1216. Overcoming Sin

Welcome to The Daily Platform or program prepare sermons from travel services Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina.

Every day students are blessed by the preaching and teaching of the Bible from the University Chapel platform today on The Daily Platform were continuing a study series entitled seeking things above, which is a study of the book of Colossians. Let's listen to today's message from chapter 3 verses five through 10 where Paul tells us to mortify therefore your members Steve will guide us through the passage and show us how we can overcome sin while I like to invite your attention this morning to the book of Colossians chapter 3 while you're turning their been thinking a lot recently about Deuteronomy 3325 it says these words as that days so shall thy strength be God never promises strength for 10 years from now.

He always promises strength for today and I know that we are midway through the semester and I think most of you are probably like me somewhat tired. How many of you are tired. Raise your hand. Okay the whole student body and Amber halfway through it be great if we had a spring break this week and we can go somewhere and lay on the beach for a week and and sign in and enjoy ourselves in have no responsibilities and no classwork and no such reality, but we do have this promise that as thy days are so shall thy strength be in God will give you the strength for today. He will give you everything that you need for today but you have to trust them for it. You have to lean on him, for God will give that to you and you can be encouraged and that and for some of us is just taking one step in it, and then over this weekend you lost. You lost Sunday morning because you sprung forward and you lost an hour so we were gone on site Saturday morning. Sunday morning I we actually left out yesterday at 615 in the morning to go to a church in Ohio and then we got back late last night at 930 and so you can imagine the 6 o'clock was really 5 o'clock and so we were all tired advice tired were all there.

But let's encourage each other and let's not does not mope around. We we feel tired but God strength is that days so shall thy strength be reading this morning in the book of Colossians, and last week we talked about the theme of understanding sin.

Today I like to talk to you about actually overcoming sin.

It's one thing to understand what it is is another thing to overcome it and let's look at verse five. Colossians 3 I read these last week, but I read them again today will look at it from a different light. Paul writes, mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth, fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil can queue presence and covetousness which is idolatry for which things sink the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience in the which you also walk sometime when you lived in them, but now you also put off all these anger, wrath, malice and blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth, lie not one to another thing that you put off the old man with his deeds in a put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created that created him number of years ago, a young pastor sat down with an older pastor. After evening of fellowship and with a sense of serious concern.

Amy asked him a question. He said Sir would you simply take me one more time through the steps that will help me to overcome sin. It's almost like for all of us listening how to overcome sin one time. It's not enough. Why because we have to deal with new fresh realities of it every day.

One of the greatest issues of the Christian life is how do I have victory over my sin.

How I overcome the downward pull of my own sinful nature. How I overcome the alluring temptations that are in the world and this is why it was so appealing back in Paul's day, when one of the major platforms of the false teachers that came to Colossae was centered around how to overcome sin because it obviously appeals to all of us who are believers because we have a conscience and we want to hear the message. How do we overcome the problem of course is not the question that were asking but the problem in Paul's day was the answer they were getting and that is they were getting the answer that the way that you overcome sin is by self effort apart from Christ, whether it's by keeping laws or whether it's by putting harsh self impose discipline on yourself.

Neither one of those really deal with our own nature. We need God's power and the problem of overcoming sin can only be answered through Jesus Christ his work on the cross and our understanding this and let me say this morning that addressing and answering this issue of overcoming sin is very crucial. Why because it is such a relevant issue.

This is not old school preaching that I got was an old-school preacher. He preached on sale he found an old school preacher. He's a new school preacher. Why, because we never escape the presence of our own sin.

What Paul say in Romans seven about his struggle, he says, for I do not do what I want but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want. I agree with the law that is good and it is no longer I this doing it. The descendents will Amy Paul never got away from the reality of the presence of his own sin in his own life and since sin is always a present reality that we have to deal with that.

We have to deal with our emotions, our desires and our temptations so overcoming sin is is is a super relevant message may also say that overcoming sin is an issue that affects our spiritual maturity growing in Christ means putting away overcome putting away or overcoming sin, we have lingering sins in our life. It stunts our spiritual growth. It affects our relationship with God. The Jewish people celebrated Passover every year. But if you were to go to Israel today and watch them in the celebration. What you really notice is not so much the Passover as it is that their cleansing their house of anything that has Lebanon. It they spend a whole week cleaning house because they were not to worship God with the Passover and at the same time have leavened bread in their house and Paul takes that illustration when he deals with sin in the church at Corinth and he says cleanse out the old leaven, that you may be a new lock as you are really on unleavened.

Christ, our Passover has been sacrificed for us. Therefore let us celebrate this best. How do we celebrated not with the old leaven of malice and evil but with the new unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. In other words, in order for us to enjoy the Christian life. We really have to deal with sin and then there there's 1/3 reason why overcoming sin is such an important issue because overcoming you keep. How is it that you're going to be able to help others overcome sin if you can overcome your own sin. Let me just share this personally when I was in college I became a Christian. My freshman year, and I began to grow spiritually, particularly my sophomore year, until the time I graduated, and the people that help me the most in overcoming the sins of my life that the people were my own friends.

My own peers in college, it didn't mean that I didn't go to church and have a good pastor. Have a good Sunday school teacher, but therewith there was not the relationship with the pastor like it was with my own friends and I learned in college. The absolute importance of not only having the right kind of friends but being the right kind of friend a true friend cares about the spiritual life of their friends.

The Bible says in Galatians 6 brothers.

If anyone is overtaken in the fall, he that are spiritual, restore them, I think it is school at Bob Jones University. We have a center for student care where students can go who are struggling with sin and and we should have that and we need to have that but actually the center for student care should be the student body, because if you love others more than you love yourself and you know that there in sin and their struggling in their wanting help that we should be reaching out to them.

It was my friends in college that made the difference in him in our lives, and you should be that kind of friend you should be a friend that stick closer than a brother. Jesus is the friend to sinners and to be like Jesus. We need to help each other over sand and this is a part of our ministry and this is a part of your maturity as a student body. You are helping one another. You can have 400 discipleship groups that meet twice a week and it does absolutely nothing if were not really helping people in encouraging people to overcome the struggles of their life they can do it and if you're a believer, you have the desire to do that so one of the steps that Paul lays out here for us in Colossians and how it is that we actually overcome sin and we see two basic steps here and they are very simple, but they're very profound. The first one is this, we have to accept what is true that is. This victory starts with faith or with what we believe John writes faith is the victory that overcomes the world.

When we speak of faith were speaking of what we believe faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God in the real answer to victory is always in this book. Paul declares in Colossians that we have been freed from sin. We have been set free from the work of Jesus on the cross and the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives we start there. Not with what we do, but with what he has done Christian living experience is always coming out of our faith. What we believe and so what is included in this work. What is it that is done for us. Number one he has delivered us from divine wrath. Look at what it says in verse five universe six for which sayings sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience in verse five Paul identifies the sins that characterized the life of unbelievers, the depraved sins of sexual immorality in verse six he says it's because of these sins. God's judgment is coming upon the world. Now Paul tells believers to put to death sins. Why, because of God's wrath is coming on those who do these things then we should not be doing these things if we no longer living under God's wrath. So Paul is stated that we have been freed from the sins fact is in Colossians chapter 2 he tells us this and uses an image you meant when Jesus was crucified on the cross. They put a placard above his head. Why, because that was the public announcement for which he was dying and it was written in three languages and basically it says Jesus the King of the Jews. What is that mean it means he was being put to death because of treason because he claimed to be the king of the Jews over Caesar. So his dad was up it was a capital punishment for treason. But Paul takes that image of that placard any declares why Jesus was really crucified.

Listen to chapter 2 verse 14, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us and he took it out of the way, nailing it to the cross.

What Paul is saying is that image of Jesus dying on the cross with that placard actually is teaching us that when Jesus died on the cross he died for our violations of the law. He was suffering for what was recorded against us because every sin that you've ever written is every sin that you ever committed has been written against you. God even keeps a record of the idle words that we speak and when Jesus died on the cross, God nailed your sins to that cross. Can you imagine the heavyweight that Jesus bore when he died for every one of our sins on the cross and so what is happened is that the worst of enemies have now become the best of friends because we have been reconciled to God is his children. We been delivered from God's wrath for our sin. So what are we to do here to accept this. Secondly we been delivered not only from God's wrath, but we been delivered from our old self. Notice what he tells us in verse eight he says, but now you put all all these why he says in verse nine. Put off the old man and you've put on the new man. What does he mean by the old man the old man is everything you are in sin because of Adam when you were born into this world you were born, a member of a race.

What race were you born a member you are born, a member of Adam's race and you have Adams nature, a sinful fallen nature, and here's what Paul is saying Paul is saying that when you get saved you are delivered from that old state that old life and Paul is saying that the power of this old life has been severed.

It has been cut off, just like I had been crying all we have been cut off from the old life of sin. In other words, the power of that old life has been broken. Any uses different symbols to describe this. For example, he talks about circumcision. What is it mean to be circumcised. It was a symbol for a Jew who is under the Abraham a covenant of his devotion to God. And Paul says that in the New Testament. Circumcision is not a physical act as a spiritual act where God breaks the power of the old life of the Holy Spirit, literally, power is no longer dominating you in your life. The second symbol uses his baptism.

What is it mean to be baptized.

It means to be immersed and we are immersed in the Jesus we are united into him so that his death is our death and his resurrection is our resurrection. The old life is been buried in the new life is come forth and so the old wife is dead and gone. The old Steve patted bit died when I was when I was say that 19 years old. That's the old life, but now I'm in a new life in the third symbol is a symbol of changing of close that's what he means by putting off the old and putting on the news is literally changing your close and all of these images basically illustrate God separating us from the old life back during the Civil War. It was estimated that there were 60,000 amputations.

Why, because when the ship when a soldier was shot in a limb and arm or leg. There was always the potential infection of gangrene in order for it to be stop. There was only one thing they could do and that day and that is they had that cut off that leg that are in. Here's what Paul is saying our old life has been amputated. The power has been broken. We have been delivered from Atlanta from wrath we been delivered from our old life and then we have been delivered from our old.

I didn't. Paul says that we are a new person. If you ever met anybody who change their name my dad that my dad's name that I knew growing up was Bill Pettit, William Pettit, the third, named after his dad.

But what I did not realize until I got older, is that when my dad turned 18 years old he actually changed his name because the name my grandparents gave me when he was born was his name was Grenville Atchinson Pettit short. They called in grinning and my dad hated his name and so he changed his name to something simple. Bill, when you go back in the Bible and you think of the identities of some of the famous men. How many of them have their names came Abram to Abraham, Jacob, to Israel.

Saul to Paul Simon to Peter and ones that teach us that God actually changes your identity.

The moment that you become a child of God you are a new person resurrected. Think about it if you died, and he rose from the dead, you just give me a different person, not what you were before. That's what's happened to us, and what Paul is saying is this, that the way to overcome sin starts with faith.

This is what is true and we must accept it and we must believe it.

And then secondly, we must act on what is true, do we not do that today with social issues in our world. Let's take the issue of abortion people act on the subject of abortion based on what they believe what what what they believe is true.

What is what is there faith and we as believers believe that at the very moment of conception a person is a real person. A real being and what is the basis of this is the basis of the conception of Jesus when he was conceived in the womb of Mary, his name was Jesus. He was a person and so therefore we act on that. That's what Paul is saying when it comes to our sin and that is the way to overcome it is to act on what we know is true. True faith leads to right actions and what are the actions. One of the things that we are to do to overcome sin and Paul gives us two actions the first one is found in verse five the opening word when he says mortified. Therefore your members.

The word mortify means to put it to death to kill it.

John Doe in the 17th century Puritan said it clearly. He said be killing sin or it will be killing you. If a rattlesnake slithered into your dorm room.

What would you do, you would kill it.

If a rat came scampering across your floor, what would you do, you would scream you what shall at the scorpion was found on your bed. What would you do, you would snatch it. If Christ was murdered for your sin. What should you do with your sin, you should murder it and how do you do this.

How do you kill sin and the simple answer is you stop doing it. Think about it.

What are people doing with sin who are dead, go out to the graveyard asked them what are you doing hey what did you guys do on Saturday night. How many of you got drunk, you smoke pot you are partnering Paul parting late into the night they were doing anything why because there dad that people don't sin and God has given listening very carefully because some of you don't believe this, that they should back the .1 but I want you to know that when you became a believer.

God gave you God gave you the power to overcome sin through the cross of Jesus Christ, and through the combination of faith and obedience, God will give you the power to overcome sin I when I got saved in 19 years old I had all kinds of sins in my life. It was my friends in college, that what I'm teaching you.

I was taught by my friends in college at a friend by Jim Smith. He said to me one day I was I was struggling with a particular sent. I told him what was he said Steve did you think Jesus died only to get you out of hell and get you to heaven he said Jesus died to break the progress in the cross is the key to overcoming your sin if you would focus on the cross he would break the power and the desire sin in your life, look at enough.

All you know sometimes you do mental gyrations try to figure that out but you I learned I learned that every time I had the desire to sin and I would begin to focus on the crucifixion unit did it killed the desire for sin every single time. Folks don't sit here and say the power of the cross is not available for you to overcome your sin is the matter of your focus. You have to put to death in the notice.

Secondly he says you have to put it off per se, but now you also put off all these things and he gives a list of really relational sands.

What I would call reactionary. Since things that we all struggle with any tells us here not to kill it but to put it all in the ideas changing clothes.

You go out and you exercise.

You come back to get sweaty close on you shower you don't put the sweaty close back on you change your close pieces put off please and put on the what we put off we put off anger what is anger anger sort of that slow burn. The person is to but you can't really tell it, but there is there some heat. There is like going out to a Mexican restaurant and they bring the plate out. They say don't touch it because it's what you do you touch and maybe it was hot.

Maybe it was not so hot, but is not a call plate is a hot plate and there a lot of people you made that don't look like the angry but when you get close to them. You can feel the bitterness coming out of them. The Bible says you need to put that off put off wrath. What is that it's is the IED explosion in Afghanistan is the blowing up is the losing your temper. It's becoming a person.

That's not normal and I need to be like any of us may be like me.

Okay, let's say you know I'm I'm like normal and also to lose my temper. I get mad I get. Met mad at Dr. Weir and I grabbing by the collar not thrown across my room and I take that little baseball bat that I got from the baseball team that they gave out of the game. I called at VP correction start beaten him in the head and then afterwards ago. Man I'm really sorry, I should've done that. What I need to do I need to put that all some of you some of you have bad tempers you need to put it off malice what is malice, it means I'm going to get you back. You can pay for hurting people hurt people and you can you get your gonna take them out. Many of you have done that on the soccer field. Somebody hits you and you say your dad did. Next time I will take you out and I would enjoy it.

He says put it off blasphemy what is blasphemy, blasphemy, slander, gossip, talking about other people talking bad about other people.

Filthy communication out of them out was that a dirty mouth that was he saying he says all of these things need to be put off life because that's a part of the old life and God gives you the grace the renewal through the power of the spirit and the power of his word, folks. I know it works doesn't mean we don't struggle doesn't mean we don't battle and doesn't mean that we don't fail because the wonderful thing about failure is that there's forgiveness. If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from unrighteousness. I think one of the difficulties of being in the school like Bob Jones University is that if you do some of these things, there's problems, there's repercussions from that's probably a part of the problem, because then you live in the fear factor of getting caught, but it doesn't really deal with the real sin of your heart and what the Lord really wants us to do is to come to him and he gives us the victory and he will give us the power and he will give us the grace to overcome sin. Don't hide your sin, bring it to the surface, bring it to the Lord and let him give you the victory over father, thank you for the promises of your word. Help us to be faithful to you in Jesus name, amen. You been listening to a sermon from the study series in the book of Colossians by Dr. Steve Pettit, president of Bob Jones University. For more information on Dr. Pettit series, visit the Bob Jones University store website shop.BJ you.edu where you can get a copy of Steve's study booklet entitled seeking things above that's SH OP.BJ you.ED you thanks for listing and join us again tomorrow as we continue the study in Colossians on The Daily Platform