Chapter 4 Dealing with Big Sins Part 1
Msg 4 Dealing with Big Sins Part 1
How does sin damage our fellowship with God? If you are familiar with my teachings on 1 John, you may say, "Wait a second...you've just been teaching first John 1:9 and showing that sin doesn't do that!" This is correct. We are not "in and out" of darkness, nor can we have doctrine advocating that we are "in and out" of the fellowship, or that God is sometimes displeased with us. We must know our position is our anchor, not our condition. We are not flopping between the two.
I have taught that 1 John 1:9 is not about being in and out of fellowship, however, Hebrews 3:13 says, "Do not let your heart be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin." There is a lot of doctrine in Hebrews, and an exhortation throughout to come forward boldly to the throne of grace and to cast our care on Christ. We are not to let go of our confidence. Instead, we are to come into the "full assurance" of faith, laboring to enter that rest, knowing that it is all of Him and none of us. It is the blood; it is the High Priesthood of Christ, and it is His life that sustains the Christian life. This assurance is what keeps us in the presence of God to enjoy the fellowship.
The Work of the Triune God
God does not withhold His fellowship. Remember the parable of the prodigal son. The son came to his senses and began to approach the father. But the father was running towards him! The father was out waiting, looking for his son...waiting for him to come to his senses. This parable goes along with the parable of the woman who swept the house looking for the lost coin (Luke 15:8), and the parable of the shepherd who went to find the lost sheep and carried it home (Luke 15:4).
These three parables together present a picture of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit --- the work of the Triune God. The searching woman stands for the searching work of the Spirit, which is what brought the prodigal son to his senses. But even before that, the Son came as the Shepherd.
This is the invisible work of the Triune God, carrying us home when we do not even realize it. The prodigal son "Came to his senses" but God was behind it doing His work! The Lord is our propitiation for our sins, and He is our advocate before the Father, and He ever lives to make intercession for us. He intercedes before we even realize we need it! In Romans 8, we are told the Spirit in our spirit groans and searches the hearts (Romans 8:27), praying according to the will of God. He groans for us in our weakness with groanings that cannot be uttered (Romans 8:26). This is like the woman sweeping and searching for the lost coin to bring us to our senses.
This is the shepherd's work, to invisible work in His high priestly role to intercede for us to bear us home. So yes, the prodigal son came to his senses and "got up" from the pig slop, and said, "It is better to be in my father's house as a servant than to be out here." He started to head home, and his father was watching for him. His father came running and made up the difference! The prodigal did not have to journey all the way home --- the father came running to him!
Often, the Lord brings us to our senses and brings us back to God without our realizing it. In fact, we do not come to the Lord unless He does this, "No one comes to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws Him." As believers, we really are under the sovereignty of God. I am not talking about Calvinism; I am saying that once you are in the door, having believed the Gospel, He never lets you go. "All the Father has given me will come to Me, and He who comes to Me I will in no wise cast out (John 6:36)."
It takes the work of God to bring us to Himself, and it always starts from God. Fellowship starts from God. So, you say, "Does God withhold His fellowship when we sin?" No, He goes to work!
However, Hebrews says, "Don't let your heart be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin (Hebrews 3:13)." Again, the exhortation in Hebrews is to draw nigh in full assurance of faith; to come boldly to the throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace and help in time of need (Hebrews 10:22; Hebrews 4:16). You have a high priest, you have a shepherd, you are an heir of the great salvation, and everything is yours in Christ! Because you are qualified by the blood, come near in faith!
Coming Forward Boldly or Shrinking Back
In contrast to boldly coming forward, there is unbelief and shrinking back. In Hebrews, we are instructed to draw near, and to not to shrink back, and to not harden our heart through the deceitfulness of sin. What is the deceitfulness of sin? The deceit of sin says, "No, you owe a wage. You sinned and cannot come to God until you deal with your sin. You must repent. You don't feel sorry enough." How sorry is sorry enough? Does repent mean to vow to never do that thing again? If you say, "I repented of that thing," that means supposedly you are not going to do it anymore. This is self-deception! This is part of the deceitfulness of sin.
Sin deceives you by convincing you that you can manage it. You tell God, "I'm never going to do that thing again!" But then, you go back to it! If you are holding to the concept that your fellowship is contingent on your "repentance" or your "vow" then when you return to that sin, you will say, "I am a liar and I'm not qualified to go forward. I didn't really repent! I did it again and I can't come near!" This is shrinking back. In Hebrews 10:38, God says He has no pleasure in those who shrink back.
We do tend to shrink back, but we have a High Priest who brings us forward through His intercession. He does a work to bring us to a place where we stop making vows. For this to occur, there is some self-knowledge needed, where you realize, "I don't have the strength to get myself out of this." Salvation is of God. Grace is of God. It's not a mix of some of you and some of Him. It is all of Him. This is where we struggle. We think it must be some of Him and some of us. When we think this say, we are staggering in our mind...staggering in unbelief and staggering at the promises of God (Romans 4:20).
The promise of God says, "come near". There is a High Priest, and He can save to the "uttermost" those who come to God by Him (Hebrews 7:25). But our staggering says, "Yeah, but sin still requires something from you. You either need to pay for it, work it off, or make a sacrifice."
No Longer Debtors to the Flesh
At the time Hebrews was written, there was the Jewish system (the Aaronic priesthood) which was in contrast with Christ's once-and-for-all offering (Hebrews 7:27). The deceitfulness of sin says, "No - that once-and-for-all offering is not enough. You need to go back to the temple and offer something to the priests." Or it says, "You need to repent, make a vow, feel sufficiently sorry, or show God, you really mean it!"
This is all the flesh. Sin makes you look to the flesh for remedies. What is the flesh? The flesh is your ability, your strength, your resolution, and your action of "doing it". But our flesh was crucified! "I through the law died to the law that I might live unto God. I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live yet not I but Christ who lives in me! The life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the son of God who gave Himself for me" (Galatians 2:19-20).
The life I live in the flesh, I must live by the faith in the Son of God who gave Himself for me. You have not entered the enjoyment of the Christian life (and we are all on our way) until you have discovered that there is another Person! It is His resources the Father needs. The unsearchable riches of His Grace, Christ Himself! He is the incorruptible, inexhaustible One to be our life!
As long as sin makes you believe you are a debtor of the flesh to live according to the flesh, you will not truly avail yourself of Christ. It's this deceptive belief that says, "He got me in the door and now I've got it from here!"
Romans 8 says we are no longer debtors to the flesh, for if we live according to the flesh we must die! Now this is important, Romans 8 does not say, "but we ARE debtors to the spirit!" No! We are no longer debtors. This passage goes on to state that we have received the spirit of Sonship which bears witness that we are children of God and heirs. Heirs don't do something to earn something! Heirs receive everything! Heirs are in a position of receiving, and this is who we are. This is our position in Christ!
The Deceitfulness of Sin
The deceitfulness of sin conditions your heart to be hard when it comes to the things of God. This deceitfulness prevents you from believing that Christ can do it, or that He wants to do it! Sin tricks your conscience into believing you are not acceptable to God, and you are not qualified. It makes you say, "What am I going to do? I can either go back into religion and try to fix it all, or I can just backslide and forget it!" You end up angry at the unfairness of it all. God seems to require something of you that you cannot give to Him. But all this time, God is working. He is searching in your heart by the Spirit to bring you to a realization of your own corruption.
We are not sufficiently afraid of sin. As long as we think we have a handle on it, we are deceived. Recovering alcoholics are a great example of people who know the devastating principle of sin. They know the law of sin in their members is stronger than their desire not to drink. I had a friend who was a recovering alcoholic. He told me that the problem was not "one beer". One beer is not what scares him...it's not going to make him drunk. It is, instead, the fact that once he has one beer, there is another coming and another coming and another coming! It is all the consequences that ensue as his life unravels. He knows this and he has a healthy fear (learned by experience). The proper fear of sin comes from understanding what sin can do and how far it can take you.
This is what makes you realize, "I can't even give it a little bit of ground. I can't just have one beer." This is someone who has a healthy appreciation for their weakness. But we don't start out like this. We start out as self-confident. This is why it can take alcoholics so long to begin the path of recovery. They say, "I'm not an alcoholic -- I just have a drink sometimes." My stepdad was an alcoholic. He would say, "I'm not an alcoholic, I just have a drink at night." At one point, my mom said he couldn't drink in the house, so he went outside to drink. He was in denial. He made little rules for himself to give himself a pass so he could keep doing it.
"Romans 6 says, 'Do you not know that to whom you yield yourself to obey, you make yourself a slave?' (Romans 6:16). When you yield yourself to sin, you are giving yourself to a master who demands a wage, and that wage is death. In Romans 6 through 8, 'death' is defined for us. It is condemnation, weakness, shame, and fear. This is the exact opposite of the spirit of Sonship and is called the spirit of 'slavery unto fear' (Romans 8:15). That is why Paul says in Romans 8, 'Those who are led of the Spirit of God are the children of God. You have not received a spirit of bondage again into fear, but a spirit of sonship in which you cry, 'Abba Father'. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God and heirs.' Paul had just finished saying that we are no longer debtors to the flesh to live according to the flesh, for if we live according to the flesh we must die.
Dying, here, is not physical death, but condemnation. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit, for the law of the spirit of Life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.
The Law of Sin and Death v. The Law of the Spirit of Life
The law of sin and death is in our members. It is the law of sin that tempts us. It is also the law of death which says, "You did that and now you have to suffer the consequence! You can't come to God until you pay the debt!" This makes you shrink back. That's why it's called a spirit of bondage unto fear. The bondage is bondage to sin and to its wage, which is death. The fruit is death. That whole realm is referred to as "walking according to the flesh". Sin tempts you to make you think you owe the flesh, owe sin, or owe God something from the flesh, and therefore, you keep living in the flesh. Then you experience condemnation, and you are gripped with a spirit of bondage and fear.
But the law of the spirit of life in Christ has made me free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:1-3). There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. The King James has, "Not walking according to the flesh but according to the spirit." I used to favor the NASB because it omits this, but it's because I didn't understand it. I thought it meant there is no condemnation for you if you are walking in the spirit, but if you're walking in the flesh, God is mad at you!
Condemnation in Romans 8 is not talking about the wrath of God. God's wrath has already been dealt with in Chapter 3 with Christ presenting His blood in the heavens for me. He made peace with God on my behalf. While I was weak, while I was yet a sinner, while I was ungodly, Christ died for me (Romans 5:8) God commended His love for me in that while I was a sinner, Christ died for me. Now, I have been justified by faith in the blood! To him who "works not" but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted to him as righteousness (Romans 4:5). That righteousness makes me an heir of God! All the things to which the spirit bears witness are true of me, regardless of whether I feel it or not!
The reason many Christians do not "feel it" is because they are walking according to the flesh and not the spirit. To walk after the flesh is to be gripped by a spirit of bondage and fear, which Romans 8 calls death and condemnation. It is the same condemnation that struck Adam and Eve after they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, causing them to shrink back from the presence of God in fear and shame.
The only answer to this dilemma is for me to be in Christ. Even the Old Testament saints who believed in the promise of Christ, especially once the law came, had a spirit of bondage and fear when it came to the presence of God. They could not approach. We, in Christ, have been granted access to the holiest of all! (Hebrews 10:19) We have been positioned in Him at peace (Romans 5:1-4). We have the capability of walking according to the spirit, while the Old Testament saints did not. The Old Testament saints could not walk according to the spirit of sonship, but we can because we have been regenerated.
Joined to the Lord
Our spirit has been joined to the Lord (Romans 6:17). The two have become one Spirit and He who is joined to the Lord is one Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:17). If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness (Romans 8:10). If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal body through His Spirit that dwells in you (Romans 8:10-11). This Spirit we have received is the Spirit of Sonship that bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God and heirs (Romans 8:15-17).
Being children of God and heirs means that we have everything. We are complete in Christ (Colossians 2:10)! The Spirit is here, bearing witness to our position. Is He bearing witness to your flesh? No! He is bearing witness with your spirit. And if you are walking in a spirit of bondage and fear (in the flesh), you are walking contrary to the Spirit of Sonship. Walking in the flesh means the spirit with that witness for you is silent, so you don't hear it as well.
Recognizing the Flesh is Ruined
Christians fear again and again they might lose their salvation because of their condition. They keep going back to the milk and going back to channels telling them, "No, OSAS is the Gospel." They can convince themselves intellectually that salvation cannot be lost, but they haven't learned to walk according to the Spirit -- to be freed from the condemnation, freed from the spirit of bondage and fear, and freed from the debt cycle of sin and its wage, which is death. This is to be a slave to sin. Paul says, "Sin will no longer rule over you because you are not under law, but under grace," (Romans 6:14).
You must be under grace. Grace is in the Spirit. Paul said, "The grace of the Lord Jesus be with your spirit," (Philemon 1:25). Grace is the Spirit with my spirit, Christ in me, but I need to learn to walk according to the Spirit. For this, it's important to see the ruin of the flesh. We must get to a point where we see the flesh cannot make it, nor does God not have a plan for it. God crucified us because He gave up on the flesh.
The flesh is the totality of our being. The flesh is not just your sinful parts. The flesh is the totality of your being with its strength. When Paul said in Philippians 3, "We are the circumcision who boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh." (Philippians 1:3) he was not talking about the "bad flesh", he was talking about the good flesh! What things were "gains" to him, he counted as "dung" for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ (Philippians 3:7). Those "gains" were his religious strength, his religious zeal, his religious pursuit to love God with all his heart and soul and mind and strength, and to be found having his own righteousness from the law. This religious strength, zeal, and pursuit is what we struggle to letting go of.
We know sin is bad, but when we try to resolve to "not sin" again, this is meaningless to God. He says, "You are lying." That's why we say to not make vows. Jesus said, "Do not make vows. You cannot change one hair on your head, and you cannot take one inch of your stature taller by worrying or caring about it. Anything more than "yes" or "no" is of the evil one." When you say, "I repent of that thing and I'm never going to do it again", you are setting yourself up for failure. You are actually putting yourself in the flesh and demanding from the flesh what only God can do. You are trying to demand the flesh to solve a problem that only God can solve. You are also stirring up the flesh which God has condemned to the cross. This is an offense to God.
This is not the same thing as feeling bad about sin. There is something called "godly sorrow." It is okay to feel bad about sin, but you need to remedy that with the Gospel and by drawing near to God. You need to wage the right war. This is the war, through the gospel, to be assured before God -- confident before Him. 1 John says, "Now little children, abide in Him so that when He appears, you may have confidence at His coming and not shrink back in shame." Abiding in Him is the key to being delivered from the shame, condemnation, and fear that comes from walking according to the flesh. The spirit of death grips the flesh.
"Safe" Sins
Sin deceives you. It hardens your heart and causes you to draw back from God by having you look to the flesh to answer the problem of sin, either through condemnation or through false religious vows you will never fulfill, "I'm never going to do that thing again."
Some people stay in a weird place where their life is manicured and clean. They live in the suburbs, they go to Target and Starbucks, pay their taxes, and go to work. They pay all their bills and tithe to the Church. They have a good reputation with everyone. They have convinced themselves they don't have any real sin or believe the sins they commit are manageable. These outward things might be clean, but they are horrible to their wife. Every time they try to talk about it, they have a huge fight, and they say things they regret and hurt their wife's feelings. They cannot overcome it. But they tell themselves, "We can work that out. We can go to marriage counseling. We can get help...besides, half of it is her fault."
See, this is the danger of "safe sin". This is "safe sin" for a suburbanite. You know neither of you will leave. You have a great setup. She would have to be crazy to leave the suburbs and go live as a single mother in an apartment because she will not have any money if she leaves. So, he knows he's "got her." This is called living in "safe sin." You have a situation in your marriage that you cannot fix and, yet, you are trusting the institution to preserve it and thinking it's okay.
That safe sin might keep you "safely" away from God, away from desperation, while the strong sin of the prodigals makes them eventually run to God. Luther said, "Let your sins be strong, but your faith in the Lamb be stronger." Big sins cause us to see our need for Christ. The little things, we think we can handle. These deceive us and harden our heart. This is part of the "deceitfulness of sin". The big sins also deceive us because they make us believe we aren't qualified and cannot come near to God. But, in a sense, they are better than "safe sins" because the safe sins deceive you into thinking, "I can manage this, and I don't need God." The "dangerous sins" make you a candidate for the shepherd because you become a lost sheep.
If you've never been a lost sheep, then you will not know the grace of God the same way the prodigal son did. The father went and got him, brought him into the house, put a robe on him, and gave him a feast...not for anything the prodigal did, but merely because the father was rejoicing that his son was alive from the dead! This is a mystery of the grace that was displayed. The older brother, who was a "safe sinner" out in the field, complained, "I've kept the commandments of God and I've been working this whole time, yet you never threw a feast for me!" The father might have said, "It's because you stayed out in the field. Your 'good work' deceived you, thinking you could handle your own sin." It was the deceitfulness of sin, and the older brother was just as far away from God as the prodigal. The difference between the older brother and the prodigal is that the prodigal knew he was lost.
"Serious" Sin
If you are down in the pig slop, you know it. It is still a dangerous thing to be in serious sin, but God is there for you, the advocate is there for you, the shepherded is there for you, and the high priest is there! He is going to work for you! But when you are in serious sin, you are caught in the grip of it, and you cannot lift your head to God.
Sexual sin, as an example, is so devastating. Paul talks about fornication and says it is a sin you commit against your own body (1 Corinthians 6:18). Other sins are committed outside the body, but fornication is a sin against your own body. It damages your chemistry, and especially damages your conscience. It's not the same as drinking or drugs because those do not always have the lust and self-idolatry that fornication does. You are putting yourself up on a pedestal and having someone glory in you, and your heart is full of adultery and all sorts of pollution. Fornication is a deeper sin because it affects everything. When you drink too much, you do not have the same kind of pollution in your heart that you do when you fornicate.
I'm not saying that one sin is greater before God, because it is all dealt with by the blood, but in all, sexual sin does so much damage. A fornicator gets addicted to it. They will do anything to satisfy their desire. Proverbs talks about the adulterous woman. The wisdom of God is all about staying away from her. She will drag you down and take you places you did not want to go and bring you into death. I think this is talking about Jezebel and the false religion, but fornication and sexual sin is the source of so many damaging things to your relationship to God.
What Happens to Fellowship
Is the problem that God is withholding Himself from you? No, it's because of the deceitfulness of sin and what it does to your conscience and your heart. Your heart is full of pollution and in such a state, it's hard to set your mind on the things of the spirit. There are people who struggle with fornication. Because so much pollution occurs in your heart with sexual sin, it can be hard to believe you are even saved. You may be able to intellectually convince yourself (doctrinally), but you know you're out of control. You, therefore, cannot really be helped no matter what others tell you as long as you're embroiled in this sin. You are damaging yourself. You're not going to be able to hear the witness of the spirit...that you are eternally secure. The brother who was having sex with his father's wife was turned over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit might be saved in the day of Christ. He was a brother! The discipline for him was all part of the Lord's shepherding --- to bring him to his senses. There was godly sorrow, but while he was ensnared, the church had to separate from him.
This is another aspect of being in sin. You lose all the fellowship. On the one hand, if you are among the saints, you are aware you're just pretending. Your heart is full of pollution and while you are in the grip of it, you cannot honestly talk about spiritual things. You know you are going to do it again. You know right after the church, you are going to return to it. I am talking about people who are really caught up in sin. It is so toxic.
But then, once the saints find out, they are supposed to break fellowship with you (1 Corinthians 5:11). This is a protection to them and to you as there is nothing, they can say to you while your conscience condemns you. There is no way they will be able to assure you of your salvation while you are in this state. They might be able to tell you, "No, once saved always saved," and they know the Lord will save you, but until you deal with the Lord on it yourself, you will only be comforted for a brief time before you go back to that thing!
As long as you keep going back to that thing, you are yielding yourself to a master who is stronger than you. Romans 6 explains that when you yield your body to sin, you are yielding yourself to a master that is stronger than you. You become a slave. God is allowing this to happen if you are His. In His faithfulness, He is allowing it to happen so that you can finally learn what sin is and what the flesh is. When you see that sin is bigger than you, you will start crying out for mercy. He will let you go down that path until you just want to die. You'll say, "Lord have mercy on me. Save me from this!" It won't just be a matter of figuring out if you're really saved and can you keep doing this thing...no, you'll get to the point where you'll realize, "I cannot get out of this. I am going to die. I've got to die!" And that's where God wants you! It is His mercy! Yes, you lost fellowship with everyone...and rightfully so! Yes, you were isolated by the experience, and you were dragged through the mud. Yes, you went much lower than you thought you would go. It will leave a stain that you will be ashamed of for the rest of your life. You know if you are really caught in this stuff, this is the case. However, if you are His, God is going to bring you to a point where you finally cry out, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (Romans 7:24-25).
The adulterous woman was in such a state. When she was brought to Jesus, she thought the next thing to happen to her was her death. She was completely humiliated and terrified. This is where sin takes you, especially if you have marriages involved. These are "big people sins". I am not talking about a 15-year-old. They cannot reap these kinds of consequences. I am not saying they won't have their issues, I'm talking about adults caught up in this, making "big people messes".
On the one hand, I want to comfort you. If you are a believer in Christ, He has you. Even if you die, you will end up in His presence. He comes without sin unto salvation. He is not going to beat you for your sins when you stand before Him. But the reality is you're miserable while you're in this state. You don't have fellowship. You don't have fellowship with God, not because He is withholding it from you, but because you are in a spirit of bondage and fear. You are fully under condemnation and sinning against your own body and you know you cannot stop!
Crying Out in Desperation
The key to your deliverance is finding out that you can't stop, while knowing that Jesus is a savior, and crying out to Him to deliver you. Some people cry out, "Lord deliver me from smoking." Or, "Lord I'm getting fatter and fatter. Keep me from being lazy! Help me go to the gym!" But I do not need it that bad! If I keep getting fatter, I will get sick, and if I get sick then I might get desperate." There is a place for desperation in the Christian life that everyone must get to at some point and God knows where that place is. The desperation is when you cry out to God because you know there is nothing you can do. You cry out to God, not because you are making a vow to Him to never do it again. You know you're going to do it again, and you say, "Lord what am I going to do? You have to deliver me from this, or I'm going to die!" It's a place of hunger and thirst that comes from desperation.
Living as Slaves to Sin
Big sins are like those of the demon-possessed, tax collectors, lepers and prostitutes who followed Jesus. These people were at the end of their rope. I'm not condoning sin by any means but am making the point that if you are a believer in Christ, yes, your salvation is secure. Someone may ask, "I keep falling into the sin of fornication, feeling bad about it, and losing my sense of security. Shouldn't I not feel bad about it if I'm really standing in grace?" No, you should feel whatever you need to feel until you realize you aren't just "falling into" fornication but have made yourself a slave to it. You don't have the strength to deliver yourself. You are unable to stop!
Most people don't realize they're slaves. Alcoholics, for example, don't realize they're slaves to alcohol, while actively denying their alcoholism. This is where most of us are. "I got this - this'll be my last time. I'll repent afterwards." No, this will not be your last time. It, in fact, may be the first of a series of the next batch, because when you sow to the flesh, you reap corruption from the flesh. It's serious, not because God is angry at you, but because it shuts down your ability to do much more than just barely believe the Gospel. Sometimes, you're not sure you even believe it. This is why a lot of people find themselves looking for assurance of salvation all the time. Many times, they're caught up in something and haven't yet come to the point where they realize this thing is bigger than them, and through the deceitfulness of sin, they are shrinking back from God.
The Struggle Between the Flesh and the Spirit
For the fornicator, the only answer he has is God. The only way you overcome sin is through the fellowship. There's no washing apart from the fellowship. We have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us of our sins. Where? In the fellowship. Sin deceives you and institutional religion deceives you by saying that the fellowship is withheld from you until you get your sin straightened up. But this stance takes away the power.
When you are sinning against your own conscience, it is much harder to even believe the Gospel to begin with, not because you aren't sealed with the Spirit, but because your mind is in opposition to the Spirit. You are practicing something that damages your ability to do much more than just barely believe.
When you walk according to the flesh and your mind is set on the flesh, you are not walking according to the spirit, with your mind set on the things of the spirit. When your mind is hostile to God, it cannot relate to the witness of the spirit that says, "Yes, I'm a son of God and an heir." So then, you must convince yourself it's true because you're not sensing the witness of the spirit. He is bearing witness with your spirit, but you aren't walking in the spirit. You're in the wrong realm and the more you stay in that realm, the more your heart doubts whether you've been accepted by God. This is what the prodigal son experienced. He said, "It's better for the servants in my father's house". When walking back towards the father, he started to rehearse a speech, "I'm not even worthy to be a servant in your house." He put himself below the position of a son and an heir, and even below the servants. "I'll just be like the dogs out in the back."
I see people comment on channels where they speak highly about rewards and works. They say things like, "I'll just be glad to be cleaning trash at the back of the kingdom." That's not our portion! We're not going to be cleaning trash in the back. We're going to be enjoying the allotted portion of the saints in the light. We have everything! This is the deceitfulness of sin. You begin to believe your status as an heir is in jeopardy and believe you'll be a lowly slave forever, even in heaven. This hardens your heart and makes you stand back, aloof from God.
The Only Answer for Sin
Coming to God boldly and looking to Him for salvation is the only answer for sin. This is good for the one caught in serious sins, where you think, "If something doesn't come in and stop this, I'm done!" This is a good place to be! If you realize this, that is where you turn to God --- He must be your salvation and you must give up hope on yourself, including hope that you won't do that thing again tomorrow.
If I don't sin tomorrow, it's because of God's mercy, not because I overcame that thing. I have been living the victory like this for years. It is a dependency on God's miraculous intervention and mercy. Alcoholism and delivered drug addicts will say, "It's a miracle I haven't gone back to that!" It's a work of God in my life and it's by His mercy I don't go do that thing.
This makes me a totally different kind of person than the "safe sinner" who thinks, "I'm keeping myself from doing that thing and I'm going to get a reward for it." If he has a big fight with his wife, he will just go down to get himself a Starbucks, knowing she is not going to leave. The suburbanite also has sins that are totally out of control, but they are not public enough to humiliate him before people and make him lose everything, so he does not feel he must really deal with it. Whereas the sins that make "big people messes" and damage other people's lives and become quite public --- those become humiliating and yet they make you a candidate for grace in a way the prodigal son can understand, but the older brother will never understand!
Having a Healthy Fear of Sin
Sin is scary. It's not that we fear God is going to throw us off, but we have a healthy fear of sin because of the way it deceives us and takes us further than we can go. We must realize that when we yield ourselves to that thing, there is no guarantee we will bounce right back from it. There should be a fear. "Okay, I just did that thing, what's next?" When you sin, you need to run to God boldly!
Based on bad doctrine, people will use 1 John 1:9 to say, "I can't run to God until I properly confess." Then they will turn this into something more than it is. Your relationship with God is not damaged from His point of view. He does not withhold the fellowship. Yet, sin is something that should be taken seriously, and we are often ignorant as to how serious it is.
Assurance of our Position
The gospel is our remedy. It's based on assurance that we have not lost our position before God, and we can come forward to the One with the power to deal with anything. Here, we have been specifically talking about sexual sins or "big people' sins that make a big mess in a lot of people's lives. I see people saying they want to be assured of their salvation while continuing to engage in sin. Yes, you can be assured of your salvation, and you can know you have eternal life based on your faith in the gospel, however, if you don't have the sense of the witness of the spirit because you are holding yourself back from God, and you think there's a remedy for sin other than the blood of Jesus Christ, you are not going to sense that witness.
The "safe sinner" has no more assurance than the "big people sinner" if he's not relying on the blood. The older brother who was working in the field, keeping the father's commandments, had no more assurance than the prodigal that the feast was his. The prodigal son wasn't totally sure that the feast was his, but the older brother thought he had to work for it to earn it. He was angry that his father was withholding it, saying, "Why didn't you have a feast for me?" He didn't have any assurance either. Both had a wrong concept of the father.
Grace comes to the one who realizes he cannot do anything to remedy his situation, and only Jesus Christ can. This is how God wants us to live. He doesn't want us to only visit it once...He wants us to live there!! He often brings us into environments that are over our head, so we aren't tempted to deal with it ourselves. Believing we can deal with it on our own keeps us in the flesh and at arm's length from God. This is our natural competency and tendency. The good news for "big sinners" is that they test and learn grace by experience. They realize it is a miracle that they are standing before God. Those kinds of people are less likely to be brought back into religious bondage once they have seen an end to their efforts and have seen their absolute need for the miraculous intervention of God. You cannot convince those people that God is not for them, because they have been through something bigger than them, and God did not cast them out.
The father ran to the prodigal, threw his robe on him, brought him into the house and gave him the feast. This is God's response to you!! This is the response when you give up your own self-sufficiency. For those who are struggling with a serious thing and are in limbo, thinking God is requiring you to do something about it, you must realize you cannot do anything! If God does not deal with it and step in, you are done! You can't stop doing it and it is going to get worse and worse. It is going to destroy your life and those around you. Your question is "how far is God going to let me go down this path before He saves me from it?" This is the question of someone who has begun to realize that their sin is bigger than what they can manage. "This is stronger than me. I have become a slave to this thing. I need to learn to walk in the spirit and I cannot! I need Jesus to come and save me." He does it differently for every person. I cannot even tell you quite what happened, but God stepped into my life and saved me from all that. He saved me! We need those kinds of stories and that kind of deliverance sometimes. We need to know only God can save us from the mouth of the lion.