Resolved Notes Session 1: Rick Holland (The Enemy is You)

Resolved Conference: June 12, 2009
Session One: Friday Night
The Enemy is You (1st Peter 2:11-12)
Rick Holland

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1st Peter 2:11-12. I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the Pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

Definition of Sin: Anything done, spoken, thought, or imagined that is not in complete conformity with God.
Sin does not come from the devil. The goal of parenting is not to keep children pure (They are already messed up) the goal of parenting is to show them their sin and there hope in Christ.

All of us seem to humanize God and elevate ourselves, and thus minimize sin.

“Israel’s sin was saying, “God is just like us”.

What are the Sins you’re wrestling with?

1st Rational: Christian citizenship demands you join the fight. (We Belong to another world)

• Does spiritual truth trigger a response to God.
  • Romans 12: 1
• You are a stranger to this planet because our citizen ship is in Heaven.
  • What does a man get by gaining the whole world and forfeiting his soul.
• Martin Luther understood sin
  • Conduct yourselves as those who are no longer citizens of this world, for your possessions lie not on this earth but in heaven and although you may have lost all temporal goods but have Christ.
    • (In Heaven we are citizens; on earth we are pilgrims and guests.) – Martin Luther
• Mathew: Sermon of the Mount: Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees, you cannot go to heaven.

• Abstain from fleshly lusts that wage war against the soul.
  • Fleshly Lusts: A strong desire to please the visceral desires of the flesh.
  • “These lusts try to make the believer useless for God.
    • Romans:
• John Owen and J.C. Rile.
  • John Owen: There are two things that are suited to humble the souls of man. They are first, a due consideration of God, and then of themselves. Of God, in his greatness, glory, holiness, power, Majesty, and authority; of ourselves, the sin in our lives.
    • The whole purpose of Reformed theology is to get us engaged in the war against our own flesh
  • John Owen: Labor to know your own frame and temper; what spirit you are of, what associates in your heart Satan has; where corruption is Strong, where grace is weak; what stronghold lust has in your natural constitution.
  • J.C. Rile: Unless you really know the character of your own heart, you will never value the gospel as you ought, you will never love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. (Terribly black must be that guild that nothing but the blood of Jesus Christ can bring satisfaction.
• When we question our salvation because of a sin we struggle with; we doubt the sufficiency of the cross.
  • However, you must take sin seriously, you must deal with the worst of yourself.
    • These lusts of deceit are telling you that if you fulfill this lust you will be happy.
      • The problem: its temporary.
    • Do you mortify? Do you make it your daily work? Be always at it while you live, Cease note a day from this work. Be killing sin or it will be killing you!. – John Owen
      • Let no man think to kill sin with a few, easy, or gentle strokes. He who hath once smitten a serpent, if he follow not on his blow until it be slain.
      • (Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no strategy for the lusts of the flesh.) Pursue Christ with such vigor that the sin stops.

• Live such good lives among the pagans that though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
  • (If you are not serious about Sin, why should they think that your God is serious about Sin!)
  • The greatest threat to Christianity is you.
    • Have you identified what associates Satan has in your heart.
      • (I’m running from the clothes I’m wearing)