“Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light.” (Micah 7:8) This verse reminds us of the victory we have over the enemy. It gives us a declaration over satan’s lies. Satan loves to hit us hard with shame and guilt. When you mess up, most of the time you know you did and regret it immediately. But as time goes on, the lies from the enemy seem to get louder. Telling you that you’re not good enough, that God can’t use a sinner like you, that God doesn’t love you. Micah 7:8 equips us with the real truth. It says: yes I have sinned, but satan, there your truth stops. Because Jesus will plead my cause. Jesus went to the cross for every sin you would ever commit so if you have accepted Him as your Lord and Savior, you can guarantee that He has already pleaded your cause. “God took the record of all your sins—all your failures—that made you a debtor to wrath, and instead of holding them up in front of your face and using them as the warrant to send you to hell, he put them in the palm of his Son’s hand and nailed them to the cross.” [John Piper]
Now, that being said, this does not give you the license to sin as you please. “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.” (Galatians 5:13) If all you see in the cross is a license to sin, you do not have saving faith. [John Piper] Christ set us free from our sins when He died on the cross. The moment He was nailed to the cross, so were all our sins. He knew that we, as born sinners, would still struggle with sin even after we were saved, but He came so that we could have freedom from them. We can’t use this forgiveness and freedom as “freedom to sin” because freedom to sin is no freedom at all. It enslaves us to satan, others, and sin itself. The freedom Christ offers allows us to walk in the ways of the Lord and experience hope, joy, peace, and love. I’m here to tell you today that if you are still enslaved to a certain sin, addiction, etc, Christ came to set you free from that. Complete and total freedom. It is 100% possible so don’t ever think that you are too far gone for God’s redemptive grace to rescue you and set you free. He longs to do so, He’s just waiting on you to surrender it at the foot of the cross.
“The law was brought in so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more.” (Romans 5:20) Did a momentary lapse of reason lead you to picking up that bottle of vodka? Did a late night of surfing the web lead you into the sticky webs of pornography? Did you get too caught up with your boyfriend/girlfriend and take it too far? Satan loves to tell us in those moments that God can no longer use us. Friends, I am here to tell you today that satan is a big fat liar. The enemy will not be able to destroy your dreams or the plan God has for you. This is not about throwing your life away because of past mistakes. God has a plan for YOU and He has a future for YOU. No sin will be able to get in the way of that. He knew every sin you would ever commit before you were even born, you can guarantee He planned for that and is even going to use it for His glory. The great tragedy is not mainly drunkenness, masturbation, or adultery. The tragedy is that satan uses the guilt of these failures to strip you of every radical dream you ever had, or might have. So instead of focusing on the sin you committed, press into Jesus and find freedom in Him, find forgiveness in Him, find healing in Him. And next time the enemy tries to hit you with that shame and guilt, turn around and tell him: “Though I have fallen, I WILL rise!”
The Set Apart 