First Sunday in Lent, 2004
Text: 2 Corinthians 6:1-10
The Rev. Jerry Kistler
St. Stephen’s Reformed
Episcopal Church
“Live in the Now of Salvation”
There’s a story of an old Saxon king who put down a rebellion in a distant province of his kingdom. He then placed a burning candle in the archway of his castle and announced that all who had rebelled would be spared if they put down their arms and took an oath of loyalty to the king. Presumably he sent out heralds to proclaim this message to all who would hear it. Clemency and mercy were offered, but the offer was limited to the life of the candle.
Now what would you think of the man who said to the herald, “What a gracious and merciful king we have! What an amazing offer of clemency to us who deserve the gallows for our treason! Tell him I’ll get back to him tomorrow. Or, better yet, tell him, ‘I was once his loyal subject, so I don’t really need his offer of clemency now. It doesn’t apply to me.” You would rightly call him a fool and his response vain. The candle is burning! Tomorrow the offer will be past. The situation calls for an immediate, present-day response.
Are we not living in a day like that? The heralds of the King have been sent out to us rebels. The candle of God’s clemency has been lit, and the time we have to respond to His offer of grace is called by the Scriptures “Now” and “Today.” “Behold, NOW is the accepted time; behold, NOW is the day of salvation.” “TO-DAY, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts as in the provocation.”
“Be reconciled to God.” That is the offer of the Gospel most simply stated. That is the one message Christ has sent his heralds to proclaim to those who’ve rebelled against Him. And then Paul announces how that reconciliation is possible (vs. 21): “For [God] made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” Luther called it the Great Exchange. Christ is imputed with our guilt for which he receives our curse; we are imputed with His righteousness for which we receive His eternal reward. And the way you complete the transaction, so to speak, is simply by trusting that Christ has done everything to make it good.
That is the message that has gone out to each and every one of us here today. That is the Gospel offer of clemency to sinners like you and me. If you haven’t heard it before, you can’t say you haven’t heard it now.
The question, then, is not how did you once respond to this message, nor is it how will you one day in the future respond to this message, but how are you now, today, in this very hour, responding to the Gospel - in faith, or with a hardened heart?
This is what Paul was trying to drive home to the Corinthians. So he continues, “We then, as workers together with Him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain.” What grace? The present offer of the Gospel. “For He says, ‘In an acceptable time I have heard you, and in the day of salvation I have helped you.’ Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”
Be reconciled to God. Be believing that Christ was made sin for you, so you might be the righteousness of God in Him. Respond now in faith to the offer of the Gospel, or else, says Paul, you will have received that grace of God in vain.
Notice that this word of admonition was written to group of Christians. This was a warning to a church which presumed upon its past to give them a guarantee for the future. They were the baptized. They were the communed. They were the confirmed. And they thought this meant that God was now stuck with them, not matter what they did or how they believed. They had their fire-insurance, and, since they weren’t going to Hell, they might as well go out and live like Hell, and believe like Hell. Paul wrote to them in his first epistle to the Corinthians, “Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.”
Our church teaches the doctrine of the perseverance of the
saints, that wonderful, comforting doctrine that all those whom God has given
the gift of true faith will persevere in that faith unto their lives’ end. But how
do we know we have true faith? Only if we persevere in it.
A false faith may be in every way
indistinguishable from true faith except that true faith always perseveres to
the end. You cannot say that, although I’m not now a believer, I once had true faith, therefore I’m confident that I will be saved. There
is no promise given to unbelief. This is why, although Christ and the apostles
affirm that we “have been saved,” which gives us the hope that we “shall be saved,”
they always bring us back to the “now” of salvation. “Be reconciled to God.” “Receive not the grace of God in vain.”
“Walk in the Light, while you have the Light.” “Be the more diligent to make your calling and election sure.” “Today, if you will hear
his voice, harden not you hearts.”
We recited 95th Psalm this morning. The author to the Hebrews uses that psalm as his sermon text in chapter three to preach a very sobering word of warning to another group of Christians who were in danger of falling away from their initial faith in the Gospel. “Beware, brethren,” he says, “lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called ‘Today,’ lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end.”
John Calvin commenting on the passage says, “If [Christ] is possessed by faith, we must persevere in it, so that he may be our perpetual possession. Christ then has given himself to be enjoyed by us on this condition, that by the same faith by which we have been admitted into a participation of him, we are to preserve so great a blessing even to death.”
Beloved, there is only today. Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow is promised to no one. We must live our Christian lives and maintain our Christian faith in “the now,” for it is the only time we have. It is how we respond to the grace of God today that will determine our eternal tomorrow.
It was a Sunday morning sometime between the years 1861 and 1865. The famous Baptist preacher T.C. Teasdale stood in the pulpit before a regiment of soldiers of the Army of the Confederate States. His sermon was titled, “The Season of Divine Mercy,” in which he quoted these few stanzas of a hymn by the great Presbyterian divine, Archibald Alexander:
There is a time, we know not when,
A point, we know not where,
That marks the destiny of men
To glory or despair.
There is a line, by us unseen,
That crosses every path;
The hidden boundary between
God’s patience and his wrath.
Oh! Where is that mysterious bourne
By which our path is crossed,
Beyond which God himself hath sworn
That he who goes is lost?
How long may men go on in sin?
How long will God forbear?
Where does hope end, and where begin
The confines of despair?
An answer from the skies is sent:
Ye that from God depart,
While it is called to-day, repent,
And harden not your heart.
You have to wonder, how many of those soldiers marched off to their deaths in battle the next day. You have to wonder, how many of those soldiers realized their opportunity to be reconciled to their God while it was still the “today” of their lives, or how many of them received that grace of God in vain?
As in the story of the Saxon king, the Gospel offer of reconciliation comes to us for a limited time only. The time is called by the Scriptures “now” and “today.” The candle has been lit. So let us live in the now of salvation. For behold, "now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation.” “Today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” +