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This is a follow up to my previous post Church/Law/Religion?

How are we supposed to live the Christian life? Do we just get to keep on sinning since God’s grace will cover it all? Or, are we actually supposed to do that which Jesus commands? If so, how? How do those who have already believed the Gospel live in light of it?

The process of sanctification is a long one for most of us, and I certainly have not reached some higher plane of perfection, but I have learned a few things and I’ll try to explain those few things.

The very first thing we need to do is recognize that God’s ability to use us to glorify himself is not dependent upon our obedience to his moral will. God shapes all things to his purposes and is so incredible that he is able to take our sin and even work that for his glory. If we had never sinned we would have never known of God’s amazing mercy and grace. A quick survey of the Old Testament will reveal many people who God used to accomplish his purposes, despite the fact that they were exceedingly unfaithful. To name but a few examples: Jacob, Joseph’s brothers, Pharaoh, Balaam, Samson, Gideon, Saul, The Assyrians, The Babylonians (particularly Nebuchadnezzar) and Satan. God uses sinners. I make this point, because some people may feel like they can’t be of service to God if they struggle with habitual or reoccurring sins. Some pastors will teach that the Spirit wants to work through you, but he just can’t if you’ve got sin in your life. This just isn’t true.

“What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” Paul asks (Rom 6:1-2). Unfortunately, though we are indeed free from the power of sin we are like prison inmates who have spent our lives locked up and when we get out we don’t know how to live as free people. We are institutionalized. It’s not our bodies that are imprisoned, but our minds (thoughts, emotions, habits, desires) which still think we are under the control of sin. Which is why we are admonished by Paul not to “conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Rom 12:2). But, how?

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in life is that I’m a person who sins a lot. Now really, according to the standards of this world I’m a pretty moral human and I have been most of my life. I could list a few of my accomplishments, but I really have no desire to boast and even this hint at its possibility is sick, because really I have nothing to boast about. Despite my record of appearing to be a star Christian, I have done many things that I am ashamed of. And, now I thank God for those things (though I still regret them), but I thank God that he allowed me to struggle with particular habitual sins, because those sins kept me from being engulfed by my self-righteousness. They kept me from becoming like the Pharisees whom Jesus berated for being “white washed tombs” (Matt 23:27) – looking good on the outside but rotten on the inside. If God had allowed me to overcome my more obvious sin when I was younger it would have only feed my more (at least to me) less obvious sin. I need to learn that all my sins are wretched, not just the ones I don’t like.

One of the biggest processes of Sanctification involves God showing us that we have deep-rooted and culturally acceptable sins that we are blind to. God refuses to be a tool which we can use just to modify our behavior so that we can feel good about ourselves and remain in our own smug self-righteousness. His main concern is not our outward appearance. He promises to change our heart, and he will let us struggle with sin until we learn that we can’t be good in ourselves and that “apart from [Jesus we] can do nothing” (John 15:5). God doesn’t need us to reach some particular level of goodness, before he can take over and finish the job. He doesn’t need our works. And he is not impressed by self-righteousness, or moralism. I can’t say that enough. God doesn’t care what we do if it is not done in faith. So the proud, boastful, self-righteous pastor is sinning just as much as the guy who’s sleeping with his girlfriend. In fact the guy sleeping with his girlfriend may be closer to where God wants him to be, because he is more likely to actually recognize that he has a problem. There is a reason why Jesus attracted prostitutes, party monsters, and tax collectors (who were considered traitors), but the religious leaders rejected him.

I don’t mean to say that our actions don’t have consequences. They hurt us, they hurt others, they hurt God’s creation and they grieve God. And, it’s pretty hard for a person to have a healthy relationship with God when that person is consciously disobeying God by doing something they know is sin. Some of the damage and destruction some people do is more obvious than others. Yet, I’m sure we can all agree that self-righteous religious people have done possibly as much damage as the “godless heathens”.

Our actions have temporal effects. However, God does not judge us based upon our actions, or their effects, he judges us based upon our loves. Do we love him, do we love others, do we love ourselves, do we love false gods? Another way to say this is that he judges us based upon our motivations and desires. And this is the really important bit: those who are covered by the righteousness of Jesus are ultimately judged based upon his righteousness not their own. God sees none of their failings; he only sees the goodness of his son which covers our shame. More than that – not just in the end, but today – those who are in union with Jesus are declared righteous and good. Though on this temporal plain we have a ways to go to reach maturity, God never loses sight of the work he has already completed.

A good way to think of this comes from a writer named George MacDonald (I don’t know the exact reference, or quote so I will paraphrase) – God is a Father who is not satisfied, but always pleased. This means that God will not be satisfied until he has completed our full and total redemption and glorification (glorification is the future and final work of God upon Christians, where he transforms our mortal physical bodies to the eternal physical bodies in which we will dwell forever), but he is always pleased with us in whatever phase of the process we are in. Just like a father is overwhelmingly pleased with his little baby, but will not be satisfied until that baby grows into full maturity. I love to hear my little Cosette talk in her little toddler voice (usually through a pacifier), but I would not be satisfied if she never progressed past this particular stage in her development. And what about those children who will never progress into normal adulthood, because of a disability, does a good parent love them less? Certainly not, they bear with their child’s weakness, because they love them. How much more does our Father God bear our weakness? This is how we should think of God; a father who delights in those who are his children.

Our sins can’t stop God from loving us. We don’t have to do any sort of penance to win his approval again after we have sinned. There’s no requisite time period in which we must prove our obedience to him, before he decides he’s pleased with us again and starts to bless us once more. He is like the father of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-31) who at the moment he sees us returning runs to greet us with open arms. More than that, he comes to look for us and draws us back. God disciplines his children (Heb 12), because he loves us and wants to shape us into children who are perfect reflections of his goodness. The biggest task he undertakes to ensure such a result is the task of changing our heart; changing our actions is a side effect.

God is not interested in behavior modification unless it is the result of a heart change. And that’s what he has accomplished through Jesus. We have died to sin and we are now made alive in Jesus. We are new creations. Our identities have been changed. We have been transplanted – being cut off from roots which can only bear bad fruit and being attached to Jesus who produces good fruit through us (John 15). The only way to abide in Jesus, which means to rely upon him, is to stop relying upon one’s self; stop relying upon rules, or guidelines; stop relying upon a system; stop trying to use God as a tool; instead start relying upon the person of Jesus letting his Spirit flow through you to produce the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23). We are promised that when we “walk by the Spirit, [we] will not carry out the desire of the flesh” (Gal 5:16). So how do we do this?

First we stop focusing on ourselves, our achievements, our performance. We stop focusing upon our fulfillment of the law. Instead we focus upon God and his love for us. We stop reading the Bible to find tips and tricks for better living. We study the Bible to find God and know his story. When we truly begin to understand how great and good God’s love for us is we will start to truly love God. When we become enthralled by the love God has given us we will desire God – “we love, because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). It is only when we stop focusing upon our performance, which is intrinsically self-centered, and instead turn our focus upon God that we can walk by the Spirit.

If we are in union with Jesus then God has declared that we are righteous. He has clothed us with righteousness and he sees us as good because he sees Jesus when he looks at us. We have been credited with Jesus’ perfect record of obedience to God’s standard of goodness. We do not have to do anything more; it is finished. When we realize this we will obey God’s commands – not because we are working really hard at it, not because we have a good accountability partner, not because of self-will, not because we’ve disciplined ourselves (that’s all outward focused) – but because we love God and we are no longer operating out of self-centered idolatrous self-righteous self-love. We will obey God, because we actually love him (1 John 5:2). As we rely upon the Spirit our desires will change, we will no longer even need the Law to guide us (Gal 3:19-29, 5:18), because we will love God and will fulfill the law of love as a natural side effect of who God has made us.

Too often when I sin I feel bad, not because I have hurt the one I love, but because I have hurt my own sense of pride. I have acted in a way contrary to my high opinion of my own goodness. This is plain self-righteousness. Too often when I sin I feel bad, because I think now I won’t earn the earthly blessing I was hoping to manipulate God into giving me based upon some works righteousness contract I think I have with him. It’s only after I overcome all the sins I’m concerned with that God will finally give me my very own megachurch. Of course this just isn’t true and anyone who thinks the success (measured in worldly terms) of their work, or ministry is based upon their own obedience to God’s Law is deluded. I can’t obey God as long as I’m still operating under such delusions.

So, if we want to know what we must do to please God, we are asking the wrong question. The right question is, “how do I throw myself into the love of God”? We need to get our eyes off ourselves and our own performance and get them on God and his performance. We need to stop trying to make ourselves love God and learn how he loved us (past tense as in it’s already been done). We need to stop trying to use God as a tool to make ourselves a person we are proud of and look at what Jesus our savior has done for us. This is not a one-time act; it is the pursuance of a relationship. It is active and regular, sometimes requiring a moment to moment conscious effort. This may sound simple, but it is not necessarily easy, because it does require activity. But, our activity is to rest in God’s love. We need to hear the Gospel every time we gather with our church. We need to hear that we are loved and forgiven, hear that we are children who please God because we have received Jesus record of pleasing God. We need to tell ourselves the Gospel every day, especially when we sin. Repent (which means to change your mind about what you did and agree with God that it is sin), but then leave that sin behind, don’t dwell on it, don’t identify yourself with it, throw yourself into the loving arms of your Father God. Trust in “Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world” (John 2:1-2).

This is what we do. This is how we live in light of the Gospel. We stop trying to live under the law. As we come to understand God’s love for us we will seek to serve him, not out of obligation (Jesus fulfilled the obligations of the law), not to seek rewards, or approval (these have already been given) but out of gratitude and love.

We can never hope to love God, or our neighbors out of a sense of guilt, shame, anger, or pride. Don’t go to a church, or submit to a pastor who tries to make you do so. Seek out a church which upholds God’s standard of goodness and the holiness of God, and therefore recognizes their inability in themselves to attain such a standard, but instead fully relies upon the work of Jesus and the Spirit to save, sanctify, and glorify them. And who, as a result, regularly proclaims how Jesus has loved us; a loving Father God who pours out love, forgiveness, and grace upon his enemies, reconciling them through his Son and making them his children; a Spirit who transforms us from the inside and will not fail to complete our redemption despite what we may look like on the outside.