LIE: I can overcome my sin if I try harder

Lie: I can overcome my sin if I try harder.
Truth: I can overcome my sin if I walk according to the Spirit.

We’ve heard it all our lives: the bigger the problem, the more time, energy, attention, commitment and diligence it takes to solve. But sin is not just any problem, it’s the problem – the problem of all problems. It’s actually the one problem that cannot be ‘solved,’ but must be defeated, vanquished, conquered. The good news is, that it already has been, and it took God himself to do it.

That said, sin is not just a cosmic problem; it’s my problem, which, as a Christian, I must learn how to solve in my own life. Very quickly, however, we learn that trying to solve this problem by trying harder, doesn’t really work. Consequently, many people conclude that either:

A: We’re just not trying hard enough,

B: We have not yet cut ourselves off sufficiently from all sources of temptation (which actually may be part of the problem),

C: We’re doomed to endlessly repeat our sins.

Many float from one ‘conclusion’ to the other all their lives and never really finding the resolution they had hoped for.

But there is hope. Many do find the answer to the sin problem, yet often not in the way they had originally expected. But before we spell out the solution, let’s unpack the reasons that ‘trying harder’ just won’t work.

1 Sin is too powerful. Sin can be described in lots of ways, but in essence, sin is blind willfulness. See Chapter intro on page 103. It’s our unwillingness to surrender our will to God. We have ‘needs’ and we need to satisfy those needs – who else is going to satisfy them? It’s the deep assumption that me and my will are central to life.

But sin is not some abstract concept or force ‘out there;’ rather, it’s a force resident in us; it’s the propensity to act, think and speak with the presumption that I am god and don’t need any other god, or if I do, I’ll create one that serves me. I make my own rules; no one else can tell me what to do.’ That is the background noise of sin. The problem is that this attitude, this propensity, becomes a slave master and will stop at nothing until it completely dominates, controls and severely limits our lives.

The Apostle Paul admitted the impotence of his will to control sin:

For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. — Romans 7:14–20

Sin is simply too powerful to solve on our own; something or someone external to ourselves must save us from its mastery.

2 Sin has already been defeated. Our feeble and pitiful attempts to overcome sin are simply superfluous since they’ve already been overcome by none other than God himself. That’s why Christ Jesus came; it was the mission he accomplished on the cross. It took God in human flesh to do it and any attempt that we could make to defeat sin results only in frustration and failure.

3 Sin is defeated, not by an opposing will, but by the sacrificial love of God. Paul’s great treatise in Romans chapters six through eight, where he describes Christ’s defeat of sin, the law and the flesh, culminates with the triumph of God’s love over all things. Listen here to those grand words:

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? . . . Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written:

“For Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”
Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. — Romans 8:31, 34–39

We all know that sin was defeated by Christ in his death, burial and resurrection. But this truth has become too familiar to us. We must remember that sin was defeated by an act of sacrificial love! – an act so shocking that literally no one saw it coming – no human being and apparently no angel or demon anticipated it either:

But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
But as it is written:
“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”
But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. — I Corinthians 2:7–10

The Jewish sacrificial system had prefigured it for hundreds of years, yet no one saw that Jesus’ destiny was to become the Lamb of God.

We know that the innocent Lamb stood in our place and received the death that we deserved. This is the transactional piece of the puzzle, but there’s more – much more! The piece so often overlooked, yet which holds the power to practically defeat sin in our lives is this: ask yourself this question: WHO was it who humbled himself to become the Lamb? Of course none other than God himself! God became man and died for us, and not because he had to, but because he wanted to, because he loved us.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. — John 3:16

Now, the critical question is this: how does the fact that Christ died for us practically break the power of sin? Very simply, by breaking, melting and tenderizing our heart. This broken heart moves us to love him in return. In other words, if we truly understand and believe who Christ is and what he did for us and why he did it, we cannot continue to oppose and spurn him and his ways; we cannot continue to insist on our own will. Rather, we see the truth and goodness of his will and begin aligning our will to his.

Once we receive this critical spiritual understanding, we must then choose to walk out this will of God that is characterized by love. It will not happen automatically; we must have the spiritual motivation and understanding to walk it out. This is called walking in the Spirit and minding the things of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience and more (see Romans 8 and Galatians 5). Sin will not immediately lose all its power, but by consistent practice of the will of God, which is to love, sin eventually loses its power and appeal.

See the introduction to this category: Lies about sin.