The Character of the Kingdom: Freedom from the Weight of Sin

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In the kingdom of God, there is no sin. And this is one of the things that will offend a lot of people if you say that to Christians. There's no sin in the kingdom of God. I said, oh, but we make mistakes. We sin. And I said, well, have a look at how people talked about that in the New Testament. We were once sinners. We were once sinners. But now we're a new creation. Now, you've got to take one or the other. You can't have both. You can't be a sinner and a new creation. Are we a new creation? Yes, we are. But I was once a sinner. [01:07:49] (47 seconds)  #NoSinInTheKingdom

The thing is that when people are weighed down with sin, it actually has an effect on their body. It has an effect on their mind. The weight of sin. And this is the bit that started to really impress on me that sin has a weight value. And Jesus understands that because he bore that weight on the cross. See, it wasn't the Roman soldiers that killed Jesus. It wasn't the Jewish nation that killed Jesus. It was the weight of my sin upon him that killed Jesus. That's why he died. For my sin that was placed on him. See, the sins of the world were placed on him. And that's why he died. So then I can go free and then I have a way that every time I make a mistake, I come straight back to the Lord. [01:09:46] (70 seconds)  #WeightOfSinFreedom

But just before that happens, we have an accuser. An accuser comes, and if he can get to the Father before you do, he'll start accusing you, and he says, don't go to see the Father. Don't go and see Him, because you're not worthy. You, have done some terrible things, and don't you dare go and see your Dad, because he's going to be so angry with you. You're just not worthy. And so, these little words come in different ways for everybody. But what it's saying is that it's trying to break that relationship that you have with the Father. He wants to break it off and tell you, you're not worthy. You don't have a right to go into the kingdom. You don't have a right to walk in boldly and ask for wisdom, or mercy, or grace, or just want to talk to your Dad. [01:13:56] (66 seconds)  #OvercomingTheAccuser

When we talk about the character of our kingdom, the character of our new place where we live, the character is forgiveness. You cannot get forgiveness outside of Christ. It's a revelation to me that you cannot get forgiveness outside of Christ. You can try your hardest to do it by yourself. It's just not going to work. You will eventually give up and say, Lord, I cannot do this. Every time I try. Every time I try to make it better, it gets worse. It gets worse. You say, Lord, I hand it to you. I hand this to you because only you can make this better. And it says, He is faithful and just to forgive us. [01:15:35] (63 seconds)  #ForgivenessOnlyInChrist

The funny thing about our God is that he's quite different to every other God. And when we say the devil will try and stop you getting to God, right? We're talking about that. As we say, I've realized I've done the wrong thing. I call it sin in the Bible. Transgression. But I've just messed up. I've just made a few mistakes. I want to come back to God. The thing about God is that we don't have to wake him up. We don't have to clap our hands over in another country recently and people you clap your hands before you go and wake the, I can't clap properly. I can't clap properly. You clap your hands, ring a bell or the sound of money going into the well wakes up the God. Interesting. And so then you get your wish granted. See, that's the thing about our God. You don't have to wake him up. You don't have to. He's there 247. And not only that his arms are open wide. [01:21:57] (88 seconds)  #GodIsAlwaysAwake

But before he could get it out of his mouth, the father embraced him with this ginormous hug, squeezed the life out of him, and he couldn't finish his statement. And he just and he embraces him. And see, that's how I want my dad to accept me. But that's the truth of the matter. That's how our dad accepts us. He doesn't want us to be climbing upstairs on our knees. He doesn't want us to be flailing ourselves on our back to hurt ourselves. He doesn't want us to be mocking ourselves, to make sure that we're feeling lowly enough so we can come into his presence. That's not our father. Our father runs to us as we come to him. It's a totally different picture to what we've been painted before. This picture of our father is a new picture that shows a father running to his children. [01:25:32] (72 seconds)  #NameWrittenInHeaven

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