How To Defeat Sin (part 1)

The battle against sin is one of the great struggles of Christian’s everywhere. Believers seem to be locked in eternal combat warring against sinful desires and behaviors in an effort to be more Christ-like.

Obviously wanting to stamp out sin in all its forms is a noble goal, but how do we accomplish the objective. How do we as believers in Christ move beyond the struggle into the victory Jesus suffered to give us? And there’s a hint in that question, because the answers deals directly with the cross, and what Jesus accomplished.

Today we will explore the ultimate question on the mind of most Christians today: How to defeat sin. And it may not be the way that you think…

The Root of the Problem

In our long battles against sin it’s easy to become focused on the obvious things that we can see. Performance modification is at the core of many Christians’ thoughts; entire books exist on how to “do better” be more holy, and live better lives.

And let’s be clear about this, what you do does matter in a practical sense. The choices you make and the actions you take touch the lives of those you interact with on a daily basis.  The trap comes in when you focus on your actions.

As we saw last week, the key to not allowing sin to reign in your mortal body is not to try harder, not to grip tighter, but, rather to live in your new nature in Christ.

As tempting as it is to focus on the obvious elements of your works and performance, the scripture teaches precisely the opposite. In Matthew 23:26, Jesus tells the Pharisees to clean the inside of the cup, and then the outside will also be clean.  Think about what Jesus was saying here… Jesus was talking to the Pharisees, these were the religious leaders, the experts in the Law of Moses, and they were also very self-righteous and focused on their works.

The Pharisees were obsessed with outward appearance, performance, and works. And Jesus tells them thy are focused on the wrong things. Jesus says that they should clean in the inside of the cup, and that the outside would be clean as a result.

Jesus’ statement tells us some crucial details:

• • • Outward behavior does not solve the inward issue

• • • The outward is changed by the inward
    • That the inside is what we should focus on

Oftentimes we think of sin as a verb, as a behavior to be changed, as performance to be graded and improved. However, many times in scripture sin is used as a noun. We see this especially in the book of Romans, where Paul expounds a lot about our spiritual identity. Our spiritual identity is key to getting to the root of the sin problem.

What’s Your Nature?

One of Jesus’ most quoted and popular teachings comes from Matthew 7:16-20 which says:

“¹⁶ You shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? 

¹⁷ Even so every good tree brings forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree brings forth evil fruit.

¹⁸ A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. 

¹⁹ Every tree that brings not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. 

²⁰ Why by their fruits you shall know them.”

Many Christians interpret this verse as a call to become “fruit inspectors” and judge each others fruit, which can spiral people down into a deeper works-mindset.

However Jesus is saying something else in these verses— something that often gets overlooked. In verse 18, Jesus says  a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. 

Notice the absolute language that Jesus uses. He doesn’t say that a good tree occasionally bears bad fruit, or that a bad try can try really hard to sometimes bear good fruit. No.

Jesus says that a good tree cannot (absolutely never) bear evil fruit, and a corrupt tree cannot (absolutely never) bear good fruit.

There’s no gamble, maybe, perhaps, or uncertainty there, because it doesn’t rest on your efforts, and the focus isn’t on the fruit, but the key here is what kind of tree you are.

The nature itself must be changed. Do you see? To truly change the fruit, the tree itself must be changed. This change does not come through willpower or effort. An apple tree can never become an orange tree no matter how much willpower it has or how much it tries.

The kind of change we need, can only come through the rebirth of Jesus Christ, being born again by His spirit

We will continue this topic next week, and look at how this rebirth happens,

Be blessed.