Any Christian would be a lying to themselves and others if they said that they have no struggle with sin. No matter what stage of life we are in, if we are honest with ourselves, we can see our own sin and the sin beneath our sin. Yet, because of our inadequacies in eradicating sin from our lives, we often avoid the reality of our deepest sin for fear of falling into despair on account of it.
Many of us have deep rooted pride and find comfort, pleasure, significance, and hope in how “God honoring” our lives appear to be. At our core, we are Pharisaical; that is, we seek to derive righteousness and worthiness from our own doing. This enslaves us to the fear of being known in our sin, and our so-called righteousness is sought through much toil and despair that is buried beneath the busyness of that “righteousness.” We carry the weight of the world on our shoulders simply because, according to our world view, the weight is on our shoulders. But our labor is vanity, for even our righteousness is like filthy rags.
Paul proclaimed in his letter to the Galatians that when we carry this weight, we are fools! If righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain! Those who are in Christ have begun in the Spirit, and will be perfected by the Spirit; not by the works of the law! Not by our own doing! Not by our outward reflection of who we are trying to be in the flesh. We need to stop thinking that our value is found in what we have accomplished or what we will accomplish, and instead, remember and believe that our lives are justified by the work of Christ and Christ alone. The Scriptures tell us that we are justified by faith. We are made righteous in Christ. So once we stop worrying about our own justification before men and God, we are free to die to ourselves. We are free to be who we are in our struggle with sin. We are free to no longer be concerned about our own reputation, but instead, to cling to the completed work of Christ. This liberates us in a way that is best understood when it is experienced. It strikes at the root of original sin, which is man’s desire to be self-sufficient and independent from God. That was the essential nature of the first sin. Unbelief and pride. Unbelief in the truth that our Creator is good and desires to give us all good things. Pride in that we thought we could do better on our own.
Because our nature is corrupt with unbelief and pride, we must receive the Gospel of Christ daily. For we easily return to the idols of our hearts that make us feel happy; be it acceptance, or fullness, or satisfaction, or love. These, among other things, are things that the preacher in Ecclesiastes would call “under the sun”, which ultimately leave us wanting. If we are honest with ourselves about that daily, we are left with two choices. The first is to despair, with our backs to the wall and nowhere to go to avoid the pain. To the natural man, this is the only choice. The natural man is left asking, “what’s the point!?”, and is likely to discard God altogether. But to he who has been justified, adopted and accepted into the family of God, our despair turns to hope if we defy the lies of the world and embrace the promise of God. We walk into the courtroom awaiting a jury of our peers to declare us “guilty”; that’s what we deserve! But the righteous and just Judge imputes the righteousness of Christ upon us and adopts each of us as one of His people. Not only are we liberated from the punishment from our sin, but we are free of the fear of not being accepted.
All of this liberates us to deal honestly with our sin; and as a means of grace, the Spirit of God works in us to sanctify us and make us more like Him. But let that change not simply be out of our self-control, because self-control is still self-righteousness. It’s foundation is in the corrupted nature of man and man’s motivation is to magnify the ego so that we feel better about ourselves. Instead, let the magnitude of our sin wreck us to the point that we cry out to the Father, “Lord have mercy!” And when we do, we are reminded that the Gospel is the truth that He has had mercy, and it was poured out in the blood of Jesus Christ. When our lives become dependent upon the work that He accomplished, we realize that it is He that we ought to magnify, because our righteousness is in Him. Having swung across the depths of our sin from despair to glorious hope, we fall on our knees and worship Him. And as we worship Him, we are changed by an encounter with the living God that cannot be manufactured by our own doing. The blood of Christ is absolutely at the center of that encounter, not the work of man.
What more can be said? The impact of this truth is deeper than I will ever know. And my heart is to explore that impact with you. Your reservations, agreements, disagreements and questions are welcome.
Wow.... AWESOME. This is such an encouragement to me.
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