But you should keep a clear mind in every situation. Don’t be afraid of suffering for the Lord. Work at bringing others to Christ. Complete the ministry God has given you. As for me, my life has already been poured out as an offering to God. The time of my death is near. I have fought a good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful. And now the prize awaits me– the crown of righteousness that the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on that great day of his return. And the prize is not just for me but for all who eagerly look forward to his glorious return.
2 Timothy 4:5-8
These are Paul’s words to his young compatriot Timothy – words of challenge and focus for the future and words also of victory, true victory of the soul in Jesus Christ.
We’ve talked a lot over the past 7 weeks about struggles in life – both temptations and trials that we must endure. We’ve worked within the imagery of life as a race and eternity as a prize to be won. But I’m here to share the greatest of hope today and it is this – we have already won. We are victorious today in Jesus Christ. Our eternity to come – the kingdom of God promised to us is already ours, and the beauty is that it is not some far distant reward but also a real and present reality of our life in Jesus Christ today. When we take that step from selfishness to selflessness, from sinfulness to sinless-ness, from our own form of self-made righteousness bound to our actions, as though life were weighed on some cosmic scale that measures our good intentions against our not so good actions – when we turn away from this selfish ambition to be our own god and realize that our only hope is in the grace of Jesus Christ, a grace granted to us the moment we put our faith in, and act on that faith, – put our faith in the death of Jesus as the sacrifice for the sinful, selfish nature of our lives and the life received in His overcoming death on Easter morning – when we begin to live our lives not for ourselves but for God, we – have – victory.
This may be review for some of us, but it is a hope worth repeating – we have victory in life through the power and grace of Jesus Christ – through his sacrifice on the cross and his resurrection to life everlasting. And our victory, though it is ultimately an eternal reward of God’s kingdom – a complete renewal of our souls to the purity of life before the fall of sin – our heavenly reward of life in the presence of God – we also celebrate that our victory is today. We have victory today, in this present reality, through the power of Jesus Christ. It is like Penny said to Secretariat – though the race has yet to be won and the final finish line yet to be crossed, we have already won. Our victory, eternal in its scope, begins when we put our faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. Our victory is not just some far off, waiting at the final finish line of life, but is ours today in Jesus Christ.
Friends, we are victorious today in Jesus who gives us salvation from sin. Because of Jesus Christ we no longer need to be bound by our sinful nature, but Jesus has set us free from the slavery in which sin entraps us. Listen to Paul’s words to the Romans:
Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised as he was. Our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. 7 For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. And since we died with Christ, we know we will also share his new life. We are sure of this because Christ rose from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him. He died once to defeat sin, and now he lives for the glory of God. So you should consider yourselves dead to sin and able to live for the glory of God through Christ Jesus.
Romans 6:5-11
If we look into our souls, deep into the places where we are afraid to look because we know what we will find, all of us discover that we have darkness within us. That darkness is our sinful nature – that very selfish core of us that wants to have our own way and to be our own God. In fact, that’s a good definition of sin – the acrostic Selfish In Nature. It is our desire to be our own boss and do things our own way that leads us to actions that do not honor God or show love to others. That darkness, left to ourselves, is undefeatable. We may think that we can handle it, that we can make good decisions and escape on our own, but we will always fail. But the good news of Jesus Christ is that He has defeated the darkness of sin, not just in the world, but also in our lives. When we trust in Him he breaks the bonds of slavery to sin and death and sin no longer has power over us to destroy our lives. Our victory over sin is not just some far off hope, but a present reality – God, though the power of Jesus and the ongoing presence of the Holy Spirit, gives us victory over sin today. Our salvation is a saving from sin today – we no longer need to fear the darkness of our souls because we now have the light of Christ.
Our victory, though, does not end with salvation. As great a gift as freedom from sin is, it is just the beginning of a life with Christ. Trusting in Jesus begins a lifetime of transformation into new people with new natures that long for the things of God instead of the things of earth. Turning our life over to Jesus, accepting that gift of salvation, is just the beginning of the work of God transforming our lives. Often we make the mistake in the church of portraying the Christian faith as being about a point of decision. We even ask the question, “Are you saved?” Which implies a yes or no – either you are or you are not. It also implies that the Christian faith is just about this question – which side of the ledger do you reside on. But to speak of faith in these terms is to limit the beauty of salvation to a singular glimpse of the greatness that God has for us. This isn’t what the church, or the Christian faith, is really about. When Jesus gave us our marching orders he didn’t say, “Go and make converts” but He said, “Go and make disciples.” A disciple is a student or apprentice, constantly learning and growing into someone who is more like their master. Our salvation is not the end of our journey of faith, but the beginning of a lifetime of transformation.
Back at the beginning of the Methodist church, John Wesley arranged his churches into small groups. It really is funny, because a lot of what we hear about churches today and the need for smaller groups of community within the larger church to build relationships and hold each other accountable to growing as disciples – all of that can really be traced to the roots of Methodism. Within these groups, Wesley had a series of questions that he would ask, particularly of the leaders, and one of those was this, “Are you going on to perfection?” This is the question of transformation. Are you not merely settling with salvation, but are you allowing God to continue to transform you in the perfect creation He will remake you to be at the end of time?
Friends, God loves us enough to not only save us, but He loves us enough that he doesn’t leave us as we were. Our victory is that God is at work today, building and molding our lives into the image of Christ. Paul reminds the church at Corinth of this:
So we have stopped evaluating others by what the world thinks about them. Once I mistakenly thought of Christ that way, as though he were merely a human being. How differently I think about him now! What this means is that those who become Christians become new persons. They are not the same anymore, for the old life is gone. A new life has begun! All this newness of life is from God, who brought us back to himself through what Christ did. And God has given us the task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. This is the wonderful message he has given us to tell others. We are Christ’s ambassadors, and God is using us to speak to you. We urge you, as though Christ himself were here pleading with you, “Be reconciled to God!” For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
We have victory today in Jesus to not only save us, but to transform us. God is at work mending and molding the broken parts of our lives that we are willing to turn over to Him. Our victory today is a victory that means our life does not need to be the same – being free from sin we are now restored and transformed into the men and women God originally created us to be. This is not just some distant hope, but a present truth – in Christ we are now a new creation – our old life of sin has gone and we are free to become someone new through the power of Jesus Christ!
Our victory is not only a present salvation from a lifetime bondage to sin and an ongoing transformation into a new person in Christ, a movement towards perfection, but our victory is also a reconciliation with the great King of Heaven. Humanity, from creation, was made to be in relationship with God. Genesis tells of God shaping man and woman in His own image, placing them in the perfection that was the garden of Eden, and then we hear that God walked with them in the cool of the night. We were created to commune with God, to share our life with Him as we journey together. But with sin came separation. Our nature that chooses our own wills over God’s will creates a rift between us and God, a chasm that no good works will ever build a bridge enough to cross. Our relationship with God is ripped apart by sin. God, who is completely perfect, cannot bear the imperfection of our sin in His presence. And on our part, exposing our sinful selves to God reveals the filthy nature of our souls. This is what Isaiah experienced when he saw a vision of God in the temple. He reports in Isaiah 6:
In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple… And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
Isaiah 6:1, 5
This is the nature of sin in the presence of God – woe and fear of destruction. But through the cleansing of faith in Christ Jesus, we are able to stand once again in the presence of God without fear. The great chasm that separates us from the author of life is bridged by the cross. We have access once again to life in the presence of God and God’s presence now rests with us in the Holy Spirit – God with us guiding, strengthening, and communing with us each day. What great hope we have! Our victory in Jesus means not only that one day we will worship God, casting our crowns before Him for eternity, but that today, even this day, we can stand in the presence of God. Romans chapter 8 gives us this promise:
What can we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since God did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t God, who gave us Christ, also give us everything else? Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? Will God? No! He is the one who has given us right standing with himself. Who then will condemn us? Will Christ Jesus? No, for he is the one who died for us and was raised to life for us and is sitting at the place of highest honor next to God, pleading for us. Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or are hungry or cold or in danger or threatened with death? (Even the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”) No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can’t, and life can’t. The angels can’t, and the demons can’t. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can’t keep God’s love away. Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:31 – 39
Friends, today we are victorious because God is with us! Nothing in life, no temptations or trials, no hardships or troubles, can keep us from God. Our victory in Jesus assures that God is with us, that the barrier of sin no longer keeps us from God. We have victory today that not even the powers of hell can keep God’s love away. This is our victory. This is our daily promise – that through Jesus we are saved, we are made new, and we are restored into that gentle stroll with the Lord of all creation. Through Jesus we have victory today – victory that saves us, victory that transforms us, victory that restores us to true life with God through Jesus Christ.
The race is not over for us, though some of us are closer to the finish than others. We will continue to struggle through life. The obstacles of sin are constant. We cannot avoid completely temptation or trial and we will struggle, and even at times fail, to progress towards our desired goal. But one truth remains above all others – we have victory. One day we will stand before the throne of God and because of our faith in Jesus Christ we will claim the victors crown. That eternal victory is assured. But take hope and courage today that our victory is not some distant hope but also a constant daily reality. Through faith in Jesus we have victory over our bondage to sin – no longer do we need to live in the darkness of our selfish souls that lead us to hurt ourselves and other. We have victory over our old life of sin and are being made new, transformed by the hand of God into a new creation, ones becoming perfect in Christ. We have victory that restores us to Eden, that we can have a relationship with the creator and sustainer of all life again. Though battles are still before us, today we have victory in Jesus. May that victory save us, may it transform us, may it restore us to life again through Jesus Christ.