Word of Salvation – Vol. 37 No. 31 – August 1992

What Must We Know?

Sermon by Rev. W. Wiersma on Lord's Day 1b

Reading: John 17:1-5

Beloved congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ,

This morning/evening we are going to have a closer look at the question: What must we know to enjoy life with a capital L.?

That's what the Catechism is really talking about.  About enjoying life in Jesus Christ.  About knowing what it means to belong to Jesus.  That is life.  The Catechism itself points in that direction when it refers us to John 17:3, where Jesus says to God the Father, "This is eternal life; that they may know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.'  So that is what the question is really about.  What must you know to enjoy eternal life?

Note, the question does not ask: What do you know?  But: What do you need to know?  You may have some learning to do.  And that learning has to start right with ourselves.  You have to come to know yourself.  Now there are of course, a lot of things that you already know about yourself.  Some things are very obvious and visible.  Some have to do with your education and training.  Some with your family and genes.  Some things relate to your body, others to your brains and interests.  A very important aspect of your being is your relationship with other human beings.  We do not live totally alone.  We interact with other human beings.  We depend on other people.  Now we can do that gladly or grudgingly.  We can interrelate generously or selfishly.

Yes, there are many sides to our being.  And one of the most important aspects, or should I say, the most important and most influential aspect of our being and existence is our relationship with our Creator and Provider.  Now, many people don't think much about God.  As you know, there are even those who think they can exist and actually do exist without God.  That's a little bit like children thinking that they can exist without parents, and from that conclude that they are totally self-sufficient, they don't need anybody.  Well, I am convinced that deep down everybody knows that they depend on God.  You only have to think of the many, many people who have no time for God when everything goes well.  But when they are faced with trouble too large for them to handle, began praying to God.  Yes, then they start praying to the same God whom they sneered at when He gave them plenty.

To come back to the main point I want to make.  You have to know where you stand with God.  And, in the words of the Catechism, that means you need to know how great your sins and misery are.  The Catechism will deal with this more extensively in the next three Lord's Days, but let me expand on this just a little.

First, you need to know how great your sin and misery are.  You need to have a realistic assessment of your heart and predicament.  You need to know your sin; that is, your failure to honour and obey God as He deserves to be honoured and obeyed.  You need to know the destructiveness of your own heart and the extent to which evil influences your thoughts, behaviour and relationships.  Now many people don't want to know about that.  Many people ask: Why is it, that in the church they always talk about sin and how bad we are?  We don't like to hear about that.  No, we don't.  Most of us don't like to hear about our sin, about our shortcomings.  That's a bit uncomfortable.  But you see, in the church we do not talk about sin for the sake of sin.  We don't talk about sin, the Bible talks about sin, to show you what predicament we are in as sinners.  That's what the Catechism means when it says we have to know what our misery is.  What is the sinner's predicament?

We read in Genesis 2 that God said to Adam and Eve: 'You are not allowed to touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the day you touch it you shall die.' God warned mankind that if they disobeyed his instructions, or ignored his warnings, they would die.  That rule was not just for Old Testament times.  It holds for today.  That rule still stands.  The person that sins shall die.  That's what we talk about sin for.  To let you know your predicament, that as a sinner, without Jesus, as you stand before God, as you live before God, in your own right, you are doomed.  You have a death sentence hanging over you.  And if you don't believe that, if you don't take that seriously then I suggest you go home.  Because then all talk about Jesus as your Saviour is utterly irrelevant; because you have nothing to be saved from.

If you are not under the condemnation of death then you don't need saving, do you?  So that is what we are talking about, that you are in a situation from which you have to be saved, otherwise you are finished.  Now that is the teaching of Jesus too.  Death is the consequence of sin.  It is from this death that God sent His son Jesus to save sinners.  Jesus taught that God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

One of the clear implications of this well-known statement of Jesus is that those who don't believe in Jesus will perish.  Those who are without Jesus will perish.  Why?  Because we are sinners!  And when people don't take that seriously the Gospel doesn't make sense.  And preaching does not make sense anymore.  But that is the predicament of man; without the God-given Saviour, men, you and I, are doomed.  By our sins we have forfeited and lost our right to life.  We can only enjoy life when we receive it as a gift from God in Jesus.

That's what the Catechism is referring to when it says that the second thing we need to know to enjoy life (to enjoy the security of knowing that we belong to Jesus Christ) is, how we are set free from all our sins and misery.  How we are saved from ourselves, from our self-destructive attitudes.  How are we rescued from the sentence of death hanging over us because of our distrust and disobedience towards God.

The answer is, GOD SAVES SINNERS from their sin, from their guilt and the sentence of death.  God has provided a Saviour who does it all for the sinner.  Now, the Catechism will make clear in its second part on ‘deliverance’ where it will explain the Apostles' Creed, the sacraments and the Keys of the Kingdom.  The gist of its teaching will be that it is totally and completely the work and achievement of Jesus Christ – this matter of salvation from sin is totally the work and achievement of Jesus from beginning to end.  You can't do anything for it.  You can't contribute one tiny little bit towards your salvation.  This is where Christianity is totally unique.  Among all religions Christianity stands absolutely alone.

I say that for a number of reasons.  In Acts 4 we read that there is no other name given among men whereby we must be saved, except by the name Jesus, GOD SAVES.  Every other religion teaches that God will help those who help themselves.  Right?  That's the general religion of the world: God helps hose who help themselves.  That is not Christian teaching.  'God helps those who help themselves', is saying something like, God will look at your effort and he will do that bit (large or small) that you can't do.  So God will help you to save yourself.  That's what all the other religions teach.  Unfortunately, that is also what a lot of people who want to be known as Christians teach.  Many so-called Christians teach: do your best, ask God for his gracious help and you will be saved.  This is what many people hear Christian preachers saying.  Do your best, ask God for his gracious help and you will be saved.  That is not the Christian gospel.

The Catechism shows that the Bible teaches that salvation and eternal life are a gift of God.  Now a thing is a gift or it is not a gift.  Oh, I suppose we can have things like combined efforts.  A friend may know that I would like to buy something which I can't afford.  He wants to help me and so offers to pay part of the price.  That's a combined effort.  But then what I get is only partly a gift.  The friend's contribution is a gift.  But it is my purchase.  Salvation is not a combined effort.  It is not partly a gift, partly purchased by my own efforts or with my own resources.  Salvation is a total gift or you don't get it at all.

Now I know there are a lot of people in churches, and you may be one of them, who think that you have somehow to make a contribution towards your salvation.  It may be fifty percent or twenty-five percent or may be just five percent.  But whatever percentage you think of, forget it; for the simple truth is that we cannot contribute anything from our own resources towards our salvation.  Of ourselves we are sinners who can't do anything perfectly in harmony with God's will.  So how could we contribute anything to get ourselves out of this predicament?  It would be like Baron von Munchhausen who tried to pull himself up by his own bootstraps.  It is impossible.  The sinful nature can only produce sinful acts.  So, if we get ourselves continually deeper in debt to God how can we in any way pay our way out?

Recognising the greatness and extent of our own sin is an important step towards recognising the tremendous gift which God gives us in Jesus Christ.  In Jesus God grants sinners complete forgiveness of all their sins.  We are set free from the control of sin.  We are granted liberty and life.  God gives us Christ and all his resources including his forgiveness and his righteousness.  And also including the Holy Spirit by whom we are given the ability to begin to live as God wants us to live, namely by faith in Jesus Christ.  But I want to stress that the Holy Spirit's presence and power are part of God's gift of salvation.  So the good we do by the Spirit's power is never a contribution towards our salvation.  It is rather always consequence, i.e. a result and evidence of the salvation that is given us in Christ.  That means we can only do good after we have received life in Christ.  Yes, that's right!  We can only do good after we are saved.  That's why the Catechism talks about the Christian life as a life of thankfulness.  It is only possible on the basis of what God has given us in Jesus Christ.

Put it another way, we can only live as God's children when we are the children of God.  When God has adopted us as his children and has given us his Spirit, then we are able to live as God's children.  And God does not adopt us on the basis that we have begun to live as his children.

That is the awful mistake many people make, to think that God accepts you as his child after you start to behave like a child of his.  Well, that is not the Christian way.  The Christian way is not, first you start living as a child of God and then God will accept you as his child.  No, the biblical way is that through Jesus God accepts you as his child, and then He starts remaking you in his image; giving you the Holy Spirit to work in you to will and to do what is pleasing to him.  When you turn that around you get all sorts of problems.  Then it is that whole idea again of contributing to your salvation.  First I have to do this and then God will do that.  And there is another problem with this way of thinking.  As a believer you will discover time and again that you do not live as a child of od ought to live.  You look at yourself and you say: Hang on, I am not living like a child of God.  Maybe that means I am not really a child of God after all.  No, I am probably not a child of God, for then I would live like a child of God.  You see what happens when you change things around?

I dare say that most of you know what I am talking about.  You have had that problem.  You have had that kind of reasoning in your life.  Well, let me put it very, very plainly: The way to become a child of God and the way to be sure that you are a child of God is by looking at Jesus, and not by looking at yourself.  You do not deserve to be a child of God.  Never have deserved to be a child of God, never will deserve to be a child of God.  None of us deserves it.  The only one who deserved it was Jesus.  Of him God said: "This is my beloved Son, in him I am well pleased.”  And that pleasure and approval which God has for Jesus is given to all who look to Jesus, and so God is as pleased with those who are in Jesus as with Jesus himself.  That is the only way of having a place in the family of God.  Do you follow me?  That God looks at Jesus and He sees the perfect obedience of Jesus and he sees that obedience as your obedience when you believe in Jesus.

Now that is the marvel of the Gospel, the uniqueness of the gospel of God's love; that you a sinner receive from God what Jesus deserves.  The Christian life is therefore a life of faith in Jesus Christ.  The life of dependence on the grace and mercy of God, the life of amazed thankfulness for that great love by which we may live in hope.  Fancy God accepting me as his child; me – who has sinned against him so often.  Yes, God accepts me as his child because of what He himself has given us in Jesus his Son.

You see what life is?

Life is to know Jesus the Saviour by whom God has removed our sin and has given us life in his everlasting love and care.

Could anything be more reassuring that that.  Despite all my unworthiness I may look to Jesus and in him find life!

AMEN