Overcoming Habitual Sin Through a Life in the Spirit

In this interview, biblical counselor Chris Hurley shares his story and encourages us that victory over life dominating sins is possible. We discuss with him how we can put to death our sinful nature so we can begin to walk in the Spirit and enjoy the abundant life He has for us.  (From Podcast Episode #438 - |Victory| Emptied of Self, Filled with Power.)

Nate: I'd like to read something that Pastor Steve wrote. "Many sex addicts plead with God for help to overcome their sexual addiction, but resist Him when He begins to require change in other areas of their lives. They want Him to come into their inner world, and clean out the red light district, but they leave the movie houses, gambling halls and comedy clubs." Was this true for you Chris, in your own life, when you were coming out of sexual sin? That you just wanted one area of your life cleaned up, and you wanted God to leave the rest alone?

Chris: I would have to say yes. However, I also knew having had decades of sin in my past that there was a lot more to do. I'd already destroyed my family because of my sin, my rage. I would say the issue that has trailed me, and even Pastor Ed to this day has said that I'll have to deal with it for the rest of my life, is rebellion. Because I rebelled against every authority in my life. My parents, obviously, but also my teachers, my coaches, my employers and my spiritual authorities, for sure.

Nate: It's something you've been doing for a long time.

Chris: A very, very long time. When I looked into the word rebellion in the ESV translation, which is the version I mostly read, I saw that there were only sixteen verses that dealt with this word. But every time it was a hugely severe rebuke. I think of the rebellion of Korah in the Old Testament, when they stood and opposed Moses. What did God do? He opened the ground and the earth swallowed up their families, their possessions and every single thing. So, when I came to PLM sexual sin was the obvious, blatant, outward and rebellious aspect of my life, but inwardly there was a heart that was so full of know it all pride and self-exalting pride. That was the core issue in my life. It allowed me to say, "Yeah, I don't have to obey anybody. Least of all God."

Nate: So, when that sin became clear it sounds like you were thinking, “Okay, yes, I understand the sexual sin, but what about this huge sin of rebellion that's lying underneath? This needs to get dealt with.” How did you begin to walk in the Spirit in that area?

Chris: That's a good question. It was a struggle. I had to get to a point where I literally walked down to the cross one day and said, "Okay, Lord I've been in church for twenty years as a Pharisee. I thought I knew you, but it's very clear, I've never known you as Lord of my life." So I said, "I'm going to throw out the last twenty years, and I'm going to start fresh with you today, and I pray you'll start fresh with me. Make me obedient. Because I have never known obedience in my life!"

Coming here, the hardest thing for me to do was to hear my counselor talking to me. He loved me and wanted to see change in my life, but I had to trust him that he knew the Word of God much better than I did. I mean, he was a theologian, he knew the word of God much better. I had to trust that he was giving me right information, and that he himself was living a godly life. So, I trusted in him, and I started to trust in the Word of God.  Slowly, over a period of six or seven months, I started rebelling less and less. That took a period of months. And I had to surrender. I would go to the bottom of the prayer trail and cry and bawl my eyes out before God, and He started to show me my sin. My sin became worse and it worse before my eyes, and how could I resist such a great salvation?

Nate: This is good what you're saying, because the thing that I was hoping also to bring out in this interview is that we're not promoting a formula when it comes to walking in the Spirit. It's not a, "just do this, and then do this, and then do this." You were talking about a process of, of it sounds to me like it was a daily and hourly surrendering of your will. You thought, "I know that I have been wrong in the past, even though I've thought I've been right. I got to lay that down all day, everyday." And there’s all kinds of failures and missteps included in the whole process of learning to walk in the Spirit. Can you maybe explain a little bit about what it was like internally as you were going through this process? Well, you actually started to talk about it.

Chris: Well yeah, I saw it enacted just in my relationships in the program. I looked at the younger guys at first and thought, you know, they don't know anything. They're twenty-five years old.

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Nate: Yeah, they were born yesterday!

Chris: Yeah exactly, I mean they haven't experienced... I've experienced everything, right? No, and what I realize God had to build into me one important thing, one of the major aspects of a Christian life that I had never done which was mercy. Everything in my life had been about me. So, I just started going to men and saying, "Hey, can I pray for you?" And I saw that the more I did that, the more I stopped thinking about my needs and my problems. It was so much easier to submit to God's word and to watch it actually work in the lives of other men. That process of doing mercy changed my heart.

Nate: In that first couple of months when you realized this area of rebellion, and then you were thinking, "Okay, I've got to stop walking in the flesh, I've got to begin to learn to walk in the Spirit." Was it discouraging at the beginning? When you would see setbacks, or when you’d realize how strong and deep this sin really was.

Chris: Yes. Definitely at first. The first few months were very hard because my sin became very exposed in my heart. God was showing me the wickedness that had been in me. So there was a huge issue of asking Him to forgive me, and repenting. Constant repentance. I’d think to myself, "Oh, look at this, I did that! Oh my goodness look at how I treated this person." And it was a constant video of all my past sins. And seeing it I would get angry. I would rail against God. I would go to the farthest part of the prayer trail and scream at Him. "Why am I here? Why have you... Why do I have to go through this?" Right? But I had one verse that really helped me. James is great book for anyone struggling with the flesh. James 1:21 says, "put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness, and receive with meekness"—which is a humbling—"the implanted Word, which is able to save your souls." I had to believe that He didn't bring me here just to mock me. Or to crush me. His point was to save me from self. It took a long time for God to do this for me, but He was very gentle. He didn't crush me all at once, He just kept pointing out, "Hey, you need to repent to this person. Hey, you need to stop doing this behavior, don't Lord it over others."

Nate: The thing that's sticking out to me is just how much God wants us to be like Jesus in every area of our lives. He's not looking at what we're looking at. We say, "Oh Lord, come and help me with this thing." He's like a good father, He doesn't just see the one thing, He sees the whole picture. He says, "I do want to help you and I am going to help you, but I have to help you in the way I know is right. Not in the way you think is right."

Chris: Right. We have a teaching that's titled When Mercy Seems Cruel. I look back and see that everything God did through my program was mercy. Everything was for my good. Psalm 119 says, "You are good and you do good." And every time He puts a test before us, it’s so that we can see, "Am I walking in the Spirit or am I walking in the flesh?" Paul talks a lot about circumcision. And He says, "A Jew is not one who is circumcised outwardly. But it's a circumcision of the heart" (Romans 2:28-29). And He is always after our hearts. Jesus came to change our hearts and our minds. That cross that stands before us, at all times is to transform us and take our heart of stone and turn it into a heart of flesh. In that He can mold us and He can make us. I had almost 6 decades of unrighteousness that He had to cleanse out of me. And to think, was it hopeless? Oh, it looked hopeless. It looked impossible! But He's just a faithful giver. He’s constantly giving mercy to those who don't deserve it. Like me.

Nate: Yeah, amen. I'm glad about what you said, that it seemed impossible. It looked impossible. And you talked about being broken. You know in our minds we often think, well if God breaks me, I'm going to be messed up and miserable. I'm not going to be able to function. But it's obvious from listening to you speak that that's not right. The breaking makes us whole.

Chris: Yes. In the breaking, when we are humble, and when we are that empty clay vessel that we talk about, God comes in with His Spirit, fills us and makes us useful for His Kingdom. We no longer worry about self. Paul said, "Forgetting what was behind, but striving to what lies ahead" (Philippians 3:13). His focus was to work for Christ, if by any means, he may attain the resurrection. Yes, that's a future fulfillment for sure. But it says He came to give us life and life abundant. And if we think about the decimation that our sin has caused, why would we not want this newness of life that the Spirit brings into us? Why would we want anything other than this bountiful joy, this inexpressible joy? And can I say, honestly that it's all the time? No. Because I'm in the flesh. And Paul says, we will never be perfected in this flesh. We will constantly see our sin and our struggles brought before our eyes. But there is victory.

We walk in the Spirit. We do not give into the desires of the flesh. So, it's a conscious choice. And really for me Nate it came down to the point where, looking at the struggle and all the hurt and the pain that was being dredged up, I had to determine in my heart, is Jesus Christ worth this? Is He enough? Is He sufficient for me or am I going to just want to go back to watching pro football, looking at porn, having my big self-life and riding horses? No. Because all that as we look to the cross, it becomes so much less important. And as Paul has said, how could we not glorify God in our bodies, when we’ve seen how much we’ve been forgiven? My sin overwhelms me. It overwhelms me! I'm thankful there's repentance. It is one of the greatest joys of my life. I don't know how I could survive now, knowing the wretchedness that is within me, and being able to go to a brother and to say, "I've wronged you, I repent, please forgive," and then gain forgiveness. Which is exactly what God has done when he says, "I have covered all of your sins. You will be my people, and I will be your God" (Hebrews 8:10,12). And "Blessed is the man whose sins are covered, whose transgressions the Lord will not remember" (Psalm 32:1).

Nate: Amen, Amen. Alright, well thanks so much for coming in, that was good.

Chris: Thank you, it was a pleasure being here.