We finished last week ’ s study by considering how we might be delivered from our own desires.

1. It has probably been 20 years since I have read Tozer’s book, The Knowledge of the Holy, and it is as though I never read it. So as we return to our study of how God draws us out of self, our perceptions, and into faith, let’s keep our perspective of who God is fresh in our minds so that trusting Him is the only thing that makes any sense to us. Do you realize that every single problem you have with faith and your choice is ALWAYS a problem with your thinking and perceptions? He is very helpful in explaining why it is so hard for mankind to trust in God, and why it is so easy to trust in self. He explains that we make our evaluation of God and His character based on human perceptions and not on the basis of revelation. Additionally, when we reduce our understanding of God to some human likeness, it is no wonder we find it so hard to trust God.

2. “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.”Eph 2:1-3

3. Last week we saw how man is destroyed. We saw that he was slaughtered by the leading of the course of this world, Satan, and our own lusts and desires. That leaves us with only one way out, even from our own lusts and desires, and that is – a desire that is outside of us – that comes from the Lord.  We finished last week’s study by considering how we might be delivered from our own desires. So before we begin today, let’s answer a theological question: is it natural or unnatural for a Christian to sin?

4. Sin is not only natural, but it is the only course of action for an unbeliever, but it is completely unnatural for Christians to sin.  We have the nature of Christ in us as well as His life and sin is completely unnatural to our new nature. The only reason Christians sin is because they are plagued by the memories of that failed system that the exercise of faith in truth will sanctify even our thoughts.

5.  Faith in the truth is where we begin our consideration of how we are to find freedom from even our own lusts and fleshly desires. We saw that Colossians 3:5 NKJV says, “Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.”  Let’s recall the Scriptures that we saw last week that shed light on our freedom.

6. “If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!”Col 2:20-21 This is a conditional clause that assumes the reality and could be translated “Since you have died”. This verse tells us that “dying with Christ” which is aorist tense, is an inarguable fact. It even further says that we died “away from the elements of the world” (as it reads in the Greek).

7. What are the “elementary principles” that it says we died to?  This is the word στοιχείων in the Greek, a noun which is described as “an arrangement or an agreement, a harmony with something”. Now do you see why it is so critical to be “dead to the arrangement and the harmony” with the system that makes slaves of us and ultimately kills us? Last week we were introduced to two more verses that we need to review.

8. “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.”Rom 8:13 This is clearly speaking of a life habit of continually raining death upon the deeds of the body in order to break its influence over choice. We will see this as a fundamental key to the freedom of the mind and memory from sin. But before we see this demonstrated, let’s finish our other verse and see the part it plays.

9. “Romans 8:13 pictures the negative process of sanctification, bringing θάνατος or death upon the deeds of the body, which process continues as long as we have the body and its deeds. In Gal. 5:24 the aorist refers to the decisive act which nails the flesh to the cross in order cruelly, painfully to murder it there so that its career of crime shall cease once for all. In our passage, which also has the aorist, the decisive act is to strike dead the bodily members so that, being νεκρά dead, they shall become incapable of being used for any of the vices here listed and indicated.”Lenski

10. “Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” Ga 5:24 Here we see the necessary affirmation of the work that was done in the Spirit as a spiritual deliverance of our dead human spirit before God. This doesn’t just say that we “killed” the flesh. Lenski points out that it is a cruel, violent and fittingly just action taken against a vicious adversary. Diplomacy has never worked and this is the only action that God engages against the flesh. We should note that.

11. “Galatians 5:24 states that the thing has already been done, the other two passages that we are now to do it. All of these passages express a truth: we constantly kill off the deeds of the body just as we crucified the flesh in the first place. We strike our members dead summarily and leave them useless for all vices. The flesh is dethroned in us, its attempted usurpations for deeds of the body are constantly put to death as rebellious citizens are suppressed (Rom. 8:13), even the bodily members, which the flesh must have for its deeds, are struck dead so that, like dead things, they become quite useless instruments for the flesh.”Lenski

12. “Galatians 5:24 states that the thing has already been done, the other two passages that we are now to do it. All of these passages express a truth: we constantly kill off the deeds of the body just as we crucified the flesh in the first place. We strike our members dead summarily and leave them useless for all vices. The flesh is dethroned in us, its attempted usurpations for deeds of the body are constantly put to death as rebellious citizens are suppressed (Rom. 8:13), even the bodily members, which the flesh must have for its deeds, are struck dead so that, like dead things, they become quite useless instruments for the flesh.”Lenski Perhaps the best way to understand this is that the aorist tense, the settled action in Gal 5:24, is the law by which we have the authority, the right, and the power to slaughter the deeds of the flesh on a daily basis in Rom 8:13 as its rebellion arises in our daily thoughts.

13.  The finished work in Christ, which is aorist tense is necessary as the spiritual reality, the foundation upon which the sanctification of our minds and memories springs into daily experience. The death of Christ makes our death to sin real and functional, but the practice makes it habit. From that death we are raised with Christ to a life that is totally free from sin in reality, but our minds and memories need to choose to respond to that new life, which is the gift that the Lord waits for in those He has redeemed. He gave us the gift, but He wants us to become skilled in it as a choice.

14. So we need to see the power of the fact of Jesus crucifixion and resurrection upon our condition, as well as its power over our daily choices and thinking patterns. We DON’T have to be selfish. Sin always comes with this nagging insistence that appeals to the memories, the logic, the reasonable aspects of the old life. The life of Christ has no point of connection with that old system. It interprets everything it sees and hears against the truth of Rom 8:28-29.

15. So the act of crucifying sin in the body is simply applying the facts of the finished work of Christ to the complaints of the flesh to our choice.