What I Learned about Defeating Sin from Pulling Roots

June 17, 2022

I would not be the man I am today had I not been required to spend hours on my knees as a child pulling up weeds by the roots.

How’s that for an overstated introduction? Yes, it is quite the exaggeration, but stick with me.

Get It by the Roots, or Don’t Bother

If I heard it once, I heard it a thousand times (or at least a dozen), “You must get the root, or the weed will come right back,” and there was common sense to that. But it sure could make an 8-year-old’s life miserable. The satisfaction of pulling up that Pigweed by its taproot was one thing, but wrestling with those stubborn Crabgrass roots was, well, character-building, or so I’m told.

It would also prove insightful in my adult battle with remaining sin, once I knew how to make the connection.

The Difference between the Root and the Fruit

The Maker is wise. His wisdom is elegantly evident in all of creation, not the least of which is His world of vegetation.

The LORD by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding he established the heavens. ─ Proverbs 3:19

God created plants with two ends; a top and a bottom, a root and a fruit. For our purposes, let’s change that to a root and a blossom.

Two ends of the plant, two entirely different purposes. A blossom is meant to attract. It can certainly attract the admiration of people, but the basic intention is to attract pollinators. Its brilliant colors and distinctive aromas are to the honeybees and butterflies like the Krispy Kreme “Hot Now” neon sign: irresistible.

The root, on the other hand, has an entirely different function. The root cares nothing about attracting anything. The root is there to seek out, not to be sought. While the blossom is there to spread, the root is there to nourish. The root’s entire purpose is to keep the plant alive. That’s the reason the root must be removed.

That’s also the reason that when the root is removed, no one stands back and admires it─at least not for its beauty.

The root is ugly. The root holds zero aesthetic appeal─it’s not supposed to.

Remaining Sin is Like a Flower

Take this amateur lesson on plant anatomy and plug it into what you know about remaining sin. The aspect of our humanity that has been most damaged by the Fall is the aspect of our desires. The greatest obstacle to our growth in godliness is the learned response to temptation that remains, and our broken desire for the false attraction of sin (see What a Double Amputee Taught Me about Sin).

We still battle broken desires─giving us a false attraction to the sin to which, in Christ, we are now dead. The question before us is this: How do we break that? How do we “pull it up by the root” so it will die?

Here’s where I found spiritual pay dirt. Blossoms are beautiful. Roots are not.

The Relationship between Desire and Attractiveness

We desire nothing that holds no attraction for us. Read that again, because that is foundational to your battle to defeat remaining sin.

A non-negotiable requirement for desire is attraction. Nothing elicits our desire that we do not find attractive in some way. This won’t resonate if you think only physical attraction, there are a myriad of ways in which the human heart is attracted to things outside itself. Realize that your heart can be attracted to sin on many, many levels.

But that’s the thing to see─it is attractive. All temptations of the heart hold an attraction, even those sins that, on the surface, seem so hideous.

Do not let my heart incline to any evil… ─ Psalm 141:4

I’ll begin with an easy example: Adultery. I say easy because the dichotomy is plain.

Adultery is ugly because it destroys families and ruins lives.

Adultery is attractive because it offers forbidden pleasures, whether physical, emotional, or both.

Stolen water is sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. ─ Proverbs 9:17

No one ever committed adultery because they were attracted to the prospect of ruining their family. Adultery is always committed as a reaction to the attractiveness of the thing. Like pulling weeds by the roots, this is common sense, even to the unredeemed.

But common sense becomes far less common in our battle with sin because the blossom screams louder than the root. If we can train our souls to see the root before the blossom, everything changes. If Lauren Bacall herself were to proposition me, and I can train my soul to see more clearly the destruction such a proposition brings rather than the forbidden pleasure of the Krispy Kreme neon sign, then the false attraction of sin is broken. And no attraction means no desire.

Seeing the Root

What’s easy to see is the generation of movie stars I appreciate. What’s less-than-easy to see is just how it is that I can train my soul to see the root and break the attraction.

But in the very question is the answer. Our souls must see the root, not the blossom. The blossom is intended to attract. Our enemy profits by making the blossoms so colorful and aromatic that we’re like drunken honeybees, so sensually elated that our souls are not thinking clearly─or more importantly, seeing clearly.

So we must see the root, and here is the connection that for most of us is not intuitive, and sometimes downright elusive.

What Gives Sin Its Life?

We can learn much by training our souls to look deeper into our remaining sin. Sin, like the flower, has a blossom and it has a root. And like the flower, one is attractive and the other is not. Our failures most often come because we see only the blossom. But every blossom has a root, and the root is always ugly. Always.

There is a simple exercise that has helped me immensely in my battle with remaining sin. It is this: asking pointed questions of my sinful temptations.

What is your root?

What does my soul find attractive in you?

What does my soul want to possess or achieve in having you?

What do I think you will do for me?

What is giving you life in my eyes?

But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. ─ James 1:14

As you can see, this is on a whole different level than: I thought this would be fun, or pleasurable, or the pathetic─Satan made me do it. This is taking ownership of your sin. Looking it in the eye and asking yourself hard questions. Uncomfortable questions. Questions whose answer will try to elude you, like the Crabgrass that one hundred percent of the time will break off in the 8-year-old hand. You must not accept halfway answers. You must persist until you see the root. Your feet must touch bottom.

What Questions Produce the Best Results?

The destination at which you want to arrive is this: What is giving this sin its life? What’s its source, not its blossom? Start with the blossom, but then pull up the root. Then having done so, gaze deeply at that ugly root. Don’t look away.

Examples make the best descriptions. Let’s begin with something simple and all-too-common: Gossip.

…a whisperer [gossiper] separates close friends. ─ Proverbs 16:28

We all know that gossip is a sin. We all know that gossip is destructive. It destroys relationships, it destroys churches. But what makes us want to gossip?

That’s fairly simple. We want to gossip because it makes us feel important, or well-informed, or like we’re standing on higher moral ground. But we must look deeper. Get past the blossom. Why do those things hold attraction for us?

If you can train your soul to instinctively ask and answer that type of question, you will begin to rob temptation of its attractiveness.

Focus on the word feel. Why does feeling important, or well-informed, or morally upstanding hold attraction for us? That holds the key.

The First Humans Were Primarily Gardeners. Is That Ironic?

In one sense, sin has always been the same from the very beginning. All sin shares an ultimate, common root: the desire to be God, the desire to replace God Almighty with a counterfeit version that we control, namely ourselves.

Let’s see how this works, and how this relates to those pretty blossoms.

To see this, we will begin with the above-mentioned sin of gossip, both because it is so prevalent, and so widely accepted. We all do it, all of us. And we don’t really think it’s that bad.

Ask the questions.

Gossip, what does my soul find attractive in you? What is giving you life in my eyes?

The root of gossip is pride. Pride is the elevation of self above all others. Pride must be recognized by others as superior, that’s what gives pride its life. Pride cannot exist on a deserted island; pride gets life when it flaunts its superiority to others.

Gossip seeks to tear down others, and by so doing, to elevate self in the opinions of the same. Knowing gossip to be displeasing to God, the Christian who gossips says in their heart, “God, the opinions of others is more important to me than Yours. What others think of me means more to me than what You say to me. Therefore, I violate Your Word in order to advance myself.

Did you see the root? It looks very different than the blossom.

The blossom says, “Look at me, I like to talk, and sometimes I just say things I shouldn’t, but I mean well.”

See the petals? Smell the aroma?

Now look at the root, all twisted and dirt encrusted, hideous and spider-like in its nature. The root says, “I worship the opinions of others. The most important thing to me is what others think of me. Therefore, I am supreme. I am god. My value in the eyes of others is greater than the value of the Living God.”

That’s quite different from the blossom, but: They are the same plant, and unless you understand that, you will go on seeing only blossoms.

In order to drive this home, let’s choose another sin─one that seems so very harmless, one with a really nice blossom: Escapism.

Escapism is sinfully escaping the true reality in order to live in another, preferred reality. Escapism takes many forms: illicit drugs, alcohol abuse, compulsive shopping, binging on Netflix, spending excessive time on your Facebook feed, working unnecessarily long hours, even reading. You get the idea: whatever distracts me from this reality and causes me to lose myself in another, preferred reality.

Please understand, there is nothing implicitly sinful in any of those activities (except of course illicit drug use), but we’re speaking here of using those things to escape this reality and lose ourselves in another reality of our choosing: a good thing made into a god─a different discussion in itself.

Here are some blossoms: “My weakness is that I watch too much TV.” “I spend too much time keeping up with my friends and family on Facebook.” ”I can’t say ‘no’ to a good book.” “I work too much.”

But now, the repugnant root (prepare yourself): “God, you are a weak, deficient God. Clearly, the reality You have created for me is not as good as the reality I can create for myself. I am better at making me happy than You. I should be god, because I know how to make me happy.”

Now we’re back in the Garden, and the serpent is speaking to Eve of how God is maliciously withholding from her a better reality. She can do better. She should be god.

We can and must do this for every remaining sin in our lives. This is what is means to battle sin.

For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. ─ Romans 8:13

Killing Sin by the Power of the Spirit

This is how you see the root. It takes practice, it takes familiarity with the Scriptures, and it takes the work of the Holy Spirit…but it is incredibly effective.

Nobody is offended when the Rose bush beside their front porch opens up in the spring and boasts blossoms of deep red and pure white. But pull that same bush up by the roots and throw it down on the front steps, and now you’re killing sin by the power of the Spirit.

The blossoms wither when the root is pulled up.

There is, however, one more piece. It is not enough to pull up the root. You must replace that root. Otherwise, another weed will quickly grow. To that we will turn in Christ Is Better, My Heart Must Learn That.

Jason Wilkerson serves Disciples Fellowship as Elder-Pastor. Jason has been married to Meredith for more than 20 years, and together they have six children. Pastor Jason holds degrees from NC State (BA), and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (MDiv, ThM). Jason has followed Christ for more than 40 years, and has a passion for expository preaching.