Gospel = Good News = Freedom

If you haven’t read last weeks blog. Understanding the gospel more…. it would help you to do that quickly now because this one follows on.

You will remember that I asked you to imagine a family that were friends of yours, with 4 children living in a 2 bedroom dilapidated house, and to imagine that you had unlimited resource to help them. You wouldn’t just tinker with their present house when you could re build a completely new purpose designed one for them. We compared this scenario to the Cross being God’s opportunity to design a salvation for us that was ‘purpose made’

Just as the house that you would build for your friends would be far superior to the one they had before, so the New Covenant is far superior to the Old Covenant. Hebrews 8 v 6 says that the New Covenant is superior to the Old, because it is founded on better promises. We saw last week just how radical those better promises are that deal with our Sin, set us free, join us to Christ and make us into new men and women.

Let’s go back to our imaginary friends in the run down house. I said last week that we’d talk about the garden of the house. Well the garden is completely overgrown and also overrun with rabbits who live all over the surrounding land. What would you do about that? You wouldn’t go to all the trouble and expense of building a dream home for the family, and leaving them with a nightmare of a garden. So, you clear the garden completely and you put rabbit proof fencing around the property – fencing that is dug down into the ground so the little blighters can’t tunnel their way in.

What would you think if when your friends moved in, they devoted the majority of their time talking about, thinking about and taking action to deal with rabbits? They kept looking out of the windows for signs of rabbits. They were so busy checking the grounds for signs of rabbits that they never got round to developing the garden, making it fruitful or enjoying it. The truth is that the only way a rabbit could get in now was if one of them got a rabbit and fetched it in. By installing the rabbit proof fence you had taken away the rabbits’ power to freely come and go from your friend’s garden.

This is a picture of what God has done for us at the Cross, in dealing with Sin. Sin is a force, a power and sins were the wrong things that we did in response to the controlling power of the Force of Sin over our lives. Before we were saved, Sin had pretty unlimited access to our lives much the same way as the rabbits had unlimited access to the garden. Sin was more powerful than we were. And whenever Sin exerted it’s power over us we would end up committing sins. Now we are saved, God has put a (rabbit proof) Sin proof fence around us. The power of Sin to overrun our lives has been broken. It can no longer control us. We are now free people, free from Sin’s control and also free from God’s control by the way; He never controls us but gives us choice about whether to follow Him. The freedom to choose, allows us freedom to choose to sin, and sadly we may do so from time to time. A bit like one of the family fetching a rabbit into their new garden from the other side of the rabbit proof fence.

Now here’s the point…..Sin is no longer an issue. It used to have power over the old you, but the old you is dead, crucified with Christ. You are born again, a different person – read Romans 6, the first 14 verses. It’s very nicely put in the New Living Translation.

There once was a woman who was dominated for years by an evil overbearing husband. Eventually she passed away, she died. He no longer had any power over her. So it is with the power of Sin over us. We died so it no longer has the power to control us.

So, just as rabbits are no longer a problem in our family’s new protected garden, so Sin is no longer a problem in our life. Just as it would be weird for our family to be permanently “rabbit conscious” in their new protected garden, so it would be odd for us to be permanently conscious of Sin in our new born again Christian lives.

To our family we would say, the power of the rabbits to overrun your garden has been dealt with. (Don’t be tempted to bring in a couple of cute looking bunnies cos they look attractive by the way – it won’t end well!). Now all you have to do is focus on enjoying your garden and making it fruitful.

The same is true for us. Don’t be Sin conscious. Instead be conscious always that you are righteous, you are pure clean, holy, free and all you have to do is focus on enjoying your new life with Jesus and making it fruitful.

Next week we’ll finish this all off by looking at how being free from being sin-conscious changes how we live and enables us to live victoriously rather than in defeat.