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IMPORTANT LINKS:
LIVING UNDER THE NEW COVENANT
Study #31: Balancing the Message of Avoiding Sin Consciousness
"By grace you have been saved through faith...it is the gift of God, not as a result of works..." - Ephesians 2:8-9
Dr. Bill Miller Volume XIX Number 15 April 10, 2016
Greetings in the Name of Jesus and welcome to the PLN Sunday Night Bible Fellowship!
Thanks for joining our discussion tonight continuing on the topic of life under the New Covenant. Last week we discussed that one of the great benefits of living with Christ versus life under the former covenant of the LAW is that we're free to no longer be "conscious" of our sins (Hebrews 10:2). As we discussed, the Bible clearly says that God is no longer holding believers accountable for their sins (2 Corinthians 5:19, Romans 5:13) and that He's chosen to not even remember them anymore (Hebrews 8:12, 10:17). The reason is that Jesus has ALREADY paid for all sins for all time for all people (Hebrews 9:12) and because of that believers have moved on from the Covenant of the LAW to a New Covenant (Hebrews 8:7-13) under Christ (Hebrews 7:22 and others). Indeed, where there's NO law, sin is NOT imputed (Romans 5:13) and if it's not imputed and God doesn't remember it, how then is it okay to demean the work of Jesus on the Cross by worrying about sins that we continue to commit?
Now when believers start to discover the fullness of this TRUTH of the New Covenant, the natural reaction is to say, "Wait a minute, you're giving me a license to go out and sin." That was the reaction two thousand years ago when the Apostle Paul was explaining GRACE to the Roman church (Romans 6:1, 15). And I make the same reaction: "God forbid, may it never be. That's NOT what the WORD says and it's not what I'm saying." People who teach GRACE are constantly criticized for not giving a "balanced" version of sin consciousness when the problem in the Church is the other way around: traditionally we've focused on sin as though Jesus never completed His work of GRACE thus lacking the balance from that side of the issue. Indeed, the very point the New Testament is trying to get across to a sin-conscious, tradition-laden Body of Christ is that the work of GRACE was a completed work and those who believe in Jesus no longer have to worry about our sins: past, present and/or future. We have been FULLY set free from the bondage of sin!
Understanding Sin Consciousness
Perhaps the BALANCE that's needed is firstly fully understanding what the Bible is talking about when it brings up the term SIN CONSCIOUSNESS. It's NOT about ignoring our sins. It's NOT saying that our sins will no longer have a negative impact on our lives. And it does NOT mean that we shouldn't do something about our continuing sin that we still commit even when we don't want to. Using the example of the Apostle Paul (Romans 7:14-25), when a believer is truly born again we start regretting our sins but seem to be powerless to stop sinning because there's still a part of us that hasn't been redeemed yet, that hasn't been transformed yet because transformation is an ongoing process (Romans 12:1-2). The LAW shows us our sin but now that we're born again we feel guilty about it UNLESS we focus on the work of Christ under the New Covenant instead of on the sin.
Thus, the biblical SIN CONSCIOUSNESS we want to avoid is by definition the act of feeling guilty about our sins to the point that we feel led to appease God by feeling guilty as a form of self-punishment and/or by performing "good" works that we hope will please Him enough to head off or lessen the amount of punishment He's surely about to dole out in response to our sin. But friend, the Bible says He's not holding us accountable for our sins and has chosen to not remember them. If He doesn't remember, why would He be punishing you? Why is it necessary to try to appease someone who's looking at you as though you've never sinned? If you ask God to forgive you for your sin of the moment, His logical answer would probably be, "What sin? I already took care of that and I don't remember what you're talking about."
As we discussed last week, the purpose of God's desire for us to stop feeling guilty about our sins is that He wants to enter with us into an increasingly intimate LOVE relationship together. By taking the guilt out of the way, the relationship is free to prosper and achieve the objectives God has for us. By taking the guilt out of the way, our ability to LOVE God and other people is strengthened. And our Faith which works by LOVE (1 Corinthians 13:2) is made stronger so that we can please God (Hebrews 11:6) by moving mountains (Mark 11:22-24) out of the way so we can finish the job of taking the gospel to the world and making disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19-20).
The Biblical Way to Deal with Our Sins
As already noted, to not be CONSCIOUS of our sins does NOT mean to be passive about them or to ignore them. It only means to stop trying to pay for something that Jesus already paid for and to stop blaming God for bad stuff coming into our lives that we've looked at before as punishment for our sins. He's not mad at us for sin and there is no longer a separation between us for the sins we're still committing during this period of transformation. So what is it that we're supposed to do in response to our sins? Here are a few ideas:
- When a sin is committed, instead of feeling and speaking our guilt, we can simply thank God for the completed work that Jesus performed at Calvary and for choosing to not remember our sins.
- Second, we need to admit to ourselves that whatever act we committed is actually sin and speak that confession out loud so we can hear ourselves speaking. We know that it is sin because the Word shows us that it is but sometimes we don't want to admit it. Once we admit it, then we can pursue help from the Holy Spirit for overcoming it.
- Then, we make and prophesy (speak out) our confession to REPENT from the sin. Repent does NOT mean to apologize. It means to turn and go in the opposite direction. In other words, we express our intention mostly to ourselves to live in the opposite direction from the way the sin was taking us.
- Fourth, we ask the Holy Spirit to work with us to overcome any particular areas of life and any particular related conduct that contributed to our sin.
- Then we acknowledge that the sin opened a door to the Adversary to come into our lives and cause affliction. Contrary to the belief of so many Christians, God isn't sending you affliction under the New Covenant. No, the affliction comes from the World, from other people and from the Adversary through ways of access that we open with our sin. And so we pray:
"Adversary in the Name of Jesus I close to you every way of access opened for you into my life by my sin and I refuse you your right to bring your affliction against me. I command you to flee from me now and to immediately release me from your influence and I remind you that Jesus has already paid for my sins which terminated your right to accuse me."
Now we continue working on that particular area of life until we get the full and complete victory. Once we truly overcome it, it's unlikely that we'll lose it. But if we do slip back, we don't get into guilt and dead works of appeasement. No, we try, try again and keep on trying working repeatedly through the above process until we get the final victory and it stays with us. And when you DO get the final victory, you'll know it and you won't go back.
I hope this article provides the balance that some folks need. But if you're going to balance the message of GRACE, if you're wanting to balance the message of avoiding SIN CONSCIOUSNESS, just be sure the balance is grounded in Scripture. God isn't REQUIRING people to act all holy because Jesus is ALREADY holy and lives His life through believers. We're ALREADY holy. We're ALREADY righteous because the righteousness of Christ has ALREADY been credited to us instead of our sin. We'll never perform perfectly but in Christ, we're ALREADY perfect. If we're ALREADY perfect there's no reason to feel guilty about anything nor to allow the enemy to accuse us of something Jesus has ALREADY paid for. The devil would like to make us feel guilty because he knows that guilt will separate us from God. But he has no access to any of us unless we give it to him. Just kick him out and slam the door in his face in the Name of Jesus.
And as a closing thought let me remind the ones that worry about balance in the message of GRACE that while I don't mind providing the balance, it's not something to worry about too much. When someone is born again they become a new creature and they don't want to sin anymore. Even if they totally misunderstand the GRACE message, they won't wind up in willful sin because they have the same Holy Spirit in them that we all have in us and the only ones that are going to go and commit WILLFUL sin in response to the GRACE message are the ones who aren't really born again. The very sad reality is that many of our churches are regularly attended by more than a few people who call themselves Christians but have never been born again because they've only heard about how holy they need to try to be in order to please a stern and judgmental Father instead of hearing about the GRACE that a loving Father has ALREADY made available to them. It's finding out about the goodness of God that brings people to repentance (Romans 2:4). Just saying in love...
Thanks for joining our discussion tonight. We'll be looking for you again NEXT Sunday night on April 17. In the meantime may the Lord bless you with every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3), pushing you to VICTORY in every area of life! Donations If you've been edified by Prosperous Life Newsletter, please consider a LOVE offering to support the Ministry (Galatians 6:6-7). PLN is a nonprofit gift to the Body of Christ so your financial support should be tax deductible. Just go to the secure Shopping Cart on the Cornerstone web site by connecting to the below link. You can also send it to: PO Box 1164, Granbury, TX 76049. Sinners' Prayer If you've never invited Jesus to be your Lord, you can do so today by believing and saying out loud the following simple prayer: Jesus, I declare today with all my heart that I believe in you and I believe that God raised you from the dead. I acknowledge that my sins have been forgiven for all time and I ask you to come into my life today and be my Lord and Savior. Thank you for salvation and eternal life. If you were sincere as you prayed, God has already come into your life and you're a new creation, a totally new species recreated in His image. Now ask the Lord to lead you to a good faith-based, bible-teaching church where you can be equipped to fulfill your potential in the Kingdom of God. When you get a moment have someone help you look up the following scriptures because they confirm what you've done by saying this prayer and believing what you said: Romans 10:9 2 Corinthians 5:17 Ephesians 2:8 Prayer Requests If you have a Prayer Request, please connect to the Link below and follow the promptings. The PLN staff members pray over Prayer Requests every Tuesday morning at 10:00 AM central time. Agree with us for God to answer your petitions. About Prosperous Life Newsletter PLN is an outreach of Make A Way Ministries, published continuously since January 1998. It's a FREE e-publication about life in the Kingdom of God and is sent to our email list of MEMBERS. If you're reading this and aren't on our list, please click on the MINISTRY WEBSITE link at the top of this article to find the PLN enrollment link. © Make a Way Ministries, Inc. P.O. Box 1164 Granbury, Texas 76048
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