Can We Stop Sinning?

v   2 passages come to mind. Background on sinning

Ø  Romans 7: 14-25

Ø  14We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.^[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

v      21So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
      So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

OK, so these verses first.

But I (this is Paul talking) am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. Slaves must obey their masters, which is in this case sin, that is why we must make Christ our master. This sin nature that Paul talks about lives in everybody. It is a side-effect of living in the flesh. Verse 23, “waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin.” All humans go through the same thing. We all want to do good and not sin. We have a debate within our minds, however small, about every action we take. Should we do this or should we do this? I feel that these verses explain to us, very clearly, that sin is powerful, affects everyone, and causes us to do what we don’t want to do.

Anything else you guys want to say?

The nest passage is one that everyone has surely heard. But did you know it was in the not only the Bible twice, but the same book twice. Look at Matthew 5:29-30 [read it]. Then Matthew 18:8-9 [read it]. Jesus here, isn’t exaggerating and isn’t making stuff up. He is dead serious. Back in those days, obviously Christ hadn’t died, so their sins weren’t forgiven by his blood, so sinning was a lot harder to wash away. Even so, Christ knew that there would be certain sins for people that they just can’t get over unless they cut off the source; the source being the eye, hand, or foot. It sounds extreme, but Christ knew how impossible it is to stop sinning. The eye, the hand, the foot are all flesh, and the flesh is death because of sin.

NEXT. Is there any chance of overcoming this struggle? Can we prevail over sin?

Well, the obvious answer comes to mind. We, alone, cannot prevail over sin. Only Jesus can do that! But let’s look at a verse

Galatians 5:16-18

16So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. 17For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. 18But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.

So, if you live by the Spirit, you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. This verse and the next verse lead me to believe that when Paul says to live by the Spirit, he means 100%. And if we are honest with ourselves, we have to agree that it is impossible to live by the spirit all 100%. Another point to go with that; in verse 18 Paul says “if you are LED by the spirit.” So there must be a difference between being LED by the spirit and LIVING by the Spirit. I feel we are all led by the spirit, and I think you guys would agree. Back to verse 17; “They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not what you want.” What does this verse mean? Is it saying that whichever one wins, the sinful nature or the spirit, that neither is what you want? I don’ think so. I think Paul and I are on the same page and that we WANT to do whatever the spirit wants, and DON’T want to do what the sin wants. Am I correct? But why doesn’t Paul say that the Spirit wins or that you do what you want to do. I think that Paul is saying that the sinful nature wins, and that we do what we don’t want to do. But, why does the sinful nature win? And not the Spirit? Because we don’t FULLY 100% live by the spirit. Because if we did live 100% by the spirit, we would not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.

How about Romans 8:5-12

5Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6The mind of sinful man^[e] is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; 7the sinful mind^[f] is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. 8Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.
 9You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. 10But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.

So, we are controlled by the Spirit, not sinful nature. Then why do we still sin? Well, what better time to use a parable, one that I made up. Most of us were controlled by our parents when we were young. They made us go to school, told us when to brush our teeth, told us when to eat, told us when to go to baseball practice; so I think it’s fair to say that they controlled us. But, it seems every day we found a way to disobey them.  The sinful nature chose for us what we did, even though it was our parents who gave us physical life.

Also, Think back to Adam, here was a person who didn’t even know what sin was. He was not controlled by it in any way. He had no sin nature and what did he do? The same thing goes for Eve. That’s 2 people who knew not of sin and sinned anyways.

We will always sin, and that’s part of what makes Jesus’ sacrifice and God’s grace so awesome! We don’t have to follow the law to attain salvation. Romans 5:20 says, “The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase.” Then go back to verse 13 “to be sure, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not charged against anyone’s account where there is no law.” So the law was brought in to this world to show the Jews and everyone after them, that they DO sin, and that they sin a lot. Just like us. Verse 20 again “…but where sin increased, grace increased all the more.” Also, lucky for us, we are not under the law, we are under grace. You might at this point be thinking that I’m telling you that it’s okay to sin. Or that you’re gonna be forgiven anyway, so just go ahead and sin. Since the law was to show us that we do sin, and we, as Christians, are not under the law, but under grace, shouldn’t it be okay to sin? Let me rephrase that question. Shall we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace? Well, for the answer, look at Romans 6:15 and you will get your answer…….. By no means! [finish reading passage]. So, just because we are forgiven of our sins, doesn’t mean we can keep on sinning. True, we will still sin, and God will still forgive us, but it is our calling to be like Christ; we are “slaves to righteousness.”

So, I’ll finish with the irony that is God. The only one who can save us from our sins- is the one who didn’t sin. It wasn’t Pilot who put Jesus on the cross, it wasn’t the Pharasies who put Jesus on the Cross, it wasn’t the Jews who put Jesus on the cross- it was OUR sins!

Back to Adam and Eve, there’s something I’d like to share with you guys. A theory as to why Adam is mainly responsible for Eve’s decision. Go to Genesis 2:16

“and the lord God commanded the man “you are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must no eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will certainly die.” So after reading that the only thing Adam could not do is EAT the apple. Could he look at it? Yes. Could he throw rocks at it? Yes. Could he take the fruit and throw it? Yes. He could do anything to the fruit except eat it. But, let’s see what instructions were given to Eve. Chapter 3:2 “the women said to the serpent, “we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘you must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”  Hold on here! God didn’t say that! Find me in the Bible where God said “do not touch it.” He didn’t! So, I bet you $100 the devil was picking apples of the tree and juggling them, right in front of Eve and saying “hey, look at me; I’m touching the fruit and not dying.” Which led Eve to think that God was wrong and that she wouldn’t die. Therefore she ate the apple.