Remember Christ (Part 2)
In "Part 1" of this blog, I spoke of the importance of remembering Christ and what He has done in accomplishing our salvation. The message of the Gospel is so scandalous so counter-intuitive to our "work = reward" mentality that we are easily prone to wander from it. We forget the "rest" we have in Christ and as a result the Lord takes us through seasons of discipline until we finally look outside of ourselves for relief.
Another factor that led me to wander from resting in Christ is that I did not understand the reality that we as Luther said, are saint and sinner at the very same time; "simul justus et pecator”. We exist in a both/and dimension. We are saints in status but also sinners in nature. Without understanding this duality, we tend to think in an either/or paradigm. Either you are a saint or you are a sinner.
In the first line of the song…… “Who has the power to save from sin, speaking righteousness over guilty men,” we are confessing the truth that we exist in this both/and dimension.
Even as an experienced veteran believer, you can still be sorely buffeted at times by the reality of your own vileness. The devil throws your sins in your face roaring, "God is angry at you! You've fallen away from grace!" In these times of testing, you cannot see Him. You feel the power of sin, the infirmity of your flesh and the darts of accusation from the enemy. All these things cry out against you. You think you’ve failed to stand in Christ because you still sin. But in the midst of all the clamor, the Spirit of Christ cries in your heart, 'Abba Father'.
Standing in Christ doesn’t mean I never sin again. Yes, thank God one day we will never sin again when we see Him face to face. But in the "here and now”, standing in Christ means that we know what to do when we sin.
We will fail and every failure on our part is a test of faith. There were times when I lost heart in those moments of failure. The wandering was not so much in the failure as it was in what I would do in response. I tried to take matters into my own hands….wrestle my sin to the ground so to speak as if God expected me to overcome its biting attacks through my own ways and means.
The lyric ……"When faith is tested and doubt rushes in, there is one place we can stand." reminds us to patiently submit our failure to the truth. The truth is that Christ’s finished work is the only thing that has ever affected sin. We remain submitted to His lordship over that sin even when it seems like we take one step forward and three steps back.
When I use phrases like 'patiently submit' and similar language regarding the subject of battling sin, it may sound like I’m advocating licentiousness or a lack of vigilance towards sin so let me clarify…... As believers we don’t want to sin and yet we still do. When we are born again, born of God as 1 John 3:9 says, we cannot make peace with sin, or make a practice of sinning anymore because God’s seed abides in us. Because we are born of God, the Holy Spirit living in us declares war on our sin and we cannot ignore it or be passive toward it. It will bother us until we deal with it. But our battle is a battle of faith.
If we don’t understand how the Holy Spirit wars against sin in us. We can be seduced into battling sin in ways that seem intuitive to our natural human inclinations but those ways are really empty and powerless against it.
We think we can pray our sin away or fast it away or any other number of things. We wander and scatter from the place of resting in Christ into various schemes and bold intentions. But our salvation from sin is completely and only in Christ.
This was the inspiration for what I wrote in verse 2 of the song…… "So many voices to draw us away from the unity of simple faith. Though we’ve been scattered in man’s empty ways, our only hope still remains.”
We do not wrestle against sin the same way we wrestle against flesh and blood. The Holy Spirit stirs us to deal with our sin but what I had failed to see early on is that there is only one way to deal with it. The victory that overcomes sin is our faith. This is the idea behind the lyric in the "bridge"…… "Where else can we go for we've come to know You and You alone can save."
How strange is it for me to say that the only thing that can address my sin problem is an event that happened on a hill outside Jerusalem before I was even born? How can it be?!
Nothing but the blood of Jesus has ever affected sin and when our faith is directed toward the work of Christ rather than our own performance, the Holy Spirit will testify to that and deal with the sin that plagues us in our daily walk. It is here in the blood of Christ that we can find hope knowing that our sin has received a death sentence. It has been overcome and we will eventually see the fullness of that victory!
Ours is a walk of patient endurance. All of our life is lived beneath the sky of His justifying grace as we journey along a path of doubt, hardship and pain. Every time sin rears its ugly head, I’m learning to acknowledge it, confess it and leave it at the feet of the One who crushed its authority and power.
Remember Christ our salvation and the Good News, the Gospel we received.. Crucified and now risen, glorify Him as our King who defeated all our enemies of sin death, hell and the grave! Here we stand and we believe!