Do you have any bad habits? Do you have any bad habits that are actually sinful? I mean, do you find yourself regularly coming back to the same place, realizing, “I did it again!”? Are there any sinful behaviours that you really struggle to kick? When you hear Bible verses like Col 3:5, “put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, greed, which is idolatry” do you have one or two that really stand out as “Wow, that one has been really hard to put to death!”?
I think Paul knew what that was like. In Romans, speaking of the internal battle with sin that rages in the Christian’s heart, he had this to say, “For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.” (Romans 7:18b-19)
When Jesus says things like, “If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out!” do you have something in your life that you think you may need to pluck out? Maybe it’s gossip or slander. Maybe it’s telling white lies, or exaggerating. Maybe it’s lust. Maybe it’s greed. Maybe it’s substance abuse. Maybe it’s anger. Maybe it’s bad language. It could be anything, but it’s a behaviour you know is wrong, you wish you didn’t do, but you keep on doing it?
This fall we’ve been doing a series on the Holy Spirit with the goal of living Spirit-filled lives. 3 Sundays ago, we looked at Col 3:1-17. Getting very practical, I asked you to pick 2 of the imperatives, or instructions that Paul gives in that passage and to work on them for 2 months. Some of them were positive, like clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Some were negatives, like rid yourselves of all such things as anger, rage, malice, slander and filthy language
What two things am I working on with the Holy Spirit? Today we are going to start looking at some very practical ways to cooperate with the Holy Spirit to rid ourselves of certain sinful practices.
Repeatedly, the Bible identifies our desires as the place to start our battle against sin. A common mistake today is to think of our sin as limited to the things we do that are sinful. But our sinfulness has much deeper roots than our actions! Our whole heart is corrupted by sin, so that includes sinful thinking, a corrupt will, fallen desires, sinful preferences and a tainted imagination. Sinful action finds it source much deeper than our actions. It begins in our sinful heart, many times with sinful desires, or even good desires set on sinful things, or given a sinful significance in our priorities. Let’s see what I mean….
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