Overview

1. The key to reigning in life
2. What are the pitfalls of unresolved guilt?
3. The result of receiving complete forgiveness
4. How to receive God’s forgiveness

The key to reigning in life

Pastor Prince continued from where he left off in his previous sermon, Reign with Much More, to share that the Father wants for His people to actively receive the abundance of His grace. Included in this abundance of grace is the total forgiveness that our Lord Jesus has already obtained for us through His perfect finished work at the cross.

In the Lord’s ministry, forgiveness was never a side issue. Again and again, He revealed that receiving God’s forgiveness directly affects what manifests in a person’s life.

When the paralyzed man was lowered through the roof in Luke 5, Jesus immediately addressed him, not with a command to walk, but with a declaration: “Your sins are forgiven you.” The man was lying there unable to move, yet Jesus spoke first about his sins being forgiven.

Before the man’s healing could be demonstrated outwardly, something had to be settled on the inside—the burden of sin and guilt that he was carrying.

When the religious leaders objected, reasoning in their hearts about who had the authority to forgive sins, Jesus made His point unmistakably clear. He followed the declaration of forgiveness with a visible demonstration: “Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.”

The man’s healing was not separate from the forgiveness he had just received from the Lord. It was the evidence of it. When a person knows his sins are forgiven, life will begin to flow again.

Forgiveness is not just about clearing your sin record in heaven. It has real, tangible effects in life. When guilt is removed and condemnation is silenced, a person will begin to reign in life.

What are the pitfalls of unresolved guilt?

What Jesus demonstrated in forgiving the paralyzed man before healing him is the reason many sincere believers still struggle to receive the blessings our Lord died to give us. When they do not fully receive the forgiveness He has paid for, the guilt they feel for any shortcoming or wrongdoing remains unresolved. And unresolved guilt works quietly and insidiously, shaping what people think and believe, and how they respond.

This propensity to feel guilt is the result of the conscience that is in every human being (Rom. 2:14–15). Even from a young age, we instinctively know when something is right or wrong, just or unjust. Something deep inside us always feels that what is wrong—sinful or a failure—must be answered for.

This is why the law was given. The law crystallizes what constitutes sin, making it unmistakably clear and leaving no room for denial. But while the law exposes sin and failure, it cannot bring rest to the heart. Scripture even calls it “the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones” (2 Cor. 3:7), not because the law is evil, but because it reveals what is wrong without providing the solution.

The law can tell you, “You have failed,” but it cannot tell you what to do next. It also cannot tell you what the gospel can and does, that the payment for all your sins have been made and that you have God’s complete forgiveness.

When the heart does not fully rest in what Jesus has accomplished at the cross, that inner sense of failure or guilt cannot be removed. Scripture calls this burden condemnation—the uneasy sense that something is still wrong and a payment is needed.

This condemnation will undoubtedly affect how a person lives. First, there will be fear—the fear of being exposed, of something going wrong. Over time, this fear will express itself as stress, pressure, and unrest, and can also manifest as health challenges, financial lack, and repeated setbacks, whether at work, in business, or in relationships.

Scripture shows us this pattern right from the beginning in Genesis. After Adam had sinned, God still sought him out in the garden, not to condemn him, but to fellowship with him. Yet Adam hid from God. And when God called out, “Where are you?” Adam replied, “I was afraid.”

Adam was ashamed of what he had done, and that shame produced fear. God did not move away from Adam. It was Adam who pulled away from God.

This was not what God wanted for man. Right from the beginning, God had warned Adam not to sin as the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23). So once Adam disobeyed and dishonored God, death began to reign (Rom. 5:17).

This pattern did not end with Adam but continued on through all of mankind. Even today, we cannot deny that death is final. When guilt remains unresolved, believers hesitate to draw near to God and thus cannot fully partake of the blessings—health, healing, wholeness, provision, peace, and much more—that only He can give. They may believe and pray, but still feel undeserving inwardly.

But the good news is that through Christ Jesus our Lord, we already have eternal life (Rom. 6:23). And the second half of Romans 5:17 tells us how we can pluck condemnation out by its roots and reign in this life, even over death—“much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.”

The result of receiving complete forgiveness

Pastor Prince explained that in the “abundance of grace,” God has already included the complete forgiveness of our sins, paid for by Jesus’ blood. Then he goes on to show from Scripture what happens when this forgiveness is fully received.

In Luke 7, a woman whose life had been marked by sin comes to Jesus in the house of Simon the Pharisee, where the Lord has been invited to eat. Weeping at His feet, she wipes them with her hair, kisses them, and pours out costly perfume to anoint them. There was no fear and no attempt to hide herself in shame. She was only intent on showering her love upon the Lord.

Simon criticized such behavior in his heart, but Jesus explained her actions by saying, “Her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much” (Luke 7:47). She was not trying to earn His forgiveness, but was responding out of the overflow of her heart, knowing that she had already been forgiven.

Notice the difference? Adam hid because he felt condemned. This woman drew near because she knew she was forgiven. One pulled away in shame; the other came close in love.

Receiving forgiveness does not lead to careless living. Instead, it produces love. And love, not fear, fulfills the first and greatest commandment in the Bible—“to love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Deut. 6:5, Mark 12:30). Once you are established in the truth that your forgiveness in Christ is complete and absolute, condemnation will lose its grip on you, and life, freedom, and wholeness will begin to flow again in your life.

How to receive God’s forgiveness

Having seen how guilt causes the heart to withdraw, and how forgiveness draws the heart near, Luke 7 also shows us how forgiveness is meant to be received. The Lord said:

In the original Greek, when Jesus spoke of the woman’s forgiveness, He used the perfect tense, indicating something completed and settled, a total release from the debt of sin, with results that continue. It meant that her forgiveness was absolute, not partial or piecemeal, and that her many sins had all been cleansed. And, more importantly, she knew it.

In contrast, when Jesus spoke of the one who “loves little,” He used the present tense, suggesting a forgiveness that is being experienced as one goes. Pastor Prince described it as a person who believes that his past sins are forgiven, but still feels guilty each time he fails and struggles to be forgiven as he goes along. So the issue of forgiveness of his sins is never fully settled in his heart because there will be sins that he will need to seek forgiveness for tomorrow, the day after, and so on.

This is where many believers struggle—not because God’s grace is insufficient, but because of how they perceive and receive His forgiveness.

So we must believe that we have God’s complete and total forgiveness as a settled reality. We are called to be consciously aware that all our sins—past, present, and future—have already been forgiven through Christ. When we fail, we must not shrink back in fear or distance ourselves from the Father. Instead, we are to give thanks for what has already been fully accomplished for us at the cross and draw near to Him—because He is the source of the power to reign in life and overcome.

But when forgiveness is received only in part, without realizing it, people will begin to harbor unresolved guilt and will never fully be at rest as to whether they are right with God.

This is why Romans 5:20 matters so deeply.

This verse is not a license for believers to sin or to sin more, so that grace may abound. What it does is reassure us that where sin or failure is present in our lives, God will not grow distant or disdain us. Instead, He will draw near and be with us to help us overcome and rise above that situation or challenge.

You also do not need to distance yourself from your heavenly Father until you have “fixed” yourself or settled everything on your own. When you see your lack or failing, turn immediately to Him, and God will take the opportunity to pour out much more of His grace and forgiveness into that area of your life.

When His abundance of grace, including forgiveness, is received as complete and settled, your heart will be transformed. Guilt will no longer plague your conscience, and fear will no longer set the tone of your relationship with God. Instead, Romans 5:17—“Those who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness begin to reign in life through Jesus Christ”—will become your reality.

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These sermon notes were taken by volunteers during the service. They are not a verbatim representation of the sermon.