sermon slide deck: "licensed to kill" (romans 8:1,12-14)
TRANSCRIPT
Licensed to KillKilling The Sin That Kills Our Joy
“Licensed to Kill: An Intro to Mortification”Romans 8:1, 12-14
“By faith Moses…refused to be called the Son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people
of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the
reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was
looking to the reward.”
~ CS Lewis “The Weight of Glory”
“If we consider the unblushing promises of
reward and the staggering nature of the rewards in the
Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong,
but too weak.
“We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and
ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on
making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer
of a holiday at the sea.
~ CS Lewis “The Weight of Glory”
“We are far too easily pleased.”
~ CS Lewis “The Weight of Glory”
Am I far too easily pleased ?
Licensed to KillKilling The Sin That Kills Our Joy
“Licensed to Kill: An Intro to Mortification”Romans 8:1, 12-14
8:1 There is therefore now no condemna-
Romans 8:1, 12-14
tion for those who are in Christ Jesus.
“For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”
~ The Apostle Paul in Romans 3:23
Question #14: What is sin?
Answer: Sin is any lack of conformity to,
or transgression of the law of God.
“The slightest sin is an act of defiance against cosmic authority. It is a
revolutionary act, a rebellious act where we are setting ourselves in opposition to the One to
whom we owe everything.”
“What is justification?”
“Justification is an act of God’s free grace in which he pardons all our sins and accepts us as righteous in his sight
because of the righteousness of Christ given to us and received by faith alone.”
~ Westminster Shorter Catechism #33
12 So then, brothers, we are debtors, not
Romans 8:1, 12-14
to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.
“It is the big delusion,the height of arrogance, the seductive trap.It leads nowhere good.It’s destiny is death.
“It sat at the center of thedisaster in the garden.It propelled the sadrebellion of Adam and Eve.It tempts us all again and again in situation after situation,location after location, relationship after relationship.
“We fall into thinking what multitudes of our lost forefathers thought.
“We buy into this one fateful thought, that perhaps we’re smarter than God,that maybe our wayis better than his way. Only grace can deliver the deluded from the danger they are to themselves.”
~ The Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:9
"You are not your own, for you were bought
with a price. So glorify God in your body.”
13 For if you live according to the flesh
Romans 8:1, 12-14
you shall die, but if by the Spirit youput to death the deeds of the body,you shall live.
"We are called to aggressively hate our sin--to despise it, reject it, deplore it, starve it, and
make every effort to kill it.... Simply put, mortification
is killing sin.
"This includes putting to death both sinful actions (deeds) and
sinful motivations (passions and desires) which produce
them.... The imagery of mortification is intended… to
communicate the vehemence, enmity, and total-war mentality
we must have toward sin."
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may
have life and have it abundantly.”~ Jesus of Nazareth in
The Gospel of John 10:10
14 For all who are led by the Spirit of
Romans 8:1, 12-14
God are sons of God.
~ The Apostle Paul in Galatians 5:16, 25
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not
gratify the desires of the flesh…. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in
step with the Spirit.
Always be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.
Bottom Line
~ John Owen
A licence to kill our sinmeans we take our sin seriously.
1
“Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision
for the flesh.”~ The Apostle Paul in Romans 13:14
“Those who belong to Christ have
crucified the flesh with its passions and
desires.”
~ The Apostle Paul in Galatians 5:24
"If besetting sins persistently plague us, it is
either because we have never truly repented, or
because, having repented, we have not maintained our
repentance. It is as if, having nailed our old nature
to the cross, we keep wistfully returning to the scene of its execution.
~ John Stott Anglican Minister
“We begin to fondle it, to caress it, to long for its
release, even to try to take it down again from the
cross. We need to learn to leave it there. When some
jealous, or proud, or malicious, or impure
thought invades our mind, we must kick it out at once.
~ John Stott Anglican Minister
“It is fatal to begin to examine it and consider whether we are going to
give in to it or not. We have declared war on it; we are
not going to resume negotiations."
~ John Stott Anglican Minister
A licence to kill our sinmeans we aim for the heart.
2
"What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil
thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander,
pride, foolishness. All these come from within, and they defile a person."
~ Jesus of Nazareth in the Gospel of Mark 7:20-23
A licence to kill our sinmeans we fight for joy.
3
"You make known to me the path of life; in
your presence there is fullness of joy; at your
right hand are pleasures forevermore.”
~ Psalm 16:11
Augustine’s Confessions
“How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys which I had once feared to lose…! You
drove them from me, you who are the true, the sovereign joy. You drove them from me and took their
place, you who are sweeter than all pleasure.”
Augustine’s Confessions
“I hear so many Christians, murmuring about their imperfections, and their failures, and their addictions, and their shortcomings. And I see so little war. ‘Murmur, murmur, murmur. Why am I this way?’ Make war!!!”
~ Pastor John Piper
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