We are raising children in a world in which sixty-two percent of American pastors have a syncretistic worldview. This means there are more pastors with a mixture of a secular and Christian worldview than there are pastors who hold to traditional, biblical Christianity. It was pastors who enabled the success of the Revoice movement, which is responsible for grooming young men and women into embracing a gay identity within Christianity. And currently, there is a dwindling confidence in pastors’ spiritual credibility. If your family is under the authority of a faithful church that teaches you to kill sin, be grateful.
Now more than ever, the American church is in desperate need of pastors who are ready to address a simple fact: the church has come to despise holiness. Yes, the church at large seems fond of God’s love and goodness, but holiness leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.
The Call to Holiness
Many fear pursuing holiness will make us unrelatable, robotic, and judgy. Yet, the most sobering statement of 1 John 2:1–6 is that the first and primary exhortation is to stop sinning. Yes, if we do sin, we have an Advocate. But John wrote his epistle principally so that his people “may not sin.”
When we read popular Christian books on matters of holiness, many books—although decrying the obvious transgressions against God—give permission to still retain at least some sin. For instance, when 1 Timothy 2:12 forbids women “to usurp authority over a man” in the church, we roll out our feminist authors to help us see that “authority” is misunderstood by conservatives. When Romans 1:26–27 speaks of the sin of homosexuality and its “vile affections,” we roll out our same-sex-attracted authors to help us see that only the act of sodomy is a sin, not the attraction part.
The Lost Skill of Hating and Killing Sin
American families are losing the skill of hating and killing. We do not hate sin as God does, so we do not kill it. We might condemn parts of it—but hating and killing it goes too far. Yet, God says He hates the work of those who sin (Ps. 101:3; 119:104). He hates abominations (Prov. 6:16–19; Jer. 44:4). He hates the planning of evil (Zech. 8:17). And God has instructed us to hate evil (Ps. 97:10), even abhor it (Rom. 12:9).
Killing sin is commanded in Colossians 3:5. When our minds are set on things above, we are to kill within us what is earthly—immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed. In fact, Christ tells us that if our eye causes us to sin, we should “tear it out and throw it away” (Matt. 5:29). Killing sin is a reframing of the mind toward God’s heavenly reality (Col. 3:2; Rom. 12:2). It is the vicious removal of anything in our world that leads us to sin. Killing sin must be as intentional as killing anything else. It must be planned and practiced, utilizing the right tools and remaining laser-focused to get the job done fully. However, unlike anything else, sin comes back. Killing sin is a work that must be done daily, so Paul commands us, “Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.” (1 Cor. 16:13).
A Confused Worldview
Our worldview is confused, so our compassion has become confused. In attempting to show compassion for those who are tangled up in sin, we have begun showing compassion for sin itself. As my pastor once stated, “When we forget the sinfulness of sin and God’s own hatred for it, we forget the cost of sin for the Son of God.”
How can we kill what we have become accustomed to? How can we assassinate that which we have been pining after? We need a biblical worldview of holiness. The puritan John Owen confronts us, “Do you mortify; do you make it your daily work; be always at it while you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you!”
Parents, do not give up. Do not give in. Do not go gently into the night. Fight for holiness in your own heart (1 Pet. 3:15) and in the hearts of your family (Deut. 6:4–9). Fight because you love God. Fight because you love your family. Turn your family into killers of sin, or it will be killing them. Read God’s Word and perhaps supplement that reading with one of these books:
- Holiness by J. C. Ryle
- Temptation and Sin by John Owen
- The Holiness of God by R. C. Sproul
- A Radical, Comprehensive Call to Holiness by Joel R. Beeke and Michael P. V. Barrett