OnWatch

Australian Marketplace Connections Inc.

Saint or Sinner in the Marketplace?

Bulletin 2007-03

 

How do you identify yourself in the marketplace: saint or sinner? This is a very important question because what you believe about yourself will determine how you react in daily circumstances. Your resulting behaviour will then define the credibility of your Christian witness in your sphere of influence.

 

Now every Christian is a witness. The only question is this: are you a good or a bad one? The purpose of this article is to encourage every believer to keep on growing into great ambassadors of the Kingdom of God in the their daily occupation.

 

To do this we need to understand our identity correctly.

• so who do you believe you are you in Christ,

• saint or sinner?

Perhaps you respond to this question in a measured way as an expression of your humility before God, readily acknowledging that it is all too easy to fall below the standard of grace to which we are called.

 

On the other hand you are grieved by sin in the world and you don't want to identify with the following description of the wicked in Psalm 36:1-2

"concerning the sinfulness of the wicked:
There is no fear of God before his eyes.
For in his own eyes he flatters himself
too much to detect or hate his sin."

Well there's an insight...

• do I hate sin?

• am I able to detect it in my own life?

• do I excuse it?

Do I excuse self-centred focus, unforgiveness, pride, injustice, failure to make apology, abuse of others, anger, ethical compromises, jealousy, impurity and so on?  After all 'we're all fallen creatures and we will sin until the day we die'... right?

 

Is that it then? If you call yourself a sinner is this the foundational theology you are going to take with you into the marketplace on a daily basis? Is this your default theology of life?

 

Well what kind of fruit do you think this kind of thinking is going to produce?

 

No way! This kind of negative, un-biblical, defeatist, self-deprecating, deceptive attitude does not honour the work of Jesus dying on the Cross to give you new life. Jesus overcame death to make you his friend and an integral part of his work of reconciling all things to himself.

 

The good news is we are called to be saints in the marketplace. Our identity is no longer that of "sinner" because we have been recreated into something new! We have a new identity because we are a new person in Christ.

 

We have to own this as an integral part of our faith or we will never grow up into our calling to be an ambassador of the Kingdom of God in our respective sphere of influence (2 Cor 5:20). If too many Christians fail to realise their calling, then our common faith will continue to shrivel to the detriment of the nation.

 

 

THIS IS THE BIGGEST ISSUE FACING OUR NATION TODAY!

What's happening in our country today is happening on our watch!

 

 

Os Guinness, leading Christian apologist, asks this question: "why has the West abandoned its Judeo-Christian roots?" (click here for more info on Os Guinness).

 

How would you answer this question?
Take a moment of reflection before going on.

 

In a nutshell Os answers this way: The separation of "belief from behaviour" has all to often resulted in daily behaviour that discredits Jesus. In the West we have often accomplished this by dividing Sunday from Monday, sacred from secular, physical from spiritual and church from work. From this understanding we can ask:

If we are to bring a transforming influence to our culture then we need to be saints in the marketplace who do not settle for a sinners identity. Why? because we become who we believe we are!

 

So who does the Bible say we are in Christ?

 

Which column describes you?
Therefore who are you in Christ?
If you need to be in the first column click here.

 

The Bible teaches us to change our thinking about ourselves. We are to own our new identity in Christ as God's adopted children. We are to think of ourselves as his saints at all times, in all places and in all ways - especially in the marketplace where working people spend some 67% of their waking time Monday to Friday among not-yet-Christians.

 

"You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness."
(Eph 4:22-24).

 

Who then does God say you are?
Who do you say you are?

Jesus has called us to be incarnational in the world - ie: he wants to reproduce himself in us. We are his body and part of his plan to reconcile all things in the world to himself (John 17:18 and Col 1:20).

 

Well OK, if that's the truth,

• how is it that as a new person in Christ I can still sin?

• do I have to be perfect to be a witness?

How would you answer these questions?

 

We are not talking about "sinless perfectionism" here. However from the beginning of Genesis men and women have been called into battle in a war between good and evil - and God has called us to work with him for the good (Gen 1:28).

 

As a sinner you were doomed to failure in this war. You had no hope of victory in your own strength. Your natural end was failure, death and destruction. This is the outcome of the story of Gen 2 and 3.

 

As a saint (a new person in Christ) we are partakers of the victory of the Cross and our discipleship is progressively teaching us how to walk in this victory. The process of maturation in this battle is called sanctification (1 Thess 5:22-24).

 

If we fail from time to time other people will usually respond to our undergirding Christian character. In this way our lives are intended to be a window into the likeness of Christ expressed through humility, love and faithfulness. It is the evidence of these values that conveys who we are in Christ (2 Cor 3:3).

 

In summary:

• If a sinner sins, it's because that's who they are

• but for the Christian that's who you were, not who you now are.
   

• If a Christian sins it's deviation away from who you are in Christ, and

• repentance is the way of return back to our normal place of being in Christ.

Listen to the wonderful good news from the scriptures (NIV):

I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh (Gal 5:16).

And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires (Gal 5:24).

How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? (Rom 6:2).

knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him (Rom 6:6-8)

His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust (2 Peter 1:3-4).

No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it (1 Cor 10:13).

Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires (2 Peter 1:4)

My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous (1 John 2:1)

 

Therefore to be a great ambassador for the Kingdom of God in the marketplace we are called to rise to who we are - not fall back to who we were.

 

Blessings to you in Jesus name,

 

Peter

 

OnWatch

 

 

 

Your Occupation is Your Mission