Done with Sin
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Standing Firm in Faith
Standing Firm in Faith
I was an 18 year old college student when I came to Christ.
Didn’t attend church regularly.
Didn’t understand much about the bible or faith in general.
But after a few days on campus at WKU, feeling desperate for social interaction, my sister invited me to the Baptist Student Union.
Over the course of the few months I was there God was pursuing me.
Sometime in the month of September, I came to realize the depths of my sin and my need for a Savior and received Jesus as my Lord and Savior.
That Christmas break I went home with my new found faith, back to a group of friends who were not.
I was super excited about my faith so I shared it with all my buds.
I remember my buddy Jordan (who had been my best friend since the first day of Freshman year) being so disappointed.
We had all kinds of plans for when he got home from basic training.
Things that I had come to understand were wrong and sinful. And, honestly, things I really didn’t want to be a part of anymore
I didn’t have a lot of answers at that point to his questions of why, but I was just different. I felt different, thought different, desired different things.
I stumbled a lot that first year (and the years since), but I just knew there was something different.
There were a few conversations with Jordan that got heated and he ended up quite frustrated with me and I really had to examine my faith.
Unfortunately, we lost touch as I grew in my faith.
Last week we talked about some deeply profound Gospel realities that are transformational to our lives as we understand them.
Being Justified in Christ
And clothed in His Imputed (credited) Righteousness.
Today I want to talk about how those Gospel truths transform us at our very core and lead us to live differently.
The Christian life is marked by a change in NATURE.
The Christian life is marked by a change in NATURE.
John Stott has said that the lives of Jesus followers have 2 volumes.
Volume 1 is our lives before Jesus
Volume 2 is our life after Jesus.
Depending on when you came to faith in Christ, your volumes may be longer or shorter.
The point he is making, which I think is a powerful point, is that the time, the season, or the moment you became a Christ represents a new journey and new direction for you life.
The bible calls this New Life, being born again. (That is Peter’s underlying theme throughout this letter).
What that biblical language represents is a death to our former life and a birth into our New Lives IN CHRIST.
Listen to Peter’s words here:
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; 5 but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. 6 For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does.
Pay close attention to verse 6 “they may live in the Spirit”.
There is a bold and biblical idea embedded in this passage.
If you are a believer in Jesus then you have the Holy Spirit living in you.
And the presence of the Spirit will make a difference in your life.
Romans 6 is very helpful here.
1 Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? 2 Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? 3 Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? 4 For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.
Last week we talked about the forgiveness and justification we have received when we come to Jesus.
These are incredible gifts given to us by God out of His love for us and for His glory.
Paul is asked the question, “Since our sins are so many and so wretched, would it not bring God more glory and make His grace and forgiveness even more precious if we kept on sinning?”
The answer is ABSOLUTELY NOT!
How can someone who has “died to sin” still live in it?
The very idea of continuing in sin is outrageous to Paul.
So Paul directs their minds back to their baptism, back to the physical representation of the move from volume 1 to volume 2.
That is what your baptism represents. It represent the shift to the very core of your being.
You are no longer living your volume 1, you are different, transformed, made new, and set free.
The Christian life is marked by a change in CONDUCT.
The Christian life is marked by a change in CONDUCT.
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.
So if you are justified and righteous in Christ, through His blood, how now shall you live?
If you have trusted in Christ you have “ceased from sin”
Peter isn’t saying that true Christians do not sin anymore, but that their lives begin to shift progressively away from sin and sinful patterns.
There is a theological term for this: Progressive Sanctification.
Which means that believers are progressively becoming more and more like Jesus in their lives.
The very second someone puts their faith in Jesus they are immediately justified and clothed in Christ’s righteousness.
But sanctification is a process that is driven and orchestrated by the present, indwelled Holy Spirit.
When the Spirit of God takes over our lives we begin to shed off the old self and progressively put on the new self.
This is what Paul means in Galatians 5 when He lists the fruit of the Spirit.
It is the Spirit literally producing fruit in you that shows up in your behavior.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.
Ceasing from sin means to “live the remaining time time in the flesh no longer for human desires, but for God’s will.”
Peter is using the word desire not to refer to general desire but overbearing or over desire desires, enslaving desires and perverted desires, or desires outside of God's design or purpose.
Making a good thing a God thing—which is the very definition of idolatry.
The list in verse 3 is full of a perversion or enslaving version of good things:
Sex, food and drink, friendships and celebrations.
God created all of those things, but we make these good things into gods that we then worship in place of the God who made them.
To cease from sin is to day by day grow less and less fond of sin, and more and more captivated by the goodness of Christ.
To go less and less to the empty well of sin that will never satisfy and go more and more to the well of Christ that will satisfy you abundantly more.
The Christian life is marked by a change in RESEMBLANCE.
The Christian life is marked by a change in RESEMBLANCE.
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;
Peter says the inevitable result of being justified by Christ, clothed in His righteousness, indwelled by the Spirit so that we live drastically different lives, is that we will be mocked, ridiculed, slandered, and rejected by the world.
We are going to dive deeper into this next week, but I want to share 2 things:
How we react to the rejection of others because of our faith and obedience to Jesus will reveal just how real our faith is and just how deep the roots of our faith grow.
There are a lot of believers, like believers that seem real legit that will struggle to stand in midst of slander and rejection of others.
We will all stand up boldly and confidently when the objection comes from far away, but we will all be tested when the objection comes close to home. How will you navigate a child who turns on the truths of Christ? How will you face a situation when your advancement or livelihood will be at risk if you stay faithful to Jesus.
More on that next week as we understand how eschatology (the end times) affects how strongly we will stand.
Closing
Closing
Close your eyes and reflect on these questions:
How has God transformed your story in Christ? If not then I invite you to receive Jesus right here and right now.
It isn’t about legalism, following all the rules of being a good Christian, but it is about life change. How has your life changed because of knowing Jesus? If it hasn’t why not?
Is there a sin, a struggle, a relationship, or anything that you feel like the Holy Spirit is speaking to today? It is time to give it over, to confess it to the Lord and to start today being DONE with that sin.
Let’s pray and sing out to the Lord together.
Phone number 270-551-2250 to connect with a pastor.