Follow……
By Jeff Foerster
In this week’s sermon on the book of Ephesians, Brian Sharpe laid out for us three precepts for living as a redeemed people. They are as follows:
- Recognize sin and Satan no longer have power over us.
- Do not go down the “path of the prostitute.”
- Live repentant lives.
These are good; these are great. But there is a problem: me. I want to make these powerful guidelines simply checklist items to perform and then put away. I might even take out the list daily, but only to make sure I’ve “accomplished” each item. These three points are spot on; the problem is the depth of sin’s corruption in me. I am not as bad as I could be, but every area of my being has been tainted by sin.
Wow, how depressing, right? Stay with me for just a little longer—the solution is lovely.
The other day, while watching a Seahawks game on the tele, I heard a rapping at my door. What should appear before my eyes, but two messengers of slavery. I engaged them in conversation, during which one suggested as a precept that “We are all God’s children, right?” Uh, no—sorry dude. If all people begin as God’s children and then I am promised the right to become a child of God, the foundation of Scripture becomes a wee bit uninspiring, and Jesus’s sacrifice becomes merely symbolic nicety. In truth, we have a default position, judged guilty, and a default destination, everlasting separation from God in Hell.
Okay, I promised “lovely,” but I gave you “Hell”—not without purpose, however. Only the propitiation and expiation of the cross and the resurrection can establish right relationship with God, rescuing us from the penalty of sin. We receive this not by being born in the flesh, but by being born of the Spirit. Only in understanding the depth of our depravity, our foundation in darkness, can we truly appreciate what Christ has done for us in redeeming us from the grave, from death itself! From this perspective, we begin to desire to know of God and to know God, to spend time with this God who becomes our Father, not the One we deserve, but the One we need. We needed saving, and in His abundant generosity, He also gave us a home and a future.
From this position building into desire, longing, we can recognize that sin and Satan have no hold on us, the Bible teaching us that we are born again, into life, and not into the ways of death. When we “walk” by spending time with our God in silence and in speaking, in prayer and petition, while working and while planning, while driving and while shopping, we will have neither time nor inclination to go down the “path of the prostitute.” When in close relationship with our Father, the Lord of all glory, we will clearly see our sin for what it is, our hearts will be broken for it, and we will, in repentance, fall on His mercy and purpose to walk, nay, RUN in the other direction. Simply, success is found in an ongoing relationship with the living God.
I end with Brian’s question: How should knowing we have an inheritance affect the way we live? His answer: take your eyes off the present and place them on the future. Our future is Christ—FOREVER!
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