TPW #14 | Every Man's Battles - Sexual Immorality, Pride, Selfishness - Part 3

The Danger of False Teachers and the Call to Warfare for Truth

Paul warns that evil men and imposters will grow worse and worse deceiving one another and being deceived. The reason Paul told Timothy that was because he needed to be ready to spend the balance of his life in uninterrupted warfare for the truth.

The most dangerous people alive today are always, always, always ordained ministers. They're the most dangerous people in the world, especially the ones that people think are Christians, who will sell you theological poison to the damnation of your soul.

Folks, I just want to warn you about something. Every heretic in the entire history of the church, without exception, has taught their heresy in the name of being faithful to Scripture. What happened when Jesus was nailed to the cross?

That was the day of wrath. That was the day of judgment. That is the day of final salvation. Brought back in time and applied to us once for all at the moment of our effectual calling when we repent and believe in our.

Unity to Christ.

Biblical Manhood, the Three Major Battles, and Hebrews 12

Welcome to the Protestant Witness. This is Pastor Patrick Hines of Bridwell Heights Presbyterian Church in lovely Kingsport, Tennessee, where the sun is shining and it is beautiful this morning. Today is part three of the biblical manhood series and this particular sermon is about every man's battles.

There's going to be three major points emphasized. Sexual immorality is the first one. The second one is pride and pride's ugly cousin anger and then selfishness. And so I hope that you will find this to be edifying and helpful and challenging.

So enjoy. Our gracious Heavenly Father, we are so thankful that in Christ we can approach you with great boldness and an absolute confidence that we've been adopted into your family as your children and that you bless us when we pray to you.

So Lord, hear us and help us understand your holy word, that we would receive its truth with faith and love, lay it up in our hearts and practice it in our lives. We ask in Christ's name. Amen. Please turn on your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 12.

Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews 12. This is biblical manhood part three and this is the last installment of that section of our series on family and I've titled this specific sermon, every man's battles. Hebrews chapter 12 verses 1 through 3.

This is God's Word. Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

For consider him who endured such hostility from sinners against himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. May God bless the reading of his holy word. We all only live one time and all of us have only a short window of time to glorify Christ in this dark and sinful world that we live in.

The time that we spend in the world that is still under the curse of sin is quite unique against the backdrop of eternity. When the believer is resurrected and glorified and brought into the glorious new heavens and the new earth, he will never experience the desire for or even the presence of sin any longer.

It will be a universe in which righteousness only dwells. It will be like being inside of joy and happiness. But before that great day of rejoicing inaugurates our eternity of blessedness and the full enjoying of God, we dwell in this hard and difficult world.

Jesus once preached and towards the end of the Sermon on the Mount of Matthew 7 13, he said, enter by the narrow gates. For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction and there are many who go in by it.

Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life and there are few who find it. The fools of this world walk in the easy and the broad way which leads to destruction and they have a lot of company there.

For there are many who care nothing about eternal things and who flatter themselves with vain thoughts of going to heaven. But the true disciple of Christ gladly obeys his master and he enters by the narrow gate and he walks the difficult path.

The unending fight with sin along with the mockery and scorn of fools is a tough.

Battle.

The battle against ourselves to be more like Christ is exhausting. Trying to understand and apply scripture faithfully to your theology and to your actions is a monumental task. It's the difficult way.

But with the help of God's grace and with Jesus as our focus, we can be godly people. It is possible to be a godly man and with the help of Christ, we will be. We will be. But as our text here before us in Hebrews 12 said,.

Therefore we also since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses and that's right after Hebrews 11 after all of the great believers of the Old Testament are named and spelled out Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Samson and all the rest of them.

By faith, by faith they did this. Therefore since we're surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, the exhortation here in our passage is lay aside every weight and lay aside the sin that so easily ensnares us so that we can run with endurance the race that is set before us.

What does God mean by every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us so that we can run with endurance.

The race?

Think about those of you who actually enjoy running or those of you who have run track or things like that. You wouldn't want to run holding a 25-pound dumbbell in each hand, would you? I mean you could, you could try it, but you wouldn't be able to go very fast.

Wouldn't you feel like Superman? Especially if you ran with those for a while and then dropped them and then suddenly you'd be taking off. That's the image that's being used here. That as Christians we've been called, we've been set apart, we're surrounded by great examples of godliness who have demonstrated it is possible to live a godly life.

But for so many men we have these weights that we carry around with us and so we can't run very fast and we don't.

Run with much endurance.

Because we're carrying these weights and the text here is saying let go of them, throw them aside, identify them and be done with them so that you can move faster so that you can be more godly. Those sad biblical phrases, every weight and the sin that so easily ensnares us, those sad biblical phrases that were breathed forth by the Spirit of God, they apply to every Christian who lives of both genders.

This isn't just about men, this part, but for men in particular there are specific battles which all of them will fight, there are specific weights and sins that so easily ensnare us and slow us down.

They easily set us back, they're the things that prevent us from being great and if we can learn to defeat them, especially younger guys, if you can defeat them now, defeat them while they're little saplings in the ground instead of a giant oak, you'll be off and running.

We can be men worth imitating, we can exert an influence for godliness, we can win souls to Christ in this world, we have this one opportunity to live the one life that God has given to us and we can be wise or fools, we can be humble, teachable and self-critical or we can be stubborn and prideful, foolish and unteachable.

I trust the men in this room who do know the Lord are serious in their desire to follow Him. If we see these weights attached to us and we see these sins that ensnare us, we want to cut the weights off and cast aside those sins which have ensnared us and if the things covered in this sermon leave you discouraged and down, I want to encourage you with something.

You will overcome these things in Christ. With men, change is hardly possible, but with God all things are possible. There are many sins that men struggle with which function as weights, as snares, which prevent them from moving forward and being what God designed them to be, but I'm going to focus on three which I think are the worst ones.

I've spelled them out there for you in your bulletin. There's an outline there, if you'd like to look at those real quick. The first is sexual immorality. The second is sort of a two-part one, pride and what I've called pride's ugly cousin, anger.

And third, selfishness. These are the three which ruin men. And please understand, brethren, that each one of these sins works slowly and incrementally in the lives of men. The great Thomas Brooks and his wonderful book, I would encourage you all to get it.

I think it's free online, actually. Thomas Brooks book, Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices. He said this, listen carefully to this, sin is of an encroaching nature. It creeps on the soul by degrees, step by step, until it has the soul to the very height of sin.

David gives way to his wandering eye and this led him to those foul sins that caused God to break his bones and to turn his day into night and to leave his soul in great darkness. Jacob and Peter and other saints have found this true by woeful experience, that the yielding to a lesser sin has been the ushering in of a greater.

Satan will first draw you to sit with the drunkard, then to sip with the drunkard, and then at last to be drunk with the drunkard. He will draw you at first to be unclean in your thoughts, and then to be unclean in your looks, and then to be unclean in your words, and to be unclean in your practices.

He will first draw you to look upon the piece of gold, then to desire the piece of gold, and then to handle the piece of gold, and then at last by wicked ways to steal the piece of gold. Though you run the hazard of losing God in your soul forever, as you may see in Gehazi, in Achan, in Judas, and many in our days, by all this we see that the yielding to lesser sins draws the soul to commit greater ones.

Ah, how many in these days have fallen, first to have low thoughts of scripture, and then to slight scripture, and then to make a nose of wax of scripture. Framework hypothesis, gap theory, day-age theory.

And then to cast off scripture, and then at last to advance and lift up themselves and their Christ dishonoring and soul damning opinions above scripture.

End quote.

It was hard to stop reading there, I could have just kept going. So let's look at some of these weights, let's look at these weights and these snares. First sexual immorality. First Thessalonians 4, 3 through 6, and Matthew 5, 27 to 30.

I'd like to walk through these. Turn in your Bible to First Thessalonians 4, 3 through 6. And as you're turning there, I'd like to just give a couple of introductory comments here. Human sexuality is a precious and special gift from God.

Sexuality is sacred in the sight of God, and we often speak of the sanctity of human life, and rightly so. And why do we do that? Why do we speak of the sanctity of human life? Because a human being is not in the same category as a dog, or a cat, or a flea.

Human beings are special, they're elevated, they're important to God because they bear his image and likeness in their very persons. There is something about a human that is very different from an animal.

To harm the image of God is to strike out at God himself, and it is the same with the sexual component of who we are as God's image bearers. Sexuality is a good gift from God, one that is to be enjoyed and celebrated by a man and a woman together in a marriage covenant.

But outside of that covenant, outside of that monogamous marriage relationship, sexuality is cursed. The word of God teaches us a very simple and important truth on this matter. Listen to it here in 1 Thessalonians 4.

For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you should abstain from sexual immorality. Okay, stop right there. That Greek word for abstain is the word apeko. It means none, none. So many people want to know, well how far can you go, where's the line?

The answer in scripture is none, zero. How much sexual immorality is allowed?

None, zero.

It is for marriage only, and anything sexual outside of marriage is a sin. The text is very clear. We are to abstain, not in moderation, abstain from it. That each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God, that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter because the Lord is the avenger of all such as we also forewarned you and testified.

And so the scripture forbids the expression of sexuality outside of marriage. Now turn to Matthew 5, 27 and following. Matthew chapter 5, verses 27 through 30. Matthew 5, 27 to 30. Verses 27 and 28 there in Matthew 5, Jesus taught, you have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not commit adultery.

But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Now notice that the centrality of the heart when it comes to what God looks at in us, he's looking at the heart that is vital to understand as a Christian.

You've got to know what that's talking about. Every time we see another news story about another well-known Christian leader who has fallen to this gross sin with no warning whatsoever, everyone thought the guy was godly or whatever.

We must remind ourselves of a simple truth, brothers. What we saw in that public disgrace and fall was simply the tail end of a long series of compromises in the heart. That biblical term for heart is the word cardia, where we get the word cardiologist, a heart doctor.

The term as Jesus is using it here means the heart, the inner man, the inner life. Jesus is saying adultery is not just physical, it's in the heart, it's in your inner life. The desires that go on behind the scenes in your mind, what we saw when you see the fall of public leaders like that, what you're seeing is in fact simply the tail end, the final manifestation of stuff going on in that individual's heart all along.

The simple fact is it's probably been there ever so carefully hidden and concealed. I dare say there's probably a lot of that here too. A lot of us have things that go on in our minds that have no business going on in our.

Minds.

And Jesus is saying that's where the battle is. It's there. It's in your heart. The word of God speaks repeatedly to this issue. Psalm 1914, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your side, oh Lord, my strength and redeemer.

Let the things I think about be acceptable to you. Psalm 90 verse 8, you have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your countenance. Romans 2, 16, Paul says in the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel.

And I want to point out something to you. One of the marks of conversion, one of the marks that you're genuinely a Christian is this, you will be troubled, genuinely troubled and disgusted by the things in your heart known only to God.

See the person who's not a believer, it's well, no one else can see it, so what does.

It matter?

But a true Christian knows God sees it all and so they're bothered when they know that their heart is lusting, when their heart is sinning against God in that way. You will be troubled and grieved by that which no other living person has ever seen, but only you and God can see it.

Hebrews 4, 13 says, and there is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. And while all men know this is true in the deepest part of who they are, many find a vain comfort in the fact that they know that no other man can see their hearts and they will lie to others and to themselves regarding such things.

Jesus is pointing out here that the law of God requires inward conformity, not just outward conformity and I dare say that there are a lot of guys here in this room right now who have never physically committed adultery against their wives, but they have committed adultery in their hearts, in their minds, in the inner man.

And Jesus is clear about how to fight this war in the heart. Look at verses 29 through 30. Here's how you fight it. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you for it is more profitable that one of your members perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell.

And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell. Our Lord's advice is pretty startling, isn't it?

If you know what the things are that cause the sin in your life, Jesus's orders are eradicate.

Them.

Obviously, he's not talking about literally ripping your eyes out and cutting your hands.

Off.

He is, however, speaking of ridding yourselves of things like internet access, cable television, driving down certain roads that have bad stores on them. I once heard a pastor share a story about a young Christian man who had a real problem with going into bad stores and looking at things in these stores.

He shouldn't be looking.

At.

And this young man told the pastor, yeah, every time I walk down that street coming home, I'm just lured right into that place. It's like the sirens are calling me. And the pastor said, have you ever thought about taking a different route home?

Now you have to go to seminary to be that smart. When someone comes to me and wants me to cure them of alcohol addiction or something, the first thing I tell them is, you want me to cure you of alcoholism?

First, stop drinking. I had to take 12 seminary courses to know that one too.

Do you hear our Lord's words here?

He's saying, get rid of it. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. What is the thing that is causing your sin? Pluck it out and cast it from you. Cut it off and cast it from you. People so often complain when they are given good pastoral advice.

Get rid of the laptop.

Get rid of your internet subscription. Call the cable company and cancel all your TV service.

Get rid of the beer.

Get rid of the drugs. Get rid of all of it. And they talk about how inconvenient that's going to be.

I pay all my bills over internet banking.

I have to have the internet. I watch a lot of educational stuff on the History Channel. I have to have cable. I'm just using my Christian liberty to have a few beers. Don't give me this legalism stuff.

But do you hear what Jesus' illustrations here are getting at? It's better to be inconvenienced and be holy. That's the point. He's saying, it's better to have one eye. It's better to have one hand. Think about how inconvenient your life would be with one eye or one hand.

How hard that would be. He says, it is more profitable for you that one of your members, one part or piece of your body, perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell. Yeah, not having an eye would be pretty inconvenient.

But it's worth that inconvenience to stay holy. That's how important holiness is. Yeah, not having one of your hands would be pretty inconvenient. But it's worth that inconvenience to stay holy in this area.

What's Jesus' point here? Man, you've got to be serious and radical about avoiding this sin. Brothers, if you are playing with this kind of sin, I'd like to remind you of what you already know if you're a Christian, Proverbs 6, 27, and 28.

Can a man take fire to his bosom and his clothes not be burned? Can one walk on hot coals and his feet not be seared? Sadly, for some men, they've been playing with this fire for so long, they can't feel a thing anymore.

They sleep on a bed of hot coals, and it doesn't even hurt them. So deep are those calluses. Brothers, every time we give in to this sin, it's like one more layer of callus over the heart. And when that which used to startle and frighten us no longer does so, it is because we are callous and indifferent.

And may the living Christ strike us out of our folly, if that's the case. So my final application of point one is it's time to get radical. It's time to get inconvenient. It's time to learn to live missing one eye and missing one hand.

Jesus taught it's worth it. He said it is better to go through life maimed than to have your whole body intact and go to hell. So brothers, if there are things you've tolerated in this area of your life, get rid of them.

And remember that the blood of Christ is sufficient to cleanse us from all unrighteousness and to empower us to boldly do battle against such things, and in the power of his might, to defeat them. How can we live and communicate the joy and love of Christ if our minds are constantly in the sewer?

You have a choice, men. We have a choice. I heard John MacArthur tell a story that was just devastating, just startling to hear, and that's why I told the story. He was visiting a member of his congregation on his deathbed.

The man was 78 years old, and Dr. MacArthur asked him if he was ready to die and face God, and the man said he was. He believed and trusted in Christ, alone for salvation. He was confident that he was forgiven and justified by the blood and righteousness of Christ.

But then Dr. MacArthur said the man suddenly had a serious change in his demeanor and began to cry. MacArthur was taken aback by that, and the man said, I just wish I could have rid myself of my love for pornography.

MacArthur said he was taken aback by that admission, by this man just a few days from eternity. The guy died just a couple days later. And the man said, I just was never able to get that under control.

Brothers, this is one of the sins that absolutely kills men, and kills their marriages, and kills their effectiveness for Christ.

In the world.

It is one of the battles that destroys joy, it stunts growth, and it turns one's heart into a putrid and sour gray. And brothers, we don't want to be that. God has called us to be at peace. God has called us to purity.

And with the help of his grace and power, you don't have to be a slave to this sin. Secondly, pride, and pride's ugly cousin, anger. Turn to Proverbs chapter 8, verse 13 there in your Bible. Proverbs 8, 13.

Proverbs 8, verse 13. Very, very clear text about pride. Pride, Proverbs 8, 13, Proverbs 8, 13, the word of God says, the fear of the Lord is to hate evil, pride, and arrogance, and the evil way, and the perverse mouth I hate.

And then three other times in scripture, the scripture tells us God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. C .S. Lewis wrote what I think is a wonderful short essay on pride.

I wanted to read a paragraph of it to you. Lewis says, quote, there is one vice which no man in the world is free from, which everyone loathes when he sees it in someone else, and of which hardly any people except Christians ever imagine that they are guilty of themselves.

I have heard people admit that they are bad tempered, or that they cannot keep their head about girls or drink, or even that they are cowards. I do not think I have ever heard anyone who was not a Christian accuse himself of this vice.

And at the same time, I have very seldom met anyone who was not a Christian who showed the slightest mercy to it in others. There is no fault that makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves.

The more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others. The vice I am talking of is pride or self-conceit. And the virtue opposite to it in Christian morals is called humility. According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is pride.

Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that are mere flea bites in comparison. It was through pride that the devil became the devil. Pride leads to every other vice. It is the complete anti-God state of mind," end quote.

You may recall from last week in Proverbs 6 .16 that the first sin which the Lord hates, which is an abomination to him, is a proud look. God detests pride and arrogance in men. If you want to assure yourself and all the world that you are an enemy to your creator, be a proud and arrogant man.

Be proud and haughty about who and what you are. Advertise and parade about for the world your accomplishments, your great learning, your beauty. All who do such can know for sure that God is their sworn enemy.

Why?

Because they insist on competing with his right to have all worship, praise, honor, and adoration given to him alone. Pride is, without question, one of the most irrational and foolish parts of being a sinner.

We have nothing that was not sovereignly given to us by God. We are nothing that was not sovereignly given to us by God. And yet we boast and glory as if we can take credit for those things. The proud man is the father of fools.

Pride is an abomination to God. And yet men have a mighty struggle with it. And as Lewis said, it is loathsome when you see it. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others. He also said this.

Listen to these couple sentences. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next guy. It is the comparison that makes you proud, the pleasure of being above the rest.

Once the element of competition is gone, pride is gone,.

End quote.

And thus, what is the source of pride in the heart of man? It is the desire to be and to appear to be better than other people. Such ought to be vile to the Christian. And yet this filthy desire persists in us.

As I said three times in scripture, Proverbs 3 .34, James 4 .6, and 1 Peter 5 .5, God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. And then a third time, the great remedy to pride is to turn your proud eyes to Christ.

Remember his infinite step from glory to humility for us and for our salvation. Paul in Philippians chapter two said in verse five, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, did not consider it to be robbery, to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bond servant and coming in the likeness of men and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

Meditate upon passages like that. Let that same mind be in you that was in Christ when he stepped out of heavenly glory into the realms of sin below. In Psalm 103 .14, the scripture says, for he knows our frame, he remembers that we are dust.

As for man, his days are like grass and as a flower of the field, so he flourishes. For the wind passes over and it is gone and its place remembers it no more. So my final application of pride and anger to you is this.

When your heart begins to swell with pride and every man in here knows, if they're good at anything, exactly what that means. When your head begins to swell with pride, remind yourself how foolish that is.

Remind yourself of what you are, dust. Remind yourself of what you will be in a hundred years, dead in the ground. Man exists for the glory of Christ, not himself. We are here sincerely and truly, created, put here by God to bring recognition and praise to someone else, not ourselves.

It is the ultimate denial of the very purpose for which we exist when our heads are swelled with pride. Isn't it so sad that we're like that? Paul said in 1 Corinthians 4 .7, for who makes you differ from one another?

And what do you have that you did not receive? Now, if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it? Third, selfishness. Third this morning, selfishness. Turn to James 3, if you would.

James 3 .14 and following. James 3 .14. James 3 .14 -16. James 3 .14 -16. The scripture says, but if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic.

For where envy and self-seeking exists, confusion and every evil thing are there. A couple more passages, Philippians 2 .3. I'll just read these to you. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than himself.

And then one more, Jesus' own beautiful words in Luke 9 .23. If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.

What is the theme of all those passages? Selfishness, conceit, selfish ambition, a desire to save your life, a desire to be self-directed and not submissive to the Lord. That is not what God has called us to be.

He has called us to lay those things aside. The consistent call of the word of God to the converted man and disciple of Christ is this. You must not be selfish any longer. You must not be self-seeking any longer.

You must not have selfish ambition to further and glorify your own name anymore. You must die to yourself and to your selfish desires. The great Jonathan Edwards spoke at length about himself before he was converted and talked about how prideful he was.

He could see his unique intellectual gifts. I mean, this guy is identified by the Encyclopedia Britannica today as the keenest scholar ever produced on American soil.

To this day.

He could see it when he was a teenager that he was a genius.

He knew he was.

And he knew he was an excellent writer. And he was gonna glorify himself in his name. And then when he was converted, he looked at that sinful tendency in himself and described it as evil, infinite upon infinite upon infinite.

It was vile, evil in the sight of God to be that way. And that's what we have to fight against, brothers. That's the call of the word of God. Die to yourself and your selfish ambitions, selfish desires.

The call of Christ to the man of God is to repent, believe in Jesus and follow him. To let go of the selfish desires. To let go of the self-conceit, the selfish ambition. The mark of a man who really does this, please hear me, is that he is characterized, he is not characterized by selfishness in his desires, actions or priorities.

He puts the needs and desires of others before his own. If he is single, he does this with his parents, with his siblings, with his friends, with his church family. Their needs come first. Their happiness is more important than his.

If he's married, he is devoted to studying his wife in order to find out how to make her happy. He lays aside spending excessive time on his hobbies and his other interests, and he focuses his attention on her.

Now there's going to be at least one whole sermon on being a biblical husband, but perhaps more than any other sin in married life, selfishness is at the heart of all marital issues. Why do women feel neglected and unloved?

Because their husbands are selfish. They don't care as much about making their wife happy as they care about doing all the other things they want to do with their time. And this is why the Word of God calls, listen, it calls in James 3, 14 -16, in case you didn't catch it, it calls self-seeking demonic.