Sermon Slide Deck: "Licensed to Kill" (Romans 8:1,12-14)

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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