Tough Choices // Breaking Free from the Power of Sin, Part 9

Giving up smoking is a tough choice – really tough.  But it's worth it.  And in the same way – giving up some of the other rubbish wreaking havoc in our lives –well that can involve tough choices too.  But then – what's the alternative? I wonder if you've ever heard a news story about someone convicted of a crime and in sentencing the judge makes comment as to whether or not the criminal has expressed genuine remorse. What tends to happen at least in legal systems that I'm familiar with is that the person who shows genuine remorse receives a lighter sentence than the one who doesn't show any remorse. Why is that? Why does the legal system behave that way? Because the role of the legal system is two-fold. Firstly, obviously to protect society by putting dangerous people away and acting as a deterrent and secondly to reform the criminal back into an effective member of society. It doesn't matter what legal system we live under, it's never perfect, but that's the idea. And so remorse, remorse is an important step. When the criminal experiences remorse what he or she is saying is, "I understand what I did was wrong. I understand the hurt and the pain it caused and I'm sorry". So why is that so important? Well, that's what we're going to be taking a look at on the program today. Why is remorse so important? Last week and this week on the program we've been looking at what it takes to break free from the power of sin. Sin is the stuff that we think and say and do and feel, the rotten stuff, that robs us of life. Anger, unforgiveness, resentment, envy, pride, fear. All those things begin in our hearts and have terrible consequences on our lives and the lives of others. I've observed on more than one occasion as we've been looking at this notion of sin and breaking free from it's power that God's opened the way for that to happen. Jesus died on the cross. The just requirements of God, God's system of justice, had been met. Jesus paid the price for your sin and for my sin. Through Him we're forgiven. Instead of us living out the sentence of sin He did it. And then He rose from the dead. And that empty tomb gave us a new life that starts here. We have both of those things, a clean slate and a new start, when we believe in Jesus. The problem is, so many people do but they never seem to be able to break free from the power of sin. Today we're going to talk about taking the tough decision to do just that. Now I'd like to illustrate it using that legal example because it is something that most of us understand. Sin in God's court of justice, no matter how big or small, is punishable by one thing, death – eternal. Eternity without God and there's a name for that. It's called hell. It's something we're all guilty of so we should have to serve the sentence. Instead because of God's love and His grace God sends His son Jesus to die, once and for all, for you and me. And here's what the transaction of faith looks like. We stand before God. We know the sentence we deserve and He asks us, "Are you sorry?" And we say, "God, I'm so sorry. I know I've done wrong". And He gives us this option. "Will you, instead of accepting your punishment, accept that Jesus has died for you?" You have a choice. You can stay on death row and wait for inevitable or you can put your faith in Jesus and accept what He has done for you in taking your punishment for you. Put it that way, it's a bit of a no-brainer if you ask me. So let's assume for a minute you say, "Yes God, Yes Your Honor, I accept Jesus". God's response is this, "You are free to go". You have life again, abundant life, eternal life because you've accepted what Jesus did for you. The gate of the gaol swings open and you and I walk free and it clangs closed behind us for the last time. And in fact Jesus died for every sin past and present and future. Now the question is as you or I, the prisoner, walk out of that gaol house, what are we going to do with that? Have we truly experienced a change of heart? Has the remorse that we expressed in front of God, the deep heart knowledge of the wrongness and the guilt and the devastating impact of our sin, has that remorse done something in our heart and is it going lead us to change our behaviour? Is God's grace going to lead us to change our behaviour to reform or are we simply going to repeat the crimes that put us in gaol in the first place? That's the question. And it's at this point that we have to make some tough decisions. Maybe you've heard people use this word "repent". Christians and theologians use it a lot and for me it felt like such an old-fashioned word. Maybe it is. But what it means, what it refers to is the decision of how are we going to live the rest of our lives once we're outside that prison gate. See, if we experience remorse, does that lead to a change of heart? Because who we are and what we say and how we live all begins in the heart. Jesus said that. He said, (Matthew Chapter 12 verse 34) "Out of the abundance of your heart your mouth speaks"… (Matthew Chapter 15 verse 19) "Out of the heart come evil intentions. Murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander". Having a change of heart is a tough decision, but anybody who would break free from the power of sin, from the power of condemnation, the power of repeating the same mistakes over and over and over and over again has to make that decision. See, sin has the power to sap the life out of us and turn us into the walking dead. And anybody who wants to break free has to have a change of heart. A change of heart that's born out of remorse. A change of heart that's born out of the joy of the grace that God's given us. Knowing that this anger and unforgiveness is wrong. Knowing that it's ruining my life and the lives of others is shocking. It's horrible. I'm sorry. It's wrong. I have to change that but I can't. That's repentance. That's the tough decision. And that's the point at which God steps and grabs us by the hand and says, "Yes, this is what I wanted to hear. And, no, you can't do it on your own. That's why I'm going to fill you with My Holy Spirit. My power will change you. I was just waiting for you to turn around, away from your life of sin and back to me'. The reason so many people believe in Jesus and yet they aren't free from the power of sin over their lives is because they haven't repented. They haven't turned. They haven't felt the pain of remorse and the joy of grace and had a change of heart. It is this turning that opens the door to the power of God to change our lives. It is this repenting that opens the floodgates of God's power to change. Jesus said, you can read in Luke Chapter 13, He said to people: It doesn't matter who you are, what you believe, unless you repent you will perish. He's talking about a change of heart and when our heart changes God works in us and through us and then when we're tempted, you know what, in our heart we want to do it God's way and not our own way. Acts Chapter 26 Verse 20 says: Repent and turn to God and do deeds consistent with repentance. It's the change of heart that gives us the change of direction away from sin and towards God which results in the deeds that flow from the heart of repentance. The problem is there are people that are trying to change their deeds without having a change of heart. But it's the change of heart that lays hold of God's power to change what we do and how we behave. Because what we do on the outside comes from our hearts. I'm talking tough decisions. We want to hang on to sin. God's calling us to let go through the remorse and the joy that grace brings. Without it we can't break free from the power of sin. We cannot be free from its tyranny. We just can't.