craigmanderson

 

PRISON BREAK 2

Message for 12-08-12

 

OVERCOMING SIN

 

Main thought – the power of the blood and the cross is to not only forgive sin but also give the believer power over sin.

 

The power of “Don’t” – It doesn’t work.

When we tell a young child. “don’t touch” we empower them with a big desire to touch.

 

Video – the marshmallow test.

This is what Paul said in Romans when we read last week…

 

Rom 7:8  But sin, finding opportunity in the commandment [to express itself], got a hold on me and aroused and stimulated all kinds of forbidden desires (lust, covetousness). For without the Law sin is dead [the sense of it is inactive and a lifeless thing].

 

To illustrate the effect of the Law on the mind, the apostle in this verse depicts its influence in exciting to evil desires and purposes.

 

 

Mat 19:17  And He said to him, Why do you ask Me about the perfectly and essentially good? There is only One Who is good [perfectly and essentially]–God. If you would enter into the Life, you must continually keep the commandments.

 

 

THE ANSWER

 

The answer is not “don’t”

Saying don’t do it, is a strategy without power.

Sins incessant demands and our complete impotence to achieve goodness means that we can never be perfect. We can never live without sin no matter how hard we try. To say just don’t is the height of foolishness.

 

What about a change of heart? – No that won’t do it either the only way is death!!

 

The only person who doesn’t sin is a dead person.

When the police are searching for a criminal on the run. They are preparing evidence to charge him. They are ready to take him to court and put him on trial. If they find out he is dead, everything stops. There’s no searching, no more investigation, no trial, it’s all over.

 

Here’s how the bible puts it…

Rom 7:1  DO YOU not know, brethren–for I am speaking to men who are acquainted with the Law–that legal claims have power over a person only for as long as he is alive?

Rom 7:2  For [instance] a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives; but if her husband dies, she is loosed and discharged from the law concerning her husband.

Rom 7:3  Accordingly, she will be held an adulteress if she unites herself to another man while her husband lives. But if her husband dies, the marriage law no longer is binding on her [she is free from that law]; and if she unites herself to another man, she is not an adulteress.

Rom 7:4  Likewise, my brethren, you have undergone death as to the Law through the [crucified] body of Christ, so that now you may belong to Another, to Him Who was raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God. (AMP)

 

The only way you can be free from sin is to die. God’s so smart He figured out a way to do this without putting an end to your earthly existence!! Interested?

 

Here’s how it works…

Rom 7:4  Likewise, my brethren, you have undergone death as to the Law through the [crucified] body of Christ

Or as Paul puts it in Romans 6…

Romans 6:6  We know that our old (unrenewed) self was nailed to the cross with Him in order that [our] body [which is the instrument] of sin might be made ineffective and inactive for evil, that we might no longer be the slaves of sin.

Rom 6:7  For when a man dies, he is freed (loosed, delivered) from [the power of] sin [among men].

So get this picture…

Jesus died – and you died

Jesus was buried and you were buried in the waters of Baptism

Jesus rose from the dead – and you rose from the dead into newness of life out of the waters of Baptism

Jesus lived a new supernatural life – and you now live a new life filled with God’s spirit.

 

The truth about salvation, about you repenting and surrendering your life to Christ is that your old life died. You were in Christ when He died on the cross.

 

At that exact moment you became a totally new person. A different person. BORN AGAIN, BORN ANEW,  a new birth for a new person.

 

The old Craig Anderson died and a new person began, a person now created in the likeness of Jesus and with a new life on the inside, no longer subject to sin.

 

Let’s see how the bible explains that…

2Co 5:17  Therefore if any person is [ingrafted] in Christ (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old [previous moral and spiritual condition] has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come! (AMP)

1Pe 1:23  Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which lives and abides for ever. NKJV

 

Let’s make this really clear…. When you get born again, you are a new person, with a totally new heart/spirit. You have been changed, regenerated, a new beginning.

Yes you are acquitted, pardoned, forgiven of all your sins, but more than that you begin anew, with a new heart that does not want to sin. Now you desire to please Him who has saved you.

 

Rom 6:17  But thank God, though you were once slaves of sin, you have become obedient with all your heart to the standard of teaching in which you were instructed and to which you were committed.

Rom 6:18  And having been set free from sin, you have become the servants of righteousness (of conformity to the divine will in thought, purpose, and action).

To accomplish this great change we must do two things.

Repent and believe – Turn to Christ in full surrender. Capitulate. Lay down and ie to the old life – it wasn’t taking you anywhere nice anyway. This means reckon yourself as dead to sin

Rom 6:11  Even so consider yourselves also dead to sin and your relation to it broken, but alive to God [living in unbroken fellowship with Him] in Christ Jesus.

And secondly choose to walk in the spirit.

 

In Romans just before we read…

Rom 7:6  But now we are discharged from the Law and have terminated all intercourse with it, having died to what once restrained and held us captive. So nowwe serve not under [obedience to] the old code of written regulations, but [under obedience to the promptings] of the Spirit in newness [of life].

This new life we have we don’t live alone, but we have the Holy Spirit leading and prompting us to do good, to live right, to please God.

 

Later in Galatians Paul explains this a little more….

Gal 5:16  But I say, walk and live [habitually] in the [Holy] Spirit [responsive to and controlled and guided by the Spirit]; then you will certainly not gratify the cravings and desires of the flesh (of human nature without God). (AMP)

 

To stop sinning – give up, surrender, die to the old way of life in complete surrender to Christ. Reckon yourself dead to sin. Walk in the spirit, be filled and empowered by the spirit. You can never stop sinning by your own human effort and will, it’simpossible. You can only do it with the grace of God. Stop fighting and surrender. Dump pride and give up trying to be a better person.

 

HOW?
1. Read and mediate on Romans chap 6 and 8

2. Humble yourself to God and ask Him to show you that you are dead to sin.

3. Sometimes that humbling is greatly assisted by fasting if you are trapped in a stronghold of sin.

4. Humble yourself and ask a brother or sister to pray with you and be accountable to.