Why Do I Keep Sinning? (You're Asking The Wrong Question)

You're not fighting to become free from sin—you're fighting because you already are free.

Most Christians approach temptation with the same exhausting cycle: try harder, fail again, wonder if God really saved them. But Romans 6 reveals a better way. Through union with Christ, His victory over sin is already yours. You're not enlisting in God's army to earn freedom—you've already defected from the enemy's kingdom. This episode unpacks how to fight sin from a position of victory, not for it.

In this episode:

• Why "I can't help it" is never true for Christians
• The difference between struggling with sin vs. setting up camp in it
• How to make yourself a weapon of righteousness (Romans 6:13)
• Why naming your specific sin matters when you confess

The Recovering Pharisee equips pastors, church leaders, and serious disciples with sound doctrine and practical theology. Hosted by Cameron Dobbins, this podcast bridges theological truth and daily Christian living—helping you understand how doctrine shapes life as a church member, spouse, and parent.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

If you've been a Christian for more than 30 minutes, you know the struggle. You come to faith in Christ, you're filled with zeal, you think you can conquer the world for Jesus, and then you're reminded that sin still resides in you. There's this pattern we all struggle with. The same sin keeps showing up. We keep battling, we feel like we keep losing, we get defeated, we start wondering, will things ever change? Did God really save me? Should I question my salvation? And sometimes we default to, well, I'll either just white knuckle myself to holiness. So I'm just gonna keep trying harder until I quote unquote conquer this sin. Or some of us just give up. You know, we just decide, you know what, this is just who I am. God has chosen just not to take this particular sin away. And so it is what it is. I'm gonna encourage us in this episode with there's a better way. And it starts with understanding who you are in Christ, or maybe the most important doctrine you've never heard about, which is the doctrine of union with Christ and how it leads us to battle for holiness. Because through union with Christ, we come to the realization according to the Bible that as Christians, we're never fighting for victory, but rather we're fighting from victory. Romans 6 is probably one of the most beautiful chapters in all of the Bible, because in it, it articulates our union with Christ. I would encourage you to go read Romans 1 through 8, truly, to just really understand what is your testimony. When God saved you, what happened? Paul unpacks a doctrine of sin and righteousness. He unpacks the doctrine of justification, adoption, sanctification. And then in chapter 6, union with Christ. What does it mean to be united to Jesus? And what are the spiritual implications of that doctrine? Which the implications are varied, right? But in this episode, I want to talk about how our union with Christ empowers us to say no to sin and to say yes to obedience to Christ. Because in union with Christ, when we're united to Jesus through our salvation, his story becomes our story. His life, death, burial, his baptism, his resurrection, his ascension are all ours in Christ Jesus. As a matter of fact, when you survey the New Testament, the most common phrase to refer to a disciple of Christ is not a disciple, it's not a Christian, it's not somebody who's saved or someone who's born again. These are all terms we we use commonly now in modern Christianity. But in the New Testament, the most common phrases used are those who are in Christ. Or another popular phrase is a saint, which is someone who has been set apart from sin, death, and Satan, and now belongs to Christ, who is united to Christ. So let me let me describe union with Christ through an illustration that I take from Martin Lloyd Jones, who I thought had an excellent way of painting this. Lloyd Jones describes humanity as we all live in a field. And in this field, there's a large stone wall that's a divider from a field on the other side of that wall. And before our salvation, we all live in this field, and that field has a master that we follow. And then one day we are picked up by Jesus and dropped over that wall onto the other side of the field where there's greener pastures because that's where Christ lives. He has redeemed us and now we belong to his kingdom. We've hopped over the wall. But sometimes the enemy, our old master, Satan in the flesh, kind of speaks over the wall and says, Hey, come back. Weren't things greater over here when you were on this side of the wall? And what's significant there, Lloyd Jones says, is, yeah, the voice will come, you hear it. It might even be enticing at times, but positionally, you don't belong to that kingdom anymore. You don't belong to that master. You've hopped over the wall. Jesus has brought you into a new kingdom, which means you have a new master and you now belong to him. You obey his voice, you follow his lead, and you have a whole new dominion. Therefore, to go back over the wall would make no logical sense because you are now united to your new master and his kingdom. That is our union with Christ. The old self belongs to our old location, which was under sin's dominion. But according to Romans 6, you, if you're in Christ, if you're a Christian, you've been crucified with Christ. And the old man is not necessarily referring to our old sinful nature. It's saying your old position, your old dominion in Adam. When Adam fell, all humanity fell in him. Nobody is neutral. We all inherit a sinful nature and are born in Adam. But through salvation, through union with Christ, the old self has been crucified and we now belong to the new Adam, Jesus Christ. We're in a new field now. Sin doesn't own us anymore, and we have the power to say no to sin and yes to God. So this isn't about trying to become free after you're saved. You already are free in Christ. Praise be to God. You're not fighting to earn God's favor, you're fighting from a position of favor, and you're joyfully obeying the Lord out of gratitude for the fact that you already have his love. So one thing we got to do in resisting sin and temptation is to stop believing sin's lies about who you are. Sin will try to deceive you into thinking you still belong in the old field, that you still have to listen and obey your old master. And that is a that is a fundamental lie. And a lot of Christians will talk like this sometimes. So, for example, some will say, Well, you know, the reason I get angry and I talk the way I do and I treat people the way I do is because that's just who I am. That's just how I grew up. That's just my culture or my ethnicity. We just do these things, and that's just how I was born. I can't help it. Well I would say, well, then be born again. There is no justification whatsoever of any type of sinful pattern of believing, thinking, and acting towards others if you are in Christ. It should not come out of our mouths as disciples of Jesus the statement, I can't help it. Yes, you can, because you're not under sin's dominion anymore. Now, granted, it might be hard for you to obey. It might be a struggle because you've been conditioned in sin for so long, but you are no longer a slave to sin. You are actually now a slave to righteousness in Christ. So you can say things like, Well, this sin struggle is just too strong for me. It might feel that way subjectively, but theologically, it is no longer your master. When Jesus saves you, he conquered the power and the penalty of sin. But yes, the remaining corruption of sin still indwells us. It still pulls at our heartstrings, but we now have something we didn't have before our salvation, and that is the Spirit of God residing in us, empowering us to actually choose obedience, to say no. This is why in Romans 6.11, Paul can not suggest but command consider yourself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ. Now, why would Paul say that? Why would he writing to a group of Christians say, consider, so use your intellect, use gospel logic here. If you're in Christ, consider yourself dead to sin, but don't stop there. You are also to consider yourself alive to God in Christ. He's essentially saying, guys, use logic. If you are united to Christ, then logically, this old man, the old sinful nature that comes and tries to lead you away from the Lord, you can stop right there and say, wait a minute, I don't have to give in to this sin because I'm dead to it. I've been crucified with Christ. The old man has been crucified. I don't even, I don't even belong to that category or dominion anymore because I have a new master. Therefore, even if the temptation is strong and enticing, I still, by the grace of Jesus Christ, can say no, which is something we could never do before. And what Paul is saying here in Romans 6.11, he's not saying this is like positive thinking for Christians. He's not saying these are affirmations. You wake up and put sticky notes on your bathroom mirror and rehearse these things to yourselves to kind of stir up some spiritual juju sauce. No, that's not what he's saying. He's saying this is just theological reality. You have a new position in the universe, in the spiritual realm. Remind yourself of that and live in light of it, is what he's saying. And so when temptation and sin comes, we have to do some self-examination and honestly diagnose our default strategy for fighting sin. So, for example, when temptation comes up, ask yourself, what is my go-to move? So I'm a big basketball guy, right? And so it's fun when you defend certain guys and you realize, oh, okay, like this guy has like two moves in his bag. These are his go-to's. And so he's predictable. I can easily guard him. You got to ask yourself, what are my go-to's when temptation comes? Is it I just try harder and white knuckle my way to holiness? Do I just give in immediately with very little fight? Or do I try to just avoid it and hope the temptation just goes away? I mean, we can go on and on, but you get you get to answer this for yourself. When temptation comes, what's in my bag? What are my go-tos? What are the things I most commonly do? How do I most commonly respond? What do I most commonly think? Because most of us have never actually thought about our patterns and responding to temptation. We just react the same way over time, and we don't realize over time we're building habits of reacting and proactively acting. And sometimes they may might not be the most biblical ways of thinking and acting and reacting. So you need a plan before the temptation shows up, not when you're already drowning in it. You don't want to be reactive all the time. You want to be as much as you can proactive. So here's some few, a few practical steps to kill sin. Number one, this is going to sound super basic, but don't just say no to sin. Say yes to God. I think sometimes as Christians, we just stop short of say no. But we got to be careful because that can lead us to legalism where we're just focusing on checking boxes. Look, God, at all the things I'm not doing. I don't do this. I say no to this. Praise God. That is sanctification is not less than that, but it is certainly more than that. This is why you see this pattern in the New Testament where Paul, for example, will say, put off these sinful patterns of believing and behaving, but he doesn't stop there. He also says, put on these redemptive, fruitful ways of living that display godliness in the heart of Jesus Christ. And so one way to fight sin is don't just say no to sin, but also say yes to God, proactively put on righteousness. Romans 6 13, Paul says, present your members to God and not to sin. He commands us to actually make ourselves weapons of righteousness, not to voluntarily make ourselves instruments of unrighteousness. Let me let me put it this way: Sin is not neutral. Sin is not like just trying to trip you up a little bit. Sin is trying to absolutely destroy your entire life. It is looking for a foothold into your heart and mind to destroy every inch of your life. There is a Puritan, Jeremiah Burroughs, who wrote a book on, I think it's titled The Evil of Evils. And in it, he, and I'm paraphrasing here, but he says something that has just stuck with me for years. He says that sin is so wicked and heinous that if it could, it would penetrate the heart of God the Father so that he would cease to be God. Just sit with that for a second. That is how evil sin is. It's not neutral, it doesn't take a break, it doesn't go on vacation. It is actively around the clock trying to shipwreck your entire faith. And so Paul gives this strong warning, brothers, sin wants to use your eyes, your hands, your mind, your mouth, your brain, everything as weapons of unrighteousness. Think about this. It's pretty common knowledge that in North Korea for decades, you have North Korean citizens who flee the Supreme Leader, Kim Jong-un. They flee to places like South Korea for freedom. And if they make it across the border, everything changes. Go back to that illustration I gave about the two fields, right? So when someone flees from North Korea to South Korea, they eventually become South Korean citizens. They receive a new identity, so to speak. They receive a new kingdom that they now belong to and are citizens of South Korea. They receive a new leader, a new government, benefits, rights, and privileges, all these things. And they are no longer a citizen of that former kingdom and its leader, North Korea. Now imagine if the Supreme Leader came to the border of North and South Korea to one of the defectors who's now a South Korean citizen and said, Hey, wait a minute. No, come back on this side, put on our uniform, take up our weapons, and fight for us. We would, if we saw that, we'd be like, that would make no sense for that South Korean, not now South Korean citizen, to cross the border and to go back to their old kingdom and to fight for them. That is what we do as Christians when we cross over the border, so to speak, back to the old dominion of sin, Satan, slavery to death, and to take up arms there and to fight for that kingdom. It is completely illogical. As a matter of fact, here in America, we have a word for that. It's called treason. It makes no sense for a born-again, blood-bought child of God to say, I'm going to make myself an instrument, a weapon of unrighteousness when God has saved me from that leader and has brought me under his headship, which is a good and righteous headship. So this is why Paul commands present your members to God as weapons of righteousness, not to Satan as weapons of unrighteousness, because sin wants every aspect of us. But praise be to God, the benefit of being in Christ is that we now have the ability to make ourselves weapons of righteousness for the Lord. Think about that. I love a good war movie, a good military documentary. So the thought as Christians, like, yeah, we are now like weapons for Jesus. Like, that is dope. We can make ourselves weapons of righteousness. So instead, I can offer all of myself to God and his redemptive plan for the universe instead of what I used to do, which was offer myself as a weapon of unrighteousness to do the devil's scheming. So what does this look like? You know, this all sounds spiritually good, but what does this look like on a daily basis? Here's a thought. When you wake up in the morning before you check your phone and look at all the reels your friends have sent you, or check Facebook and Twitter and all these things, or TikTok, whatever it is, how about you just pray and say, Lord, my eyes, my mind, my hands, my words, everything is yours. Help me today to just be faithful today to offer myself as a weapon of righteousness for your glory. Like, what if that was our prayer on the regular, just saying, Lord, everything I have, every part of my being, everything I own that you call me the steward for your glory and for the good of others, help me to use all these things to be a weapon of righteousness for the kingdom of God so that your glory is exalted and there is spiritual good done to your people. That is beautiful. That would be a beautiful thing in the hands of the Lord. But another practical tip is when we confess our sin, I'm a big fan of let's be very specific when we confess our sin. The scriptures command do not let sin rain anymore if you're in Christ. But sometimes when we confess sin, we can be very vague and general. Like, God, I'm sorry for just being a jerk to my wife. I'm sorry for being impatient with the kids. No, no, no, no, no, no. Name the specific sin that is trying to reign in your life, that's trying to gain a foothold. Because you know why? When you name your sin, you're agreeing with God about your sin. When you call it what God calls it, so instead of saying, Oh, I'm just, God, I'm sorry for getting frustrated with the kids. No, like God, I repent of giving in to sinful anger with my kids and yelling at them. Like, just be specific. Call your sin what God calls it. God did not die on the cross for frustration, for being a jerk, right? He died for malice, for anger, for lust, adultery. Let's call it what God calls it. Because our struggle is not some generic struggle. Like I, this is how we tend to talk. I struggle with blank sin. I I don't know. I try to be careful with that. I'm not trying to nitpick, but man, to say we um fell into sin, we stumbled into sin, I think that just waters down what's really going on. Sin is voluntary self-inflicted suffering. When we sin, we are voluntarily inviting self-inflicted suffering into our lives. We don't stumble into sin, we don't trip and fall into sin. We choose to rebel against God. And if we grasp that, that will shape how we view our sin and temptation and how we confess it as well. So call it what God calls it. Does God's word call it lust? Does it does he call it anger? Does he call it greed or pride or bitterness? Whatever it may be, call it what the word of God calls it in our confessions. Because sin wants to set up a throne, its throne, in your heart, in your mind, and it wants to rule as your king again. And we have to be diligent to uproot it and to make sure Christ remains on the throne of our hearts. By reminding ourselves of gospel truth, of our union with Christ, the fact that we're a fundamentally new creation in Christ Jesus, and that we have a new king, therefore we don't give in to the old tyrant, or we don't give him back his throne over our hearts. Or another way to put it is, brothers and sisters, if you are in Christ, if you've been united with Christ, as Romans 6 beautifully depicts, do not voluntarily re-enlist in the enemy's army. It makes no sense, logically, theologically, it makes no sense. And it's it's spiritual treason. It's spiritual treason. So every time when you go about resisting temptation, when you choose to give in, when you choose to click that link to rehearse that bitter, sinfully angry thought, to refuse forgiveness, to speak that cutting word, you are handing over your weapons as weapons of unrighteousness. You are fighting on the wrong side. And remember Romans 16, 13 language, right? Don't. This is a command, not a suggestion. Don't present your members to sin because it is treacherously treasonous. Fight with the weapon of truth, not just your willpower. Don't white knuckle it. Fight with gospel doctrine. I am a new creation, therefore I have new abilities and resources at my disposal to pursue holiness because I'm no longer under law, but I'm under grace. And grace doesn't just pardon you, it doesn't just redeem you from sin, it also transforms you and unites you to Christ and breaks sin's dominion over you. So when temptation comes, remind yourself of the truth. I'm in Christ. Sin is no longer my master. I have the power through the blood of Jesus Christ to say no to sin, but also to say yes to Jesus. And this should encourage all of us to bring our sin into the light. We should want to walk in the light, recognizing what John, uh I'm sorry, James 5.16 says, confess your sins to one another. Because bringing it to the light encourages my brothers and sisters in my church community to help me follow Jesus as they follow Jesus. Sin thrives in secrecy, but it dies in the light. This is why it's a good indicator. If you feel a resistance to open up your heart and life to other Christians and to share your sin struggles, that's a good sign that you aren't truly broken over your sin, that you're still trying to like hold on to it, maybe with a loose grip, but you're still gripping it. And again, to be fair, there could be some reasons for not wanting to walk in the light. Sin is embarrassing at times, right? There can be shame that's going on in your heart and mind where you're like, well, I don't want people to know this about me. I'm scared about what people might think about me. Listen, everyone who's a Christian who understands the gospel already knows the most heinous thing about you. And that is you murdered Jesus Christ on the cross with your sin. So there should be nothing you can ever share with another. Another Christian that should lead them to go, oh my goodness, I can't believe you did that or you struggle with that. If they do respond that way, man, that's between them and Jesus. Move on. Find yourself someone in your church who has a healthy doctrine of the gospel and understands sin and temptation and salvation, and who would say, Brother, I'm surprised you're not struggling with worse sin. But by the grace of Jesus Christ, you are what you are, and he is sanctifying you more and more into the image of his son. How can I help you pursue holiness? So find someone who will actually ask you the hard questions and not just live in the land of vagueness, right? Who will just throw out a Bible verse and say, you know what? God works all things out for the good, or man, just keep fighting. I'm praying for you, brother. But people who will ask you real hard questions to try to understand how are you resisting and fighting? How are you putting off and putting on, and how can they hold you accountable in love and wisdom? And I would encourage us, you know, let's know the difference between setting up camp in sin and struggling to resist temptation. The goal is faithfulness, not perfection. We all are struggling forward, right? But there's a difference in someone who has like set up camp in sin where they're just there seems to be no conviction or very little conviction. They have a seared conscience, they easily say yes to sin and give in, and they just say, Oh, yep, I sin again, please pray for me. But then there doesn't seem to be a pattern of them trying to fight. That's one thing. And then there's those who, man, I, with God's help and with my church community, I am doing all that I can to resist this. And I just, I'm just surprised that, man, I'm still struggling in this area. Like I don't understand why the Lord won't just take this away. That is a Christian. That is someone who is being striving rather to be faithful, but still finds the reality of the remaining corruption of sin is still tugging at their heart, trying to lead them into sin. So those are two different categories. And it's important to be able to distinguish those because one failure does not mean you're you're back into bondage, that you have lost your salvation or you're just the worst sinner imaginable. No, it just means you're a Christian, right? One failure doesn't mean you're back in spiritual bondage. So the question is, are you getting back up and fighting, or are you telling yourself, you know what, I guess this is just who I am, and I'm just gonna settle in. Like I'm just gonna make peace with this sin struggle, and it's just gonna be a part of my life. No, that's not that's not what we're looking to do. But let me close by reminding you of a few gospel promises. Number one, Romans 6.14, this is a promise from God Himself. Sin will not have dominion over you. We can just amen and shut the podcast off right there. Sin will not have dominion over you. Paul doesn't say it might not, it probably will not have dominion over you. No, he says in emphatic, it will not. This is a promise from God Himself. If you are in Christ, sin will not be your master because he said so. That is not based on how how powerfully you're fighting or how mature you are as a Christian. The promise relies in the one who delivers the promise, not the one who receives the promise. And secondly, remember, you're fighting from a position of victory, not for victory. You're not trying to earn God's favor. You're not trying to earn victory. You already have it. Positionally, you are a saint. You are set apart and you belong to Jesus Christ. You're his prized possession, possession, purchased by his own blood. You're not trying to earn his love. You're motivated to resist temptation and sin because you have God's love. And let me give this last thought. This is something that you should just spend the rest of your Christian life trying to grow in understanding, grow in an understanding of. And that is this. I would say at the top of your list and how to replace your love for sin, your struggle with sin and temptation is this replace your love for sin with a greater love for Jesus. Replace your love for sin with a greater love for Jesus. It is not enough to just say no to sin. It is not enough to try to just spiritually pluck sin out of your heart and life and stop there. We are designed to be worshipers. Specifically, we are designed in God's image to worship Him. We will find our fulfillment in worshiping God. So if we're designed to worship something, you can't just replace an idol and that's it. You have to replace it with a proper love for the one true God. This is what it means to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength with your entire being. You are designed to love something. So if you love anger, if you love sexual immorality, if you love, you know, pride, whatever it is, you have to replace that love for that sinful object with a greater love and desire for Jesus Christ. Because as Jesus grows and increases as a treasure in your life and his glory becomes more and more precious to you, well, guess what? Sin will become what it is: a disgustingly vile, wicked thing that pales in comparison to the pleasure that Jesus offers with relationship with him. So here's what I want you to do this week after listening to this episode. I would encourage you to name specifically any sins in your life that you believe your flesh is using to try to reign in your life, as Paul warns against against in Romans chapter six. And I would encourage you to prayerfully consider telling someone about it. Take the first step to walking in the light. And when that sin shows up again, because it will, remind yourself wait a minute, I know the temptation is strong, but I'm in Christ. This is not my boss anymore. I can say no through the power of Jesus Christ. So don't fight in your own strength, but start living out your union with Christ. The question isn't whether you'll face temptation again, because you will, it's inevitable. The question is whether, when temptation comes, will you remember who you are in Christ Jesus and avail yourself of the resources that have been spiritually provided for you. If this episode has been helpful to you, I would encourage you to please subscribe. That helps the channel out and share this with anyone who you might think would benefit. God bless.