Battling with Recurring Sins

Well, someone has said that experience is a wonderful thing, it enables you to recognize a mistake every time you repeat it. That's so true with us a lot of times, isn't it? Nothing is more frustrating than repeating the same mistake, whether it's working on something or trying to figure out a problem. Nothing is more frustrating than repeating the same mistake over and over again. And for a dedicated believer, nothing is more frustrating than failing and battling with recurring sins, sins that seem to keep coming back and plaguing you again. The Bible teaches that when we are born again, God begins working on our sins in a process known in the Word of God as sanctification. And that means that God begins making us more like His Son, Jesus Christ, He begins quiddling away and sharpening up our rough edges and rounding off those edges to make us more like the Lord Jesus. Some of those sins almost immediately fall away. Some of those sins stay on and we seem to gain progress over time. But others of them, if we are honest, we keep battling with year after year after year. Probably every one of us in this room knows the struggle, the pain of failing again and crying out to God for victory in an area that we have struggled with for years. Probably all of us have faced times of struggle, the frustration of struggle with a sin that we just can't seem to completely shake. One that seems to just lurk around all the time, just waiting to entangle us, almost stalking us as it were. Probably each of us, although it would be different areas, different sins, probably all of us struggle with something in our lives like that. Well, chapter 20 of Genesis records an instance in Abraham's life that reminds us this is a problem we have seen before. Back in chapter 12, when Abraham went to Egypt, he and Sarah concocted this story about Sarah being his sister. Abraham was afraid that she would be taken and he would be killed. And so they made up this story that she was his sister. The very same thing happens in chapter 20, different location, but the same story, the same deception. And you might think, well, it's happening twice in a man's lifetime enough to qualify as a recurring sin. Well, there's a verse in this chapter we'll see a little bit later that indicates that when Abraham and Sarah left Er, they made a pact with one another that whenever they were in a place that they were unfamiliar with, they would use this story. And so evidently, this has happened more than twice. This has happened probably several times. How many times we don't know? But it obviously is an area that Abraham is particularly susceptible to and a sin that could easily entangle him. He's a man with a lot of wonderful character qualities and a lot of strengths. But in this particular area, this seems to be a sin that qualifies as a Hebrews 12, 1 kind of sin, a sin that easily entangles him. So I want us to look at the record of what is recorded about this sin. And then we will try to gain some application for us tonight about our recurring sins and our battle with them. The story itself breaks down into four scenes. Let's take a look at the first one in verses 1 through 7. The account of Abraham's recurring sin begins with the deception repeated. The first one, now Abraham moved on from there into the region of the negive and lived between Kadesh and Shure. For a while, he stayed in Garar. Now, we don't know why he left Hebron. The Bible doesn't tell us why. He had been living in the town of Hebron and he goes to a place called Garar, which is about 60 miles southwest of Hebron. Why does that? We don't know. But look at what happens when he does, verse 2. And there Abraham said of his wife Sarah, she is my sister. Then a bimolek king of Garar sent for Sarah and took her. This is exactly what had happened before. He describes Sarah as his sister and the king actually takes her into his herm. Now I want to remind you, when we saw her before and this happened, she was about 65. Now she's about 90. She's just shy of having the baby, Isaac, at age 90, which we'll find in chapter 21. So I'm wondering, just like I see some of you are wondering, what kind of beauty cream does this lady use? 90 years old and Abraham is still afraid that she's going to be attractive to the king of Garar. Now I understand they lived a little longer in that day and you kind of have to prorate the ages here. But come on, 90 years old, even if we prorate it, she's still not real young. And so I just wonder, what kind of beauty cream, and I'm sure some of you would like to know as well. Not that any of you need to know that, of course, but you might just want to know. Maybe when we get to heaven, you'll be able to ask her, of course, then you won't need it. But at any rate, she's 90 years old and Abraham is still afraid she's going to be attractive to the king. And so they use this story once again, verse three, but God came to Abimalek in a dream one night and said to him, you are as good as dead because of the woman you've taken. She is a married woman. Now Abimalek had not gone near her, so he said, Lord, will you destroy an innocent nation? Did he not say to me she is my sister and didn't she also say he is my brother? I have done this with a clear conscience in clean hands. Now Abimalek protests, God actually was going to judge him. You're as good as dead, God says, because you've taken her. And Abimalek protests, I'm innocent. I was going by the information I had received. They both told me the same story. God is not putting his hand of approval on the idea of a herm, but notice what God says to him in verse six. Then God said to him in the dream, yes, I know that you did this with a clear conscience. And so I have kept you from sinning against me. That is why I did not let you touch her. Now return demands wife for he is a prophet. And he will pray for you and you will live. But if you do not return her, you may be sure that you and all yours will die. So very clear, voice from God that if he does not remedy this situation, he and all of his will die. Now God has protected him from doing anything wrong, violating the honor of Sarah in any way. So God has protected him from that. And this situation can yet be remedied. But what a terrible blot on Abraham's testimony, this is. Once again, the deception is repeated. Abraham has failed once again. Interesting that God would say he is my prophet of Abraham. We'll come back to this idea later, but Abraham is a prophet in the sense that he is God's spokesperson. And he will pray for a bimolec later on in this story. So in that sense, he is God's prophet. God hasn't thrown him away yet, done away with him. He will still use Abraham in spite of his weakness and failure here. The next part of the story in verses eight through ten is the deception rebuked. I want you to see the strong rebuk on the part of a bimolec. Verse eight, early the next morning, a bimolec summoned all his officials and when he had told them all that had happened, they were very much afraid. Then a bimolec called Abraham in and said, what have you done to us? How have I wronged you that you have brought such great guilt upon me in my kingdom? You have done things to me that should not be done. What a stinging rebuk that is. I mean, that is a sharp rebuk on the part of a bimolec. Again, put yourself in Abraham's shoes. How awful this must have felt to be corrected by someone with much less spiritual opportunity than Abraham had. Someone who does not evidently know the God that Abraham knows and has much less spiritual insight than Abraham has. But he is with a stinging rebuked correcting a child of God. How that must have really dug deep into Abraham's heart. We kind of sense that because Abraham can't answer the questions. He doesn't say anything. And so a second time, a bimolec asked the question in verse 10 and a bimolec asked Abraham, what was your reason for doing this? Again, he is on the spot Abraham is. He really has nothing to say, but he thinks of something. And in verses 11 through 13, we find that the deception is rationalized. What Abraham does is he gives three excuses. They are not very good. We'll look at them in a little bit more detail in a few moments, but they are excuses nonetheless. Notice how he rationalizes away his failure. Verse 11, Abraham replied, I said to myself, there is surely no fear of God in this place. And they will kill me because of my wife. His first rationalization was, there is no fear of God in this place. And so they have no moral standards. And since they don't fear God, they are liable to take my wife and kill me. And so we had to come up with this story. The interesting thing about this though, and the question that we would probably want to ask Abraham is, if you fear God, why can you not trust him to protect you? You are concerned about the no fear in the land you are going to, but what about you? Do you fear God? Do you trust him to really take care of you and protect you from harm? Really the excuse does not stand up under scrutiny. Verse 12 is another excuse. Besides, she really is my sister, the daughter of my father, though not of my mother, and she became my wife. So what he is saying is, really there is a little bit of truth in this story that we have told. She is my half sister, but the intent of Abraham and Sarah was to deceive. There was no intent to lay out the complete truth. The intent was to deceive, and that is dishonesty. That is lying. The intent to deceive is the same thing as lying. So again, this is not a very good reason. This is an excuse. The third one, in verse 13, and when God had me wonder from my father's household, I said to her, this is how you can show your love to me. Everywhere we go, say of me, he is my brother. You can see this goes all the way back to when they left Er, that they made this agreement. I wish I could have seen Sarah's face when that was first proposed to her. This is how you can show you love me. Whenever we go somewhere to a dangerous place, you say that I am your brother. Now remember, we saw earlier when we were, when they had this happen in Egypt, that the one that will likely be harmed in this situation is Sarah. You may say, Abraham's skin, but Sarah is very likely to be harmed in a very deep way. I wonder how she felt about Abraham saying, this is how you can show me, you love me. Again, this is just an excuse and does not stand up under close scrutiny. I'm sure that Abraham felt ashamed and defeated. He's trying to cover his tracks, but he quite clearly has failed God and brought dishonor upon himself and his testimony and his family with this recurring sin. But in verses 14 through 18, we find the deceiver rescued. God comes to his rescue in an amazing show of grace, at verse 14, then a Bimilek brought sheep and cattle and male and female slaves and gave them to Abraham. And he returned Sarah, his wife to him. And a Bimilek said, my land is before you. Live wherever you like. To Sarah, he said, I am giving your brother a thousand shekels of silver. This is to cover the offense against you. Before all who are with you, you are completely vindicated. And it was this very magnanimous gesture on the part of a Bimilek. He gives Abraham who is guilty. He gives him flocks. He gives him back Sarah. Obviously, he gives him servants and he gives him a thousand shekels, a gift to kind of clear up whatever offense may have been done to them. Really, the offense has been done to a Bimilek. But in God's grace, this man reaches out to Abraham and tries to remove any embarrassment that may have been caused by what Abraham has done. And then look at this amazing verse, verse 17, then Abraham prayed to God and God healed a Bimilek, his wife and his slave girls, so that they could have children again, for the Lord had closed up every womb in a Bimilek's household because of Abraham's wife, Sarah. God is gracious to this man. He doesn't deserve this, but God uses him as a prophet, one who will pray and be used of God to minister to the family of a Bimilek and actually bring healing to them. Again, an evidence of God's grace to Abraham. It's an interesting story, but I think there are lessons for us to learn about our own recurring sins. Four lessons I see in this story, in this passage, the first one is this, and this becomes really for us a battle plan for dealing with recurring sins. First of all, we need to recognize that we all battle with recurring sins. Probably not a one of us here that doesn't. We all battle with recurring sins. Even the best of saints, if they are honest, if you read church history, you'll find out that even people like Martin Luther dealt with doubt and discouragement. A lot was made in recent days of Mother Teresa and her doubts revealed in her letters. And I'm not here to comment on her spiritual state. I don't know. God knows her heart and where she was with him. But certainly those letters did reveal some element of despair and discouragement and depression all through the years when everybody thought she had everything together and was truly a saint. Well, there have been lots of people who struggled with that. Martin Luther was one. If you read Martin Luther's writings, he struggled continually with doubt and depression. There are others who struggle with other forms of weakness or even sin. Abraham struggled even though the Bible teaches he was a man of faith. In this one area, he couldn't seem to trust God. The Bible talks about him as a man who was selfless. I mean, after all, he gave lot, the best of the land. He went and rescued lot when lot was in trouble. He would not take any of the tides, the treasure that he restored to the kings of Sodom. I mean, time and time again, you see this man is a selfless, giving, gracious man. He is a man who is courageous. But he struggles in this one area of deception. This seems to be an area that he can't get a handle on. And this happens over and over again throughout the Bible. Moses, the Bible says, was the meekest man on earth. Means he was willing to leave things in God's hand and trust God for the results, but at least four times that's recorded in his ministry, he got so angry that he last out at either the people or an individual. So Moses seems to have struggled with some kind of volcanic rage that would erupt every once in a while, even though by nature was a very meek man. But that was a sin that he seemed to struggle with. Williamson struggled with a weakness in the area of lust. So did David. I mean, David had eight wives by the time he became king. And then we all know the story of his problem with Bathsheba. So look at characters in the Word of God. Look at Peter, he struggled with speaking before he would think. And that got him in trouble a lot of times. So many Bible characters had difficulty with recurring sin. Now I point that out not to excuse their sin or to give us some kind of sad to our conscience for recurring sins, but I do think it is valuable if we recognize that we do not struggle alone in this. There is no one here that struggles alone. And I think it's important to see that. It is encouraging to know that everybody has their own areas of their lives that they struggle with over and over and over again. Some sins they may have quit a long time ago. Some sins they've made consistent progress on. Other sins we all, and they're different ones with each of us, we all struggle and seem to have difficulty getting victory over. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 13, in verse that's intended to encourage us, the Bible says, no temptation has seized you except what is common to man. When God is faithful, he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. The first part of that verse is what I'm really interested in. There's no temptation taking you, but such as is common, what's common to man? I think it's easy for us to think that we must be the only ones that struggle like this. Everybody else seems to have their life pretty well together. They seem to be really fine. People walking with God and getting victory in their lives, and here I am struggling in the same mire, the same anger or harsh words or lustful thoughts or whatever it may be with you. And continuing to struggle with that same sin over and over and over again, Peter said to those who he was writing to in his first letter in 1 Peter 5, he says, be self-controlled and alert, your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith. Notice this next part, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And what kind of suffering is he talking about here? He's talking about trouble that comes because of Satan's attack, but Satan doesn't always just attack in the form of trouble. He attacks in the form of temptation. And it is an encouragement to us to know that we're in this thing together, that none of us are fighting or struggling alone, whether it's with trouble and difficulty or with temptation. Here's why I think this is so important. I believe Satan's strategy, oftentimes, is to get us to be so hard on ourselves that we sink into despair and feel like we can never amount to anything for God. We can never do anything for God because we can't seem to conquer this particular area of our lives. And that in itself, Satan creating that discouragement and despair, that in itself will keep us from being used of God. It will keep us from seeing other strengths that God has built into us and given us and enabled us to use for Him. Again, this is not an excuse or rationalization just to go on sinning and to say, well, everybody has these things. We all have our weaknesses. What I'm saying is don't let Satan get you down so far that you quit, that you just give up. Keep working on that area of your life. Understand that we all battle with recurring sins. Doesn't mean we should give up the battle and just accept it as our fate, but we need to keep battling. We need to keep fighting. Keep resisting, as Peter said in 1 Peter 5, recognize that we all battle with recurring sins. The second lesson we can learn from Abraham's story here is this, don't provide an opportunity for recurring sins. Now, I mentioned earlier, I don't know why Abraham went to Garar. The Bible doesn't tell us why he went to Garar. Maybe it was necessary, maybe he's entirely innocent in it, I don't know, but still, he put himself in a position where he would be tempted to dust off that old story again about Sarah being his sister and fall into that same trap to save his skin. Was it necessary for him to put himself in that position? It seems that he has provided an opportunity for a sin that he knows he has trouble with anyway, and here he's putting himself in a position where that sin will likely re-occur. So lesson we can learn there. Patient went to an old country doctor one time and said, I think I broke my arm in two places. The old doctor said, well, if I were you, I'd stay out of them two places. That is a very wise statement where we have a tendency to fail. We need to take special effort to stay away from. We need to not provide opportunities where we know we will be tempted with that sin. Paul says it this way in Romans chapter 13 and verse 14. He says, rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature. King James Version says, do not provide an opportunity for the flesh. So don't think about, don't set yourself up for failure. That's the idea. Don't provide an opportunity for your sinful nature to trip you up again in that area that you struggle with. If you have a problem with alcohol, don't walk by a bar. If you have a problem with lustful thoughts, then stay away from magazine racks in the store. Keep your eyes straight ahead of you. Learn how to bounce your eyes off of tempting situations so that you will not be tempted by those things. If you have a problem with overeating, don't circle the block twelve times asking God to provide a parking space in front of the doughnut shop as evidence that He wants you to go in and buy some. Just stay away. Just stay away from there. So all of us can learn there are certain areas that we struggle with and we need to take extra precautions in those areas and don't provide an opportunity for the sinful nature to rise up and strike us again. That is so true with areas that are recurring sins for us that we struggle with over and over again. I read and I don't know how true this is, maybe some of you hunters can help me out with this, but from what I read, Eskimos have a particularly ingenious way of killing wolves. They will take a knife and dip the blade of that knife in blood and bury it up to the blade, bury the handle down on the ground in the snow. And wolf will come along, smell the blood, sniff it out, take a lick. Not realizing that it's a knife and that it is now cutting his own tongue and lips, he will continue to lick the blood off that knife. Well by now he's gone into a frenzy because now he's bleeding and his blood is mixing with the blood on the knife. He's going to have more blood and so he goes into kind of an uncontrolled frenzy until he loses so much blood, he dies. Now that's exactly what we do to ourselves when we put ourselves in positions where we know we're going to have trouble, where we know we're going to fight that recurring sin. Again we are drawing our own blood, we are feeding areas of weakness. Don't provide opportunity for the same sins. If you have a struggle in a certain area of your life make sure that you take extra precautions set up extra safeguards to protect you in that area. Don't go wandering around where you know you're going to be tempted, take extra precautions in that area. Don't provide an opportunity for recurring sins. The third lesson we can learn from this story about Abraham and his recurring sin is to forget the excuses. Just forget the excuses for recurring sins. Some wag has said faced with having to change our views or prove that there's no need to change them, most of us get busy on the proof. We would a lot rather make excuses for why we do what we do rather than addressing the issue of what we do. It's very typical, it's part of our sinful human nature I guess that we tend to make up excuses for what we do to rationalize why we did it. In that interesting Abraham made up three excuses in verses 11 through 13 to explain away, to rationalize why he had done what he did. And those three excuses are very similar to ones that we use. Let's take a look at them again. In verse 11 he said, I said to myself, there's surely no fear of God in this place and they will kill me because of my wife. You know what that sounds like? It sounds like, well, my circumstances were such that I really couldn't help it. That's really what he's saying. I was put in a position, my circumstances were such that I really couldn't help this. I really couldn't do anything about it. It was where I was, that was the problem. It's never where you are, that's the problem. It's who puts you there, that's the problem. Who took you there? Who put you in that position? Who opened up that opportunity for temptation? It's always our responsibility. We can never blame circumstances and yet we are so tempted to say, well, you know, my dad had a temper like this and I just can't help it. It's the way I am. I got it from my parents. I come by it honestly. Well, okay, there may be some genetics there, but still uncontrolled anger is a sin. If it's a sin, the Bible says you're responsible for that. You can work on that. Don't just explain it away. Don't make an excuse based on circumstances. Second excuse Abraham made in verse 12 was, you know, besides, he's really my sister, the daughter of my father, though not of my mother. In other words, this is not really completely wrong. I mean, it's not all bad. I mean, there are some reasons why I do this. And we begin to try to fudge on the truth or somehow rationalize a way that this is not completely wrong. At least I had good motives. In some way, try to excuse what we've done. We do the very same thing Abraham did. Third excuse he used was we've been doing this a long time. We made this pack together when we left Er of the counties. We decided this is what we would do. And how often do we say, well, you know, this has just become a habit for me. It's just part of the way I am. Something I can't change or break. All of those are excuses that God doesn't accept. They don't really wash with others and certainly not with God. And so just come clean. All we need to do is come clean and admit that we have sinned. Confess our sin, recognize it for what it is. And forget the excuses. Don't try to rationalize it away. Don't try to explain it away because somebody hurt me or somebody did this to me. Or, you know, I'm not being treated fairly. So I'm going to, you know, don't explain it away. Don't excuse it. Just say, I have sinned. Forget the excuses and come clean with God. Don't take the attitude that this is now inevitable in my life because you will surely give up and give in to defeat if you start excusing away, recurring sins. If you start saying, well, you know, there's just something I mean, I do pretty good in some others. There's just something I probably never will get a handle on. So it's just going to live with it. Don't treat it as inevitable. Stop making excuses and start really focusing on the ways that you can, with God's help, tackle this area of your life and get some victory in that area of your life. The fourth principle that we can learn from Abraham and his story about recurring sins. And this is encouraging. Remember that God forgives recurring sins. God forgives recurring sins. You know, when we fail again, we have the feeling of, how can God forgive me again? I asked Sue to try to find a picture and she's so good at this, the title slide. Try to find a picture of someone who just looked like they were miserable, like, oh, no, I failed again. And the picture, I think, perfectly captured the feeling that I think most of us have. When we are caught once again, when we recognize once again, we have failed again in the same area that we have failed 100 times before. We just find ourselves thinking, surely, why even confess it again? You know what? This is just such an area of problem for me. It's done over and over and over again. Can God really forgive me? Does he just think that I'm not being serious about my confession? And it is possible sometimes that we're not. I think we need to entertain that possibility that sometimes we have just come to accept a recurring sin and think it's kind of automatic. We sin, we confess, we're okay. We sin again, confess, we're okay. And we become no better than those who go into a confessional booth and just routinely say what they've done. Go out with no conviction or remorse or guilt or anything. I think we do need to make sure that's not what we're doing. But when a person genuinely confesses their sins, God forgives. It's clear in this text that God forgave Abraham. God was gracious to him. His wife was restored. He was blessed even by a Bimilek. And he was used by God again to pray for a Bimilek and be the instrument through which God would work in a Bimilek's life. But don't be deceived. That was God's grace. Abraham didn't deserve that. He had lost his honor. He had sinned against God. But I believe he recognized that. And once he got done with the excuses, God dealt with him. I think he recognized that. God graciously forgave him. God will forgive you. If in all earnestness and seriousness you come back to him and say, Lord, I really seem to struggle with this. I don't want to live this way. I don't want to be this way. I don't want to talk this way. I don't want to act this way. Lord, I come back to you again. And I need your help. I need your cleansing. There's a wonderful verse in the Bible that most of us memorized when we were little children. Verse John 1.9. You know the verse, don't you? If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just. And will forgive us our sins and purify us from all in righteousness. Isn't it interesting that that verse has no qualifiers to it? Isn't it interesting that the verse does not say if we confess our sins, he will forgive us the first time. Or he will forgive us the first five times. Or he will forgive us the first twenty times. There's no qualifier there. He says, if we confess our sins and that does indicate an honest, genuine confession of sin and repentance spirit. If that is there, then God will forgive. He's faithful to forgive. Just leave it at that. He's faithful to forgive. There's no qualifier made on how many times that will happen. Now be careful with that. Don't presume on God's grace. And don't take the attitude that, oh, okay, well then all I have to do is say, I'm sorry whenever I sin. I can keep on sinning. Just say, I'm sorry and I'm okay. No, no Paul warned about that. Spirit in Romans chapter 6. Look at these two verses. What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase by no means? We died to sin. How can we live in it any longer? God doesn't want us to resign ourselves to a routine of sinning, saying, I'm sorry, and then going on. Till it happens again. He wants to see a repentance spirit that truly from the heart desires to gain victory, even though in this one particular area it seems to be more difficult than other areas are to you. He wants to see that spirit that cries out to him and says, Lord, I am truly sorry. I don't want to live this way. Please help me to be stronger the next time I face this. When he senses that genuine, knows that that genuine repentance spirit is there, he will forgive your sins. When you come to him in that spirit, he is faithful and he's just to forgive us our sins. God is very patient. He knows that sanctification is a lifelong process. And God is fully aware. Obviously, he knows all things. He's not as fully aware that conversion for some of us takes care of some sins at that very moment. He's also aware that some others we're going to fight with for a while, but we'll gain victory over a period of time. And then he also knows there are some sins that will take a lifetime for us to work on. Because God is patient with us, He knows that the process of making a saint is a lifetime process. Now, it's going to happen overnight. I remember reading the story of a chemist at 3M back in the 60s who developed, actually stumbled on in some experiments that he was doing, a mild adhesive, but he didn't know what application to use it for. Didn't know of anything practical, really, that it could be done. So he just stuck it on paper and used this mild adhesive on paper. For six years, he tried to get it marketed, but with no success in his company. He began using it to mark his hymnol at church, the hymns that were posted on the board and their church that they were going to sing. He would open up and mark them with these little slips of adhesive paper and his secretary got a hold of it and started using it that way. And she wouldn't let him quit trying to get the thing marketed. So another two years, he tried and tried and tried and finally the company got sold on it and posted notes were born. Now, there was a man who simply would not give up. He had patience to continue. Why? Because he knew his idea was worth it and it would work in some way. He knew it would work. It would find a use. God is very patient with us. You know why? Because he knows what he's doing. He knows the process of sanctification will eventually work. If you will cooperate with him in that, then you will find greater progress in your life. He knows it's worth it if it takes a lifetime to deal with you about the sins in your life. And he will continue to work. He will not give up on you. So don't give up on him. If you battle with a particular recurring sin, I would encourage you if you haven't already. Think of that area of your life that so easily entangles you as Hebrews 12.1 says, that sin that so easily entangles you, that sin that just seems to keep coming back over and over again. Please don't give up in discouragement over that. Instead recognize everybody has some area of their life like that. There are really no different in that. Bible characters were no different in that. So we're in this together. It's not like everybody else is doing fine and I'm miserable. That's a tool Satan will use to get you so discouraged. You'll never make any progress on that sin. So don't feel like you're alone. By all means, don't provide yourself opportunities where you know you'll be tempted with that sin. And then forget the excuses. Just come clean with God, honestly confess it and He will forgive you and say, I'm still working on you. Not done with you yet. And if it takes a lifetime, I will patiently, graciously, lovingly work with you to make you more like my son. There is hope. There's hope for all of us. There was for Abraham. There is for us too. Don't give up. Don't quit. Don't just feel like it's inevitable that you're going to struggle with that all the time before God come to Him with a renewed vigor in your heart and eagerness to see Him work great things in that part of your life that for you is a recurring sin. Would you join me in prayer? Father, I thank you for the encouragement of Bible characters like Abraham. Thank you, Father, that even though He failed over the same issue time and time again, we know that you were gracious with Him. Patient, continue to work with Him. Lord, we know that you are the same God with us. I thank you for that. And I pray that you help us to resist the discouragements that Satan sends our way, to just give up the quit trying to be more Christ-like. Whatever area of our lives is a recurring sin, help us to walk with you and so close to you that we really are able to deal with things that have troubled us for years. Become closer, closer to you, the more we walk with you. I pray, Father, that if there's someone here tonight that needs the encouragement of your word tonight, that you would lift their spirits. Maybe there's someone here who's already given up in an area of their lives and just felt like there's no use. I pray that you'd bring them back to you for strength tonight and help. I ask in Jesus' name, amen.