longs for us to experience.
QUESTION: Why do you struggle with sin?
I’m glad you started this discussion because it’s causing me to think
through some of these things at the same time that I’m teaching about
it and writing about it. A good probing discussion sharpens us I
think.
First of all, given your quote of the chief commandment, I don’t think we
can go an hour without sinning. At least I can’t. I think what we are
fond of doing is creating mental lists of what a good Christian is
like and then living up to that list. If something on the list is
impossible for us, we drop it so that we can be good. That’s
pharisaism. When this dawned on me in recent years, my appreciation
for grace went way up. We so often sing songs of grace with no
feeling because I think we don’t think we’ve needed much. But all of
this is a digression.
I think probably the key reason we sin, given the fact that we have the
world, flesh and devil to deal with is that we fail to yield to the
Spirit as Romans 8 teaches us. I think that was what Paul was working
toward in his Romans 7 discussion. “If by the spirit you put to
death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Romans 8:13). You
rightly point out that the problem is our lusts. We are drawn away of
our own lusts. I think the thing that surprises us is that this comes
from within us. When I would do good, evil is right there with me.
Even a Christian who has died with Christ and has been freed from the
bondage of sin and is not under law but under grace finds that sin is
lurking right there inside of us and we won’t be rid of it until
we’re transformed at the end of this life.
So somehow we need to get a grasp of the fact that we need to rely on
the power of the Spirit to put to death the deeds of the body. It
seems to me that Paul frequently says, “Don’t you know…” in
chapters 6-8 and so I think we need to know, reckon as true and act
on certain truths. First, where sin abounds grace abounds more. Grace
being not just forgiveness, but the desire and the strength to
overcome. We need to acknowledge and reckon ourselves dead with
Christ to sin, to the law, and even to the world (Gal 6:14). I think
we need to realize that yielding our members as instruments or
weapons to sin leads us down the wrong path that leads to death. We
need to realize and have an appreciation for the fact that we are
dead to the law. Law gives sin its strength and so we need to accept
our release from the law and the privilege we have to bear fruit to
God (Romans 7:1-6). Bearing fruit I think is the natural result of
being in Christ and is the outflow of his Spirit at work in us.
So why do we sin? Because it’s right there in us, even though we’re not
bound to it. And we sin because we do not take seriously the warnings
and we do not use the resources God has given to us for the fight.
P.S. Just a side note. Galatians 5:17 at the surface seems like a repeat of Romans 7. The flesh and spirit are in conflict and so we lose. But my dad was of the opinion that the grammar of Galatians says basically that the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh so that we won’t do the things we otherwise would have. In other words the spirit is victorious!
Roger, again, THANK YOU for your very thoughtful comments.
I’m working on a follow up post that includes several references to Gal, which is vital to understanding this issue.
Many people do take Romans 6-8 in the context of sanctification/growth. However, as noted in the last post, I do not take it that way. I take it all in the context of salvation. While on the surface it sounds similar, there are MAJOR differences. I.E. why Paul would say that a Christian struggles with keeping the law. That makes no sense and is in direct conflict with what he writes in Gal. More on that coming in the post today.
Thanks again for your interaction Roger. This is mutual sharpening!