Last night an extensive storm system knocked out power in our neighborhood for several hours. No power meant that nothing worked. No air conditioning. No cooking. No lights.
But I wasn’t there, I was in church about 20 miles away – and WE HAD POWER !!
There’s a lesson in there and it goes beyond “stay in church.” It’s going to surprise you – and set you free inside.
But before we get to that lesson, welcome to “Mornings with Bishop Robert,” and thanks for joining me today. My goal is to introduce people to the Jesus they never knew, and help them get to know Him and His word personally – and better ! If our time together today speaks freedom to your heart, please share it !
Our verse this morning tells us WHEN WE DIED WITH CHRIST WE WERE SET FREE FROM THE POWER OF SIN.
Power makes things work. No big surprise lesson there, right? Even the massive Airbus 380, the largest commercial aircraft in the world with 570 tons of lift capacity, doesn’t fly at all without fuel to power its engines. But how does that relate to being set free from the power of sin?
When sin is empowered, it has the capacity to do three things in our life.
The first of sin’s powers is that it SHAMES US. We may pretend not to be ashamed, but inside we know better. If there were a video that showed every second of our life, none of us wants the entire thing to be played for everyone to watch. Shame makes us want to hide.
Hiding the impact of sin ISOLATES US. We pull away from people, even people we want to be closer to. We fear that, if they TRULY knew the worst about us, we’d be rejected. And so we isolate the nastiest parts and put on a show of having our life all put together. But facades are only walls.
Finally, the power of sin working in us DESTROY US. Like a pervasive cancer, it eats us from the inside and destroys not only our body, but also our soul and spirit.
When we make Jesus our Lord and decide to follow Him, we die to sin and He makes us alive in Him. Kind of a strange concept, to think of ourselves as legally dead. But the truth is that, since we have died with Christ, sin is no longer our master. We who have died are free from the power of sin. We are no longer in its jurisdiction. We have come into the kingdom of Christ, where sin has no power.
It’s like the story of a father and son having a picnic lunch at a park. A honey bee flew near them, attracted by the food. Since the young boy was deathly allergic to bee stings he became petrified. His father quickly reached out, grabbed the bee, squeezed it in his hand, and then released it. But as soon as he let it go, the young son became frantic once again; still afraid of the bee.
You see, the boy didn’t know that, since a honeybee’s stinger is made of two barbed lancets, it can’t pull the stinger back out when it stings. The boy didn’t know it leaves behind not only the stinger but also part of its digestive tract, plus muscles and nerves; and that this massive abdominal rupture is a mortal wound for the bee which only had a few more minutes to live. The boy didn’t know that the bee was utterly powerless now.
That’s when the father opened his hand and there, stuck in his skin, was the stinger of the bee. The father spoke calmly to the boy and said, “Son, that bee can’t harm you, I’ve taken the sting for you.”
WHEN WE DIED WITH CHRIST WE WERE SET FREE FROM THE POWER OF SIN
Our Savior has taken the sting of sin for us. It has NO MORE POWER.
Christ washes us clean, no more shame and isolation. When we die with Christ, He puts His life in us; and so sin is the one who has been destroyed. Even when we fall short and commit a sin, we can confess it, be forgiven and restored. It doesn’t have the power to control our lives, when we die with Christ.
So I have a question for you …
Have you died yet ??
