Month: September 2013

Gospel Community Sanctification

/ adamrenken / Leave a comment
Over the years I’ve spent enough time in small group settings to see a pattern that is worth addressing.  Most people understand why they are counted righteous before God, their justification.  Most understand rightly that they are justified by grace through faith in Jesus.  His perfect righteousness
Any time I use a Christian-ese word, I want to break that down for everyone.  Sanctification, is God’s work of progressively conforming a Christian into the image of Himself, into the image of Christ.  This entails primarily a change of heart, a disdain for sin and a love for God and His Kingdom.  You’ll notice what is omitted here – any mention of life change, behavior change, etc.  This is because while those things should flow from a changed heart, the opposite is not necessarily true.  Meaning if you are being made into the image of God, your life will show evidence of that, but just because your life shows evidence of change, does not mean that is of God or that you are truly being sanctified.  This may sound harsh, but our goal is not to have everyone like us, but to encourage people in the knowledge of God and His Word towards salvific Truth.
Over the years I’ve sat in a group of Christian guys many times where they talk about how they need greater accountability in their lives.  Some simply make the statement that they need more “accountability”, while others actually open up and discuss a list of sinful actions they should stop to a list of “good” actions they should be more obedient in.  This of course has the appearance of great Christian stuff.  The desire to kill sin or to have a greater level of obedience in their life are both good things, very good things actually.  My concern is for how these Christians are seeking to pursue this greater level of righteousness.  Usually they talk about what they personally need to do, but very seldom do they say anything about pursuing this sanctification in community.  They will talk about modifying behavior, but will seldom speak of the knowledge of God and the pursuit of joy in Him as the means of accomplishing their sanctification.  So my burden today is to press God’s desire for sanctification to occur within a community of believers instead of individually and also how God accomplishes this sanctification.

1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 – “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God”
 
What is interesting about this passage from Thessalonians is not so much what is says, as how it says it.  We all know that God desires our sexual purity, but the root expectation that Christians are to abstain from sexual immorality is because they know God.  God cares as much about how you pursue righteousness as the level of “obedience” or “righteousness” you seemingly achieve.
1 Corinthians 13:1-3 – “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”
So there is a “love” that is infinitely important when pursuing obedience to the Lord.  What love might God have in mind?  Jesus tells us when he answers the question “what is the great commandment of the law?” in Matthew 22:35-37 – “And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the great and first commandment.”
 
We are called to pursue this love and the good works that flow from it in community that is rooted in a shared faith in the gospel.  Hebrews 10:19-25 – “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.  Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
The exhortation to continually meet together to stir one another up to love and good works is precipitated by a shared “confession of hope” which is the good news of our reconciliation to God through the atoning death of Jesus for our sin, and His victorious resurrection.
2 Corinthians 3:12-18 – “Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end. But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day whenever Moses is read a veil lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”

Reconnecting with the Gospel pt. 51 – Deconstructing “truth” for Everlasting Joy

/ adamrenken / Leave a comment

Some of you have noted my lack of writing of late.  These messages press on me, as I hope they do you.  I’ve taught long enough to know what is coming – Romans 9 will be a cause for some to unveil the glory of God and result in exceeding joy in praise to His sovereignty in all things.  Romans 9 will be a cause for some to reject truth and perhaps walk away from their faith altogether.  So as I’m working through the upcoming message, I want to plead for God’s grace to us all that the messages to come in Romans 9, 10, and 11 would result not in some shrinking back from God, but finding peace and joy in His sovereignty over all things.

There are many ways to find joy in life, not all of them are good or lasting.  There are many ways to manufacture emotion towards God, not all of them are good or lasting.  Lasting joy is only found in Truth.  My hope is that the wellspring for our joy in God would be infinite, unleashed and grounded in the never-changing Truth from the Word of God.  I say this because everything in our culture tells us that we are the center of the universe.  It is the “truth” that has been pressed into us from as long as we can remember.  It is the root of sin to believe that we are greater than God and should be regarded as such, yet many Christians harbor one last piece of pride against God, that God is contingent upon them, instead of their being contingent upon God.  No one has to be “taught” to believe that their will, their “free will”, is ultimately self-determining.  They believe that because it appeals to their nature.  Mind you, this kind of “free will” that is autonomous and ultimately self-determining is found nowhere in the Bible, not a single verse.  We have a will, that is without dispute, but why we will, what we will is governed by an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving God who will not submit His good purpose for His glory for anything, let alone the whims of sinful man.
That message was once extremely offending to me personally.  I was confronted with this doctrine by a teacher about 10 years ago.  At the time, I was discouraged because this was a man I had looked up to, I trusted, and now he was telling me things about God that disturbed me a great deal.  I thought he was crazy.  I spent the next months reading my Bible searching for ways to prove that what he was saying about God was wrong, and in the end I was undone by Romans 9.  It was the nail in the coffin to my desire for “free will” as most define it, but it was also the beginning of a love of God for who He is, and His supremacy in all things.  Why do I share all this?  2 reasons.  First is that for those of you who have an initial negative reaction to what I’m going to share, I want you to know that’s ok – but don’t allow your personal views to be the arbiter of Truth – trust the Word of God as Truth and search the scriptures as I did to settle the matter for yourself.  Second, because I want you to know that doctrine by itself is pointless.  We do not press new truths of God into our heart and mind just so we can be “right” in an intellectual debate amongst Christians – the very thought of that disgusts me and churns my stomach to think of it.  We know and hold fast to our doctrine because it is the root of true, everlasting joy in God.  We endeavor to know God for the joy that comes with Him.  We hold doctrine because it dictates how we live our lives – your peace in life, how you engage a fallen world day to day will be governed by your view of God, and specifically the joy that you find in Him.
So before I go into Romans 9, which will last a number of weeks, followed by Romans 10, and 11, which will last a number of more weeks, I want to share three passages that helped guide my understanding of what is written in Romans 9.  The first is Proverbs 16 (the entire chapter, but spefically 16:9) – “The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps” This is about as clear as you can be, that a man wills, but the Lord is sovereign over what happens in a way that what comes about is the will of God.  The second was the exchange between Joseph who had been sold into slavery by his brothers, and those same brothers who feared Joseph and God’s wrath for their wrongdoing.  Genesis 50:19-20 – “But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God?  As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”  This one was difficult for me at first – it is saying that God desired sin on the part of Joseph’s brothers, brought it about, but yet God was good, because His purpose in everything was for good.  In the story, for the provision of food (life) for Israel, but metaphorical as a picture of God’s purpose for salvation for His people.  So the brothers willed something, selling Joseph into slavery because of their jealousy, but they willed that something because God desired it to be for His purpose.  Finally, as a  good baptist kid growing up, I was familiar with Philippians 2:12 – which says “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”  No problem there, it’s telling me I should seek obedience to God.. the problem is the next verse which says “for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work according to His good pleasure.”  I didn’t remember hearing many sermons on that part… My willing was God at work in me to will and work, according to His good pleasure.
So all of these and other verses weighed in my mind as I came into Romans 9.  These verses have now been commended to you as well.  The rest of my time in Romans 9, 10, and 11, I will not make any concessions on the Truth of God to make it more “palatable”.  Each of us must wrestle with the Truth that comes, knowing that God is greater, that in all things He is good, and the joy to be found is infinite, eternal joy.  I will cover a great many questions that accompany God’s sovereignty and faithfulness over the coming weeks, but we would never reach Romans 12 if I sought to answer them all.  My prayer is that God gives us all soft hearts, ready for the Molder to grow us in the knowledge of the Truth, and that He would continue to do so for years to come.  My exhortation and expectation is the same as the author of Hebrews 10:37-39 which says, “For in just a little while, he who is coming (Jesus) will come and will not delay; but my righteous one will live by faith.  And I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back.”  But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.”  We will not shrink back, but will press forward together in the coming weeks and months, entrusting ourselves to our God and the Holy Spirit that will guide us into all Truth.
Grace and Peace,
Adam