My Sin and What Christ Did About It

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Colossians 2:9-17

My Sin and what Christ Did About It

In Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.  In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.

When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ.  He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross.  And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day.  These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.

I

 was an awful sinner; but Christ is a great Saviour.  Like many of you, I was raised in a Christian environment.  This does not mean that I was a Christian, it only means that I received early Christian training.  I do not disparage that heritage, but I caution anyone against presuming that being raised in a Christian home will suffice to make one a Christian.  Being raised in a Christian home will no more make one a Christian than living in a garage will make one a Mercedes Benz or than being raised in a bagel factory will make one Jewish.  If we will be saved, it will be as individuals and on the merits of Christ’s sacrificial love.  The old saying that God has no stepchildren is true; we enter Heaven as individuals.  My spouse’s faith will not save me.  My parent’s faith will not save me.  I must trust Christ.

I was Dead When Christ Found Me — Paul reminds the Colossian saints that their story begins when [they] were dead in [their] sins and in the uncircumcision of [their] sinful nature [verse thirteen].  This is but an iteration of the affirmation found in Ephesians 2:1-3As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.  All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts.  Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.  This is God’s view of the situation for each of us when we were yet outside Christ.  In the same way, that is the beginning of my story.  I was dead before God.  My sins insured that I knew nothing of the Author of Life though I breathed the air He provided and walked about in this present world which His hand created.

I cared nothing for God.  I had surrendered myself to heavy drinking and embraced wicked self-serving philosophies dedicated to the injury of mankind.  During the early years of graduate studies in New York City, I began to study with a group dedicated to the destruction of liberty and the overthrow of democratic governments.  My family life was in disarray.  My hope was destroyed.  I no longer cared for life itself, and I was prepared to even kill others if they were foolish enough to get in my way.

Drinking deeply at the polluted waters of Mao, Lenin and Marx, my soul was dark and my life was contaminated beyond any hope of restoration when Jesus saved me.  I thought of that dedication to evil on an occasion some years later.  I had checked into Parkland Hospital to have my wisdom teeth surgically removed.  The man chained to the bed beside me had had his lower jaw shot away in a gun battle with the Dallas police.  He was a young Black Panther and now he was in hospital to have his jaw reconstructed.  Though his mouth was wired shut, that young man and I talked and debated throughout the night preceding my surgery as he spilled out his anger toward all whites and related his commitment to Communist principles.  I, having passed through something akin to his particular pilgrimage, responded by pointing him to the Living God who could deliver even him from the bitterness of soul that was condemning him to certain death.

Ah, not only does our sin separate us from the love of God, but it also leads us toward ever-greater degradation.  Our stained soul becomes more greatly soiled still.  Thus it was with me.  Bitter toward God and bitter toward life, I grew to care little for anything save my own evil desires.  Though the world may think well of us, as sinners there is no restraint on our desires save that thin veneer we call civilisation.  Each sin only draws the sinner further from God and deeper into his own perverted dying world.

My Violation of God’s Law Condemned Me — Paul reminds the Colossians that they had put off the sinful nature and that the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us, [has been taken] away, [having been] nailed to the cross.  I was raised in a Christian home.  My grandfather was a pioneer preacher in south-east Kansas; my father was a deacon in the little country church where I spent my early years.  My earliest memories of home include nights as Dad read the Word of God and prayed fervently that his boys might be godly men one day.  During the summer months his blacksmith shop was filled to overflowing with plough shears to be sharpened and with sickles to be filled.  On those days I was awakened early six days of the week by his singing great hymns of the Faith as he beat out a counter rhythm to with a four-pound maul beating hot metal into shape.  All day long the breezes wafted his singing throughout the neighbourhood.

God has no stepchildren, however, and I was not saved.  Because of my heritage I was expected to be a Christian.  In various contests conducted by Youth for Christ, I won again and again.  I knew where the Books of the Bible were located and could win sword drills every time, but I was unsaved and cared little for the message those books presented.  I could quote the Ten Commandments, but I had no power to keep them.  Eventually, in my early teens I gave up all pretence of being a Christian and ceased attending church.  I would sleep in on Sunday mornings, carefully peeking one eye above the cover as my dad left for church.  Only then would I crawl out of bed.

Even in those years as a callow youth I was moving ever further away from God.  I was embittered toward the little town where I had grown to early manhood.  My mother had deserted our family, leaving my dad to raise two boys when I was but five years of age.  Small towns can be merciless in their censure of those who are different, and the situation was perhaps exaggerated in years gone by.  The smug attitudes of the most of that town served only to make me determined that I would neither remain there nor would I ever be dependent upon them.  I excelled in school and became haughty in my spirit as I scoffed at the less intelligent, though socially acceptable, children of the good burghers of that little Kansas town.

 By the time I was eighteen I had violated every one of those laws which God had caused to be written by Moses.  I joined the Marine Corps to get away from myself, but even then God did not permit me to fulfil my dreams.  Some boys, intending to play a joke on me, had tampered with the brakes on the truck I was driving.  A wreck was the result of their fun, and I was left with a broken back.  For over a year I had worn a brace to keep my back straight, and now I was told after some time in the Corps that I could no longer remain in the Corps since I had begun listing to starboard.  Leaving the Corps, I experienced in rapid succession marriage, the birth of our first child and further studies leading to a Bachelor or Arts degree.  Always, however, there was the knowledge that I was in violation of God’s Law and that I could have no peace with Him.

My Feeble and Sporadic Efforts Were Unable to Secure Either Peace or Freedom — My wife would often speak with me of her lack of peace, urging me to think of church.  In the five years immediately preceding my conversion to Christ, there was but one man who spoke to me of the love of God.  A biology professor at the teacher’s college I attended witnessed to me of the grace of God, but he spoke in the week immediately before I graduated to leave for New York City.  During those years of college and university my wife and I had spoken with representatives of several religions and attended a variety of churches, but not once did we hear of Christ and His love.

Before becoming a dedicated young Marxist, I had attempted attending church.  I had gone to a Baptist Church when my first child was born, and it was cold and dead.  We attended once and never went again.  No one welcomed us.  No one spoke to us, save to direct us to sit in the empty balcony where we were left alone by ourselves, because a new-born child might disturb the congregation at worship.

In that little Kansas college town we had also attended a Methodist Church and a Nazarene Church, but in neither church were we given the message of life, and I was yet without hope.  We even invited members of a cult to come speak with us on one occasion, but we quickly dismissed their message as insufficient since it was clearly void of any promise of peace nor did the messengers have any peace themselves.

In New York we sought out a Methodist church where both my wife and I joined the choir.  Unsaved, we nonetheless sang in an attempt to please God.  There was no message of hope, but rather sermonettes for Christianettes.  One spring Sunday morning the Bishop of that district spoke and gave as fine a lecture on Marxist ideology as ever one could hear.  He urged the congregation to picket on behalf of the poor in Harlem, but he was unable to do what he urged us to do.  In utter disgust I threw off my choir robe and exited the choir loft.  Unbeknownst to me, my wife left simultaneously.  We reached the robing room at the same time and each avowed that we were finished with religion.

We had received moral lessons, but since they were not founded on the unchanging Word of God they had no validity and could not stand up to scrutiny.  We were urged to be good, but there was no definition of what “good” was, nor were we told how we might be empowered to do what was good.  We were encouraged to give money to support various causes, many leftist in design, espoused by the various churches, but we were not told how those causes glorified the Lord.  Though we had sought peace with God, there was no peace for us.  Moreover, I grew increasingly disgusted with religious frauds and embittered toward society in general since it all appear unconcerned with anything but materialism and the promotion of “self”.

Perhaps you have at some time read The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.  If so, you will remember the description of the crew of that ship.  Dead men manned the ship; dead men hoisted the sails.  A dead man steered the ship.  Dead men hauled the ropes.  The ghastly word picture is intended to instil a sense of horror in the reader.

Just so, the condition of much of the world from God’s perspective is that of men dead in sin who carry out the daily activities associated with this world.  Tragic enough is such a picture when we speak of the secular world, but too often dead men likewise populate the churches.  The stench of death hangs over the pulpit where the minister has no vital experience with the Living Son of God.  The smell of the grave permeates that classroom where the teacher has never known the Living God and yet tries to teach religious precepts.  How awful the thought that dead men attempt to do the work of God!

My Sin is Put Away in Christ the Lord — I was, dead and without hope and without God in the world, until that day Christ found me.  I had left medical school intending to organise workers in the construction trades when I was invited to attend a revival meeting at the Pasadena Boulevard Baptist Church in a Houston suburb.  To please an uncle who had issued the invitation I reluctantly accepted and informed my wife that we would have to attend despite my distaste for religion.  That night my wife was saved as the evangelist clumsily gave an invitation for those in attendance to rededicate life to Christ.  One cannot rededicate what has never been dedicated, however, and neither my wife nor I had ever dedicated our lives to Christ.  We were both pagans, outsiders to grace, separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world [Ephesians 2:12].  Through noting my wife’s transformation in the following weeks, my own heart was strangely warmed.

Impelled by a theretofore-unknown desire to know what the Bible said of this Jesus, I immersed myself in study of the Word.  In that Word I discovered that I was an awful sinner, deserving of death and eternal separation from God.  As I read those dark words I began to despair, for who can intervene when one has violated the law of Holy God?  What man can plead convincingly for the life of the sinner?  And I was an awful sinner.  Yet, in those same pages I soon discovered that God Himself had provided a means whereby the sinner could be saved, and I dared hope that He would receive me.

Injured on the job, I resigned work and moved to Dallas to return to studies in the field of biochemistry.  Immediately upon moving to that city I sought out a church where the Word of God was preached and continued my search for freedom from guilt.  I remember so well the October evening in 1970 when I sat in a service absorbing the words which the preacher delivered.  As I listened it seemed that in a moment I saw the awful chasm separating the Righteous Lord of Glory and myself.  I felt the weight of my sin as I had never felt it and I cried out in my soul for mercy and the Son of God bridged the gulf to set me free.  I was an awful sinner; and He is a Great Saviour.

Knowing my sin and knowing that I deserved death, I could only cry out for mercy to the One against whom I had sinned.  I do not claim that I deserved mercy, but that is what I received.  Within two weeks I had preached my first sermon at the Trinity Temple Baptist Church in the northern Oak Cliff section of Dallas and begun a ministry of speaking wherever I had opportunity.  I preached at the Marsallis Zoo, in the nursing homes nearby the church building, and shortly began a ministry of preaching and visitation in the Kaufman County Prison Farm located in Kaufman, Texas.

My message in those early days of first faith was that if God could save a great sinner like me, He could save anyone.  The sinner need but believe that Christ died for him and that He would receive Him when he looked in faith to this Risen Son of God.  My message hasn’t changed in the intervening twenty-eight years.  It has led me across the United States and Canada declaring this message of a Great God.

Though I did not recognise it at the time, God worked a great miracle when He saved me.  Of course salvation is a great miracle, but I question whether we inherently understand all that God included in this great salvation.  Paul details the work of Christ in the text before us.  The first thing which Paul notes that Christ did when He saved me was to set aside my sinful nature.  He shared His fullness with me; and how can the Living God share His fullness with that which is sinful?  In order to share His greatness with me it was necessary that my sinful nature be put off.

I am not sinless, nor am I perfect.  I struggle against the old nature.  Yet before God the Father I have been declared sinless, perfectly holy; and one day I shall be transformed fully into His image.  Listen to the Apostle’s declaration of this great truth.  He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight.  In love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will—to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the One He loves.  In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.  And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfilment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.

In Him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of His glory.  And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.  Having believed, you were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of His glory [Ephesians 1:4-14].

It is not that God ignored my sin, but He chose to put it away.  What a glorious verse is that which is found in the 103rd Psalm.

As far as the east is from the west,

so far has He removed our transgressions from us

[Psalm 103:12].

You may also recall the exclamation of praise which Isaiah penned.

In Your love You kept me

from the pit of destruction;

You have put all my sins

behind Your back

[Isaiah 38:17].

How great is our God!

The Apostle notes that He led me to declare my identity with Him in baptism.  It is not a small thing to declare ourselves for Christ.  When we are saved we are called to openly confess Him, and the means by which those who trust Him are taught to confess Him is through the act of baptism.  Since baptism does not make us a Christian, we do not baptise our infants.  Since baptism does not make us more acceptable to God we do not encourage baptism for the sake of baptism.  It is a confession of Christ as Master.

Paul speaks of the declaration of this ordinance when he instructs the Roman saints. Don’t you know that all of us who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death?  We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.  For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.  For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him.  The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God [Romans 6:3-10].

In baptism we identify with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection.  We confess that our old nature was dead, and by the power of God who saves us it has been buried so that we may live a new life.  Likewise, as we are buried under the waters of baptism we confess our hope that though this body may die and be buried we believe with a perfect faith that Christ, when He returns, shall raise us to live forever with Him.

The early church accepted into their assembly only those individuals who had openly confessed their faith through baptism, from the initial converts on the Day of Pentecost to the last recorded confession in the book of Acts.  On Pentecost, those who accepted Peter’s message were baptised [Acts 2:41], and when the Ephesian disciples of John heard Paul’s presentation of the Faith, they were baptised into the Name of the Lord Jesus [Acts 19:5].

He made me alive in Him.  Having set aside my sinful nature and having led me to confess my faith in Him, the Lord also has made me alive in Him.  The New Birth is not an event for which we wait, but it is a present reality.  Either we possess eternal life, or we are yet dead in trespasses and sins.  Eternal life is not confined to length of days; it is a present reality in which we live in Christ.

Do you recall the words of Jesus recorded in John’s Gospel?  I tell you the truth, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life [John 5:24].  Take special note of the tenses our Lord used.  No word written in this Bible is superfluous; each was recorded by divine intent to communicate the full mind of God.  That one who hears Christ and believes Him who sent the Saviour has eternal life.  This is a present condition.  The future is employed as the Master looks beyond this moment we call life, avowing that the redeemed will not be condemned.  The reason for this current condition and the promise of future deliverance is because of a past event: he has crossed over from death to life.  Trusting Christ I am delivered from all fear of condemnation ever after and I immediately enter into a new life with Him.  I emphasise that this speaks of a quality of life and must not be restricted to a mere quantity of life.  I am alive in Him!

As one alive in Christ I have access to His presence.  I have His power made available for His glory in my life.  I have strength to fulfil His will for my life.  I have His presence to protect me, insuring that I am immortal in this work until He chooses to remove me.  I have all that the presence of the very Son of God can insure … and that is more than enough to accomplish His will in this life.  Amen!

He cancelled the written code.  The Jews who heard Jesus speak lived under the Law.  People think that they can obey the Law and satisfy God’s righteous demands.  During the years of my study at the medical school in Dallas I spent considerable time in the library.  On one occasion I spoke with the librarian asking whether he was a Christian.  “I do the best I can,” he replied.

“Is it good enough?” I queried.

“Well, I don’t know, but I do keep the Ten Commandments,” he stammered.

“Name the Fifth Commandment,” I shot back.

When he revealed that he couldn’t name the Fifth Commandment, I cautioned that he was foolish to attempt to keep a law he couldn’t even name.  In fact, there are six hundred thirteen positive commandments which must all be maintained if we even think we will satisfy the demands of the Law.  The divine commentary is found in James’ letter.  Whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it [James 2:10].  Well did Peter challenge the first Ïcumenical assembly with these words: Why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear?  No!  We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are [Acts 15:10,11].

Here is the next great act of Christ in our behalf.  He disarmed powers and authorities, making a public spectacle of them and triumphing over them in the cross.  Satan is a defeated enemy.  Though powerful, the Christian need not fear the devil since the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world [1 John 4:4].  The cross served to insure that the wicked one was forever defeated.  The one for whom Christ’s sacrifice has been presented is forever set free from fear.  There is a beautiful verse in the Hebrews letter.  Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death [Hebrews 2:14,15].  We are free of the slavery arising out of the fear of death.

Have you ever noticed that the greatest fear the world has is the fear of death?  Theodore Kaczynski will plead guilty to every charge as the Unabomber if only he is spared death.  Terry Nichols fights against hope to avoid a death sentence even if it means that he must spend the remainder of his life in maximum security.  These are but two examples of men likely associated with this present world giving their assessment of the most horrifying thought they can imagine – death.  Why are horror movies so popular if not for the reason that people are brought face-to-face with their most terrifying prospect – the cessation of life.

Why should death be so frightening to the inhabitants of this world?  Is it not because this moment is all they have and when this moment we call life is taken from them all hope is extinguished?  If they have no relationship to the Living Son of God, they have no hope beyond this transient moment.  Thus they are terrified at the thought that when they are dead they are dead all over.  Fearing death they are held in bondage to their fear and will surrender every sense of morality and ethics to avoid facing this fear!

The Christian need not fear death since Christ has removed all fear and set us free.  Why, to the child of God, though dying may be unpleasant, death is less worrisome than a mosquito bite.  None of us worry about something so minuscule as a mosquito bite.  Our Lord gave His life as a sacrifice, went down into the grave, cleaned it out and made it a pleasant place to await the resurrection.  He conquered death, hell and the grave, forever setting His child free of earthly fear. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

“Where, O death, is your victory?

Where, O death, is your sting?”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.  But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ [1 Corinthians 15:54-57].

He set me free from all judgement and gave me access to His throne.  Do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day.  These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.  All that He has provided me is beyond human comprehension.  I rejoice in Christ knowing that He has done so much for me.  What follows is, to me, the best part, however.  He set me free from all judgement and gave me access to His throne.  Let me tell you in a practical sense what that means.  It means that how I worship, when I worship, and where I worship are not subject to human judgement.

If I lift my hands in worship and it offends you, get right with God!  If I shout “Hallelujah” when I think of the glory of God and it offends you, get right with God!  If I prefer stately hymns of the faith and psalms sung to a slow cadence and it offends you, get right with God!  Too many of the professed people of God are so focused on methods that they completely miss the message.  We have become masters of minutiae insuring that never once shall we lose ourselves in worship.  Years ago an old Fundamentalist Baptist preacher said, “I don’t care how loud you holler or how high you jump, so long as you walk straight when you come down.”  Amen?

If we spent more time in the presence of Christ we would have less time to bellyache about a fellow saint when we got home.  If we sought the face of the Lord to insure that we truly worshipped when we met together we would not want to have roast preacher for Sunday dinner.  My purpose has not been to insult you, but it has been to confront you with the Word of God.  Too long has the church of the Living God permitted herself to be wrapped in a straightjacket designed by Christians who, if they did once have a vital experience, can only point to a dim, distant event.  We need churches defined as living for Christ now and Christians living in the present tense!

We Baptists hold as a distinctive a doctrine which we call soul liberty.  Occasionally it is spoken of as the priesthood of believers.  It simply means that each individual is responsible before God for the conduct of their ministry and for their individual walk and worship.  It speaks further of the need to treat each believer with dignity befitting one redeemed by infinite grace.  This does not mean that I will ignore your sin.  As a Christian brother I am concerned for your spiritual welfare.  As a pastor I am charged with the requirement of being bold to speak in the Name of Christ to you when such is required by your conduct.  It does mean that I am responsible to build in you a healthy respect for diversity within the Body of Christ such that you accept one another as complete in Him.

Here is my closing word, taken from Paul’s admonition to the Roman church.  For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.  You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God’s judgement seat.  It is written:

“As surely as I live,” says the Lord,

“every knee will bow before me;

every tongue will confess to God.”

So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.

Therefore let us stop passing judgement on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother’s way [Romans 14:9-13].

Rejoice in all that Christ has provided us.  Rejoice in Him.  If you are not a believer, how can you rejoice?  Yet even for you there is this promise of life if you will hear the message which He has commissioned His people to deliver and if you will but believe this Good News.  If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.  As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.”  For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” [Romans 10:9-13].  Will you not believe and be saved, today?  Amen.

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