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.

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!

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 – hurt 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!

Giving up smoking is a tough choice – really tough.  But it’s worth it.  And in the same way – giving some of the other rubbish wreaking havoc in our lives – well that can involve tough choices too.  But then – what’s the alternative?

Every now and then we go headfirst – splat on our faces.  Two options.  Just lie there and give up.  Or get up, wipe the tears from your eyes and the dirt from your wound and keep going.

One of the sports that always amazes me is the hurdles in the athletics. I remember trying to run and clear those hurdles in high school but I’m afraid these little short legs of mine, well I could never quite make the grade. And one of the most difficult things I’ve ever seen is a hurdler in the Olympics missing one of the hurdles and going flying head first into the track. Think about it. What an incredible public humiliation. Not to mention the pain and all those years of training wasted in a split second.

The truth be known, none of us likes to fall splat on our faces. And it happens in life. And when we do, it’s so hard to get up again. The easiest thing in the world would be to give up. But the truly great sportsmen and women are the ones that don’t do that. They get up. They wipe the tears from their eyes and the dirt from their wounds and they keep going. Come what may, they just keep going.

Today is the last of the series of 10 programs that I’ve called “Breaking Free from the Power of Sin”. And I just thought I couldn’t finish up without spending a few moments talking with you about what happens when we go splat and fall over flat on our faces. Because that’s the point where so many people give up.

Here’s what we’ve been talking about over the last couple of weeks in a nutshell. We’ve been talking about sin. And sin isn’t some outdated concept of an irrelevant church. Sin simply means missing the mark. Ruining our lives. Anger robs us of relationships, pride and greed and dishonesty and unforgiveness. All those things are sin because they miss the whole point of life. And you know it seems that some days that we’re powerless to change them. They just keep coming back to haunt us.

So many people believe in Jesus. So many people look at the cross and the price that Jesus paid and know they have forgiveness, they know that the empty tomb means the resurrection and new life. But somehow the power of sin isn’t broken in their lives. But actually it is. We’re told that by God Himself.

In Colossians Chapter 1 Paul writes this:

He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of His beloved Son in whom we have redemption and the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1: 13-14)

And again in Romans Chapter 6:

For sin will have no power over you since you are not under the law but under grace” (Romans 6:14)

It’s not about a bunch of rules and failing and therefore it’s hopeless. No. The slate is completely wiped clean. And yesterday we talked about the need for us to have a change of heart. It’s like the judicial system looks were the criminal has remorse or not in sentencing.

Remorse says that, “I know I was wrong. I see the impact, I see the pain of what I’ve done”. And that together with God’s forgiveness leads us to turn away from all that rubbish, that stuff that ruins our lives, sin, and back to God.

Again the Apostle Paul in Romans Chapter 2:

Or do you despise the riches of God’s kindness and forbearance and patience. Don’t you realise that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? (Romans 2:4)

And repentance is a change of heart. It’s a change of direction. All that we do comes from our hearts.

So many people hear that message, they accept Jesus, they have a change of heart and then they set on their journey with Jesus and they discover they’re not perfect. In fact, like that athlete I was talking about before, we fall splat on our faces over and over and over again. And before you know it, the change of heart, well, it just evaporates into thin air. We lose heart. We pack up our bat and ball and we go home. Sound like anyone you know?

I want to take you to a passage of God’s word that I come back to again and again and again. It’s one of a small handful of my absolute favourites. Again it’s written by Paul the apostle. This guy had the job of writing almost half the books of the New Testament. And you know something, he has exactly the same problem that you and I have. I’m going to read it from the Message translation because it’s really contemporary.

It begins in Romans Chapter 7 verse 15:

What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can’t be trusted to figure out what’s best for myself and then do it, it’s obvious that God’s command is necessary. But I need something more.

You see, the rules weren’t working for Paul. He needed something more. He says, “For I know the law, but I still can’t keep it. And if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions I obviously need help. I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, I just can’t do it”. Sound like anyone you know?

Paul says:

I decide to do good but I don’t really do it. I decide not to do bad but then I do it anyway. My decisions such as they are, just don’t result in actions. Something’s gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. It happens so regularly it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good sin is there to trip me up.

I truly delight in God’s commands but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me rebel. And just when I least expect it they take charge. I’ve tried everything. Nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question?

The answer, (writes Paul) Thank God, Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. (Romans 7:15-25)

See, the fact of this happens to Paul the apostle who wrote almost half the New Testament. It means that it happens to all of us. It’s a dilemma. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. No, you can’t. Nor can I. That’s the point. That’s why we need God’s grace.

The criminal, you and me, we’re released from death row because Jesus paid the price. So we’re standing outside the prison and the gates slam shut for the last time behind us. Now, now we have to learn to live not as a criminal but as a child of God. As someone who’s free. And as any criminal will tell you, you need help.

Rehabilitation is a process. It takes time. That’s how it is. And the answer is, “Thank God that Jesus Christ is that help”. Because through what He did on the cross we have forgiveness. And through what His Spirit does in our lives we have the power to change.

That’s what God does. Step by step you just follow Jesus and life changes. I’m not the person I once was. I stumble some days. But I get up. I say God I’m sorry. I get up, I know I’ve got your forgiveness. I turn to God. I keep going. You know why? Because the power of sin over my life is broken. I believe in Jesus and it just is.