Sanctification
Hello and welcome to Grace Outpost. This morning I want to consider a question
together. Does God meet us where we are
and how do we get to a life worthy of Christ?
This can dig into uncomfortable places for some of us. Some of us have grown up in the Church and
know the expectation of pursuing righteousness as a believer, while some of us
came to Christ later in life, and some of you may not yet be believers. Each of these backgrounds will affect how we
view Church and how we interact with other believers.
When I became a Christian in high school I was not from a
Christian home, I had not heard the Gospel and had no idea of what God’s
expectation for righteousness was. I
listened to heavy metal music, I dyed my hair a different color every week, and
I dressed in tattered jeans and tank tops with combat boots. I swore, I was crude, and I was often
inappropriate. When I heard the Gospel
and accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior I was on fire for God. However, the first thing I remember from
joining the Church service for the first time instead of just youth group, was
the expectations that were immediately present confronting me.
Mark
2:13-17 shares the story of Jesus dining with Levi and other tax
collectors. These were men that were
despised by the religious leaders; they would never be associated with these
people, yet Jesus did. When the
Pharisees, the religious elite, confronted Jesus for associating with such
people, Jesus replies in verse 17 “…Those who are well
have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but
sinners.” (ESV)
I came not to the righteous, but
sinners. Jesus comes to sinners, in the
midst of their life, in their sin.
In
Romans 5:8, Paul tells us that God shows his love for us through Christ dying
for our sin, while we were still sinners.
While we were still enemies, Jesus died for us. So we see that Jesus meets us where we are at
in life. Paul reminds us that we are all
sinners, that none are righteous and we all miss the mark (Romans 3:23).
Perhaps
the most well known Scripture to everyone is John 3:16 “For
God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him
should not perish but have eternal life.” Let’s continue on in verse 17 “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the
world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
So
what now, Jesus meets us where we are and brings us into new life through Him,
but what do we do? I would suggest that
when we ask what do we do now, we have a small view of the Gospel. We cannot earn salvation, nor can we change
our hearts, God changes our hearts. So
the “what now” is to die to ourselves.
For those raised in the Church, their life probably reflected those
within the Church already, but what of those who were not a part of Church
culture.
Do
we instantly become a person living a life worthy of Christ? Is that something that we can obtain? I can speak from my own life that for me it
has not been an instant change in my behaviors and there are still things that
I wrestle with. However, I was set free
from the slavery of sin and God began changing my heart that very day I became
a Christian. One thing that we need to
keep in mind is that our actions or behaviors are symptoms of our heart. Jesus said in Matthew 12:34 that out of the
overflow, or abundance of the heart our mouth speaks, or in Luke 6:45 he tells
us that this is true of the good and the bad person. Therefore our heart is the target and only
God can change our hearts of stone. In
Ezekiel 36:26 God promises to give us a new heart and a new spirit that He will
put in us.
So
becoming a Christian and receiving the Holy Spirit into one’s heart begins this
process of sanctification in our lives, which is just a fancy way of saying
that we are becoming more like Jesus. It
is by God’s hand that we experience this change; by the power of the Spirit we
are able to resist sin and temptation.
In Philippians 1:6, Paul tells them that he is sure that God will
complete the good work that he began in them, in other words throughout our
life God will be changing our heart and drawing us to be more like him, as long
as we are willing to die to ourselves.
Paul
reminds us in Romans 6 that we cannot continue in sin, we are to strive for
righteousness, which will prime our lives for the sanctification process
(Romans 6:19). As we strive for
obedience in our lives we will see God work through our obedience in us. Obedience flows from our love of Jesus, which
comes from our heart. Obedience without
being motivated by love will not be sustained.
So
now you are saying, okay so what was the problem with being confronted with
your sinful-self walking in the door of the Church as a new believer? Here it is, the heart of the confrontation
was the issue. There was no allowance
for the Holy Spirit to convict and work on my heart; the focus was merely on
the symptoms. It was done with kindness
and love, but for the reasons of making my actions conform to church culture,
rather than discipling me through my heart being converted and changed.
We
need to remember where we were when Jesus met us in our life. We were sinners and that day He began the
good work in us. As I look back over my
life I see how God has changed me into a completely new person, but it was
through the conversion of my heart rather than correction of my exterior
actions. I hope ten years from now I
will say the same thing again and that I am further down the road of being more
like Jesus. I have been blessed with
wise men of God in my life that confront me at my heart and walk alongside of
me as God works on my heart. No one can
deny that we are called to confront one another as believers, but we must do so
in a way that is loving and wise, speaking to the cause rather than the
symptom. We need to be willing to let
people walk through the process, remembering that the sick need the
doctor. We are all sinners, in need of Jesus,
as much today as the day we first believed, we have not outgrown the
Gospel. We need to be a place where
people can hear the great news of Jesus and accept new believers into the fold
without forcing the symptoms to be our focus, but rather waling alongside of
them as their heart is converted.
“Father,
I thank you so much for the Gospel, for the sacrifice of Jesus and inviting us
to relationship with you. God I ask that
you help each of us confront our own hearts and to give us wisdom and
compassion in how we interact with your children. Help us to walk alongside of each other and encourage
one another. Father reach into our lives
and clear out the junk from our hearts, give us clean hearts full of mercy and
love. Lastly, we thank you that have
promised to complete this journey of becoming like you. It is in Jesus’ glorious name we pray. Amen.”