Sin Vs Holiness

Sin Vs Holiness

November 5, 2018

Psalm 51:10  "Create in me a pure heart, oh God, and renew a steadfast spirit in me."

There is a battle in your life and it is a battle over sin. You are likely aware of all the sin in your life. You notice it when you commit a sin and feel the regret, the remorse for your actions that you know were wrong. You resolve to do better, putting steel in your veins to win out over your sin. Next time, the intestinal fortitude will keep you from your sin, your grit and determination, sheer will power will reveal you as the victor. But somehow sin wins again and again and again. There is advice in the Bible on how to combat the sin, however, and it is not with resolve or any amount of determination. The Bible says the antidote for sin is holiness.

At first this seems difficult when contemplating it. Since holiness is the antithesis of sin, of course if you aren't sinning then you are categorically "holy." This is certainly the elementary understanding of it, but not revelatory in how to achieve it. Most of us are not trying to be the holiest, just win out over the sinful actions we wish to eliminate, for starters. In attempting to combat your sin with resolve, what you are really trying to do is combat your sinful actions using the resolve of a human being who is innately sinful. Sin in your life is what causes the sinful actions. Most of the time people are trying to simply rid their lives of the sinful actions, but do not realize they are born out of a sinful heart. You can be the perfect person in your actions, possibly for a day, but it does not mean your did not think or feel the sin in your heart, just that you overcame the action of the sin that day. Winning out over your sinful actions, successfully, requires winning out over the sin in your heart.

Your sinful actions are a result of your internal sin. A sinful heart will never be able to stop a sinful action, no matter how mentally and emotionally strong your are. Sinful actions are born out of sin, but holy actions are born out of holiness. In order to combat the sinful actions in your life, you have to replace them with holy actions. The only way to achieve holy actions is the through holiness in your heart. A sinful heart produces sinful actions, but a holy heart produces holy action. Peter writes, we are to be holy because Christ was holy. What he was saying is that you should commit holy actions because Christ committed holy actions. The heart of Jesus was innately holy, not sinful. You and I, we try to commit holy actions with a sinful heart and that will never work. If you want to rid your life of your sinful actions, it requires a heart change. You may think your heart is right, but clearly sinful actions are born of a sinful heart. So how do you get holiness in your heart, then?

That part is no so easily accomplished because it isn't just a one-time deal. It is a daily, on-going effort to die to self. It takes hiding the Lord's Word in your heart, it takes getting on your knees daily in prayer. It takes acknowledging your sin before the Lord and repenting. We don't really want to repent, we want to be sorry for that one, isolated, sinful action. We don't want to repent of the internal sin that caused the sinful action, repentance takes true remorse and a heart change. Most of us don't really want the Lord to change our hearts, just our outward actions. The Lord cares more about the repentance inside your heart than the sinful act you committed. The outward actions are just a symptom of what is going on inside. If you want to change your sinful actions, you have to be willing for the Lord to change your heart. Wanting Him to change your heart is different than seeking and asking Him to change your heart. It is time for a heart change, maybe even a heart transplant. 

Don't take my word for it; look it up: Lev 11:44-45, Lev 19:2, Ps 19:14, Matt 5:8, Matt 12:35, Heb 10:22, 1 Peter 1:13-25