In the Christian life, we often hear the phrase “I am a sinner”. This sometimes feels like a platitude, a very Christian way of saying, “I’m not perfect”. But why aren’t perfect? If we’ve accepted Christ as our savior, aren’t we free from sin? Shouldn’t sin be something in the past? Why do we continue to struggle? Was our conversion false?
These are all big, important questions. The truth the matter is this: if your acceptance of Christ was authentic, then your salvation is guaranteed. But why do we still sin and struggle through life?
Here’s the short answer: there is a battle going on inside you still. There is the spirit that desires holiness and the flesh that desires selfishness. But wasn’t that all solved by accepting Christ? Yes and no.
THE HUMAN PROBLEM
There was a 16-year old boy named Kyle who tried a cigarette once. He didn’t like it. In fact, after he took his first puff, he thought it was so disgusting that he would never try it again. But he did. Maybe he wanted to look cool, to impress a girl, to show those around him that he was grown up. The specific reason he tried it again doesn’t matter as much as he was drawn into it again. He accepted it into his body once more, trained himself to smoke, and even though his body rejected it at first, the more he tried it, the more he forced his body to accept it, his body finally accepted it.
He continued to smoke throughout his young days and into his forties. One day he went to the doctor for a checkup. The doctor looked at his lungs and said, “Kyle, your lungs are full of tar. They are so impacted that if you keep smoking you will die. The good news is this: if you quit today, you can reduce the damage and add additional years to your life. I have a plan that can help you get on new path.”
Kyle had the choice to either take the doctor’s plan or not. One led to death and the other to extended life. Kyle thought about it. After all, smoking was a stress reliever, it was a way to cope, it was a friend all these years. But it was killing him. After much mental debate he chose the doctor’s plan. “Okay doc,” he said, “I trust you. Show me how to live my life in a different way.”
So Kyle started the program. It wasn’t easy. It required that he abandon cigarettes completely. The first few days were fine, exhilarating even, but eventually the old craving crept in. Was about just one puff, just one. It’s unfair to quit cold turkey! I need a little, just a little then I’ll be okay. He broke down after three days. But then turned his eyes to the plan again, remembering the X-rays of his black lungs, and how that path led to death.
Kyle continued. Peeling away from his addiction wasn’t easy. In fact, he failed more times than he felt he succeeded. But he also had days of sobriety that stretched into weeks sometimes. Six months went by and he realized that he had gone a month without falling back! It was a great victory for him. But it was short-lived, for he fell again, got up and continued on the plan.
Kyle continued to fight. Ten years passed by and he realized that he was mainly smoke-free, but also understood that at any time he could fall. He was fragile in that way, broken, fractured. But still fought the urges, fought the temptation, and wasn’t always victorious but realized that sometimes he would fall. The shame wasn’t in falling, but in not getting back up and continuing.
Was Kyle weak? Was Kyle strong? Was he a victim of his own vices and, if so, should he be punished for that? Was God mean to Kyle, allowing him to agonize for years over this addiction? Is that how God operates?
Before we begin to answer those questions, let’s ask another important question about the story. When Kyle accepted the doctor’s plan, did it automatically remove the tar from his lungs? No, it didn’t. The tar was still there, even after Kyle accepted the plan.
THE SPIRITUAL CONNECTION
When we look at this story from a spiritual standpoint, we can see that this is a story about sin and redemption. The cigarettes that so easily control Kyle is equivalent to the sin that so easily captivates us.
We train ourself to sin. Let me say it again. We train ourself to sin. We allow sin into our life and make room for it. Our nature is primarily sinful. 1 John 1:8 says this:
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. –Romans 3:23
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, –Jeremiah 17:9
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?
Sin came into our world through the deception in the Garden of Eden and has been passed to us. We arrive in this world a sinful creature, a creature whose primary focus is self- gratification. Our selfish flesh is our greatest foe and we curtail to our desires above all else through the first part of our life. Our early years are where we form our sensibilities and conceptions about what life is and much of that is built around our own selfish heart. Sin enters and we abide by it, give room to grown, form our own sense of morality around it. Like the analogy of smoking, it winnows its way into us, through us, penetrates us, until it’s part of us. It isn’t easy to untangle it.
James 1:13-15 gives one of the most vivid pictures of how sin works:
13 When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; 14 but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; James lays out that temptation has nothing to do with God. He allows it, but is not the source of it. In God, there is no darkness (1 John 1:5).
but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Each person succumbs to their desires. It starts in the head. In a thought that you allow. We cultivate it first in our minds. It is us who begins the decision to sin.
Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; When we given room inside us, we ultimately run toward action. Sin starts in the mind but is birthed into action.
Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. When we birth sin and practice it, it grows inside, until it is part of us. It becomes lifestyle. And that leads to spiritual death.
When we allow sin into our life, when we let it entice us and we give room for it to grow, it has the capacity to overgrow and overwhelm us. It becomes identity. It becomes intertwined with us. Like the cigarette in the story, it was something disgusting when it first entered Kyle’s life, but when he made room for it, it became more tolerable until it was part of him.
In Romans 3:10 Paul says this:
10 As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; 11 there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” 13 “Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.” “The poison of vipers is on their lips.” 14 “Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.” 15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 ruin and misery mark their ways, 17 and the way of peace they do not know.” 18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
So, if there is no one worthy of righteousness through God, if we are all condemned by our own actions, then how can their be any hope at all? Should we stay in our sin, please all of our own selfish and carnal desires without considering consequence?
In Kyle’s story, we saw that if he continued on the same trajectory, it led to death. His lungs would fill with more tar and eventually his lungs would be so clogged that he wouldn’t be able to expand them. He would die of the very thing that had brought him the stress relief, coping and friendship for most of his life.
Our sin trajectory also leads to death. Based on our lives, we cannot hope to present God with anything of value. Can you imagine that? If God’s plan was for us to earn our way to Him, we would have nothing but broken relationships, heartache and bad choices. Based on what we have to offer Him as righteousness, we are all headed for damnation, or as in Kyle’s story, death.
But here’s the good news: Christ offers us a sacrifice. He’s stepped in, on our behalf, to take the sin away, if we are to follow Him. When presented before God we are presented as righteous before Him. When we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior. God sees us as righteous, sinless, blameless.
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
Hebrews 9:12 “He entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.”
Jesus has taken our sin and destroyed it, creating a path for salvation. We are saved when our authentic belief in Christ is realized. It’s when we repent. Repentance means this: a change of mind that results on a change of action. Repentance is the mixing of spiritual and human motivation: we choose Jesus as our personal savior and aim to change our life from that moment forward. It is the beginning of our changed heart, and the beginning of the work we must do in this life.
SALVATION AND SANCTIFICATION Salvation is all about choosing your new path. In the story, Kyle chose the good news the doctor had to offer. But in our spiritual story, it is about choosing the path that leads to Jesus. Our path to salvation is the most important decision in our life. By Kyle’s choosing the doctor’s path, he now had new direction. If he continued in the program, he would find not only life, but extended life. In our spiritual story of salvation, if we trust the good news, it gives us the promise of eternal life.
But if we have salvation, why do we continue to sin?
When you professed your trust in Christ and decided to live your life for Him, something amazing happened: the power of that sin that so easily entangle you is broken. In Romans 6:1-11, Paul puts it like this:
6 Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? 2 Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? 3 Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? 4 For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives. 5 Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was. 6 We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. 7 For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. 8 And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him. 9 We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him. 10 When he died, he died once to break the power of sin. But now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God. 11 So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus.
When Christ came into our life he broke the power of sin that had a hold on us. We rose to a new accountability, an understanding of our brokenness. In this new understanding, there is a new way to move forward. The way to move forward is though understanding of our weakness and the realization that Christ has taken the burden of that sin spiritually for us. We are forgiven for those misgivings. Verse 10 says that “he died once to break the power of sin”.
But why do I continue to sin? If the power is broken, why is it still a struggle? Let’s go back to our story.
Kyle had work to do. The tar built up in his lungs was over a lifetime of cigarette use. When the doctor gave him a new path, did it remove the tar from his lungs? It gave Kyle new purpose, a new direction, a new way to live - but it didn’t remove the damage that was already done. That tar was a physical result of a spiritual problem.
In order for Kyle to create a path to being healthy, he had to abstain from cigarette use. But it wasn’t easy for him, was it? He had to “untrain” himself from a bad habit and train himself for good habits.
In the same way, when dealing with the sin we want to get out of our life, our profession of faith doesn’t immediately eradicate the physical buildup we’ve worked on most of our life. As easily as sin came and we leaned into it, we didn’t realize we were creating a problem for ourselves we would deal with later. This is what Philippians 2:12 says:
Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed--not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence--continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,
What is working out our salvation with fear and trembling? This is the day to day work we must do in order to achieve the holiness that we now crave in our life. It is the day-to-day struggle of making better choices, of retraining ourself in order to discover God’s grace and mercy in our life.
Sometimes we believe that the grace and mercy of God doesn’t exist in this space. Salvation is the first step in the process. Progressive sanctification (working out your salvation) is the daily grind of becoming the person God wants you to be. The sin in you was broken during salvation (justification), but the tar is still there from a lifetime of disobedience. As we work out our salvation, it isn’t the easier road, but it is the one that leads to life.
Struggles will continue. Our sin will fluctuate. But we must believe that it does not hold power over us any longer. Jesus broke its back when you authentically decided to follow and trust Him. But the grime of life is still there and that’s the part we struggle through. But remember this: if you are struggling, then you are fighting, and with each battle you become stronger. The battles are the incremental steps to winning the war. Some battles are easy and some difficult. Some you lose. But in the end, the task is to win the war and fight your best all the way through it to the end. 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 says this:
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
As Paul states, life is like a race that we need focus and determination to win. Our job is to run the race as best we can. If we fall down in the middle, it’s important to get back up, dust ourselves off and refocus on the prize (our eternity with Jesus). It isn’t about running it perfectly, but with the heart and passion that God desires in us.
In closing, we are mixed up in sin early in our life. It becomes a way of life. But when God intervenes, everything changes. There is accountability. There is a new path forward. It is not an easy path and oftentimes it feels like the odds are against us, but it is the better path. It is the path that leads to good news, to life, and light.