SermonIndex Audio Sermons
SermonIndex - Promoting Revival to this Generation
Give To SermonIndex
Discussion Forum : Articles and Sermons : Secret of Victory over Sin by Zac Poonen

Print Thread (PDF)

PosterThread
sermonindex
Moderator



Joined: 2002/12/11
Posts: 39795
Canada

Online!
 Secret of Victory over Sin by Zac Poonen

In Deuteronomy 6:4-5, we read, “The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! And Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your might.”

We don’t worship three Gods. God is one in three Persons. Then in Deuteronomy 6:5, the first commandment is described in another way. This is what Jesus quoted in Matthew 22:37: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” That is the first commandment.

" We overcome sin not by battling sin primarily, but by loving God with all our heart."
That means that we don’t have any place in our hearts for family, property, job, or money – because ALL of our heart is given to God. This is Instruction No.1 in the “Manufacturer’s Instruction” Manual. Don’t operate the human machine before you have obeyed this commandment.

What will happen when you love the Lord with all your heart?
You will love your wife even better!
You will love your neighbour better.
You will even love your enemies, because you don’t have any hatred in your heart anymore.
Jealousy, hatred, bitterness and all other sins against others are caused by not loving God with all your heart. The part of your heart that should be loving God is filled with jealousy. We overcome sin not by battling sin primarily, but by loving God with all our heart. When we love God with all our heart, the love of money and property and evil lusts will all go away.

Consider a girl who is in love with Mr. A, who is not such a good person. Her parents try their best to stop her from loving him but they can’t succeed. Then one day this girl meets Mr. B who is far more handsome, richer and a more pleasant person. Suddenly all her love for Mr. A disappears. How did that happen? That can be called “the expulsive power of a new affection”. A new love drove out the first love.

Apply this to the Christian life. Here you are lusting after so many evil things that God forbids. You try and try to give up these bad habits but cannot, because you love those lusts. Then one day, you see the glory of Jesus and begin to love Him with all your heart. What happens? This new love has driven out the old affections. Then we have no more interest in the things of this world. It’s “the expulsive power of a new affection”. This is the secret of victory over sin. Love God with all your heart and with all your soul – which means with all your intellectual power.


_________________
SI Moderator - Greg Gordon

 2019/5/31 15:42Profile
Gloryandgrace
Member



Joined: 2017/7/14
Posts: 1165
Snoqualmie, WA

 Re: Secret of Victory over Sin by Zac Poonen


Sounds like a book I bought in a used book store...

Expulsive power of a new affection by Thomas Chalmers.

One of the few I have yet to read.


_________________
Marvin

 2019/5/31 15:51Profile









 Re: Secret of Victory over Sin by Zac Poonen

“Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD. “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. “They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the LORD, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” Jeremiah 31:34 NASB

"You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men; being manifested that you are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
Such confidence we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life."
2 Corinthians 3:2-6 NASB

"Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are (actually, in fact) in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, IF INDEED the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh - for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God..." Romans 8:1-16 NASB

"But I say, WALK BY THE SPIRIT AND YOU WILL NOT CARRY OUT THE DESIRE OF THE FLESH. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit." Galatians 5:16-25 NASB

"For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be STRENGTHENED WITH POWER THROUGH THE SPIRIT IN THE INNER MAN, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that YOU, BEING ROOTED AND GROUNDED IN LOVE, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, ACCORDING TO THE POWER AT WORK WITHIN US, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen." Ephesians 3:14-20 NASB

I hope Poonen's language toward the end of the original post - "Then one day, you see the glory of Jesus and begin to love Him with all your heart. What happens? This new love has driven out the old affections. Then we have no more interest in the things of this world." - is meant to describe the reception of a new heart, via the indwelling power of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. In other words, as it is more succinctly put by the apostle, "We love, because He first loved us." (1 John 4:19 NASB) I think he may have been wise to be more specific, reiterating the Biblical emphasis on that.

A "new affection" as motivation, alone, is not enough to overcome sin. Only a new heart, filled with God's true love - via the power of the Holy Spirit - will be able to accomplish that. Even then, one must set the mind on the Spirit (again, see Romans 8) and learn to walk by that power, ongoing and consistently, to let Jesus keep sin from overtaking again. Loving God includes and requires obedience to the Truth, while abiding in Christ. (see John 15:4-11 NASB)

Sometimes, if I may humbly offer, I think those who presume to teach others about following Christ get a bit superfluous and try too hard to come up with new ways to retell Biblical truths. In the process, they may not stick closely enough to the fullness of those truths, expressed by the Lord Himself, whether directly or through His original apostles.

If you have been born of the Spirit of God, knowingly and surely, focus on setting your mind on that same Spirit, being filled with it, abiding in Christ, obeying His commands, living by faith in the Son of God. Most assuredly, you'll learn to overcome sin, in the process - hallelujah and amen!

 2019/5/31 18:19
CofG
Member



Joined: 2017/2/12
Posts: 964
Cambodia

 Re:

That is Chalmer’s thesis. You turn away from the siren song of sin when you hear the voice of the Lord. For the new creature in Christ, they are in love with a new song.


_________________
Robert

 2019/5/31 19:37Profile





©2002-2024 SermonIndex.net
Promoting Revival to this Generation.
Privacy Policy