a portrait of Dorian Gray, a novel written in the 1890s by Oscar Wilde. It's about a young man, a hedonistic British aristocrat named Dorian Gray, who lived in the late 1800s. And he ended up having a man paint a portrait of him, a man who was a friend, a man who was infatuated with him, And Dorian Gray was committed to this life of hedonism of whatever pleased himself, whatever pleased the flesh was what he was going to be involved in. So his friend Basel painted a portrait of him. And as this portrait was unveiled, Dorian Gray had a prayer that he prayed, a wish that he made that the portrait would grow old, but he would not. So what he wanted was to live his life as he wanted to live his life, but not to grow old. And in this novel, that wish was granted of him so that his portrait grew old. But not only did it grow old with his age, it grew old with his sin. And he would notice this in the events of his life as he Got a hold of this one young lady and then rejected her. And it was the wrong thing for him to reject her and the way that it was done. And he noticed that his portrait grew older. And not only did it grow older, but it grew more decrepit. It grew more ugly. It grew more just an ugly portrait of who he was. We continued on in his life to do this, and at one point in his life, he decided that he wanted to turn his life around. He wanted to do the right thing. He wanted to do the moral thing. And there had been some conversations between he and Basil where Basil came in at one point and and Dorian showed him the portrait. And the painter of the portrait, Basil, was just amazed. He was horrified at what he saw in this picture. He was horrified that it was not the portrait that he had pictured, that he had painted. See, Dorian Gray was a very handsome man. He, by all outward assessment, was one who was gifted with looks and charm and the ability to communicate with people. And this portrait was nothing like he had painted. And he engages him in a conversation about this, saying, listen, you need to stop what you're doing. You need to turn around. Dorian says, I can't do that. It's a lost cause. And he said, wait a minute, your your prayer was granted out of your own arrogance to have the portrait grow older instead of you. So maybe maybe your prayer for repentance will be heard as well and things will be turned around. Of course, Dorian would never. Would never agree to that. And at one point in the novel, Dorian kills. Basil, because he's afraid that Basil is going to tell the world what's going on. So he kills him as if that would solve his problem. So his life goes on and he decides at one point he's going to start living that moral life and he tries to change and he realizes that he can't. He realizes that he's stuck in this. He realizes that his life of hedonism is now who he is. And so his his end goal then is to return to the way things used to be. So he decides the last thing he can do to get rid of all that is to destroy the painting. So he locks himself in the chamber and he takes a knife and he stabs the painting to be able to rip it apart. But as soon as he stabs the painting, he dies. And his servants are outside the door and they hear the yelling and they they call to have someone unlock the door and let them in. And what they find is a decrepit old man laying on the floor with a knife in his heart and a brand new portrait of Dorian Gray when he was young and when he was handsome and beautiful. Now, there's many different metaphors we could take from this, many different ways we could go. But here's what I want you to understand. Sin kills. Sin kills, it first killed the portrait and then it killed the man. The penalty of sin, according to God, is what? Death. Sin. Kills. Christ was placed on the cross to what? Die on our behalf. Because sin exacts a penalty. Now, here's the question before us today. Will you kill your sin? Or will you be killed by your sin? Because one of those two things will happen. Now, let me set some clarity here. If you were here this morning and you don't know Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior, your sin is killing you. You are under condemnation by a holy God currently. The only reason you're still living and taking breath is because that holy God is also gracious and he hasn't killed you. He hasn't taken you out of this life. He'd have every right to do so. You need to know that your sin would be the result. That would be the result. You would die. And this morning, what you need to understand is the only way around that I don't care how righteous you think you are. I don't care how virtuous you think you are. I don't care how much you think you do not suffer with sin. It will kill you without Christ. The only answer to it is to take the death of Christ and have that apply to your life, because Christ died for the sin of those who would believe in him. Now, if you're in here and you're professing Christ this morning, You could be taken away by two temptations. See, we're pendulum people, aren't we? We have this tendency to go this way or that way. We're heading one direction and we realize something may not be the right way to go, so we go the other direction. But we go all the way to the other extreme. And this is one of those ways we can have that extreme. See, we can understand that our sin has been taken care of on the cross, that Christ died for our sin. He suffered the wrath of God on our behalf. And we now stand righteous in the sight of God because of Christ. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, as Romans 8 1. So we know that to be true. And one side is for us to go to this side with the pendulum and say, OK, so therefore, I don't need to do anything. It's already done. And as far as your salvation, that is a true statement. Amen. Shake your heads. Yes. Please tell me we understand that that is a true statement. It is done. You didn't do anything. Christ did everything for you to stand in glory with Christ, for you to be considered righteous by God. Christ has done it all on your behalf. And yet between that moment and glory that day where Christ returns or you get taken home to him, you have work to do and that work is crucifying sin. It doesn't equal your salvation. It doesn't provide your salvation. It provides for your sanctification. It provides for that miraculous work of God through the Holy Spirit, where you and I are conformed, molded into the image of Jesus Christ. That happens through the power of God as we crucify our sin, we have that work to do. So don't be pendulum people that sit over on this side and say, OK, I don't have to do anything in this life. I just sit back and wait. God wants me to pray. He'll make me pray. God wants me to be righteous. He'll he'll just cause me not to do that sin. God wants me to read my Bible. He'll cause me to read my Bible. I don't need to work toward that or anything. He doesn't want me to be mean toward people or slanderous or gossip or backbiting. God will take care of that. If he doesn't take care of that, then it must not have been his will. And some of you may be going, man, I would never think that. I know people like this. Do you? I know people that live like this. That's dangerous. But on the other side of it is this misunderstanding. I know that's happened. I know that I've been saved. I know that it's all the work of Christ. I know that I'll stand in glory with God. But man, every day, every day, if I don't do the right thing, God's not going to love me. God's not going to care for me. If I don't do the right thing, how can I possibly go to him in prayer? How can I possibly read the word? How can I possibly witness to other people? Because I am so horrible. And so we're debilitated because we live knowing that in eternity our salvation is secure, but that today, you know, God's just not strong enough to take care of my salvation today. And so we end up bound in this legalism that we can never approach God because we think it's about us. We can never do the right thing because we think it's about us. Now, we don't want to be pendulum people there at all. We want to be hanging right where the gospel is central. And when the gospel is central, the gospel tells us we are saved by grace and we live by the same gospel that we're saved by every single day. It is our job to repent and believe. Now, I spent some time here doing that because I think we can easily have confusion about our Christian life. We can easily be ground on one side or the other and not walk in the middle. Last week, I began my sermon by asking you questions about whether you were one who lived in joy, whether you were one who in your life, you were a joyful Christian. And I tried to explain that that doesn't mean that we look at sorrowful things and we smile and act like they're not sorrowful. That's fake happiness. It's not joy. Joy is that settled understanding that Christ is in control and we can walk through anything, even when we're sorrowful, even when our heart is broken, even when loved ones die, even when things happen in our life that we don't understand. We walk joyfully because God's in control of that. I ask you if you had that. I also ask you if you lived in power. Because we have the power of the resurrection directed toward us, Paul says. The power of the resurrection. Christ dead, buried in the tomb, stone rolled away, raised, exalted. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't know any power that's stronger than that. Do you? That power is directed toward us. Do you live like that? And I ask you those questions because I think what gets in the way of most of us living like that is we're comfortable with our sin. So the spirit is squelched, it is just quenched in our lives so that we live in such a way that our sin guides us. And we're captivated by it. And we don't kill our sin so we don't grow in sanctification, so we don't see that power, we don't see that joy. That's why what Paul teaches in Colossians, chapter three, is so important to us. I want you to turn there. We don't have time to spend much there, but I want to tell I want to remind us why we're in the sermon we're in today. Colossians, chapter three. Paul has began in the beginning of chapter three to tell us. Actually, begins at the end of chapter two. In verse 20, it begins to tell us that since we have died with Christ and we have been raised with Christ. Verse 20, he starts talking about how we have died with Christ. And verse 1 of chapter 3 talks about how we've been raised with Christ. He's talking about how our life should be central to the cross. And since these things are true, since when Christ, for those who are a believer, when Christ died, you died. When Christ was raised, you were raised. Spiritually, you are seated in the heavenlies with Christ now, not some future date, but now all the blessings of heaven are yours in Christ now. So what stops you from taking partaking of those sin? That's what stops you. And so Paul is beginning to tell us that based on this gospel that he's preached, the centrality of Christ, all the way through the first two chapters of Colossians, he turns the corner and he tells us now how we're to live. And he tells us that we are to live in light of the cross. And if we are doing that, he begins in chapter five of chapter three, verse five, to tell us what we are to do. Let's read these together here. Chapter three, verse five. Paul says, put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you. And he describes that, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. So he tells us that these are earthly things. He uses the same phrase earlier where he talks about that we are to set our minds on the things above, not on the things of earth. So he begins to describe this, and the first set of vices he uses are all sexual in nature. sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire. And he even puts covenants in there, which we know is more than just sexual perversion. But it definitely is the definition of what all of those sexual perversions mean. It means that you desire something that God has not given you. You desire something that God has not blessed you with, whether that is before you're married and you're wanting all of this before you get married or it's after you're married and you want it with somebody other than who God has said you must have it with. So it's covenants, and he says that is what idolatry. He takes that and he places it right up there in the Ten Commandments, doesn't he? And he says, you've got something before me. Now, I don't think we need to paint the picture of how rampant sexual immorality is, and it's not just in our culture, if I could take you back and look at the first century as well, you see, the first century was probably more sexually immoral than we are, if you can imagine that. So Paul says this, this is idolatry. You've placed all of this before God. Look at verse six. On account of these, the wrath of God is coming. This isn't just a walk in the park here. That's what marks you. Wrath follows because God's holy. He's just he cannot let sin go. Sin must be punished. Because sin devours its victims and God is holy and so sin must be punished. So he places his wrath upon those who are sinners. Now, if you are in Christ this morning, you've had your you've had your sin covered by Christ. The wrath of God is still there. He doesn't wink and pretend it's not there. He placed it on Christ on your behalf. He was your substitute. Verse seven. In these, you, too, once walked when you were living in them. So he says, remember, you used to live this way, but now something's different. You've been changed. Things are different. He uses that same picture that he uses so many times. He used to be like that. Now you're like this. Don't go back and be like that anymore. It's not who you are. Your identity has changed. Verse eight. But now you must put them all away. Anger, wrath, malice, slander and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices. So now he turns from sexual sins to relational sins, and he talks about what's inside of us making its way out. Anger turning to wrath, which leads to malice, which becomes slander and obscene talk, just talking things that are filthy, that are not edifying, that are not for the building up of the one who hears it. As Paul talks about in Ephesians chapter five or chapter four. And he says, don't lie to one another, seeing that you put off the old self with its practices. Important here, seeing that you have put off, done to you, past. It has been done. You've put off this already. In your salvation, these earthly things have been shed from you. It's no longer who you are. It's not your identity. You're now different, Paul says. But it's not only just your old self, it's everything the old self practices. So it's not just, OK, that was done. Now I can live my life the way I want. No, that was done. It has consequences. Now its practices are gone. Verse 10, and have put on the new self. So he hasn't just left us alone. We've put off the old, but we're not just standing there naked now. Now we have the new self, which is what? The righteousness of Christ, the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. So now we have the white garments. Now we have righteousness and it's not ours. It's alien to us. It's it's Christ's righteousness that is credited to our account. We have it. So when God looks at us, he sees Christ. God looks at us. He sees perfection, which is Christ. He sees his righteousness. We are new creatures. Those terms should not be taken lightly. We are a new creature when we're in Christ. So that was our setting last week. But I never got to any application. I never got to the point to be able to say, how do we do this? I hope we've made the case that it is a requirement for us. Paul says, you have already done this. I mean, look at the train of thought. He tells them very clearly, put to death, kill it. Do not let it breed, do not let it live, do not let it multiply, kill it. And he says that to people who have what? Already died with Christ. Already died to the world. That gives us our key. That even though it is true, and it is so true that we can be confident that on that day of judgment we will stand righteous because of Christ, between now and then, we've got work to do, folks. We need to kill our sin. Or as the old theologians would say, mortify the flesh. Kill it. Put it to death. So I want to spend some time this morning, based on those truths, Bringing us a few applications, some of these I'll preach through a little bit, some of these I will not. They'll be self-explanatory and we'll see how far we make it through here. I told you and I gave you a link this week in your. The second set of green sheets that weren't really green sheets, but you printed them on green paper. I love how many of you print them on green paper just because you're creatures of habit. But I won't ask that. So you had more questions that came through. They weren't divided day by day. They were divided passage by passage on some passages that I think speak to this very strongly. And I gave you links to John Owens of the mortification of sin. I think the classic work on this subject, many more people have written on it. Most of them are re-summarizing, as I'm going to do, re-summarizing Owen's thoughts on the mortification of sin. So I gave you an audio link and I gave you a free text link to it if you wanted to read through that. What I'm doing now is I'm just kind of synthesizing some of the things he says. It's not everything he said. If you read that, you will know. There's no way to bring every point. But I'm going to synthesize this way that I think are practical for us. Some of these are main points for him. Some of these are sub points for him, but they're very practical for us. First of all, the first thing that we need to understand, a practical application for the killing of our sin. We need to trust in Christ. That's the first thing we need to do. It is not the job of a nonbeliever to crucify their sin. It is the job of a nonbeliever to repent of their sin so that Christ can forgive them. Then begins the work of mortification, of killing, of slaying your sin. So the first thing is to respond to the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is to respond and say, I am a sinner. I am in need of the Savior. Christ is the one who provided himself, the only one who could provide himself as the Savior, as the Savior to my sin and the punishment for that sin. And so you place your faith and trust in him. And that means you've repented of your sin. You walk the other direction away from your sin. You say, I recognize it. I agree with you and no longer do I want it. And you walk the other way and you begin a life of walking by the spirit that before was walking by the flesh. So that's the first thing we need to trust in Christ, an unregenerate man cannot kill sin. Why? Because sin killing. is by faith through the power of the Holy Spirit, not in the flesh. There's no way for you to kill your sin without the gospel, without the works of Christ given to you, it is impossible. Secondly, commit yourself to constant minute by minute sin killing, constant minute by minute sin killing. Now, I hope you get my gist here. This is all day, every day forever until God takes you home. So it's not something I want you to get better at, have good seasons and bad seasons. It's something I'm telling you, you are in a battle that will not end until Christ takes you home or returns to get you. It's not going to it's not going to end, it will be constant. C.S. Lewis says this, No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. Listen to what he says. Only those that try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting it, not by giving in. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it. It's minute by minute. And the more you fight it, the more you recognize its strength. Now, I've told you, you were already a victor over this in your life. You were already a person whose sin has no power over you. And yet there's a funny thing. Satan doesn't know that. Satan still tempts you. His agents still tempt you. You still conjure up sin inside of you. So it's a constant battle, minute by minute. Owen says this requires a universality of obedience. So all of your life needs to be obedient to Christ. All of it. All of your life needs to be focused on and obedient to Christ. So here's what I want to say. This is the pendulum thing again. All right. We want to be good pendulum people, not bad pendulum people. We can pursue all the right things and still have sin reigning in us. We can go to Bible study. We can come to church. We can do everything that we think we're supposed to do and never fight sin. And we don't even realize the power it has over us. Because we have the victory over that in Christ. And so you can do all the right things. and still not walk with joy, still not walk in a way that you are powerful. Now, let me tell you the other side. Remember, we don't want to be bad pendulum people. That doesn't mean we neglect all of the means of grace. It doesn't mean we neglect Bible reading and prayer and fellowship and preaching and worship and all of the things that we are told to do in Scripture. We do those things by faith in the Son of God who gave Himself over for us. We do those things. And through that process, we are then made more favorable toward Christ. Not that he looks at us more favorable, but we are consumed with him more because we're not filling our minds with stuff and things. We're not filling our minds with sin. We're not filling our minds with that that false gratification that's going to come with sin. We are filling our minds with Christ, the only one who can completely satisfy. Earlier this year, Indiana Congressman Mark Souter resigned his position. He confessed an affair with a part time staffer. Conservative Christian, and he has this affair. Just brought all kinds of scandal into his life. Many people looked at him and thought, who is he? Is he really who he said he was? What has happened here? There was an interview done by World Magazine. Marvin Alasky had a conversation with him, and he made a couple of interesting points. He talked about how difficult it is to keep people in power in check. He says politicians and any top professionals are skilled manipulators and smooth with words. Holding us accountable is hard. That's a true statement. Can I tell you that you are smooth with words, holding you accountable is hard. Can I tell you that people in this church love you and want to hold you accountable, but when you're involved in sin, you are a good liar. You make it look like it's not there. You make it look like it has no effect. You make it look like you're not watching the things you shouldn't watch and saying and doing the things you shouldn't do. And the only way that we would know is if we caught you doing it. That's our hearts. So don't think you're above the power of sin. Here's what else he says. My sin, while forgiven, is greater in that God put me in a position of public trust, so I deserve whatever criticism I receive. I don't think he's right that his sin was greater, the effects of his sin were greater. And so when you were pursuing sin, all those around you who look up to you, whether it's your family or your friends or those you disciple or other people in the church, what happens when that sin comes out? And I guarantee you it will come out. He also says this, I prayed multiple times. Listen to what he says. I prayed multiple times a day, sang hymns with emotions and tears, felt each time that it wouldn't happen again, read the Bible every morning. So how in the world did I have a torrid, which is an accurate word, many-year affair? How could I compartmentalize it so much? That's what happens when we regard sin in our hearts. That's why I'm saying you can do all the right things and not crucify sin. What he did not do was crucify the sin of his adulterous desires and their desires that start in his own heart, their covetousness, their idolatry to God. And that's the way every sin begins for us. So the bottom line, however, is that the problem is sin. The problem is getting the will subordinate to the Holy Spirit early enough that the spirit is not quenched. We're going to talk about that in a minute. But that means minute by minute battling, because if you don't do it minute by minute, it will overtake you. Third, hate sin because Christ hates sin and died for it, not because it brings you discomfort or robs you of peace. Listen to what Owen says. Hatred of sin as sin, not only as galling or disquieting, a sense of the love of Christ and the cross lies at the bottom of all true spiritual mortification. I'm not telling you to be good because you owe it to God. I'm telling you to understand the work of Christ on the cross, to understand that the sin you're about to commit, He died for. What does He think of that? What does God think of that? Is He pleased with you? Can you really say, God, I'm going to do this sin to Your glory? We have an understanding of the holiness of God. It affects how we live our life. Not because we owe Him anything. Listen to me. It's because He has changed us and His holiness now draws us. You know those bug zapper? Where the bugs fly around and they're drawn into the middle of that? It's to their doom and to their death. And they cannot pull away from it. Once they see it, they're drawn in. I've even seen cartoons that did this picture. Right? Don't look at it! Don't look at it! You're going to die! That's what sin is like. Now, You were drawn to the holiness of God. You have to you have to pull away from that drawing, because remember, you're a new creature in Christ. All the old has been put away. The new has come. You have to put away that desire for Christ that you have now been given and pursue the bug zapper. And when you don't stop sin. Because we're still living in a life that is affected by sin and we're still battling the flesh. That's what you do. You're drawn to the bug zapper instead of the holiness of Christ. So hate sin because Christ hates sin and died for it. Not because it brings you discomfort or robs you of peace. That's the cookie jar mentality, isn't it? You're going to take cookies forever and ever until you get caught. And then once you're caught, oh, you're so sorry. You weren't sorry when you took the ones that you didn't get caught for. You're sorry because you took the one that you did get caught. And now there are consequences to it. Don't be like that. Flee sin, because Christ died for it. Fourth, center your battle on the cross. Galatians, chapter six, verse 14, says this. Paul is talking to the Judaizers in Galatia and telling them not to demand circumcision as as part of their salvation. And he says, but far be it from me to boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. So because of the cross, you've been crucified. The world's crucified to you. That's that Roman six stuff again. It has no power over you. You used to be it used to be your master. Now God is your master. You're a slave all your life. OK, just get used to that. You're a slave. Say it. I'm a slave. You are. If you're lost here this morning, you're a slave to Satan. If you're saved, you're a slave to God. If I got to be a slave, I want to be slave to God. And since I already am a slave to God, why on earth would I go looking for a different master? Center your battle on the cross. If sin killing is by faith through the power of the Holy Spirit, then it must be a cross centered activity. Why is it a cross centered activity? Briefly, because your only ability, the only ability you have to crucify sin is because of what Christ did on the cross, because he died in order that you might be able to do that. So that's the only place your power comes from. If that's the only reason you have the ability, why on earth go to anything else to do what you've been commanded to do? And secondly, it keeps your eyes on Christ and the cross, which is the gospel. We are to live gospel centered lives. You repent for salvation. You repent for sanctification. Remember what Luther said in his first thesis that I quoted last week, all of life The Bible intends for all of life to be a life of repentance for the believer. Every day we repent. We don't just repent when we're saved and then go out to the back 40 and do whatever we want. We repent when we're saved and we understand that now that we're saved, we are a people of repentance. And when we sin, we repent. And when we repent, we're walking humbly before our God and God exalts us in the proper time instead of us exalting ourselves. Fifth, resolve to kill sin completely. Completely. Just think about the language. Can you kill anything partway? To kill it is to kill it is to kill it. There's no life, nothing left. Here's what Owen says. Follow me. Longer quote, but you can handle this. To kill a man or any other living thing, is to take away the principle of all its strength, vigor, and power so that he cannot act or exert or put forth any proper actings of his own. So it is in this case. See what he's saying. If you're going to kill a man, you're taking all his strength, all his ability to move and act and everything else away from him. Indwelling sin, says Owen, is compared to a person, a living person called the old man. He's talking about this passage right here in Colossians with his faculties and his properties, his wisdom, craft, subtlety, strength. This, says the apostle, must be killed, put to death, mortified. That is having its power, life, vigor and strength to produce its effects taken away by the spirit. It is indeed meritoriously and by way of example, utterly mortified and slain by the cross of Christ. And the old man is then said, then said to be crucified with Christ and ourselves to be dead with him. That's the reality in the world, and that's what we pursue. That's why when sin attacks us and we let those things that our own evil desires turn into temptations that turn into death for us because they turn into sin, when that happens, We're not killing it completely. And here's why this is important. You can't mess around with this. You can't just say, well, OK, I mortified that on Tuesday at 1035 in the morning. Because at 1037, the same temptation is there. So at 1037, kill it. 1038, kill it. A week from Tuesday, kill it. Every time it raises its head, kill it, kill it, kill it, kill it. Take its life away. Do not let it have control over you. Do not let it have power over you. Turn to Romans 6. We've looked at these verses twice in the last month. We're going to look at them again. I'm not going to comment on them, but I want you to see them. It's the basis for what I'm saying. It's the basis for what Owen is saying. So, you don't want to take my word or John Owen's word for it, you want to take the Bible's word for it. Look at verse, beginning in verse five of chapter six. For we have been united with him in death, in a death like his. Let me read that again. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we also will live with him, that we will also live with him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin, therefore, reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life. and your members to God as instruments for righteousness, for sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under law, but under grace has no dominion over you. You have been freed from that. You have been set free from that. You used to be one way and now you're another. So resolve to kill sin completely. Christ did not die to sin partially. Amen. He didn't take part of the sins and say, OK, now those those are taken care of. But these other sins didn't quite get those. You really you got to do that one on your own. It was a finished work on the cross that is applied to us. Sixth, don't be fooled by non killing activities. This is important. We can be fooled by non killing activities, things that we that we're playing around with it, but but it's not it's not fully dead. We're committing sin. We're passionate about a specific sin. And we have a couple of days where we have victory over it. God's taken that desire away a little bit. And so we become peaceful. That's behind me. That's not killing sin. That's grace. But it's not killing sin. Because it's going to raise its head again. Don't think about getting better at being obedient. Don't be partial in this. No, pretty good. Considering the way I was last year, this is great. That leads to a false sense of power in your own life. We're not trying to get better at being obedient. We're trying to be obedient. We're not satisfied with just doing it sometimes. And then now we're 58 percent obedient. Last week or last year, we're 46 percent obedient. That's a pretty good increase. I take that increase. I'm pretty satisfied with that. I think I'll cruise along for a couple of weeks. Oh, I can go back a percentage points and pick it up again. That's not the way it works. It's every day we are commanded to be obedient. We can also change from one lust to another. You know, people like that. Well, I can't handle my drinking, so I'm going to quit drinking. And then what happens? There's another addiction that fills its place. I'm watching stuff I shouldn't on the Internet, so I'm going to get rid of my computer and I'm not going to watch that anymore. But the addiction, that addiction to sin, that addiction to illicit desires filled in other directions. Give up one thing and take on another. And think, well, I've won because I've crucified that. Yes, kill that. Get rid of your computer. You don't need the computer if you can't control the buttons that you click. Get rid of it. But still, crucify sin. Don't go along as if you've won the battle because the biggest sin that you see is out of your way. Remember that it's just going to turn into another place. It's a day by day, minute by minute crucifying. So don't be fooled by things that are non-killing activities. Realize the danger and power of sin, the danger first, the danger of sin. It is dangerous to you, even as a believer. It's not eternally dangerous to you. If you're a nonbeliever, it is eternally dangerous. You die today or Christ comes back. You will spend eternity in hell because you will stand accountable for your own righteousness and it will be as filthy rags. If you're a believer, it's dangerous to you because your life here on this earth is one to be sanctified. It is one to be growing in the image and likeness of Christ. It is a life that is to be conformed to the image of Christ in such a way that every day you bring more glory to him. You live in more power. You live in more joy. And when you pursue sin instead of killing it, it squelches that. So it's dangerous to you as well. Again, John Owen. However strong a castle may be, if a treacherous party resides inside, ready to betray at the first opportunity possible, the castle cannot be kept safe from the enemy. Traitors occupy our own hearts, ready to side with every temptation and to surrender to them all. They reside in your own heart, which we'll see in James in just a moment. But it's also, we need to realize, the power of sin. Sin is offense against Christ. It robs you of your kingdom usefulness. Did you know that? It robs you of your usefulness to God when you pursue sin instead of Christ. Because you spend all your energy. It takes a lot of energy to pursue sin. It seems like it's easy, but it takes a lot of energy. And you're not useful in the kingdom when you're pursuing sin with wanton abandon. And you're not constantly crucifying your sin. It grieves the Holy Spirit. You are in danger of eternal destruction. You are hardening your heart to future sin. We talked about this in our Sunday school class this morning, that as you sin, you are hardening your heart so that future sin, you're hardening your heart to the gospel of grace and to its effect in your life so that sin has an easy barrier. It opens up the door and you're constantly having to say, oh, well, OK, a little bit more. And I just did that sin, this sin, so little it probably can't hurt a thing. It robs you of your joy and your strength, and you are condemned constantly by Satan. And so you have the gospel move further away from you, because the gospel says what? There's no condemnation now in Christ Jesus, right? Satan says, you really think you're in Christ? After what you just did? After what you just thought, how you just acted? I've got news for you, buddy. You're not in Christ. You look more like me than Christ. So the tempter is constantly there bringing condemnation upon you. When Christ died so that you'd have no condemnation. Eighth, examine the birth of your sin so you can kill it early. Examine the birth of your sin so you can kill it early. Turn to James chapter 1. James chapter 1, just a couple of verses here. We're going to look at verse 13. Let no one say when he is tempted, I am being tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted with evil. And he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when? When he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire, when it is conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death. It is your own desire that entices you. It is your own evil and wicked desires that you need to crucify. And I say examine the birth of your sin, because you need to I'm going to tell you two things that are going to seem opposite unless you get the understanding of what I'm meaning. The first thing I want to tell you is you examine your sin so you know what caused you to be tempted by it. If you were just. rude or obnoxious with your wife or husband, figure out why. What started it? What happened? What triggered that? If every time you get in a certain situation, you lose your temper. Every time you get in a certain situation, you push the button on the internet. Every time you're around a certain thing, you open that bottle of whatever it is that captures you. And then all of a sudden, you're swimming in your sin and you go, how did I get here? Remember Sauder's words? I was doing all these other things. How did I compartmentalize? Well, identify what trips your trigger. Identify why you lose your temper at that time. Identify why you walked out of the store and you've stolen that item. Identify why you're drunk in the gutter that started with one drink. Identify why that happens so that right at the very beginning you were setting up a defense system to be able to say, I see that. I'm not going there. Death, death, death. Die, die, die. So identify what it is early. And then here's the other side. I don't want you to focus on that. I told you the story before about people I know who try to quit smoking and all the time, all they think about is what smoking. That's all they think about. I can't do that. I can't do that. I can't do it. I don't want to do that anymore. I can't do it. And he's thinking about it all the time. And he is constantly wrapped up in trying to fight what his desire is by looking at the desire. Turn to Christ. Focus on Christ. So once you identify what starts that sin, turn to Christ and focus on him and his gloriousness, his beauty, his power, his strength, the cross, what he's accomplished and all of that. So examine the birth of your sins. You can kill it early. Why does temptation overtake you? Under what circumstances? What triggers it? What are the warning signs? Are you predisposed to particular sin? Some of us are predisposed to particular sin, and we have to understand that we have to stay away from that. Look for these signs so you can combat sin as soon as temptation rears its head. Don't flirt with it as though you can handle it. Cut off its head as you would a poisonous snake and then run so its head does not still bite you. That's what it means to identify it early. Ninth. Don't ignore the grace of conviction by saying peace, peace when God has not said it. Owen says this. It is a sad thing for a man to deceive his own soul herein. All the warnings God gives us in tenderness to our own soul to try to examine ourselves do tend to the preventing of this great evil of speaking peace groundlessly to ourselves, which is upon the issue to bless ourselves in opposition to God. So don't think you're doing OK when God sends the grace of conviction, because conviction is grace. It's mercy, is it not? It's God reminding, hey, what you're doing is not bringing me glory. It's for your danger. It's not bringing me glory. So don't do that. That's conviction. It brings us to that point of understanding that. So don't say, oh, everything's OK. Don't worry about things. God, I've got it under control. Don't tell yourself you're at peace with God in the act of your sin. You can tell yourself you're at peace with God eternally if you're a believer. But in the act of your sin, if you say, oh, it's OK, God, you know, Christ has died for this sin, too. And then go after it. Don't do that. Ten, constantly long for deliverance from the power of sin. Owen says, longing, breathing and panting after deliverance is a grace in itself and hath a mighty power to conform the soul into the likeness of the thing longed for. So spend all that energy that you have pursuing sin and spend it pursuing Christ and longing for the deliverance of that, knowing that it is true in God's eyes and praying to him that he would make it true in life daily. Eleven, Think often on the majesty of God. This is going to lead you to be thorough and deep in your repentance as you recognize your sin. Because repentance is not. I'm sorry about that, God. Repentance is broken. Repentance is overwhelmed. Repentance is where we are humble before the cross and waiting for God to exalt us because of his grace. Owen says this. Be much in thoughtfulness of the excellency of the majesty of God and thine infinite, inconceivable distance from him. Many thoughts of it cannot but fill thee with the sense of thine own vileness which strikes deep at the root of any indwelling sin. Be much in thoughts of this nature to abase the pride of thy heart and to keep thy soul humble within thee. There is nothing will render thee a greater indisposition to the imposed on by the deceit of sin than such a frame of heart. Think greatly on the greatness of God. When we understand the greatness and the majesty of God, we understand our sinfulness. And what that does is that pull us back to all thankfulness and a focus on the cross because He saved us even though this is the way we are. Even though we're vile, He saved us anyway. And it takes us right back to the cross. Quickly, the last two. Walk by the Spirit. Galatians 5, 16-25. You're going to have to go there on your own because I don't have time. Walk by the Spirit, because walking by the Spirit leads to two things. Life and peace. Walking by the flesh leads to death. Sin will have its dessert. If you're lost, it will kill you. If you're saved, it will kill your sanctification. And finally, trust in Christ for the killing of your sins. Owen says, His blood is the great sovereign remedy for sin sick souls. Live in this and that will die a conqueror. Yea, that will through the good providence of God live to see thy lust dead at thy feet. It's through the cross that he's given us that provision, and that's back to the gospel. We repent of our sin and we trust in Christ for our salvation. We're going to turn our hearts to the Lord's Supper here, and I want you to have this in mind. I want you to have this in mind that you have been set free from the bondage of sin, and you've been set free because of the work of Christ on the cross. And so when we come to celebrate the Lord's Supper, what we're doing is remembering that provision for us. We are remembering that sin no longer has that power over us because Christ died on the cross. We're remembering that. We're remembering his shed blood, his broken body, and that what he accomplished So we're not just coming and sipping of a cup and eating a piece of bread because we do this once a month. We're not just doing this. We are understanding that this is a way that we are remembering that work and we are being strengthened in community toward our life as sin killers because Christ has accomplished it first. Thomas Costin's book, The Three Edwards. describes the life of this king named Raynald III in the 14th century. He was a duke in the 14th century in what we now know as Belgium. And this man was a hedonist as well. And he was commonly called Crassus, his Latin name, because it means fat. And he was huge. And he ate to his own demise. And his brother, one of his brothers by the name of Edward, came and overtook him one night after a fight and assumed his rule in the kingdom. But he didn't kill him, as usually happens. He stuck him in a place and built a room around it. And the room that he built around him had a door and it had windows. But Randall couldn't walk out of that door because he was too fat. He couldn't get out of the window because he was too fat. And so his brother said, as soon as you can walk out the door, you can have your freedom. So life began, and his brother sent in every day gourmet meals, knowing his brother would just pursue that sin. And his brother kept eating, wanting his freedom, no bars holding him in, no guards, just an open door. And he kept eating. Somebody took Edward to task and said, you're cruel in what you're doing. He said, I'm not cruel. I've given him his freedom. All he has to do is walk out the door. He holds himself in prison. It stayed that way for 10 years until his brother was killed on the battlefield and he was let out of that room because they knocked the walls down. Grace was available to him just by walking through the door, crawling out a window. His own sin made it where he couldn't do that. He was a prisoner in his own sin. You and I, we've had the door open to us. If you're a believer here, you've had the door open to you. And it is so. It's not something you have to earn. It is so. And what are you going to do? You can stay in your own prison of your own sin, or you're going to walk out the door. Because that's grace. Grace is that we get up when we sin and we trust in God again. It's not that we keep sinning because we've trusted in God.