Have you died yet?

I thank God for my fellow preachers who are faithful to proclaim the Gospel and tell the true, rich story of what life in Christ, reconciled to God, can really be like.

For many people, as they listen to these stories of the richness of life in Christ, they see a distinct dichotomy between their lives and the possibilities these preachers talk of.

How do you get from where you’re at to that biblical realness of reconciliation with God and transformation by the Holy Spirit? The answer is in this question:

Have you died yet?

Walter Maier tells this great little story of a shipwrecked man who managed to reach an uninhabited island. There, to protect himself against the elements and to safeguard the few possessions he had salvaged, he painstakingly built a little hut from which he constantly and prayerfully scanned the horizon for the approach of a ship.

Returning one evening after a search for food, he was terrified to find the hut completely enveloped in flames. Yet by divine mercy this hard affliction was changed into a mighty advantage. Early the following morning he awoke to find a ship anchored off the island. When the captain stepped ashore he explained, “We saw your smoke signal and came.”

Everything the marooned man owned had to be destroyed for him to be rescued.

In like fashion, the call to be a disciple of Jesus Christ is, “Come and die!” It’s dying to self so that we can be raised as a completely new creation in Christ. To be reconciled to God and to know and enjoy a rich life in Christ, we must let go of this life …

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul? – Matthew 16:24-26.

“My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me,” Galatians 2:20.

The Apostle Paul describes this “death to self” like this: “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives,” Galatians 5:24-25.

The outcome?

For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. – Colossians 3:3.

Just as in the story of the shipwrecked fellow, it wasn’t his looking for a ship that saved him, but the his loss of everything. R.C. Sproul, writing in Tabletalk, provides this insight …

“Rebirth or regeneration is monergistic, not synergistic. It is done by God and by God alone. A dead man cannot cooperate with his resurrection. Lazarus did not cooperate in his resurrection. Regeneration is a sovereign act of God in which man plays no role. After God brings us to life, of course, we certainly are involved in ‘cooperating’ with Him. We are to believe, trust, obey, and work for Him. But unless God acts first, we will never be reborn in the first place. We must also realize it is not as if dead people have faith, and because of their faith God agrees to regenerate them. Rather, it is because God has regenerated us and given us new life that we have faith.”

It is by dying to self that Jesus creates a beautiful new life for us that is found in Him.

Once there was a brier growing in a ditch and there came along a gardener with his spade. As he dug around it and lifted it up the brier said to itself, “What is he doing? Doesn’t he know I am a worthless brier?” But the gardener took it into his garden and planted it amid his flowers, while the brier said, “What a mistake he has made planting me among these beautiful roses.” Then the gardener came once more and made a slit in the brier with his sharp knife. He grafted it with a rose and when summer came lovely roses were blooming on that old brier. Then the gardener said, “Your beauty is not due to what came out but to what I put in.”

Jesus used similar language when He taught us the following …

“I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing,” John 15:1-5.

Those stirring stories of a beautiful life through and in Christ can be your reality. God wants to transform you into the likeness of His Son, if only you’re willing to die to self to be reborn.

Scotty