Theme: Christ our example: Yield to Him
Text: Gen. 9:8-17; 1 Pet. 3:18-22; Mark 1:9-15
God is love and chose to create man in His own likeness and image to be the object of His love. He demonstrated His love by giving him authority and dominion over all His other creation. The Psalmist in Psalm 8 declares, “What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you visit him. For you made him a little lower than the angels, and you have crowned him with glory and honour. You have made him to have dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet.” Unfortunately, man disobeyed God and chose to make his own decisions. As one man noted, our forefathers, Adam and Eve ate us out of house and home. Luckily God’s love made Him go to great lengths to restore what was lost so that man could exercise his privileged position. We however, often take His love for granted. If someone pushed you out of the way of an oncoming car and saved your life, what would be your reaction? Would you just walk away and forget about the whole incident or would you just say thank you? Or would you feel indebted to that person? How do we feel toward Jesus Christ who saved us from certain death? Do we just walk away or say thank you and continue with our life? Or do we feel indebted to Him? If we really felt indebted to Him we would show our gratitude. We would try to understand why He saved us and honour Him by doing His will. The best possible way to honour Him is to yield to Him and follow His example.
God deals with man on the basis of a covenant. In the garden of Eden Adam and Eve would enjoy the presence of God but they had to believe Him and do His will. They chose to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil instead of the tree of life because they were deceived to doubt God’s love, honesty and authority. God’s judgement was immediate and this finally resulted in the flood that destroyed all mankind except Noah and His descendants. God entered into a covenant with Noah and promised He would not send another flood to destroy the earth. Man’s part was to believe in God and do His will. The seal of the covenant was the rainbow. The covenant with Noah and his descendants involved all of humanity but they failed to fulfil their part of the covenant. This led to the Covenant between God and Abraham and his descendants. This covenant was with the Jewish race. God gave them the land and the Jewish part was again to believe in God and do His will. The sign of the covenant was circumcision. They also failed to fulfil their part of the covenant which necessitated a new one. The previous covenants prepared the Jews and the whole of mankind for the New Covenant that would this time also empower them to fulfil their part of the covenant. This covenant was sealed with the eternal blood of Christ.
The Covenants always demanded that man believed in God and did His will. Satan often works among men and women by turning them from the truth and making them believe a lie. “Has God said” are the words the enemy often uses to change our way of thinking. It is a very subtle way to make us believe what is contrary to the word of God. When Jesus faced Satan in the wilderness He had just heard God’s words “This is my beloved Son”. Satan immediately wanted to change His way of thinking that would be contrary to God’s word with the words “If you are the Son of God”. Doubt and unbelief prevents us from believing God and doing His will. When man fell, God did not change His mind concerning His divine plan. He immediately set in motion a plan of redemption. God’s Son, as the Son of man, would regain for redeemed man the authority to govern again.
Sin made it impossible for man to know God and to know themselves. Jesus came to earth to reveal God, to reveal God’s view of man, and to restore man’s divine purpose. Jesus revealed the love, mercy and grace of God, the source of our redemption. Jesus also came to reveal man’s true nature. He demonstrated by His life the life that God had expected from us. He was tempted in all ways as we were yet did not sin. All His actions were in accordance with the Word of God. Jesus came to restore man to his God appointed status. Satan not only deceived others, but also deceived himself. He believed he had won a victory over both God and man. He knew that the price required for man’s sin would be the death of another man, a perfect man. What he could not even imagine was that God Himself would become that man. Christ won the final victory when He became the Son of man.
Jesus Christ was the perfect sacrifice. At His baptism Christ heard His fathers words of approval and encouragement in the words “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” Words of approval because this was before His first miracle and God was approving of His perfect life because He was tempted in all ways as we are, yet did not sin. These were also words of encouragement to strengthen Him in the battles that would increasingly be waged against Him. In baptism, we are buried with Christ, united with Him in His death, and share in His resurrection. Jesus died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him. We live for Him when we die to ourselves. Jesus died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God.
The sacrifice of Christ would have been in vain if we did not benefit from it. The first step to becoming a new person, a new creation, is to yield to Christ. Yielding to Christ is only possible when we first acknowledge our sin and our inability to deal with it, repent, and invite Christ into our lives as Saviour and Lord. Yielding to Christ is to be totally committed to Him and His Word. We are to renew our minds and have the mindset of Christ. We can only have the mindset of Christ when we deal with the flesh. The flesh is a way of thinking that is contrary to the word of God. When we are saved we become a new creation but life long habits resulting from a way of thinking contrary to the word of God are difficult to change. The only way to deal with the flesh is to walk in the Spirit. Walking in the Spirit is to have a way of thinking that is in accordance with God’s Word.
Jesus walked in the Spirit. He lived a life of faith. He depended on the Word and will of God. He knew the suffering that He would endure, both physically and emotionally, but He was ready to undergo them because it was the will of God. Can you imagine a righteous, perfect person who had never sinned before taking on the sin of the whole world – sin from the beginning of time to the end of time? As Christians when we sin, we feel terrible and hate ourselves for giving in to sin. If we feel this way with sin as former sinners, how would Jesus feel taking on all the sin ever committed in the world since creation? Jesus felt physical pain, but this was nothing compared to the pain that He endured when His Father, the righteous God Who could not look upon sin, turned away from Him as He hang on the cross. This had to be the greatest pain of all and we caused it with our sin. A pain that Jesus bore willingly because of His great love for us.
Jesus Christ, although without sin, took on the sins of the whole world for our sakes. The least we can do is to resist the devil and live the life of Christ. We all know Aggrey’s story of the eagle that grew up with chickens and ended up behaving like one. The first time it was released from its cage and given the opportunity to fly away it just hoped back to feed in the dirt with the other chickens. It possessed all it needed to fly away into the heavens like an eagle but it did not know this. After several attempts the eagle flew away never to return again. Unfortunately many of us behave in a similar manner, even though we say we are believers. We have the truth that at Calvary Jesus Christ defeated the devil and stripped him of his power. We have the truth that we were set free from his dominion and given a place of authority in the royal family of God. Many of us, however, are so used to living in fear, doubt and defeat that we cannot accept the freedom that is rightfully ours. We allow the one Jesus destroyed to continue destroying our lives. We need to rise up and take our rightful position. The heavens are watching in wonder and amazement and wondering why we are submitting to something we have the power to resist. Jesus Christ died to give us eternal life. He died to restore to us what Adam lost. His blood paid the penalty for all our sin and made it possible for us to be reconciled to God and to live a life of victory. Jesus has set us free, and he whom the Son sets free is free indeed. Amen!
