©1998 Larry Huntsperger
Peninsula Bible Fellowship
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9/13/98
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Pt. 4 The Sources of Sin Bondage
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9/13/98 Pt. 4 The Sources of Sin Bondage
Before I left for vacation
we were involved in a study
we almost
but not quite finished up.
The study was on breaking the power
of addictive sin patterns in our lives.
In that study we spent three weeks
looking at two statements
and then 5 essential elements
in the process of bringing us
to true freedom in Christ.
The two statements we looked at were:
#1. There can be no true, enduring change in the
human personality apart from the direct personal
intervention of God Himself.
And #2. If we are a Christian,
and if God has chosen at present to leave some
area of sin bondage in our life,
He has done so for specific reasons.
Then we went on to look at
the five elements God brings into our lives
to bring us to freedom:
#1.God creates within us a heart desire for
righteousness.
#2. He brings us to the point where we are willing to
call our sin SIN!
#3. He gives us eyes to be able to see our sin
honestly,
not through the eyes of our
rationalizations
and justifications,
but to see it as the destructive bondage it is.
#4. He brings us to the point where we want Him
more than we want the healing.
And then #5 was best stated in the words
of Peter in the 5th chapter of his 1st letter.
1 Pet. 5:10 After you have suffered for a
little while, the God of all grace, who
called you to His eternal glory in Christ,
will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen
and establish you.
In His time,
when the struggle has served
the purposes for which He permitted it
to remain for a time in our lives,
He will bring us into
the freedom and solid footing we long for.
Would you like to hear what King David said at the
end of this process
in one area of his life?
Ps. 40:1 I waited patiently for the Lord;
And He inclined to me and heard my cry.
Ps. 40:2 He brought me up out of the pit
of destruction, out of the miry clay, And
He set my feet upon a rock making my
footsteps firm.
Ps. 40:3 He put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God; Many will see
and fear And will trust in the Lord.
Ps. 40:4 ¶ How blessed is the man who
has made the Lord his trust, And has not
turned to the proud, nor to those who
lapse into falsehood.
Ps. 40:5 Many, O Lord my God, are the
wonders which You have done, And Your
thoughts toward us; There is none to
compare with You. If I would declare and
speak of them, They would be too
numerous to count.
Ps. 40:6 ¶ Sacrifice and meal offering You
have not desired; My ears You have
opened; Burnt offering and sin offering
You have not required.
Ps. 40:7 Then I said, "Behold, I come; In
the scroll of the book it is written of me.
Ps. 40:8 I delight to do Your will, O my
God; Your Law is within my heart. "
Ps. 40:9 ¶ I have proclaimed glad tidings
of righteousness in the great congregation;
Behold, I will not restrain my lips, O
Lord, You know.
Ps. 40:10 I have not hidden Your
righteousness within my heart; I have
spoken of Your faithfulness and Your
salvation; I have not concealed Your
lovingkindness and Your truth from the
great congregation.
...My ears You have opened...I delight to
do Your will, O my God; Your Law is
within my heart...
You see what he's telling us, don't you?
He is not telling us
that temptations no longer touch his life.
But he is telling us
that he now faces those temptations
with his feet on solid rock,
and with his ears opened to the truth,
and with his heart delighting in the
law of God.
In other words,
he is now equipped to choose righteousness.
This whole series started with a statement:
"There are times in every Christian's life, usually on
a daily basis,
when faithfulness to our King
requires choosing contrary
to whatever we happen to be 'feeling' at
the moment."
From there we went on to raise the question,
"But what if I feel like I can't choose?"
And now we see David proclaiming
the kind of emotional stability
God's healing process can bring about in our
lives.
Now, before we put this whole thing to rest for a
while,
I want to tidy up three things
that I feel were left hanging.
#1. I want to make one further comment
on why this whole healing process matters.
#2. I want to say a little bit about
where these areas of bondage come from
and why they exist in our lives.
#3. And then finally
I want to say a few words about
the role of rules
in this freeing process.
OK, first of all,
why does it matter, anyway?
The process we've outlined
during the weeks we've been in this series
is obviously one that requires
a great deal of growing,
and learning,
and churning,
and active interaction with God.
Why go through all that, anyway?
We look around us
and see our world filled with people
for whom strength of moral character
is the last thing they're interested in,
and many of them seem to be doing great.
Some of them are extremely wealthy
and getting more so all the time.
Some of them are stars in the world of
athletics
or entertainment
or music,
and they seem to have the kind of life
our world considers the "Good life".
Some of them
have been elected to
some of the highest political offices in our
land.
In other words,
lack of moral character
doesn't seem to have hurt them at all,
so why should we be concerned about it?
I know this is a dangerous area
for a preacher to open up,
especially when I've promised
to only make a brief comment about it.
But for our purposes this morning
I just want to make one crucial distinction-
God does not call us to pursue
moral integrity because it will make us
successful,
He calls us to pursue moral integrity
because it is the only life
consistent with who we have become in
Christ,
and because it is the only thing
that can make us truly free
to be the people God designed us to be.
Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who
commits sin is the slave of sin.
I'll rephrase it just one more way
and then we'll move on -
Strength of character determines quality of
life.
Quoting from the Old Testament,
Peter said it well in 1 Pet. 3:10-11
For, Let him who means to love life and
see good days Refrain his tongue from evil
and his lips from speaking guile. And let
him turn away from evil and do good; Let
him seek peace and pursue it.
He wants us to know
that there is an inseparable link
between quality of life
and moral integrity.
#2. I want to say a little bit about
where these areas of bondage come from
and why they exist in our lives.
We have talked a great deal
during the four weeks we have spent in this
series
about those sticky areas of our lives,
those areas in which
we find ourselves especially susceptible
to the addictive nature of sin.
I don't think it would be right
for us to leave this area
without addressing a few of the lies
being batted around in our society
designed to suggest that any real
change in the human personality
is an impossibility.
There are many factors
that contribute to our own personal areas of
vulnerability
to sin bondage.
Every one of us have some area of moral temptation
that just role right off of us.
Our temperaments
and backgrounds make us morally incorruptible
in those areas.
But in the same way
we also have areas in which
we almost seem to be looking for an
opportunity to fail.
They just fit us,
the call to us,
they lung out and grab hold of us
and call us into their deceptions.
The great cultural explanation
currently being developed in our generation
is that of genetics.
Researchers are rapidly finding
genetic ties
to many, if not all of the areas of moral
weakness that afflict the human race.
When the genetic researcher
tells the alcoholic
or the homosexual
or the rage-aholic
that the problem they struggle with
has a genetic base,
their intention, of course,
is to help them find peace
in viewing themselves as a victim.
We are just unfortunate
and helpless victims of a little piece of genetic trash
that has corrupted our blood line.
We had better just learn to live with it
because there's no way we can change it.
That's what the world does best -
it provides us with explanations why
we are the way we are -
"It's genetic, you know..."
"It's because of your home background..."
"It's because you're a first born,
or a second born,
or an only child..."
"It's because..."
Now don't misunderstand me here -
I think there is some genetic base
to virtually every type of human weakness.
I think every one of us comes into this world
with our own distinctive strengths and
vulnerabilities to certain types of moral traps.
EX. Some of you may remember
a year or two ago we were talking about the
conscience
and what it is
and how it works,
and I told you that I picture the conscience sort of
like
a three-foot high wall of bricks
circling around the personality,
only they are bricks with no mortar
holding them together.
In that discussion we talked about
how when we violate the conscience
it's like crawling over that brick wall
and in the process
we knock a few of the bricks off
so that the next time
the wall is a little lower
and easier to get over.
I bring that up again
because when I hear the scientists
telling us that certain weakness
have a genetic base,
it just tells me that
all of us are born a few bricks short of a load.
I mean, each of us
come into this world with a few of the bricks in
our little conscience wall
already missing
so that when that rebellious inner spirit
that controls our life when we enter this world
wants to beak out of that wall,
it just naturally moves to the place
where the wall is a little lower to begin
with.
By the same token,
I also recognize that the approach our parents
took to us when we were young
can sometimes leave us with a lot of baggage
that we need to unpack
and sort through as adults.
But whereas the world takes heredity,
and home environment,
and genetics and uses them for excuses,
our Lord views them as what they really are
just a few more of the consequences
of our sin,
all of which,
when placed into His hands
can experience the redeeming power
of His love,
His forgiveness,
and His ability to bring new life out of
death.
You see, God's approach to inherited weaknesses
is so very different from ours.
We look at them as explanations
and excuses,
He looks at them opportunities
to demonstrate His power
and His love.
Mostly what I want to say here
is to encourage you not to buy into
the cultural rationalizations that bombard us.
Dealing with sin
and the effects of sin in our lives
is what God does best.
If that sin happens to have a genetic component, so
what?
Do you remember that man born blind
in John chapter 9.
That's genetics, folks.
In the course of that man's discussions
with the Jewish leaders
following Christ's restoration of his sight
he said to them:
John 9:32 "Since the beginning of time it
has never been heard that anyone opened
the eyes of a person born blind.
He was saying the same thing
our culture is saying:
"The rules of life are simple -
what you're born with
you're stuck with forever."
But when they tried to get him to deny what Christ
had done for him he said simply,
John 9:25 ... one thing I do know, that
though I was blind, now I see."
#3. And then finally
I want to say a few words about
the role of rules
in this freeing process.
Obviously throughout this series
I have strongly emphasized
God's ability and commitment
to bring greater and greater moral
freedom into the lives of His children.
I do not, however,
want what I have said
to be misinterpreted as my suggesting
that the child of God should then
simply ignore the moral battles we face
and say to ourselves,
"When God wants to bring me freedom that's fine,
and until then I'll just let the impulses run wild."
We haven't got time
to look at the passages right now,
but God tells us several places in Scripture,
(Rom. 14, I Cor. 8)
that when we are young in Christ
He uses rules to help protect us
while we are in the process
of learning to more clearly hear His voice
and follow the leadership of His Spirit.
It helps me to picture those rules
like a walker a person would use
when they are recuperating from
an injury.
They give us something to hang on to,
to draw support and strength from.
I guarantee that, if you are serious
about developing strong moral character
there will be times and places in that process
when God will give you a rule.
He will say, "This area, this activity,
this thing is off limits."
When that happens
I want you to know that such rules
are given as an expression of His love.
Receive them as such.
As we grow
those rules play a smaller and smaller role in
our lives
because we are better able
to hear His voice,
and because we have a clearer and clearer
understanding
of our true identity in Christ,
we understand better how to live consistent
with our true holy identity.
But there will always be some areas
where our Lord will supplement our healing
process
with rules He gives us for our own
protection.