The Gospel-Driven Life: Death, Life, and Glory

In 1735, John Wesley sailed from England to America, to preach the Gospel to the unreached peoples there. But he knew that he had a problem. He could not convince himself that he had any personal saving trust in Jesus Christ. He wrote in his journal, “I went to America to convert the people there; but, oh, who shall convert me?” Three years later John Wesley received his long-sought inward conversion to Christ. He wrote in his journal, “In the evening I went very unwillingly to a [church meeting] in Aldersgate Street, [in London,] where one was reading Martin Luther’s preface to his commentary on the Book of Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my own heart strangely warmed.” This experience forever changed John Wesley’s life. What John Wesley—and many others throughout Christian history—experienced was a life-changing conversion from dead works to a living faith. It was a transfer from an old way of living (even if it was an outwardly religious life) to a new life centered on a personal saving trust in Jesus. 

In another place, the Apostle Paul writes about that experience this way: “And you were dead in the trespasses in which you once walked, following the course of this world… But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ” (Eph. 2:1-5). Whether someone is dead in sin, or dead in their outward appearance of religion like the Pharisees—who Jesus described as being like “whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead men’s bones” (Matt. 23:27)—whichever is the case for the outwardly sinful man or the outwardly religious man, both are dead, and both must be made alive. This is a work that only God can do. But God is in the business of saving, and pursuing, and redeeming, and calling people to trust in him and to find new life through the Gospel. This is the God who willingly became a man and bled and died on the cross in our place for our sins. This is the God who takes those who have made themselves his enemies, and he takes those same people and makes them his children. This is the work of God that the Apostle Paul witnesses to in Titus 3:1-8.

DEAD IN SIN

Paul once wrote the believers in Crete that he, and they, were formerly dead in sin. Here’s how he describes it: "We ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice" (Titus 3:3). How would you like to be described as foolish, wicked, hateful, and blind? But that’s how Paul described himself and the people that he was speaking to. Those are the words that God inspired him to write down. Before one can be made alive, they must first know that they were dead. Jesus once said “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Mt. 9:13; Mk. 2:17; Lk. 5:32). He said in Luke chapter 19, “the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Lk. 19:10). Who are the lost people? All of us are. That’s why John 1:29 says about Jesus, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

Jesus has come to free all who Paul writes are “slaves to various passions and pleasures.” This is everyone. 1 John 1:8 says, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” In the Gospel of John chapter 8, Jesus said to the people that he was preaching to, “Everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin… So if the Son sets you free, then you will be free indeed” (Jn. 8:34-36). The Puritan author Thomas Boston wrote about Jesus, “His heart is open to you, his arms stretched wide.” See, Jesus will pull you in and clean you up. He will clothe you with his righteousness. He will give you a new identity as a child of God.

ALIVE IN CHRIST

Jesus Christ is the savior of the world. That is the meaning of his name: “The Lord saves.” In the Gospel of Matthew, Mary is told to give him the name Jesus, “for he will save his people from their sins” (Mt. 1:21). He himself said in Matthew 20, “the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mt. 20:28). Jesus gave up his throne in heaven, and humbled himself, the book of Philippians says: he “made himself nothing, and took on the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:6-8). What does it mean that God saved us through Jesus Christ? It means that the creator of the universe, the one who holds all things together, the one who will one day restore all things in heaven and on earth, and bring them under his righteous rule—our God willingly left it all and came down, out of his own love and goodness and kindness, for you and for me, to rescue us from our sin so that we could be together with him. That’s what that means. Jesus, who never committed any sin, was beaten and whipped and degraded and shamed and nailed through his ankles and his wrists to a piece of wood, and was held up for mockery, naked and in public, until he died of asphyxiation and his heart burst, so that you and I could be made right with God. He lived the life we could not live and died the death we should have died. He came to save and seek the lost (Lk. 19:10), and he found us. And he died for us. And we didn’t do anything to earn it.

How do we receive that mercy? We receive it through faith. Jesus said to one woman with a history of well-known sin, “Your faith has saved you, go in peace” (Lk. 7:50). He said to a group of Pharisees, “I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved” (Jn. 10:9). Do you want to know, and love, and serve Jesus? Do you want to know in your heart for sure that you’ve been saved? Do you want the hope of a world beyond this one where there will be no pain, no sickness, no tears, nor sorrow anymore, for the old will have passed away, and the new has come? Then place your faith in Jesus. Or, better yet, place your trust in Jesus, because that’s what the word “faith” means. It doesn’t mean that you believe Jesus exists. It doesn’t mean that you believe a certain set of facts about Jesus. It means that you trust his way more than your own way; that you trust him to be able to save; that you trust him instead of all that this world can offer, instead of yourself, instead of your righteousness. Maybe you've been in a really hard time and had to tell someone, “I have nowhere else to turn.” If you are so done with yourself that you say that to Jesus, then that is what faith and putting your trust in Jesus is. There is no halfway decision there. The only way you put your trust in Jesus is by coming to the realization that you have no other option and nowhere else to turn, and you fall upon his infinite goodness and sweetness and mercy. There is no coming back from that moment. That decision is a one-way trip.

RAISED TO GLORY

We were dead in sin, and God makes us alive in Christ. But he doesn't just stop there. He raises us to glory. Here's how Titus 3:7 puts it: "so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life." This is wild. We don’t just get saved, we get eternal life. And we don’t just get eternal life, we become heirs of the Kingdom. Ephesians 2:6-7 says that God “raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace.” Being heirs of the kingdom means we are placed in a royal position over God’s kingdom. 1 Corinthians 6:3 says, “Do you not know that we are to judge angels?” How incredible is the mercy of God, that he would take people who have made themselves his enemies, and then make them his children, and then make those same people into co-rulers with him in his perfect kingdom over a whole host of heavenly beings who’ve never sinned? Jesus said in Matthew 25:31-34, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” He says in another place, “the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Mt. 13:43). What a picture that is. God found us when we were dead in sin. He made us alive in Christ. He raised us up to the seat of glory. And he will continue to be good and loving and merciful, in a time eternal, and in a world without end, in his perfect Kingdom. There is literally no end to the mercy of God.

-Sean