Sometimes there’s one particular sin in our lives that we just can’t shake – it keeps coming back again and again to rob us of life.  And so many of us – well, we just accept it.  That’s the way it is.  But what if God’s plan is to set you free from even the most stubborn sin.

Welcome to another week here on A Different Perspective. I love the beginning of a new week and today, today we’re kicking off a new series of programs for the next few weeks. This particular series is called Overcoming Stubborn Sin Once and For All. And God triggered in my heart, just the other day, when I was sitting down talking with a man, more about him later.

Now let me ask you, have you ever had a pen in your pocket and it’s leaked? It’s more common for men I guess. We’ll put a pen in our shirt pocket or perhaps on the inside pocket of a jacket. And then, for one reason or another, the pen leaks. And you end up with an ink stain all over your shirt or your jacket.

Now that stain, it’s called a stubborn stain isn’t it? At least that’s how we refer to it where I come from. And the reason we call it a stubborn stain is that no matter what you wash it with or scrub it with, it doesn’t matter what you do to it, it just won’t come out.

I remember when that happened to one of my favourite jackets a few years ago now. I mean I really liked this jacket. It was soft, it was comfortable, it looked great. I spent a fortune with the dry cleaners but it doesn’t matter what they tried, the stain didn’t come out. This great big blue ink stain, smack bang in the middle of the front of the jacket.

And so I simply couldn’t wear it out anymore. I mean I would have looked ridiculous. But isn’t it funny these days, when we have a stain like that on our characters, it seems we almost wear it out with pride or at the very least, we just put up with it. After all it’s a stubborn stain, there’s nothing I can do about it.

And that’s the attitude of this man I was telling you about at the beginning of the program. Here’s the thing. He rings me up the other day and wants to catch up for a cup of coffee. So we sit down at a cafe, little bit of small chit-chat up front and then the crunch issue. The thing that he wanted to talk to me about. That was his sin. It was a sin he’d been struggling with all his life.

Turned out that his particular Achilles heel was his temper. Now he’s a lovely man but he has this hot temper and he just flies off the handle at the drop of a hat. He was sharing with me what had happened just a few days before. A situation where he’d hurt some people that really mattered to him.

The more I listened the more I got the impression that as far as he was concerned this was something that he was stuck with. And the best he could do was to manage the symptoms. There didn’t seem to be a single thought in his head about treating the disease. And the reason that this shocked me is that this man is a Christian with a powerful heart after God. And a real commitment to Gods word.

So I listened without saying too much. But the more I turned this conversation over and over in my head, the more disturbing it became. It was like he had a stubborn ink stain on his jacket. But he was intent on wearing that same jacket out, day after day, with the stain on it. There was no thought of changing the jacket.

Do you see the point? We wouldn’t think of wearing an ink stained jacket out to work and yet we’ll take who we are with this great big stubborn stain smack bang in the middle of our character and our personality. So prominent, so obvious that no-one could ever miss it. And wear it out day after day for a whole lifetime, resigned to what we think is the fact that there’s just nothing we can do about it. Changing the jacket never seems to cross our minds.

Have a listen to this in the context of what we’ve just been talking about – stubborn sin. It comes from Galatians chapter 3, verse 27. It says,

“As many of you as were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”

And again, Ephesians Chapter 4: 22 to 27.

“You were taught to put away your former way of life. Your old self, corrupt and deluded by it’s lusts and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds and to clothe yourselves with a new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. So then, putting away falsehood let all of us speak the truth to our neighbours for we are members of one another. Be angry but don’t sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger and do not make room for the devil.”

Now both of these scriptures are really, really clear. They’re about putting on a new jacket. They’re about clothing ourselves in Christ. In righteousness. In holiness. Clothing ourselves in the new creation that we’ve become in His image when we put our trust and our faith in Him.

There’s nothing, nothing, so far as I can find in Gods word that says sin is normal. Sure, it’s common, all too common. But normal it ain’t. Have you put your trust in Jesus? Have you? Then you are a new creation.

“The old things have passed away and all things, all things are new.” 2 Corinthians 5:17.

We all have one or two stubborn sins in our lives. For some it’s their temper or their anger. For others it’s lust. For others it’s always seeking glory and recognition. For others again it might be low self-esteem or unforgiveness or gossiping or slander. Other people are addicted to gambling or perhaps it’s worshipping other Gods. Some people don’t seem to be able to help themselves. Some are involved in the occult.

My friend, the list goes on. And we sometimes behave as if the only person that has this stubborn sin stain is us. Listen to me, it’s everyone. I’ve never met a person who hasn’t had to grapple with at least one stubborn, persistent, ongoing form of sin in their lives.

So many men are addicted to pornography which now, with the internet, has over half, over half of all men addicted to it. Something we’re going to be talking about over the coming weeks. And they live in secret shame. Imagining that there’s nothing that they can do about it. And over half of all women in western society, at least half, suffer clinically from low self-esteem.

And each one of these stubborn sins, well, you know what they are? They are the devil’s way of robbing us of life. Remember how Jesus said,

“The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy but I have come that you may have life and have it abundantly.”

See so many of these sins are, these days, dressed up to look respectable. Seductive. Normal. Now the person who puts their faith in Jesus kind of knows that they’re not right. But like that man I was talking about at the beginning of the program, somehow they’ve resigned themselves into believing that there’s just nothing they can do about their particular brand of stubborn sin.

Whether it’s a red stain or a blue stain or a black stain. Well you know, that’s just my colour stain and ain’t nothing I can do about it.

Let me give you a very blunt response to this. Rubbish. Absolute rubbish. That’s a deception of the devil and you won’t find it in the Bible. Jesus said, when He was quoting Isaiah chapter 61, verse 1. He said:

“That God had sent Him to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners.”

There is no fine print in there that provides you or me with a personal exclusion for our particular brand of stubborn sin. Jesus died once and for all, for everything and for everyone who would accept Him and put their faith in Him.

Now I’m a man who’s had more than his share of stubborn sin to work through. Anger. Temper. All sorts of stuff. And because I’m one of those strong-willed people, those things have had a stronger hold on me than most. And here’s what I’ve discovered along the way and I’m still discovering.

Jesus came to set me free from every sin. Every sin that robs me of life. He came to set you free from every sin that robs you of life. To clothe us in Christ, to make us a new creation that shines His glory into this lost and hurting world.

That’s the truth!

There’s nothing worse than that feeling of being trapped.  And so many people – whilst they may well believe in Jesus – are trapped by one particular sin that keeps rearing its ugly head again and again.  But what if – well, what if God actually has a way out.

One of the worst feelings that we can have in life is that sense of being trapped. Trapped in a place. Trapped in our circumstances. Trapped in our own destructive patterns of behaviour. And try as we might, we just can’t get out.

Now God has a name for those destructive patterns of behaviour. A much shorter name. He calls them ‘sin’. And that’s exactly what sin is. Behaviour that’s destructive. Behaviour that misses the whole point of life.

And it seems to be the case that pretty much each one of us has one particular pattern of destructive behaviour. One particular sin that seems to be stubborn in our lives. Like a stubborn stain that just won’t wash out. As much as we wish we could get rid of it, we’ve tried and tried and tried and tried over the years, we just can’t.

For many people it feels like they’re trapped. Like there’s no way out. It’s a pattern of behaviour that we seemed to be locked in to, repeating it over and over again. And so many people have just resigned themselves to the fact that that’s the way it’s going to be, that nothing’s ever going to change.

“I’m trapped, hopelessly trapped in this sin and there’s no way out.” And so they just live their lives with the painful consequences of that sin. Well if that kind of resonates a bit with you I have some good news for you today. In fact, it’s fantastic news.

Stubborn sin comes in so many different forms. Have a quick listen. This is a list written by the apostle Paul a couple of thousand years ago. You can find it in Galatians chapter 5, verses 19 to 21 in the New Testament. He writes,

“The works of the flesh are obvious. Fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissentions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing and things like these. I’m warning you as I warned you before, those who do such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God.”

Quite a list isn’t it? Some people are just naturally prone to being critical and argumentative. Some are locked into patterns of jealousy or sexual immorality. And in this world of ‘anything goes’, where cheating on your wife or your husband has been reduced to a lifestyle choice, it’s easy for us to rationalise our particular form of stubborn sin away as being just that.

“Well, you know, the worlds moved on. We think differently these days. Sleeping around, hey, what’s wrong with that?” Arguing. Criticising. Pulling other people down. Flying off the handle. Ranting. Raving. Getting drunk until all hours. Well they’re just the things we do these days.

A friend of mine was telling me about his son who has a wife and a young family. This son is out most nights playing sport, catching up with his friends. Leaving her at home with this young baby. And you know, he just can’t see what’s wrong with that?

But no matter how much we kind of rationalise our sin away, if we’re going to be brutally honest with ourselves, most of us, within just a few minutes of thinking about it, will be able to point to the one sin that seems to recur over and over and over again in our lives.

Now come on, let’s be honest. There are consequences. Serious consequences to our sin. And those consequences hurt. They hurt us and they hurt other people. I don’t know, maybe we’ve tried to break out of that pattern of behaviour from time to time. But it’s so easy to fall back into it again and that’s when we feel trapped. That’s when we feel like there’s no way out. No escape.

And the worse thing is, it feels like, well it feels like we’re the only ones with this problem. Well, have a listen to what God has to say. Come on because I, for one, am prepared to take Him at His word. Let’s have a listen, 1 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 13. Worth writing that passage down. 1 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 13:

“No testing is over taken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful and He will not let you be tested beyond your strength but with a testing He also will provide a way out so that you may be able to endure it.”

Now that is powerful stuff. So let’s take a few minutes to unpack this because my hunch is the power here in Gods word is going to set some people down a path of believing that, actually, God can make a difference. That God really wants to set me free. Let’s have a look:

“No testing has ever over taken you that is not common to everyone.”

The testing is about having a trial or a temptation. It’s the sense of our fidelity to God being tested. Take a man walking down the street. Coming down the way there’s a young scantily clad woman coming towards him. Now, here is a test of his fidelity. Not just to God but to his own wife. What’s he going to do with his eyes? What’s he going to do with his imagination?

I had a really interesting statistic from research conducted by an American Jewellers Association on employee theft. Have a listen, mind-blowing actually. 10% of all people will always steal no matter what. 10% will never steal. But 80% will steal if given the opportunity and if they think they won’t get caught. So for 80% of us, our honesty and integrity is being tested on a daily basis.

Testing happens all the time and nothing that you and I are tested with is unique to us. Indeed, it’s common to everyone. We all go through this. Sometimes we feel condemned because we think, “Oh well, I must be the only one having these terrible thoughts.” No, no. Everyone is tempted, the devil makes sure of that. He tempts us all but, and here is this great ‘but’:

“But God is faithful and He will not let you be tested beyond your strength.”

What a promise from God! I love it. When we feel trapped, you and I, right when we’re weak and when we’re impossibly vulnerable, the promise of God is that He will never allow us to be tempted by our own desires or by the devil or, as is so often the case, by both. He will never let us be tempted to an extent that is one hair’s breath further than our capacity to withstand or resist the temptation.

See so many of us, we head into temptation, particularly when it’s to do with this stubborn sin where we’ve failed time and again, we just expect defeat. We’re planning for failure. Well, so, we fail the test. We yield to the temptation. The great news is this. That God is faithful and He will not let us be tempted beyond our strength. Instead, with the testing:

“He will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.”

And over the coming weeks on the program, what we’re going to be doing is investigating that way out. A practical, rubber hits the road, expose’ of how to stop this stubborn sin dead in its tracks. ‘Cause Gods word is so incredibly practical.

For the man who for years has been caught in a cycle of shame of his addiction to pornography; for the woman who for years has had a miserable life because of her low self-esteem; for anyone and everyone who’s ever felt trapped and completely powerless in their destructive patterns of behaviour that lash at their soul like a whip that never stops tearing into their flesh; for you I have this good news

“That no testing has ever over taken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful and He will not let you be tested beyond your strength but with a testing, He will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.”

You’re not alone. You’re not unique and God is faithful. He has already planned and prepared a way out for you. A way out of the shame and the pain of persistent stubborn sin. And I want you to remember this. These aren’t my words. This is Gods word and Gods word is sharper than any two-edged sword.

God’s word has the power to change us. A power we simply can’t begin to understand until we experience it for ourselves. That’s what we’re going to be talking about over these coming weeks.

You know over the years; I’ve tried fighting the devil with my own bare hands more often than I’d like to remember.  And each time – each time mind you – no matter how strong I think I am, he gets the better of me.  What I need are some weapons with power.Real power. Divine power.

Have you ever noticed that when it comes to those stubborn persistent sins in our lives – you know, the ones that come back again and again and again through patterns of destructive behaviour that, try as we may, we just can’t seem to over come – have you ever noticed that we can be chugging along okay, living in victory for a week or two or maybe even a month or two and then, all of a sudden, wham! That sin comes back and pounds us like a battering ram. It pounds the living daylights out of us.

Have you ever wondered why that is? Why these ebbs and flows? Why is it that sometimes I can live in victory over this sin and other times I feel completely and utterly powerless to do anything at all to overcome this destructive pattern of behaviour that God calls sin?

Well, here’s my take on it. Well, actually, no, no. It’s not my take at all. Its Gods take. It’s Gods truth. It’s what Gods word says. We live on a spiritual battlefield and our enemy, the devil, is always prowling around waiting for a good time to strike. He did that even with Jesus.

After Jesus resisted the devils temptations out there in the wilderness, forty days and forty nights, Luke tells us in chapter 4 of his gospel, verse 13, that:

“When the devil had finished testing Jesus, he (the devil) departed to wait for a more opportune time.”

So here we have this picture of the devil prowling around looking for someone to devour. He has the element of surprise and that’s why we feel powerless when he strikes.

Well today and over the next few weeks we’re going to take an intensely practical look at how to be ready for him.

We all have an Achilles heel. A part of our make up, part of our personality or who we are that’s more vulnerable to attack than others. I was telling you the other day, on the program, of a man who was struggling with his temper. For some people it’s their sexuality. For others it’s pride or they’re addicted to money or recognition.

We all have something where we’re vulnerable. And we all have times when we’re more vulnerable than others. Sometimes we’ve learned to exercise self-control over, let’s say it’s our temper. But then, when the pressure’s on, where we’re tired and circumstances seem to conspire to make us snap.

So it doesn’t matter what our particular weak point is, there are times when we feel stronger and times when we feel weaker. There are times, also, where we feel completely tossed around and completely vulnerable and like we have no strength at all to resist the prowling devil who is just sitting back waiting. Waiting like a lion in the grass to pounce and attack when we’re feeling weak.

Now, what I’m about to say may sound completely perverse. In fact, if we judge it by the world’s wisdom actually it is. God’s wisdom often seems perverse by the world’s standards. But have a listen now to Gods wisdom about our weakness. It was written by the apostle Paul in the 1st century AD and it’s found in the New Testament, 2 Corinthians chapter 12, verses 7 to 9. Paul writes:

“To keep me from being too elated a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me but He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you. For power is made perfect in weakness.” So I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.”

Now we, we never discover what the thorn in his flesh is. Is it a physical ailment? Is it a particular temptation to which he’s prone? We’re not told. The way I read this and let me stress this, this is just me. I believe that it’s far more likely that Paul is talking here about a spiritual ailment not a physical one.

This term “flesh” is used not only to talk about the physical body by Paul but also about our human nature, our soul. And so, if this is a messenger from satan, the way I read it is that satan is doing something painful in Paul’s soul. But whatever the specifics are, the Holy Spirit in His wisdom hasn’t told us. What we do know is that this messenger from satan is tormenting Paul.

Now you and I, we would immediately think to ourselves “wow, a messenger from satan, it’s tormenting Paul. Obviously, obviously God would be in a powerful hurry to deal with that. After all, Paul’s the guy who’s been called to write almost half the books in the New Testament. After all, this messenger is from satan, this thorn in his flesh. This is really knocking Paul around and it’s tormenting him. Surely God wants to deal with that. Surely God wants to answer Paul’s prayer here.”

It’s a good prayer and if satan was tormenting me I would be wanting. No, no. Actually I would be expecting God to deal with this pronto. But God doesn’t take this torment away because God, it appears, is quite content with Paul’s weakness in this situation.

He doesn’t want Paul to be strong in and of himself but instead He wants Paul to experience the real thing. Gods perfect power amidst his own weaknesses. And so that completely changes everything for Paul. Instead of being ashamed of his weakness now he says, “look I’m going to boast all the more gladly of it so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.”

And it just isn’t a sign. Will you please notice with me how the sovereignty of God shines out here? Even satan is subject to Gods will. Satan’s torment is being used by God as a tool for Gods glory. Let’s never ever start imagining that God and satan are somehow these two equal and opposite forces of good and evil. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Right here God is using Paul’s torment for His glory. Right here, just as Paul writes elsewhere in Romans 8, verse 28:

“All things are actually working together for good for those who love God and who are called according to His purpose.”

So, back to the point I was making. Here’s the crunch. Anyone who has tried and tried and tried to be strong, to overcome stubborn sin will know that working hard at it doesn’t work. But it’s in our weaknesses we have the opportunity to discover the good and perfect and awesome power of God to achieve that which we can’t. To achieve victory over stubborn sin and to achieve victory over satan.

My friend, this is fantastic news. This is liberating news. The opportunity to give up trying and instead to tap into a power that works. A divine power. Have a listen again to Paul, 2 Corinthians chapter 10, verses 4 to 5:

“For the weapons of our war, they’re not merely human but they have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle raised up against the knowledge of God and we take every thought captive to obey Christ.”

Paul’s saying that we’re living on a battlefield and instead of using just human weapons, we actually have Gods divine power to destroy strongholds. And the strongholds that Paul is specifically talking about here are things in the hearts and the minds and the souls of Christians that set themselves up as strongholds against a knowledge of God.

We can’t let go of those things and that’s precisely why God gives us weapons with divine power to overcome our sin. You know what a stronghold is? It’s something we hang onto real strong. We can’t seem to let go of it.

We can’t let go of stubborn sin in our own strength. We can’t break those strongholds with weapons that are merely human. We need divine power and right here, right in the middle of our weaknesses is where God wants to give us His divine power.

And over the next couple of days and the next few weeks we’re going to look at how. How to use that wonderful, powerful, divine power to eliminate stubborn sin in our lives once and for all.

Not sure if you’ve ever looked at it this way. But saying no to God is also saying yes to the devil.  It’s a double-sided transaction.  And when it comes to overcoming stubborn sin – the sort that keeps coming back again and again – turns out that the secret is in understanding that double-sided transaction.

I was never much of an accountant but I do remember learning about dull entry book-keeping systems. They were really important in manual accounting systems in particular because they provided a double check to make sure that the accounts balanced.

Basically here’s how it works. Every financial transaction in the accounts has two entries. Hence the name double entry. A credit entry and a debit entry. And the whole point of that was the double entry provided a double check.

And it’s not just in accounting that we find this approach. You find it in physics too. Newton’s third law says that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. In other words, when a first body exerts a force on a second body, the second body exerts the force on the first body, equal in size but opposite in direction. Maybe that’s something we all learned in school.

But it’s not just in accounting and physics that we see this two-sided approach to life. We also find it in the spiritual dimension. Absolutely we do. Every spiritual transaction has two sides to it. Every spiritual action in one direction creates an equal and opposite reaction in the other direction.

So what’s the point? Well in this double-sided mystery lies our “rubber-hits-the-road” solution to overcoming stubborn sin which is what we’re talking about this week on the program. And what a powerful solution it is.

So far this week on the program we’ve seen that each one of us finds ourselves with at least one stubborn sin that we can’t seem to overcome. It’s so different for each one of us. Anger. Temper. Sexuality. Greed. Self esteem. Pride. The list goes on. And somehow it just defeats us each time.

But while sin is common, it’s not normal and Gods intention is to set us free from that sin no matter how stubborn it’s been to move in our lives. And it’s not only His intention, it’s His plan and it’s His will and it’s something that He does by His divine power.

Yesterday we looked at this particular passage, 2 Corinthians chapter 10, verses 4 and 5:

“The weapons of our warfare are not merely human but they have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle raised up against the knowledge of God and we take every thought captive to obey Christ.”

Every proud obstacle in our hearts that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and that’s what the strongholds are that the apostle Paul is talking about here, can be destroyed not by human weapons of warfare but by the weapons of warfare that have divine power. God’s divine power.

And it’s a power that God delights in exerting right in the moment of our weakness. So that it’s His power and not our strength that overcomes our sin. Here’s Paul again, we look at this again yesterday too, 2 Corinthians chapter 12, verses 7 to 9.

“To keep me from being too elated a thorn was given me in my flesh. A messenger of satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me but He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you for power is made perfect in weakness.” So (writes Paul) I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.”

Don’t you love this? Instead of just taking the messenger of satan that was tormenting Paul away, God instead gives Paul the opportunity to discover His perfect power. God’s power. The power of Jesus Christ himself in his own experience in overcoming satan.

But it’s one thing to know that yes we have stubborn sin and yes it’s Gods plan to wield his divine power to overcome that sin in our lives. That’s great but what you and I really want to know, beyond that wonderful liberating reality, is how! How to lay hold of Gods power and how to overcome the stubborn sin that’s been racking our bodies for a lifetime.

Well today, right now, I want to take you to a deep place in Gods word and show you how. Not my “how”, not the worlds “how” but Gods “how”. Now I’ve heard this scripture, we’re about to go to, so often quoted but only half of it quoted, not the whole of it. Only one side of the transaction not both sides. Let me tell you, a half truth is as good as an untruth because a half truth can easily be turned into a lie.

It’s something the devil does all the time. The half truth, the part of the scripture that’s most often quoted goes like this:

“Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”

It comes from James chapter 4, verse 7, in the New Testament.

And so a whole bunch of people set about resisting the devil. The problem is that the old enemy’s been around much longer than you and I have. And he’s seen a lot more of life than you and I have. And he’s wily and crafty and deceptive and he has authority on this earth.

And he’ll go to any length to catch us in his snare. He’ll wait until the most opportune time. Until we’re tired or weak or distracted or frustrated or all of the above and then he’ll pounce.

Writes Peter in 1 Peter chapter 5, verse 8.

“Like a roaring lion your adversary, the devil, prowls around looking for someone to devour.”

Lions wait in the long grass until they see a weak animal or a young animal or a slow animal separated from the pack and then they pounce on their prey when the time is opportune. That’s the devil. He’s the same way.

And what we discover when we set about resisting the devil is that working hard at it doesn’t work. We don’t need human weapons in this spiritual battle, we need weapons full of divine power. And it turns out that the way to access and wield those weapons involves a double-sided transaction.

That half truth from scripture that I gave you before, let me now give you the whole thing, the whole truth and you’ll see what I mean. James chapter 4, verses 7 and 8.

“Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands you sinners and purify your hearts you double minded.”

Now, do you see the two sides of this transaction involved in defeating the devil, in overcoming stubborn sin? First submit yourselves to God, then resist the devil. Two sides. Two sides to the ledger. A credit side and a debit side if you want to look at it that way. And the result of that is that the devil will flee from you.

Here’s the thing. When we submit to God we affectively rebel against the devil and his authority on this earth. When we submit to the devil we rebel against God and His authority in the universe. And some people have a foot in both camps and they’re the ones who are double minded, the ones who have to cleanse their hands and purify their hearts.

We’ll look at some intensely practical examples of this tomorrow on the program but just for now, think back to Adam and Eve in the garden. When they were living that perfect life before the fall. They were submitting to God and getting all the benefits of that. But on the other side of the ledger they were resisting the devil.

See the tree that they weren’t supposed to eat from was still in the middle of the garden, it was there all the time. They just didn’t eat from it. So they lived in the benefit of Gods blessing. But the moment they submitted to the devil and on the other side of the ledger they resisted God, they rebelled against God. In that very first terrible double-sided act of rebellion they lost all the benefits of God’s blessing.

Submission to God equals rejecting the devil. Submission to the devil equals rejecting God. And in this double-sided transaction lies the practical truth of overcoming stubborn sin. If we try to do that by resisting the devil. If we try to do that by working hard at not sinning. That’s a half truth and it won’t work.

The answer is, first to submit to God, to draw near to Him because in so doing He will draw near to us. And since He’s the one with the power, He’s the one with the weapons of the warfare that have divine power. The first thing we need to do is to submit ourselves to Him, to draw close to Him and then resisting the devil is what flows out of that. And then resisting the devil actually happens.

So often when the devil’s attacking us through that one stubborn sin that keeps coming back again and again in our lives – we’re on the back foot.  We’re on the defensive.  My hunch is that it’s time for you to get on the front foot.  Question is – how?

Stubborn sin. Sin that we just can’t shift. Sin that keeps on keeping on long after we’d hoped that we would have defeated it is a fact in many, many people’s lives. And over the course of this week we’ve seen that not only does God understand that but He wants to give us weapons full of His divine power right in the middle of our weaknesses to defeat the stubborn sin. To defeat the devil.

Jesus died and rose again to give us a victory. To give us a new life. And so whilst stubborn sin is common place, it’s not normal and it’s not what we’re meant to be living with. In fact, this is something that God takes so seriously, so seriously, He sends His only Son not just to die to pay for all our sin on the cross but to rise again to give us a new life. 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 17 says:

“If anyone believes in Jesus then that person is a new creation. Old things have passed away and (look) all things are new.”

So while many a Christ follower is convinced that their particular brand of stubborn sin is just a fact of life. Just something they have to live with for the rest of their days here on earth. That’s a luxury that the gospel of Jesus Christ simply doesn’t afford us.

Jesus came to set us free from every sin and today, today we’re going to continue our look at the practical “how to”. How do we lay hold of Gods divine power to allow ourselves to be set free by God of sin? Sin and its painful consequences.

Now this is something that, frankly, puzzled me for a long time. First, I thought I had to do it all. And so I fought against the devil and I tried and tried and tried to resist him and overcome these temptations. But as strong-willed an individual as I am, it just didn’t work. I ended up lying bloodied and beaten and discouraged and dejected on the battlefield.

“Okay, that didn’t work. So I’ll leave it all up to God. I’ll sit back and I’ll let God do it all.” But let me tell you, the old spiritual couch potato model didn’t work either. And it wouldn’t amaze me at all to know that you’ve been there too, right?

So the question is, how do we make it work? What’s Gods part? What’s our part? Come on, how do we break free from the power of that one stubborn sin that keeps on defeating us?

Well yesterday we discovered that not only do accountants have double entry book-keeping. Not only did Isaac Newton discover that in physics and in nature, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. But when it comes to defeating sin, the spiritual transaction too is double-sided. And it’s in the double sidedness of the transaction that we discover our role and Gods role.

If you were with us yesterday you’ll have heard this scripture, James chapter 4, verses 7 to 8:

“Submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands O’ sinners and purify your hearts you double minded.”

Do you see the double sidedness in this? It’s not just about racing out and resisting the devil, that’s a game we can’t win at. First submit yourselves to God. That’s the God side of the ledger. And then on the devils side at the same time resist him and the combination of those two things, submitting ourselves to God and resisting the devil means that the devil has to flee, that he’s defeated.

That’s because when we submit to God, listen to this, we lay hold of His power. And then and only then do we have the power to resist the devil. And once he sees that power at work, my friend, he’s on his bike and out of there because he and all his demons must submit to the name that is above all names. The name of Jesus Christ.

Now the danger is that we leave it there and we don’t get down and practical enough to give us something to take away to implement. So I want to get deeper today, I want to get into the ‘how to’ so that each one of us knows how to live out this submission to God and resist the devil. Submit to God plus resist the devil equals devil must flee and the solution is over coming stubborn sin.

The first example I want to give you is one that jumped out at me in a Bible study group. Have a listen. It’s the apostle Paul on death row writing to his friends at Philippi telling them how not to worry. Listen and see if you can pick up the double sidedness of Gods solution to not worrying. Philippians chapter 4, verses 6 and 7:

“Do not worry about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

I remember sitting in a Bible study group and we talked about worry and people hedged around this and they’re prepared to move on from it without taking God at His word. Worry is sin. People who trust in God needn’t worry. Worry falls a long way short of living the life of abundant peace that God purchased for us on that cross.

What this passage says is this. Look, here’s the solution to over coming the sin of worry. Instead of worrying, instead of spending your time doing that, replace that with praying and giving thanks to God and telling Him your needs.

First, submit to God. See, see what’s going on here? This is Gods way of dealing with the problem, the sin of worry. First submit to Him. Do it His way. Take the time that you would have spent worrying and instead use that same time to give thanks and to pray and to make your needs known.

See the devil loves throwing doubts up in our mind. He loves it when we’re discouraged. How to deal with him? Submit to God. Do it Gods way. And the promise is that when we do that the promise of God is that the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.

What just happened here? God’s weapon of divine power has been brought into play. We have a confidence that comes from God because we did this His way in faith. And so the devil ceases to have the power to fester this sin of worry. Now stand in this new-found power from God and watch the devil flee.

The secret is in pro actively replacing the bad with God. Pro actively stepping into this space and saying, “no, no, no, no, no. This is from the devil. My only answer is to submit to God. Now I discover His divine power in my weakness. Now I can resist. Now the devil must flee.”

Let’s have another quick look at another practical example. It has to do with the things we say that hurt other people. Have a listen again to the double-sided solution. Ephesians chapter 4, verse 29:

“Let no evil talk come out of your mouths but only what is useful for building up as there is need so that your words may give grace to those who hear.”

How do I stop evil talk from coming out of my mouth? Do I just sit there and try and hold my tongue? No, that’s not what this verse says. Gods saying instead, pro actively replace it with my way. Instead, speak the things that are good and useful for building others up. Give them my grace when they hear your words. Replace the bad with God. Deliberately step in with Gods way and not our way.

When we’re tempted to grumble. When we’re tempted to pull someone down. Let encouraging words come out of your mouth. The devils power is lost. Then having submitted to God we can stand and resist the devil.

Let me tell you, the way I learned this is simple. I sat down and thought about my weaknesses. I identified them. I looked through the Bible and found a simple verse to tell me where I’m in a situation where I’m prone to live out this particular stubborn sin, what is it that I can do to submit to God right there and then?

And so when I found myself in that place I decided to submit to God, I remembered Gods word and little by little God changed me. Little by little the devil had to flee. He had no choice.

This is something that we can apply to any sin and any situation. It would be just like God to make it simple wouldn’t it?