Monday, April 25,
2016, 1:21 a.m.
Last night, after I went to bed, and again this morning I
had the song “Here I Go Again”
running through my mind. So, I looked up the lyrics. Basically, the message of
the song is from the perspective of someone who is afraid to share the gospel
of Jesus Christ with a friend. He talks about everything with his friend other
than about Jesus Christ. His conversations with his friend center on what has
no eternal value whatsoever, while he avoids telling his friend the truth about
his eternity and about Jesus Christ.
What he realizes is that time is not his friend, and that
this may be the last chance he has to tell his friend that Jesus loves him.
And, so he prays to God, asking him for the words to speak to his friend. He
knows that his friend’s only hope of salvation is found in Jesus Christ alone,
and that the only way his friend will know this hope is if he has the courage
to tell him the truth, and to live the truth before him, reflecting Jesus
Christ by his life. And, then he says this:
Here I Go Again /
Mark Hall
So maybe this time
I'll speak the words
of life
With Your fire in my
eyes
But that old familiar
fear
is tearin' at my words
What am I so afraid
of?
I was convinced the Lord Jesus had put these lyrics in my
mind for a reason, so I inquired of him as to what he wanted me to do. I do
believe we are nearing the Lord’s return and that time is running out, so time
is not our friend. Every day we talk with people, and every one of those times
could be our last chance to tell them about Jesus Christ and his gospel of
salvation. So now, more than ever before, I sense an urgency to get the message
of the gospel out to as many as possible before Jesus Christ returns. We don’t
have time to waste talking about a lot of nothing while people are dying in
their sins, and while the church at large is growing more and more apathetic,
complacent and distant from their God and Lord.
So, I believe that we who claim to be followers of Christ
need to examine our own hearts before God, and we need to listen to our own
conversations with people and see how much of them are about things that won’t
live past today. I believe we also need to ask ourselves how much we avoid
telling people about Jesus Christ, perhaps out of fear that they won’t like us.
Many people make excuses for not sharing the gospel, convincing themselves that
all we have to do is “love” people, but isn’t true love laying down our lives
for our friends? Isn’t true love giving our friends what they truly need? –
Throwing them a lifeline? Which one of us, if we saw one of our friends
drowning in a pool or a lake, would just stand there and watch him or her drown,
with no effort on our part to save them at all? Real friends tell each other
the truth, and they care enough to tell the truth even if they get hated in
return.
The Gospel Message (Romans
1:16-17 ESV)
For
I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to
everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the
righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The
righteous shall live by faith.”
So, what is this gospel message? Well, first of all it is
that God the Son, the second person of our triune God – Father, Son and Holy
Spirit – left his throne in heaven, came to earth, was conceived of the Holy
Spirit, and was born as a baby to a young woman named Mary. When he walked the
face of this earth, he was fully God yet fully man. He suffered like we suffer,
and he was tempted in like manner as we are also tempted, yet without sin.
He went about doing good – healing the sick and afflicted,
comforting the sorrowful, raising the dead, delivering from demons, and preaching
repentance for forgiveness of sins and eternal life with God. He taught that if
we want to come after him we must deny self, die daily to sin and self, and
follow him in obedience to his will for our lives. He said that if we hold on
to our old lives (of living for sin and self), we will lose them for eternity, but
if we lose our lives (if we are crucified with Christ in death to sin), we will
gain eternal life (See: Lu. 9:23-25; cf. Eph. 4:17-24).
The main reason Jesus Christ came to the earth and took on
human form was that he might become our sacrificial Lamb to take away the sins
of the world. Most of his own people, of his own race and belief in God,
rejected him, persecuted him and finally put him to death on a cross, although
he had done no wrong. The religious leaders in the temple of God were his strongest
opponents, heaping abuse upon him on a regular basis, and/or they tried
continually to trip him up so that they could discredit him. When that didn’t
work, they arranged to have him killed, hoping that would put an end to his
influence over the people.
When Jesus Christ died on the cross, he who knew no sin
became sin for us. So, when he died, our sins died with him. When he was
resurrected from the dead, he rose victorious over sin, hell, Satan and death.
By his grace, through faith in him, we can be delivered out of the penalty of
sin (eternal damnation), be set free from slavery to sin, be given the freedom
to now become servants of righteousness, receive the gift of eternal life with
God, and have the hope of heaven and eternity with God when we leave this
earth.
So, what does this faith look like? It is not an emotional
decision we make at an altar, nor is it merely an intellectual assent to what
Jesus Christ did in dying on the cross for our sins. It is also not words we
repeat after someone, after which we are congratulated and told we now have the
hope of heaven when we die. If we truly believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and as
Savior of our lives, we are thus crucified with Christ in death to sin, and we
are resurrected with Christ in newness of life (See: Romans 6), “created to be
like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph. 4:24). The old has gone. The
new has come. We forsake our former lives of living for sin and self, and we
turn to walking in obedience to our Lord and God. Our lives are no longer our
own, for we were bought with a price – the blood of Jesus Christ.
The Bible says that Jesus died that we might die to sin and
live to righteousness (1 Pet. 2:24); that we might no longer live for
ourselves, but for him who gave his life up for us (2 Co. 5:15). He died that
the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not
according to our sinful flesh, but according to (in agreement with) the Spirit.
If we walk (conduct our lives) according to the flesh, we will die, but if by
the Spirit we are putting to death the deeds of the flesh, we will live (See:
Ro. 8:1-14). God’s grace to us is not a free license to continue in sin without
guilt and without remorse. His grace, which brings salvation, teaches us to say
“No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright,
and godly lives while we wait for Christ’s return (Tit. 2:11-14).
Basically, Jesus did not die just so we could escape hell
and have the hope of heaven when we die. He died so that we could die to sin
and live to righteousness. He came to transform us; to make us new creations in
Christ Jesus. So, when we share the gospel message, we, like Paul, are to open
blinded eyes, turning them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to
God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who
are sanctified by faith in Jesus Christ. We are to tell them the truth about
salvation, that we are not just saved from the penalty of sin, but Jesus came
to deliver us out of bondage to sin and to enslave us to his righteousness.
This is true hope! This is true freedom! To no longer walk according to the
flesh, but to conduct our lives according to the Spirit, in the power and
working of the Spirit within us, as we yield to the Spirit’s control in our
lives.
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