Father, I know that I have broken your laws and my sins have separated me from you.

I am truly sorry, and now I want to turn away from my past sinful life toward you. Please forgive me, and help me avoid sinning again. I believe that your son, Jesus Christ died for my sins, was resurrected from the dead, is alive, and hears my prayer. I invite Jesus to become the Lord of my life, to rule and reign in my heart from this day forward. Please send your Holy Spirit to help me obey You, and to do Your will for the rest of my life. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen. If youre an evangelical Christian, the above is probably very familiar to you. If youre not, allow me to fill you in. What you just read is a sample of the sinners prayer, a prayer that is preached and practiced by thousands, if not millions, of Christians in America. According to these Christians, it is through prayers like these that we receive Jesus and His salvation; the sinners prayer is how a person confesses their sins, expresses their belief in Christ as Savior, and commits to following Him for the rest of their lives. The sinners prayer is popular among American Christians. It is featured in countless devotional books, portrayed in dozens of fictional works, spoken of by all kinds of preachers both local and famous. It is, in many peoples opinion, a fundamental part of Christianity, the beginnings of the Christian life, the means by which we are born again. You will seldom find something that is so basic, so powerful, so moving for American Christians. It is also one of the greatest perversions of the Gospel weve ever created. Words like these are no doubt shocking to some. For many evangelical Christians, the sinners prayer and the Gospel are almost synonymous. Allow me, then, to ask a few questions that I hope will illustrate my point. When a person is urged to pray in order to receive Christ, they are almost always told something like this: If you really meant that prayer, then youre born again. Very well. But how can I know if I meant it? How can I be sure that I was really

sincere? What if I didnt say it with enough feeling, what if I didnt mean it with all of my heart? What if I was only committing to Christ with part of me, and not with all of me? Certainly I thought I was being sincere, but how many times have I proven that my commitment and resolve are so much less than I thought? Consider also the invitation part of the prayer: I invite Jesus to be Lord of my life, to rule and reign in my heart. So if being a Christian means that I invite Jesus into my life, then that means Im not going to sin anymore, right? Or, at the very least, Im not going to sin as much as I used to. But what happens when I find that Im just as sinful now as I was before I prayed? What do I do if, in spite of all my efforts, Im still the arrogant, deceitful, lust-filled person Ive always been? Do you see the problem? Even though the sinners prayer (and devices like it) talks about forgiveness and grace, its really just preaching more Law. How so? Because it makes salvation dependent on things other than Christs death and resurrection: namely, on whether or not Im sincere enough and whether Ive invited Jesus into my heart. In other words, the sinners prayer conditions our salvation upon whether or not we make certain internal changes. And in the long run, this sort of thing can only lead to salvation by works, salvation by way of having a pure enough heart and a clean enough conscience. Over against this is the real, biblical Gospel: that we are forgiven and saved, not by the inward changes we make, but by the external work that Jesus has done for us. Evangelical Christians often say that God will forgive you if you have faith in Jesus. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Rather, we have been forgiven because of Jesus; God forgave each and every one of us the moment that Christ died, even before we repented or believed. It is finished! (John 19:30); When we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son (Romans 5:10); God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing

their trespasses to them (2 Corinthians 5:19). Of course, this raises the question of how faith comes into play. Simply put: faith receives the promises of God. This does not mean that faith is a condition of salvation; rather, faith accepts the salvation that already exists. I realize that this sort of speech can be very abstract and theoretical. Let me try and make things a bit more concrete. Imagine that you could condense the Gospel message into a declaration. What would that declaration be? According to theology based on the sinners prayer, it would be something like this: If you sincerely believe in Jesus Christ, and commit to following Him as Lord, your sins will be forgiven. The biblical Gospel, however, goes a little something like this: Because of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven, reconciled to God, and made His sons and heirs to the Kingdom of Heaven. Believe this. What we have to realize is that things such as Christs presence in our hearts, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and the power to live a new life, are not part of the Gospel they are the result of the Gospel. We are not saved because we commit to following Jesus; we commit to following Jesus because we are saved. We are not forgiven because Christ lives in us; Christ lives in us because we are forgiven. When it comes to the Gospel, when it comes to life and salvation, the only thing that matters is Christ outside us, Christ according to the work that He has already done on our behalf. This is why the means of grace (the Word, Baptism, and the Lords Supper) are so important. They are the means by which God gives us the salvation that Christ has won for us. They are the pipelines that take grace from the cross of Christ to the souls of sinners. And notice this they are external. The power of Word and Sacrament does not depend on my faith.

Granted, my faith is what receives their benefits namely, life and salvation. But life and salvation is there in them regardless of whether I believe. I forgive you your sins in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit this is true, no matter my opinions about it. I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit this is true, no matter my feelings concerning it. This is my body, which is given for you; this is my blood, which is shed for you this is true, no matter the strength or sincerity of my faith. The outside Gospel is a breath of fresh, clean air for the Christian. If your salvation depended on your own sincerity, how could you ever be sure of it? If the forgiveness of your sins depended on your own devotion to God, how could you ever believe it? Either you would realize that you arent sincere, that you arent devoted, and thus you would despair; or else you would think the opposite and become conceited and self-righteous. Only the Gospel can comfort us in our doubts and cure us of our delusions. Instead of anxiously wondering if we really meant what we prayed, we can point to a promise of Scripture and say, Look; God means what He has said. My faith may be weak and my heart may be deceitful, but God is always true, and He has promised me that Im forgiven. Instead of desperately asking if weve truly given our hearts to Jesus, we can point to our Baptism and say, Look; here in these waters God told me what He thinks of me in His heart. My devotion may be small and mixed with sin, but Christ has claimed me as His own, and that cannot be shaken. Instead of forever trying to make sure that weve given ourselves to God, we can point to Communion and say, Look; here, Christ has given Himself to me. My commitment is paltry and withers every day, but His is unyielding and eternal. Thus the Gospel really is what it claims to be the power of God for salvation, the message that heals the sick, bandages the wounded, and raises the dead. May the news of the

Gospel assure you of Gods grace, strengthen your faith, and lead you to walk in His ways with gratitude because of the full, complete salvation He has given you.