The following article is an excerpt from a 2008 sermon given by Cole Brown.
Imagine that someone is trying to kill you right now. Again and again they strike you with blow after blow after blow. With each hit you grow weaker and weaker. With each hit you find it harder and harder to fight back. You can feel your life slipping away. There is no question they are going to kill you…unless you kill them first. What would you do? Would you just give up and accept death? Or would you use whatever strength you had left to fight for your life?
These are not hypothetical questions because this is not a hypothetical situation. This is real life. This is what you experience everyday. Sin is trying to kill you right now. Again and again sin strikes you with blow after blow after blow. With each hit you grow weaker and weaker. With each hit you find it harder and harder to fight back. You can feel your life slipping away. There is no question that sin will always be killing you unless you are always killing sin.
So which is it for you? Is sin killing you? Or are you killing sin? Because God loves you he commands you to actively kill sin. The Bible calls this “mortification.” How you understand mortification, what you believe about mortification, and how you approach mortification will impact how you think, feel, and live everyday. But, more than that, it will determine whether you find victory or defeat in the war that is constantly being waged inside of you. A war of life and death. The stakes are high. In this series we will look to the Scriptures to answer these high-stake questions about mortification: What is it? Why should we do it? How should we do it? What does progress look like? And where do we get it wrong?
Mortification – What is It?
We’ll start at the beginning. God calls us to mortify sin in our lives. But what does that mean? What is mortification? Mortification is the process of putting to death. When God commands us to mortify sin in our lives he is calling us to put the sin in our lives to death. He is commanding us to actively destroy the life, vigor, strength, power, and influence of sin in our lives.
If you understand sin then you know just how daunting a task this is. Sin is not  just a behavior problem that we can simply solve by changing our behavior. Sin is first and foremost a worship problem. And every one of us is born into this condition. We are born idolaters. We are born giving our hearts, our minds, and our bodies to created things instead of to the Creator of all things. We are born slaves to sin. As slaves to sin we don’t have the desire to stop serving sin and we don’t have the power to stop serving sin if we wanted to.
This is why God doesn’t give the command to mortify sin to the non-Christian. He doesn’t give this command to the non-Christian because the non-Christian does not want to fight against sin and could not fight against sin if she wanted to. God gives the command to mortify sin to the Christian. The Christian can fight against sin and wants to fight against sin. But that’s not because the Christian is naturally less sinful or more holy than the non-Christian. No, it’s because God has freely and graciously rescued some people from their hopeless slavery to sin. He didn’t do this because of anything valuable or attractive in them. He did it because of his grace, because of his love, and for no other reason than his own good pleasure. And these people he rescued — these people we call Christians — he has given them the power to fight sin and the desire to fight sin. He does this through what we call regeneration. Through regeneration God takes people who are dead in their sin and he gives them new life, he gives them new faith, he gives them a new heart with new desires, he gives them a new master, and he gives them new power to do new deeds. It is those people that God commands to mortify sin.
If you’re not a Christian God calls you to turn to Jesus Christ in faith, he alone can free you from your slavery to sin. If you are a Christian God calls you to use the freedom you have in Jesus Christ to fight against sin and kill it. That’s what mortification is. It is the active and intentional fight to put to death the sin in your life.
Mortification – Why do It?
Mortification is God’s command to you to actively and intentionally fight to put to death the sin in your life. If you’re a Christian he has given you all the resources you need to do that. But even with the resources you have in Jesus Christ this fight will not be an easy one. So the question, naturally then, is why? Knowing that this fight to put sin to death is going to be a long and difficult fight why should you do it? Why should you work so hard and fight so long to mortify sin in your life? There are at least five answers to that question.
The first answer is the most obvious one. You should work hard to kill sin in your life because sin is working hard to kill you. I hope I don’t have to convince you of this. You should know this first hand. You know how bitterness eats away at the joy you’re trying to protect. You know how lust drives you into the loneliness you’re trying to cure. You know how laziness robs the comfort you’re trying to find. You know how pride reveals the foolishness you’re trying to hide. Sin is destroying you day by day. That is a reason to fight to kill it. But that is not the only reason to fight to kill it. If that is the only reason you choose to fight against sin then you’ll be fighting against sin out of your own self-interest. Which means you’ll be fighting against sin with sin — with selfishness — and that will not work.
Which leads naturally to the second reason you should fight the hard and long fight to mortify sin in your life. You should work hard to kill sin in your life because sin is working hard to kill those around you. Again, I shouldn’t have to say much to convince you of this. You should know this first hand. You should know how your bitterness hinders your ability to trust and forgive other people. You should know how your lust hinders your ability to love and be in healthy relationships with other people. You should know how your laziness hinders your ability to serve and give to other people. You should know how your pride hinders your ability to honor and bless other people. Sin is not just destroying you day by day it is using you to destroy others. That is a reason to fight to kill it. But that is not the only reason to fight to kill it. Because if this is the only reason you fight to kill sin you will not fight to kill sin. You will try to convince yourself that some sin in your life is private and it doesn’t have a negative impact on those around you. So you’ll feel justified in letting some sin live because you have convinced yourself that some sin doesn’t affect the people around you.
This is why you need a third reason to fight the hard and long fight to mortify sin in your life. Â You need a more powerful and more pure motivator. And that is found in Colossians 3:1-5.
“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death [mortify] therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.”
The third – and most important — reason why you must fight this long and difficult fight of putting sin to death is found in this passage. You should fight the fight to kill sin because of what Jesus has already done for you. What has he done for you? He has put the old you to death and he has given you new life. If your faith is in Jesus Christ the you that was a slave to sin was crucified with him. That person no longer lives. Then, as Jesus rose from the dead, a new you rose with him — a you that is free from sin and death. The new you, the resurrected you, the alive you, is now hidden with Christ in God. Through Jesus Christ you have died to sin and risen to righteousness; through Jesus Christ you have died to your old desires and have risen to new desires; through Jesus Christ you are no longer estranged from God and awaiting his wrath you are now united to God and awaiting his reward. This is why you should fight the long and hard fight to put sin to death: Â because Jesus gave everything – he gave himself – so that you could be free from sin.
The fourth reason why you should fight this long and difficult fight of putting sin to death is also found in this passage. It says, “When Christ, who is your life appears, then you will appear with him in glory.” Not only should you fight to kill sin because of what Jesus has already done for you, you should fight to kill sin because of what Jesus will do for you. Jesus will give you total and complete victory over sin. Because of Jesus’ work for you and Jesus’ work in you if your faith is in him you will appear with him in glory! You don’t fight the fight hoping you will win. This fight against sin isn’t like boxing, this fight is more like professional wrestling. You fight the fight knowing you will win. You fight the fight knowing that one day sin will be utterly destroyed and you will be free from all of its attacks and all of its influence. You fight the fight knowing that because of Jesus sin will not kill you, you will kill it, and you will spend eternity in a sin-free world, in a sin-free body, with sin-free people, knowing and being known by the God of all glory. This is why you should fight the long and hard fight to put sin to death. You should do it because Jesus gave everything – he gave himself – so that your victory over sin is guaranteed.
The fifth reason why you should fight this long and difficult fight of putting sin to death is found in Romans 8:10-13,
“But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you. Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation-but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death [mortify] the misdeeds of the body, you will live.”
Not only should we fight the fight to kill sin because of what Jesus has already done for us, not only should we fight the fight to kill sin because of what Jesus will do for us, we should fight the fight to kill sin because of what Jesus is doing in us right now. If your faith is in Jesus Christ the Holy Spirit – the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead – lives in you and gives life to you, he gives you the power to kill the sin in your life. Because the Holy Spirit is alive and at work in you (if you’re a Christian) you have an obligation to put his power to use. The Scripture says that you have an obligation to use the power that is at work in you to kill sin in your life. You have no excuse. Â So God commands you to mortify — to put to death — the misdeeds of the body. He commands you to do it by the Spirit. And he promises that if you do so you will live.
Mortification – How Do I Do It?
Let’s review the questions we’ve answered so far.
What is mortification? It is God’s command to you to actively and intentionally fight to put to death the sin in your life.
Why should you fight this long and difficult fight? Because sin is destroying you and those around you. But more importantly, because of what Jesus has done for you, what Jesus will do for you, and what Jesus is doing in you.
All of this brings us to our third question. We know what it is. We know why we should do it. But how should we do it? How do we go about killing sin in our lives? If we want to do it well we must strive to do four things: fight at the right time, fight the right enemy, fight with the right weapons, and fight with the right objective. Let’s look at each of these together.
First, if you are going to fight the fight to put sin to death in your life you must fight the fight at the right time. And the right time is all the time. If you are going to fight the fight to kill sin in your life you can’t fight that fight reactively, you have to fight the fight proactively. In other words, you don’t sit around waiting for sin to strike you before you strike back. You take the offensive. If you don’t take the offensive then sin will always have the upper hand; Sin will always be one step ahead of you, weakening your defenses, and making it harder and harder for you to fight back. Some of us have the tendency to go about life with a casual attitude toward sin. We don’t think of fighting it until it gets “out of hand.” But sin is always out of hand. If you’re not always fighting to kill it it is always fighting to kill you.
Second, if you are going to fight the fight to put sin to death in your life you must fight the right enemy. The right enemy is sin not sins. That may seem like I’m just playing with words. But I’m not. This is a very important distinction. If we are going to kill sin we must proactively fight against sin itself and not just against certain sins. This is important to say because most of us fight against certain sins instead of fighting against sin. We fight against the sins that are most frustrating to us, or we fight against the sins that are most obvious to others, and then we let the other sins in our life continue to live and thrive. This is not the fight that God calls us to. God doesn’t call us to fight against some sins well ignoring others. God calls us to fight against sin itself. God calls us to put to death every sin that is active in our hearts, our minds, and our bodies. Unless we’re willing to fight to kill every sin – unless we’re willing to fight even against those sins that bring us pleasure – we will never kill sin, it will kill us.
Third, if you are going to fight the fight to put sin to death in your life you must fight with the right weapons. Do you ever wonder why you don’t seem to be making any progress in your fight against sin? Do you ever wonder why you don’t seem to be getting any stronger and sin doesn’t seem to be getting any weaker? It may be that you’re fighting the right fight with the wrong weapons. One of the wrong weapons we tend to use is fear. If we’re trying to fight against sin because of our fear of punishment, or fear of not being blessed, or fear of receiving disapproval from God, others, or even ourselves we will not win the fight. Fear is not powerful enough to fight sin. In fact, fear only leads to more sin. Another wrong weapon that we tend to use is diversion. By diversion I mean we just move the sin from one place to another. We do this when we try to fight sin by fighting a certain expression of the sin instead of fighting the sin itself. Let’s use lust as an example. Instead of fighting lust by fighting lust we will try to fight lust by fighting one expression of lust, such as lusting for another person physically. Then, when we’ve stopped lusting for someone else physically we think we’ve defeated lust. But perhaps we haven’t. Perhaps we’ve just moved our lust from one expression to another. Now, instead of lusting for a person’s body we may be lusting for their attention, or for their approval. It’s the same sin. We’re lusting after another person and using them to meet our own selfish desires. It’s the same sin and it’s just as destructive but we’ve tricked ourselves into thinking we’ve defeated it because lusting for someone’s attention or approval is not as obvious as lusting for them physically. And we don’t just do this with lust. We do it with greed, pride, selfishness, lying and any and every other type of sin. We try to fight it by just moving it from an obvious expression to a less obvious expression. But trying to fight sin out of fear or by diverting it from one expression to another is like taking a knife to a gunfight — you’re guaranteed to lose the fight because you’re fighting the right fight with the wrong weapons.
So what are the right weapons that will help you to win the fight to kill sin? The first weapon is this: you must rely on prayer instead of self. You will never experience victory over sin if you try to defeat sin in your own strength. You can’t. You must call out to God, you must ask him to intervene, you must ask him to give us strength and wisdom, you must ask him to provide you an escape in temptation.
The second weapon is this: you must grow in your love for Jesus. Your love for Jesus is the most powerful weapon you have in the fight to kill sin in your life. In fact, it’s the only weapon that will lead to victory because the only reason we continue to sin is because we still love our sin. If you are a Christian you’re no longer slaves to sin. You don’t serve sin because you have to but because you love it. This is why you must grow in our love for Jesus. Only a deep love for Jesus will overpower your deep love for sin. And how do you grow your love for Jesus? You grow your love for Jesus by getting to know him better, by continually exposing yourself to his Word and to his people, by looking closely and honestly at your own sinfulness while looking closely and honestly at what he did to save you from it. If you are going to fight the fight to put sin to death in your life you must fight the fight with the right weapons. And the only weapons that will win the fight are a growing love for Jesus and consistent prayer in the name of Jesus.
Thus far we’ve seen that if you are going to fight the fight to put sin to death in your life you must fight at the right time, you must fight the right enemy, and you must fight with the right weapons. Lastly, if you’re going to fight the fight to put sin to death in your life you must fight with the right objective. To fight sin with the right objective is to fight sin with the right goals in mind. Your goal, of course, should be to win. But your goal should not be to win easily or to win quickly. If it is, then you won’t win. You have to go into this fight to kill sin knowing that the fight is going to leave you battered and bruised. You are going to get hit and it is going to hurt. Jesus compared the process of killing sin in your life to the process of cutting off your own hand or gouging out your own eye. In other words, it is not going to be  easy. So if you go into the fight thinking it’s going to be easy you will be sorely disappointed — and you will lose. You must go into the fight with the right objective, which is to fight a very hard and painful fight.
Your objective must also be to fight a very long fight. You’re not going to win this fight in the first round, or the third round, or the ninth round. You’re not going to win this fight by knockout. You’re going to have to go the whole 12 rounds. With each round you’re going to make sin weaker and weaker, you’re going to get sin on the ropes and drain its power away. But you’re not going to completely defeat it until you stand before Jesus Christ. If you think you can then you’re going to be very discouraged, very disappointed, and very defeated. If you are going to fight the fight to put sin to death in your life you have to fight the fight with the right objective. You have to know that this is going to be a hard fight and it’s going to be a long fight. You also have to know that if your faith is in Jesus Christ this is a fight that you will win. It’s guaranteed. And it’s that guaranteed victory that keeps you motivated when the fight gets hard and when the fight gets long.
Mortification – What Does Progress Look Like?
Thus far we have seen what mortification is, why we should do it, and how we should do it. The natural question to address now is the question of progress. How do I know if I’m making any progress at all? What does progress look like?
Of course it will  look a little bit different for everyone because all of us have different personalities and battle with different expressions of sin. But there are a few things that all of us should see as we make progress in our battle to put sin to death. One of the things you will see as you progress is quicker repentance. As you grow in your love for Jesus you will become more and more convicted by the sin in your life. And that conviction will come more quickly than it used to and you will turn to God in repentance more quickly than you used to.
A second thing you will see as you progress is a greater gap between each offense. As you grow in your love for Jesus you will find yourself yielding to temptation less frequently than you used to.
A third thing you will see as you progress is more openness and honesty about your battle with sin. As you grow in your love for Jesus you will become less and less interested in hiding your sin from your pastor, your friends, and the church. You will talk about it, honestly, because you know you need others to help you defeat it. This is what progress looks like in this lifelong fight to put sin to death in your life. Even if you have not completely killed certain sins in your life be sure to rejoice in the little victories such as quicker repentance, less frequent offenses, and increased honesty.
Mortification – Where Do We Get it Wrong?
It is important that you understand the Bible’s teaching on mortification because what you believe about mortification will impact how you think, feel, and live every single day. If you don’t believe what God says about mortification then you may think you don’t need to kill it, in which case you will be defenseless and it will kill you; you may think that you can’t kill it, in which case you will despair and it will kill you; or you may think that you can kill it right now, in which case you will be disappointed and it will kill you. Christian, non-Christian, it doesn’t matter. What you believe about mortification matters, it affects you in your daily living. Consequently, we must fight against these common misunderstandings of mortification.
But these aren’t the only misunderstandings we can have. There is another one that is easier to overlook. It’s something that every one of us has to be on guard against, especially those of us who are Christians. It is common for Christians to think that the primary goal and purpose of the Christian life is to sin less. But it’s not. Yes, God calls you to mortify sin. Yes, God commands you to constantly fight against sin. Yet this is not the purpose of the Christian life. The purpose of the Christian life is to know, trust, and love Jesus Christ. If we make killing sin the goal of our Christian life we will never grow in our knowledge, trust, and love for Jesus. But if we make the goal of our Christian life knowing, trusting, and loving Jesus we will constantly grow in our desire, our ability, and our success in killing sin.
If killing sin is the goal of your Christian life then you will only make progress toward your goal when you are doing a good job of killing sin, which isn’t as often as we would like. But if knowing, trusting, and loving Jesus is the goal of your Christian life then you will make progress toward your goal when you are doing a good job of killing sin and when you are doing a poor job of killing sin because in either case you are learning to know, trust, and love Jesus more. When you fail at weakening sin in your life you grow in your love for Jesus because you know that he lived a sinless life in your place and took the punishment for sin in your place so that even as you fail you are loved and accepted by God! When you succeed at weakening sin in your life you grow in your love for Jesus because you know that you are only able to succeed because Jesus rose from the dead to give you power and victory over sin! This is what should motivate us even more and empower us even more as we fight this fight to kill sin in our life for the glory of Jesus Christ, our Lord and our Rescuer.