Why is the gift of righteousness necessary for all men? What are we talking about when we say people need to be saved? Saved from what? Why did the apostles and the early church give their lives for this message? What was the light that came into the world? We so often talk rather cavalierly about salvation, about people’s sins, about righteousness, about a need to please God. We believe the world sometimes looks at all our talk and all our expressions about Christianity as if we are just people who are religious, a people like those from all other religions with a philosophy of how to live life, how to get along with each other, and how to have a meaningful life, even one of peace and happiness. But Christianity for the nascent church was not what we sometimes think of as our faith. The core of the Good News is not about treating people better or loving people more. It is about the message of salvation from sin and the gift eternal life. Those who live IN CHRIST because of their faith in Christ will have eternal life with the God of creation. What excited the disciples and the early church the most was not the miracles, not the speaking in tongues, but the reality of Jesus’ resurrection. Concerning the resurrection, Paul wrote, For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. (I Corinthians 15:16-19) If Jesus did not rise from the grave, we who confess Christianity would be miserable people expressing a lie, living a lie. No matter how much our lives turned towards love, peace, and happiness, without the fact of the resurrection, we still would be living these hopeless finite lives. Without the resurrection, the final result of our biological existence would be death, nothingness. But we are not like those who are hopeless, lost in the space of time; no, we are timeless because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Paul told the Thessalonians that we are not like those who have no hope because we believe in a risen Lord. We have passed from death unto life, from a state of sin that always brings corruption and death, to a place of perfectness IN CHRIST where eternal life exists. Today’s scripture says we have a gift of righteousness bestowed upon us. This gift came not because of our efforts, but by the Great Gift Giver, Jesus Christ. He paid the way for our salvation through his shed blood. God has come into our lives to parent us, to make us his own forevermore.
When Adam sinned, he broke the only commandment given to him. One commandment, one decision of rebellion. Otherwise, Adam was one hundred percent wrong. God is perfect, exact, holy. He does not have even a shadow of imperfection within him. Everything that is revolves around him in an orderly and precise manner. Every universe, every galaxy, each and every star, life itself reveals his perfection, exactness, holiness. Adam came into existence to reveal the total image of God. He was made in God’s image to fellowship with the perfect One. BUT ADAM FAILED COMPLETELY! And through his absolute failure came sin and death to the many who followed Adam. Sin brings death, finiteness: many died by the trespass of the one man. Sin, hidden in the DNA of man manifests itself in countless ways, even in the madness of killing others. Cain slew Abel, the beginning of blood being spilt because of Adam’s imperfection. Mankind no longer reveals the perfection or holiness of the ETERNAL ONE. A dark song comes into man’s existence, a song of self, not a song to glorify the Eternal God, the Creator, the Life Giver. Trespasses, waywardness, lust, ill-willed desires become an integral part of the human condition. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me the does it. (Romans 7:18-20) As Paul explains, sin corrupted Adam. Still powerful? Yes! Creative? Yes! Can the Adam nature do good? Yes! Can he love? Yes! But is he God-like? No, for he has been contaminated. He will face death. God does not face death; nor does he do anything that is not perfect. Even his plan of salvation seems to be inexact, imperfect from the beginning: Adam’s sin, Noah’s ark, the Israelites inability to keep the Promised Land, the church’s weakness. Yet all of the failures of God’s creation are within his plan, each one necessary to bring adopted children into the family of God. But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law. (Galatians 4:4) Because He sent his Son, we can be born again through unadulterated faith in Jesus Christ and his works. No other path to God is available. When things do not work out, even when we believe God’s plans are not working out the way we desire, we know God and his plan for our adoption are perfect. The angels could not conceive of such a plan, but the plan originated with God from the very beginning, and it is flawless, beyond our imaginations. Faith is a mystery of God, but it is his gift to us and as we trust in him, we are saved.
We who are alive IN CHRIST have received God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness. Christ has placed us in this position of perfection. His blood has redeemed us; his sacrifice has paid for our sins. The Bible says as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. (Psalm 103:12) We are no longer accountable for our sinful lives, for Jesus took our place, bore our sins. Sin will not enter into eternity. Adam was dismissed from the eternal Garden because of sin. We, too, would be dismissed from eternity with God because of our transgressions. Consequently, we need a Savior, a Strong One, an Eternal One, who sits at the right hand of God, advocating for us. Of course, that one is the Son of God: Jesus Christ. You who belong to Jesus Christ, sing the song of the redeemed. Get rid of the dark songs in your lives. They will not lead to happiness or correctness; they will lead only to self-willed paths. There is no eternity in the songs of finiteness. Lift your eyes to heaven and sing the songs of mercy and love, redemption and peace with God. The Holy Spirit within you desires for you to sing those songs. He has given you the Word of God to inspire you. Mom likes to get up in the morning and sing, “Let the first song I sing today be praise to you. Let the melody linger all day long.” Dad sings throughout the day, new songs from his heart as he thinks on the Lord. God has given us all fellowship within the body of Christ to energize us to sing songs in unison. We gather together often to strengthen our inner souls to sing the songs of God. We ARE PERFECT because HE IS PERFECT. Our salvation, eternity with God, brings rejoicing. The apostles and the early church, many who had even seen Jesus, faced persecution and hardship for their belief that eternal life comes from the resurrected One. Paul was chased from the cities of Lystra, Iconium and Antioch by angry mobs. In Lystra, they stoned him to the point they thought he was dead. His seemingly lifeless body must have banged against the rocks as they dragged him out of the city over the dusty paths. No groans emitted, validating to the mob that he was dead. But as the believers gathered around him, he got up and went back into the town of Lystra. The next day he left with Barnabas for Derbe. (Acts 14:20) Paul proceeded to Derbe and had a successful time of ministry there. Before he left the area of these towns, he went back to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, towns that rejected his ministry in such a way they wanted to kill him. He went back to encourage the believers in those places, to tell them they must suffer many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God. We who are alive IN CHRIST might suffer trials, but our faith is not in the good or bad experiences of our lives: our faith is in the one man, Jesus Christ! He is the Rock of our salvation, the Cornerstone. In Christ alone lies eternal life. You are justified and righteous in Jesus!
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