Last week my wife and I were talking about the ongoing fight against sin in the Christian life and the common tendencies towards laziness or resignation in the pursuit of holiness. She reminded me of this jam by our friends at 10:31 Sermon Jams. This jam, titled War, originates from John Piper’s sermon on Romans 8:10-17. Piper’s ministry will always be equated in my mind with thunder:
“I hear so many Christians murmuring about their imperfections and their failures and their addictions and their short-comings. And I see so little war! ‘Murmur, murmur, murmur… Why am I this way?’ MAKE WAR!”
Listen here:
—————–
Ed Welch: “There is a mean streak to authentic self-control. Self-control is not for the timid. When we want to grow in it, not only do we nurture an exuberance for Jesus Christ, we also demand of ourselves a hatred for sin. The only possible attitude toward out-of-control desire is a declaration of all-out war. There is something about war that sharpens the senses. You hear a twig snap or the rustling of leaves and you are in attack mode. Someone coughs and you are ready to pull the trigger. Even after days of little or no sleep, war keeps us vigilant.”
Tony Reinke 
That’s right Tony.
And here’s a little honey from Bounds to sweeten these thoughts even more:
“Hurried devotions make weak faith, feeble convictions, questionable piety. To be little with God is to be little for God…A holy life would not be so rare or so difficult a thing if our devotions were not so short or hurried…Our ability to stay with God in our closet measures our ability to stay with God out of the closet…To pray is the greatest thing we can do: and to do it well there must be calmness, time, and deliberation…Who prays as Jacob prayed–till he is crowned as a prevailing, princely intercessor? There are plenty of preachers who will preach and deliver great and eloquent addresses on the need of revival and the spread of the kingdom of God, but not many there are who will do that without which all preaching and organizing are worse than vain–pray.” E.M. Bounds,*Preacher and Prayer*
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[…] October 7, 2008 by Rachael Make war! […]
Excellent. But how does one make war?
T, that would include (1) discovering where you struggle with sin. It’s helpful to ask your pastor, spouse and biblically-discerning friends for an accurate assessment of where you struggle with sin. Read Jerry Bridges’s book, Acceptable Sins, if you want a nice picture of the scope of the more “moderate” sins. (2) Apply biblical truth to the sin struggles. For me, self-discipline is the offensive I wage in my war against sinful selfishness. For example 1 Corinthians 9:27 has become especially important in my life.
Make sense? Thanks for asking.
Tony
At the risk of sounding hopelessly pietistic, I think Edward M. Bounds is right: to make war we must pray. It it what our Lord did. It is what the apostles did. It is what the stalwarts of the faith did.
Who spends long hours on his knees anymore, like Brainerd, in such an agony of the spirit that he perspires as he pursues the grace of God for his life and for those around him?
We need a new generation of Brainerds.
Little prayer, little holiness.
TB
God-fearing, biblically-discerning friends are essential to this struggle:
Heb 3:13 “But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”
Making war happens both in the private wrestlings with God and the community exhortations.
T
That’s right Tony, and how perfectly Tolkienesque: “there is hope as long as the fellowship remains true”.
[…] October 11, 2008 by Rachael Make war! […]