On Sin, Vulnerability, and Victory
In this episode, we reflect on temptation, holiness, and what real victory over sin looks like. Through Scripture and honest reflection, we explore obedience, vulnerability, and dependence on God’s Word, challenging the lie that consistent victory is impossible.
If we're being honest, many times we don't necessarily hate
sin. We actually hate how sin makes
us feel about ourselves. We hate the shame that comes
with it. We hate the failure.
We hate the disappointment that comes with committing a sin that
we do not want to commit. But the question is, should we
grieve sin because it wounds our pride or because it's grieves
good? Because no matter how many tips
or tricks we learn, we'll keep losing the same battles if our
motivation to not sin is to feel good about ourselves.
Hi, welcome. Welcome back to the Rooted
podcasts. Here, timeless biblical truth is
brought to you in a way that is true, that's clear, authentic,
yet powerful. So how are you doing?
How have you been? I know it's been a while.
I think 2 weeks. I'm not sure the exact duration,
but yeah, I think it's two weeks.
Life has been busy or busier recently.
I'm actually going for my. I think by the time this gets to
you, I'll already be at the NYC orientation camp.
Promises to be interesting. I will update you on how that
goes when I can. Yeah.
Also, this is random, but before I was about to record this
episode, I was listening to music and I was just thinking
about how music is such a beautiful thing.
And this is, this is one of the ways by which God blessed us.
You think about music, you listen to music and you just
tell that God is good. Like such a creation had to have
come from a good God. You can just listen to a song
and it just takes you to such a lovely place.
So yeah, that's pretty much it's.
Anyway, today's episode. A lot of times when we talk
about temptation and victory, we've seen what we really mean
or what image we really have in our mind without realizing.
It's most times it's personal success.
So we measure victory by how many days we've gone without
failing or without falling, how disciplined we feel, or how
strong we look to ourselves and to others.
And when we feel the thing that hurts us the most is often not
that God was grieved, but that we didn't live up to our own
expectations. But Scripture presents victory
in a very different way. Victory over sin is not first
about how powerful or consistent we are.
It's about our obedience to God. Jesus was saying in John 14
verse 15. I remember the first time I
heard this, it was actually my aunt that was I.
I followed her to a church in a remote area and I don't know
what I didn't even know what I was paying attention to teaching
both. I remember hearing I called this
verse John 1415. If you love me, you keep my
commandments and he stuck with me.
This was over five years ago. I don't think I was even taking
my walk with God that seriously then, but all I know is it stuck
with me. But anyway, point is, obedience
is supposed to be the focus. So what we're actually striving
for is obedience. And when obedience becomes the
aim, victory becomes a result. It becomes the fruit of our
obedience to God. Scripture even tells us to obey
better than sacrifice. Just saying.
So sometimes the language of victory version can actually
'cause more harm than good, or it can subtly make us feel like
we've defeated something by our own strength, like David's
standing over Goliath. I think that gives the best
picture. But the Bible is clear that any
virtual experience cannot be self generated.
It is not self generated. Paul was telling us in first
Corinthians 15 it was the same or not us.
It was talking to the Corinthian church, but by extension
believers. And he was saying thanks be to
God who gives us victory through Jesus Christ and passes on
through Jesus Christ. So even our ability to obey is
empowered by God's grace. So an issue is not where that
victory is real, because it is. The issue is how we view it, how
we understand it. If we are more focused on how
failure makes us look or how it makes us feel than on how sin
grieves God. And our view of victory is still
self-centered, even if it seems spiritual.
This self centeredness is also why we approach sins
selectively. Sometimes we identify a
particular struggle, the one that feels most obvious, most
embarrassing, or in some case destructive, like, oh, these
things are really destroying the future.
I need to get rid of it. And things like that are we
poured all our efforts into it and I can see some of these
things because I've been there. Basically, I'm a work in
progress, so I can relate to everything I'm saying.
Everything I'm saying is something that I'm currently
learning and I'm currently dealing with as well.
But basically, we focus on the most obvious or the most
pressing issue. But that means in doing so, we
sometimes excuse other things or we compromise on other things.
So for example, we might feel devastated by lusts, but we're
casual about pride or gossip. We repent deeply over impurity,
but we just shrug us dishonesty or bitterness.
And So what we need to understand is that sin does not
all of a sudden lose its distaste or displeasure to God.
He does not lose it's I don't know what word to use, but it
doesn't only so didn't become less of sin because we rank it
differently. Scripture says in I think James,
yeah, he was saying whoever keeps the whole love blood fails
in one point has become guilty of all of it.
So holiness is not about managing 1 weakness.
It's it's, it's more like you're aligning your whole life to the
whole will of God. So anything that does not please
him matters, even if he feels small to you.
You are not the skill. Other people's views or
perspectives are not the skill. What is the skill or who
determines the skill is called So when we fail, and we will all
have moments when we fail or have moments when we fail, many
of us then begin to turn inward instead of upward.
This is another hint that you are more self-centered than God
centered as regards your approach to victory version or
dealing with temptations. But point is, whenever you have
those moments when you fall, you begin to turn inward instead of
upward. So it's like we become so
critical of ourselves. We get so angry, so annoyed as
ourselves, so frustrated with ourselves.
It's like you start replaying everything.
What could you have done better? In some occasions, maybe you
even speak harshly to yourself and in my scene like humility,
but it's really just another form of pride.
You're upset that you didn't perform well, not because you
wounded your relationship with God, not because you tampered
with it or tarnished it, but because of how you feel, how you
did not measure up, you did not meet that standard that you had
in mind. And so Scripture tells us
plainly that there is therefore now no condemnation to them who
are in Christ, but they're still wiling in condemnation.
And so while conviction is supposed to lead us back to God,
condemnation keeps us looking inward.
And the longer we stay there, the weaker we become because
really there's nothing edifying about being frustrated with
yourself. There's nothing edifying about
speaking harshly to yourself. It doesn't help you.
It certainly doesn't deal with the issue.
So it just makes you very kindly.
So this inward focus is such a is such a big issue.
It is such a big issue. It's pride, it's pride, it's
pride. And it's also what makes
vulnerability an issue. We know at the various
intellectual like borderline base, at the very least
intellectually we know that we need to reach out when we have
issues. This is like this is just a
normal human thing. Maybe you're at work, you don't
know something, you ask somebody, then let's now bring
it to Scripture. James again was saying confess
your sins to one another, pray for another, one another and
things like that. But when we have an issue, we
hesitate because of how afraid we are of how people will see
us. We are afraid of being seen as
weak or not perfect or just losing that image of strength or
spirituality that people have associated with us.
I think it's much more pressing in that situation.
You know, it's like I've already stood on the stage to talk about
God. I've already posted things on my
status about God. This is what my bio says.
How can I now go and tell someone that I am dealing with
this issue? And so we choose silence.
It's, it's, it's crazy. It's, it's, it's difficult,
like, and deep down, it's not as if we don't know that we're
supposed to reach out. But it's, it's tough.
It's tough. And the issue now is that the
fear of men sort of keeps us trapped.
You know, it ensnares us for lack of better terms.
And at the same time, there's another side to this whole thing
of dealing with temptations before we talk about how we
actually resolve them. There's another side to the
whole thing. One side is, oh, you know what?
You're so fixated on dealing with it.
The other side is total passiveness to the work of God.
So it's like in trying to emphasise the grace of God, we
come to believe that we have no part to play in our pursuit for
holiness, even though God commands it.
So it's like God is working. God is working in you both to
will and to dove. It's good pleasure and color
that you don't need to do anything.
Whereas Scripture tells us Scripture commands us to be
transformed by the renewing of your mind, which points to the
fact that there's intentionality involved in it.
But more than that, it gives the idea that is a recurring thing.
It is a regular thing. And this is because temptation
is recurring. So because temptation will
always come, renewal should also be a constant thing.
And this is what I'll bring just to our resolve.
This is why the Word of God is absolutely essential in the
fight against temptation. When Jesus was tempted in the
wilderness, he did not display a miraculous act of power.
He did not call on indios to his defence.
He quoted Scripture. He said man channel you by
breeding, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
Jesus showed us that victory by temptation is sustained by
internalized truth. You cannot rely on a word you
have not absorbed in a word you've not meditated on
something that's not become a part of you.
And this was why David the psalmist said, I have stored up
your word in my heart that I may not sin against you.
And this practice, mind you, this whole thing of holding the
word of God, Jesus modelled Jesus of course gave us that
example, but we see people even in the early church do it.
Many believers memorize large posts of scriptures because then
physical copies were not necessarily available like now.
They were very rare and a lot of times because of persecution and
things like that, they were confiscated.
So some early persons did not know when they would ever see a
Bible was like this like if they see is 1, they don't know they
don't know when next they might actually have access to so
different things. Church fathers so like they were
known for extensively memorizing Scripture, right?
Because they knew that their sustenance, their life was
dependent on this very thing. They understood something that
when temptation comes suddenly what you haven't stored
internally will not be available externally.
So for lack of better terms, you need to have a Bank of the word
of God within you. Again, you're not cramming it to
the intention that OK, you know what?
Once ambition comes, I can, you know, begin to wage or.
But yeah, actually memorize and meditating because this is the
very thing that liberates you. This is the very thing that will
save you. Paul.
It's in the Word of God that we see.
Paul was speaking to Roman church and he tells them
romantics that consider yourselves dead to sin.
Our knowledge or the realization that we are there to sin comes
from the Word of God. Of course, it is the Spirit of
God that will actually do a work in our hearts, but it's the Word
of God that reveals it to us. And so we must trust the Word of
God. We must hold on to it.
The Word of God says walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill
the loss of the flesh. We trust it and we hold on to
it. The Word of God says, oh, man
shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds
from the mouth of God. The Word of God says that we
have victory in Christ, that we've overcome the word, we hold
on to it. And finally, there's one more
lie that needs to be confronted as regards this whole thing of
vulnerability, temptation and victory.
And it's delighted at consistent victory is impossible.
Many believers, myself inclusive, have been at stages
in their life or in our lives. We've been at stages where we
expect failure subconsciously or very certainly.
We expect failure even after praying for victory version.
So we assume that a relapse is inevitable.
We can go for long streaks, but eventually, just eventually
there's going to be that slack off.
And I believe that life was so long.
I knew intellectually speaking or days of our memory that
Christ has given us victory. But again, subconsciously I was
preparing myself that at some point I will fall and then I'll
have to go back to the like I was gingering myself up that
when I fall, if I'm just go back to God and things like that.
But Scripture says sin will no longer have dominion value.
And God is faithful. He will not let you to be
tempted beyond your ability, but with every temptation he
provides a way out. So this is the word of God
telling us that it is possible. It is possible to live a life of
consistent victory where temptations will still come, but
you don't give in and the next time it comes, you still don't
give in and you live your life on like that.
Am I saying that, oh, you're going to attain seamless
perfection? No, I didn't be.
We all still make mistakes, but I'm speaking particularly to the
context of maybe there's a struggle that you have a
particular advice that you're dealing with that it's like
every two market days, you know, or every now and then there's
just a kind of pattern of that particular traits.
It is possible to live a life of consistent victory.
So this is not a call or this episode is not saying you should
be perfect. It's, it's a call to obedience,
to dependence, absolute and utter dependence on God, to
humility, to a life that is shaped and sustained by the word
of God, to a life of vulnerability.
Because really, do you want to prioritize how people will see
you more than whether what you're doing grieves God?
So again, a life of humility, a life of vulnerability.
Scripture assures us that the same God who calls us to
holiness is the one who keeps us.
Jude one lessons for now unto him that is able to keep you
from falling and present you blameless to himself.
That's the God that we serve. So I really hope this episode
helped you. I hope it shed light on
something. I hope it reminded you maybe of
something you had forgotten. I don't.
I just hope it edifies you. I hope it exerts you.
I hope it gives you hope or you need hope.
I hope it gives you clarity where you need clarity.
I hope it gives you strength where you need strength.
Because I know thinking about all of these things, I was
grateful to God for his strength, for his help, for his
clarity and thinking about him. I was just thanking God looking
at scripture, reading books that talk about holiness, like when I
began to understand a lot of these things better, I was
really beautiful to God. And and I was like, I'm going to
share this. I'm going to share this.
And this is me sharing it too. Yeah.
I hope this was a good episode. I hope you enjoyed listening.
Thank you for listening this far.
I love you so much. All right, if you have feedback
for me, please, by all means let me know, right?
If you can reach me on IDKJ dot FME Fiishman X only be rights or
if you have my ersonal number, you can reach out to me
whichever I want. O yeah, take care of yourself,
stay rooted. Bye.
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