Well, I've mentioned George Whitefield from the pulpit quite a bit. He, one of my spiritual heroes of the faith, he was definitely the greatest evangelist that England had ever seen, that Europe has really ever seen. It's estimated that he preached 18,000 sermons and preached to up to 10 million people by the end of his life. That's before TV and all the other ways to get a bigger audience just traveling. He visited the United States 13 different times, actually, and his first sermon, I think I mentioned it a couple months ago, his first sermon was actually in Lewis on Kings Highway, on a small house balcony there. He preached to a crowd of a few thousand, and I think you can look up some online articles and actually go there and visit it next time you're down in Lewis. But he actually died when he was visiting America. He died in October of 1770, and he died five years before the Revolutionary War began in 1775. And in 1775, at the beginning, everything was starting as far as a Revolutionary War. Three states got together, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. They got together in Newburyport, Massachusetts, which is where George Whitefield was buried. And their goal was to get together and go attack Quebec, Canada, in order to force the Canadians to join them in their war against England. and one of the chaplains that was there knew that he was close to George Whitefield's tomb, and so he took some officers with him and they went to George Whitefield's graveyard to his tomb five years after his death, and they popped open the lid to his tomb and they took his clerical collar and his cuffs and cut them up, this is a chaplain who does this, cuts them up and distributes them to the officers of the American army as they go to Quebec, Canada. They lost that battle. And the first thing I thought of, how do we lose against the Canadians but beat the British? How does it even work? History is strange, somehow we pulled that off. But that disturbed me. You know, here's this great man of God. I mean, it doesn't matter anyone who's been lying in a casket for five years, but this great man of God, and you go do this, this chaplain who claimed, you know, I guess he was loosely evangelical, loosely Christian of some sort. believe that this would rain down the support and favor of God. He must have forgot that George Whitefield was British, and they're declaring war on the British, but aside from that, this would rain down the blessing of God, and he would act, and they, you know, it would cause them to win this battle. But they would not be the first to claim to believe in God and follow the Bible and do something like this. Even in 1 Samuel, Israel had sin in the camp, particularly in the priesthood, there was sin. And so they go to battle and they don't deal with their sin and they're defeated by the Philistines. And they come back and they're sort of wrestling with why is it that God has allowed us to be defeated? I mean, this is in the Mosaic contract. If we're successful, if we're godly, God will protect us from military invasion. So why did he allow us to lose? And they go back. and they conclude it must be because we didn't have the Ark of the Covenant with us. That would be like saying, why am I having such a bad day? It must be because I forgot to wear my cross necklace. You know, nothing wrong with a cross necklace, but it's definitely not going to be a source of sanctification and blessing from God. And so Israel goes back, and you know the story, they get the Ark of the Covenant, they bring the Ark of the Covenant out into battle, and they get defeated again, and the Ark of the Covenant is stolen because they never dealt with their sin problem. So, even in the kind of strange cultural Christianity, and that's such an important term to understand, that means that in every generation there is authentic Christianity and then Christianity as it is sort of manufactured by Christian culture. People who would like to identify themselves as Christian, but they are not truly actually followers of God. And that's what happened in Israel. Israel got to this place where it wasn't about a heart of faith and serving God. They were only as godly as, in their minds, insofar as they had all the relics, and they had the Ark of the Covenant, and they had the holy utensils. They relegated spirituality to the external. And apparently this chaplain did as well when he thought the clerical collar of a deceased man of God could somehow evoke the blessing of God. I remember a few years ago when Kim and I were in Vatican City, there was this huge statue of St. Peter and his toe was face level. So everybody was filing by and everybody was kissing this guy's toe. I felt like whispering into St. Peter's ear, sorry. They just don't understand, they don't get it. They think by kissing a statue somehow they're closer to God. You see that happens in a lot of religions. But I think that happens even in the evangelical world. Anytime there is something that God has not blessed and not sanctioned as a mode of godliness, as the means for sanctification that we talked about last week. that we hang on to and we say, if I have this, if I do this, if this is true in my life, then I must be growing in godliness, and we bless these things that, in the end of the day, really have as much power as superstition does in really blessing and sanctifying our life. Someone asked in our last Tuesday Morning Men's Bible Study, how do I know if I'm really growing in godliness or I'm just sort of conforming to the people around me? just, you know, there's Christians and they act a certain way and I guess this sort of Christian does and I act that way. And that was actually a very good question. I think that's a question that everybody should ask of themselves. How do I know that I'm really authentically growing in the Lord, cultivating a personal relationship with Him, or have I just gotten really good at blending in to the Christian environment around me? Which is it? I think it's a good question to answer because it strikes at the heart of authenticity? And I think one of the main answers to that question is, are you engaged in that gritty, difficult battle of sanctification, of battling your flesh? If you know what it's like to exhaust yourself fighting the flesh, If you know what deep repentance looks like, if you are no stranger to the ongoing struggle, sometimes it's the struggle with Christians that make us wonder, man, am I even saved? Am I even doing this right? And often, it's the very struggle that becomes the evidence. There is a struggle. The dangerous place to be is the assumption. Well, I know I'm saved because But if there's a battle there between the flesh and the spirit, that's what we can look at, and as we have regular victory in our life, we can enjoy the confidence and the joy of being truly saved and knowing that we're truly children of God. So moving past what would be the equivalent of clerical collars of the deceased, moving past all the noise that has come out over the last generation. Remember the prayer of Jabez, you know, just pray this particular kind of prayer and you'll expand your territory, or the name and enclavement, or the second blessing, or the theophastic prayer that's in a lot of different sorts of charismatic circles, the kind of prayer where you sort of trace back to the historical origin of your pain and then you cast the demon out of the historical pocket of your pain and suddenly you'll find yourself released and growing again. This is all stuff that is made up that has nothing to do with how the scripture says is to grow in the Lord. So it is of utmost importance, especially as we look at this last topic in this series of sanctification, to know that we know exactly how God wants us to grow in the Lord. So what we're going to talk about this morning Two major points, real strategies to sanctification and real blockades to sanctification. So strategies to sanctification and blockades to sanctification. And before we get into it, I want to read to you probably the most famous quote when it comes to sanctification in church history, and it's by John Owen, who wrote The Mortification of Sin, and mortification just means to kill something, to put something to death. And this is what he writes, mortification abates sin's force, in other words, it lessens sin's force, but does not change its nature. Grace changes the nature of man, but nothing can destroy the nature of sin. Destroyed it shall be, but cured it cannot be. If it be not overcome and destroyed, it will overcome and destroy the soul. And herein lies no small part of its power. It is never quiet, whether it is conquering or conquered. Do you mortify? Do you make it your daily work? Be always at it whilst you live. Cease not a day from this work. Be killing sin or it will be killing you. And what he's saying there is we can defeat sin, we can suppress sin, we can overcome sin, but we can never stop sin from being sin until we are called to be with the Lord. It's always gonna be a factor. We're never going to succeed in removing it completely and making it so weak that it's not really something that we have to deal with. It's always going to be a factor. So what sanctification then becomes is putting the boot on the neck of the rabid dog. And what happens when you take your boot off the neck of the rabid dog? It comes after you again. So that's what sanctification is. It's growing in grace and power through God to overpower sin, but until Christ comes, that rabid dog's always gonna be that rabid dog. You give it a chance, it's always gonna attempt. It's always gonna attack. So let's look at some strategies here. And before I give you the first strategy, I wanna start this with a promise. Here's a promise that we can go into, so we're optimistic going into this. James 4, 7 says, submit yourselves then to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Now, he might flee from you, or eight times out of 10, but if you resist the devil in the way that God desires you to resist, He will flee from you, it's a guarantee, it's a promise. He says in 1 Peter 5, 8. Be of sober spirit and be on the alert, your adversary the devil prowls about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour, but resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. And resist their means to physically and mentally posture yourself against the enemy. So if you're in a boxing match, you are not only physically postured against the enemy, but your eyes are on him, you are mentally zoned in on your enemy. Every aspect of your being is positioned against it. You're not just kind of aware that he's there. You have positioned yourself militantly against the enemy. And I love what Peter says at the end of that. He says, knowing that your brethren throughout the world are going through the same thing. It doesn't matter what you've gone through, how extreme it has been, there is certainly another Christian out there somewhere who is going through it, who has gone through it, and God has the same expectation for you, victory, that He does for them, victory, while going through this situation. He's not asking of you something that He's never asked of anybody else. and He's provided us the strength. So that is the great promise. That's why we can be optimistic as we challenge our sin and develop strategies against it. So the first strategy I want to point your attention to is preemptive attacks. be preemptive, strike before the enemy strikes is what a preemptive attack is. One of the shortest battles, major world battles, but shortest battles in history was Israel's Six-Day War, the 1967 Six-Day War. Egypt Jordan, Syria, Arabic nations posturing themselves, positioning themselves to attack Israel. Egypt even told the UN peace people to leave, leave, something's gonna happen, I don't want you caught up in the whole, you know, that's like one of those old saloon bar scenes, you know, where you got two gunmen on either side and they start giving each other the evil eye and everybody just clears out. You know, it started happening in 1960, everybody's clearing out, something's gonna happen. And so what does Israel do? A lot of us, we've read the history of it. They become the first to attack. Even before Egypt could get the planes off the ground, Israel completely devastated their air force, and it was a short six-day war. And Benjamin Netanyahu looked at that battle and he contrasted it to the Yom Kippur War in 1973, which is much more bloody and much more costly for Israel, and he said the difference is, In 67, it was preemptive. In 73, we waited and waited and we took the advice of the world, don't pull the trigger, just keep waiting. And we were the ones that were attacked. And the loss was great. So the first battle there was so successful because it was a preemptive attack. And that's just rational. And we have even more certainty, there's a lot of uncertainty in the political realm. Are they really going to attack us? Are they not? What if we make the wrong decision? But in the spiritual realm, we don't have to wonder if the enemy's going to attack us. He never sleeps. It is inevitable. He wants to. Spurgeon said if the flesh is silent for some reason, it's just reloading. It's just waiting to attack you again. No good reason for it. So we know it's inevitable. It's going to happen again. So what are some really practical preemptive strikes we can make against sin? Here's one. How about internet blockers on our phone and our internet so we don't become the billionth casualty in all the addictions that take place online. Why wait till it becomes a problem? So many times, and it's amazing, even though we hear about it happening to others, and even though we have struggled, so many times we just think, well, we don't need to be that extreme, we don't need to be that radical, and we just wait until it becomes a problem. And it's not just with the sexual addictions. As Christians, time should be very valuable to us. We should be redeeming the time because the days are evil, we know how short life is, we know how important it is to serve God and to serve the Lord, and Internet can be a huge time waster. You just zone out and look at whatever and time just melts away. And so there are actually good Christian software programs. Tim Challies on his website has talked about these where you can only allow yourself to go on certain sites for certain periods of time so that you can actually get done what the Lord has called you to get done. These are real practical ways, things that we know we can avail ourselves to that are preemptive strikes so that we don't find ourselves in this rut of being addicted to some form of notorious sin that many other people are caught up. and especially in something like the internet. When it comes to marriage, a lot of times when I talk with couples about marriage counseling or I look into my own marriage, you begin to see, okay, we typically have disagreements around this time of the day or these kind of topics. And after a while, you can see it coming. And so, what I've told many husbands is if you know You know, one of the biggest times you have an agreement is when you get home from work and you walk through the door and your wife immediately bombards you with all the problems of the day, all the bills you didn't pay, and you go and turn on the TV and sit on the couch and ignore her. You know, that creates some tension. So what I've told many husbands to do is on your way home, pull off to the side of the road and just begin to pray to the Lord. Just pray to God and think of what might possibly happen, how your pride is going to be challenged, and preemptively prepare for that conflict so you can play the part of a man of God when that time inevitably comes. We can use our personal devotional times for this. We can anticipate, can't anticipate everything, but we all have that coworker, you know, he walks in the room and we're looking to leave the room. That person that just, we've trained our mind to just grow disgusted with and so bothered by. And we can be ready for that. So in our personal devotional time, we anticipate that and we begin to pray and just cover the situation in prayer as a preemptive strike against the inevitable attack that will take place. I think one of the most valuable and important preemptive attacks that anybody can make, but it's especially geared toward young people, is found in Proverbs chapter five and verse four. My son, give attention to my wisdom. Incline your heart to my understanding that you may observe discretion and your lips may reserve knowledge. For the lips of an adulteress drip honey, and smoother than oil is her speech. So what's going on here? This is after several chapters of the writer pleading with his son, when you're young, get wisdom. So you young people, now that you are single, before you get married, now's the time to just accumulate wisdom because you do not want to be 10 years into the marriage and thinking, I don't have anything spiritual to offer my spouse, to offer my kids. I'm as shallow as a puddle. What have I been doing with my youth? What have I been wasting my time on? You know, the writer is here saying just accumulate that wisdom for the inevitable verse three, for the inevitable adulterous, for the inevitable seduction, for all, as young people, I remember as a young person looking at some of the snares that adults fell into and I thought, I thought they're supposed to be wiser and godlier and more mature than me and to see some of the things they fell for and the reason is, when they were young, they didn't spend their time becoming men and women of the word. They didn't accumulate that wisdom. Voti Bacchum had a Excellent example, I was listening to the other week, he said, you know, in any career, if you've been doing it for 30 years, you should be an expert. If you've been a carpenter for 30 years, you are the guy who trains all the green guys coming in. But for some reason in the church, you can say, I've been a Christian for 30 years, and someone can say, well then would you disciple this person? I don't know enough about the Bible. No, I'm not the guy to die. I don't have my life really together. After 30 years? What have you been doing as a Christian for 30 years? We should be experts in the truth of Scripture. We should know our doctrine. We should be the kind of people that young people come to and are built up in the faith. Bodhi said the church seems to be like the only place where you can be something for three decades and somehow it's normal and okay. It shouldn't be that way. We should be growing men and women of God. It should be public, it should be obvious. So that's preemptive strike. Get wisdom before you wake up and realize my life's half over and I don't know much about God. I don't know how close I am with God. That's no way to prepare for sin. Second strategy is aim for biblical goals. I think this is very important. A lot of times we just generalize sanctification. I'll just generally try to be more Christ-like. I'll just generally try to be godlier. But we need to be more specific. We need to ask, what does sanctification look like in church membership in detail? What does sanctification look like as a wife, as a husband? as a child still under my parents' authority? What does sanctification look like as a college student? And be very specific in those things and go to the scripture. One of the passages that is just amazingly helpful, giving us a bullseye for our sanctification in sort of community circles, is Romans chapter 12, verses nine through 21. Turn there if you would, Romans chapter 12. This is just, I'm just gonna kind of hydroplane over this text, not get too deep in it. But I want to bring it to your attention because this is a great place to go to when we start asking the question, what does sanctification look like as an employee? What does sanctification look like as a boss, as an employer? There are specific answers to these questions. What's sanctification as a grandmother? Now it doesn't answer all those questions. I'm just trying to get your mind going. Romans chapter 12 verse nine. Here's the first category. From nine to 21 is divided up into community categories, if you will. And the first one is the personal life. Let love be without hypocrisy. I don't know about you, but I'm always struggling to love people more without hypocrisy. I don't want myself to be in it. I don't want private motivations. I don't want selfishness. I want it to be pure Christ-like love for the other person. So how do I look like that? Abhor what is evil, cling to what is good. In my private life, if I use my free time in my private life to indulge in self, I'm not gonna love without hypocrisy. But if in my private life there is an abhorrence of evil, a love for good, a purity and a holiness, I know how to use my private time for the glory of God, that is gonna be the incubator by which I become a man who more and more loves people without hypocrisy. That's personal life. Secondly, verse 10. This is in the category of family duties. And what Paul's talking about here is not biological family, even though that applies, but your spiritual family. Maybe you could say your local church. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Give preference to one another. So sanctification in the local church looks like radical devotion to another person's spiritual well-being. Is there someone in this church who would definitely say, yes, this person is radically devoted to my spiritual well-being. We can't be radically devoted to everybody's spiritual well-being. But if we're a healthy member of the body of Christ, there should be somebody that we're pouring into. And it shouldn't be the easiest person. You know, the person that's just really easy to talk about the Lord, really easy to, it should be that person that needs, they really need a kick in the pants. They really need someone to come alongside them and to help them be more devoted to Christ. So who are you devoted to? That's what it looks like in the body of Christ. Verse 11, not lagging behind in diligence. You know, some people can say, I remember there was a day I was a little more devoted to God, I was a little more devoted to the church, and life has changed, and you know, I don't really get involved with the people and the lives anymore, but I remember a day. Well, now they're lagging behind in diligence. That's a blockade. Fervent in spirit, Hendrickson says, aglow with the spirit, serving the Lord. That's what it looks like. I'm not lagging behind in diligence. I'm aglow with the spirit. I'm serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality. Well, that's pretty specific. Paul's not really beating around the bush. He's giving some real good examples of what sanctification looks like in the life of a spiritual family. And then in verse 14, he branches out into a different category, not totally different, but he speaks in generalities to others, bless those who persecute you, bless and curse not. Rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep. So, someone curses you, you bless them. Someone is weeping. A lot of people say, you know, I went to this Christian funeral and this person, this Christian's funeral, even if they're not a Christian, anybody's, and they've lost a loved one and I don't know what to say to them. What does the Bible say? Just grieve with them. Just hug them and tell them you're heartbroken for them and you're praying for them. The Bible just wants us to mirror their pain. Verse 16, be of the same mind toward one another. Do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation. And then in verse 17, he moves specifically to your enemies. I mean, these are people, you don't want to know what the scripture says about sanctification towards your enemies. Never pay back evil for evil. Silent treatment, blowing up, harming, never do any of that. Respect what is right in the sight of all men. If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God. For it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. But if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he's thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing, you will heap burning coals upon his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." So what's the goal of sanctification towards that person that is being difficult, that you're struggling to love, it's to overwhelm them with the love of Christ. We all know how it works. As they walk into the room, that person that just, you just can't stand, you've trained your mind to be disgusted with their presence, your flesh is saying, avoid that person, and you say, no flesh, I'm the new man in Christ, and I'm gonna walk right over there, and I'm going to overwhelm them with the love of Christ. Every time you feel that temptation, it's your responsibility to put your flesh in its place. To say to your flesh, what'd you say to me? What, you think you're king of my life? Christ is king of my life, I'll show you. I'm gonna walk over there and hug that person. And the more we do that, we weaken the flesh and we show the flesh that we are ruled by Christ. That is just a marvelous passage to show us the target of sanctification and personal relationships. Another strategy is accountability and discipleship. Another strategy is sanctification, and this is so incredibly important. Ecclesiastes 4, 9 and 10 says, two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. Two people are working on something, it's gonna be more productive. But if either of them falls in the pit, the one will lift up his companion, but woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up. Woe to you if you're trying to do this Christian life on your own, because you're going to fall and you're going to say, who should I call? Who should I tell? I don't have anybody. I don't have anybody. And that's the part of belonging to a good, healthy church. There are people that we can call and say this is what I've done and this is what I've fallen into and they can come alongside us and they can pick us up. But I wanna make a statement also on discipleship. Sometimes we can become overly dependent upon discipleship and upon counseling and upon books or whatever it might be, so much so that that almost becomes the sum and substance of our Christian life. If we were to suddenly stop being discipled and to stop having these people in our life, our Christian life would just fall apart. And it shouldn't be that way because our Christian life is our relationship with Christ. So we need to be careful that we don't become so overly dependent on people that we just have a good show of godliness because we have these good Christian friends, but if they were to evacuate all of a sudden, there'd be nothing left. We need to be very careful that we're not depending more on them than we are on Christ. Here's another very important strategy to sanctification. Decode the language of your temptation. This is number four. Decode the language of your temptation. In military, in war, the most valuable thing to give up to the enemy is information. I mean, if they crack the code and they know your battle plan and where you're going to strike, if they understand these things, they are in your mind, they're in your head. And often what happens when we're being tempted, there's sort of the simple temptation, but behind that temptation, there's an idol that's there. And initially we just see the temptation and we kind of take it for what it is, but we don't think critically and we don't move past the initial veneer of that temptation to find out why is it so enticing to our heart. There's some kind of temptations like sexual temptation that you don't have to wonder what that is. It's just very blatant in your face. But there's other modes of temptation a lot of times that come through attitudes. that are not as clear. They're much more subtle and it requires us to be able to think spiritually with discernment and to crack the codes. Jesus is a very good example of that. In Matthew 4, verses 1-4, this is when Jesus is being tempted in the wilderness. It says, Now listen to that temptation. You're God, why don't you just command these stones to be bread? That's just kind of logical, isn't it? I mean, that's a temptation of logic. Jesus, you don't have to be starving to death. You're God after all, command the stones to be turned to bread. You can kind of hear the rationalizing taking place. But we understand that Jesus became a man in order to experience temptation as we experience temptation. If he used his omnipotence to get out of that temptation, he would no longer be experiencing temptation as a man, because I don't know about you, but I do not use my omnipotence to get out of temptation. because I'm not omnipotent, I'm not all powerful, I don't have that luxury. So Christ didn't lend himself to that luxury, he was going to experience it as a man. And so according to Jesus' response, that man shall not live by bread alone, but every word that proceeds of the mouth of God, Jesus saw right past the veneer of this temptation. It wasn't simply turn these stones into bread because you're God, it was stop trusting your heavenly Father for provision. Now if Satan had said that, hey Jesus, why don't you stop trusting your Father for provision? Where's the temptation? If someone walked up to you, hey, why don't you follow me, we're gonna get into some serious sin. I'm not an idiot, I'm not gonna do it. But if, hey, hey, trust me, I'm a prophet of God, I speak for God, and you know, get this language going on, they Christianize themselves, and suddenly we're headed down that much more seductive path. So Christians need to train their senses to see past the initial what we're feeling, and the hardship, and whatever it is, what is the temptation? What is Satan trying to solicit me to do that will displease God? We really need to train our minds to think this way. Let's move to blockades, the second point. Blockades against sanctification. The first blockade is frustration, and I think this is a huge one, just general frustration. It especially comes into play when there is a sin addiction that we are in the throes of and maybe we hear an inspiring sermon or someone tells us to get our act together or whatever it might be, so we recommit ourselves to get out of this particular addiction. It could be substance abuse, it could be sexual addiction, it could be gossip, because some people are addicted to talking about the deficiencies of other people. Again, and I keep bringing this up because I think it's a big one, it could be the addiction of thinking negatively about that person when they walk into the room. We've just trained our mind to think that way. And so we recommit ourself, okay, I'm gonna learn to love this person instead of despise them. We recommit ourselves to doing this. And often, very often, maybe even the majority of the time, what happens is we recommit ourself to overcoming and we fall flat on our face. First attempt. Maybe the first encounter's a little bit better, second encounter, we fall flat on our face. And this is what begins to happen with many people. Three things might happen. We might begin to doubt our salvation. Well, maybe the reason why I'm just not victorious, I'm not saved to begin with. There's a healthy way to ask that question. God doesn't want us to live in insecurity and fear and doubting. There's a healthy way to examine our salvation. But a lot of times it's unhealthy. We just live the whole Christian life wondering if we're actually saved because we can't seem to overcome this particular area. Or, even worse, we begin to doubt the power of the Holy Spirit. I'm doing everything like the Bible tells me to do. It seems like I'm filled with the Spirit, but I can't seem to overcome this. So we just begin to doubt the power of the Christian faith. Or we just resign to be defeated Christians all the time. We just kind of give up in that area of our life. I don't understand, I don't know why I don't have the victory in there. We just kind of give up, and that's how we're gonna live. And this is really where the doctrine of sanctification comes into play. where we understand that our body of flesh, this body of flesh, is rightly called our unredeemed flesh. It's not going with us to heaven. That's the glorification when it is changed. This body of flesh has its senses trained to love the smell of sin, to love the sight of sin. It has seduced the mind to desire sin. And that is the operation, the modus operandi of this body of flesh. We see that in Hebrews chapter 4, 19. Before we're saved, this is our description. And they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. But notice that word practice, for the practice. Practice means Practice, habits, ongoing things we do over and over again. If you're practicing to get better in a sport, you show up several times a week and you practice. So our mind and our body of flesh is the way that it is because it's well-versed and well-practiced in sin. Even after we get saved, we from time to time indulge in various sins that reminds the flesh of the practice of sin. But after we're saved, we now have a new man, but we do not have a new body of flesh. We still have this flesh that craves the old. So now there's this war, the battle place of the mind, it takes place in the mind as we talk about, under the influence of the new man for the things of Christ and against the body of flesh for the things of sin, for the things of Satan. So now here's what we need to do. We need to train our mind and to train this body of flesh to think in Christ-like ways. That's what Hebrews chapter 5 verse 14 says, have their senses trained to discern good and evil. Before I was saved, because of practice, I was always defeated by sin. After I'm saved, I live in Christ, and because of practice, I'm victorious over sin. But what does practice imply? It implies with the snap of the finger, I've defeated my sin, right? It implies the daily, ongoing battle, the struggle, the discipline, the changing of life routines. It implies the brutal self-discipline of the body that the Spirit of God rewards. It is practice. Practice is how this takes place. So when we find ourselves renewed against this battle of sin that we want to overcome, we develop the practice and the habit, instead of indulging in the lust of a mind, to turn our thoughts to heavenly things, to the things of God, and to turn those opportunities into worship services. And as we talked about before, when that person comes in the room that we are repulsed by, We have to get into the practice of overcoming them with love, so that doesn't mean listening to our flesh and leaving the room, it means going over to them and showing the love of Christ and practicing this. And very often, when the first time or the second time we fall flat on our face and we just quit, It's because we don't understand the nature of this practice. If you talk to people, whether it's bitterness or sexual addiction or whatever it might be, who at one point in their life struggled with it and they have defeated it and they haven't gone back to it, they will tell you, when I first started to practice my mind and practice my body to overcome this sin, it was very difficult. It was very difficult, but the more that I assaulted my flesh, and the more I grew in Christ, the more I dominated that sin, and now it's not nearly as difficult as it was. Sin's never gonna disappear, there's always gonna be that opportunity, there's always gonna be the temptation, but it is not nearly as bad as what it was. And I think that's helpful for us, because it's kind of the light at the end of the tunnel. I can persevere, I can get through this, but you've wounded the enemy. You've shot the bear on the shoulder and he's really mad and he's flailing and he's out of control and it is gonna be difficult until you're on the other side of this kind of addiction that you've gotten yourself into. So discouragement, don't be frustrated, don't be discouraged when you're defeated. Repent and persevere. You can resist the devil. Let me give you a few more blockades. Another big one is a shallow repentance. A lot of times when people sin, when Christians sin, they kick themselves, and I shouldn't have done that, that was really dumb, I don't know why I did that, but our repentance is not thorough. We say, I'm sorry God, just forgive me, and we don't really spend any serious time contemplating that sin and repenting. Psalm 51, two through four says, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. This is David repenting after his adultery. cleanse me from my sin, for I know my transgression, my sin is ever before you. Against thee, the only, I have sinned and done what is evil in thy sight, so that thou art justified when thou dost speak and blameless when you judge." These are words coming from a man who's thought a lot about his sin. And some people will say, oh you're not supposed to do that, that's just beating yourself up. You know, it is kind of beating yourself up before the throne of God. And it's supposed to take place during that window of repentance. The mistake that's made as we repent, sometimes we get off our knees and our repentance isn't over yet. And so we're still sort of, oh, I can't believe I've done that. And no, we need to stay on our knees, we need to repent until our repentance is thorough and complete. And then with equal vigor, we need to embrace the forgiveness of God. We need to believe as passionately as we know we've sinned and grieved the heart of God, we need to believe that He has forgiven us, He's washed us clean, and we stand up as only the joy of a Christian, only to the supply of the cross can bring, with the joy of the gospel, that I am forgiven. In my flesh, I'd like to continue to beat myself up a little bit more, but I'm going to, in faith, believe that God has forgiven me of this. As far as the thoroughness of repentance, John Owen says this in his mortification of sin. He says, we need to load our conscience with the guilt of sin. He says this, say to your soul, what have I done? What love, what mercy, what blood, what grace I have despised and trampled on. Is this the return I make to the father for his love, to the son for his blood, to the holy ghost for his grace? See what he does? He looks at each member of the Trinity and he thinks about how his sin has assaulted and shown ingratitude to each member of the Trinity. It's a thorough repentance. But he doesn't leave it there. He then turns his attention to the forgiveness that's promised to him and he moves on. But I think too often our repentance is more of just kind of feeling bad, sorry God, shouldn't have done that. We need to stop and really dwell on what we've done. Let me just give you these last three without really elaborating on them too much, just so you can study them in your own devotional time. And really I feel like I'm not doing the sanctification series proper service because there's so many things that should be talked about when you deal with sanctification. But I know you have your own devotional life and study life and you can continue to explore these things. But here's just the final three. a lack of discipline, a lack of discipline. A lack of discipline is, I'm not talking about the type A, you know, being extreme, but a lack of discipline is often because what comes in the place of a lack of discipline is self-indulgence. Whatever we, if we were more disciplined, we would be doing this, and whatever we are doing in the place of this discipline activity is typically not honoring to God. So, a lack of discipline ultimately is showing that we're more concerned in doing what we want to do. So, it's not just that you're organized versus disorganized. It's an issue of self-indulgence. And the next one is self-sufficiency. Got everything under control. I don't need anybody. And thank Peter for showing us how dumb that is. All of you will fall away from me tonight. Well, even if they fall away, God, I will not fall away. How do you say that to Jesus? He just told you, you're gonna fall away. I know, Jesus, I will not. And he falls harder than any of them, except for Judas. This is self-sufficiency. I'm just a radical Christian, I'm so devoted. And we're not remembering who we are. And the last one is conformity to Christ is not compelling enough. For so many people, it is simply not motivation enough that you get to glorify God through your struggle with sin. It just doesn't do it for people. I gotta read a different book with a different motivation. But for the Christian, that should be it. I get to glorify God by defeating sin through the power of Christ. What an awesome thing to do. I love to think back on my life of sins that I struggled with, things that I did, and not that, like Paul, not that I have already arrived or become perfect, but just to see how God's matured me and grown me, and I know that's just purely the grace of God in my life. And all glory goes to God, and that is the chief motivation in my life, and should be the chief motivation in everybody's life. Conformity to Christ and to the glory of God. And you know what, when we get to heaven, we will not be able to experience the joy of defeating sin on a daily basis. I don't know if we'll miss it that much. We'll be like Christ, that'll be great. But what I'm saying is there's something unique that can be done only for the now. a unique defeat of sin by sanctification and growing in Christ, and we can glorify God on the rubble of sin in our life, and that is a wonderful privilege that He's given us to do. So, let's do it with all our might. Heavenly Father, we pray, Lord, that You would strengthen us and equip us to move forward. Lord, whatever sins, whatever besetting sins and immaturities and weaknesses are in the minds of your dear people this morning, Lord, I pray that they would lock onto them with a laser focus and determine to experience fresh, permanent victory over them in their life. But Lord, I do pray that we would take the warning of the wise men of the past, that we would not be so fixated on overcoming sin and so fixated on being holy people that we somehow think of this as independent of our pursuit of Jesus Christ. We know that this is our greatest passion, our greatest calling to know you and the power of your resurrection and the fellowship of your suffering. And all these other things, Lord, They grow out of that soil of knowing you. So may we be people of Christ. In your name, amen.