Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - How to Put Sin to Death: The Biblical Battle Every Christian Must Fight | Jonny Ardavanis

Episode Date: November 18, 2025

Are you truly fighting sin, or just "struggling" with it? In this powerful episode, we dive deep into Romans 8:13 and the biblical concept of mortification—putting sin to death through the power of the Holy Spirit.This episode is brought to you by our ministry partner Accountable2You. To join thousands living in Freedom with nothing to hide visit https://accountable2you.com/dialin. **Use our unique code: DIALIN to get 25% off your first year of an Accountable2You Personal or Family Plan**KEY TOPICS COVERED: • What it means to mortify sin (and why the language is so violent) • The difference between struggling with sin vs. fighting sin • How to identify areas where you're making provision for the flesh • The role of the Holy Spirit in sanctification • Why accountability is crucial (and what real accountability looks like) • John Owen's classic teaching: "Be killing sin or sin will be killing you" • Practical steps to wage war against temptationSCRIPTURE REFERENCES: • Romans 8:13 - Putting to death the deeds of the body • Colossians 3:5 - Put to death what is earthly in you • Galatians 5:24 - Crucifying the flesh with its passions • Matthew 5:8 - Blessed are the pure in heartThis isn't about earning salvation through works—it's about living out the new identity Christ has given us. Every believer must engage in this daily battle until we meet Jesus face to face.Remember: You take a day off from mortifying the flesh, the flesh grows. RESOURCES MENTIONED: • John Owen's "The Mortification of Sin" • Accountable2You (accountability software) - Use code DIALIN for 25% offShare your thoughts: What practical steps are you taking to fight sin in your life?

People saying I'm struggling with sin has become a euphemism for I just... I'm giving in to sin over and over and over again, and I have maybe good intentions, but I don't do anything about that. So this is a big topic and an important one for the life of a believer to put sin to death. Every day you take a day off from mortifying the flesh, the flesh grows. You would have to take inventory of your life and ask, what are the sneaky ways I make provision for the flesh? what does it mean to slaughter those ways, right?

And I use that language because the Bible does. Hank, how are we doing? Doing fantastic, Johnny. How are you doing this afternoon? Good, nice shirt. Thank you. This is actually, I've been getting a lot of comments on this shirt. Yeah.

This is what I like to call a little bit of a limited edition. The ivory color. The backstory on this is actually, so I'm subscribed. to your mailing list that comes out Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays. And if you haven't subscribed, please do so. But I got the email that drew my attention to an early release. And so literally, I'm sitting at my workstation. I see the email come in on the left side of my monitor and not even finishing the sentence. I transition to the right side of my monitor, open up a text, send a text to your wife and said, put a 2xL on the side. I need it badly.

Double X. Double X, always. Same here, baby. All right. Well, in that regard. Building on that. Thank you all for continuing to listen to the show. We are on week two of a little study that we're doing on purity, holiness. Last week we talked about being pure in heart, meaning that Jesus says in Matthew 5, 8, blessed or the pure in heart, for they shall see God, meaning that the great promise that God extends to those who are pure is that they're going to have a deeper, more exhaustive understanding,

and not just an understanding in an academic or factual way, but an intimacy with God. That's the great promise that he gives to those who are pure. It's not just that their life's going to be blessed, it's that they're going to be raptured with a vision of God where they can taste and see the Lord's goodness rather than just to believe and affirm that. Now, in this episode, what we want to talk about is fighting sin. You know, sometimes we talk about that. You know, people say things like, I'm really struggling.

And then you go, are you struggling? Right. Are you actually fighting against sin? Because sometimes struggling, people saying I'm struggling with sin has become a euphemism for I just. I'm giving in to sin over and over and over again. And I have maybe good intentions, but I don't do anything about that. And I want to look at a text of scripture. And then we're going to, we're going to juxtapose this and harmonize this with the reality

that all of these realities of fighting sin are through the power of the spirit. We'll say that at the beginning, but there's a real call here for the life of a believer to put sin to death. Hey, why don't you read Romans 813 for us? Absolutely.

So it says, for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die. But if by the spirit you are putting to death the practices of the body, you will live. Yeah, so this truth right here says that if you, there's a call to put to death the deeds of the body

through the power of the spirit, you will live. That's a great promise. Right here, and you use this language elsewhere in Colossian chapter 3, verse 5, and he says, put to death sin. John Owen, we're going to look at a lot of John Owen in this episode in regards to what he says

in his classic book, four or five hundred years old, the mortification of sin. That word for mortify is Thanato, where you get the idea of Thanatos. It means to put to death sin, and we started this way already, but the language that is used in regards to the belief, believer's relationship with sin is not passive, it's not nuanced, it's violent, it's aggressive.

Put that sin to death. And Paul says here in Romans 813, but if by the spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. John Owen says, he's basically saying, if you take this medicine, then you will be well. And he is expressing the certainty of the connection between the medicine and the health, saying, if you do this, you're going to live. And inversely, if you don't put to death, death, the deeds of the body, your soul is in danger, your spiritual vitality is in danger, you obviously don't lose her salvation. We've talked about that before, but you can lose and forfeit your usefulness for Christ, the assurance of your salvation. So this is a big topic and an important one for the life of a believer to put the sin to death. And so maybe, I guess,

from the onset, the question would be, like, who is motivating or who is chiefly driving this action of putting the sin to death? Well, I think you got to start with who is the only type of a person that can mortify sin who can who can kill sin well that's what i said only one type of person and it's the person that is in christ jesus romans 8 1 begins therefore there is no condemnation for those who are in christ that doesn't just mean that you claim christ it means that you've been united to christ that you've been buried with him in baptism raised to newness of life that's one of the great claims of the christian is that they don't just they don't just believe in god but they become a residence they're a temple of the holy spirit now in light of that it says

in Romans 8, 9. However, you are not in the flesh but in the spirit. If indeed the spirit of God dwells in you, but if anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, he doesn't belong to him, meaning you have never met a Christian who doesn't have the spirit of God living and reigning within them. Verse 11. But if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, and he's not asking that as if it's uncertain, it's more like sense. The spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you. He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you then we pick up again in verse 14 same idea he says all who are being led by the spirit of god these are the sons of god and the spirit himself

verse 16 testifies with our spirit that we are children of god meaning once we believe in christ there's no condemnation we're we're saved we don't have the fear of meeting god as a judge in an eternal sense we're we're going to go to hell you know you can't lose your salvation but now he's going to talk through this element that, okay, we have the Spirit of God living within us, and now because of the spirit's power, the same power, he says that raised Jesus from the dead, that is the same power necessary for you to defeat what Paul refers to as the old man. And we'll talk about this more in a moment. So, and this is maybe going off script for a second, but the distinction would be one between like a justification action. That's now taken place. And now we're moving into the

sanctification part of the journey. Is that right? Yeah, absolutely. And to be fair to the rest of Scripture, if there's no sanctification, if there's no victory over sin, it reveals that there's never any justification in the first place, right? You're not saved by your works, but you're saved by faith alone, but true saving faith is never alone. So we don't want to confuse the root of salvation with the fruit of salvation. But when he says here, hey, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Well, how do we know if we're in Christ? Well, you're going to see there's going to be a progressive victory over sin.

That doesn't earn you your standing with God, but it reveals that he has genuinely transformed your heart and you have the Spirit of God living within you. Owen says, without the Spirit of God, it is like the person that attempts to restrain the flesh, and we'll even define what that means, by countless and bewildering rituals. But being strangers to the Spirit of God, all of this is done in vain, meaning that you can fight and fight and fight in your own strength. And he says, it'll all be done in vain. and you're going to spend all of your strength fighting sin. But if you don't have the Spirit of God living and reigning within you, you cannot, in a biblical sense, mortify sin. So the question has to be asked from the beginning.

Are you in Christ? Do you have God's Holy Spirit working in and through you? Because there is no hope to put to death the deeds of the body unless you have a supernatural power working in and through you. Hey, folks, I want to take a moment and tell you about one of our ministry partners, accountable to you. Accountable to you is an accountability software that helps protect and ensure your personal purity and integrity. I've been using this personally for over a year and the way it works is that whatever you look at is sent to the accountability partners that you have in your

life. My wife would be one of those. I have other friends that are a part of that. And the guys on my church staff are also joining me in this endeavor because one of the paths to purity is eliminating any access to anonymity in your life, meaning that if you can look at things on your iPad, your phone, your computer, and say no one will ever know about this, it's going to be really hard to battle for holiness in a world that is so littered with impurity. I would highly encourage you to check out Accountable to You. You can go to their website, accountable to you.com forward slash dial in and use dial in our code to receive 25% off your first year of use. There's nothing more important than protecting your personal purity as

You seek to honor the Lord, and with it, there's a precious promise that we've looked at before. Blessed of the pure and heart, for they shall see God. And accountability is one of the ways that you can ensure that you are protecting your personal purity and seeking to honor the Lord Jesus Christ. I know we've touched on this, and we're going to keep moving here in a second. But for a listener who's listening, who actually doesn't know the answer to that question, would you present like a 15-second backup of the gospel of, are you in Christ? Yeah, you'd have to place your faith in Christ. work of Christ, what he's done, that he died for our sins, he rose from the grave, and that Jesus, you know, he lived the perfect life that we can never live. He died the death

and we can never die. And the testimony of the scripture is that in the same way that God raised Jesus from the dead and that requires supernatural power, that's what we need, not just to save us, but to sanctify us, which is that lifelong process by which we become more and more like Jesus Christ. Now Paul says here in Romans 813 that we are to put to death the deeds of the body. Now, what does that mean? So maybe I'm going to be cheating here, but you mentioned a few moments ago. Paul refers to like the old man. Or so, would this be, you know, Hank prior to placing my faith in Jesus Christ? I had a bunch of desires and fleshly, I don't want to use Christian legalese, but desires of my own

created being. Things I'd like to do that put myself at the center of the story. Yeah, Paul says in St. Corinthians 517, if any of you, anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, a new creature, the old things have passed away. With that in mind, we still battle what the scripture refers to as our remaining flesh. There's still a tug towards sin. In Romans 610, Paul says, the death he died, that's Jesus, he died to all, once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God, so that you must also consider yourself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ, meaning that there is a reality where God has,

in the life of a believer removed the power of sin. If you're in Christ, you are no longer under bondage to sin and Satan. You don't serve him as a harsh master. With that said, you still, as an objective through the power of the Holy Spirit until you meet Jesus Christ face to face, need to continually consider yourself dead to the old man. Meaning sin, in the New Testament perspective, isn't just something you need to say no to.

I don't want to do that. I shouldn't do that. It's something you're dead to. meaning that's the actual mentality of someone who's been saved and changed by God is when you're tempted to lust or steal or cheat you literally can say I'm dead to that Christ died for that and that power that I must do that is no longer it's no longer there that's why Paul says in Galatians 524 those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires so you're no longer serving sin as a master

However, sin is still tempting. The flesh still seeks to thwart and distort the purposes and plan of God. And that's why we're battling as believers, three realities. Satan, our flesh, and the worldly system in which we live. It just rings true for those who've placed their faith in Jesus Christ. This reality should be like ringing true. I feel like my heart is attuning for it. It's so practically relatable in that you get called.

caught up in the day-to-day life and your gaze is still drawn to kind of the shiny objects that are coming kind of through the windshield of your life. And that your point here, that is one that's replete throughout scripture more broadly, but already we've been in Galatians, we've been in Romans. This is a reality we see in 1 John and 1st Peter, that we're now gifted this new spirit to live by, that we need to be reminded to continuously live in that new spirit. Yeah. So I think it's a product of understanding our union with Christ. So yeah, we're still tempted to look at things that you said is shining through the window. We're still might have, sin isn't all the sudden destroyed once we come to Christ in the sense of like we have no temptation.

We have no fleshly desires. We're perfect. Right. We still battle sin. Owen says the best believers who are certainly freed from the condemning power of sin, they still need to make it their business to mortify the end-dwelling power of sin all their life. And here's what that means. Sometimes people say, like, hey, will you ever grow out of sin?

Well, there's a certain point where you might, certain things that tempt you at some stage may not tempt you at later stages. But John Owen says, every single believer you have ever met ought to be mortifying the flesh until they meet God face to face. He says that you are going to mortify

the end-dwelling power of sin all your life. this is why Paul says in Galatians 5 walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh and here's kind of what I was going out with what you're saying too for the desires of the flesh are against the spirit and the desires of the spirit

are against the flesh but these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do meaning for a believer there is the remnant of the flesh living within them that is opposed to the spirit of God and is trying to get you to do what you do

not want to do. That's a reality in the scripture. For this reason, Peter says, beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh. And he says, which wage war against your soul? Meaning our relationship with the flesh, it's not hospitable roommates. It is war. The flesh hates the spirit and the spirit is set up against the flesh. And the flesh, like Paul says in Romans 7, is trying to get him to do things he does not want to do. Ephesians 4, put off the old self and all of its corrupt, deceitful desires. Put to death, Colossians 3.5, all that is earthly in you. This is an important thing, I think.

Paul is talking to the church in Colossi, and he's writing to believers. But he says, put to death there for what is earthly in you. It's still there. He says sexual immorality. impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness,

which is idolatry. On account of these, the wrath of God is coming. And these you two once walked. Okay, they used to define you. Sexual immorality, impurity, covengishness, greed,

those used to define you. Yet, even for a believer, there still remains this remnant of flesh, this earthly nature still within us. And he says, you have to put them to death.

Put them away, he says. He says in Romans 13, 14, put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires. And so as I'm hearing you kind of work through all these different passages, it's striking me, this is in many ways like identity language and that Paul's point, Jesus's point, God's point through his word, is that when we're purchased by Christ, when we place our faith and our trust in him and we repent from our sins and turn to him as our Lord and Savior, We're given a new identity. We're now literally identified as a child of the most high.

But then practically, we are not removed from our day-to-day lives in Middle Tennessee and our example in 2025. And so there's this reality that we need to be reminded of our true identity because we can be distracted. The old self keeps kind of rearing and trying to recling and distract us from that new created identity. Yeah, not only that we need to be reminded of our identity, we need to be reminded of the reality that the battle against the flesh is normal. Sometimes when people are tempted by things, they're going, what's wrong with me? I thought this should be gone by now. No, no, no.

It actually says in the Bible that the flesh is set up against the spirit and you ought to wage war against your sin. You ought to destroy it. That's why the word here is thanato. You are to mortify, demolish your sin because it's so rampant, it's so pervasive, and yes, we need to be reminded of our union with Christ, but I also need the reminder on a daily basis that my flesh is seeking to destroy me. You know, it wants to trip me off. That's why Hebrew says, let us, you know, run the race and get rid of all the sin that so easily entangles us. And this is a language there of sin is just trying to grab us at every angle. And I was just, you jumped to this, but I just want to call out for the sake of clarity.

This is intense language. Like, you're using violent language that isn't by choice. I would dare to say, like, that isn't, you know, Johnny Ardavana's language. That's language taken directly from the text. And maybe, like, practically for me, it's like a shock therapy of, like, I need to be reminded of the brutal nature of this reality because otherwise I can almost become desensitized to vacation at sea in a sense of our relationship with sin yeah owen says to kill a man or a live or another living thing it means you have to take away all of its strength vigor and power so that it cannot act or exert on its own

that is just what paul means in this case indwelling sin is compared to a person a living person called the old man and he has his way of thinking his tendencies his wisdom his craft his subtlety and his strength and the old man must be killed, put to death, mortified. And we do this through the power of the spirit. So there's this, you mentioned kind of that we can become laissez-faire a little bit in our relationship with sin. But John Owen reminds us there's no ceasefire in the battle of sin. And that's why he famously says, be killing sin or sin will be killing you. Every day you take a day off from mortifying the flesh, the flesh grows.

and that is why through the power of God's spirit, we have to, as Peter says, wage war against every fleshly opportunity in our life. And I'll just speak maybe personally, thinking back on kind of my own life, there are definitive points my wife could attest to this. There have been chapters of, I want to be careful with my words, but higher feelings of flourishing of, you know, endeavors that, like, man, this is actually working really well. I feel God actively, like, involved in the day to day. And there have been, like, definitive moments, not in a cavalier, like, ambiguous, but

in a real sense of, like, man, there's been, this has not been a season where I've been battling sin, like in seasons past. And there are several instances where within small amounts of time, 24, 36, 48 hours of having that thought that all have. a serious setback and it's this is the reminder it's like a lived reminder of periods of high point only to be followed by you know pride comes before the fall that's why owen says when sin lets us alone we may let sin alone but sin is never less quiet than when it seems most quiet its waters are deepest when they are still

chris longar talks about this like when a you don't hear the growl of a lion it doesn't mean he's not hunting and so when there's this element of hey we're on coast is clear that everything seems pretty smooth sailing you ought to know at that point your flesh and satan the devil who seeks and prows like a roaring lion to destroy you is looking for opportunities owen says when we are slothful negligent and foolish so yeah there's there's this element where you have to consistently be asking yourself am i putting sin to death or are we are we making provision for it? Do we have a spot for your sin?

In the sense of Joe Beakey one time told me that sometimes we shut the window on sin, but we leave a little crack. And he just said, shut the window, shut it all the way because that's super important. Now, I said it's important, but you've got to ask the question,

why is mortifying your flesh so vital? Well, Owen says, sin can produce soul-destroying. sins. Meaning, if you look at David, like you were mentioning, like, kind of at the peak of his power, he had already written half of the Psalms in the Bible, but he's left alone and sin is destructive, and it can wreak havoc on your soul. Owen says, men may reach a point. This is hundreds of years ago, yet true today. He says, men may reach a point where sin is so unrestrained that it no longer stings their conscience, and the most outrageous sin no longer seem

scandalous. Sin is like a grave that is never satisfied. We talk about sin destroying sins. Again, you're not losing your salvation. It might reveal that you were never saved in the first place if you give yourself fully over to sin, but it can damage your soul. It can prevent you from seeing God as we talked about last week. But it's hard to quantify the destruction that sin will reek in your heart, in your soul, when you leave it unmortified. Again, I'll just speak from personal experience, but there's people I can think of that I know who've fought a good fight for weeks, months, years, decades,

truly decades, and get late into their life and make provision for sin that goes unchecked. But it's this provision for sin that goes unchecked for weeks. And the provision grows. 100%. And so they kind of wake up all of a sudden. years down the road and say like, man, how did I ever end up here? And it's like, well, like a ship sailing, you went two degrees off, you know, five years ago and left totally

unchecked and you just seared your conscience. And not only does that wreak havoc on you, but it wreaks havoc on your witness to the unbeliever and it also wreaks destructive havoc on the people in your life. Yeah, that's why people use the language. You know, this guy fell in the sin. And I always say no one falls into sin. They slide. You know, it's inch, by inch, you know, not mile by mile. It's just gradually over time, you make provision for the flesh, allowance for sin.

You may say no to sin, but then you keep it as Moses's mother in a basket in the reeds and you know where to find it. And you access that sin when you want to. And that is dangerous. And this is why Paul says, don't remove sin. He says, put it to death. Even if you think about the language of Jesus,

Jesus says if your eye causes you to stumble, what? Gowage it out. And throw it away from you. If your hand caused you to stumble, what? Chop it off. This is warfare language. There's nothing cute, nothing nice,

nothing dainty about the relationship that a believer has within dwelling sin. It's violent. He's not saying that you literally go stab yourself in the eye. He's saying you take extreme measures to fighting for holiness to honor Christ. all of these things that we've mentioned, it's important that we come back to this because Paul says,

but if by the spirit you're putting the death, the deeds of the body, mortification is a gift from God, and the gifts of God come through Jesus Christ. That's why Jesus says, without me, you can do nothing. Now, the question is, if this is a work of the Spirit of God, then why are we urged to do it? Well, everything that God commands us to do, he works out in and through us through his spirit and through grace.

for example in philippians two paul says work out your salvation with fear and trembling like hey this is some holy spirit inspired sweat work out your salvation with fear and trembling but the next verse says for it is god who works in and through you that word is energeo it means like energizes so our justification that is the declaration by which we are declared righteous by god is holy and solely a work of god

our sanctification we've talked about this is synergistic in the sense of we live with dependency upon the Spirit of God and we submit our minds and hearts to be renewed by the Spirit of God. But it is work. It's not works that earn God's favor. We're doing that because we've received favor in Christ. But we're boxing, right? Paul says, we're fighting, we're running, we're farming,

we're buffeting our body and making no provision so that we can honor the Lord. And this is where maybe it's easy. to fall into either pitfall. So on the one hand, you can be so distracted or beaten down by your own sin that you neglect the spirit within you and you try and kind of white knuckle it yourself. And then on the flip side, there's also the one who's so kind of comfortable and assured of his or her own salvation that they make no meaningful effort in their day-to-day lives of like, no, what are you doing practically?

God gave you a brain to think. God gave you relationships and networks. What are you doing to leverage the resources around you so that you're not distracted by these sins that are so eagerly clinging on to distracting you from your witness? Yeah, so all of these things, we live with the penitence heap on the power of God, but then we also make some practical steps in our life, meaning like, hey, I used to tell guys this all the time.

Listen, if your phone causes you to stumble, get a flip phone, right? Like you can't convince me that holiness is your greatest priority if the very means by which you stumble is in your pocket 24-7, right? So get a flip phone. It is better for you to enter heaven with a flip phone than for your whole body to be thrown in the hell, right? If your eye causes you to stumble, chop it off. If your iPhone causes you to stumble, smash it to a million pieces.

Jesus is serious. And obviously, I got to use those same measures and standards in my own life, right? So, like, practically, there's systems and things in my own life. Like, I can't download apps on my phone. Everything I look, I get sent to someone. We have watched everything on, like, a software that filters out, anything on shows or anything that we do, right? Because I would want to take extreme measures so that I would honor the Lord.

And that's really what this is talking about is no one just waltzes towards holiness. It is a battle, but it's a battle that's already been won in Christ, right? So we do this with prayer. We can talk about a lot of different things. We put on the whole spiritual armor, which we've talked about. But it's important, and we can begin to lay in the plane here. We're just talking about the need for perspective that sin needs to be fought. That's what we're doing.

In the future, next episode we'll talk about how our mind is renewed, how our affections are transformed. But Owen says every unmortified sin will certainly do two things. It'll weaken the soul and deprive it of vigor, meaning if you allow sin to flourish, in the garden of your heart, it'll actually destroy your soul. Like, you don't see God clearly. You can't live life with the capital L. There's no such thing as a happy, disobedient Christian. Robbed of joy.

Yeah, well, David says, when I kept silent about my sin, I felt like I was being drained, I was just being shriveled under the sun. But even if you're like, you know, but when you're walking in sin and living in sin and your heart's not being exposed and your consciences and being informed by the Word of God, you don't feel as guilty,

but it's still affecting you. just because you don't feel guilty over sin doesn't mean it's not affecting you you you have maybe no idea how much it is affecting you and then owen says secondly it'll darken the soul and deprive it of its comfort and peace he says it does this by misdirecting its affections he says the soul cannot truthfully say to god you are all i need because it has something else that it currently loves if sin remains unmortified in the heart then thoughts will always make provision to fulfill the lust of the flesh as sin weakens the soul, it darkens the soul. It is a thick cloud that spreads itself over the face of the soul and blocks all the light of God's love and favor. It takes away all sense of the privilege of

our adoption. And if the soul entertains thoughts of consolation, sin quickly scatters them. So this is like a cloud hanging over the soul. And this thing could be covetousness, it could be worldliness. It could be greed. It could be lust. It could be materialism, whatever. But that sin left unmortified, the scripture says, is no trivial matter. This isn't the centrality of this episode. But I think we'd also be amiss if we went through the mortification of sin and never mentioned maybe the role of accountability. And it just strikes me. I was talking to an elder in our church just this past week as we were getting together with a couple in our community group. And his quick point was like every time we meet with someone that's experiencing conflict, there should

be a triage there. And one of the primary tools we're going to pull on first and foremost is just, is this an issue where we need like long-term permanent, fully transparent accountability with a trusted brother or sister in Christ? But I just don't want to, it's so easy if you've been a Christian for any number of years to kind of hand wave to accountability and be like, Oh, yeah, absolutely. Accountability is so important. But it's a different thing, back to your point on the iPhone. It's one thing to actually say, no, like today I'm going to reach out to someone who can help

keep me accountable, ask questions that they know ahead of time they need to ask with regularity consistently, because this matter is important and weighty enough that if you're not doing it, you're neglecting one of the chief guards that God has gifted us with. And we shouldn't be surprised if we're losing the fight, if we're fighting alone. And yeah, if the language is warfare, you battle in the trenches with fellow soldiers. So I think that's important. You know, accountability is kind of like a, it can become like an eye roll moment. Yeah, totally.

Because I think the thought that comes to mind when people talk about accountability is like a group of guys in high school. They're like, you know what? We all stink. Yeah. All right. Well, we're all honest about our sin. But it's actually you're providing a level of acceptability about the sin because accountability unfortunately typically means you're talking to someone else who has.

the same struggle as you, but accountability always includes someone godlier than you. It does. It's different than like a brother in the fight, right? You should have someone that I don't want to say scared to confess to, but like it means something. Like it's like, man, I, there's a weight there, right? And I don't say scary because they should obviously have grace. But I think that when I was growing up, accountability almost became like a joke, right?

because it was just a bunch of sinners. And it was like, all right. Yeah, glad we feel okay, right? So I think accountability is crucial because it also involves confession, right? So like we confess our sins to one another so we could be healed. Confession is an element that's so important

and Jesus has already paid for our sin and the question is sometimes asked, why do I confess my sins if Jesus has already paid for them? Well, we confess our sins to each other at times so that the other party would remind us that that's been covered by grace and that same grace gives us the power to overcome the sin, then you are not under sin's reign. You can defeat this sin through the power of God because at times you just become, I'm a failure, I'm a failure, I'm a failure, I keep on making

provision for the flesh and the flesh has beaten me up over and over again. And maybe that's all I'm designed to be is just to be like a dummy that gets beat up by the flesh. And someone can look at you and say, no, you have the power that raised Jesus from the dead. living within you put it to death you know so I think you need that maybe to tie this all back full circle and we can put a bow on it but it relates back to maybe that account that accountability should be pointing you to what we looked at last episode that you're not putting sin to death for putting sin to death's sake the end no it comes with a promise and it comes with a promise that no you get to see and behold God yeah which is that's where it says here you will live

And it doesn't, I don't think it just means physically live. It means you're going to have a level of spiritual vibrancy. The motivation for putting sin to death is to see God, is to have a level of intimacy with God. He is near to the upright. It says in Proverbs, I love that idea. David says, you know, that there's this level of communion and knowledge and nearness. And then I would want that, right? So I think it's maybe just to be done here, you would have to take inventory

of your life and ask what are the sneaky ways I make provision for the flesh and what does it mean to slaughter those ways right and I use that language because the Bible does chop it off tear it out put it to death wage war sin is serious but thankfully God's given us a spirit and provides us with the power we need. Thanks for that conversation, Jai. Yeah, thanks, bro.