Remember what the Gospel means. The Gospel means
self-abandonment. When you came to Christ, did you come wanting to remain in
sin, but with a guarantee of heaven at the end? Were you interested in Christ
as a friend or as fire insurance or something else? Is He not a Savior? A
savior from what? Sin (cp. Col. 1:13-14)! Is He not a Lord? Does He not have
divine right over your life? Over your mind, heart, and body (1 Cor. 6:17-20)?
Was not your life united to His at your conversion (cp. 2:11-14)? Have you not
already turned your back on sin forever (v. 7, 9-10; cp. Gal. 5:24)? Why do you
then return to your old crucified self and linger? Why do you halt? Remember
Lot’s wife (Luke 17:32, 33).
If you are losing in the battle with sin over and over
again – if you don’t know what victory is – then you may be tempted to say,
“This Christianity thing doesn’t work! I cannot break free from sin’s grip on
me. I have no power. I have tried and failed to change.” The reality for you is
that you may not be truly converted – truly born again. I say this in love. The
Scriptures tell us that at our salvation, we repented from our life without
Christ and embraced His life. We exchanged lives. There are half-Gospels out
there – false Gospels, that is – which tell folks that “getting saved” is about
a prayer they pray, an emotion they feel, a creed they confess, a series of
propositional statements they believe, a rite they perform. They tell folks
that salvation is adding Christ to your life. “God is your co-pilot”, they say.
What a great benefit! Why not add Christ to your life? Then you can continue to
run your life your way and have Christ on the side – filling out your spiritual
needs. And when you get in a pinch, why then, here He is coming to the rescue
to get you out of your spot of trouble so you can resume command at the helm of
your life.
This is a false Gospel, people! On account of it
thousands, millions, will go on their merry way to hell!
The true message of salvation includes a call to
repentance and faith. It means that you realize that you at the helm of your
life is a disaster of eternal significance. It means that you are not the
center of the universe. It means that you do not want to stay in charge or in
sin anymore. You abandon the helm. You abandon the throne of your life. You
abandon your life for His life. He becomes Master and Commander of your life,
your world, your relationships, your thoughts, dreams, goals, ambitions,
hobbies – every square inch of your life comes under His rule!
Will you then be sinless? Of course not! Else why would
we get the injunctions we get here? No, we are freed from sin’s power over us
and sin’s penalty of separation from God. But we still have sin’s pollution as
long as we are in these unchanged mortal bodies. Something new has begun inside
of us (2 Cor. 5:17; Col. 3:3) and one day the new on the inside will be matched
with the new on the outside. But until then, we are at war. We have taken
sides. We have seen the enemy – and the enemy is our old sin nature. We must
wage war with it for that is now our identity – Christ in us, the Warrior of
Righteousness and Obliterator of All Things that Contest God’s Sovereign Claim
– He is at war with sin and we have
already chosen sides. Now, will we go AWOL? Will we play the deserter? Or
will we take up arms and finish the fight?
