If Only
Nathan Zipfel
Year A - 2019-2020 • Sermon • Submitted
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Have you ever looked back at your past and asked the question “What if?”
Can you remember a decision that you made years ago and asked yourself:
What if I hadn’t made that decision?”
I have. I have asked myself what if I hadn’t run from God when He called me into full time ministry. I have thought how different my life might have turned out.
Some people live with regrets over decisions that they have made and they live with an If only life. People struggling with addictions might ask themselves if only I had never tried alcohol or that drug the first time. People struggling with habits might say if only I had never tried that first cigarette.
If only, living with regret over decisions and actions from the past. Those regrets can keep a person living in the past rather than living in the present and the presence of God today.
There is a passage back in the Old Testament book of Jeremiah that speaks about the Pharaoh of Egypt. In the Common English version of the Bible it says:
17 There they call Pharaoh, Egypt’s king, Loudmouth—Nothing But Hot Air!
How would you like to have that engraved on your tombstone – the man or woman who missed his moment? The Contemporary English version renders that verse this way:
Give the king of Egypt this new name, “Talks-Big-Does-Nothing.”
Talks Big and does nothing. If only.
I want to bet that he lived with regret that he didn’t accomplish much in his life. He looked back over his life and asked If Only.
We can be the same way, living with regret over things that we didn’t do.
As Christians we tend to live with a list of things that we do not do. That is how we try to live a life of holiness. We keep removing from our life the things that we think we shouldn’t do. Mark Batterson in his book The Circle Maker wrote that “The problem with that is this: you can do nothing wrong and still do nothing right.”
We can get so good at doing nothing wrong that we miss out on doing anything good for God. Living a holy life is going all out for God, serving Him in every way possible. It is loving God with our entire being and our neighbor as our self.
If you are a Christian this morning then you can look forward to the fact that when the enemy of our souls tries to tell about all the sins you've committed over your life that you can know as Paul wrote "there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."
Folks, as Christians we have been set free from the law of sin and death!
If there is one message that the world needs to hear today it is this: You can be free from Sin! There is hope.
Paul in this chapter to the Romans wrote this in verse 31:
31 So what are we going to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us?
I've lost count of the people that I've met over the years who are trapped. They are trapped by the sin of their past. They are trapped by the sins that were committed against them. They are trapped in bondage and slavery to addictions and habits. They live every day trapped in a prison, many in a prison of their own making. The live with the If Only regret of their past. Trapped - what a horrible way to live your life.
You've known people like that. You know people like that today. The thing about being trapped in sin is that you are blinded to the reality around you.
My prayer is that we will move from an If only existence to a What If of the possibilities that God has laid out for us.
Think back to the Gospels and Jesus interactions with the Pharisees. They were the most religious people in Israel. They knew the law backwards and forwards. Remember they only had the Old Testament, but they knew it. They knew their history and heritage. They knew how God had blessed them over the years.
Even Paul who wrote this book of Romans was a Pharisee. He could have bragged about what a great Pharisee that he was. He wrote about that in his letter to the church at Phillipi:
4 though I have good reason to have this kind of confidence. If anyone else has reason to put their confidence in physical advantages, I have even more: 5 I was circumcised on the eighth day. I am from the people of Israel and the tribe of Benjamin. I am a Hebrew of the Hebrews. With respect to observing the Law, I’m a Pharisee. 6 With respect to devotion to the faith, I harassed the church. With respect to righteousness under the Law, I’m blameless. 7 These things were my assets, but I wrote them off as a loss for the sake of Christ. 8 But even beyond that, I consider everything a loss in comparison with the superior value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I have lost everything for him, but what I lost I think of as sewer trash, so that I might gain Christ 9 and be found in him. In Christ I have a righteousness that is not my own and that does not come from the Law but rather from the faithfulness of Christ. It is the righteousness of God that is based on faith.
Paul says, all that was garbage compared to knowing Christ and receiving righteousness from Him. The Pharisees were trapped. Even though they knew all about God and His law they were trapped, they were blinded to the reality of God all around them.
That's the problem with sin, it blinds us. It blinds us to the truth about God, the reality of God. Those of us who are Christians this morning know that we don't have to live blinded and trapped, locked in a prison of sin.
Over in John chapter 8 we read the account of the woman who was caught having an adulterous relationship. The law required that she be stoned to death for her sin. She is brought before Jesus and as I mentioned last week, Jesus bends down and began writing in the sand at his feet. I'd really like to know what he was writing but I've always suspected it was the names of the men who brought her to Jesus and the sins they had committed. Jesus speaks to the men and says that the one without sin should cast the first stone.
One by one the men drop their stones and walk away. Jesus asks her
10 Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Is there no one to condemn you?” 11 She said, “No one, sir.” Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on, don’t sin anymore.”
Further on in that chapter Jesus is still talking to the people who were following him and he says to them:
31 Jesus said to the Jews who believed in him, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teaching. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 33 They responded, “We are Abraham’s children; we’ve never been anyone’s slaves. How can you say that we will be set free?” 34 Jesus answered, “I assure you that everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35 A slave isn’t a permanent member of the household, but a son is. 36 Therefore, if the Son makes you free, you really will be free.
Did you catch what Jesus said? He said "you will know the truth and the truth will set you free."
What is the truth? It's hard to know what the truth is today. There are so many voices in our society claiming to speak the truth. Listen to most any politician - it's really hard to know if they are telling us the truth or telling us what they want us to hear or telling us what we want to hear.
What is the truth, how do we answer that?
Jesus was talking to his disciples in John chapter 14 and was telling them that he was going to be leaving, preparing them for that time when he would ascend back to the Father in heaven. Thomas being honest says that "we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?" In his response, Jesus says:
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
So when Jesus says back there in John 8 that "you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" he's talking about himself. Jesus is the truth. He says we'll know the truth if we hold to his teachings. If we "hold to his teachings" means if we obey Him, follow what He taught, follow His example. If we do that, we are "really his disciples."
Bare with me here for a moment as I get off track just for second. Jesus said "You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teaching. (Jn 8:31). If we're holding to Jesus teaching, if we're obedient to Him then we're really his disciple. Is the opposite of that true as well? "If we don't hold to His teaching, if we're not obedient to Him we're not really his disciple."
How many people do you know that claim to be a Christian but do not live by Jesus teachings? How many of them are not obedient to Jesus? Are they really a disciple of Jesus, are they really a Christian? I'm not their judge thankfully, they will have to answer to God someday.
Jesus tells a parable that illustrates what can happen to someone who does begin following Jesus but things happen.
3 He said many things to them in parables: “A farmer went out to scatter seed. 4 As he was scattering seed, some fell on the path, and birds came and ate it. 5 Other seed fell on rocky ground where the soil was shallow. They sprouted immediately because the soil wasn’t deep. 6 But when the sun came up, it scorched the plants, and they dried up because they had no roots. 7 Other seed fell among thorny plants. The thorny plants grew and choked them. 8 Other seed fell on good soil and bore fruit, in one case a yield of one hundred to one, in another case a yield of sixty to one, and in another case a yield of thirty to one. 9 Everyone who has ears should pay attention.”
Some receive the truth about Jesus but they aren't rooted and grounded in him and the last only a short time. Others allow everyday life to choke out their growth and they become unfruitful.
We have to be diligent in calling people and showing people the truth, we have to show them Jesus by how we live our lives. It is the truth, it is Jesus that will set them free.
Jesus a little further on their in Chapter 8 of John says this: "So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed".
Listen to that again: "So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed". Freedom, freedom from what?
I like how the Message paraphrase reads, it says:
34 Jesus said, “I tell you most solemnly that anyone who chooses a life of sin is trapped in a dead-end life and is, in fact, a slave. 35 A slave is a transient, who can’t come and go at will. The Son, though, has an established position, the run of the house. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you are free through and through.
It's freedom from sin. Jesus says that we are trapped in a dead-end life, in fact we become slaves, slaves to sin. That's the same thing that Paul has been talking about in the letter to the Romans beginning in chapter 5 up through chapter 7.
Sin is death, we're trapped in it, but Jesus came to make a way. I can almost picture Paul standing up and nearly shouting as he writes:
1 So now there isn’t any condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. 3 God has done what was impossible for the Law, since it was weak because of selfishness. God condemned sin in the body by sending his own Son to deal with sin in the same body as humans, who are controlled by sin. 4 He did this so that the righteous requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us. Now the way we live is based on the Spirit, not based on selfishness.
Hear this and hear this well. When you placed your faith and trust in Jesus you were declared "Not Guilty"!
When Paul writes "there isn’t any condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" he's saying "you're not guilty!"
All that sin that we struggled with, that we committed prior to coming to faith in Christ has been forgiven. It no longer condemns us because we have been declared to be not guilty!
We have been set free. Paul said that the law was powerless to set us free from sin. Jesus said that if we sin we become slaves to sin. We're not set free from sin based on what we do, it's based on what Jesus Christ has done. Paul wrote "because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death."
Dr Neil Anderson wrote:
"Death is the end of a relationship, not the end of existence. Sin is still alive, strong, and appealing, but the power and authority it had over you have been broken. “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death” (Romans 8:1,2). The law of sin and the law of death are still, present, and that is why Paul used the word “law.” You cannot do away with a law, but you can overcome it with a greater law, which is the “law of life in Christ Jesus.” (Anderson, Neil T. (2006). The Bondage Breaker® (pp. 49-50). Harvest House Publishers. Kindle Edition.)
The Message paraphrases it this way:
1 With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. 2 A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.
God went for the jugular artery when He sent his own Son. He didn't deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that.
The law always ended up being used as a bandage on sin instead of the deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn't deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.
I really like that paraphrase "no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud." Remember the character Pig-Pen from Charlie Brown? Always walking around with that cloud of dust and dirt. That's what we were like before coming to Christ. That is what sin does, it contaminates us but Paul says we don't live under that low lying black cloud anymore.
Paul said that God went for the jugular - He went straight for the root cause. The law of sin and death has now been broken because of what Jesus did. He didn't just offer a band-aid approach to the problem of sin and death, he went all the way to bring deep healing.
There's an old chorus that we used to sing, listen to the words of it.
Things are different now, something happened to me
Since I gave my heart to Jesus
Things are different now, I was changed it must be
Since I gave my heart to Him
Things I loved before have passed away
Things I love far more have come to stay
Things are different now, something happened that day
When I gave my heart to Him
– Stanton W. Gavitt
It's all about what Jesus has done for us and what the Holy Spirit is doing in us as Christians. Paul as we learned last week wrote about that war that is going on within us. The things that we don't want to do we do and the things we want to do we don't do. It's a battle ground, a war, but through Jesus we can live differently. Not because we try harder, not because we make up a list of rules to live by or a checklist to make sure we do this and don't do that.
No - it's all about what the Holy Spirit is doing within us. Look at what Paul wrote there in verse 6:
6 The attitude that comes from selfishness leads to death, but the attitude that comes from the Spirit leads to life and peace.
The attitude that comes from selfishness leads to death because it is hostile to God. Not much encouragement found there. Before we come to Christ that is what we're like. Even after we come to Christ we can choose to live that way.
But there is a better way. We call it Sanctification, a life of Holiness. Paul says that the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace. Sin and death has been broken, there is peace with God, peace within because we've given up the struggle and surrendered our lives to God and the working of the Holy Spirit within.
Listen to verses 9 through 11 from The Message:
9 But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. 10 But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms. 11 It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!
What wonderful promises are ours through Jesus Christ. A life of freedom from sin, a life a peace. My prayer is that you have that today.
If you are a Christian this morning you have been declared Not Guilty. The Holy Spirit has come to transform you from the inside out. Keep saying yes to God and no to sin. Keep your eyes on Jesus, keep on being obedient to Him.
Are you tired of the struggle with sin? If so, say yes to the Holy Spirit, allow him to sanctify you, to cleanse and transform you.
Are you living with an If Only regret in your life? Jesus came to change that If Only into a What if. What is the possibility that God has for you? If God is for us, who cane be against us?
If you're not a Christian this morning you are guilty - you stand condemned, you are trapped, enslaved to sin. You don't have to live that way. Won't you say yes to God this morning? Won't you say I believe to Jesus, won't you repent, turn around and begin following Jesus?