A Greater Sickness X: The Proof of the Cure
We’ve spent several weeks talking of the greater sickness: sin. We’ve discussed what it is, how it acts, and how it is against a loving God and against ourselves and our own happiness. The Cure is a Person and the Person is Jesus Christ.
Last week we looked at the new man who is raised with Christ and has been given new faculties. In our final episode this week, we’re looking at the rest of the proofs of the cure.
It would be terrible to be made alive and and to be under the same master in the same kingdom of darkness. But we have a new life, a new address, and it changes our entire lives.
We’re under a new Ruler: the Rightful King
All you need, He is delighted to provide. He has engaged Himself on His honor to protect you.
Have you ever stopped and considered the happiness of being under His rule?
Have you ever heard of a king better suited to rule?
He has all wisdom, all goodness, all power, all patience. He is the infinitely perfect One and He governs us in perfect peace!
2. We’re under a new rule: Grace
In Romans 6, Paul tells us that we are not under the law, but under grace. We live under a new King who loves you. The kind of compassion, kindness, delight, and friendship from God that you could never earn rules you.
The law no longer comes to expose or condemn, but now it comes from Jesus who has satisfied the law. We are in Him and He guides us in the path of the law that leads us in a happy life that is pleasing to God.
The law is an expression of God’s perfection filtered down into everyday life. These laws aren’t just external things that constrain us like a strait-jacket, but they are now written on our hearts.
Because He loves us, we now love Him and want to obey Him.
Rom 7:6: “But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.”
Stuart Ollyott writes an illustration of a rich bachelor who hires a maid. He gives a very specific list of everything he wants done each day. He falls in love with and proposes to her. He takes away the list of to-dos. But she keeps the list and continues to do them—because she loves him.
We obey the Father out of love. We pursue holiness because we want to honor Him, please Him, and glorify Him. It’s very different than legalism. A legalist thinks in degrees. Legalism obeys to earn God’s favor. Legalism adds to the law.
Believers seek to keep the law out of love. If we want to be near Christ, we walk His path. Do you obey the law to better yourself? Or is the law a path of love where you walk in communion with God?
3. We have a new Identity
The old you was a stranger, enemy, rebel, traitor, and child of the devil, according to Scripture.
But the new you is now a citizen, friend, follower, saint, and child of God. We read in Psalm 5:4-7, 11-12
“For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness;
No evil dwells with You.
The boastful shall not stand before Your eyes;
You hate all who do iniquity.
But as for me, by Your abundant lovingkindness I will enter Your house,
At Your holy temple I will bow in reverence for You.
In the multitude of their transgressions thrust them out,
For they are rebellious against You.
But let all who take refuge in You be glad,
Let them ever sing for joy; And may You shelter them,
That those who love Your name may exult in You.
For it is You who blesses the righteous man, O Lord,
You surround him with favor as with a shield.”
Those who belong to Christ can enter His house and commune with God. But the unbeliever is thrust away from the Creator, surrounded by his sins, regrets, and guilt.
As a new man with a new Master, new love, and a new identity, you are surrounded by new mercies every morning.
4. We have new wages
The old master, selfishness, demanded so much of you. Everything was devoted to self. What did it pay you? Only death.
But the new Master is different. He demands everything, but He fills it all with life and purpose. He makes everything worth living.
“For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority.” (Colossians 2:9-10)
“For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.” (John 1:16)
5. We have a new focus
Perfect love, perfect faith, a heart that is never distracted, a mind that never doubts—these are not evidences of a Christian. A Christian can still sin. But how do we guard ourselves from hypocrisy that sins and says, ‘Hey, Christians aren’t perfect’?
Samuel Rutherford wrote from prison, “Christ will not be your mule, to carry you and your favorite sins together to heaven.”
For the Christian, the problem with sin is it’s against your King who loves you with an everlasting love and you never want to do that to Him again.
Hating our sin is a great evidence of our new life.
When you come face-to-face with the majesty of God, don’t settle for a half-hearted Christianity—a Christianity that doesn’t create a whole new you under the rule of a new King with a new love for the old law, a new identity, new wages, and a new focus. Don’t settle for Christianity that doesn’t reflect the majesty of God.
Lord of all power and might, soften and break this hard heart.
Give me a contrite spirit.
There is mercy with You.
There is forgiveness with You.
O may Your great mercy be displayed towards me, in pardoning all my sins; and in renewing my soul.
Give me penitence, faith, and self-denial.
Bestow on me the graces of sincerity, humility, and love.
May the love of Christ be more known and felt by me; and let it constrain me to live not to myself, but to Him that died for me.
Grant me Your Holy Spirit, teaching those things of Christ to show them unto me, and daily sanctifying my heart. Amen.
(Isaac Watts)
A Guide to Family Worship
This prayer is taken from our new book, A Guide to Family Worship.
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