Grace to You :: Unleashing God's Truth, One Verse at a Time
Dealing with Habitual Sins
Selected Scriptures
80-106
Take your Bible and turn back to the text which I read earlier in Hebrews chapter 12. As you know,
this is a great and monumental Scripture. There is much here to be considered. In the brief time that
we have as we anticipate sharing in the Lord's table, I want us to focus only one one phrase, just one
phrase of great import and that phrase is found in verse 1. It says, "The sin which so easily entangles
us." I want to see if we can't this morning talk about dealing with entangling sin.
It is the nature of man, even the nature of a believer, to be easily entangled in sin. It happens so
easily. And frankly, there are certain sins which more easily entangle each of us than other ones.
Each of us in our own lives have certain propensities for specific kinds of sins. It can be because we
have in the past life cultivated habits of sin which now plague us even after our salvation. It could be
because in our spiritual weakness even after becoming Christians we continued o develop habits of
certain types of sin, certain specific sins that now we find more easily than others do entangle us.
It is true of every Christian that we have certain sins that easily capture us. But it is also true in
general that sin easily entangles us. Not all sins are what we could call "our personal entangling
sins," or "our personal besetting sins," "our personal habitual sins," the sins which we commit and
then confess and then commit again and then confess and then commit again and then confess and
go on that way in our lives. Some sins fall into this category but in general all sin seems to have sway
with us.
And maybe it will help you to understand why that is true if I just give you three very simple points
about sin. First of all, sin has great power...sin has great power over our flesh. Sin has great power
over our flesh. The reason it so easily entangles us is because of its power, its strength, its force. It
exerts strong influence on our will. It exerts strong influence on our motions. it exerts strong influence
on our affections. It rarely suggests things to us, it almost always commands them. It rarely leads, it
most always pushes from the rear, drives, forces. Galatians 5:17 says, "The flesh sets its desire
against the spirit." They are in opposition to one another so that you may not do the things you
please. The beachhead that sin has with its power is our flesh. And sin exerts tremendous power,
tremendous strength against our flesh. It is a very powerful force. And it finds in our flesh a very
willing ally, a very receptive environment.
Secondly, sin easily entangles us because it is so close, it is so close. More than just forcing its way
from the outside powerfully on our flesh, it forces its way on our flesh, as it were, from within
us...from within the very flesh. It is very close. In fact, it is in our being. You can become a monk and
sit in a cave and you will still deal with sin. Jeremiah 13:23 says, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin?
Or the leopard his spots? Then you also can do good who are accustomed to doing evil." The point
being you can no more change the internal sinfulness that is a part of your life then the leopard can
change his spots or the Ethiopian can change the color of his skin. It is a part of what you are. Sin is
very powerful and finds a willing ally in your flesh because your flesh is fallen and your flesh itself has
propensities toward sin. Sin is very close. Your heart, says Jeremiah 17:9, is deceitful, it is more
deceitful than everything else and is desperately sick.
There's a third component that makes sin easily entangled into our lives and that is that sin does not
remain separate but it mingles in all our motives and all our actions. Sin is powerful, sin is near in
that it is in us, and it isn't categorically separated. You can't draw a line and say..."Well this is where
my righteousness ends and this is where my sinfulness begins." It has a way of weaving itself into
the fabric of all our duties and all our motives and all our thoughts and all our actions. It entangles
itself with our purposes and our plans. In fact, even your best deed, even your best deed is not
unmixed with sin. It is tangled up in our lives. In Romans 7 Paul cries out, "O wretched man that I
am." Why? Because no matter how I try I cannot disentangle myself from sin.
And so, sin is powerful and sin is near even within us and sin does not separate itself but is mingled
into everything. It is interwoven with everything in our lives. The best that we do is somehow
corrupted in some way, large or small, by a taint of self-will or self-pleasure or self-aggrandizement
or self- righteousness, or self-gain or whatever. And so we become easily entangled. And as I said,
there are certain sins that more easily entangle us, each of us, than others do.
But if we are going to be the kind of Christians God would want us to be, this verse says, "Let us lay
aside the sin which so easily entangles us." Put it aside, put it away. Now the question comes...how
do we do that? How do we do that? It's not the first time we've been commanded to do that. Second
Corinthians 7:1 says, "Let us cleanse ourselves of all filthiness of the flesh." Ephesians 4:22 says,
"Laying aside the old self which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit." Romans
6:12 says, "Don't let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lust." First Peter 2 and
verse 1 says, "Lay aside all evil." And verse 11, "Abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against
the soul." So we are very often told to set this aside.
The question comes...how do we do that from a practical standpoint? We know, yes, it is the work of
the Spirit and if you walk in the Spirit you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. We give all the credit for
this to the divine Holy Spirit and yet there is a responsibility that is ours as we yield to the Spirit. How
can I lay this aside?
Before I answer that question, let me suggest to you that this is an appropriate moment to be
discussing this. I suppose it would be typical for many Christians, if not most, to come to the Lord's
table and confess their sins in order that they might partake of this table and not bring judgment on
themselves, as Paul warned us. And so we tend to come here perhaps with our accumulated sin
from the last time that we had communion or the last time we seriously confessed our sin, but with
really very little change in the pattern of sinning. And that's because while we want to confess our
sins and have the confidence that He is faithful and just to forgive them, we don't take the steps, the
necessary steps to so live that every time we come there is a decreased load of sin. The list is a little
shorter because we're dealing with it on a day-to-day basis, we're laying it aside. We're not just
accumulating it at the same rate, dumping it all, as it were, on Christ, receiving His forgiveness in
those great moments of confession, but seeing no diminishing pattern of sin in the day-to-day routine
of our life. So let us then this day as we come to unburden ourselves of the accumulated sin and
confess it and make our hearts right with God also make a covenant, also make steps of
commitment to start out a new pattern of life in which we will take strides, take the necessary strides
to lay sin aside...a preventative act, not simply a remedial act of confession.
Let me give you some principles that will assist you in laying aside sin. Number one, don't
underestimate the seriousness of your sin. I think the major reason we don't deal with sin strongly
and firmly is because we underestimate its seriousness to God...to God, to us, to those with whom
we fellowship, to the church, to the unbelievers. Our sin steals joy. Our sin ruins fellowship with God.
Our sin diminishes fruitfulness. Our sin robs us of peace. Our sin renders our service useless. Our
sin mitigates against our effectiveness in evangelism. Our sin hinders our prayers. Our sin brings the
discipline of God. We need to understand the seriousness of our sin. It violates first and foremost our
relationship with the Lord.
One of the most tragic days in the history of England was August 17, 1662. A tragic day because it
was the last day for certain pastors to be able to preach to their congregations before they were
exiled. Some of them lost their lives. Some of them were exiled out of England to other countries.
What precipitated this was something called "the act of conformity." Through the years there had
been developing in England a group of preachers and a group of churches that were called "nonconformists" because they did not subscribe to all of the ritual and ceremony of the Church of
England and nor did they confine their worship to the Book of Common Prayer. They were more
concerned about biblical Christianity, they were more concerned about teaching proper doctrine.
They were more concerned about worshiping God in spirit and in truth and so they were known as
non-conformists. Many of you would know them as Puritans. They did not conform to the strictures of
the Church of England, which, of course, had neglected the Word of God and the gospel for the most
part.
And so a law was passed making them illegal. Twenty-five hundred of their ministers were exiled,
forbidden to preach. Three thousand non-conformists were killed and 60,000 families were disrupted.
And it all came to focus on August 17, 1662 because that was the last Sunday when these nonconformist preachers could preach in their churches.
For the last two weeks I've been reading a book called Farewell Sermons, it is a compilation of
twenty-four of the sermons preached on that day...sermons from a pastor who would never see his
people again, some of them died in exile, some of them later came back. But this was the end of
their ministry and this terrible terrible thing was being done, this terrible act of persecution. And they
were being dispossessed. The churches were losing them as their pastors. There were going to be
none to replace them and they were being shipped off to exile.
It's very interesting to see their...their approach, to hear their sermons, to see and hear what was
really on their hearts. None of the sermons which I have read so far were self-serving. None of them
condemned really the government for what it did. None of them were vengeful or retaliatory. There
was a common thread in all of them. All of them sort of were along this line, "This is the will of God,
we accept the will of God, we gladly suffer with Christ and our greatest concern is what happens to
you."
One of the sermons struck me as extremely powerful, preached by a man named Calamy, C-a-l-a-my. He made one statement in this sermon that struck me, he said to his people, "You have
experienced a calamity, this is a calamitous thing...this is a calamitous event." But then he said this,
and I quote, "There is more evil in the least sin than in the greatest calamity." There is more evil in
the least sin than in the greatest calamity. And he later said, "There is more evil in the least sin than
in the greatest misery." That is profound.
You look at your life and generally speaking you are distressed about your calamities and you are
distressed about your miseries but you are tolerant about your sins. You do not understand what that
man understood. There is more evil in the least sin than the greatest calamity. A calamity, a certain
misery is not necessarily sin. Sin is sin. Treat your sin seriously. It dishonors God. It abuses mercy. It
despises grace. It presumes on forgiveness. It defiles worship, service and fellowship. It stains and
taints and poisons and destroys everything good and holy.
Secondly, another principle that is necessarily understood if you're to lay aside sin, strongly purpose
and promise God not to sin...strongly purpose and promise God not to sin. Take a solemn vow and
say, "God, I do not want to sin. I don't want to break Your law. I don't want to grieve Your Spirit. I
don't want to dishonor the name of Your Son which I bear."
The psalmist did that in Psalm 119:106, "I have sworn and I will confirm it that I will keep Thy
righteous ordinances." Unless you have that kind of resolution in your life, you'll find it more easy to
be entangled by sin. In fact, I believe it is that kind of heart purpose, it is that kind of bold affirmation
that is at the root of all holy living. And until you make that kind of conscious commitment to the Lord,
you're going to battle the same things over and over and be defeated.
There's a great verse, verse 32, in the same Psalm, Psalm 119, "I shall run the way of Thy
commandments for Thou wilt enlarge my heart." It's a very beautiful picture. I shall run the way of
Thy commandments for Thou wilt enlarge my heart. What it means is I'm going to run in the way of
obedience because I have a heart to do that. It starts in the heart. It's like a runner, very good
illustration, a great runner, a long-distance runner, an endurance runner, a marathoner very often
has an enlarged heart muscle because of the tremendous development of his running ability and the
strengthening of his heart to keep pumping all that is needed to that body as it pushes itself beyond
normal limits. And a great runner can run the way he runs because his heart is enlarged. And the
psalmist is saying, "I will run in the way of Your commandments because You have enlarged my
heart, You've given me a heart for obedience."
That's the kind of purpose that is absolutely essential. There's a great difference, you see, between
sin dwelling in us and sin entertained by us. There's a great difference between sin remaining and
sin harbored or sin preserved. And to lay aside sin means to purpose and promise God to obey, a
firm promise...I promise You I will obey You.
There's a third component in this kind of commitment to lay aside sin and it is this, be suspicious of
your own spirituality...be suspicious of your own spirituality. Paul said it this way, "Let the one who
stands take heed lest he fall." Job 31:1, Job said, "I made a covenant with my eyes, how then can I
gaze on a virgin?" He said I've got to be careful where I look because I don't trust myself. I've got to
start with what I see because I don't trust myself.
Proverbs 4:23 says, "Watch over your heart with all diligence for our of it are the issues of life."
There's a certain watchfulness. You have to be watching for sin's subtle movements within your own
supposed spirituality. Your heart is, as I noted, desperately wicked, very deceitful. And Satan is
desperately wicked and very deceitful. And the seducing motions of your own heart can sometimes
rise out of the moments of your most supposed spirituality. Be suspicious of your own spirituality,
don't trust it. Understand that except for the grace of God you would fall into any and every sin and
you can be deceived so easily.
Fourthly, resist the first risings of the flesh and its pleasures...resist the first risings of the flesh and its
pleasures. Don't try to stop the process near the end, stop it near the beginning. James notes for us
a certain process, "People are tempted when they're carried away and enticed by their own lust, then
when lust has conceived it gives birth to sin." Well you want to stop it at the point of conception not
try to stop it at the point of birth. You want to stop sin at conception after its been conceived and run
through a certain period of pregnancy, if you will, and now is about to give birth to the sin. You don't
try to stop it at that point, you resist and oppose the first risings of the flesh and its pleasures. Sin
comes to you promising pleasure. And you remember at the very outset, my goal is not to please
myself but to please the Lord.
There's a fifth principle in this and that is meditate on the Word...meditate on the Word. There's a
wonderful verse, verse 31 of Psalm 37, you probably should write this down...Psalm 37:31, it's a bit
more obscure than some but it really is very very important, listen to what it says. "The law of his
God is in his heart. His steps do not slip." The law of his God is in his heart, his steps do not slip.
When a heart is controlled by the Word, the steps don't slip.
Another more familiar text dealing with this and a wonderful one at that is Psalm 119. And you
remember that that Psalm begins in the very first part of those 176 verses with these words, down in
verse 9 of Psalm 119, "How can a young man keep his way pure?" How can you lay aside sin? How
can you win this battle? "By keeping it according to Thy Word." By guarding it with Scripture. It is the
constant input of the Word of God that begins to fill up the mind and control the thinking and that
alone becomes the strength and resource in us that can resist the initial impulses of the flesh. How
can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping his heart completely committed and guarded by
the Word of God. Then in verse 10, "With all my heart I have sought Thee, do not let me wander
from Thy commandments, Thy Word I have treasured, or hid, or kept in my heart that I may not sin
against Thee." It is the Scripture that must be meditated on. Meditate on the Word of God. You are
always studying the Word...studying the Word...learning the Word...learning the Word...meditating on
the Word. As you get the Word so filling you up so that it dwells in you richly, Colossians 3:16, you
will find that it controls you. And as you start in to some kind of attitude of sin or some kind of act of
sin, the Word of God will act as a restraint. When you feel the impulse of the truth you know,
meditate on that, not on the enticings of the flesh and its pleasures.
So watch for sin's subtleties and don't trust your own spirituality. Resist and oppose the first risings of
the flesh and its desires to please itself and meditate on the Word, the engrafted Word which is able
to save your souls. Number six, be immediately repentant over your lapses...be immediately
repentant over your lapses. It says in Matthew 26:75 that Peter having obviously been aware of his
sin at the crowing of the cock went out and wept bitterly. Something very admirable in that. We
castigate, and rightly so, Peter for his defection but we must also honor and respect him for his
immediate...his immediate remorse. Be immediately repentant over your lapses and go back to the
place of confession. And repentance isn't only saying, "I'm sorry, Lord, forgive me," it is saying, "I'm
sorry, Lord, forgive me and I don't want to ever do that again." That's the stuff of real repentance.
And if that third element isn't there then you're not fooling God about the genuineness or lack of
genuineness.
When you confess your sins and when you say "I'm sorry I did that, please forgive me, I don't ever
want to do it again," name it...name it specifically. Let your own heart and even your own ears hear
the naming of that sin so that you develop in your heart a high degree of accountability with God for
having named the very sin for which He is holding you accountable not to commit again. That's how
you develop accountability. That's how you develop the fear of God. If you hold back from naming
your sin it's because you want to do that again and it's bad enough to sin without having to be
responsible for telling God you didn't want to do it and defying what you told Him so you'd rather sin
only once rather than twice, that's why you don't want to name your sin. Then you're guilty not only of
sinning again but of being hypocritical before God. True repentance will name the sin, specifically
name the sin. Be immediately repentant over your lapses.
Number seven, and there are...just one more after this...continually pray for divine help...continually
pray for divine help. Ephesians 6:18, after all the armor is put on and the battle against Satan and
demons, after all of the warfare has been said and the battle is engaged against Satan and all of his
forces he says, "Praying always with all prayer and supplication." Jesus said to His disciples, "Watch
and pray for you know not when you're going to enter into the hour of temptation." Devote yourselves
to prayer, Colossians 4:2, being alert in it. Don't fight the enemy on your own. When you engage the
enemy, pray...plead with help. But even in a preliminary sense, I really think anticipatory prayer is the
most effective. You need to start your day, "Lord, this is the way you taught us to pray, lead us not
into...what?...temptation...and deliver us from evil, Lord, please today lead me away from temptation,
please today, Lord, deliver me from evil." You need to set the course of your prayers before the
tempter arrives, before the flesh begins to rise and entice.
And then lastly, establish relationships with other believers. Establish relationships with other
believers that hold you accountable. Establish relationships with other believers that hold you
accountable. "Bear ye one another's burdens," says Paul in Galatians 6, "and so fulfill the law of
Christ." We are all in the same boat, folks, we all struggle the same way and we need each other. "If
a man is caught in a paraptoma, a fall, a sin, a trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a
spirit of gentleness, each one look into yourself lest you too be tempted, bear one another's
burdens." We're all in this together. It might be you going down this time, it might be me going down
next time but between the two of us we're going to hold ourselves accountable for holy living.
By the way, that is in my judgment the greatest factor in a Christian marriage is the intense and
intimate spiritual accountability with regard to sin that exists at that level. That is a very very
important reason for Christian marriage. I believe that there ought to be in every single sense a highlevel of spiritual accountability between a husband and a wife for every aspect of their life in that
marriage. The most intimate knowledge of my spiritual life apart from God Himself is in the mind and
heart of my wife. The most intimate knowledge of her spiritual life and her struggle as a Christian
apart from God Himself is in my mind and heart. We know each other better than anybody in the
world knows us. Therein lies the highest level of spiritual accountability...for me and for her. No one
apart from God Himself holds me as accountable for what I am before you and before the Lord as
she does, and vice versa. And that is what makes a Christian marriage really Christian and really
distinctive. That's the highest level of accountability.
But beyond that, there are other relationships in which you engage that can be very very
strengthening for your own spiritual life. You want people around you who lift you up, not people
around you who pull you down. You want people around you associated with you as friends and
close co-workers who will see your failures just like you'll see theirs, love you in the process and lift
you up and demand of you the highest standards.
How are you going to come to the place where you lay aside the sin that so easily entangles you and
especially those besetting sins which you tend to fall into over and over again? First of all, realize sin
is powerful, it is near, even in you, and it is intertwined with everything in your being. And in order to
deal with it you must understand its seriousness. You must promise God not to sin. You must watch
carefully for your own spiritual weaknesses. Don't trust your spirituality. You must resist the first
risings of sin in the flesh. You must meditate on the Word. You must be repentant immediately for the
lapses that come. You much continue in prayer and dependence on God's power and establish
intimate relationships of spiritual accountability.
And I would say that there's no better place to start this kind of life pattern then right here at the
Lord's table. We're here not only to unload the burden of sin we've accumulated for which we will be
forgiven, but I hope we're here to start afresh in a new course that's going to bring us back here next
time with a lighter load and a shorter list. And maybe the sum of it all is found here in Hebrews
chapter 12 in those wonderful and magnificent words, verse 2, "Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author
and perfecter of faith."
Listen, He is one who in His striving against sin never fell...never fell. He was in all points tempted
like as we are yet He was without sin...He never fell, He never succumbed. So if you're going to look
at somebody as a model, look at Him. He was striving with sin even to death and never fell. He's our
model, He's our example. So we're here to remember His death, we're here to ask His forgiveness
and we're here to ask Him again to be our example as we lay aside our sin and fix our eyes on Him
to follow the path of victory over the sin that easily entangles us. Let's bow together in prayer.
Father, we thank You that again Your Word speaks so pointedly and powerfully and directly to our
hearts. We thank You that You have given us the resident Holy Spirit who can enable us to be
obedient when we otherwise would not have the strength. Help us this morning to make the vows
that we've learned about as we've considered about entangling sin and how to deal with it. Help us to
take these steps so that we can pursue the path of holiness and not need to be disciplined as often
so that we can not miss the joy and the peace that should be ours and the usefulness and fellowship
and ministry. And now as we come to this table, we pray that as we think of the bread and the cup
we will remember what a price our Lord paid for our sin. And we will take it seriously as You do, we
come to confess our sin and to renew our covenant, to lay sin aside, to walk in a holy way. We now
confess our sins, all of them, and ask You to wash us and make us clean, forgive us every sin known
and unknown, every sin. And help us, Lord, not to do them again but to walk in obedience.
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