Our life begins and ends with Christ alone. There are no substitutions for such news. In our library, we have a wonderful book called Jesus + Nothing = Everything by Tullian Tchividjian. If you are part of Hazel Run Lutheran, you are welcome to check out the book from the library. If not, you can click on the title of the book to order from Amazon. I highly recommend the book.
What the Gospel of Christ does is give us Christ, and that is enough. - Philip Cary
The Gospel is radical and gives you a promise that you cannot understand and you want to deny. We want to deny such logic because we have been separated from God's will. We can no longer do God's will (Genesis 3 NRSV) after the fall. Our vision of righteousness is skewed.
Christ rebirths us from a reality that is skewed and obscured. Everything that we know is disillusioned by our sinful nature and fall from God's will. We are spiritually blind and spiritually dead because of the weakness of the flesh.
When we are separated from God's will, our purpose and meaning are blurred and veiled because of our distrust and hate for the redeeming words of Christ which stands alone and triumphantly against the silhouette and darkness of death.
The darkness swallows up any wisdom and blurs our purpose keeping us in the dark from hearing any word from God. Our skewed vision is to keep relying on our own progress (2 Corinthians 3:14 ESV).
When we lose sight of this purpose, there is only darkness and no real understanding of life. Life is meaningless, empty, futile, and death is the very end of our life - also known as nihilism. Nihilism is the rejection of all religious and moral principles, in the belief that life is meaningless. So what is left with the absence of Christ? The struggle to create utopia through the destruction of all material until utopia is accomplished.
That is until the light comes into the darkness to overcome and destroy this darkness (John 1). The light that comes in the dark makes the darkness flee and clears our vision. Our purpose becomes unified in Christ alone.
For each of us, the "everything" that Jesus can represent is our lives is always linked, directly and inescapably, to our most basic need - a rescuer to free us from our slavery to sin, from our bondage to self-reliance, and from the burden of our idols. It's a need we never grow out of. --- Jesus + Nothing = Everything Tullian Tchividjian
In fact, the Heidelberg Catechism states the following.
Question: How are you righteous before God? Answer: Only by true faith in Jesus Christ. In spite of the fact that my conscience accuses me that I have grievously sinned against all the commandments of God, and have not kept any one of them, and that I am still ever prone to all that is evil, nevertheless, God, without any merit of my own, out of pure grace, grants me the benefits of the perfect expiation of Christ, imputing to me his righteousness and holiness as if I had never committed a single sin or had ever been sinful, having fulfilled myself all the obedience which Christ has carried out for me, if only I accept such favor with a trusting heart.
Because of our lack of trust after the fall, there is simply one promise that we can rely on. That is a promise that is clear and is revealed as the darkness is lifted from our eyes. The person can only enter the kingdom of God by being born again by water and the Spirit of God. Once the Words of Christ are given to the hearer, a new beginning takes shape. Our purpose (or telos - an ultimate object or aim) now aligns with God's telos. His telos is to bring you back to Him to enter the Kingdom of God. This is a new beginning.
There is but only one way, and that is Christ and the absence of our sense of righteous works. Jesus is enough. Nothing else is needed.
1 Thessalonians 5:23 ESV Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God's peace and word be with you.