In this video, Dr. Sinclair Ferguson provides counsel to Christians who are struggling with sin.
What should I do if I’m struggling with the same sin? I think the first thing to remember is you are not the only person in the history of the Christian church who has ever done this. I think sometimes the devil seems to come along and try to persuade you that that’s the case, and that therefore there’s no hope for you. I think he very much wants some of us just to feel a despair about our Christian lives. So first thing to remember is that you’re not alone. And it’s pretty clear in the New Testament that was the case in the days of the New Testament as well, because there’s so much teaching in the New Testament about how you deal with sin. I have found, I guess personally and just in conversation with people who ask that question, one particular passage that I think has been very helpful, and that’s Colossians 3:1–16, 17.
In that passage, there’s a pattern and it comes really in two stages, although the second stage has two parts to it. The first stage is where Paul says to the Colossians, who I think had been struggling with sin and some false teachers had suggested a quick way of dealing with it. And in chapter 2, Paul is warning them against that. And in chapter 3 especially, he gives them true teaching about how we deal with sin. And the first part of that, in verses 1–4, he says to us, remember this new identity that you’ve been given in Christ. You’ve died with Him; you’ve been raised with Him. Your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, you’re going to appear with Him in glory.
So the first thing is, never forget that you belong to Christ, and that you’re united to Him, because that gives you great dignity. And what your struggles do often is blind you to the wonderful new work that God has done in your life. And then on the basis of that, the second stage, Paul says, is twofold. In the next few verses he says, here are the sins that you’ve got to deal with. You’ve got to mortify them. And then he says, and here are the things you’ve got to put on. And I think what’s so helpful about that is two things. The first is, that he actually names the sins. And I think sometimes we are so ashamed that we are struggling with a particular sin. We don’t want to name it. But I think it’s part of what Paul is doing there is saying, if you name it, then you’re really confessing it to God. You’re not just saying, “O God, I’ve sinned, help me.” You’re actually pinpointing the way in which you’ve sinned, the particular way in which sin manifests itself in your life. And you’re saying it before Him. And in that sense, you’re no longer hiding from Him. It is out there in the open. And when it’s out there in the open, I think you’re in a better position to see how inconsistent this is with your new identity—and, in the strength that your new identity gives to you, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to overcome it.
But there’s another element to that, in which Paul says, “Now here are the things you’ve got to put on.” I think it’s really important that, as we struggle with sin, we tend to become focused on that sin. And because of that, we fail to see that one of the ways in which that sin will be—if I could put it this way—asphyxiated in our lives is if our lives begin to be filled with a contrary grace. There’s a kind of rhythm in what Paul says in Colossians 3. Put off these sins that belong to your old life, but if you just try to do that, you will never succeed. What you also need to do is to see the contrary graces, the graces that are the opposite of that, the graces of the Lord Jesus, built into your life.
One of the old Scottish preachers, Thomas Chalmers, used to speak about the expulsive power of a new affection. And I think, when we begin to focus on and love the graces of our Lord Jesus Christ, that kind of squeezes the breath out of our prevailing sin and helps us to grow. So, it’s one foundation that we belong to the Lord Jesus, we’ve been given a new identity—that means there are certain things that are inconsistent with who we now are, and certain things that are consistent. And as we put off the one by naming it, asking for forgiveness, praying for God’s help, we simultaneously are reflecting on and asking the Lord to help us to grow in whatever grace is the opposite of that sin. And, as Paul says, as we do that, we end up giving thanks to God in all things. And incidentally, the more we can be thankful to God in all things, the more our sin will lose its power.