A Different Perspective Official Podcast

For so many people – they have stuff in their hearts that's ruining their lives. And yet, somehow, we don't think about it too much.  Except when the consequence of that stuff – hurts like hell. How do we get on the front foot?
Many people, in fact, let me be so bold as to say most people live life, day by day, without thinking too much about where it's headed. We might be focused on finishing a course of study or gaining a qualification or finding a wife or a husband. We maybe focused on some particular thing but how many of us really think, day by day, about how we, as people, are developing?
How many of us critically evaluate the stuff we see and hear and read in the media? How many of consider our ways? How many of us ever choose decisively to deal with the rubbish in our lives, the stuff that God calls "sin", the stuff that's ruining our lives? Come on, how many of us?
Who amongst us has identified that anger, lets say anger is our particular Achilles heel, that anger is robbing us of relationships and that it's time to do something about it? Not just live with it but powerfully to deal with our addiction to it and remove it from our lives. Pretty sobering, the answer is very few.
We kind of let things come along, people, perspectives, situations, belief systems and we consume them without really thinking. We react to them without really considering, "Is that right, can I come up higher?" And all the time, this thing that God calls "sin" is robbing us of the fullness of life that God always intended for us to have. Pretty scary isn't it?
Time today to talk about being decisive in guarding against sin. Sin, if you've been with me over the last couple of weeks on the program, well you would have heard me talk a few times about the fact that sin is not some out dated, moralistic concept that's clung to by an irrelevant Church.
Sin means literally to "miss the mark" both in Hebrew and Greek, in the Old Testament and the New Testament. It means to "miss the point of life". Jesus tells us what the point of life is, it's recorded in John chapter 10, verse 10. He says:
The thief, the thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy but I have come that you may have life in all it's abundance." (In fact in super abundance).
And we know that when we live a life of goodness, where we serve others, where we're honest and decent and giving and forgiving. That's where the joy and fulfilment comes from. And all that good stuff comes from God.
And in the same way that God created the heavens and the earth and all that's in them, you and me, He also created the devil, the tempter, the deceiver, the accuser. Because the existence and the influence of the devil gives us a clear choice between God and the devil, between good and evil. Without the devil there's no real choice, God loves us and He wants us to love Him out of our own free wills.
Now the devil is alive and well and the reason I believe in his existence is because, as I read the gospel accounts of Jesus' life, Jesus clearly believes in the existence of the devil and there's a powerful passage written by the apostle Peter. You can read it in 1 Peter chapter 5 in verse 8. He says:
Be sober, be alert. Your enemy, the devil, like a roaring lion is on the prowl looking for someone to devour.
In other words, be on your guard and it's something that Jesus said over and over and over again to His disciples.
Luke chapter 12:
And He said to them, "Take care; be on your guard against all kinds of greed because your life doesn't consist of the abundance of possessions."
Luke chapter 17:
Be on your guard! If another disciple sins, rebuke the offender and if they repent, forgive them.
Luke chapter 21:
Be on your guard so that your hearts aren't weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of life.
See, we trump along living life without thinking too much and then, when sin racks our bodies, all sorts of sin. Have a listen to the list:
The acts of a sinful nature are obvious; sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissentions, factions, envy, drunkenness. (Galatians 5:19)
The list in Galatians chapter 5. When that sort of sin racks our bodies and we feel the consequences, we kind of behave like there's no devil. We behave as though we don't have a sinful nature. But there is and we do. You don't have to look very far to realise that's true. The devil is alive and well and he plays on our selfish desires and we live them out and they blossom like a cancer that robs us of life.
The apostle Paul, giving the reason why he forgives other people says:
In order that satan will not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes. (2 Corinthians 2:11)
Jesus was tempted in the desert by the devil and when He withstood all the temptations the devil could throw at Him. Right at the end of that when the devil leaves Him, you know what it says right there? In Luke chapter 4, verse 13.
When the devil had finished every test, he departed from Jesus until another more opportune time.
The devil was planning on coming back to tempt Jesus again. And if that happens to Jesus, I've got to tell ya, it's going to happen to you and me. I guess what I'm saying is this. You and I know that sin robs us of life, it ruins our lives. But mostly we only focus on it when the pain of its consequences are so acute we can't miss it. When an argument's raging or a relationships falling apart.
But actually the devil is roaming around 24 X 7, like a roaring lion waiting to devour someone. You and me, he is and he does and our part is to say, "you know something, it's time for me to get serious about this. It's time for me to decide that I am going to deal decisively with sin. It's time for me to be on my guard."
The other day on the program I was talking about how, in my life, I spend daily time alone praying, with the Lord and reading God's word and spending that time with Jesus. It is critical in me living out the victory over sin that Jesus purchased for me on that cross. And you know what that times about? It's about getting my heart and my mind focused on God and just being alert, getting myself "on guard".
It's about being vigilant. I am not going to experience the power of God that gives me victory over sin, unless I'm deliberate about it. Can I tell you something? Neither are you because the devil is not going to hand this to us on a plate, we have to take it. Israel had to take the Promised Land, battle after battle. It's the same with us. We have to take it. It's how God involves us in the partnership of living out our new life, our eternal life. It's a marvellous thing!
We need to get deliberate and get decisive and identify, "what's my particular Achilles heel, my weakness?" We're going to be looking at those, next week on the program, with a special guest. What's my weakness? I need to identify it, I need to pray about it and I need to be ready because I know that the devil is going to come after me in that area. We need to have responses in place. Paul puts it this way in Ephesians chapter 6, verse 11,
Put on the whole armour of God so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
Can I tell you something? If you and I are going to break free from the power of sin, we have to do our part. To join hands with God, to be alert, to guard our hearts and our ways and our thoughts and get into the battle because a battle it will be. Come on!

Sometimes the most obvious and simple truths are the most powerful – like this one.  When I spend time alone with Jesus in the morning, sin has far less power over me on those days.  So why do we miss that?
Sometimes, when I'm thinking about what to share with you each day on this program, well, I get a bit embarrassed. The things I come up with, sometimes, they seem too simple, too straight forward and I think to myself, "I can't spend 10 minutes talking to them about that, it's too obvious".
But then I remember that I am the master of missing the obvious in my life. Do you find that too? And I just need someone to share the obvious with me in a fresh new way and somehow God uses that to flick a switch in my heart and to solve something that's been troubling me for ages. Ever been through that?
Well, I've been doing quite a bit of thinking and talking over the last couple of weeks about breaking free from the power of sin and today, I want to share the blindingly, glimpsingly obvious with you. The reason we're going to do that is because it's something in my life that has been crucial to breaking free from the power of sin and it's quite simply this – spending time each day with Jesus.
Quiet time, time on my own, praying, listening, thinking, reading God's word and the thing that I've discovered, looking back on this, is that on those days when I spend that time, sin is much weaker in me. And on those days when sometimes I haven't spent that time with Jesus, sin seems to have so much more power over me.
Told you it was obvious and yet, it never ceases to amaze me, how easily I can make excuses. "Well, you know, I'm too busy today to get time alone with Jesus. Yet I spent 20 minutes sitting on the bus with my mind wandering around and I had time to watch the 2 millionth re-run of MASH on TV last night". Now let me share with you what happens when I spend time with Jesus.
It's not always some great mountain top experience where you know, the room lights up. Some days I feel burdened with pressures and I'm tired and there's stuff happening in my life. Other days, times with Him are real mountain top experiences. We all have these ups and downs but what I've discovered is, when I've established a faithful pattern, most mornings of spending, I don't know, 20, 30, 40, 50 minutes with Him. It's the most certain way I have of breaking free from the power of sin in my life.
You know, you pray. You worship God. You thank Him. You bring your needs before Him to meet this need or give me a breakthrough in this area or there's something over here I just can't do on my own or "God I need wisdom to do this or that. I don't know how to handle this situation."
You open the Good Book. You read the next chapter. I've just finished the book of 1 Samuel this morning and going on to the book of 2 Samuel in the Old Testament. You know, that's what my prayer life looks like. And what happens is this. Those times I spend, whether they're great mountain top experiences or whether today, because I'm a bit tired it feels a bit mundane, they give me a quiet confidence in my heart that my King reigns.
God stills my heart amidst all the busyness and the pressures. The things that were worrying me, I leave them with Him. I don't know how they're going to turn out but God does.
Just this morning, there's something new that He's called me to and I don't know the "how" or the "what" or where the resources are going to come from. It's new, I've never done this before. And I lay that down at His feet and I just felt the warmth of His smile and that quiet still voice whispering to me, "Berni, you don't need to know it all, just step out, now's the time. I am with you."
And that situation with that person over there; that pressure, I don't know how to handle that. I know that God will give me the wisdom because I asked Him for it this morning and His word says in James chapter 1, verse 5:
If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly and it will be given to you.
So all these things that could have been worries, that could have eaten away at me today, God has stilled my heart. And so you set off into this busy day. For me it's writing scripts, recording, helping our team here at the ministry with this and that, answering this call from that supporter and planning this new initiative and there's joy in my heart. Joy that flows directly out of the time that I spent with Jesus this morning.
The quiet assurance and confidence in my heart that I know that He is with me and that the things that I don't understand and the ones that I can't do, He's got them all under control. That this joy and this quiet assurance that God gives me, those things I don't have so readily to hand on those days when I don't spend time with Him.
So someone throws a curve ball at my solar plexus, something I don't expect, a shock or attack or, whatever it is, I can handle those things with grace because, because the spirit of God is flowing through me.
It's not like that on the days that I don't spend time with Him in the morning. I feel the pressure so much more, the anxiety is so much more likely to, kind of, eat away at me. I'm more prone to worry about this or that or wonder how that thing over there is going to turn out. Do you hear what I'm saying?
So then when the devil comes after me with a pick axe, as he so often does, what days am I more likely to be filled to overflowing with His spirit? Paul in Ephesians chapter 5, verse 18 commands us, "Go on being filled with the spirit". It's not rocket science! I know that the time I spend with Jesus, I am going to be stronger in Him than when I don't.
I sin a whole bunch less on the days when I've spent time in the morning with Jesus than on the days that I didn't. It's an empirical fact, I am much more able to withstand the deceptions and the attacks of the devil on the days when I've spent time in the morning with Jesus than on the days that I didn't.
Empirical fact; I have much more peace and joy and quiet confidence in the sovereignty of God on the days when I've spent time in the morning with Jesus than on the days where I didn't. And when the devil comes and tries to drag up some old failure of mine, I have far greater capacity to speak back to him of the grace of God who died for me.
Do you see what I'm saying? People, people who want to follow Jesus, I know so many of them who are all guilty when they hear someone like me talk about the fact that I spend time with God in the morning 'cause I'm too busy.
I want you to understand something. I don't spend time with God because it's my duty, because I have too to get a tick in the box. I spend time with Him because I enjoy it and it works. Day by day, I am seeing the power of sin, over my life, being broken. Day by day, I am changing like that little grub in the cocoon into the butterfly that God intended me to be.
Hidden away in the dark when everyone else is asleep, in my prayer chamber, it's a wonderful time and I look back and see that these hidden times are the times when God has brought changes, in this sinful heart of mine that I could never have achieved on my own.
Do you see? God is calling you into a tender, intimate relationship with Him. He's the one that changes us. He's the one that brings the power of the cross and the resurrection to life in us and people. If we want to have power over the sin, we just have to spend some time with Him each day. Not as a duty – as a joy!

Sometimes we get so caught up in our own "self-improvement program" that we forget completely that following Jesus isn't about self-improvement.  It's about…well, following Jesus.
The chameleon is a pretty amazing animal that changes its skin colour to suit its surroundings. Pretty clever little fellow when you think about it. And in a sense, it's something that we all have a tendency of doing as well. We change according to our surroundings.
It's one of the reasons that every parent worries about their teenage son or daughter, getting in with the wrong crowd because that wrong crowd can drag them down. On the other hand, if they make friends with good, loyal, honest, decent people then that's going to influence them as well.
We know that. And if it applies to our teenagers, it applies to us too. It turns out that what we do and say and think and the places and the people we hang around, impact greatly on the things that we do and say and think.
Let me give you an example. It may be that you're a naturally very positive person but you hang around a bunch of people who only ever grumble and complain and before you know it, you're grumbling and complaining too.
And then you start thinking that way and seeing the world through their eyes. And one day, you kind of wake up and think, "Whatever happened to this incredibly positive and optimistic person I used to be?"
The more you think about it, the more we're just like that little chameleon.
Last week we spent some time looking at what it meant to break free from the power of sin. For many people, sin is a four-letter word but actually, sin means "to miss the mark – to miss the whole point of life". Sin is the thing that robs us of the fantastic life that God always had planned for us.
It's like an addiction. It's powerful. You do the wrong stuff, you feel guilty and condemned and it just gets worse and you end up on this downward spiral. This is not some religious guilt trip. You don't even have to be religious to figure it out. I'm not.
I mean, wives, if you constantly hen-pecked your husband, what you'll find is that he will withdraw emotionally from you and he won't want to spend time with you. Doesn't matter how right you are. And husbands, if all you do is work, work, work, work, work and you never spend time just cherishing your wife, you know she's not going to want to get intimate with you.
If we're lazy that has consequences. If we're angry that has consequences. If we're envious or proud, all those things have consequences.
So last week, we had a look at the power that God gives us to change. It's the most amazing power. If you missed it you can listen to those programs again at our website: adifferentperspective.org.
This week we're going to get really practical, we're going to look at where the rubber hits the road. How exactly do I live out Gods grace and Gods power so that they remove the power of sin over my life?
Now I want to start today with this very simple reality; you have to change where you live. The best way I've ever heard it explained is this; you own two dogs, a big black one and a small white one. Which one is going to be the stronger of the two? The one that you feed of course!
So many people are living under the burden of sin and yet they have the power to take some simple steps to step out of it. Paul the apostle explains this in Romans chapter 8. He talks about the flesh, our human sinful nature and the Spirit – God himself. He says:
If you walk according to the spirit, you're going to live in the spirit and have life but you walk according to the flesh, you're going to die. (Romans 8:5
See, this is the "two dog" analogy, which one are you going to feed, which one are you going to live in? The spirit or the flesh? God or our selfishness? Have a listen to how that wise old apostle puts it. he starts out by saying, Romans 8, verse 1:
There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
See, if you believe in Jesus, Gods grace means that you're forgiven. No matter where you are in life, no matter how far you feel you've fallen short of Gods goodness. Believe in Jesus, this stuff is for you and for me.
Romans Chapter 8 Verses 5 & 6:
And those who live according to the flesh (the sinful nature) set their minds on the things of that sinful nature but those who are living according to the spirit set their minds on the things of the spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace.
Paul's asking us here; so which dog are you going to feed, the big black one or the small white one? It's just a picture you understand but it's a good one.
And here's what I've noticed about myself. You know, even though Gods been on my case now for a good many years. And even though I'm a much different person today to the one I used to be, I still have the ability to get angry, to be selfish, to argue, all that stuff is still there.
Those desires are much weaker in me now than they were 5 years ago or even 10 years ago. And the reason for that is, when you give your life to Jesus and you accept Him as King, He puts His spirit in you. God's spirit is so close and that's how we have a relationship with Him and it's a beautiful relationship, truly it is. I find such great joy in my relationship with Jesus.
But sometimes, someone in the car in front of me drives just slowly enough so that I miss the green light and I have to wait at the red light and you know something; that makes me ANGRY. How could they do that? Couldn't they see me in their rear view mirror? Don't they know I'm in a hurry? I mean really, what I want to do is to honk my horn at them.
Now, just as my blood's boiling and my hand's heading towards the horn of the car, I've got a decision to make, what am I going to do, pander to my selfish desires or bow down to my God? Walk in my old sinful nature or walk in the spirit?
It's where the rubber hits the road if you pardon the pun and you know something; the longer I walk with God the more clearly I hear that still small voice of His spirit in my heart, so what ya going to do? Going to walk with Me?
Right at that point where I want to blast my horn at this person I have a decision to make. I can feed the old black dog or I can turn away from it and feed the white one? Which one? And the more I choose to walk in the spirit over walking in my own sinful desires, is just another step of walking with Jesus.
Sometimes we get so caught up in our own self-improvement program that we forget completely that following Jesus isn't about self-improvement, it's about following Jesus. That's what it means. Each of those little decisions is a little step. And here's what happens. I want you to hang on to your hat here, this is the really, really important bit.
When I take a step to follow Jesus, God blesses me! You want to hear that again? God blesses me! In all sorts of different and special ways. I enjoy living for Him, I enjoy the fellowship I have with Him and the peace that He gives me and the miracles that He does in my life and He just blesses me in these little ways.
It's a great blessing, for God to just drop something on me, to give me joy. I've seen God provide so miraculously, you know what that joy does? It has me wanting more, I want more of God's blessing. I don't mean that in a selfish way, I mean that, in a sense, I just want to take every breath and every step in the joy that God gives me.
There was a time when Israel wept before God because they realised they'd sinned against Him and the prophet Nehemiah said to them:
Do not be grieved for the joy of the Lord is your strength. (Nehemiah 8:10)
You know something. Every little step I take brings me more joy and He has me wanting more of that and that gives me the power to choose the right way next time and next time. God breaks the power of sin over me because He changes my heart to choose His way, over and over again because it's a joy to live that way. Pretty cool!

When we finally wake up to ourselves and admit that the way we're living our lives just isn't working, the next thing we need is something that does work. Because like it or not, what we discover is that by and large, we ourselves our powerless to change.  We need power to change.
I don't know, you turn on the evening news on the radio or the TV and there never seems to be much good news, it's all bad. And then, when there is good news, on the odd occasion, I don't know, the good news stories, they're very, very rarely, you know, really good news. Well today on the program it's a 'good news' story, not just a good news story, a great news story. In fact, not just a great news story, an absolutely fantastic news story.
If you've been joining me on the program this week, what you'll know is that we've been talking about breaking free from the power of sin. Okay, there are people who think sin is some old-fashioned concept from an out of date Church but scratch below the surface, what you'll always find is that each one of us has things in our lives that we do or we say or we think, that have lousy consequences. Things that drag us down and rob us of life. And the worse they become, the more powerless we feel to change them. And in fact, powerless we are because they are addictions.
So today's absolutely fantastic news is this; that there is power available, the power to change and it comes to us from a source that, perhaps, we may not expect. It's the power to have a fresh new life irrespective of what it is that the world's throwing at us.
Power is something that people in this world seek after and abuse. You don't have to look very far to find that. There are the powerful and the powerless. So many people are oppressed by power but that's not the kind of power I'm talking about today. I'm talking about the power to change. The power to deal with things in our lives that rob us of life and that ruin the lives of those around us.
Sin is shorthand for those things. Sin literally means to 'miss the mark' to 'miss the whole point of life'. The point of life is that God is the most amazing God. He wants to fill us with His joy and His peace and He wants us to live a life that glorifies Him.
See, for me, when people talk to me about sin, for much of my life, I was so touchy about that. I cared so much what other people thought about me. I'd do anything to enhance my reputation. I'd lie, I'd cheat to get people to think better of me. I couldn't stand it when I didn't have the limelight. I couldn't stand it when other people succeeded and they got the limelight and they got the credit.
Now maybe it's entirely different for you, we all have something different that we're addicted to. For me it was recognition and success and we need setting free from that stuff. Now I'm a tough-minded, hard-nosed businessman kind of guy but as much as I tried, I couldn't get away from that and I know it was ruining my life. I just didn't have it in me. I needed some power.
Well today, I want to share with you where that power came from, I want to share with you actually through the words of the apostle Paul, yesterday we looked at what he wrote in Colossians chapter 2. I want to have a look at a different part of that today, this is truly powerful stuff. We're talking about breaking free from all that rubbish that robs us of life, God calls it sin, breaking free from the power of sin. How, if we don't have it in us, can we break free?
Have a listen to what Paul writes; this comes from a really contemporary translation called The Message Translation 'cause I find it really easy to understand. I'm beginning at Colossians chapter 2, verse 2.
I want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know about God. Then you'll have minds confident and at rest, focused on Jesus, Gods great mystery. All the richest treasures of wisdom and knowledge are embedded in that mystery and nowhere else and we've been shown that mystery. I'm telling you this because I don't want anyone leading you off on some wild goose chase after some other so-called secrets.
My counsel for you is simple and straight forward, just go ahead with what you've been given. You received Jesus Christ, now live in Him. You are deeply rooted in Him, you're well constructed upon Him, you know your way around the faith, now do what you've been taught. School's out, quit studying the subject and start living it and let your living spill over into thanksgiving.
Watch out for people who try to dazzle you with big words and intellectual double talk, they want to drag you off into endless arguments that never amount to anything. They spread their ideas through empty traditions of human beings and the empty superstitions of spirit beings.
But that's not the way of Jesus. Everything of God gets expressed in Him so you can see and hear Him clearly. You don't need a telescope, a microscope, a horoscope to realise the fullness of Christ and the emptiness of the universe without Him."
When you come to Him, that fullness comes together for you too, His power extends over everything. Entering into His fullness isn't something you figure out or achieve, it's not a matter of being circumcised or keeping a long list of laws. No, you're already in, you're the insiders. Not through some secretive initiation rite but through what Jesus has already gone through destroying the power of sin. If it's an initiation ritual you're after, you've already been through it by submitting to baptism.
Going under the water was a burial of your old life, coming up out of it was a resurrection, God raising you from the dead as He did Jesus. When you were stuck in your old dead life you were incapable of responding to God but now, God brought you a life, all your sins are forgiven, the slate is wiped clean. That old arrest warrant is cancelled and nailed to Christ's cross. He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the cross and marched them naked through the streets. (Colossians 2: 2-15)
You see what Paul is saying here? The power of sin has been defeated; the guilt, the condemnation, the power of addiction is completely disarmed because Jesus triumphed over them. Through His death we have forgiveness 'cause He paid the price. Through His resurrection we have new life. And that very same power that brought Jesus back to life is available to you and me.
Do you believe? Do you believe in Jesus? Have you received Him? Well, now live in Him. See, we wander around feeling powerless and believing that we are powerless and that is a deception from the devil. It's like the devil is pointing a pistol to our heads but if you have a look inside, he's got no bullets in it. It's a lie. God gives us the same power that raised Jesus from the dead to change our lives.
Paul writes that in Ephesians chapter 1, he says:
I just pray for you that you would know, as you get to know God, the hope and the riches and the immeasurably great power He has for us who believe, the very same power that raised Christ from the dead.
We don't have to rely on ourselves to change. I can't change me, I can't change you. You can't change you and you can't change me. The only one that can change us is God. And God has already given us everything we need. If we place our faith in Jesus we have forgiveness, the old arrest warrant has been torn up and nailed to the cross. And the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is given to us. There will be no breaking free from the power of sin until we believe that in our hearts.
Next week we're going to look at really practical, day-to-day, ways of breaking free. But today, I want you to stand firm, I want you to claim this promise for yourself. Decide YES! The power of God is in me because I believe in Jesus and I have a new life.

It's funny but when we finally come to the realisation that the way we're living our lives – well, it's not working that well – the first thing we do, is we invent a bunch of rules to make our lives better.  And then we discover – they don't work either.
By large the law is a good thing. I mean, sometimes it's an ass, sometimes you read of a judgement handed down by a judge and you think, "Wow, that's not fair!" But mostly, the law acts as a deterrent. Not always of course but when it comes down to our personal lives, our relationships – how we treat people, what we say – you know more and more, it seems like there are no rules.
I was talking the other day with a young worker, a junior in the workplace where he works and the way that the boss treats people can be really appalling. And you know, it doesn't matter what industrial laws the government puts into place, the law can't stop that from happening. At the day-to-day relationship level, the law is pretty much useless in enforcing anything much except perhaps stopping violence and fraud, even then, it struggles.
Rules and regulations aren't going to change our behaviour, that's the point. What they do is they tell us what's wrong. But somehow, there's no power in those rules and regulations to change who we are or how we behave. If we treat people badly, it seems like we're powerless to change it. Well, you know something; this is not some new revelation that I've just had, this has been around for a long, long time.
See, it seems to me that we're powerless to change the dumb things we do so what we do is we invent religions and we add even more rules and regulations to our world as though that, somehow, is going to make a difference. You see how dumb that is!
This bloke Paul, an apostle, (he wrote almost half of the New Testament) he looked around at the people and what they were doing as a new Church, as that Church was forming in the 1st century, and it struck him right between the eyes. Now Paul, Paul was an expert in the law, he was a Pharisee. He was a religious separatist. He followed the law of God to the 'nth' degree. He went to extremes. Now have a listen to what Paul wrote when he finally came to his senses. It's so important, if we're going to break the power that sin has over our lives, it comes from a book called Colossians in the New Testament, chapter 2. He says:
And when you were dead in trespasses, God made you alive together with Him when He forgave us all our sins. Erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set it aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and the authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it. Therefore, don't let anyone condemn you in matters of food and drink or observing festivals or new moons or Sabbaths. They're only shadows over what is to come. The substance belongs to Jesus.
 Don't let anyone disqualify you in insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels or dwelling on visions or being puffed up without cause by human way of thinking and not holding fast to the head from whom the whole body is nourished. If with Christ you died to these basic spirits of the world, why do you live as though you still belong to the world? Why do you submit to these silly regulations? Don't handle! Don't taste! Don't touch!
All these regulations refer to things that perish with use, they're simply human commands and teachings. They have the appearance of wisdom in promoting self-imposed piety and humility and severe treatment of the body but they're of no value in checking self-indulgence. (Colossians 2: 13-23)
See how we invent rules. Paul's saying, "Look, you know you think you believe in God and all of a sudden people are saying do this, don't do that, eat this, don't eat that, go to this new moon festival" and he's saying, "this is stupid, these rules are not going to make it any better, they'll never do it." In fact elsewhere, Paul writes that, in a sense, the law only makes things worse because it serves to tell us where we're going wrong but provides no solution as to what to do about it.
So many people are trapped in the consequences of their sin. So many people are struggling with things that are going wrong in their lives. And then they think, "Well, you know, umm, I've got to invent some rules and what will happen is, the rules will make it better." And you see this. You go to Churches sometimes and it's about rules. And Paul's saying, "Look, it's not about rules. When God nailed Jesus to the cross, He disarmed the rulers and the authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them."
The answer in changing the sin in our lives is the victory that we have through Jesus Christ when He died on that cross, to pay for our sin and when He rose again to give us a new life. That's where it is. It doesn't come from inventing and living by a bunch of rules 'cause the rules only make things worse. Oh sure, they appear to be the answer, this is what he writes:
These indeed have an appearance of wisdom but they are of no value in checking self-indulgence."
So, what's the answer? Where do we start to discover that the power of sin is broken over our lives? Well in the first few verses of this passage we read,
And when you were dead in your trespasses, God made you a life together with Him when He forgave us all our trespasses. Erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set it aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and the authorities and made a public example of them all.
The answer is not in the law. The answer is grace. The answer is not in a bunch of rules. The thing that sets you and me free, the thing that unlocks the key that opens the door to a free life from the consequences of sin, is the fact that Jesus died on the cross.
We're going to look at that in a whole bunch more detail in the next few days but for today, I just want to leave you with one word, the word is "grace". See, the record is erased. So many people are still carrying around the guilt of all the things they have done wrong. But while we were dead in our trespasses, God made us alive again because He's forgiven us.
Do you believe in Jesus? Do you believe that Jesus died for you on the cross and rose again? If you do, you are forgiven! God has removed your sin from you, in fact, in the Old Testament it says:
As far as the east is from the west, so far God has removed your transgressions from you. (Psalm 103:12)
So many people are living at the bottom of a downward spiral and God has removed the one thing that pushes us further down that spiral, he has removed the guilt. Jesus paid for my sin and so I am forgiven. Jesus paid for your sin and so you are forgiven. There is no more guilt. There is no more condemnation.
See the guilt and the condemnation is what holds us in bondage. We're free, that is profound and it's deep! Where the rules failed, grace triumphs. Paul writes in Romans chapter 6:
For sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under the rules anymore but you are under grace. (Romans 6:14)
That's all we have time for today, we're going to pick up again on this tomorrow but can I just leave this with you? The key to the freedom from sin, the key to seeing the power of sin broken in my life and your life is grace; Gods grace, the grace we have in Jesus Christ.