A Holy Struggle - 5/3/09

Hey friends.  This is a summary of the notes of a sermon I gave on 5/3/09.  Due to technical difficulties, we were unable to record it.  

This sermon, titled "A Holy Struggle," was the third part of our 'Missional Living' series.  This series is our attempt to search the scriptures and find out how we can live and breathe for God's glory and the advancement of the Gospel.  This week we were answering the question of how we can be faithful missionaries even though we still struggle with sin.

We started in 1 John 1:8- and set the scene with John's declaration that even Christians still have sin in their life.  Once we agreed with that fact, we decided there must be a righteous or, even, holy, way to struggle with sin.  Now, there is NOT a right way to sin, but there is a right way to STRUGGLE with sin.  If we struggle with our sin wrongly, it has the ability to derail all of our attempts to evangelize.  So how can we struggle with our sin in a holy way?

4 Points:

1) It is NOT o.k. to struggle with sin unrepentantly - Hebrews 10:26-27

- we looked at the story of Hosea, and the call to feel the weight of our sin and have godly grief over it

2) It is NOT o.k. to struggle with sin passively- Romans 8:12-13

- true repentance leads to action.  Paul commands us to actively put our sin to death.  Not to sit back and hope it goes away.  This could be getting accountability, counseling, waking up early, etc.

3) It is NOT o.k. to struggle with sin alone- James 5:16

- commonly overlooked- the christian call to confess to each other; sin is like mildew- it festers in the darkness.  The new testament community was one of honesty and openness

4) It is NOT o.k. to struggle with sin without hope- 1 John 1:9; Romans 6:14

- we have the promise of forgiveness for all of our sins, and the promise of victory over time.

I concluded by saying that when we struggle with sin in these biblical ways- it can enable us to evangelize more effectively.  We are no longer paralyzed when someone who we are sharing with brings up our sins- because we can explain to them our sorrow over that sin and all the things that we are doing to put it to death.

Temptation and sin are HUGE parts of all of our lives.  We must struggle with it in a godly way that would further the kingdom.

Love much,

Mike