Christian Living

Confess and Believe

by Thomas Kirkpatrick
07/29/21
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“I permitted Myself to be sought by those who did not ask for Me; I permitted Myself to be found by those who did not seek Me. I said, ‘Here am I, here am I,’ To a nation which did not call on My name. “I have spread out My hands all day long to a rebellious people, Who walk in the way which is not good, following their own thoughts, A people who continually provoke Me to My face.” (Isaiah 65:1-3)

These words of God pinned by the Prophet Isaiah tell us of God’s position as He views the depravity of His creation man. Yet by His love for man, the Lord God has not turned His back upon us, and we still can seek Him and find salvation from His wrath to come. Because of His love for humanity, God has given us free will to choose the path we desire to travel towards our eternal destiny. Yet, many are in a state of rebellion against God and His Word, which was given to teach us how to live righteous lives in the world God created. Since humanity’s fall to sin and enlightenment of evil, humanity has chosen to go it alone without the infinite mind of God and place their trust in their own finite mind. A mind, by its sinful nature, will gravitate to the sinful ways that their desires.

Surely men know that the day of accountability will come when they have to answer their words and actions. Some think that their near obedience to the nation’s constitution they are citizens of will be good enough, and they will find peace in their passage. But God the Creator does not judge humanity by any constitution of man’s government but by His Word. How will men find justification for their words and actions when stacked against the righteousness of God’s Word? God said, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) What is that standard that men have fallen short of? It is Righteousness, and only the righteous will be in God’s Kingdom. Jesus taught us the standard in His Word. “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48) We often compare ourselves to others and feel satisfied that we consider ourselves better than them, but the only comparison to righteous living is found in God’s Son, Jesus Christ. How do you compare? Neither the righteous nor the wicked can claim perfect righteousness, as there has not been one except Jesus. “There is none righteous, not even one.” (Romans 3:10)

There was a time when God and man walked together in fellowship here on earth in human history. It was a perfect relationship between the Creator and the creation. It was a brief moment in time when all was righteous and in harmony. Then that fallen angel Satan came and tempted man who fell for his deceitful lie that he could be as God. The very sin that caused Satan to fall is the sin that entered into the heart of man. It is an evil desire to worship the creation rather than the Creator. The righteousness of this world was fractured along with the relationship between God and man. There can be no disobedience in the presence of God the Creator. God in His infinite wisdom knew that this would happen and had a plan to restore men to a right relationship with Him. It requires an act of man’s will to accept God’s plan for redemption. “Seek the LORD while He may be found; Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way And the unrighteous man his thoughts; And let him return to the LORD, And He will have compassion on him, And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon.” (Isaiah 55:6-7)

The wages of our sin is death, a price we cannot pay and yet live. “For the wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23) In the Old Testament, the Hebrew people, God’s Chosen, sacrificed animals in their place to meet the requirement of death for their sins. The animals had to be without spot or blemish, and they had to be perfect, as God has always given man His best in perfection. “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.” (James 1:17) God accepted these sacrifices until they became a meaningless ritual for the sinner.

When the time was full, God sent His Son Jesus with the express purpose to be the Lamb of God to be sacrificed for the sins of the world. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) Jesus, who was fully God and fully man, came and lived a perfectly righteous life. He taught of the Kingdom of God, He trained His disciples to found His Church that men may learn of God the Father, and He went to the cross willingly to pay the sin debt of the world.

Jesus faced the judgment that each of us so richly deserves, He shed His blood that our sins may be cleansed, He sacrificed His life that through Him we can find life, and He rose from the grave, defeating death that we too can have eternal life. Jesus overcame the world and all of its lustful desires that we, too, can overcome through Him. “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.” (1 John 2:16)

Jesus paid the wage that we owe for our sinful ways; it is He then that has the power to forgive us of those sins, it is He then that has the power to offer us salvation and eternal life, and He gives it to us through His grace if we would believe and have faith in Him and His Word. “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” (Ephesians 2:8)

Jesus paid the price for all the sins of the world, past, present, and future. If the sin debt has been paid, why do so many of the world find themselves in the lake of fire? Because they refuse to call upon the Lord and accept the gifts of salvation, forgiveness, redemption, and eternal life in the Kingdom of God. Does God, a God of love, place man in the lake of fire? No! Men chose to go there by the rejection of the truth of God’s Word.

We cannot be a follower of Jesus if we still are living for this world. We must turn away from this world that is so quickly passing away for each of us and turn to the eternal Kingdom of God, which is righteous. We must confess and repent of our sin and go and sin no more. As Jesus told the adulterous women, “I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more.” (John 8:11) We will stumble, falter, and sin, but the idea I have is that sin is paid for, and if we confess and repent, He will forgive us. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)

Jesus came into the world and lived a life of righteousness; he when to the cross and sacrificed His life in place of ours for our sin, and He rose from the grave to defeat our greatest enemy, death, that we may have eternal life. If we receive these glorious gifts from the work of Jesus and believe in Him and His Word, then we can have eternal life as a child of God in a restored relationship with our heavenly Father. “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.” (John 1:12)

There is a cost to those who choose to follow Jesus, and we could spend a lot of time discussing that. In this conversation, I want to focus on the one foe that I believe is the hardest to defeat during our journey to the glory land. I have suffered mockery, suffered slight persecution, and suffered denied opportunities, but the greatest challenge to my spiritual walk with Jesus is my fleshly desires. As Paul wrote, “For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.” (Galatians 5:17)

It is a battle to renounce self, our self-will, self-plans, and our self-motivation. Overcoming self is a sticker for everyone. The key is to walk by the Spirit, but the flesh is always nagging to return to the old sinful nature of bygone days. I truly long for the Lord’s coming and to meet Him in the sky, which would be the greatest reason but close to that is the loss of the flesh tent I reside in. I long to receive the resurrection body that is perfect and not infected by the sin nature. Life’s in the Spirit, rewards are in the Spirit, and my spirit is willing, but the flesh battles with the temptations of this world. The question is in balance. There is nothing here in the flesh that has value to the spirit in the spiritual realm that is soon to come. The things of the flesh are rubbish and will return to the dust. I keep my spirit’s eye set on the greater world to come. “But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ.” (Philippians 3:7-8)

Faith is essential to receiving Jesus as your personal Savior. “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.” (Hebrews 11:6) I hear people declare that they have faith in many things. That is fine, but I think we have cheapened the word faith. For me, faith believes something exists until it does. Faith requires action. One can have faith that their car will start in the morning, but it never will until they turn the key. One can have faith that water will quench their thirst, but it never will until one drinks it. It is as the farmer who prayed for rain to grow his crops and then waited. If he truly had faith, he would plow his fields in preparation for the rain that he had faith would come. If we do not believe we have faith, then we really do not have faith, do we? Faith requires a commitment to act in the belief of the reality that we have faith in.

Do you believe in God? Do you believe in His Son? Do you believe that He has paid your sin debt? Do you believe that through Him, you can have forgiveness of your sins, redemption, and a home in God’s Kingdom as His child? If you believe this, then act on faith, and it will become your reality. “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart”--that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” (Romans 19:8-10)

Thomas N Kirkpatrick

First Baptist Church of Durant, April 4, 2018