An Old Best Friend I Despise.

A preacher once said that my old best friend will take me farther than I'll want to go, leave me longer than I'll want to stay, and will cost me far more than I'll want to pay. You have an old friend like this? I sure you do. This old friend of mine is 'Sin'. You have a old friend named 'Sin'?

Don't you hate sin? When I first became a believer, one unexpected thing I experienced was that the struggle and fight against sin would intensify. You notice that? Before, I didn't know right from wrong. I led my life in ignorance doing everything to make MYSELF happy. Even when my conscious told me that I was doing something immoral, I'd easily brush it aside by trying to do a good 'moral' thing to balance it out. And to be honest, I still find myself rationalizing my sinfulness that way, thinking that doing good would make me right.

But Christ is proclaiming to you and me something different. His blood is our testimony that we can not do anything to make things right. Only Christ can do it, because 2 Corinthians 5:21 says, 'For our sake he(the Father) made him(the Son) to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.' So God took the penalty of sin which we all deserved and let Christ face the penalty, so that you and I would not have to bear that penalty. What an exchange?!?!

But why do I still sin, if the above is true? Obviously, we all aren't perfect and holy. but something extremely radical has occurred when all our faith is in Christ. 1 John 1:8-10 tells us, 'If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.' God's Word testifies that he knows us and our sin. And right now even if you don't feel like it. Christ is telling us to come to him, confessing and knowing God has come as a perfect man to die and save us from what we deserve, so we can experience a relationship with God as 1 John 1:3 says, '...indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our/your joy may be complete.' What grace is this?

If you struggle with sin of any kind, check out these series sermons from John Piper titled, 'How to Kill Sin'. Message One, Two, Three. These messages have provided me with hope and strength to fight sin through God's ways and not my own.