alive with Christ (part 2 of 2)

Ends with Yielding

The experience of being transformed by the Holy Spirit into the person that God intended you to be when He created you, the person that He wants you to be now, ends with yielding. As one progresses along this journey of transformation, they will experience the abundant eternal life that Christ died to offer humanity, and to which He was resurrected so as to demonstrate that abundant life.

In part 1 of this series [part 1], I used the illustration of anti-smoking and anti-drinking commercials to highlight the point that providing information to people is not enough to inspire them to change destructive behaviours. Donald Miller, in his book Searching For God Knows What, gives an example from his own life:

Several years ago [...] I chewed tobacco [...] I know, I know, it was terrible for me. It causes cancer of the mouth and is bad for your heart and your breath, and girls are never going to want to kiss you if you chew that stuff. I knew all that for years and yet I couldn't kick the habit, mainly because I didn't want to. The tobacco gave me a little buzz and helped me relax. But I tried to stop. I went to Web sites and looked up statistics about the health risks of chewing tobacco. I printed the statistics and placed them on my desk where I could read them when I was tempted. But it didn't help. I still bought a can of the stuff every other time I gassed up my car. This went on for at least a year, until …

I was listening to the radio one afternoon [...] when a voice came on, very distorted and troubled. The man sounded as though part of his face were missing, low and muffled and slobbery. Between songs, the radio station had inserted a commercial, a public service message about the danger of using chewing tobacco. The man in the commercial said half his jaw had been removed, that he had no lower lip, and the reason his face was deformed was because for years he had used smokeless tobacco. He didn't list any facts, he didn't speak of any harmful ingredients, he didn't say he was going to die of cancer. And yet the image of a man without a chin speaking into the microphone was enough to convince me to stop. I never used the stuff again. I just didn't want to. (Donald Miller, Searching For God Knows What (Nashville, TN, USA: Nelson Books, 2004), 58)

It is a fact that, even though people know that such behaviours are harmful to them, they will persist because, at some level, they derive some satisfaction from those behaviours, which keeps any urgency to change at a minimum. Donald continued chewing tobacco because it satisfied him by helping him to relax; but, the experience with a man who had lost half his face due to chewing tobacco was enough to convince him that the consequences far outweighed the benefits.

I am talking here of people being encouraged to change specific behaviours. How much harder it is to convince someone to change the whole of their lives, to reorient their worldview towards a focus on and through Jesus Christ? The difficulty of the task is demonstrated by the fact that many Christians do not themselves actually experience the abundant life that Jesus promises (John 10:10; Romans 6:11; 1 John 5:12).

Hannah Whitall Smith, author of the classic devotional The Christian's Secret to a Happy Life, wrote a letter in 1871 which discusses this very issue:

I am thoroughly convinced that the same necessity exists for definite teaching on this subject of sanctification as there exists on the matter of justification if we want to lead others on to an experience of the power of Christ to save similar to our own. And I confess I do want to do this. My heart yearns over the church. I feel the tenderest sympathy for every child of God whose feet are still wandering in the wilderness, and I long unspeakably to show them the way to the promised land and to help them over the Jordan that lies between.

I believe the first thought that always comes into my mind when I meet a Christian, is the question as to whether they know about Jesus as able to save to the uttermost. I do not suppose you can feel this yearning quite so strongly, from never having had the experience of any other kind of Christian life, but those must try and have charity for those of us who have suffered the weariness and the distresses of the wilderness journey, and who are continually filled with thanksgiving over our blessed escape from it.

And now, my darling friend, can you see any objections against a definite confession of Jesus as your present Saviour to the uttermost, cleansing thy heart and keeping it pure by the application of His most precious blood? (Hannah Whitall Smith and Melvin Easterday Dieter, The Christian's Secret of a Holy Life: The Unpublished Personal Writings of Hannah Whitall Smith, June 24 entry (Oak Harbor, MI, USA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997))

I too have this yearning, to make sure that you know this blessed grace that is the abundant life of Christ. This is the reason is why I have invited you to explore with me chapter 6 of The Letter of Paul to the Romans, in which the apostle outlines 3 steps to what Hannah Smith called sanctification, which is the experience of being transformed by the Holy Spirit into the person that God intended you to be when he created you, the person that he wants you to be now. As you progress along this journey of transformation, you will experience the abundant eternal life that Christ died to offer humanity, and to which he was resurrected so as to demonstrate that abundant life.

Step 3: Yield

Last week, we looked at the first two steps outlined in chapter 6, namely that we must know that we are both dead to sin and alive in Christ, and that we must count on our being dead to sin and alive in Christ as accomplished. Today, let's explore the final step, that of yielding our body, mind, and spirit to righteousness, and then I will bring it all together into a picture of the blessed and fruitful life of faith in Christ.

In order to be alive in Christ we must know and count on the effect of our salvation being certain. However, even these still leave us at the point of simply defending our salvation, while not actually experiencing it. We must go further and yield to the instruction of Christ, provided by the Holy Spirit.

Here is where 'the rubber meets the road' because this point is counter-intuitive: It seems apparent, from the perspective of our nature-misguided-by-sin, that we should automatically know the right way to live, that somehow the basic rules are 'built in' at birth. Unfortunately, we are born with nothing more than a nature that is good, but not perfect, and a few reflex behaviours that secure our initial survival and help us bond with interested caregivers. That's it.

Here is where 'the rubber meets the road' because this point is counter-intuitive: It seems apparent, from the perspective of our nature-misguided-by-sin, that we should automatically know the right way to live, that somehow the basic rules are 'built in' at birth. Unfortunately, we are born with nothing more than a nature that is good, but not perfect, and a few reflex behaviours that secure our initial survival and help us bond with interested caregivers. That's it.

However, quickly we learn the rules for living, both actively and passively, from our caregivers (e.g. our parents, our siblings, our friends, teachers, coaches, etc), but we also receive instruction from the Holy Spirit —it may be more correct to say that we receive guidance, rather than instruction, from the Holy Spirit (John 16:8-11, 13; Romans 8:16; 1 Corinthians 2:12-13; Hebrews 10:15). The Spirit helps us to sort and sift through the wrong that others teach us and encourages us to not just choose that which is right, but to will that which is good, in line with the intentions of our creation and potential.

Unfortunately, we all too quickly choose to follow the path that leads to ruin because the influence of our sinful world is often too overwhelming. This is precisely the reason why the apostle encourages us to yield ourselves to Christ, so that we might live in Him.

In this passage from Romans, Paul describes two kinds of yielding. First, there is the wrong kind (6:12–13a): We are not to yield our body as a tool of sin and evil. Paul's choice of words in this instance is quite illuminating. The world we live in is a fallen and sinful world —remember that sin is a refusal to accept that we have been created and to acknowledge our creator (1:28; 2:17). Thus, this world suffers a destroyed relationship with God.

We live under the influence of this fallen world. This world will encourage us to act in ways contrary to the ways of God, the ways of life —it can do nothing but. Therefore, Paul is helping us to see that we become "tools" in the hand of this world's sinfulness when we follow its example and advice.

Remember though that it is only advice! At the end of the day, we are each responsible for our actions because we alone decide what we will and will not do, in any given situation. Therefore, we are able to not allow this world to influence us and direct our actions, particularly if we are Christians, but even then it remains highly unlikely that we will both choose and do that which is right.

As I've already mentioned, Christians know that they are dead to sin and can choose to live in Christ. This point brings us to the second kind of yielding, the right kind (6:13b–23): "Present yourselves to God [...] as instruments of righteousness".

In promoting this right kind of yielding, Paul identifies a confusion (6:15a): "Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace?" This is another of those impertinent questions, along the lines of verse 1: "Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?" Both of these questions are quite ridiculous, but they do highlight the seeming complexity of the issue, which is really just a consequence of the fact that we are caught in the middle of two choices: To obey God or the world.

The fact that the apostle brings the issue of law versus grace into his argument highlights the point that sin is not really about following or not following rules, a concept that some Christians promote. Earlier, in 5:13-14, Paul revealed that sin can dominate a person even before the law has been spelled out for that person. Thus, God's favour toward us is not dependant on whether we obey the law or not, but whether we are in a right relationship with him.

This is where the correction for this confusing question comes in: "Thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin [...] have become slaves of righteousness" (6:15b–18). This language here, of slavery and freedom, will seem kind of odd because we live after the Enlightenment, a time of human history in which our view of the world, and our place in it, was radically altered. We today believe that freedom is an absolute right of every human. We define freedom as being without constraints, whether physical, emotional, mental, social, or spiritual. Slavery, then is unheard of and must be opposed at all costs.

In contrast, Paul, and his audience, looked at the world through a very different lens. The world was then understood in terms of hierarchy —from the gods to the outcast, everyone had a place, with authorities above, and some level of authority over others below. Thus, everyone was a "slave" in respect of whichever authority they chose to serve —it is in this sense, that Jesus could instruct his disciples to "give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's" (Matthew 22:21). Freedom was not arbitrary, but reflected service to those authorities to which they pledged allegiance.

Therefore, while the language may not resonate with our contemporary experience, Paul's challenge still applies (6:13b–14, 19–22): You are to "present your [body, mind, and spirit] to God as instruments? of righteousness". As Christians, we are freed from our bondage to sin, but will we willingly "bind" ourselves to God? As I pointed out last week, it is more an issue of direction than of choice. Acknowledge God as your creator, and direct your attention to glorifying him and following His ways, and you will enjoy the benefits of having God as your "master"; don't acknowledge God and fall, once again, under the influence of sin.

Even the apostle admits that his language is troublesome, when he indicated that he was speaking "in human terms because of your natural limitations" (Romans 6:19). He wanted to be understood, so therefore he used images that would communicate his concepts to a wide audience, if not to everyone, in all times and places. Notwithstanding, we can certainly get the point of his teaching when we recognise, within ourselves, our own spiritual limitations.

The conclusion of the matter is found in two parts: "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (6:23). We can either give ourselves up to the mastery of sin over us —sin being a master that will make us "work" for our "reward", which ends up being nothing better than death— or we can accept the free gift of God, which is abundant life now and for eternity. Which would you choose? Which do you choose?

Conclusion & Response

If nothing else, I am a realist, or at least I try to be. It would be so much easier for me to tell you that the Christian life is always rosy, that you will never have nagging doubts, that it is a road paved with gold all the way from your initial decision to believe in Christ straight through to those pearly gates of Heaven. To do so however would be lying.

Despite our faith, we live in a world dominated by sin and find ourselves under the oppression of sin almost continually, being lured back into the clutches of pride, envy, greed, bitterness, etc. We want to stay focussed on God, to bask in the warmth of His love, but we are distracted more often than we would like to admit.

My worry is that Christians fall by the wayside because they have not been "saved to the uttermost", that somehow the message of the Gospel has not really broken through and completed its reorientation of your life. For us to become fully alive in Christ we must know, without doubt, that we are dead to sin and made alive in Christ. Sin no longer has any hold over us and, even though we will most likely still die in our body, that death is not the end for us.

This knowledge alone makes all the difference to how we live each day when we move to the next step and actually count on this death and resurrection being accomplished for us. They are a fact, not a pipe dream. They correspond to actual reality because reality is more than natural, it is supernatural.

Yet, it is still possible to not yield to this knowledge because, with our tendency to still fall under the influence of sin, perhaps more from apathy than wilfulness, we refuse to yield ourselves to God. We refuse to just do what we know God expects of us, again perhaps more from apathy than from wilfulness.

While it may seem like hard work, it is important for us to reflect on all that we do and think, at each moment of every day, and test our motives and actions against those commands of God for those who love him. Because if we do love him, then obeying him will be easier the more that we practice! And the outcome of loving and obeying him is abundant life in Christ.

sermon delivered by Ian Forest-Jones
at Hurstville Church of Christ
on Sunday, 29 June 2008 at 10am
[email - minister@hurstvillecofc.org.au]

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