What Jesus Wants You to Become
Edited transcript of a lesson written and presented by Chad Sychtysz on April 29, 2006.
Transcript by Michael Franklin; editing by Chad Sychtysz.
We’ve had a lot to say so far concerning “God’s Truth About Your Soul.” We are roughly half-way through now. So far, what we’ve talked about is: there’s nothing as valuable and important as your soul, and thus that demands your utmost attention and your urgent attention.
Nonetheless, Satan, who is very real (as God has revealed to us) wants just the opposite. He wants you to take your time and be complacent and kind of, you know, believe whatever you want to believe, whether it’s half-truth or outright lies.
The rich man, whose circumstances we examined in our last lesson, wants you to know how awful and irreversible the loss of the soul is. I think he has a powerful lesson in his own testimony.
Jesus wants you to know about Satan but He doesn’t want you to believe in him. He wants you to know about the rich man, but not to scare you—at least that’s not the primary intent of that message. The kingdom of God is all about reality: not your reality, not my reality, but God’s reality about your soul. Jesus wants you to see the reality of your soul. And I mentioned at the outset of this morning’s lessons that we’re really not interested in your opinion of your soul. You’re certainly not interested in my opinion of your soul because our opinions don’t mean anything by themselves. What we really want is God’s truth about who we are and God’s truth about our souls. That means something because God is the One before whom we will be standing someday, giving an account for our souls.
So Jesus is not interested in how comfortable you are with your religion—or, perhaps, the lack of your religion. He wants you to know the truth of what keeps your soul alive and also what destroys your soul. Remember John 8:32, which we cited in one of our previous lesson, where Jesus says, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” That’s exactly what we want. We want God’s truth to make you free, to give you freedom like you may have never experienced before. But in order to free you must become something that you are not now. That’s a difficult concept to comprehend, especially all up front. And furthermore, it is impossible for you to become what you are not now on your own. But in Matthew 19:26, Jesus says, “With men these things are not possible, but with God all things are possible.”
I invite you to accept the fact that God is able to do what you are not. And whenever God does something which you cannot do (for your soul’s sake), what do we call that but grace. God is able to extend grace to you, especially for your salvation. Satan, for his part, has nothing to offer you but imprisonment of guilt, condemnation of the soul, sorrow, and death itself. He does not care what you become on your own because if you are separated from God, it doesn’t matter what you become or think that you become. Your soul is lost and he knows that. It will not save your soul to become anything other than what God says to become.
But Christ says that if you become His disciple, then you will be free from everything Satan has ruined with his lies. Now think about that idea. If you become what Christ tells you to become, you will be set free from all of the mistakes and poor decisions you’ve made, all the lies that you’ve swallowed, everything that’s gone wrong with regard to your soul. Christ can turn that all around and make it so that you can have life with God. In Hebrews 2:14-15, if you want to read with me there, listen to what the writer is saying:
Therefore since the children share in flesh and blood (of course, he’s talking about the children of God—they’re “flesh and blood”), He himself likewise also partook of the same (in other words, Christ became like us; He became the Word in the flesh [John 1:14]), that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives. For assuredly He does not give help to angels, but He gives help to the descendant of Abraham.
And the Bible teaches us that the “descendant of Abraham” is anyone who, by faith in God, does what Abraham did, who believes in the God of salvation just like Abraham did [Romans 9:8, Galatians 3:6-9].
Satan has deceived us and likewise we have allowed ourselves to be deceived. Jesus has exposed Satan for what he really is: a liar and a fraud. And all of us who have chosen to become Satan’s prisoners must become something else: children of God. That’s what we must become; God’s word teaches us how to do that. That’s what this lesson is dedicated to: teaching you and me how to become something that we may not be now. And even if you are a baptized Christian—as many of us are, we’re baptized Christians here in this room—nonetheless I want you to understand that the powerful impact of what we’re going to talk about today can still very much affect how you believe and hopefully can even correct some misunderstandings you might have had about your new life with God.
A Necessary Conversion
In Matthew 18:3, Jesus makes a very powerful and profound statement. He says, “Unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” When He’s talking here [in this context] about the kingdom of heaven, or the entrance into the kingdom of heaven, really He’s talking about salvation under the authority of Christ. That’s how you decipher that language there. I don’t mean that He intended it to be cryptic, but in the understanding of the New Testament, that’s what that means: salvation under the authority of Christ.
Salvation is what the kingdom of heaven is all about. Those who have submitted to Christ’s authority as King are those who become members of His church. So really He’s implying two things here: He’s talking about becoming children of God, but having done so by submitting oneself to the authority of the king of heaven. And so the “kingdom” refers to the reign and the realm of Christ’s authority, whereas the “church” refers to the body of believers who submit to that authority. So we’re talking about, in one sense, the authority of Christ; and then in the other sense—the church sense—we’re talking about those who have submitted to that authority. It is very important to understand the difference between these two things. And that “church” is not this congregation. That church is the spiritual body of all believers (His “body”) as we see in Ephesians 1:22-23 and in Colossians 1:18 and elsewhere in scripture [Romans 12:4-5, 1 Corinthians 12:12-13,20, Ephesians 4:4].
But He says there [back in Matthew 18:3], “Unless you are converted and become like children…”—and this is an intriguing concept here. It does not say, “Unless you revert to a child-like state,” that is not really what He’s getting at. No, because God never goes backwards, God never regresses, God never degenerates. The context, in other words, implies progress and always improvement. In other words, God always goes forward. Anyone who tries to tell you that God is going to go back and restart or recreate or reinitiate something that’s already done doesn’t understand the scriptures and how they always talk about God going forward. He [God] might use a principle that has been used before, but He never tries to resurrect something that He has put to death permanently. And you can apply that however you want to.
This idea of being “converted” means to change direction. Really, what Jesus is saying is that [in essence], “Unless you change direction and take up another direction, you cannot be part of the kingdom. Unless you do this, you cannot be in the church that Christ has established. Thus, if you choose to be His disciple, you cannot continue in the direction that you were going before. So we’re talking about “conversion” meaning changing the direction in which you are going.
And then He says that you have to “become like children.” He doesn’t say, “become children,” but He says, you must “become like children.” What He’s referring to there is that you have to adopt the positive child-like attributes that we see in children: innocence, purity, trust, gentleness, and so on. And that requires a change in who we are. We are adults when we come to understand the scriptures; but the fact is, in our attitude, in our demeanor, in our humility, we have to become like children. And so there’s something that has to change with regard to who we are. Obviously Jesus is speaking of this in a spiritual context, so we’re talking about matters of the spirit and matters of the heart.
Two Necessary Changes
This point is: to become a disciple really is synonymous with becoming a partaker of the kingdom, or a recipient of God’s salvation under Christ. This requires you do two things here. First, you have to change the direction that you are going. This does not mean to merely choose a different direction, because some people think that. “Well. I’m going in a different direction than I used to go,” they say, “so that must be the right way.” No, there’s only one direction God wants you to go in. Just because you choose a different direction than before doesn’t mean it’s the right direction. There’s many ways to get lost. You don’t have to just change your direction in order to go the right way; you can get lost in many different ways. People do it all the time. This new direction has to be better than what you had chosen, and God is the only route to the betterment of the soul.
Secondly, you have to change your identity into something better than what you had when it was left up to yourself to make that decision. Someone says, “I can’t do these things.” That’s my next point! You can’t do any of this on your own. You can’t be converted on your own; I can’t be converted on my own. I cannot change my direction into the best direction possible for my soul and I cannot change my identity to God on my own. Neither can you and neither can any other person on the face of this earth.
We ask, “Then how are we ever going to do this?” Well, family and friends can help, but they cannot change you. The Bible instructs you how to change and that the change needs to be performed, but it cannot perform the changes. A lot of people think, “Well, I’ve got my Bible and that’s sufficient.” The Bible is sufficient for the information. The Bible does not save you by itself. We don’t go to scriptures and then suddenly, by reading them, automatically become saved people. There has to be something else beyond that. The church is the body of those who’ve made the change, but the church cannot change you. The church cannot save you. It’s not the church which converts you. There’s something beyond all of this!
Putting the Old Self to Death
Someone says, “Well then, how can I possibly become something that I am not now?” First of all, you have to understand that there are two obvious but radical ideas that must be accepted. And this is radical stuff. You know, sometimes people think that Jesus is very straightforward and natural and so on; yet He’s proposing very radical changes here. Radical to your life, anyway! Radical in contrast to the ways of the world.
He says first of all that you have to die to what you are presently. In order to change, you have to die to what you are now. And He’s not talking about a literal, physical death, of course, but it’s a very real death all the same. You see, that’s what’s important to understand here. Look over here with me in John 12:24. Listen to what Jesus says and understand the metaphors and the analogies He’s making here in regard to the soul: “Truly, truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” In other words, what He’s saying is that this grain (or this seed) that falls into the earth has to die first in order to become something else. Otherwise it only remains a seed or a grain; it can’t be anything other than that until it dies.
Then in verse 25: “He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal.” Understand the application here. If you hang on to your life like that grain that never dies or that seed that never dies, your life never dies, so all you ever have is your life here. But when this life is over, what do you have? Nothing—because you’ve never become anything else. That’s what He’s talking about here.
In verse 26: “If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.” What You’re saying to us then, Jesus, is that we have to consent to and comply with the necessary changes that You are asking of us. We may not have the power to make the change itself, but we must give our consent to the change and we must pursue that change nonetheless.
So a seed cannot be a full, mature plant until it ceases to be a seed. Having died to the one form or state, it can then enter into another one. If a person loves this life so much that he will not put it to death—in other words, he will not relinquish it, he will not release his controlling interest in this life, if you want to look at it that way—that person loses everything. Ask the rich man [Luke 16:19-31]! Isn’t that what happened to him? Ask the rich man who clung to this life. He did not want to change, did not want to become anything different than what he was. Where is he now? And what is he going through?
But to serve Jesus Christ—that is, to become His disciple—means to follow Him. Think about what Jesus did. Jesus Himself died in order to become what He is now, did He not? Jesus came to the earth in the flesh [John 1:14], but He is not in the flesh now [2 Corinthians 5:16]. What happened? He died to this life in order to become the King of kings and Lord of lords [1 Timothy 6:15], in order to become the High Priest to all those who believe Him [Hebrews 3:1].
Someone says, “How did He transition from being one of us in this world to that?” Well, He had to die—and that doesn’t just refer to His physical death—He had to give up everything that He could have had in this world in order to pursue that. Jesus died in order to become what He is now. And you have to die with Him—not literally, but necessarily and sincerely. Second Timothy 2:11 is excellent passage for this idea, I think. Look at what this passage says here. Paul says,
It is a trustworthy statement: For if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him; if we endure, we will also reign with Him; if we deny Him, He also will deny us; if we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.
I think Paul just lays it right out on the line, don’t you? He just says it as plainly and as clearly as he possibly could have said it. We have to die with Him in order to live with Him. That’s a radical idea; not everyone’s ready to accept that. That doesn’t mean they can’t accept it; it means there’s a lot of baggage that you sometimes have to wade through in order to accept that fully.
Being Born Again
The second radical idea is that a person has to be reborn into the image of something different than what he is now. I’m not talking about reincarnation; we addressed that this morning [in our question and answer period]. Reincarnation is the same soul in a different body. No, we’re not talking about that. We’re talking really about resurrection, which is a new identity but same body, brought back to the newness of life. In the context of this change, the body does not change but the heart or attitude or allegiance is what changes.
So we’re talking about a changed allegiance, one that chooses (now) to serve Christ. Whereas we used to serve sin, we who have become Christians have put that allegiance to death. We put that man of sin that used to serve sin to death. And now we rise to a new man, having a new allegiance, and now we no longer serve what we used to; we serve Christ.
Romans 6:3-11 explains a lot of what I’m talking about right here, and I invite you to read that passage in its entirety on your own. We’ve talked about this at length in other meetings. What Paul discusses here concerns what Christ did literally that the believer is asked to do symbolically. That is, Christ literally died and literally was resurrected. You are asked to imitate that in your obedience. But it is still a necessary thing that you die with Christ and then be resurrected with Christ. That is what he’s talking about here. Look at verse 4, for example. Paul says,
We have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection.
Think about the power and impact of those statements. You die with Christ and you are raised with Christ. You’ve died with Him here in this life in anticipation of being raised with Him in the life to come [John 6:40, 11:25]. And how do you do this? The believer unites with Christ in His death to unite with Him in His resurrection through baptism. Now verse 8: “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.”
Someone says, “Well, I believe in Christ, I just haven’t been baptized into Christ.” Paul would say to you, “You must be baptized in order to unite with Him in His death.” Or we could say from our last passage, “You have not yet died with Christ.” You’ve made it clear that you would like to do that and you have made it clear that that is your desire, but you have not yet done what God has asked you to do to demonstrate that death, if indeed you have not been baptized into Christ.
In verse 3, Paul talks specifically about baptism. He says, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?” Being “baptized into Christ” then means to become a partaker of the kingdom of God; it means to become a member of Christ’s church, His body [Ephesians 1:23, Colossians 1:18]. Second Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore if any man is in Christ, then he is a new creature” (or “new creation” as some versions say). So someone asks, “How do I come into Christ?” We would respond, based upon the scriptures that we have covered, you must die first. And you must be reborn into something else. We’re talking about this in a very spiritual context; we’re talking about the redemption of one’s soul.
Born of Water and the Spirit
Now I want you to think about what we’ve talked about here from another angle. We’ll talk about the same thing, but now we’re going to talk about it with another illustration. Look over here in John chapter 3. There we find a story of a rabbi named Nicodemus who comes to Jesus under the cloak of darkness. In other words, Nicodemus understands that not all of his [Jewish] Council friends [see John 7:50-51], his Pharisee friends, are going to understand why he is coming to Jesus. But Nicodemus is an honest man and wants to have some questions answered. He is seeking knowledge and truth and he understands that Jesus is the source of such knowledge and the source of such truth. I hope you would have the same attitude as Nicodemus; in other words, I hope that you understand that He is the source of these things.
And look at what Jesus says here in John 3:3-7:
Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born again when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born can he?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’”
Think about that, how this goes against conventional wisdom. I mean, if taken out of context, suppose you were to say to someone, “You must be born again!” Having no religious connotation attached to it, they’re going to look at you like, “What? How can that be?” That’s kind of what Nicodemus is doing; he’s trying to take Jesus’ spiritual words and apply them in a very physical or earthly context, and Jesus says, “Don’t you understand? I’m not talking about a physical birth! I’m talking about a spiritual birth!”
So when He says, “Unless one is born again…” it is necessarily implied that the person has to die first. Yon can’t be born again unless you die to what you were. So it underscores what we have already said: you have to die and that death has to be with Christ. This perfectly corresponds with Paul’s explanation that we have just examined in Romans 6. We are simply looking at a different passage now, but realizing that it demands the same conclusions as the first.
In John 3:4, Nicodemus says, “Well how is that?” because he’s looking at it with physical perspective like so many do today. “Born again” to him means a physical rebirth and people get stuck on things like that, don’t they?—physical things, tangible things. Christians can get stuck on physical membership in the church, for example. Some confuse “membership” with “fellowship.” They think, “I have a church membership, therefore I have fellowship with God.” And they don’t realize that they aren’t necessarily talking about the same thing. These are people who never get beyond the physical picture even though one’s relationship with God precedes a physical membership in any congregation.
Let me put it to you bluntly: if you don’t have a right relationship with God—if you’ve not been “born again” as Christ has determined—it doesn’t really matter what congregation you’re a member of. It really doesn’t matter. I mean, you could be a member of any church that you want, any congregation that you want; but if you don’t have a right relationship with God, you’re not going to fix that by “going to church.” You’re not going to fix that by allying yourself with or participating in a congregation. That’s not where the answer is; that’s not the solution by itself.
In John 3:5, Jesus says, “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit you cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” And there are several good points to consider here. First of all, when He says the word “unless,” He means, “under no exception.” Some people have a problem with that. Someone says, “Well, what about those Australian Aborigines and the people down in South America out in the jungles? And what about, you know, my cousin Frank…?” And they start bringing up all these hypotheticals and “What if they didn’t know about this?” and “You’re saying they can’t be exempted!” and so on. “You’re saying that they’re just going to be lost!”
People who have been prevented from hearing the gospel are beyond the context of what we are talking about. Those who have never truly heard the gospel aren’t going to be judged by it [cf. Romans 2:12-16]. What they are judged by, we must leave that up to God. Instead, we’re talking about people who have access to the gospel and are expected to know it. What about those people? Jesus said, in essence, “There is no exception!” That’s what He means by “unless a person does thus and so.” He’s not suggesting this condition as if it were an option; He is saying, “This is an absolute, binding, non-negotiable, non-altering statement. It cannot be otherwise.”
Then He says that that person has to be “born of water,” and, of course, He is referring to baptism, just as Paul did in Romans 6 and elsewhere in scripture [Acts 10:47-48, Hebrews 10:22, 1 Peter 3:21]. He’s talking about water baptism, water immersion. We have numerous examples in the book of Acts that every time someone hears the gospel and responds rightly to the gospel—what happens to them?—they are baptized in water [Acts 2:38-41, 8:12-13,36-38, 9:18, 16:14-15, et al.]. Why is this so? Well, because that’s what Jesus taught them to do [Matthew 28:19]. That’s what the disciples taught to do. That’s what the gospel teaches one to do. The right response to the gospel is to be baptized [immersed] in water.
But the believer is also “born of the Spirit.” The soul is made alive by God through the Spirit because of the work of Christ. Notice how all Three are involved! [see 2 Corinthians 13:14]. The soul is made alive by God through the Spirit because of Christ! All Three of the Godhead are involved in the work of salvation. They’re all involved. Jesus says in John 6:63, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” This message is spiritual in nature and of the Holy Spirit. That’s what He’s referring to.
Now notice in these last two things that we’ve talked about, we have two different parts and two different contexts. There is that of the earth that you are expected to do (that would be baptism) and there is that of heaven that God does (the regeneration of your soul). Christ does not baptize you, and you do not force yourself to be born of the Spirit. You are involved in the baptism; God is involved in the regeneration of the soul by the Spirit. So, each party, if you will, has its part. That is, you have something to do and God has something to do. You can’t do what God does, and He will not do what you are supposed to do. God doesn’t force anyone to be baptized anymore than you can force God to make yourself “born of the Spirit.” And unless these two things are done, that person cannot enter Christ’s body [the church]. In other words, unless those conditions are met—and that doesn’t exclude other conditions, but unless these conditions at least are met—that person cannot become anything different than what he or she is now. That person is still a sinner; that person is still duped by Satan; that person is still condemned in his sins; that person is still without hope.
Someone says, “Well, I don’t want to believe that! I choose to believe otherwise.” Well, friend, you’re going to have to take that up with God, because it is very clear in Scripture what Jesus is saying. There’s just no way of arguing your way around this. I ask everyone who hears this to be as objective as they can and set aside all emotional appeals and family appeals and traditional appeals and simply read the Scripture and do what it says. That’s what Christ expects of you—to do what it says.
Satan, of course, wants otherwise. He wants you to do whatever you want to do, whatever you feel like doing. Christ is not interested in your “feelings.” He needs you to be confronted with the reality of your soul’s condition before God and to deal with that properly. If your present condition is such that it requires you to take action—to become something other than what you are now—then so be it! Respond rightly to what God has revealed to you through His Word.
Contrast of the Physical and Spiritual Births
Now, this new or spiritual birth is not like your physical birth for several reasons; it is worth our while to compare these two things. First of all, God has already given you human life in a physical body. The fact that you’re sitting here in this body is one thing. But this spiritual, “new creation” that we referred in 2 Corinthians 5:17 is not of this world, so it’s a different kind of birth into a different context altogether. Consider John 1:12-13:
But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name (listen to this!) who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
What is He talking about? The same thing we’ve been talking about. He’s talking about being “born again,” being born of God, being born as spiritual children of God, and not just existing as physical people. Now we can look at Philippians 3:20-21, where Paul speaks of the anticipation of our future glory:
For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; (and here’s the key to this) who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.
In other words, Jesus is not simply going to drag your physical body into heaven. Then you would be with this body forever! Wouldn’t that be bad?! But he speaks of Jesus’ body being glorified as He ascended into heaven [Acts 1:9]. We understand that He Himself was transformed into the glorious body that He now has. You also, by that same power, by that same will, by the same Christ, will enjoy that same transformation—not yet, but it is promised to the believer [1 John 3:2].
There’s a difference then between the human life and the human body and the spiritual life and the spiritual body. The physical body is born of flesh and therefore it is never able to rise above that. You’re never going to become something better than what you are right now, physically speaking. I mean you might get more muscles, you might get a face lift or something like this, but the point is you’re always going to be just a person. I don’t mean that demeaning to us all but the fact is, what else are you going to be but a person, a human being? You can never rise above what you are. Someone has said: “A stream can never rise above its source.”
So we understand that we’re unable to get beyond this limitation by ourselves in this condition. But spiritually-speaking, we need to be born of God, who is Himself infinite and endless. That takes away all the restrictions, doesn’t it? Now you can get beyond who you are—not physically, but spiritually—and you can do what you’ve never been able to do before.
Regarding your physical birth, you had no say in your parentage, in your identity, or in your being born. Did you? I mean, did any of you petition your parents before you were born and say, “I’d like to be born on this day. Summer, please, if you can? And I’d like to be a boy, or a girl, and I’d like to have these characteristics”? You were just born! You had nothing to do with it! You had nothing to say about it. You were just simply born; it just happened.
But spiritually, you have full say in the matter. You choose the Father. You choose the Savior. You choose to be born again. You have full responsibility to give full consent. Now, don’t equate full responsibility with full ability, okay? We’re talking about responsibility to pursue this, not human ability by itself. You can’t make this happen. But you most certainly have the responsibility to pursue it. And you have to give your consent because God isn’t going to allow you to be born again against your will.
In a physical sense, we are born in the image of our physical parents, and that stands to reason. But in the spiritual sense we are born in the image of Christ who Himself is in the image of the Father. Now think about that idea. You had no say in how you look right now; it all comes down to genetics and who your father and mother happen to be. But you have every say in how you will “look” as a child of God. You will look like Christ, who is not limited to any one characteristic or feature but has many wonderful virtues and characteristics. And He Himself is in the image of the Father. This is powerful stuff!
Physically we are born as mortal beings in a dying world—a world that is not only dying but is filled with death. Spiritually we are born as immortal spirits in a world where no one dies and where there is no death at all. We’re born as a physical child: helpless, fully dependant upon other people—our parents to begin with, and then other people as well. But as a spiritual child of God, we are dependant only on the Father. Certainly, we can glean much from the encouragement of others who have also been “born again.” But ultimately we are dependant upon our spiritual Father. And that’s not to say, you know, “Cross your fingers and hope”; that means that God the Father is more than capable of taking care of you because He is God, after all.
God’s Part and Your Part
As we conclude, remember: Satan wants to destroy you; Jesus wants to save you. Satan wants you to remain as you are; Jesus wants you to become what you cannot be on your own. But He provides the knowledge and the means and power and the encouragement to do this and to do it successfully.
But first, of course, as we said earlier, “You have to die to who you are now.” Because if you do not, then you’re going to die two deaths: first, a physical death; and then a spiritual death. Ask again the “rich man” who died two deaths!
Second, you must become a new creature that only God can create. But He will not do it against your will; He’s not going to do it without your consent. You see, salvation is conditional but not impossible. Salvation is necessary if you desire to be with God and avoid being with the rich man and others like him.
Remember the two parts that we talked about. First, there is God’s grace (and I want to emphasize that so much!). God’s grace is this: He does anything and everything that you cannot do—that you are incapable of doing or that you have failed to do—with regard to your soul’s salvation. God does those things. Ephesians 2:8, “For by grace you were saved through faith.” “For by grace you were saved.” That is the real source of the power of salvation.
But grace does not act by itself. God extends grace only to those who trust Him completely. He will never extend saving grace to anyone who fails to trust Him. Your part in this equation is your faith, which requires a demonstration of that faith. This requires you to leave your life behind and to follow the life that He has chosen for you. And realize that whatever He chooses is going to be in your best interest. He asks you to surrender your will to Him and to accept His will in place of yours. He asks you to repent of your sins in order to pursue His holiness. He asks you to consent to your own “death” in baptism, so that you can unite with His life.
I want you to think about what we’re talking about here. I’d like to read one last passage and let the lesson be yours. In Ephesians 5:6, think about what Paul talks about here, especially with regard to the last couple of lessons:
Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them; for you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth), trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.
Now whether you are a Christian or have become a Christian already, this is what’s being asked of you. If you’ve not yet become a Christian, then God is telling you what is required of you. You must become a child of God. And if you have already become a Christian, then what is your responsibility? Well, to no longer walk in darkness, but because of the holiness with which God has come to you—to bring you into the holiness of God Himself—you are to “walk as children of light” and not participate in anything of the darkness, “trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.”
Our prayer for you is that you would follow this counsel—not just today, not just this week, but that you would follow this counsel for the rest of your life.
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