Redemption and Our Labour
Some thoughts about coming out of a pit of feelings of guilt, remembering Jesus' work on the Cross, and then going forth knowing that I have been forgiven :)
In some seasons I have found myself in a pit of despair over my sinfulness and depravity – the self-centered thoughts I can’t control, the attraction to frivolous time-wasting activities (such as telling others that I think scrolling endlessly through one's Facebook newsfeed is futile, and proceeding to do so myself..). And in this pit I stop doing work passionately, but instead sit back and just feel... crummy. It's sort of like when, having missed your 8 alarm clocks, you accidentally nap for 4 hours, and then you get up, feel guilty, and instead of doing work to make up for the lost time, you kind of just sit back and feel bad.
But amidst the guiltiness I remember the promise God spoke through David’s psalm of repentance: ‘My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart You, God, will not despise.’ Many a time we think of a ‘sacrifice’ to God – an offering or even an atonement – as a discrete effort of laying down some time or hobby to help out in a church project, or perhaps even a one-off decision to put more money than usual into the offering bag. But David here understands that what God desires is a heart that seeketh Him: a heart that is broken at seeing its own hardness and sin, for its remoteness from the holiness of God, and fatal inability to please God. He desires a heart that seeks Him, that loves God supremely, trusting in His gracious redemption, instead of trying to settle our sin on our own.
The finished work of the Cross
An evocative phrase I only recently understood the profundity of is the reference to Christ’s work as the ‘finished work of the Cross’. Why finished? Jesus is still due to come on the Day of the Lord, and we are still in this intermediate phase, enjoying the benefits of redemption, but waiting for redemption to be complete. But why is it finished? Seems a bit premature to say that. But the reason it is finished, is because Christ has done the atoning work. All our sin in our lives – the rejection of God’s glory for other pale and imperfect reflections of glory in our idols – has been paid for. The due wrath of God has been satisfied, and is no longer on us. Understanding this has given Psalm 103:12 new heights of meaning: ‘As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.’ Jerry Bridges’ simple reflection on this verse hit me:
‘"As far as the east is from the west" is an idiom meaning an infinite distance. Someone has pointed out that, although north and south meet at the two poles, east and west never meet. You can start flying north, to the North Pole, and as soon as you pass over it, you are immediately heading south. But if you start west to circle the earth you will always be flying west. East never meets west. So to use the expression “as far as the east is from the west” means that my sins are completely wiped away. God has put them out of His mind. He remembers them no more.’ (The Blessing of Humility, 91).
It is finished. Our sin is cast to an unreachable place, remembered no more, never to be unearthed and used against us in the courtroom of heaven.
What that means for us right now
Just yesterday I read a poem penned by Hudson Taylor in his journal (‘The Missionary Call’):
‘Why do I live here?
The command of God is on me and I may not stop to play with useless things
Or gather earthly flowers,
Until my work is done and my report is given.
…
Through all the years of forever my spirit never shall repent
That work and pain once were mine below.’
It hit home for me because in the context of what I’ve been reading of his missionary journeys in China, this man never stopped working (but did regard the Sabbath, and took a weekly day of rest). He laboured for the Lord, compelled by the love of Christ, of which so many around him did not know.
Inspired by his tireless work, I felt revved up to do more – instead of reading over and over again in Matthew 9:38 to ask the Lord to send out workers into His harvest field – to actually be praying from the depths of my heart for the workers in the harvest, and to be one of those workers too. However, too often guilt stops me – and I’m sure this is the same for many of us. You feel filthy and unworthy to do any work for God – or as soon as you kind of sense your motives inching in a fishy direction, you stop and fall into this pit of despair, stop all work, and just spend your day feeling crummy. I’m sure Hudson Taylor was acutely aware of his own shortcomings, but this did not stop him. Why? Because he knew that even though he was himself unworthy, he was clothed with Christ – the righteousness that is by faith from first to last (Romans 1:11) – and Christ made him worthy.
In 1 Corinthians 15:58, after a powerful account of Christ’s work on the Cross in crushing sin and death on our behalf, Paul exhorts his readers: ‘Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always given yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain.’ This exhortation means a lot of things, but one significant point in it is ‘your labour in the Lord is not in vain’. Know this! Your labour will not be thrown in the fire just because you yourself are a wretched sinner. If you trust Christ, and His atoning work for you – His finished work on the Cross, know this! Your labour in the Lord is not in vain. Elsewhere in the Bible it is said: ‘As long as it is day, we must do the works of Him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work.’ (John 9:4). In the same vein, Paul counsels us in his letter to the Ephesians, to be wise instead of unwise, ‘redeeming the time, because the days are evil’ in the King James Version, or ‘making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil’ in the New International Version. Time is limited. The harvest is plentiful, the workers are few.
Don’t let the crummy guilt pin you down. Don’t let it bury you in that abyss of despair, so that innumerable souls around you, all over the world – your neighbour, your favourite kopitiam hawker, the interested seeker in your church – go unsaved because the Christians can’t come to terms with Christ’s finished work on the Cross. Our forgetfulness and distrust is sinful! It’s like getting impeccable treatment from your doctor and then living the rest of your healthy life unreasonably doubting your doctor’s abilities. If you know you have been healed – and truly you know that – redeem the time, make the most of every opportunity, labour in the Lord, relying every second on the finished work of Christ on the Cross. Be broken and mournful for your sin, hungering and thirsting for Christ’s righteousness, but know that you have it. Christ has done it. Now proclaim His excellencies and do the good works He destined us to do.
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And while you're here... a really beautiful verse from a hymn I read in one of Jerry Bridges' books (shout out to Lilian for this great recommendation & for lending it to me heheh <3):
'Must I be carried to the skies
On flowery beds of ease,
While others fought to win the prize,
And sailed through bloody seas?'
- Isaac Watts, 'Am I a Soldier of the Cross'
