Beyond the Altar: Living in the Fullness of Christ’s Victory

Ezekiel 37-38; Hebrews 5; Ecclesiastes 1

Over the last several weeks, namely because of my current role, I’ve been pondering the Gospel. My job is to lead an altar call twice a week. I don’t preach the message, but I give the altar call. And so, the altar call has become the most important part of my job at the moment. And because it is, I’m diving into how to preach the Gospel of salvation with utmost clarity.

I want to be clear. I have to be clear. And so, I’m trying to get more clear myself. When you have an entire message to lay out a particular truth over 45 minutes or an hour, there is time. And time allows nuance.

However, an altar call is by nature short. It’s a call to respond. If you’ve ever tried to sum up the Gospel, you know the more you try, the more impossible it can seem. The more simple you try and make something, the more complexities you become aware of.

2 Corinthians 5:
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Think of that: God making His appeal through us!

This is for all of us, whether you are in the habit of giving altar calls or not. We are all God’s living epistles. Our very lives are the message. May we all continue to get more and more clear.

Let’s look at this together from the reading today:

Hebrews 5:
7 In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. 8 Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. 9 And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, 10 being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.

A couple of things stand out to me. First of all, before we get to Jesus’ response, we need to look at how He was first rooted in His identity. Jesus didn’t become a son because of how he responded. He started out a son.

Of course, His response matters, and so does ours. Jesus learns obedience through suffering, and so do we. Through that process, He was made perfect. Certainly, the position and the process work together, but the order matters.

You and I are first positioned in the heart of God. We are sons and daughters. Not because of anything we can do or accomplish, but because of what Jesus has done and accomplished. Before we can respond, we must see we are positioned first. Our identity is secured before we ever make a move.

Make sure you know this. Make sure you believe this.

Because of this truth, because we are positioned as sons and daughters, we are called upon to respond in obedience. And as we do, as we walk through that process of learning obedience, we are transfigured to be like Him. Just like Jesus, we are being made perfect.

Depending on the stream of teaching you have been sitting under, you may have learned these truths in the wrong order. For many, they learned something like this: If you obey, then you can be a son. That one misalignment can cause quite a problem. It puts you as the central actor in your salvation. It makes the foundation of your faith something other than Christ. If you sat under this, you believe acceptance is based on your performance.

If I can, I’d like to save you some years. Make sure you’ve got the order right. Make sure that your relationship with God is rooted in the finished work of the cross. You have been accepted because of what Jesus has done for you. You are loved because you are loved. Period.

From that place, is there a call to respond? From that place, is there a command to obey? Yes! We have a role in the process, because the goal of God in our lives is to see Christ formed in us. And just as Jesus learned through obedience, so must we.

The Kingdom of God is now, and not quite yet. I refer to this dynamic as “living in the tension.” There is the finished work of Jesus and the unfinished aspect I experience as I learn how to live into that finished work. We are learning. We are sons, and yet we are becoming perfect. It’s both-and, not either-or.

And yet, when I preach the Gospel, when I have those few minutes to preach the Gospel, my message is not the process. My message is the finished work of Calvary. We are called to put our confidence in Jesus. That initial yes to Him, to seeing His ability to bridge the gap, leads me into the daily confidence I will need to trust Him in my process. The foundation of our faith must be Christ, and Christ alone.

The more I consider His accomplishment, the more sure I am that He will get me through my process.

Are you worried about how to walk through? Are you worried about how to get through the process of obedience set before you? Look up! Consider the finished work of Jesus. Remind yourself of how and where He has positioned you in His heart. You are loved. You are a son or a daughter, and nothing can change that. And because of this certainty, this security, you can keep going, trusting Him every step of the way. You will come through just fine. Just keep your eyes on Jesus. He is more than able to get you through.

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