Silent Killers
Have you ever had trouble with termites?
We once had a house that had some termite damage. Here’s the problem with termites, they are silent killers. They do most of their damage when no one is looking. And if they go unchecked they can literally destroy a house.
I think this is the problem we face when it comes to the secret sin in our lives.
Things like greed, lust, and sexual sin are silent killers. They are not lazy. They will do whatever it takes to get to you. They do their damage when no one is looking. And, if they go unchecked, they can literally destroy our lives.
The problem is, these sins have become NORMAL in our world.
GREED…
We live in a world where we want what we want and we want it now, and many of us have the ability to get what we want when we want it. This is NORMAL.
We don’t call it greed. But greed by definition is the selfish and excessive desire for more of something than is needed.
We always want more. Enough is never enough. I mean, let’s be honest, when was the last time you DIDN’T click “Buy Now” on Amazon? More often than not, we search for what we want and within 2 days there’s a box by our front door with our name on it. We wouldn’t call ourselves greedy, but at what point is our obsession with buying what we want when we want it “selfish and excessive?”
Countless people are living in debt because they can’t stop clicking “Buy Now.” And even those who can afford it are becoming addicted to more. Because enough is never enough.
Greed… especially in our culture today, is a silent killer. It goes unnoticed. And left unchecked, it can destroy our lives.
SEXUAL SIN…
We live in a world where lust and sexual sin are NORMAL. In fact, we don’t even see lust or sexual sin as sin anymore. We entertain ourselves with tv, movies, and music that treat sex like it’s unimportant and trite. And that’s not to mention that pornography may be the fastest growing addiction not only in America but in the world.
According to an annual report recently released by one pornographic website that I’ll leave unnamed, this ONE website had 81 MILLION daily average visits. According to their data, they had over the course of 1 year, 50,000 searches per minute, which is 800 searches per second.
Think about that… that’s just 1 pornographic website that released their analytics.
That same sight had over 4 million videos uploaded to their site that same year. That’s 595,482 hours of pornographic video. So if you sat down to watch all of that, which I DO NOT suggest, it would take you 68 YEARS!
In 1 year, 3,732 Petabytes were transferred from their site. That’s 118 GB per second. That’s enough data to fill every iPhone currently in use around the world.
And do you know what day of the week has the highest amount of traffic? Sunday!
I know that typically we think of this as just a problem for men, but according to their report, 26% of their traffic is from women.
Pornography… especially in our culture today, it’s a silent killer. It goes unnoticed. And left unchecked, it can destroy our lives.
And we haven’t even talked about the realities of Sexual Harassment, Sexual Abuse, Child Pornography, the #MeToo movement, sex trade, and all the other ways sexual sin permeates our culture and our lives.
As a church, our silence doesn’t solve the problem. Pretending it’s not a problem doesn’t mean it’s not a problem. The false notion that NOBODY struggles ignores the truth that EVERYBODY struggles.
The problem is, we live in a broken and fallen world. Because of that, we still have the temptations and the desire to sin.
How to kill the thing that is killing you…
So Paul says in Colossians 3.5-10,
So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you.
Paul says you have to put these things to death. The problem that I believe so many of us face is that we don’t do this. We let these desires live. And when we let them LIVE we let them LURK.
Paul says, this is HOW you kill it…
Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires. Don’t be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world.
So when it comes to sexual sin, lust, greed, and evil desires, Paul says you kill it by having nothing to do with it!
And here’s the move that Paul makes that I think is so helpful for us. He names them. He identifies them. And this may be the first thing that you need to do today. Because until you name what is lurking within you, until you identify what it is that is separating you from God and you from others, you can’t defeat it. You can’t overcome it. And as long as it has a hold on you that sin, whatever it is, will do what sin does.
Sin always separates people from God and sin always separates people from people.
So Paul says, put those things to death. Because you can’t build the life God is calling you to build in the shadows.
A New Nature, A New Pursuit
Instead of pursuing the things that are literally destroying our lives, we have a better pursuit. Paul says it this way…
Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him.
This is what happens when you pursue Jesus. You become renewed. You come to know God and you become like JESUS. This is our goal. Our highest pursuit.
When you choose daily to put on Christ, to know God and become like Jesus, you will be renewed daily and transformed daily into his image.
It’s all about our pursuit.
And Paul says, stop pursuing greed, lust, sexual sin, and all those other evil desires. INSTEAD… PURSUE GOD. PURSUE BECOMING LIKE CHRIST!
Why? Because greed, lust, and sexual sin are NORMAL in our world today. But NORMAL isn’t working. Maybe, just maybe, Jesus and the LIFE He offers is what the world is really looking for. Maybe it’s time to live different.
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