Whole-Life Worship with Cheryl Marshall

How to Fight Personal Sin, Part 2

• Cheryl Marshall • Season 1 • Episode 8

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Description

Cheryl Marshall continues the conversation with author and counselor Rush Witt about overcoming persistent, "die-hard" sins. Together, they discuss the importance of knowing and understanding our personal patterns of sin, how beliefs and desires shape our actions, and the wealth of resources God provides for our sanctification. This episode encourages listeners to pursue lives wholly devoted to God with honesty, grace, and hope.

Key Topics Covered

  • Embracing a posture of "contented discontent" in the Christian walk
  • Becoming a student of your own sin: self-examination without despair 
  • Recognizing patterns and triggers of sin (DFIT: Duration, Frequency, Intensity, Triggers) 
  • The value of honest community and godly friendship in fighting sin 
  • How beliefs and desires at the root of our hearts shape the fruit of our lives 
  • God's provisions for fighting sin: Himself, the Bible, the gospel, the church, and the ordinances 
  • Psalm 1 as a model for rooted, fruitful Christian living

Take Aways

  • Real change starts with honest self-awareness, fueled by grace and rooted in gospel hope.
  • Understanding your sin, its patterns, triggers, and impact, equips you to fight it more purposefully.
  • Lasting transformation comes from the inside out, beginning with renewed beliefs and desires.
  • Community and godly friendships are essential for seeing where your perspective may be skewed and for encouragement in the journey.
  • God provides everything believers need to battle sin: His presence, His Word, and His people.
  • Happiness and holiness are deeply connected in God’s plan for us (see Psalm 1).

Resources Mentioned

Next Steps

  1. Reflect on patterns and triggers of sin in your own life, consider journaling using the DFIT acronym.
  2. Invite a trusted, godly friend or mentor into an honest conversation about areas of struggle.
  3. Spend intentional time in God’s Word (consider memorizing Psalm 1).
  4. Explore the books mentioned for further insight and practical help.
  5. Commit to regular prayer, asking God for grace, wisdom, and perseverance in the fight against sin.

Connect & Take the Next Step

  • Subscribe: Don’t miss Part 2 of this crucial conversation. Subscribe to Whole Life Worship.
  • Share & Review: If you found this episode helpful, rate and share it with a friend.
  • Reflect: Consider how you experience both struggle and hope in your own fight against sin. Journal or pray through the “four gifts” discussed.
  • Visit: Learn more about Rush Witt and his resources at mynameisrush.com.
  • Join the Conversation: Connect with Cheryl Marshall and take the next step in pursuing a life wholly devoted to God, without compromise, without comparison, in every circumstance.

Additional Ways to Connect

Order: When Words Matter Most

Follow Cheryl Marshall:

Instagram, Facebook, Substack, YouTube

Join: Cheryl’s Newsletter

SPEAKER_01

Welcome to Whole Life Worship. This is Cheryl Marshall, and I'm so glad you're with us today as we pursue lives wholly devoted to God, without compromise, without comparison, in every circumstance. This is Whole Life Worship. We now continue part two of our conversation with Rush Witt about how to fight personal sin. He's the author of the book Die Hard Sins, and you can hear him on his podcast called The Most Interesting Person in the World. And you can connect with him at his website, my nameisrush.com. So now let's jump back into the conversation. So I think the posture that you are describing, this contented discontent, actually fuels what you describe next. And that is needing to know our sin well in order to fight it. So when entering a purposeful fight against sin, you encourage us to look at Christ and Christ alone for our for his grace and his strength and his wisdom. But you also say we need to become students of our own sin. Probably many of us have never thought of that before, that we need to be students of our own sin. So what does it mean to be a student of our sin? And what specifically do we need to understand or examine about it?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I, you know, I think that it's a good place to start as we think about being students of our sin, is to start with how that's even possible. Because our sin is something that naturally we would rather look away from. We don't like to stare into our faults or our weaknesses or our failures in the past. We don't like to really look hard at them because it's it's super uncomfortable. But the good news of the gospel allows us to do that because we know that we have been accepted by Christ, by grace, not because we have not failed, not because we have every strength, not because we have eradicated our struggles, but because even though we haven't done those things, he has promised us his grace. So the good news of the gospel is I don't have to look away from my sin. I can look at my sin and not despair about it. I can look at my sin and not be discouraged by it. I'll be discontent about it, just like we were talking about a minute ago. But now because God is gracious to us, I can look right at my sin. And I can know that I have a great savior, I can know that I have a savior who is with me, working on me, changing me. And that lets me really understand and be willing to get a better sense of what's the struggle all about. So, you know, as we do that, I think this this is probably a little more obvious to us. If we think about what would it mean to be a student of our sin, what we would find is that our sin is in touch with the things we do, it's in touch with the things we say, it's in touch with the things that we think. And so those are kind of three three obvious maybe fronts that sin fights on in our lives, affecting our thoughts and our words and our actions. You know, Jesus was really clear in Matthew 15 that out of the overflow of the heart, our mouths speak. We know that that our fruits are the result of the roots of our hearts, that even our thoughts have been affected by sin. A theologian of the past named Cornelius Van Till used the image of a saw blade being set at an angle and cutting everything sideways, kind of skewing the way we see things as a way to understand what sin does. So the more that we can think about thoughts, words, and actions, be students of how our sin is operating in us, obviously, the more effective we could be at bringing those troubles to Christ and applying his truth to them. So I think it's an important thing, and it's an encouraging thing to know that I can do this because Jesus isn't gonna leave me and he's going to uphold me and encourage me in the midst of this fight with sin because that's what he wants me to do.

SPEAKER_01

Do you see there being value in looking at the patterns of sin in our lives and seeing maybe what our exact temptations are to those sins? I've realized over the years that there's certain things that really make me angry. Or there's certain situations where I am more prone to worry than others. And it doesn't mean that I can always ignore or avoid those situations, but even having that awareness that there's certain things that lead me down the wrong path, even if I still have to walk that path, it's almost like I have a preparedness to say, okay, I know this is a struggle for me. Turning to the Lord in prayer and his truth, what he says, just having those reminders, I think. You know, it's very easy for us to just sort of, I was gonna say skip through our day. We may not skip through our day, we may roll through our day without really thinking about those, those things that are our diehard sins. Have you found that to be true for yourself? Just having a basic awareness, how that might be helpful.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think so. And I think that even beyond a basic, kind of the basic awareness, the more, as we were saying, that we can be students of our sin, the more that we can observe what you just referred to as kind of patterns. And I think obviously, like it is in everything that we do, the more articulate we are about understanding a thing makes us better at fighting it if it needs to be fought, makes us better at using it if it needs to be used. I mean, think about how it helps us to know the Bible specifically, not just know that the Bible exists and that the gospel is there and that some commands are there, but really understanding what the Bible's about helps us to apply it to our lives. So I actually have had a lot of help in counseling, both for myself and in counseling other people, with a simple kind of acronym that is D F I T. It's pretty easy to remember if you just think of D and then the word fit. And those stand for duration, frequency, intensity, and triggers. That's a little bit about, I think, what you're talking about. We're thinking about the duration of the struggle. How long does my kind of overwhelming feeling of I I keep going back to anxiety for some reason, but my anxiety feel? How frequently am I struggling with it? How intense is it when I'm when it's happening? What when does it happen? What am I anxious about? What is that thing that seems to be the common denominator? So the more that we do that, maybe it's journaling through that, writing those things down, taking some good notes. I mean, that's what students do, then obviously that will help us to get a better understanding. I think it even just helps us to get a better grip on it just by being able to name those things, just to say, this is this is this is what I'm like. This is what my struggle is like. There's just a lot of help right from the start and being able to do that. So I, yeah, I think it's really important to be able to think in patterns and observe make those observations.

SPEAKER_01

What kind of value do you place on someone thinking through those things with a godly friend, a trusted person in the faith?

SPEAKER_00

Huge, really. Huge for a number of reasons. One, you know, obviously, we know because of our experience in being committed to local churches, being in a body of believers, the way the Bible talks about God's people being together as a family. They're referred to as brothers and sisters, they're supposed to do life together. We're we're built that way. For one, so life does not go well in isolation, it goes best in community. So, for one, that's a good reason, and it's important. Two, it's also good because just like that that illustration a second ago that I mentioned about the saw blade being turned on edge, it's actually a picture that or a story of of a dad and a son, and the dad had a carpentry set up in the garage where he would cut wood and do different projects. And then what he doesn't know is that while he wasn't looking, his son goes out and turns one of the dials and tips the blade over by just a few degrees. And then when he goes out to work and to cut the wood, all of the wood is cut at the wrong angle. So that illustration is a picture of what sin does. It takes my thinking and bends it. And I need someone who can straighten it back again. So I need a friend, like you said, you know, I need a godly friend who can show me, hey, your your blade is tipped over. Your thinking is really skewed. Let's bring it back in line with what the word of God says. So having that kind of encouragement from a friend or a biblical counselor or a pastor, super, super helpful. I mean, I don't know where we would be if we didn't, if we didn't have those people in our lives. So I think it's super important.

SPEAKER_01

If you want to grow as a whole life worshiper, my new book, All of Me, Pursuing a Life Fully Devoted to God, was written especially for you. It's available through major booksellers and the link in the show notes. I appreciate how you have now dipped into this issue of our thought life and how it relates to our sin. And the key verses for the whole life worship podcast are Romans 12, 1 through 2. And in verse 2, we are commanded to be transformed by the renewing of our minds so that we will discern the will of God. And you have a chapter titled The Power of Beliefs and Desires, and that chapter speaks directly to this issue of transformation. So, how do our beliefs and our desires affect the way we sin? And do you have any practical advice for how we can take inventory of not just our actions, but the beliefs and desires that we may have?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think that what you're asking about beliefs and desires is very important. And, you know, as I see in the Bible, the way the Bible talks about our hearts, who we really are, and what's most important about us, the command center of our lives, two big common denominators are what we believe and what we want, the things that we think are true and those truths that we live by. Sometimes we live by things that are untrue, of course, but also the things that we want are the very things that drive us. That's the worship disorder part of what we were talking about earlier. So I think it's very important to understand the beliefs and desires of our hearts. That if we think about a tree that bears fruit on the top, but has roots on the bottom in the ground, the root place is the place of beliefs and desires. So we're a lot like those trees. Whatever is nourishing the roots of our hearts is going to show up in the fruits of our lives. So the big question would be: how can I understand better my beliefs and desires? And how can those beliefs and desires be changed? I think a big part of the answer to both of those is that the word of God helps me do that. The word of God shows me where my beliefs and desires are going wrong. Probably most easily, the Bible shows me the kinds of things that I should believe, what's true, what's untrue. And with God's help and maybe the help of a cr of a of a close friend, I can better understand what I need to cultivate in my belief life. But then beyond that, the Bible also helps me to understand the things that I want, the ruling desires. The Bible uses the word idolatry, idols of my heart. And then from there, the good news is that because Jesus has lived, died, and risen again for me, and he has promised to nourish me with a kind of stream of grace that runs into my roots and brings me his answers and his help, those things can be changed. And therefore, kind of what we're trying to see happen, what we want to see happen in the Christian life, is to move from a tree that bears thorns or bad fruit to a tree that bears more good fruit. Now, what I think that means, and maybe this is the last thing to say about that, is that means that every single one of us, you, Cheryl, me, all everyone is a Christian, we're hybrid trees. We're a mix of the two. We're part thorn tree, part fruit tree, and God is slowly transforming us. And so the more that we can be in touch with our beliefs and desires, the more that we can see where life is going wrong. Where's this fruit coming from? How can this fruit change? How can I, how can I grow up into what God has envisioned in the in his word for me to become?

SPEAKER_01

You know, everything you're saying reminds me of Psalm 1, the blessed man in Psalm 1, who is firmly planted. Actually, it says, But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yield its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither, and in whatever he does, he prospers. I taught this psalm to my children many years ago, just as a reminder of the importance of being planted in the Word of God, and to not walk in the way of scoffers or take counsel with the wicked, as it says earlier in the psalm. But it's just such a beautiful picture, like you said, the fruit at the top, the roots are at the bottom, and are our roots being nourished by the word and the grace and the spirit of God, which then brings us to you know being attached to the vine, right? We are branches attached to the vine. And it all comes together in God's wisdom and his word. So in the final three chapters, you lay out several provisions that God gives us to fight sin. And I found this some of the most encouraging material in the book. These are the provisions God gives to fight and to overcome those die hard sins. And we have just a few minutes left. I'm going to mention what those all are. And you can choose any two you want to maybe expound on a little bit for us. But you mentioned that God gives us Himself, He gives us the Bible, the gospel, the church, and the ordinances. And so this is up to you. What do you want to talk about? What about two of those?

SPEAKER_00

Let's let's go with this is like a choose your own adventure book. Let's go with number one and number two, God Himself and the Bible. I love all of the other ones, but we'll go with those two. So if we were to say a little bit more about each of those two things, and I love what you said about Psalm 1, because it's so very important to see the difference between two ways of living. But first, I think that it's really encouraging to be reminded of something that I easily forget and I did not capture for a good portion of my Christian life, is that the Christian life is not a plan, it's not a program, it's not a system. It actually is about a person. And the help that I need most is not for somebody to give me a list of laws to keep. I have already failed at keeping the laws. What I need is what Christ gives me, which is Himself. I need a living Savior who is a person who interacts with me and doesn't simply give me, you know, like a like a workout plan. Like I need to just go down to the gym and work out my spiritual muscles, and that's how I'm gonna get stronger. I'm gonna get stronger instead by going to coffee with this person who is the Lord Himself, by spending time with him. And I think that's an important provision not to overlook. It's an easy one to overlook because we don't think often maybe of God giving himself to us, but that's what he's done. And then, second, if we think about the Bible, I love the way you talked about teaching that to your kids. I think Psalm 1, among many passages, is excellent to memorize and to write on our hearts. And the more that we can have God's word, because it's living and active in our hearts, on our minds, before us, actively meditating on God's word, the better off we're gonna be as we fight against diehard sins. And just, I mean, the beautiful result that God has offered to us, maybe is a parting word that's so encouraging to me from Psalm 1, is that the very first word is blessed. Blessed is the man. And I was so encouraged to learn that the word that's used that's blessed, both in Psalm 1 and in many places of the New Testament, like in the Beatitudes, is the is the Bible's word for happiness. That God's plan is a plan that drives my happiness. And my happiness is to glorify him, my happiness is to know him. And ultimately, it's that happiness that's on the other side of the same coin with holiness. And so it's a great reminder, I think. I'm glad you brought up Psalm 1, because Psalm 1 is all about encouraging that worship of our hearts in a way that leads out into fruitful living, and it's just a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_01

God is so good. He's so good to give us his word and in so many different ways, with so many different word pictures to show us his goodness and his grace and his love for us. And all of this rush has been a wonderful, encouraging reminder that we do not wage war against sin on our own. God is with us, he is for us, and he has given us everything we need in Christ. And so, before I ask you to pray for our listeners, I just want to thank you for this conversation and for writing this book. And friends who are listening, I hope you will pick up Die Hard Sins by Rush Witt. It is a faithful, practical, and deeply gospel-saturated guide for the Christian life. And of course, the link is in the show notes. So, Rush, as we end, would you pray for our listeners who are fighting against die hard sins?

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely, Cheryl. Thanks for having me. I've enjoyed our conversation. Our Father, we give you thanks because of the gospel, because of your word, because of your faithfulness to help us, even when we wrestle and struggle with difficult sin habits, troubles that just don't seem to go away. Remind us that there is abundant hope, even for diehard sinners like us, and that there is good news that will brighten our hearts and our lives and help us to move forward with you and to courageously depend upon you as we fight against our sin and strive to be more like you. We pray this in Jesus' name together.

SPEAKER_01

Amen. Thank you for listening to this episode. I invite you to please review, subscribe, and share, and keep pursuing a life wholly devoted to God without compromise, without comparison in every circumstance. This is whole life worship.