© 2009, The First Baptist Church of Dundalk, Maryland
Corner of Dundalk and Saint Helena Avenues
P. O. Box 8964 / Dundalk, MD 21222
Voice: 410.282.4256 / Fax: 410.282.4340
Email: dundalkfirst@dundalkfirst.org
Corner of Dundalk and Saint Helena Avenues
P. O. Box 8964 / Dundalk, MD 21222
Voice: 410.282.4256 / Fax: 410.282.4340
Email: dundalkfirst@dundalkfirst.org
TRUE DELIGHT (continued)
God sent His only son Jesus to give us eternal forgiveness, life, and delight.
This is a true saying, and everyone should believe it: Christ came into the world to save sinners. (1 Timothy 1:15)
The good news is that Jesus endured the death penalty for sinners like us. He actually died in their place! What is more, He rose from the grave to prove that His death had power to wash away our guilt, and to open up to us the delight for which we were created. Now God can consider the guilty to be innocent without compromising His own justice in the least. For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy God's anger against us. We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed His blood, sacrificing His life for us. God was being entirely fair and just when he did not punish those who sinned in former times. And He is entirely fair and just in this present time when He declares sinners to be right in His sight because they believe in Jesus. (Romans 3:25-26)
Now sinners like us, cut off from our Maker by our own sin and rebellion, can run to Him for the forgiveness and true delight that He alone can give. Christ also suffered when He died for our sins once for all time. He never sinned, but He died for sinners that He might bring us safely home to God. (1 Peter 3:18)
The benefits of the death of Christ belong to those who turn from sin and trust in Him.
Now turn from your sins and turn to God, so you can be cleansed of your sins. (Acts 3:19) Believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. (Acts 16:31)
Sin promises delight, but delivers death. Repenting, or turning from sin, means resolving not to believe sin's lies any more, and deciding to delight in living for God's glory instead. Trusting in Jesus means depending on Him to make you acceptable to God by His death on the cross, and to usher you into the delights of a new life now and a forever life in heaven one day.
When a sinner turns from his sin and trusts in the Savior, his delight in God has begun to be restored, and God's original purpose for creating him has begun to be reclaimed. And the reclamation of sinners utterly delights the heart of God – perhaps more than anything else on earth!
None of this means that the Christian life is just one great painless garden of delights.
Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer. (2 Timothy 3:12)
When you stop delighting in the empty things that people all around you care about, they rarely react well. They might even hate you. Although living for God's delight is far better than living for anything else, it's not necessarily easier. If you're going to live this new life, you shouldn't be surprised if it's hard. Jesus put it this way: “You can enter God's Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose the easy way. But the gateway to life is small, and the road is narrow, and only a few ever find it." (Matthew 7:13-14)
Does all this make sense to you?
Do you desire the kind of purpose and pleasure that come from delighting supremely in all that God is for sinners in Jesus? If you genuinely do, then the Spirit of God is already working in you, to bring you to Jesus. And Jesus will bring you to all the delights of God.
What should you do about it?
Repent. Believe. Turn from all the lying promises of self-delighting, self-directed living. Resolve instead to find your direction and delight in God. Call upon Jesus to save you from the guilt and punishment and bondage and disillusionment of sin. Anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. (Romans 10:13) Begin resting your hope squarely on, and seeking your delight solely in, all that God is for you in Jesus Christ.
Read the Bible to discover God's truth, God's ways, God's purposes, and God's promises. All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It straightens us out and teaches us to do what is right. It is God's way of preparing us in every way, fully equipped for every good thing God wants us to do. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)
Find a Bible-believing church near you. Ask them to baptize you (that is, immerse you in water) as a witness to everyone that you have turned from sin and trusted in the Savior, and that now you have Him as your chief delight. The Lord Jesus commanded that you be baptized as the first step in your new life with Him. Jesus came and told His disciples, “I have been given complete authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:18-20) Become a regular member of the church where you are baptized, and begin there to worship and grow together with other believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Glorify God by delighting in Him forever.
[Oh God,] you will show me the way of life, granting me the joy of Your presence and the pleasures of living with You forever. (Psalm 16:11)
© Christopher Gudmundsson, 1997
This tract was inspired by and patterned after an electronic tract called “Quest for Joy,” written by John Piper. You can read it at the Desiring God Ministries web site.
Scripture quotations are in italics, and were taken from The Holy Bible, New Living Translation (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1996).