How do you plan on fighting sin?

“Everyone has a plan: until they get punched in the face.”  So said Mike Tyson about Evander Hollyfield’s plan for their upcoming fight.  He didn’t think Hollyfield’s plan would matter once the punches started flying.

As Christians we’re saved and called to follow Jesus and that means we enter a war.  And yet very often we don’t take time to think about fighting that war.  The war is not against the world.  The war is against sin.  Tragically we don’t often have a plan to fight sin and so we definitely get punched in the face sometimes repeatedly with the same punch because we have no defence, no way to fight it.

How do you currently fight sin? Do you currently fight sin? Or do you coast along and when you come across some preaching or a reading that pricks your conscience you offer up a quick confession and then move on?

We will never drift or coast to victory over sin.  We will never stumble into it.  In fact in many cases we won’t fight it because we haven’t even identified it as a sin.  We’re going to think in this post about what it means to fight sin.

As we do so, we need to remember a few key things about who we are in Christ.  We are God’s children, we are made holy, we are called to become more and more like Jesus.  And we are freed from sins hold over us, Satan used to be our master, sin used to rule us but now more.  Now we are filled with the Spirit who writes God’s law on our hearts and minds, who draws us to love God in action as we live for him. Our identity is what grounds us as we fight sin. We are fighting to be who we have already been made through faith by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. In Ephesians and Colossians when Paul calls on the church to be changed, to put off sin and put on holiness he always grounds it in their new identity in Christ. In 1 Peter his call to the scattered exiles to fight sin, do good and glorify God is grounded in their identity in Christ as a chosen people, royal priesthood, holy nation and so on.

Grasping our identity in Christ, marvelling at it, seeing ourselves in light of it is vital if we want to fight sin.

But we also need to have a plan to fight sin, we won’t drift into it, and so I’m going to outline 8 steps to fighting sin as we cooperate with the Spirit to become more like Jesus.

Step 1 – Identify sin

We need help in identifying sin. Think of your conscience like an old fashioned radio that you have to tune with a dial through the various frequencies. We need to tune our conscience to God’s word. The question isn’t ‘Do I think something is sinful?’ but ‘Does God declare something sinful?’. God’s word shows us what sin is, sometimes even naming as sin things our society finds acceptable or even promotes as good (discontent, thanklessness, greed, materialism, pride, selfish, impatience, lust, anger, judgmentalsim, envy, harsh use of the tongue, pornography and so on) We will never repent of, or fight, something we don’t see as sinful.

Step 2 – Evaluate

Having identified something as a sin that you struggle with it’s worth taking some times to evaluate the nature of that sin. Is it deep-rooted? Is it something I do habitually? How and why am I tempted to excuse of justify it? Do I see it as serious? Those questions help us weigh up the scale of the battle we face. Sometimes sins that we are freshly aware of have been plaguing us for a long time, and our habits and lifestyle are built around them.

Step 3 – Feel

This is perhaps the most counter intuitive for us as we’ve been heavily influenced by our therapy culture that we should never feel bad or guilty or ashamed, that they are negative emotions. But Instead they are necessary emotions in the fight against sin. We need to ask; do I feel guilty or ashamed because I have been caught and don’t want to face the consequences or loss of face or am I genuinely repentant? That is a question it is worth taking time over because it’s a gateway question. If we don’t feel genuinely repentant it’s because we don’t see sin as God does and we need to wrestle to see the horror of sin. Do I see my sinning as counter to my identity in Christ, as denying who I am and who he has redeemed me to be? Do I see my sin as grieving the Spirit who I am called to cooperate with as he writes God’s law on my heart and mind? Have I forgotten the cost of my sin to my Saviour at Calvary? Do I see the cost of my sin to God’s glory, to Christ, to the cause of the gospel and to others in my church family and around me?

We need to feel the full horror and weight of sin, not dismiss it as naughty but nice, or just a bad mistake. It may be worth sitting and reading a book like Hosea and feeling the weight of sin as cosmic adultery against God. We mustn’t rush too quickly to the cross and the balm of forgiveness, we need to feel the horror of our sin so we hate it just as Father, Son and Spirit do.

Step 4 – Consider

As you feel the weight fo your sin it is worth taking some time to consider the influences that lead you to sin. Is there something in your life, your history, your family, your circumstances that makes you especially vulnerable to that sin? Is there something in your personality that does? Are you pursuing it because of escapism or fear or a deliberate desire to avoid something? But we also need to take time to consider the sin behind the sin.

Sin is like an iceberg and sometimes we only see the 10% on the surface, but underlying that is a deeper sin. For example maybe the presenting sin is lying, but as you consider it, pray about it, think about when we lie and who to it exposes a sin behind the sin, the sin of pride, we lie because we want people to respect us, to value us, to like us. So repenting of our sin will mean repenting of both lying and pride, planning to fight them will involve planning to fight both.

In undertaking this step we must make sure we don’t fall into excusing sin because of our circumstances and history, rather we are wanting to understand our nature and why we sin so we can ask others to help us fight it well.

Step 5 – Plan

Often we develop gateway habits that lead us to sin, we need to identify these and plan to remove them. Are there times or places or occasions when I am especially prone to sinning? What mood tends to precede sin? Is isolation a contributing factor? Tiredness? Hunger? Fear? Pressure?

How do I break that pattern? Jesus calls on disciples to cut off, gouge out and throw away things that cause us to sin. If my phone or tablet is a gateway to sin with I get rid of it? Go dumb phone rather than smart phone? If tiredness is the gateway to sin will I plan to get to bed at a reasonable time? If isolation is a factor how can I spend time with others so this is less of an issue? If the cost seems to high then we need to go back to feel the stage and sit and contemplate the cost of our sin.

But we also need here to plan not just to put off the sin but to put on its opposite. A vacuum will always be filled with something, so we need to plan to fill it with good. To put off speaking evil and instead only speak words that build up.

Step 6 – Fight

Now we need to fight to put that plan into place. We need to pray and ask the Spirit’s help, asking him to make our conscience sensitive to sin, allergic to it, not desensitised to it. We need to ask others to pray with and for us and fight it with our church family. And we need to resolve to stand for Jesus rooted in who he has made us.

Step 7 – Meditate

We need to be constantly retuning our conscience. We need to fill our heads with who we are in Christ, the glory of the gospel and our calling to be holy and our glorious new creation future. It’s why on Sunday’s and at other times when we gather it’s good that we sing truth to one another, but we need to be doing that during the weak too.

When the battle for sin is at its fiercest we need to hear the good news of the gospel and who we are again. We are victors not victims in Christ!

Step 8 – Expect/rejoice

As we fight we we need to be realistic we need to expect change but also expect resistance. We need to expect to have to run to Christ again and again as we battle and sometimes lose a skirmish, but we need to know that he will always meet us with open arms and abundant grace not a cold shoulder and frowny face. We must also expect to need others and mustn’t let pride rob us of this support.

We need to rejoice in progress even if it is not perfection. If we are a perfectionist we need to reckon with that and know that discouragement is the first step to defeatism. No war was one in a day but a battle at a time, Christ calls us to progressive holiness not day 1 perfection. It’s helpful too to have others rejoice with you, as you rejoice with their progress in grace.

Maybe you’ve read the above and are thinking that all seems a bit formulaic. It’s not a rigid formula. There are feedback loops, and sometimes we need to go back again to a previous step. But if we have no plan to fight sin we won’t drift into holiness. It doesn’t automatically happen We are made holy in Christ and called to be holy as we cooperate with the Spirit day by day, this is just one way I’ve found helpful to think through sin and the war within.

Welcome to gospel Ministry (Part 3)

There are some invites you really don’t want to get aren’t there?  The invite to Great Aunt Ethel’s barn dance or to someone from works fancy dress wedding.  Paul’s invite to Timothy is a third one – “Join with me in suffering”.  How do you respond to that?  What’s your RSVP?

Our natural reaction to suffering is to avoid it, to pull away from it as fast as we can.  But suffering for the gospel is unavoidable, it’s part of following Jesus, being like him.  Suffering rejection from the world because we follow Jesus.  And Paul gives three pictures of what Timothy, and we are to be like.

“like a good soldier of Christ Jesus”  That’s the first image.  But it’s not often how we think of ourselves is it?  Soldiers on the frontline of a cosmic battle.  That’s reality.  Revelation twitches back the curtain so we see the cosmic conflict our lives are part of which is headed inevitably towards Jesus victory parade.

There’s a war on, so be a good solider, and a good soldier suffers.  (4)A soldier lives to please their commanding officer, and so they throw off any other distractions.  A distracted solider is a dead solider in battle.  Don’t get distracted, don’t forget you’re in a battle.

Paul’s calls not to get entangled in civilian affairs isn’t a call to leave the world, to disengage from it.  But to be focused on pleasing Jesus not the world.  That’s the battle isn’t it and don’t you feel the pull of that.  The constant distraction from living for Jesus.  It can be in the pull of entertainment, or comfort, or a promotion, or just the way our world fractures our focus so we don’t take time to think through what it means to live to please Jesus in every area of life.

Don’t be distracted live to please Jesus.

Secondly (5)be like the athlete.  When you signed up to compete in the games of the day you agreed to train for 10 months before and compete according to the rules.  You had to do that in order to be able to win the crown.  It’s the same for Timothy.  Timothy, and we, must be dedicated to training and running the race before us.  What’s the race, it’s following Jesus throughout this life together until we hear his well done and are welcomed into glory.  That means we teach the truth of the gospel, guard the truth of the gospel, and live out the truth of the gospel.

The third image is of the hardworking farmer.  The harvest was the result of many hours of sweat and toil.  Ploughing, sowing, weeding, watering, protecting, and finally harvesting.  The farmer works not just when fruit is visible but when it isn’t, because he trusts it’ll come.  He’s dedicated to the long-term hard work because he knows the harvest is coming.  Timothy, be like that.  Spiritual growth takes a long time, seeing the lost saved takes a long time.  Work hard now trusting that harvest is coming.

Let’s be honest church can be hard precisely because we see little fruit.  Fruit takes time.  Work hard knowing the harvest is coming.

All three pictures emphasize the need for long-term commitment, training and dedication.  All of them work and train in light of what’s coming not just what they can see.  The hours on the drill ground, the hours on the training runs, the hours planting and ploughing all long before the battle, the games, the harvest.  All involve suffering as preparation.  All require commitment and dedication.

The grace of God is at work, it empowers Timothy and us to serve God.  But we must also partner with him as we dedicate ourselves, discipline ourselves.  It’s not let go and let God but neither is it I’ll do it myself.

Are you suffering for the gospel or are we indulging ourselves?  Are we disciplined and dedicated or distracted and comfort oriented?  Are we living to please Jesus in light of his coming or content to drift along as if this world is all there is?

Welcome to Gospel Ministry (Part 2)

Paul’s second call that flows from the first, is to multiply guardians of the gospel. Those who know grace and strengthened by grace contend for and teach the gospel.

It’s not good to be alone.  That’s a universal truth of the human condition, it’s the way God has made us.  It’s true for Adam in the garden and it’s true for us today.  But it’s also true for us in serving Jesus in the church. It’s true for ministers and for ministry leaders. A sense of loneliness in ministry, of bearing the burden and responsibility alone is incredibly isolating and weighty.

Whose job is it to guard the gospel?  Be honest, what’s your first answer?  We live in an age of professionalism, where we pay people to do jobs, take responsibilities, so we don’t have to.  And so in many churches the answer, not in words but in reality, would be it’s the pastor’s job to guard the gospel.  Or maybe the elders job.  And there is some truth in that.  They do have a particular responsibility to do that.  But it’s not solely their responsibility.

In 2 Timothy 2v8 Paul tells Timothy that he must train up others who will teach others.  Timothy needs to train up guardians of the gospel there in Ephesus, how?  By entrusting others with the gospel, by sharing out the responsibility so others take on the call to teach others.  There must be more than just Timothy who takes responsibility for guarding the gospel by teaching the gospel.  His job is to pass the gospel on to others who will stand with him and teach and guard the gospel.

What does that mean for us?  The elder’s job in any church is to teach and guard the gospel, but also to multiply guardians of the gospel as they teach you the gospel so that you will teach and guard the gospel, and go on to teach others to teach and guard the gospel.  That will be a specific role for some who will be elders, others who will be qualified to teach – that’s qualified not the sense of having a degree or similar but having the character and gifting to do so be that from the front on a Sunday, or 1-2-1, or in small groups.

Why does that matter so much?  Because false teaching is like gangrene, it spreads where the blood flow of the gospel is cut off.  So the church needs lots of people guarding the gospel against false teaching and teaching the gospel to one another every day.  We live in an age when opportunities to be taught have exploded with access to YouTube and podcasts and books and all sorts of other materials.  And there’s some brilliant stuff out there.  But it shouldn’t surprise us that Satan will happily weaponise it for his own ends, to spread false teaching and damage churches.

The church needs a growing number guardians of the gospel who, strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, recognise false teaching and teach the truth empowered by grace to one another.  Is that you?  Not a heresy hunter, but a gospel of grace teacher.  Taught so that you can teach others in whatever context that is.

Welcome to Gospel Ministry (part 1)

We’re currently working through a series on 2 Timothy on Sunday mornings. It’s not the first time I’ve preached on this book, but every time I seem to end up giving someone else 2 Timothy 2v1-7 to preach. It’s not because I don’t get it, it’s mostly because I try to give those who aren’t full time in ministry the passages that I think are more straightforward and will benefit the individual involved. But this Sunday I was preaching elsewhere with a free hit, so I finally got to preach 2 Timothy 2v1-7. Here are some reflections and follow up thoughts on that passage.

Firstly some context. Timothy is in Ephesus. Ephesus was a bold courageous Christ following, self denying church. When they first heard the gospel those who believed in Jesus responded boldly. Publicly burning magic books and repenting from their previous idolatry, so much so that the loss of commerce for the silversmiths prompted a riot. But now it is a church in crisis, false teaching has infiltrated the church and people are listening to it, loving it, not rejecting it. It sounds far more attractive to them than the sound doctrine of Paul and Timothy. Add to that that others have deserted the gospel, and Paul is on death row, awaiting his second hearing before the courts presided over by Nero.

There are times in ministry you feel overwhelmed. You stand at the front and see those in front of you who are struggling; struggling with addictions, struggling with their marriages, struggling with certain sins they can’t seem to shake off, struggling with their mental health, struggling with the desire to compromise on the gospel, struggling with a book or podcast, or YouTube channel that seems to teach something different. Then there are those not in front of you who you worry about, those who are drifting in their faith, those who are struggling with life in all the above ways but who react to that by withdrawing from fellowship. Then, if you’re plugged into your community as you ought to be, you are aware of needs in the community; the spiritual need of the lost for salvation and all the above needs as well as various crises.

Sometimes ministry is overwhelming. That’s where Timothy is. And so Paul writes “”You, therefore my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” That’s the starting point for what he teaches. Don’t rush past this in the desire to got onto the images of solider, athlete, farmer. This is the foundation on which everything else is laid. Timothy must begin by being strong in the grace that in Christ Jesus.

Grace is when God gives us what we don’t deserve but what Jesus does. It’s where he counts everything that is Christ’s to our account because by faith we are in Christ. Timothy be strong in grace. Strengthen yourself by dwell on, drinking deeply of, all that is yours in Jesus Christ. Your salvation is by grace, your calling is by grace, your gifting is by grace, Jesus pours out his Spirit into you by grace, your future is secure by grace. None of it is performance related. None of it depends on a successful ministry. Strengthen yourself by dwelling on the grace that is yours in Christ Jesus.

This is so far from the mantras we tend to hear in our heads “Suck it up” “Man up” “You are a strong, capable, independent person” “You just need to try harder” insert your own here ____________. That way lies ministry burn out or an abusive culture where we drive people harder and harder and harder to justify our ministry or there’s. That way lies a toxic church culture. Be strong in the grace in is in Christ Jesus.