LAYING THE AXE TO THE ROOT OF THE TREE

Hebrews 12 mentions the 'besetting sin' the one that seems to cling on to us, the one that we don't seem to be able to break free from.

(Heb 12: 1-2)  let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the one who leads us in our faith and brings it to perfection, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

While on earth Jesus operated in the ministry of the prophet. In his prophetic ministry Jesus spoke on behalf of God to the people. Now in his heavenly ministry, Jesus is our great High Priest before the Father and his role as priest is now to intercede on our behalf. He is the one who has told us to cast all our burdens on to him for he cares for us. And he wants us to yield right of ownership of all the things that weigh us down so that he can step in and do something about them.

Isaiah 50: 10-11 Talks about those who fear the Lord and walk in obedience to His commandments but they are dead on the inside, why? It says that there’s a darkness within your soul because you have been trying to work everything out with your own strength and your own understanding and because you have been lighting your own fire the Lord can’t step in and bring his power, his solution to your problem and it you will go to bed at night in grief and sorrow. Even though you have feared and loved the Lord you’re trying to do all these things under your own energy and in bed you will not experience any rest for your soul because you’ve been holding onto something and haven’t let go so that the Lord could work on your behalf. Everything that is handed over to the Lord in prayer and supplication (Philippians 4:6) will be empowered and energized by the Lord. In order for him to work on our behalf we have to hand over the things that weigh us down. The weights and the heavy burdens mentioned here are the hindrances and these are the anxieties, cares and worries of this life.

 

But the sin that entangles us, that is mentioned here in Hebrews is the word ‘hamartia’, which means missing the mark. It means that we are missing out on the abundant life that the Lord has promised us. It means we do not have the power to reach the target that is set before us; this is what falling short of the glory of God is. Jesus said that he had come that we might have life and have it to the full.

So this besetting sin is something that keeps coming back and tripping us up. It’s not there all the time. This besetting sin is the one where you say I’ll never do that thing again and find yourself doing it and then feeling guilty about it. We might not do it for a long time, and then it will surface again.

 

                                    So what is this sin?

The sin is carrying the guilt of the sin that we have already been forgiven of. It is not the thing we do, because the Lord has already justified us. Jesus bore our sins on the cross. If we confess our sins he is faithful and just and he will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Once we confess we are forgiven but are we cleansed for unrighteousness which is the unlawful part of our nature. Let me put it this way after you have been forgiven do you still feel any guilt/shame about the sins you have been forgiven of? If that is still there it has become a part of your personality and you will keep reproducing the sin that caused the guilt/shame in the first place. We need to be able to deal with the repercussions of our sins.

(Hebrews 12:1)= the besetting cycle of sin means that whatever the emotional reaction to the sin was this will always open the door for me to commit that sin again. Because I should be free from the sin that I have been forgiven of. If I confess and then keep on committing the same sins over and over again and never getting free from it; means I have never been cleansed = it's like clothes going through a wash cycle and not being able to get rid of the stains .  It's like what happened to the Israelites in their wilderness experience. If they failed the test, they had to go round the mountain again before they could move on. Many people are like that, they can not grow or move forward in their Christian walk because they cannot seem to break free. You can be filled with the Spirit but that doesn’t break the cycle of abuse.

 

David had to go back and ‘redeem= buy back’ the past David (Ps 32) was in a cycle of depression and he went back until all was told. The Greek word is Catharsis which means to relive over again by bringing it to the surface, talking about it and bringing it into the open  and getting cleansed.   

"I acknowledged my sin (the adultery with Bathsheba) to you and did not cover up my iniquity (guilt). I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the Lord" —and you forgave the guilt of my sin. We need to hand the guilt over to the Lord because we shouldn’t be feeling guilty about anything.

 Guilt is not conviction from the Holy Spirit. It is Satan condemning you or it is your own conscience condemning you. In Romans 2 Paul speaks about the law of the conscience. ( when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law unto themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.)

 Guilt is a position a condemned person finds themselves in before a judge. Jesus said that the Father judges no one. Jesus did not come into the world to condemn the world but to save the world. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, no judging to be guilty. If I am living under the law of the conscience it means that I am the god and judge of my own life. What makes it a sin is because you are sinning against the cross of Jesus who bore all our guilt and took all our shame so that we could stand upright before the Father.

 So we are to look on to Jesus the author and who brings our faith to perfection. Has he already forgiven us our sin? Does he have to keep on dying for our sin? Sin has already been dealt with; we are justified by our faith in the Lord but the sin he is talking about here is the guilt or shame that we carry because we feel as if we have offended the Lord. If the Lord wants to correct me, he will always give me a way out. His correction is always to lead to repentance but it is never to condemnation. We may feel grief about what we have done and the Lord then uses that to bring us into salvation.

The Lord has different tools that he uses to correct us but it is never to make us feel guilty. Why would he condemn us?  (2 Cor 7)  Paul writes ‘if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it—I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while— yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death’.

 

Godly grief causes us to feel guilty about what we have said or done that may have wounded someone whom we love. When we sin against them we sin against the Lord we grieve him. So we say I’m sorry, I’ve wounded you Lord. This causes us to repent and so all we have to do is make it right with the Lord and with those whom we have offended and this restores us.

Many define themselves by their failure. Guilt says that I feel bad. Shame says I am bad.

Question: Are you a slave of sin who struggles to love God or a lover of God who still struggles with sin? Because of Jesus, we are much better in God’s sight than the worst thing we have done.

(2 Pt 2:19) A person is a slave to whatever has mastered them. You need to go back and deal with the shame/guilt/fear where it came in otherwise we will go through cycles of abuse. You will draw to yourself the type of people you think about yourself.

Humility is not self depreciation; if I see myself as unworthy I will not receive from the Lord that which he has freely given me. My self esteem comes from my relationship with Jesus. I know who I am now Where I’ve come from Why I am here Where I am going I know my purpose in life.

 

If I sin and I have guilt or shame I may confess my sin and be forgiven but the guilt or the shame becomes a part of my character. The sin is dealt with by confessing but the iniquity which is the feeling or emotion associated with the sin has to be dealt with differently. James 5:16= speaks of the restoration of the soul which is in the emotional areas, the healing of the inner man where the axe has to be laid to the root of the tree.

The fruit will keep on coming back if the root is not cut off.

The blood of Jesus Christ is the redemptive part of the sacrifice

The cross of Jesus Christ is the deliverance part of the sacrifice

The blood of Christ frees us from our sins

The cross of Christ delivers us from our iniquities. Guilt/shame/lust/anger/fear etc. are iniquities

Iniquities are renounced by the cross of Christ. You could say something like this, ‘I renounce the guilt from the sin that you have already forgiven me of Lord. I place it on the cross where it belongs and I walk away free from its effects and I thank you for taking it for me; I thank you for cleansing and washing me clean. How can I who am dead to guilt live any longer in it, I am dead to it. I now present to you my body as an instrument of righteousness as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to you which your word tells me to do.

Lord by your cross and resurrection you have set me free, you are my Saviour, my healer, my redeemer and my deliverer, and I thank you in Jesus name, Amen.