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(Additional devotionals will be added as they are transcribed)
#1 Saint or Sinner? (view as word doc) (listen to audio)
#1 Saint or Sinner? (view as word doc) (listen to audio)
#2 Who Am I? Why Am I Here? (view as Word doc) (listen to audio)
#3 Our Freedom In Christ (view as Word doc) (listen to audio)
#4 Does The Christian Have A Sin Nature? NO! (view as Word doc) (listen to audio)
#5 Our Victory Is A Person, Not A Program (view as Word doc) (listen to audio)
#7 The Fruit of the Vine (view as Word doc) (listen to audio)
#8 It's a WAR - Be Ready (view as Word doc) (Listen to Audio)
#1 SAINT or SINNER?
Satan wants us to see ourselves as sinners. He wants us to have a negative image of ourselves. He wants us to have negative expectations of ourselves. He wants us to see ourselves as always being "sinners saved by grace." Not people who were sinners saved by grace but people who still are sinners by nature, continually in need of God's forgiving grace because we are naturally going to continue sinning. If we do see ourselves this way, we will believe we are rotten to the core. We will believe it is a struggle for God to love us. We will believe God isn’t happy with us most of the time. We will believe that we are always going to fall far short of what God wants us to be. We will believe all this because they are the logical conclusions of being a “sinner.”
But what does God say about us? How does He see us? Sixty-seven times in the New Testament God calls us “Saints.” The Greek word translated “Saint” means “Holy One.” Does this mean that the believers in the NT were perfect or in some way better Christians than we are? Of course not! How do we know this? Look at the believers in Corinth. They were a mess. They had the vice of cliques destroying the unity of their fellowship. Some identified themselves with Paul, some with Peter, some with Apollos. Some were super spiritual and identified themselves with Jesus. Whichever group they were in, they felt they were superior to those in the other groups. In addition, there were brothers and sisters suing each another in secular law courts. They even had an immorality problem that Paul says made the Gentiles blush! And worst of all, they had some who were getting drunk and some who were being gluttonous while remembering the Lord’s Supper.
Yet, God inspires Paul to address them as “saints by calling." Here’s how Paul writes to the Corinthian church in 1 Cor. 1:2,“To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call upon of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours.” Paul addressees them – he greets them – as saints. How can this be? How can these people who are so messed up be addressed as saints, Holy Ones?
Let me illustrate it this way. A butterfly is struggling to free itself from its cocoon. A young boy comes by, sees the struggle, and wants to help. Taking out his pocket knife, he very carefully cuts the cocoon, freeing the butterfly. Eagerly the boy waits to see the beautiful butterfly spread its wings and fly off….but nothing happens. The butterfly can’t fly! Instead of helping the butterfly, the boy has damaged it. Without the struggle to free itself from its cocoon, the butterfly’s wings were not fully developed. It will never be able to fly.
But here’s the important question, is the butterfly still a butterfly, even if it can’t fly? Of course it is. It is still a butterfly because it is a butterfly by its very nature. Its actions don’t determine its nature. Its nature determines its potential actions.
And so it is with all of us who have been born again. We are saints by calling. We are saints because of the transformation of our natures that took place the very moment we acknowledged and accepted Jesus as our personal Savior. From that moment on, we were saints by nature, no matter what actions may or may not follow.
God tells us through Paul that we have become new creatures. Paul writes in 2 Cor. 5:17, “Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature. The old things have passed away. Behold, new things have come.” Notice, this new creature is anyone who is in Christ. This isn’t a description of just the “super saints.” This is the designation given to anyone who has trusted Christ as their personal Savior. If we have put our personal trust in Jesus’ death on the cross as payment for our sins, we are in Christ. This means that anyone who has accepted Jesus as their Savior is a new creature. Because we have acknowledged our sins, and trusted in Jesus’ death on the cross as payment for them, we have become saints.
The Greek word “new” means “a new kind of, something unheard of before, something unprecedented.” The word “creature” is from the noun “to make or fabricate.” Thus, the moment we acknowledge Jesus as our Savior, God not only forgives us our sins but also makes us into something totally new. We become something never in existence before. We become something unprecedented. We go from being a sinner by nature to being a saint by nature! Just like the butterfly that couldn’t fly, we are saints because of our nature, not because of our actions. In the moment of our salvation, God does something far beyond forgiving us our sins. As wonderful as forgiveness for our sins is, it is what this forgiveness makes possible that is even more important. After our sins are removed, the barrier between God and us is gone. God can now do something marvelous within us. He can remove the very source of our sins.
In describing this need Jesus says this in Mark 7:20-23: "And He was saying, 'That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man."' To put this verse in its context, we must remember that Jesus is talking with Pharisees and other religious leaders. They wanted to know why Jesus’ disciples did not follow the external cleansing rituals that had been instituted. These rituals were the means a righteous person used to be sure they were not eating in an unclean state.
Jesus’ statement affirms the truth that no external rituals or efforts can really change anyone. He knew that the source of our problem, our hearts – the essence of our nature - has to be changed if we are to ever have a chance to really change our behavior. By focusing on the heart, Jesus was bringing to mind God’s promise spoken through the prophet Ezekiel, "Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.” (36:26-28)
This is what God does at the moment of our conversion. When we accept the sacrifice Jesus made on our behalf, it is true that our sins are forgiven and that we are justified and made righteous. But then God, the Divine surgeon, performs a spiritual heart transplant within us. He takes out our heart of stone, and gives us a heart of flesh. He removes our inherited from Adam heart of being self-centered and selfish and implants a heart that is alive to Him and to others. He changes our very nature. From that moment on, we are saints. We have become new creatures. We are by nature people who desire God and seek to please Him. The Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity, comes to live within us. This Spirit Person is capable of bringing to life the new desires in our hearts to live for God and to please Him. “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you.” (Rm. 8:11) When we lose our old heart and gain our new heart, a wonderful transformation takes place. Going back to 2 Cor. 5:17, “….the old things have passed away. Behold, new things have come.”
What are these “old things” that have passed away? The word translated “old things” means “the original things, those things which existed from the beginning.” What were the original things our heart of stone possessed? As Jesus said, it possessed greed, jealousy, a propensity to lie, arrogance, a desire for immoral things, anger, sensualness, rebellion, evil desires, a propensity to gossip about others and slander them, maliciousness, envying of others, impurity of thought and action, insolence, quarreling, and drunkenness. These existed in our hearts from the beginning, but now God tells us that all these things have “passed away.” They have perished. They have died.
What are the “new things” from our new heart that have taken their place? The “new things” are: love, compassion, humility, forgiveness, sympathy, inner peace and joy, concern for others, a self-sacrificing attitude, kindness, gentleness, self-control, empathy for others, a desire to serve others, and hope. These “new things” are expressions of the very nature and character of Jesus Himself. They are expressions of the very nature and character of God.
Now you may say, “Tom, that is great in theory, but spend five minutes in my skin and you will know that those old things have not died! They are just as real in this moment of time as they were before I was born again.” Believe me, I understand what you are saying. I fight the same battles as you fight. But I ask for your patience. I will address this issue later. For now, let me say this, we all find it easy to identify with Paul in Romans 7: 15, “For that which I am doing, I do not understand. For I am not practicing what I would like to do, for I am doing the very thing I hate.” But Paul doesn’t stop there. He goes on to the victory of chapter 8, and so will we.
But first we must focus on something else in chapter 7. From the discouragement and despair of verse 15, Paul comes to the transforming understanding of verse 17, “So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which indwells me.” Paul is making a distinction between himself - this new person with a new heart, this unprecedented being – and the sin which indwells his flesh. This distinction is so important that God inspired Paul to make the same point over again in verses 19 and 20. In verse 19, Paul writes, “for the good I wish to do I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not wish.” Then in verse 20 Paul writes, “but if I am doing the very thing I do not wish, I am no longer doing it, but sin, which dwells in me.”
Now Paul is not excusing himself by saying, “I didn’t have a choice, sin made me do it!” We know this because in the previous chapter, Chapter 6, verse 16, Paul laid the foundation for his personal responsibility. There he wrote, “Do you not know that when we present ourselves to someone as slaves, we are slaves of the one we obey? Either of sin, resulting in death, or of obedience, resulting in righteousness.” Paul says he had a choice. He had a choice of who would be master over him, righteousness or sin.
But there is a distinction between him, the saint with the new heart, and the sin which indwells his flesh. He may succumb to the temptations of the flesh. He may willfully submit to the mastery of unrighteousness, but when he does, the actions that follow are not the actions of his true nature. This dichotomy exists because there is an important difference between the old heart and the new heart. The old heart was self-actuating. I t didn’t need anything but itself to produce the “old things.” The “old things” naturally flowed from the heart of stone.
The new heart is not self-actuating. It cannot, in and of itself, produce the “new things.” The new heart is like an electric motor that must be constantly connected to an outside power source if it is to function. It has all the potential to do all it was designed to do but without electricity, it lacks the power to do so. That is why Ezekiel was inspired to write that when God would give us our new heart He would also give us two new spirits. One would be a new human spirit. This spirit would desire God and want to serve Him, rather than rebel and turn away from Him like the human spirit we inherited from Adam. The other would be God’s Spirit Itself. This is the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit is the power source that brings to life the “new things” of our new hearts. As believers we are called upon to walk by the Spirit (Gal. 5:16, 25) and to be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18). When we choose to do so, our mortal flesh manifests the “new things”, the very nature of God, which the Holy Spirit brings to life through our new hearts (Rm. 8:11). When we choose to do so, we are butterflies that can fly!
If we choose not to be filled, we express the flesh patterns we formed while living out of our old heart of stone. In essence we have returned to being butterflies that can’t fly.
This moment by moment “choosing” is the foundational reality of the Christian life. All else in the Christian life flows from these moment by moment choices we make. And the key to choosing correctly is how we see ourselves. Do you believe you are a saint with a new heart and a new human spirit, indwelt by the Divine Holy Spirit who is living in you to give His life and empowerment to your new heart? Or do you believe you are a sinner who can never be anything near what God wants you to be, just hanging on until you get to heaven?? Whichever you believe to be true will be the key to your actions. You cannot consistently act contrary to how you see yourself to be.
Satan wants us to see ourselves as discouraged sinners with no expectations of ever being consistently different.
Our Father wants us to see ourselves as He made us from the moment we accepted Jesus – saints with unlimited potential.
I will discuss each of the points I have made in this devotional in more depth. But my prayer for each of us right now is that we will grasp hold of this central truth – when we accepted Jesus as our Savior our sins were completely forgiven (past, present, and future) and we became totally new creatures. We are something unheard of, something unprecedented, and something never in existence before. We are saints by nature, capable of being all that God wants us to be. No matter what our actions have been in the past, or what they might be in the future, our actions do not determine what we are. We are saints!!! Believe it. God does.
But what does God say about us? How does He see us? Sixty-seven times in the New Testament God calls us “Saints.” The Greek word translated “Saint” means “Holy One.” Does this mean that the believers in the NT were perfect or in some way better Christians than we are? Of course not! How do we know this? Look at the believers in Corinth. They were a mess. They had the vice of cliques destroying the unity of their fellowship. Some identified themselves with Paul, some with Peter, some with Apollos. Some were super spiritual and identified themselves with Jesus. Whichever group they were in, they felt they were superior to those in the other groups. In addition, there were brothers and sisters suing each another in secular law courts. They even had an immorality problem that Paul says made the Gentiles blush! And worst of all, they had some who were getting drunk and some who were being gluttonous while remembering the Lord’s Supper.
Yet, God inspires Paul to address them as “saints by calling." Here’s how Paul writes to the Corinthian church in 1 Cor. 1:2,“To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call upon of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours.” Paul addressees them – he greets them – as saints. How can this be? How can these people who are so messed up be addressed as saints, Holy Ones?
Let me illustrate it this way. A butterfly is struggling to free itself from its cocoon. A young boy comes by, sees the struggle, and wants to help. Taking out his pocket knife, he very carefully cuts the cocoon, freeing the butterfly. Eagerly the boy waits to see the beautiful butterfly spread its wings and fly off….but nothing happens. The butterfly can’t fly! Instead of helping the butterfly, the boy has damaged it. Without the struggle to free itself from its cocoon, the butterfly’s wings were not fully developed. It will never be able to fly.
But here’s the important question, is the butterfly still a butterfly, even if it can’t fly? Of course it is. It is still a butterfly because it is a butterfly by its very nature. Its actions don’t determine its nature. Its nature determines its potential actions.
And so it is with all of us who have been born again. We are saints by calling. We are saints because of the transformation of our natures that took place the very moment we acknowledged and accepted Jesus as our personal Savior. From that moment on, we were saints by nature, no matter what actions may or may not follow.
God tells us through Paul that we have become new creatures. Paul writes in 2 Cor. 5:17, “Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature. The old things have passed away. Behold, new things have come.” Notice, this new creature is anyone who is in Christ. This isn’t a description of just the “super saints.” This is the designation given to anyone who has trusted Christ as their personal Savior. If we have put our personal trust in Jesus’ death on the cross as payment for our sins, we are in Christ. This means that anyone who has accepted Jesus as their Savior is a new creature. Because we have acknowledged our sins, and trusted in Jesus’ death on the cross as payment for them, we have become saints.
The Greek word “new” means “a new kind of, something unheard of before, something unprecedented.” The word “creature” is from the noun “to make or fabricate.” Thus, the moment we acknowledge Jesus as our Savior, God not only forgives us our sins but also makes us into something totally new. We become something never in existence before. We become something unprecedented. We go from being a sinner by nature to being a saint by nature! Just like the butterfly that couldn’t fly, we are saints because of our nature, not because of our actions. In the moment of our salvation, God does something far beyond forgiving us our sins. As wonderful as forgiveness for our sins is, it is what this forgiveness makes possible that is even more important. After our sins are removed, the barrier between God and us is gone. God can now do something marvelous within us. He can remove the very source of our sins.
In describing this need Jesus says this in Mark 7:20-23: "And He was saying, 'That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man."' To put this verse in its context, we must remember that Jesus is talking with Pharisees and other religious leaders. They wanted to know why Jesus’ disciples did not follow the external cleansing rituals that had been instituted. These rituals were the means a righteous person used to be sure they were not eating in an unclean state.
Jesus’ statement affirms the truth that no external rituals or efforts can really change anyone. He knew that the source of our problem, our hearts – the essence of our nature - has to be changed if we are to ever have a chance to really change our behavior. By focusing on the heart, Jesus was bringing to mind God’s promise spoken through the prophet Ezekiel, "Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.” (36:26-28)
This is what God does at the moment of our conversion. When we accept the sacrifice Jesus made on our behalf, it is true that our sins are forgiven and that we are justified and made righteous. But then God, the Divine surgeon, performs a spiritual heart transplant within us. He takes out our heart of stone, and gives us a heart of flesh. He removes our inherited from Adam heart of being self-centered and selfish and implants a heart that is alive to Him and to others. He changes our very nature. From that moment on, we are saints. We have become new creatures. We are by nature people who desire God and seek to please Him. The Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity, comes to live within us. This Spirit Person is capable of bringing to life the new desires in our hearts to live for God and to please Him. “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you.” (Rm. 8:11) When we lose our old heart and gain our new heart, a wonderful transformation takes place. Going back to 2 Cor. 5:17, “….the old things have passed away. Behold, new things have come.”
What are these “old things” that have passed away? The word translated “old things” means “the original things, those things which existed from the beginning.” What were the original things our heart of stone possessed? As Jesus said, it possessed greed, jealousy, a propensity to lie, arrogance, a desire for immoral things, anger, sensualness, rebellion, evil desires, a propensity to gossip about others and slander them, maliciousness, envying of others, impurity of thought and action, insolence, quarreling, and drunkenness. These existed in our hearts from the beginning, but now God tells us that all these things have “passed away.” They have perished. They have died.
What are the “new things” from our new heart that have taken their place? The “new things” are: love, compassion, humility, forgiveness, sympathy, inner peace and joy, concern for others, a self-sacrificing attitude, kindness, gentleness, self-control, empathy for others, a desire to serve others, and hope. These “new things” are expressions of the very nature and character of Jesus Himself. They are expressions of the very nature and character of God.
Now you may say, “Tom, that is great in theory, but spend five minutes in my skin and you will know that those old things have not died! They are just as real in this moment of time as they were before I was born again.” Believe me, I understand what you are saying. I fight the same battles as you fight. But I ask for your patience. I will address this issue later. For now, let me say this, we all find it easy to identify with Paul in Romans 7: 15, “For that which I am doing, I do not understand. For I am not practicing what I would like to do, for I am doing the very thing I hate.” But Paul doesn’t stop there. He goes on to the victory of chapter 8, and so will we.
But first we must focus on something else in chapter 7. From the discouragement and despair of verse 15, Paul comes to the transforming understanding of verse 17, “So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which indwells me.” Paul is making a distinction between himself - this new person with a new heart, this unprecedented being – and the sin which indwells his flesh. This distinction is so important that God inspired Paul to make the same point over again in verses 19 and 20. In verse 19, Paul writes, “for the good I wish to do I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not wish.” Then in verse 20 Paul writes, “but if I am doing the very thing I do not wish, I am no longer doing it, but sin, which dwells in me.”
Now Paul is not excusing himself by saying, “I didn’t have a choice, sin made me do it!” We know this because in the previous chapter, Chapter 6, verse 16, Paul laid the foundation for his personal responsibility. There he wrote, “Do you not know that when we present ourselves to someone as slaves, we are slaves of the one we obey? Either of sin, resulting in death, or of obedience, resulting in righteousness.” Paul says he had a choice. He had a choice of who would be master over him, righteousness or sin.
But there is a distinction between him, the saint with the new heart, and the sin which indwells his flesh. He may succumb to the temptations of the flesh. He may willfully submit to the mastery of unrighteousness, but when he does, the actions that follow are not the actions of his true nature. This dichotomy exists because there is an important difference between the old heart and the new heart. The old heart was self-actuating. I t didn’t need anything but itself to produce the “old things.” The “old things” naturally flowed from the heart of stone.
The new heart is not self-actuating. It cannot, in and of itself, produce the “new things.” The new heart is like an electric motor that must be constantly connected to an outside power source if it is to function. It has all the potential to do all it was designed to do but without electricity, it lacks the power to do so. That is why Ezekiel was inspired to write that when God would give us our new heart He would also give us two new spirits. One would be a new human spirit. This spirit would desire God and want to serve Him, rather than rebel and turn away from Him like the human spirit we inherited from Adam. The other would be God’s Spirit Itself. This is the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit is the power source that brings to life the “new things” of our new hearts. As believers we are called upon to walk by the Spirit (Gal. 5:16, 25) and to be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18). When we choose to do so, our mortal flesh manifests the “new things”, the very nature of God, which the Holy Spirit brings to life through our new hearts (Rm. 8:11). When we choose to do so, we are butterflies that can fly!
If we choose not to be filled, we express the flesh patterns we formed while living out of our old heart of stone. In essence we have returned to being butterflies that can’t fly.
This moment by moment “choosing” is the foundational reality of the Christian life. All else in the Christian life flows from these moment by moment choices we make. And the key to choosing correctly is how we see ourselves. Do you believe you are a saint with a new heart and a new human spirit, indwelt by the Divine Holy Spirit who is living in you to give His life and empowerment to your new heart? Or do you believe you are a sinner who can never be anything near what God wants you to be, just hanging on until you get to heaven?? Whichever you believe to be true will be the key to your actions. You cannot consistently act contrary to how you see yourself to be.
Satan wants us to see ourselves as discouraged sinners with no expectations of ever being consistently different.
Our Father wants us to see ourselves as He made us from the moment we accepted Jesus – saints with unlimited potential.
I will discuss each of the points I have made in this devotional in more depth. But my prayer for each of us right now is that we will grasp hold of this central truth – when we accepted Jesus as our Savior our sins were completely forgiven (past, present, and future) and we became totally new creatures. We are something unheard of, something unprecedented, and something never in existence before. We are saints by nature, capable of being all that God wants us to be. No matter what our actions have been in the past, or what they might be in the future, our actions do not determine what we are. We are saints!!! Believe it. God does.
#2 WHO AM I? WHY AM I HERE?
At one time or another we have all asked ourselves the “Great Philosophical Questions: Who am I? Why am I here? Is there a meaning and purpose to my life?”
God’s answer to these questions is very simple and very clear. His answer is found in Genesis 1:26-27, “Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. And God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them’”
The Hebrew word translated image means to be a copy of; to be a replica of; and includes the idea of being able to express the essential nature of that which is being copied or replicated. The meaning of the Hebrew word translated likeness is basically the same as the word translated image. In fact the two words are used interchangeably with this meaning throughout the Old Testament. This verse is the only one where they are used together. The combination of usage here signifies that Man as initially created was a true and faithful copy and replica of God. Therefore the answer to the “Great Philosophical Questions” is that we were created to be a copy or replica of the living and true God, capable of expressing His essential nature. As a part of that expression we were to have dominion over and subjugate the earth and all the creatures upon it.
The natural question raised in this understanding is, “If we were created to express the essential nature of God, what is God like? What are the elements of His essential nature?” The Bible reveals God to be loving, creative, patient, kind, forgiving, intelligent, powerful, and the One who rules or has authority. Thus, it should be no surprise to us that mankind reflects these characteristics in its nature.
But, does this mean that God is also evil, violent, and vicious as we are? Of course not! The Bible tells us that our first parents rebelled against God. They violated the limitation that God had placed upon them, the limitation that was the measure of their love and respect for Him. They sinned. To sin means to miss the mark, to fall short of a standard. In disobeying God by eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil Adam and Eve fell short if the standard God had set. They missed the mark of total obedience. The consequences of their sin were multifaceted.
First, they lost intimacy with God. They no longer had daily, face to face contact with Him. Instead, they hid themselves from Him. Mankind has been hiding from God ever since!
Second, they lost their innocence. Their hearts were no longer good. When they were created their hearts were motivated by love. How do we know this? Because they had been created in the image and likeness of God, and the core of His essence and nature is love. After their rebellion, their hearts were motivated by selfishness and pride. This reflected the nature of their new master, Satan. Mankind has been driven by selfishness and pride ever since!
Third, they lost the meaning and purpose of their lives. Because love was replaced by selfishness and pride, their ability to express the essential nature of God was lost. Spiritually speaking they “died.” Mankind has been born “dead” ever since!
By being born “dead”, every one of us is unable to fulfill our God-given meaning and purpose. As a result, we have an emptiness inside that drives us to ask, “Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? What is the meaning and purpose of my life?”
We try to fill this emptiness with the many things the world tells us will give us a sense of meaning and purpose. We strive to be successful. We strive to acquire bigger and better possessions like cars and homes and boats and even large amounts of money itself. We wear the right labels on our jeans. But none of this really satisfies. No matter how much we achieve, it is never enough. One philosopher put it this way, “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every person that cannot be filled by any man-made thing….”
In addition to emptiness, our intelligence, our creativity, our use of authority, and our gentleness have all been warped. Our pure motivation of love has been lost. Instead of seeing others as more important than ourselves, and serving them in love, we are threatened by them. Our hearts are filled with jealousy, maliciousness, bitterness, judgment of others, and hate rather than love. We express what these things make us feel by our words and actions. We speak harshly to one another. We lie to one another. We tear one another down in front of others. We gossip about one another. These words and actions the Bible calls “sins.”
These “sins” are not the central issue. The fact that we are “dead” is what causes us to do these things. In order to overcome these “sins” we must be reborn. We have to be restored to life spiritually. We have to be restored to the purity of heart and to the intimacy with God that our first parents had before they rebelled.
In His death, Jesus absorbed each one of our sins into His body. (2 Cor. 5:21) While on the Cross, Jesus became every wrong thought, every wrong word, and every wrong action ever done by any human being in the past, the present, and the future. God the Father looked at Jesus while He was on the Cross as If Jesus Himself had done all these things. Then, Jesus died with them. In a mystery beyond our full comprehension, the Father and the Son were separated from each other. (the spiritual definition of "death") On the bright, sunny afternoon of Jesus crucifixion, there was an unnatural darkness over the earth for three hours that marked the time that Jesus and His Father were separated.
Paul put it this way in Colosians, “And when you (meaning you and me and everyone) were dead in your transgressions, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of dept consisting of decrees against us, which were hostile to us, and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the Cross.” (Col. 2:13-14)
As long as we were “dead” in our sins, God could not have a relationship with us. Just as water and oil cannot mix, God’s Holy nature and sin cannot mix. Yet, because God loves us even while we are sinful, He found a way to restore our relationship without compromising either His Holiness or His justice. God overcame the separation that sin had caused by having Jesus become our sins and pay the just penalty for them. When you and I express believe by acknowledging this truth and put our personal faith in Jesus and His substitution for us, our sins are forgiven and our intimacy with God is restored. When we accept Jesus as our personal Savior, God applies to us what Jesus has already done for us. God applies to us the dying of Jesus with our sins just as if we were dying with Him. As a result of our faith in Jesus and His substitution for us, God says we are as Holy as He is. God calls this act of faith on our part “justification.” God justifies us legally. He declares us “not guilty.” God looks upon us as if we had never sinned at all.
In Titus 3:5-6, Paul puts it this way, “He (God the Father) saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit.” The word translated “regeneration” means “to reproduce.” The word translated “renew” means “to restore to a former state after decay or impairment; to restore to perfection.” God is saying to us, “When you put your faith in Jesus as your Savior, not only did I remove the barrier of your sins that separated Me from you, but I also reproduced in you a heart as perfect as the original ones I gave to your first parents.” This is another way of saying what we looked at in devotion #1 from Ezekiel 36: 26-27. In those verses, Ezekiel foretold of a time when God would remove the hearts of stone from His people, giving them hearts of flesh instead. At the same time, He would give them a new human spirit and put His spirit within them. In Titus God calls this process the “washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit.”
However it is described and illustrated, the point is that once we are renewed and regenerated we again have the potential to fulfill our meaning and purpose. We once again have the potential to express the essential nature and character of God.
Sounds simple doesn’t it? It is, but that doesn’t mean it is easy. If the equation was God + person = living right, it would be easy. But that is not the equation. In reality the equation is God + person – conflict with the world, the flesh, and the devil = living right. This is because the one who tempted our first parents into rebelling and forfeiting their created purpose seeks to do the same with us. And he has allies in our flesh and the spirit of this world which still reflects how prideful and self-centered he is. Temptations from this world arouse in us the desires of our flesh. The flesh is the ways of living and acting that were formulated to protect our inherited selfishness. These ways of living and acting developed into habits over time. This flesh "lives" in our brain. Our brain can be compared to a computer. It stores every experience and thought we have ever had into "files." For example, we see a snake, either real or a toy, and our brain pulls out the "snake file." For most of us the key words in this file are "fear", "run", and "get away as quick as you can." Our heart rate immediately sky-rockets! We experience the emotion of fear. We look to see where to run to. Our "flesh" is at work.
This same process leads us into committing sins. We are tempted. The previous life experiences we have had with this temptation have been "filed." If we allow it to, our brain immediately pulls up the file related to this temptation. Then the emotions and thoughts stored there begin to act upon our will to get us to feel and to act in the ways we have in the past. These emotions and thoughts are the “sin which indwells” our flesh that Paul identified in Romans 7:17 and 20. If we give into the temptation, and follow the previously formulated ways of thinking and acting, we will end up doing "the very thing we hate" - Rm. 7:15, resulting in our loss of manifesting the image of God that is our purpose.
So, how do we have victory over these temptations satan throws at us?
#3 OUR FREEDOM IN CHRIST
Rm.6:12-23
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts, 13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.
15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!
16 Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
19 I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.
20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death. 22 But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Recently a new "catch phrase" has come into play. Some people are talking about humanity's "natural desire for freedom." Those who use this phrase believe every human being on the planet has an inherent, natural desire to be free. Of course, they are speaking in terms of political and economic freedom. By political freedom, they usually mean: (1) freedom from a vicious, evil dictator, (2) freedom to form political parties and to have a say in the rule of law and governance, and (3) having the right to contribute freely to their society's cultural values and priorities.
By economic freedom they mean each person having the right to pursue his or her own dream of financial success by whatever means they lawfully choose.
Of course the United States is the beacon of light for these kinds of freedoms. Literally millions of people want to get here, and millions have - some legally—some illegally. They come because our country is truly the land of opportunity. Unlike many places in the world where opportunity is limited, we can freely choose from limitless options. In fact, sometimes it seems like we have too many choices. What teenager doesn't struggle with the question, "What do I want to be when I grow up?" There are so many possible answers to that question that it can be overwhelming to a young person.
What does God say about freedom? What are we free from? What are we free to do? As we continue our study in Romans Chapter Six, we see that God has much to say about freedom, although His view is not what we might expect. God says that before we are born again we are not free. As Americans, we have more freedom of choice than anywhere else in the world; but in one way, God says we are the same as every other human being on earth. None of us is free from sin. None of us is able NOT to sin. We are all equally guilty of falling short of God's standard. We all miss the mark He has set. No matter hard we try, no matter what standard we set—God's or our own—we all fall short of whatever standard we are trying to live by. Here is what I mean: If you make a New Year's resolution to lose weight, how long does it last? If you make a decision not to get angry at the kids, how long does that last? How long before you are envious of a co-workers promotion? How long before bitterness begins to grow in your heart because of your spouse's insensitivity to your feelings and needs?
In these ways every human being in the world is the same. I have had the privilege of ministering in several countries outside our own. I can attest to the truth that people are the same all over the world. Our cultures are different. Our languages are different. Our taste in food is different. The style of our clothes is different. But what people are on the inside, is exactly the same. What the Bible describes as the "flesh"—greed, envy, sensual immorality--exists in some form in every human being. We all sin and fall short of what God expects us to be.
Even in the “real” world, we cannot be free from everything or everyone else. We can tell ourselves we are free but we all know there are limitations to our freedom. One man said it this way, "Freedom is the length of the chain we are attached to because of our needs." In America we have long chains—a lot of choices. We have more choices than any other place in the world, but we all have a limit to the length of our chain. We are all attached to some need. Most of us have to work. We need a paycheck to survive. It is true that we can choose to live in any part of the country or choose to live in any part of a city, but the size of our house and the neighborhood we choose will be restricted by the size of our income. We can choose to go to college or not, but our education level does have an impact on our employment opportunities. All of these variables are expressions of the length of the chain our freedom is attached to.
As Christians the length of our chain is very short. God tells us the limit of our freedom is the ability to choose who our master will be. God says as Christians we can submit to Him and be a slave of righteousness or submit to sin and be a slave of unrighteousness. Whoever we present the members of our mortal bodies to, is the one who will be our master. There are only two choices—God, master of righteousness or Satan, master of the flesh. I know we like to think that we are masters of our own destinies—captains of our own ships—but God tells us in Romans 6, that this is not true. Either God or sin will be master of us. All we can do is chose which one it will be.
I know the concept of being a slave is a difficult one for us to relate to. As Americans we have an abhorrence of slavery. We cherish our political and economic freedom. We believe our freedom is our country's greatest attribute. But in the spiritual realm we must face truth as God reveals it. As difficult as it may be to accept it, when God says something is true, we cannot reject it.
To understand Paul’s words here in Chapter 6, we need to understand the cultural background. In the Roman culture of Paul's day, a person could sell himself or herself into slavery in order to survive. When a person’s economic situation deteriorated to the point where they were in danger of starving to death, they would sell themselves to someone capable of providing them the basic necessities of life. I'm sure they would do their best to find a benevolent master but they would have to find a master of some sort if they were to survive.
When God created our first parents, Adam and Eve, He gave them a lot of freedom. They were to rule over the earth. They were to multiply and fill the earth. But they were not fully independent. As their creator, God set a limitation upon their freedom and established a consequence for their disobedience. In terms of ultimate freedom and slavery, even our first parents had a Master. He was a loving and benevolent Master. He wanted only the best for those whom He had created, but still, He was their Master. He set the rules and the limitations. By their rebellion against God, our first parents sold themselves to sin. All of us have followed them and became slaves to another master. Every human being born has been born a slave to sin.
But those who have been born again and restored to a right relationship with God through faith in Christ now have the freedom of choice. It is a limited freedom but it is freedom. I am constantly in awe of this fact. We get to chose who will reign over us. The God of the universe, who has infinite power, intelligence, and wisdom, has chosen to give us the choice that will determine His reputation in the world. With all the possibilities His wisdom and imagination could have come up with, it seems foolish to me that He voluntarily limits Himself to our choosing Him or another master. Yet, if we were robots or puppets on a string, there would be no room for love. Love must involve a choice. Since love is the central characteristic of God's nature, His true essence would not be seen in the world without giving us the choice of returning His love. The truth of Romans 6:12-23 is the fact of our freedom is the freedom to choose.
In these verses we hear God say to us, "I have freed you from the power and dominance of sin. You no longer must be its slave. I give you a choice. Choose Me and My way and live."
Verse 12 begins with a "Therefore." It is an old axiom of Bible study that when you see a "therefore" you ask, "What is it there for?" "Therefore" means "as a result of" or "as a consequence of." Paul is saying that what follows in verses 12-23 is the result of or the consequence of what he has stated in verses 1-11. In verses 1-11 Paul has affirmed our co-crucifixion and co-resurrection with Christ. As a result or consequence of this, we are not to let sin reign over us. (vs. 12) To reign means to control or have the greatest influence over. Since we have been crucified with Christ and raised with Him as new creations, we are no longer obligated to be a slave to sin. We are no longer obligated to have sin control us or have the greatest influence over us. We are now called upon to give the members of our mortal bodies over to God for His use. God calls upon us three times in this section, vs. 13, 16, and 19, to present our members to Him. It seems to me that God wants us to get the point because He stated this so clearly three times!
The key word in these three verses is the word "present." To present means to offer to another someone or something to use as they desire. Thus, in choosing who will be master over us, we are choosing who will use us for their purposes.
In verse 13, Paul first uses “present” in the present tense. This verb tense means to offer continuously. Thus, Paul is saying to the believers in Rome that they should not keep on continuously presenting their members as instruments of unrighteousness as they have been doing in the past. Now we must remember that the Roman believers were under the impression that the more they sinned the more God's grace was demonstrated to unbelievers so they were striving to sin all the more!! Paul is affirming here that they had been doing a good job!!!
The second use of the verb "present" in verse 13 is in the Aorist tense. The use of the Aorist tense here means to make a once and for all decision. Paul is asking the Roman believers to turn away from the false teaching they had embraced and make a decision, once and for all, to be slaves of God.
What are these Christians to present to God? They are to present the members of their bodies. Under the master of sin, these members become instruments to express the "flesh." Such things as envy, lust, greed, and outbursts of anger represent expressions of unrighteousness resulting from choosing sin as master.
Under God as their Master, their members will become instruments of righteousness. As a result their bodies will express love, kindness, forgiveness, compassion, humility, and gentleness.
The word translated "instruments" is interesting. The basic meaning of this word refers to a utensil or tool. But over time it came to refer to a military weapon or an instrument of war. The use of the word here emphasizes the seriousness or intensity of the issue being addressed. Paul is saying the “choosing process” is a war or an act of war.
In verse 16 God reveals the consequences of our choice. If we present our members to unrighteousness— living with sin as our master—the result is death. The word “death” here does not mean physical death. Here “death” means to be out of fellowship with God. This loss of fellowship results in our losing the feeling of rightness about our life that comes from enjoying the intimate relationship with God that our new birth has made possible. This is the intimacy with God we were created as human beings to have in the first place. As a result, we once again lose the sense of meaning, purpose, and significance to our lives we should have.
If we choose obedience—presenting our mortal bodies to God for His use—the result is righteousness. We will be "living right.” We will be expressing the nature and character of God to the world. We will be enjoying a feeling of meaning, purpose, and significance to our lives because we will doing what we were created to do.
In verse 19 we read, "I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh….. " Paul is using the human relationship of slave and master because he wants them to clearly understand what he is saying. In truth, God is not a slave master. Rather, He is a loving Father. But our flesh wants to convince us that we can be free from any restraints. This rebellious flesh fights to be freed from God, not realizing that if it is freed from God it is under another master—sin. Thus, God is making it clear that there is no "ultimate" freedom. Someone will be master over us: either Satan through the sin which indwells our flesh or God giving His life to our mortal bodies. Don't miss the verb tense of the words translated “present” here. In verse 16, Paul said there were continuously presenting their members to sin. Now he uses the same verb tenses to say they are to continuously present their members to righteousness. In verse 13, there is a mind set of once and for all presenting their members to God which must be followed by a continuous, moment by moment presenting if they are to live right.
What is the result of this continuous presenting? They are sanctified—set apart for God's use. They are fulfilling the purpose for which they were created. They will know meaning and purpose and significance.
Do you see how God is creating layers of truth to His basic premise of choosing who will be master over you? Think of peeling the layers of an onion. God is doing just the opposite here. He is applying layers. In verse 13, He calls us to offer our members to Him, once and for all, instead of continuously offering them to sin. In verse 16, we are told that our choice has consequences. If we present our members to sin the result is death—we will live out the deeds of the flesh. If we choose obedience by offering our members to God, the result is righteousness—we will be living right, expressing the nature and character of God. I n verse 19, we are told that if we continue presenting ourselves to sin, sin will lead us to more and more evil deeds. If we present ourselves to righteousness, the result will be sanctification.
Now there is one final layer to be added. This layer is found in verses 21-23. …….
Paul says when we were slaves to sin, the things we did were of no benefit to us. They were unable to satisfy or fulfill our deepest longings for meaning, purpose, and significance. The things we did then only gave us a sense of shame. But now, as slaves to God, we can find and enjoy meaning, purpose, and significance because we are capable of being the people we were created to be. We are capable of expressing the essential nature of God. We are capable of experiencing eternal life. Eternal life does not mean living forever in Heaven after we die. It is not a measure of time. It is a description of a kind or quality of life that has no end. This life is the nature and character of God Himself. It is the life that is naturally expressed by Him. It is the life we were created to be a replica (copy) of. This way of life is eternal because it is God’s way of life and He is eternal. This was the way of life that our first parents were created to express and live out. Before their fall, they had this life. But they lost this life and the ability to express by their rebellion. They "died." By putting our faith in Christ, we are reborn with a new heart that has the potential to live out this life. If we choose God, He will express His life through us, the life that is eternal.
In these verses the warfare element is reintroduced. The word translated "wages" in verse 23 is a word used to refer to the wages of a soldier. Thus, we are being told that the only wages we will ever receive for serving in the army of sin is death. Sin promises pleasure and power and all the other thing our flesh believes will make us happy and fulfilled. But in truth, we will not be "living right.” And by not “living right” we miss out on the sense of meaning, purpose, and significance we were created to have and enjoy.
In contrast to earning the wages of death, God offers us a free gift - a life whose nature and character is His own, and, as a result, is eternal. This is the life our first parents, and all of us as their descendants, were created to experience and express. This life is the result of living right.
This then is God's definition of Freedom - the freedom to choose who our master will be. Each choice has consequences and results. It is a limited freedom but it is the most important freedom of all. What good is economic or political freedom if all we can do with it is live in sin? What good are the world's freedoms if nothing we do with them will meet our need for meaning, purpose, and significance? But as Paul says in verses 17-18, "Thanks be to God that we have been freed from sin and can now life right."
May we be wise enough to choose the right Master, moment by moment.
Can you identify with what Paul says in Verse 15 of Romans Chapter 7, “For that which I am doing I do not understand, for I am not doing what I would like to do, but am doing the very thing I hate.” For many years of my Christian life I identified with Paul. I knew there were things that I needed to overcome and put aside – sins that grieved the heart of God and through me damaged my wife, my children, and my friends. But I couldn’t seem to get a handle on how to really overcome them. I seemed to consistently end up doing the very things I hated. Too often I was impatient with others, or succumbed to an outburst of anger, or had a critical tone to my words.
I had been taught that the spiritual life was basically a conflict between the new nature that I received when I trusted Jesus as my Savior and the old nature that I had inherited from Adam. A common illustration of this is that my new nature was a white dog and my old nature was a black dog. The one that dominated me was the one I fed the most. If I fed the white dog the nourishment of Bible study, a regular quiet time, church attendance, and ministry it would grow strong and powerful and muscular and I would manifest a positive Christian life. In addition, I had been taught that the key to victory was depending on the Holy Spirit to fill me and empower me. The feeding of the white dog would motivate me to yield to Holy Spirit and allow Him to put to death my sin nature.
If I fed the black dog the nourishment of this world - pride, selfishness, greed, and lust - I would be a person dominated by the desire for freedom, independence, personal rights, and pleasure. The sins of the flesh would manifest themselves through me as I garnered my values and priorities from the world through T.V., movies, newspapers, popular music, and advertising.
For many years I fought this war within myself. But no matter how much I fed the white dog, the black dog always dominated. Prayerfully yielding and asking the Holy Spirit to put to death my sin nature didn't work. For me, Romans 7:15 was all too real.
I recently came across a description of the Christian Life that summarized all that I had come to believe and accept.
"Think of it. You are a shadow of the person you were meant to be. You have nothing close to the life you were meant to have, and, you have no real chance of becoming that person or finding that life. However, you are forgiven. For the rest of your days you will fail in your attempts to become what God wants you to be. You shall seek forgiveness and try again. Eventually, shame and disappointment will cloud your understanding of yourself and your God. When this ongoing hell on earth is over, you will die, and you will be taken up before God for a full account of how you didn't measure up - but you will be forgiven. After that, you'll be asked to take your place in the choir of Heaven - and this is what we call 'salvation.'" ( John Eldredge, Waking the Dead, p. 62)
That's a sad commentary isn't it? Yet for me it described the "Abundant Life" I was living. How about you?
But author Eldredge goes on, "The Good News is this is not Christianity." I can now concur!! Such a description no longer expresses my Christian life. I have found there is much more to Romans 7 than verse 15!!
Let me begin with a story by way of illustration. A woman goes in for surgery. The surgery seems to go very well. Over the next few days of recovery her doctor becomes concerned. She is running a fever that she shouldn’t have. Finally he decides there must be something going on that he is unaware of. He sends her down for an x-ray. The x-ray shows the problem. A surgical sponge has been left inside when the incision was closed. Once the sponge is removed, the woman’s recovery proceeds normally.
The question is, “Does the woman have a problem herself or does she have a problem in her?” Obviously, she has a problem in her. The sponge is not her. It is something unnatural to her that is causing a problem.
Spiritually speaking, this is the truth Paul is inspired to teach us in Romans 7. He says he has a problem within himself but it is not a natural part of him. This understanding is so important that God inspires Paul to repeat the facts twice in 6 verses.
I believe is verbal, plenary inspiration. This means every word of the Bible and all the words of the Bible were God-breathed. God did not inspire portions of the Bible, or just the “Big Ideas” like love. Rather, every single word comes through human authors but is being written by God Himself through them. My conclusion from this belief is that if some thought or idea or concept is repeated, especially repeated in the same context, God really wants us to “get it.” If a truth is repeated twice in 6 verses, God is saying to us, “Pay attention here. This is REALLY, REALLY important!"
So how does God phrase this truth that is so important? We have seen that in verse 15 Paul says,
“For that which I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.
But then in verse 17 he says,
‘So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which indwells me.”
In verse 15, Paul takes responsibility for his actions. In a sense there is one actor in verse 15 - “I” referring to Paul himself. But in verse 17 there are two actors, “I” referring to Paul, and "the sin which indwells me" referring to something in Paul that is not him.
Paul repeats this truth in verses 19 and 20.
“For the good that I wish, I do not do; but I practice the very evil that I do not wish. 20 But if I am doing the very thing I do not wish, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.”
In verse 19 there is again only one actor, “I.” In verse 20, the two actors are referred to again, “I” and “ the sin which indwells me.”
At first glance it would seem that Paul is rationalizing or making excuses for his sin. If we looked only at verses 17 and 20 we might be justifies in concluding this. But in verses 15 and 19 he does take responsibility. What’s going on here? What is Paul describing here?
What he is describing is the practical outworking of the freedom to choose he explained in Romans Chapter 6. He is saying, “When sin tempts me, and I give in to it, I am responsible because I am now free not to give in. My co-death and co-resurrection with Jesus frees me from slavery to sin. I know what is true of me, therefore, if I choose to believe sin’s lies I have to accept responsibility. But I also know that it is not me who is the source of these desires. I am not the one generating them from my new nature. The sin which indwells my flesh is not me!!”
Like the woman who had surgery, Paul is saying, “I am good and Holy and righteous in Christ by the power of God. But there is a “surgical sponge” called “sin within me” that I can yield to, resulting in actions, thoughts, desires, reactions, and attitudes reflecting it rather than those of the new creation I am.”
And so it is with each of us who have been born again. We too are tempted by something that is real but not the real us. We too can resist because of our freedom to choose. And we too must take responsibility for our sins when we choose to act upon sin’s lies instead of God’s truth.
But how does this sin which indwells us work? How does it get a hold of us? A clear illustration is found in Acts Chapter 5 in the story of Ananias and Sapphira.
Acts 4:33-34
And with great power the apostles were giving witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and abundant grace was upon them all. (34) For there was not a needy person among them, for all who were owners of land or houses would sell them and bring the proceeds of the sales, and lay them at the apostles' feet; and they would be distributed to each, as any had need.
Acts 5:1-4
But a certain man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, (2) and kept back some of the price for himself, with his wife's full knowledge, and bringing a portion of it, he laid it at the apostles' feet. (3) But Peter said, "Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit, and to keep back some of the price of the land? (4) "While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not under your control? Why is it that you have conceived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to men, but to God."
We see from Acts 4:33-34 that many of the brothers and sisters in Jerusalem were selling properties and giving the money to the Apostles to share with others in need. This was an expression of their love and concern for those with less. It was a testimony of the heart transformation that had resulted from their trust in Jesus. They were now seeing others as important as, or even more important than, themselves.
Ananias and Sappira seem to have wanted the “glory” of being seen as such people but were not willing to give up everything. Something inside them, perhaps greed, perhaps fear of survival, tempted them to withhold some of the funds they received in selling their property. Unwilling to be seen as too cheap to give up everything, they decided to lie about the amount they had sold their property for. Where did this greed or fear come from?
Notice what Peter says in verse 3,
“Why has satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit, and to keep back some of the price of the land?”
“Why has satan filled your heart?” Yet in verse 4 Peter says, “Why is it that you have conceived this deed in your heart?”
“Why is it that you….” In verse 3 there are two “actors” – satan and Ananias. In verse 4 there is one – Ananias. Thus, this story is a practical example of how the truth presented in Romans 7 works itself out. A temptation to sin is generated by satan via the sin which indwells Ananias’s flesh. It is not from him but becomes his responsibility when he gives into it by holding back some of the funds and lying about the amount.
Now how does satan do this? Usually when we think of satan we think of the caricature of a fiend in a red suit with a forked tail and a pitchfork. I don't think someone like this sat down in front of Ananias and said, "Ananias, I got an idea. How about when you sell the land you say you’re giving it all over to the apostles but actually you can keep some of it back for your own use. That way you will receive all the praise and honor for your good work but will still have a bunch of money to spend on yourself." No, I don't think satan sat down and had a "face to face" with Ananias. Rather, I believe it went something like this. Satan planted the seeds of this thinking in Ananias's mind speaking to Ananias in his own voice. Like a ventriloquist, satan gave Ananias the impression that these thoughts were his own. Instead of saying to him, "Ananias, why don't you sell the property….", Ananias suddenly gets the idea, "I could sell the property for this much but tell everyone I only received this much. That way I could get the praise but still have money for myself." Notice the "Big I." The thoughts come to Ananias in his own voice and in the first person. He believes he is generating them.
Who wouldn't accept them as their own!!
But they are not his own. Remember, Peter asks Ananias, "Why has satan filled your heart?" The source of the idea was satan, not the new creation Ananias had become by his faith in Christ and his resulting new birth. In essence Peter is saying to Ananias, "Why didn't you recognize where these thoughts and ideas were coming from? How could you not know they were not your own? You know such ideas can't come from the new person you are. You should have recognized the source and rejected them in the power of the Holy Spirit. But since you did not, and since you followed through on them and lied to us and to God, you will be held responsible."
This is what Paul is trying to teach us in Romans 7. We are to recognize that satan plants thoughts and ideas and temptations before us through the sin which indwells us. So where does this sin reside?
"For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is in my flesh; for the wishing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not." Rm. 7:18
But I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members." Rm. 7: 23
In Romans 6, 7, and 8, the word "sin" is used 40 times. The singular word “sin’ must be distinguished from the plural word “sins.” “Sins” are the actions, desires, feelings, and attitudes that are the result of giving in to the temptations generated by the sin which indwells us. Vines Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words defines “sin” as “an organized power or person acting through the body that produces actions. This “sin” is the inherited prideful self-centeredness we were born with. In other words, sin is that which tempts us to be jealous, angry, lustful, greedy, and all the rest of those “old things” we have been freed from by our new birth. Like that surgical sponge that was left in the woman during her surgery, sin remains in the memory banks of our brains even though we are a new creation. The “flesh” is the life patterns or ways of acting, re-acting, and feeling that we formed into habits as we lived to feed our prideful self-centeredness. A person who has a pattern of “outbursts of anger” might be a person who has developed this pattern as a way of protecting himself when ever they feel someone is putting them down, whenever they are made to feel small or disrespected. Their anger is a way of saying, “I am important. Don’t mess with me or you will regret it.” This describes one of the patterns of living that I developed in my life. For whatever reasons, I was one of those who didn't feel like they measured up. I never seemed to be one of the "cool" kids. So, I have struggled with outbursts of anger as long as I can remember. I would blow up at my wife, my kids, even at my circumstances!! Even after becoming a believer, I have had to fight these temptations, both of feeling "inferior" and responding in anger. Only since I have come to see that these feelings of inferiority and anger are no longer a part of who I am have I gained a measure of victory when these temptations are thrown at me by the evil one.
And so it is with all the "deeds of the flesh" that Paul names in Galatians 5:19-21. They are all patterns of living that we form as we strive to live out and protect the "sin" (prideful self-centeredness) that created them.
One author illustrates it this way. Imagine you live on a farm and every day you walk the same pathway to your favorite fishing hole. The result? Soon there would be a well worn path without grass to your fishing hole. Now imagine what would happen if you decided to change your pathway. Over time, the old path would be once again overgrown with grass, while the new route would become grass free.
Our brains work in the same way. Our neurological pathways are "burned" as we experience events. These pathways are linked to responses so that when we encounter the same experience again, or a similar one, our brain automatically kicks in with its programmed response and we express the action or reaction or feeling that has been linked to the experience.
When we are born again, we begin the process of developing new neurological pathways, new ways of responding to previously stored experiences. These pathways result from the presenting our members to righteousness that Paul describes in Romans 6.
I encounter that old feeling of inferiority. Anger is ready to burst forth. But now I offer my members to righteousness. I ask the Holy Spirit to fill me. I cling to Christ as a branch in the vine. As a result, the peace and rest and confidence of Christ flow through me. My brain records this process as the "normal" response to feelings of inferiority. Over time this process becomes the dominant pathway.
Since the "sin which indwells my flesh" will never be totally gone in this life, there will always be a battle. I will be confronted by satan, the world, and my flesh to make choices throughout the day. But, as I continue to offer my members to righteousness, the battle becomes less intense. I am constantly broadening the neurological pathways of my brain whose response is to be filled with the Spirit, to be an abiding branch in the Vine of Jesus. The old pathways are slowly diminishing and are becoming less powerful. This is what Paul means in Romans 12:2 when he commands us not to be conformed to this world but to be "transformed by the renewing of your mind." Obviously, Paul did not have the medical understanding of how the brain works like we do today but he didn't need to. God inspired Paul to describe the process because He knew the physiology!!
As a new creation, when temptation comes, I know the source, and its not me! Rather it is the sin which indwells my flesh. This sin is tempting me to respond in sinful ways to the stimuli of the world. But I also know I no longer have to give in to it and obey it. I am free from its power and dominion. There is not a white dog and a black dog within me. I am not at war with myself. I am at war, but it is not a civil war. "I" can stand against the sin which indwells my flesh.
Several years ago, many young people had an expression that fits our situation. If someone was getting in their face, and they didn't want to hear it, they would turn their head to one side and hold up a hand. They were saying, "Here, talk to the hand. You're not getting to me. I have no time for what you are trying to say." We must spiritually tell satan and the sin which indwells our flesh to "talk to the hand." We haven't got the time or the desire to listen to what they are trying to say to us. We must tell them, "You have no right to plant these thoughts, that grow into desire, that result in action, in my mind and feelings. I am no longer under your authority."
Anytime we are tempted to act or feel or react contrary to what we know is God's will and way, we must identify the source and reject it. No matter how "real" it feels, we must reject it, knowing it is a counterfeit from satan rather than from the true self we are. We must confidently affirm, "That's not me!" and present our members to righteousness and experience the life of Christ in us and through us to the glory of God.
I can’t live the Christian life, and I am not expected to! Jesus can live the Christian life, and He will live it through me. I remember when these words first became more than an intellectual understanding for me. They made that long, 18” journey from my head to my heart. What a joyous freedom this brought to my life. “I can’t live the Christian life!” For so many years I had tried and failed to live the life God wanted me to. For so many years the expectations and commandments of God that I learned in my Bible study were a source of guilt to me because I never was able to overcome the inability to keep them. I felt ashamed. I felt God was disappointed in me. I felt that even though I believed He loved me, He didn’t like me very much.
Then, after so many years of struggle, frustration, and failure (35 to be exact!!), it was finally made clear to me that I would never be able to live up to God’s expectations. But the joy was that at the same time I learned that God had never expected me to. Only Jesus lived the Christian life, and only He can. The Good News is that He is still able to live that life in and through me. I don’t have to live the Christian life. I can experience the Christian life as Jesus lives Himself out through me.
The clearest passage of Scripture that teaches us this truth is John 15:1-11. Here Jesus compares the living out of the Christian life to that of a branch producing grapes in a vineyard. To clearly understand the importance of this passage we must put it in its context. This teaching takes place on the night Jesus will be betrayed. He and His disciples have finished the Passover meal in the upper room. They are on their way to the Garden of Gethsemane. As they journey, they pass a vineyard. This is Jesus last extended teaching to the disciples before His trial and death. In essence, these are His last words. Last words are always vital and important!! He knows they won’t understand their importance right now. They will soon be confused because of what will be happening to Him. They will be filled with fear for their own lives. Yet, He must teach them this. This truth will be the key to their lives and ministry after His resurrection and ascension. He will trust the Holy Spirit to bring it to their remembrance after He is gone. He will trust the Holy Spirit to confirm it in their hearts, and in ours!!!
There are three main points in this passage. The first point is discovered when we ask ourselves the question, “Who’s in charge?” In verse one, Jesus is quoted as saying, “I am the vine and My Father is the vinedresser.” Jesus is saying His Father is in charge. A vinedresser was the one who oversaw the vineyard. Ultimately, he was responsible to get the maximum amount of grapes produced. He would personally, or have the workers he oversaw, do whatever was necessary to get the branches bearing the maximum number of grapes and the highest quality of grapes possible. What would that entail? Jesus continues the analogy in verse 2, “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He lifts up (a better translation than ‘takes away’); and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so it may bear more fruit.” In a vineyard, branches would sometimes succumb to the pull of gravity and lose contact with the sun as they were overshadowed by leaves. A watchful vinedresser would take notice of this potentially productive branch that was in harms way and lift it up and attach it to the trellis so its leaves could feed off the sun again.
Pruning was also necessary. Branches that had produced good grapes the year before would naturally begin to sprout sub branches at the beginning of the new growing season. If allowed to continue to mature, these new branches would so divide the nutrients being supplied by the vine that none of the branches would be able to produce good quality grapes. The wise vinedresser would be sure and prune these new sprouts from all his productive branches so that the productive branches could once again produce the high quality grapes he wanted.
What was the meaning for the disciples, and for us? It is the Father’s responsibility to get us to live a productive Christian life. Our Father will do whatever is necessary in our lives to get us bear to the max His essential nature.
The second key point is found in verses 4 & 5. Jesus says, “Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the Vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” In a vineyard, if a branch is broken off the vine and falls to the ground it dies. It is not capable in and of itself to send out the roots necessary to draw “life” from the soil. In order to bear grapes, it must be connected to the vine. The branch is simply the conduit of the life giving nutrients from the soil that the vine has absorbed.
The analogy Jesus is making is that if we do not abide in Him we will be unable to exhibit the essential nature of God. We are incapable, in and of ourselves, to do so. We can only be conduits of that life as we abide in Jesus and let Him manifest that life through us.
Remember, a disciple is one who follows the way of life of his master. Is there any connection between what Jesus is teaching with the vine and the branches illustration and the way He lived His life? Yes there is! In the Upper Room Jesus made His often quoted statement, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through Me.”(Jn.14:6) Philip responds by saying, “Lord, show us the Father and it is enough for us.”(Jn.14:8) Jesus responds, “Have I been so long with you and yet you have not come to know Me Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works.”(Jn.14:9-10) Jesus is saying that He is an abiding branch in His Father just as we are to be an abiding branch in Him! He has been a conduit for the life of His Father just as He wants us to be a conduit of His life.
Luke confirms this truth as he records Peter’s sermon on the Day of Pentecost. In Acts 2:22 we read this, “Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst…..” Do you see/ Jesus didn’t raise Lazarus from the dead. The Father did it through Him. Jesus was the conduit for the Father’s power and work. Jesus didn’t give sight to the blind or feed the multitudes. All Jesus’ miracles were simply the work of the Father through Jesus.
This is the awesome, fundamental truth of the Christian life. Just as Jesus did not life the Christian life in and of Himself but allowed the Father to use His physical body to exhibit His awesome power and character, so we too are simply to be conduits of Jesus life and character through our physical bodies. This is what Jesus means when He says, “Apart from Me you can do nothing.” (Jn.15:5b) And as the vinedresser, the Father will use whatever means necessary to pull the rug of self-sufficiency out from underneath us. Our loving Father will do whatever it takes for us to realize that we are to be conduits of the life of Jesus and are not expected to be imitators of that life. Our Father will use any variety of trials and tribulations that He must to get us to the point of saying, “I can’t! I can’t be the person God wants me to be. I can’t keep His commandments or fulfill His expectations.” For when we finally get to that place, we will be ready to hear, “Jesus can. Jesus can live the life God expects through me as I abide in Him.”
This leads us to our third point. What is the end result of, or purpose behind, this abiding? The answer is two-fold. In verse 8 we read, “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be disciples of mine.” As we abide in Jesus, we bring His essential nature and character into all our life situations and relationships, and this glorifies God. But what does it mean “to glorify?” The root meaning of the Greek word translated “glorify” is “to enhance the reputation of something or someone; to cause the dignity and worth of something or someone to be clearly seen, understood, and acknowledged by someone else.” In other words, when we recommend a restaurant to someone, we “glorify” that restaurant. When we recommend a doctor to another person, we are “glorifying” that doctor. As we abide in Christ, and His patience, kindness, compassion, forgiveness, encouragement, understanding, and love becomes miraculously alive in all of our life situations and circumstances, God’s reputation is enhanced. God’s dignity and worth is clearly seen, understood, and acknowledged by those we interact with. What an awesome responsibility and significance this brings to our lives. God has put His reputation at stake in the basket of our choosing to abide in Christ.
Finally, in verse 11, Jesus says this, “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you and your joy may be made full.” The result of responding correctly to the Father’s work of breaking our self-sufficiency, the result of choosing to abide in Christ and let Him life His life out through us, is JOY! The joy of having that inner sense of “rightness” about ourselves because we are fulfilling God’s will for our lives.
There is a children’s story about a train whose responsibility was to carry cargo every day between Jonestown and Smithville. In the beginning there is a big smile on his face as he does his work. But over time, as he sees the “freedom” of the birds in the air and the rabbits in the field and the children flying their kites, he becomes discouraged and discontented. He longs to be “free” like them! He begins to believe his life would be so much better if he could just get off his tracks. And so, one day he jumps his tracks at a road crossing!! He is free!!!!! For a few moments he is happier than he ever has been. Then he gets stuck. He is not free. He is hopelessly bogged down and can do nothing. He then realizes that he can never be a bird or a rabbit or one of those children. He is a train, and without tracks to run on, he is nothing and can do nothing. He was created for one thing, and can be nothing else.
So when he is lifted back on to the tracks, he is content with delivering those cargos back and forth between Jonestown and Smithville. He is content because he is doing what he was created to do.
We were created to be expressions of the living God. We were created to express His essential nature. Our first father Adam ruined our ability to do so. Our rebirth in Christ returns us to being potentially able to do so. If we choose to abide in Him, we will be fulfilling our created purpose. We will know joy and contentment, significance and meaning.
The world, the flesh, and the devil say to us that they hold the keys to joy and fulfillment. They offer us power, materials things, “sex, drugs, and rock and roll!!” Will we foolishly “jump the tracks” of God’s way to seek life elsewhere? If we do, we will only get “stuck” in trials and tribulations of our lives as our Divine Vinedresser seeks to draw us back to being abiding branches, so we can glorify Him and know full joy.
Moment by moment, through out each day, we must choose. Will I abide or will I not? Our Father has chosen to stake His reputation on us. He has chosen to stake His reputation on our choice. Which will you choose for this moment?
12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts, 13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.
15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!
16 Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
19 I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.
20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death. 22 But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Recently a new "catch phrase" has come into play. Some people are talking about humanity's "natural desire for freedom." Those who use this phrase believe every human being on the planet has an inherent, natural desire to be free. Of course, they are speaking in terms of political and economic freedom. By political freedom, they usually mean: (1) freedom from a vicious, evil dictator, (2) freedom to form political parties and to have a say in the rule of law and governance, and (3) having the right to contribute freely to their society's cultural values and priorities.
By economic freedom they mean each person having the right to pursue his or her own dream of financial success by whatever means they lawfully choose.
Of course the United States is the beacon of light for these kinds of freedoms. Literally millions of people want to get here, and millions have - some legally—some illegally. They come because our country is truly the land of opportunity. Unlike many places in the world where opportunity is limited, we can freely choose from limitless options. In fact, sometimes it seems like we have too many choices. What teenager doesn't struggle with the question, "What do I want to be when I grow up?" There are so many possible answers to that question that it can be overwhelming to a young person.
What does God say about freedom? What are we free from? What are we free to do? As we continue our study in Romans Chapter Six, we see that God has much to say about freedom, although His view is not what we might expect. God says that before we are born again we are not free. As Americans, we have more freedom of choice than anywhere else in the world; but in one way, God says we are the same as every other human being on earth. None of us is free from sin. None of us is able NOT to sin. We are all equally guilty of falling short of God's standard. We all miss the mark He has set. No matter hard we try, no matter what standard we set—God's or our own—we all fall short of whatever standard we are trying to live by. Here is what I mean: If you make a New Year's resolution to lose weight, how long does it last? If you make a decision not to get angry at the kids, how long does that last? How long before you are envious of a co-workers promotion? How long before bitterness begins to grow in your heart because of your spouse's insensitivity to your feelings and needs?
In these ways every human being in the world is the same. I have had the privilege of ministering in several countries outside our own. I can attest to the truth that people are the same all over the world. Our cultures are different. Our languages are different. Our taste in food is different. The style of our clothes is different. But what people are on the inside, is exactly the same. What the Bible describes as the "flesh"—greed, envy, sensual immorality--exists in some form in every human being. We all sin and fall short of what God expects us to be.
Even in the “real” world, we cannot be free from everything or everyone else. We can tell ourselves we are free but we all know there are limitations to our freedom. One man said it this way, "Freedom is the length of the chain we are attached to because of our needs." In America we have long chains—a lot of choices. We have more choices than any other place in the world, but we all have a limit to the length of our chain. We are all attached to some need. Most of us have to work. We need a paycheck to survive. It is true that we can choose to live in any part of the country or choose to live in any part of a city, but the size of our house and the neighborhood we choose will be restricted by the size of our income. We can choose to go to college or not, but our education level does have an impact on our employment opportunities. All of these variables are expressions of the length of the chain our freedom is attached to.
As Christians the length of our chain is very short. God tells us the limit of our freedom is the ability to choose who our master will be. God says as Christians we can submit to Him and be a slave of righteousness or submit to sin and be a slave of unrighteousness. Whoever we present the members of our mortal bodies to, is the one who will be our master. There are only two choices—God, master of righteousness or Satan, master of the flesh. I know we like to think that we are masters of our own destinies—captains of our own ships—but God tells us in Romans 6, that this is not true. Either God or sin will be master of us. All we can do is chose which one it will be.
I know the concept of being a slave is a difficult one for us to relate to. As Americans we have an abhorrence of slavery. We cherish our political and economic freedom. We believe our freedom is our country's greatest attribute. But in the spiritual realm we must face truth as God reveals it. As difficult as it may be to accept it, when God says something is true, we cannot reject it.
To understand Paul’s words here in Chapter 6, we need to understand the cultural background. In the Roman culture of Paul's day, a person could sell himself or herself into slavery in order to survive. When a person’s economic situation deteriorated to the point where they were in danger of starving to death, they would sell themselves to someone capable of providing them the basic necessities of life. I'm sure they would do their best to find a benevolent master but they would have to find a master of some sort if they were to survive.
When God created our first parents, Adam and Eve, He gave them a lot of freedom. They were to rule over the earth. They were to multiply and fill the earth. But they were not fully independent. As their creator, God set a limitation upon their freedom and established a consequence for their disobedience. In terms of ultimate freedom and slavery, even our first parents had a Master. He was a loving and benevolent Master. He wanted only the best for those whom He had created, but still, He was their Master. He set the rules and the limitations. By their rebellion against God, our first parents sold themselves to sin. All of us have followed them and became slaves to another master. Every human being born has been born a slave to sin.
But those who have been born again and restored to a right relationship with God through faith in Christ now have the freedom of choice. It is a limited freedom but it is freedom. I am constantly in awe of this fact. We get to chose who will reign over us. The God of the universe, who has infinite power, intelligence, and wisdom, has chosen to give us the choice that will determine His reputation in the world. With all the possibilities His wisdom and imagination could have come up with, it seems foolish to me that He voluntarily limits Himself to our choosing Him or another master. Yet, if we were robots or puppets on a string, there would be no room for love. Love must involve a choice. Since love is the central characteristic of God's nature, His true essence would not be seen in the world without giving us the choice of returning His love. The truth of Romans 6:12-23 is the fact of our freedom is the freedom to choose.
In these verses we hear God say to us, "I have freed you from the power and dominance of sin. You no longer must be its slave. I give you a choice. Choose Me and My way and live."
Verse 12 begins with a "Therefore." It is an old axiom of Bible study that when you see a "therefore" you ask, "What is it there for?" "Therefore" means "as a result of" or "as a consequence of." Paul is saying that what follows in verses 12-23 is the result of or the consequence of what he has stated in verses 1-11. In verses 1-11 Paul has affirmed our co-crucifixion and co-resurrection with Christ. As a result or consequence of this, we are not to let sin reign over us. (vs. 12) To reign means to control or have the greatest influence over. Since we have been crucified with Christ and raised with Him as new creations, we are no longer obligated to be a slave to sin. We are no longer obligated to have sin control us or have the greatest influence over us. We are now called upon to give the members of our mortal bodies over to God for His use. God calls upon us three times in this section, vs. 13, 16, and 19, to present our members to Him. It seems to me that God wants us to get the point because He stated this so clearly three times!
The key word in these three verses is the word "present." To present means to offer to another someone or something to use as they desire. Thus, in choosing who will be master over us, we are choosing who will use us for their purposes.
In verse 13, Paul first uses “present” in the present tense. This verb tense means to offer continuously. Thus, Paul is saying to the believers in Rome that they should not keep on continuously presenting their members as instruments of unrighteousness as they have been doing in the past. Now we must remember that the Roman believers were under the impression that the more they sinned the more God's grace was demonstrated to unbelievers so they were striving to sin all the more!! Paul is affirming here that they had been doing a good job!!!
The second use of the verb "present" in verse 13 is in the Aorist tense. The use of the Aorist tense here means to make a once and for all decision. Paul is asking the Roman believers to turn away from the false teaching they had embraced and make a decision, once and for all, to be slaves of God.
What are these Christians to present to God? They are to present the members of their bodies. Under the master of sin, these members become instruments to express the "flesh." Such things as envy, lust, greed, and outbursts of anger represent expressions of unrighteousness resulting from choosing sin as master.
Under God as their Master, their members will become instruments of righteousness. As a result their bodies will express love, kindness, forgiveness, compassion, humility, and gentleness.
The word translated "instruments" is interesting. The basic meaning of this word refers to a utensil or tool. But over time it came to refer to a military weapon or an instrument of war. The use of the word here emphasizes the seriousness or intensity of the issue being addressed. Paul is saying the “choosing process” is a war or an act of war.
In verse 16 God reveals the consequences of our choice. If we present our members to unrighteousness— living with sin as our master—the result is death. The word “death” here does not mean physical death. Here “death” means to be out of fellowship with God. This loss of fellowship results in our losing the feeling of rightness about our life that comes from enjoying the intimate relationship with God that our new birth has made possible. This is the intimacy with God we were created as human beings to have in the first place. As a result, we once again lose the sense of meaning, purpose, and significance to our lives we should have.
If we choose obedience—presenting our mortal bodies to God for His use—the result is righteousness. We will be "living right.” We will be expressing the nature and character of God to the world. We will be enjoying a feeling of meaning, purpose, and significance to our lives because we will doing what we were created to do.
In verse 19 we read, "I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh….. " Paul is using the human relationship of slave and master because he wants them to clearly understand what he is saying. In truth, God is not a slave master. Rather, He is a loving Father. But our flesh wants to convince us that we can be free from any restraints. This rebellious flesh fights to be freed from God, not realizing that if it is freed from God it is under another master—sin. Thus, God is making it clear that there is no "ultimate" freedom. Someone will be master over us: either Satan through the sin which indwells our flesh or God giving His life to our mortal bodies. Don't miss the verb tense of the words translated “present” here. In verse 16, Paul said there were continuously presenting their members to sin. Now he uses the same verb tenses to say they are to continuously present their members to righteousness. In verse 13, there is a mind set of once and for all presenting their members to God which must be followed by a continuous, moment by moment presenting if they are to live right.
What is the result of this continuous presenting? They are sanctified—set apart for God's use. They are fulfilling the purpose for which they were created. They will know meaning and purpose and significance.
Do you see how God is creating layers of truth to His basic premise of choosing who will be master over you? Think of peeling the layers of an onion. God is doing just the opposite here. He is applying layers. In verse 13, He calls us to offer our members to Him, once and for all, instead of continuously offering them to sin. In verse 16, we are told that our choice has consequences. If we present our members to sin the result is death—we will live out the deeds of the flesh. If we choose obedience by offering our members to God, the result is righteousness—we will be living right, expressing the nature and character of God. I n verse 19, we are told that if we continue presenting ourselves to sin, sin will lead us to more and more evil deeds. If we present ourselves to righteousness, the result will be sanctification.
Now there is one final layer to be added. This layer is found in verses 21-23. …….
Paul says when we were slaves to sin, the things we did were of no benefit to us. They were unable to satisfy or fulfill our deepest longings for meaning, purpose, and significance. The things we did then only gave us a sense of shame. But now, as slaves to God, we can find and enjoy meaning, purpose, and significance because we are capable of being the people we were created to be. We are capable of expressing the essential nature of God. We are capable of experiencing eternal life. Eternal life does not mean living forever in Heaven after we die. It is not a measure of time. It is a description of a kind or quality of life that has no end. This life is the nature and character of God Himself. It is the life that is naturally expressed by Him. It is the life we were created to be a replica (copy) of. This way of life is eternal because it is God’s way of life and He is eternal. This was the way of life that our first parents were created to express and live out. Before their fall, they had this life. But they lost this life and the ability to express by their rebellion. They "died." By putting our faith in Christ, we are reborn with a new heart that has the potential to live out this life. If we choose God, He will express His life through us, the life that is eternal.
In these verses the warfare element is reintroduced. The word translated "wages" in verse 23 is a word used to refer to the wages of a soldier. Thus, we are being told that the only wages we will ever receive for serving in the army of sin is death. Sin promises pleasure and power and all the other thing our flesh believes will make us happy and fulfilled. But in truth, we will not be "living right.” And by not “living right” we miss out on the sense of meaning, purpose, and significance we were created to have and enjoy.
In contrast to earning the wages of death, God offers us a free gift - a life whose nature and character is His own, and, as a result, is eternal. This is the life our first parents, and all of us as their descendants, were created to experience and express. This life is the result of living right.
This then is God's definition of Freedom - the freedom to choose who our master will be. Each choice has consequences and results. It is a limited freedom but it is the most important freedom of all. What good is economic or political freedom if all we can do with it is live in sin? What good are the world's freedoms if nothing we do with them will meet our need for meaning, purpose, and significance? But as Paul says in verses 17-18, "Thanks be to God that we have been freed from sin and can now life right."
May we be wise enough to choose the right Master, moment by moment.
#4 DOES A CHRISTIAN HAVE A SIN NATURE? NO!!!
Can you identify with what Paul says in Verse 15 of Romans Chapter 7, “For that which I am doing I do not understand, for I am not doing what I would like to do, but am doing the very thing I hate.” For many years of my Christian life I identified with Paul. I knew there were things that I needed to overcome and put aside – sins that grieved the heart of God and through me damaged my wife, my children, and my friends. But I couldn’t seem to get a handle on how to really overcome them. I seemed to consistently end up doing the very things I hated. Too often I was impatient with others, or succumbed to an outburst of anger, or had a critical tone to my words.
I had been taught that the spiritual life was basically a conflict between the new nature that I received when I trusted Jesus as my Savior and the old nature that I had inherited from Adam. A common illustration of this is that my new nature was a white dog and my old nature was a black dog. The one that dominated me was the one I fed the most. If I fed the white dog the nourishment of Bible study, a regular quiet time, church attendance, and ministry it would grow strong and powerful and muscular and I would manifest a positive Christian life. In addition, I had been taught that the key to victory was depending on the Holy Spirit to fill me and empower me. The feeding of the white dog would motivate me to yield to Holy Spirit and allow Him to put to death my sin nature.
If I fed the black dog the nourishment of this world - pride, selfishness, greed, and lust - I would be a person dominated by the desire for freedom, independence, personal rights, and pleasure. The sins of the flesh would manifest themselves through me as I garnered my values and priorities from the world through T.V., movies, newspapers, popular music, and advertising.
For many years I fought this war within myself. But no matter how much I fed the white dog, the black dog always dominated. Prayerfully yielding and asking the Holy Spirit to put to death my sin nature didn't work. For me, Romans 7:15 was all too real.
I recently came across a description of the Christian Life that summarized all that I had come to believe and accept.
"Think of it. You are a shadow of the person you were meant to be. You have nothing close to the life you were meant to have, and, you have no real chance of becoming that person or finding that life. However, you are forgiven. For the rest of your days you will fail in your attempts to become what God wants you to be. You shall seek forgiveness and try again. Eventually, shame and disappointment will cloud your understanding of yourself and your God. When this ongoing hell on earth is over, you will die, and you will be taken up before God for a full account of how you didn't measure up - but you will be forgiven. After that, you'll be asked to take your place in the choir of Heaven - and this is what we call 'salvation.'" ( John Eldredge, Waking the Dead, p. 62)
That's a sad commentary isn't it? Yet for me it described the "Abundant Life" I was living. How about you?
But author Eldredge goes on, "The Good News is this is not Christianity." I can now concur!! Such a description no longer expresses my Christian life. I have found there is much more to Romans 7 than verse 15!!
Let me begin with a story by way of illustration. A woman goes in for surgery. The surgery seems to go very well. Over the next few days of recovery her doctor becomes concerned. She is running a fever that she shouldn’t have. Finally he decides there must be something going on that he is unaware of. He sends her down for an x-ray. The x-ray shows the problem. A surgical sponge has been left inside when the incision was closed. Once the sponge is removed, the woman’s recovery proceeds normally.
The question is, “Does the woman have a problem herself or does she have a problem in her?” Obviously, she has a problem in her. The sponge is not her. It is something unnatural to her that is causing a problem.
Spiritually speaking, this is the truth Paul is inspired to teach us in Romans 7. He says he has a problem within himself but it is not a natural part of him. This understanding is so important that God inspires Paul to repeat the facts twice in 6 verses.
I believe is verbal, plenary inspiration. This means every word of the Bible and all the words of the Bible were God-breathed. God did not inspire portions of the Bible, or just the “Big Ideas” like love. Rather, every single word comes through human authors but is being written by God Himself through them. My conclusion from this belief is that if some thought or idea or concept is repeated, especially repeated in the same context, God really wants us to “get it.” If a truth is repeated twice in 6 verses, God is saying to us, “Pay attention here. This is REALLY, REALLY important!"
So how does God phrase this truth that is so important? We have seen that in verse 15 Paul says,
“For that which I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.
But then in verse 17 he says,
‘So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which indwells me.”
In verse 15, Paul takes responsibility for his actions. In a sense there is one actor in verse 15 - “I” referring to Paul himself. But in verse 17 there are two actors, “I” referring to Paul, and "the sin which indwells me" referring to something in Paul that is not him.
Paul repeats this truth in verses 19 and 20.
“For the good that I wish, I do not do; but I practice the very evil that I do not wish. 20 But if I am doing the very thing I do not wish, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.”
In verse 19 there is again only one actor, “I.” In verse 20, the two actors are referred to again, “I” and “ the sin which indwells me.”
At first glance it would seem that Paul is rationalizing or making excuses for his sin. If we looked only at verses 17 and 20 we might be justifies in concluding this. But in verses 15 and 19 he does take responsibility. What’s going on here? What is Paul describing here?
What he is describing is the practical outworking of the freedom to choose he explained in Romans Chapter 6. He is saying, “When sin tempts me, and I give in to it, I am responsible because I am now free not to give in. My co-death and co-resurrection with Jesus frees me from slavery to sin. I know what is true of me, therefore, if I choose to believe sin’s lies I have to accept responsibility. But I also know that it is not me who is the source of these desires. I am not the one generating them from my new nature. The sin which indwells my flesh is not me!!”
Like the woman who had surgery, Paul is saying, “I am good and Holy and righteous in Christ by the power of God. But there is a “surgical sponge” called “sin within me” that I can yield to, resulting in actions, thoughts, desires, reactions, and attitudes reflecting it rather than those of the new creation I am.”
And so it is with each of us who have been born again. We too are tempted by something that is real but not the real us. We too can resist because of our freedom to choose. And we too must take responsibility for our sins when we choose to act upon sin’s lies instead of God’s truth.
But how does this sin which indwells us work? How does it get a hold of us? A clear illustration is found in Acts Chapter 5 in the story of Ananias and Sapphira.
Acts 4:33-34
And with great power the apostles were giving witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and abundant grace was upon them all. (34) For there was not a needy person among them, for all who were owners of land or houses would sell them and bring the proceeds of the sales, and lay them at the apostles' feet; and they would be distributed to each, as any had need.
Acts 5:1-4
But a certain man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, (2) and kept back some of the price for himself, with his wife's full knowledge, and bringing a portion of it, he laid it at the apostles' feet. (3) But Peter said, "Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit, and to keep back some of the price of the land? (4) "While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not under your control? Why is it that you have conceived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to men, but to God."
We see from Acts 4:33-34 that many of the brothers and sisters in Jerusalem were selling properties and giving the money to the Apostles to share with others in need. This was an expression of their love and concern for those with less. It was a testimony of the heart transformation that had resulted from their trust in Jesus. They were now seeing others as important as, or even more important than, themselves.
Ananias and Sappira seem to have wanted the “glory” of being seen as such people but were not willing to give up everything. Something inside them, perhaps greed, perhaps fear of survival, tempted them to withhold some of the funds they received in selling their property. Unwilling to be seen as too cheap to give up everything, they decided to lie about the amount they had sold their property for. Where did this greed or fear come from?
Notice what Peter says in verse 3,
“Why has satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit, and to keep back some of the price of the land?”
“Why has satan filled your heart?” Yet in verse 4 Peter says, “Why is it that you have conceived this deed in your heart?”
“Why is it that you….” In verse 3 there are two “actors” – satan and Ananias. In verse 4 there is one – Ananias. Thus, this story is a practical example of how the truth presented in Romans 7 works itself out. A temptation to sin is generated by satan via the sin which indwells Ananias’s flesh. It is not from him but becomes his responsibility when he gives into it by holding back some of the funds and lying about the amount.
Now how does satan do this? Usually when we think of satan we think of the caricature of a fiend in a red suit with a forked tail and a pitchfork. I don't think someone like this sat down in front of Ananias and said, "Ananias, I got an idea. How about when you sell the land you say you’re giving it all over to the apostles but actually you can keep some of it back for your own use. That way you will receive all the praise and honor for your good work but will still have a bunch of money to spend on yourself." No, I don't think satan sat down and had a "face to face" with Ananias. Rather, I believe it went something like this. Satan planted the seeds of this thinking in Ananias's mind speaking to Ananias in his own voice. Like a ventriloquist, satan gave Ananias the impression that these thoughts were his own. Instead of saying to him, "Ananias, why don't you sell the property….", Ananias suddenly gets the idea, "I could sell the property for this much but tell everyone I only received this much. That way I could get the praise but still have money for myself." Notice the "Big I." The thoughts come to Ananias in his own voice and in the first person. He believes he is generating them.
Who wouldn't accept them as their own!!
But they are not his own. Remember, Peter asks Ananias, "Why has satan filled your heart?" The source of the idea was satan, not the new creation Ananias had become by his faith in Christ and his resulting new birth. In essence Peter is saying to Ananias, "Why didn't you recognize where these thoughts and ideas were coming from? How could you not know they were not your own? You know such ideas can't come from the new person you are. You should have recognized the source and rejected them in the power of the Holy Spirit. But since you did not, and since you followed through on them and lied to us and to God, you will be held responsible."
This is what Paul is trying to teach us in Romans 7. We are to recognize that satan plants thoughts and ideas and temptations before us through the sin which indwells us. So where does this sin reside?
"For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is in my flesh; for the wishing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not." Rm. 7:18
But I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members." Rm. 7: 23
In Romans 6, 7, and 8, the word "sin" is used 40 times. The singular word “sin’ must be distinguished from the plural word “sins.” “Sins” are the actions, desires, feelings, and attitudes that are the result of giving in to the temptations generated by the sin which indwells us. Vines Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words defines “sin” as “an organized power or person acting through the body that produces actions. This “sin” is the inherited prideful self-centeredness we were born with. In other words, sin is that which tempts us to be jealous, angry, lustful, greedy, and all the rest of those “old things” we have been freed from by our new birth. Like that surgical sponge that was left in the woman during her surgery, sin remains in the memory banks of our brains even though we are a new creation. The “flesh” is the life patterns or ways of acting, re-acting, and feeling that we formed into habits as we lived to feed our prideful self-centeredness. A person who has a pattern of “outbursts of anger” might be a person who has developed this pattern as a way of protecting himself when ever they feel someone is putting them down, whenever they are made to feel small or disrespected. Their anger is a way of saying, “I am important. Don’t mess with me or you will regret it.” This describes one of the patterns of living that I developed in my life. For whatever reasons, I was one of those who didn't feel like they measured up. I never seemed to be one of the "cool" kids. So, I have struggled with outbursts of anger as long as I can remember. I would blow up at my wife, my kids, even at my circumstances!! Even after becoming a believer, I have had to fight these temptations, both of feeling "inferior" and responding in anger. Only since I have come to see that these feelings of inferiority and anger are no longer a part of who I am have I gained a measure of victory when these temptations are thrown at me by the evil one.
And so it is with all the "deeds of the flesh" that Paul names in Galatians 5:19-21. They are all patterns of living that we form as we strive to live out and protect the "sin" (prideful self-centeredness) that created them.
One author illustrates it this way. Imagine you live on a farm and every day you walk the same pathway to your favorite fishing hole. The result? Soon there would be a well worn path without grass to your fishing hole. Now imagine what would happen if you decided to change your pathway. Over time, the old path would be once again overgrown with grass, while the new route would become grass free.
Our brains work in the same way. Our neurological pathways are "burned" as we experience events. These pathways are linked to responses so that when we encounter the same experience again, or a similar one, our brain automatically kicks in with its programmed response and we express the action or reaction or feeling that has been linked to the experience.
When we are born again, we begin the process of developing new neurological pathways, new ways of responding to previously stored experiences. These pathways result from the presenting our members to righteousness that Paul describes in Romans 6.
I encounter that old feeling of inferiority. Anger is ready to burst forth. But now I offer my members to righteousness. I ask the Holy Spirit to fill me. I cling to Christ as a branch in the vine. As a result, the peace and rest and confidence of Christ flow through me. My brain records this process as the "normal" response to feelings of inferiority. Over time this process becomes the dominant pathway.
Since the "sin which indwells my flesh" will never be totally gone in this life, there will always be a battle. I will be confronted by satan, the world, and my flesh to make choices throughout the day. But, as I continue to offer my members to righteousness, the battle becomes less intense. I am constantly broadening the neurological pathways of my brain whose response is to be filled with the Spirit, to be an abiding branch in the Vine of Jesus. The old pathways are slowly diminishing and are becoming less powerful. This is what Paul means in Romans 12:2 when he commands us not to be conformed to this world but to be "transformed by the renewing of your mind." Obviously, Paul did not have the medical understanding of how the brain works like we do today but he didn't need to. God inspired Paul to describe the process because He knew the physiology!!
As a new creation, when temptation comes, I know the source, and its not me! Rather it is the sin which indwells my flesh. This sin is tempting me to respond in sinful ways to the stimuli of the world. But I also know I no longer have to give in to it and obey it. I am free from its power and dominion. There is not a white dog and a black dog within me. I am not at war with myself. I am at war, but it is not a civil war. "I" can stand against the sin which indwells my flesh.
Several years ago, many young people had an expression that fits our situation. If someone was getting in their face, and they didn't want to hear it, they would turn their head to one side and hold up a hand. They were saying, "Here, talk to the hand. You're not getting to me. I have no time for what you are trying to say." We must spiritually tell satan and the sin which indwells our flesh to "talk to the hand." We haven't got the time or the desire to listen to what they are trying to say to us. We must tell them, "You have no right to plant these thoughts, that grow into desire, that result in action, in my mind and feelings. I am no longer under your authority."
Anytime we are tempted to act or feel or react contrary to what we know is God's will and way, we must identify the source and reject it. No matter how "real" it feels, we must reject it, knowing it is a counterfeit from satan rather than from the true self we are. We must confidently affirm, "That's not me!" and present our members to righteousness and experience the life of Christ in us and through us to the glory of God.
#5 OUR VICTORY IS A PERSON, NOT A PROGRAM
In Romans Chapter 7, Paul describes himself as a wretched or pathetic man. He's miserable because he knows what he would like to do, but ends up doing the very things he hates. He wishes to do good, but ends up doing the evil he has no wish to do. His misery leads him to cry out in verse 24, "Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?"
Too many times we say, "I'm just like Paul. I know what I want to to, I know what I want to be like, but I can't seem to get there. I wish I could be different. I'm a wretched man. I'm miserable, just like Paul." The problem with this identification is that Paul doesn't stop there and we do. We accept our misery as the way things are and always will be.
But Paul says when he cried out in his misery, there was One who answered. In verse 25 he goes on to say, "Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord."
Too many times we identify with Paul's cry of being wretched but we don't go on with him to appropriate God's answer in the Person of Jesus Christ, the One who can set us free from the wretchedness of knowing what we want to do but ending up doing the very thing we hate. It's very important here to see that our solution is a Person, not a program. Look closely at Paul's words. He doesn't say, "Wretched man that I am! WHAT will set me free from the body of this death?" Too many times we look to a "what" to set us free rather than a "who." We look to a program rather than a Person. We look to going to church, Bible study, Scripture memory, attending seminars, being in a small group. having a disciplined prayer time, and having a consistent quiet time as the pathways to setting us free from the wretchedness we are experiencing. And as long as we do, we will continue to be defeated. Why? Because no matter how strongly we discipline ourselves to engage in the things mentioned above, without the Person of Christ, we are left to our own "best effort" to bring all we are learning to fruition in our lives. We will simply know more of what we want to do, and be even more miserable as we continue to do the things we hate.
Paul goes on to affirm that this Person can free us from the misery in which we find ourselves. In verse 1 of Chapter Eight, Paul says,
"There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."
Now I know that this verse is used most often to affirm the wonderful truth that once we accept Jesus as our Savior, God no longer holds our sins against us. We are no longer condemned to separation from God, either in this life or the eternity to come. This is, of course, is absolutely true. All our sins, past, present, and even future, have been absorbed into Jesus. He picked up our wages – death – so that by faith in Him and what He did we would no longer be condemned to pick up the wages ourselves.
However, as awesome as that truth is, that is not what this verse is talking about in this context. Rather, here Paul is saying that we are not condemned to live in Romans 7. We are not condemned to live as miserable, pathetic people, knowing what we want to do but ending up doing the very things we hate.
Why are we not condemned to live there? Paul gives us the answer in verse 2 of Romans,
“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.’
The word law here is not referring to the Mosaic Law of the Old Testament. The word law here means a governing principle like “the law of gravity.” The law of gravity is a governing principle of life on this planet. What is dropped falls downward, every time, all the time. Paul says here that there is a governing principle, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, that will free us from being under the law of sin and death. The law of sin and death was the governing principle that made us unable to do what we wanted to do and compelled us to do the very things we hated. This law of sin and death is the governing principle of the sin which indwells my flesh. It is the means by which indwelling sin tempts me to believe that what it says to me and what it makes me feel is the true me and must be obeyed if I am to be true to myself. Then, when I succumb to the temptation of this sin, I once again “die.” I have broken fellowship with God. I have lost intimacy with God. I am “dead.”
But the good news is that the law of the Spirit of life has (past tense) set us free from the law of sin and death. To clarify how this law of the Spirit of life frees us, I want to ask you a question. How did Jesus live the Christian life?
Most of us would say, “Well, He was God. He just lived it naturally.” But I want you to hear a description of how |Jesus lived the Christian life from Peter. In Acts Chapter 2 Peter’s wonderful Pentecostal message after receiving the Holy Spirit is recorded. In the midst of that message, in Acts 2:22, Peter says this,
“Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know…” (underlined for emphasis)
What does it mean that “God performed miracles and wonders and signs through Jesus?” It means that Jesus didn’t raise Lazarus from the dead. God the Father used His power through Jesus to raise Lazarus from the dead. Jesus didn’t give sight to the blind. God the Father used His power through Jesus to give sight to the blind. And so it is with all the “miracles” Jesus did.
Jesus lived the Christian life in dependence upon His Father. Jesus allowed His Father to exhibit His power and nature through Him. This is what Paul is referring to in Philippians when he tells the Philippians that Jesus did not hold equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant. (Phil. 2:6-7) Jesus was still fully God but He was no longer exhibiting His divine nature by His own will and power. He no longer, of His own will, decided what to do and when to do it. Nor did He do His works by His own innate ability. That’s why Jesus says in the Gospels that His words are not His word and His works are not His works. He says they are His Father’s words and works.
“Philip said to Him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father.’ Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works.” (Jn. 14:8-10, underlined for emphasis)
Jesus is saying that His words were not His own words but the words of His Father through Him. He is saying the miracles they had seen were not His miracles but the works of His Father through Him. That’s how Jesus lived the Christian life – in dependence upon His Father to exhibit His life through Him as He yielded Himself to His Father for that purpose.
We can continue this idea by asking, “How did Paul say he lived the Christian life?” We know that Paul said to be imitators of him as he was of Christ. (1 Cor. 11:1) Many times we think Paul is saying, “As I ask ‘what would Jesus do?” and do the same, or ‘How would Jesus respond here?’ and respond the same, so should you. As I have adopted Jesus’ moral values and priorities and actions and responses, so should you. This is what it means to be a disciple.” But I don’t believe this is what Paul is saying here at all. To be an imitator of Jesus as Paul was does not start with externals.
“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” (Gal. 2:20, underlined for emphasis)
Paul is saying, “Just as Jesus let the Father live through Him, I am letting Jesus live through me. The person I am is no longer me but the nature and character of Jesus living Himself out through me.” He says it a little bit different in Col. 1:29 as he describes his ministry,
“For this purpose I also labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.” (underlined for emphasis)
Paul is saying his words of teaching and his works of power are not him but the release of Jesus’ words and works through him. He is saying the courage he needs to go to the next city where he knows he will be rejected by most, and probably beaten and imprisoned, is not a courage he manufactures but the courage of Jesus to accept the Father’s will no matter what the consequences might be.
He confirms this once again in Romans 15:18,
“For I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me, resulting in the obedience of the Gentiles by word and deed.” ( underlined for emphasis)
Have you caught the parallelism between how Jesus lived the Christian life and how Paul lived it? Paul was an imitator of Jesus in that He relied on Jesus just as Jesus had relied on His Father. This is how we become imitators of Paul, by living in dependence upon Jesus just as he did. This is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. A disciple is one follows the philosophy of living and the pattern of living of another whom they respect and choose to follow. Jesus philosophy of life was to empty Himself and let the Father live Himself out through Him. If we are to be Jesus’ disciples we must choose to empty ourselves and allow Jesus to live Himself out through us. Jesus is more powerful than we are. Jesus is more powerful than satan. And Jesus is definitely more powerful than the sin which indwells our flesh. When we yield ourselves to Jesus, we live in the reality of who He is. His ability to defeat the temptations from the sin which indwells our flesh becomes our own. We experience victory over temptation as we accept the presence and power of Jesus living through us.
This reality of Jesus living Himself out through us in most clearly presented in the Gospel of John, Chapter 15, verses 1 – 11. Most of us recognize it as the “Branches in the Vine” passage. This passage of Scripture is vitally important because it is the last significant teaching of Jesus before He goes to the Cross. These are His “last words” so to speak. From the Upper Room He is traveling to the Garden of Gethsemane. As they pass by a vineyard, Jesus pauses to illustratively teach them the vital relationship they must have with Him if they are to be what the Father wants them to be and accomplish what the Father wants them to accomplish. It is significant to me that these “last words” come closely after He has had the interchange with Philip we looked at above. I can’t help but believe that as they heard Jesus teaching them about being branches in the Vine of Him, they associated His words to them in the context of what He had said about His relationship with His Father. “So, Jesus is saying we have to be branches in the Vine of Him as He was a branch in the Vine of His Father. As He emptied Himself and let His Father live through Him, we must empty ourselves and let Him live through us.”
This is the governing principle of the Spirit of life that Paul speaks of in Romans 8:2. This is the governing principle that gave Paul victory over the wretchedness of knowing what he wanted to do but ending up doing the things he hated. When Paul first came to realize that he could not live the Christian life, he was in despair. But then he learned that he was never expected to live it!! He was only expected to be a branch in the Vine of Jesus and experience the Christian life as Jesus lived Himself out through Him!!
It’s been said that only One Person has ever lived the Christian life, and that Person is Jesus. This is a true statement. Jesus is the only one who has ever lived the Christian life perfectly. And He is still the only one who can. Paul was wretched because he knew he had been reborn as a new creation with a new heart that was in sync with God as God had originally intended his heart to be, and yet, knowing all this, he also knew he could not live his life as God desired him to. He needed something beyond himself, as wonderful as he was as a new creation, to overcome the sin which indwelt his flesh. He needed a power greater than himself to give life to the new creation he was. He came to understand that Jesus was that Person and power. He came to understand that he could allow Jesus to live through him as Jesus had let His Father live through Him.
So how does this work? How do we let Jesus live through us? To understand, we must look in depth at John 15:1-11. We need to imagine ourselves standing with the disciples by that vineyard, hearing Jesus words. We must imagine that He is addressing us as directly as He was addressing them.
"I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away (lifts up – parenthesis mine); and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it, that it may bear more fruit. (Jn. 15:1-2)
What did those men with Jesus understand Him to be saying when He said, “My Father is the vinedresser.”? They stand there looking out over that vineyard. They know that the purpose of that vineyard is to produce as many succulent, juicy grapes for its owner as it can. Ultimately there was one person responsible for seeing that those branches produced grapes – the vinedresser. He was the overseer of the vineyard. By his efforts, and the efforts of the workers under his authority, the vineyard would produce or it wouldn’t. So the glorious good news is that coming to understand our life with Christ, and our reaching maturity in our walk with Christ, is in the hands of God the Father Himself. He is the one overseeing us to be sure we experience an abundant Christian life. God the Father is the vinedresser of our life. He is the One who will do whatever it takes for us achieve a dynamic and exhilarating life with Jesus. He will do this because in experiencing the abundant life He has planned for us we become the light and salt He wants us to be to the dark, needy world around us.
So how does He do this? How does He get us the bear the fruit of an exciting, exhilarating Christian life? Jesus says in verse 2 that, just as a vinedresser has appropriate methods by which to increase grape production, the Father has methods to increase the fruit a Christian bears. The literal vinedresser lifts up every branch that does not bear fruit and prunes the vine that does produce grapes so that it will produce even more of them. I realize the normal translation in verse 2 is “takes away” but the Greek allows for an alternative translation – “lifts up.” I believe this translation is better because the goal is to produce as many grapes as possible. What vinedresser would throw away a branch that has potential to bear grapes? Sometimes a potentially productive branch would get detached from the trellis and fall to the ground. On the ground it would become covered in dust and not be able to receive the sunlight it needed to mature. In these cases, the vinedresser would lift up the branch, clean it off, and retie it to the trellis so that the sun could reach it. A branch that has born fruit would be susceptible to sprouting secondary branches in the next growing season. A wise vinedresser would walk his vineyard, cutting away these secondary branches so the productive branch gets all the nutrients and minerals from the soil. If he didn’t, the number of grapes produced would be more numerous but the grapes themselves would not be the large, succulent grapes desired. The limited amount of nutrients and minerals would have been spread too thinly.
Thus, Jesus is saying here that God the Father sees our potential and lifts us up and prunes us so that we can reach full maturity in are walk with Him. But what does this metaphor represent in the reality of our lives? Some understand this process to be God condemning our sins and calling us to turn away from them. They believe Jesus is saying the Father will discipline us until we clean up our act. We must get a handle on our sins before He can abide in us.
But this can’t be right! We have already seen that we hate our sin and can’t overcome its power in our lives!! How can God expect us to do what we already know we can’t do??
This process of lifting and pruning is not us turning away from our sins. Rather, it is God’s process for getting us to let go of our self-sufficiency. It is the process by which God gets us to the place of Romans 7:24 – realizing we are wretches who can never, in and of ourselves, do what we want to do. God allows trials and tribulations and temptations into our lives so that we reach the point of saying “I can’t! I can’t be what you want me to be in these circumstances! I don’t have what it takes!” At this point we are ready to begin “bearing fruit.” God, our vinedresser, has brought us to the place where we are ready to “hear” and apply the most important truth of the Christian life.
Jesus goes on to say in verses 4-5 of John 15:
“Abide in Me, and I in you. As a branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” (emphasis added)
Many times we wonder why difficulties come into our lives. We struggle with “counting it all joy” for the trials and tribulations of our lives. We can choose to be joyous in these trials and tribulations when we come to understand that they are our Vinedresser’s means of bringing us to total and complete reliance upon Jesus. They are His means to open our eyes to the truth that apart from being a branch in the vine of Jesus we can’t do anything that satisfies Him and brings Him glory. Without being a branch in the vine of Jesus we will never be free from knowing what we want to do but ending up doing the very thing we hate.
Only One person has lived the Christian life, and only One person can. If we believe the Christian life is something we are to live for the glory of God, sooner or later we will cry out with Paul, “wretched man that I am, who will save me from this body of sin and dearth.” Sooner or later we will come to admit to ourselves, as he had to, “I can’t do it. I can’t choose to live as God wants me to. I know what He wants, and even though I want it too, I can’t live it.” But we mustn’t stop there! We must go on as Paul did to appropriate God’s answer, Jesus Himself. By abiding in Jesus, as a branch abides in its vine, we can experience the Christian life as Jesus lives Himself out through us. We can experience “living right” as the One who always lived “right” manifests Himself through us. We will bear the fruit of His nature and character in our thoughts, actions, reactions, desires, and priorities. We will reflect the image of God as we were created too.
The Good News” of the gospel is – we can’t live the Christian life, and we don’t have to!!! Jesus can, and He will, if we give Him permission to. Romans 6 teaches us that we have a choice. We can either offer our mortal bodies to sin, resulting in unrighteousness, or to righteousness, resulting in the life that is eternal. Moment by moment, we choose who our master will be. If we choose to allow righteousness to be our master, we are choosing to be an abiding branch in the Vine of Jesus, allowing His life to bear its fruit through us. By abiding, we allow His love, His compassion, His forgiveness, and the rest of His nature and character to be seen, understood, and experienced by others. We experience for ourselves, and express to others, the life that is eternal.
But Paul says when he cried out in his misery, there was One who answered. In verse 25 he goes on to say, "Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord."
Too many times we identify with Paul's cry of being wretched but we don't go on with him to appropriate God's answer in the Person of Jesus Christ, the One who can set us free from the wretchedness of knowing what we want to do but ending up doing the very thing we hate. It's very important here to see that our solution is a Person, not a program. Look closely at Paul's words. He doesn't say, "Wretched man that I am! WHAT will set me free from the body of this death?" Too many times we look to a "what" to set us free rather than a "who." We look to a program rather than a Person. We look to going to church, Bible study, Scripture memory, attending seminars, being in a small group. having a disciplined prayer time, and having a consistent quiet time as the pathways to setting us free from the wretchedness we are experiencing. And as long as we do, we will continue to be defeated. Why? Because no matter how strongly we discipline ourselves to engage in the things mentioned above, without the Person of Christ, we are left to our own "best effort" to bring all we are learning to fruition in our lives. We will simply know more of what we want to do, and be even more miserable as we continue to do the things we hate.
Paul goes on to affirm that this Person can free us from the misery in which we find ourselves. In verse 1 of Chapter Eight, Paul says,
"There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."
Now I know that this verse is used most often to affirm the wonderful truth that once we accept Jesus as our Savior, God no longer holds our sins against us. We are no longer condemned to separation from God, either in this life or the eternity to come. This is, of course, is absolutely true. All our sins, past, present, and even future, have been absorbed into Jesus. He picked up our wages – death – so that by faith in Him and what He did we would no longer be condemned to pick up the wages ourselves.
However, as awesome as that truth is, that is not what this verse is talking about in this context. Rather, here Paul is saying that we are not condemned to live in Romans 7. We are not condemned to live as miserable, pathetic people, knowing what we want to do but ending up doing the very things we hate.
Why are we not condemned to live there? Paul gives us the answer in verse 2 of Romans,
“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.’
The word law here is not referring to the Mosaic Law of the Old Testament. The word law here means a governing principle like “the law of gravity.” The law of gravity is a governing principle of life on this planet. What is dropped falls downward, every time, all the time. Paul says here that there is a governing principle, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, that will free us from being under the law of sin and death. The law of sin and death was the governing principle that made us unable to do what we wanted to do and compelled us to do the very things we hated. This law of sin and death is the governing principle of the sin which indwells my flesh. It is the means by which indwelling sin tempts me to believe that what it says to me and what it makes me feel is the true me and must be obeyed if I am to be true to myself. Then, when I succumb to the temptation of this sin, I once again “die.” I have broken fellowship with God. I have lost intimacy with God. I am “dead.”
But the good news is that the law of the Spirit of life has (past tense) set us free from the law of sin and death. To clarify how this law of the Spirit of life frees us, I want to ask you a question. How did Jesus live the Christian life?
Most of us would say, “Well, He was God. He just lived it naturally.” But I want you to hear a description of how |Jesus lived the Christian life from Peter. In Acts Chapter 2 Peter’s wonderful Pentecostal message after receiving the Holy Spirit is recorded. In the midst of that message, in Acts 2:22, Peter says this,
“Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know…” (underlined for emphasis)
What does it mean that “God performed miracles and wonders and signs through Jesus?” It means that Jesus didn’t raise Lazarus from the dead. God the Father used His power through Jesus to raise Lazarus from the dead. Jesus didn’t give sight to the blind. God the Father used His power through Jesus to give sight to the blind. And so it is with all the “miracles” Jesus did.
Jesus lived the Christian life in dependence upon His Father. Jesus allowed His Father to exhibit His power and nature through Him. This is what Paul is referring to in Philippians when he tells the Philippians that Jesus did not hold equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant. (Phil. 2:6-7) Jesus was still fully God but He was no longer exhibiting His divine nature by His own will and power. He no longer, of His own will, decided what to do and when to do it. Nor did He do His works by His own innate ability. That’s why Jesus says in the Gospels that His words are not His word and His works are not His works. He says they are His Father’s words and works.
“Philip said to Him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father.’ Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works.” (Jn. 14:8-10, underlined for emphasis)
Jesus is saying that His words were not His own words but the words of His Father through Him. He is saying the miracles they had seen were not His miracles but the works of His Father through Him. That’s how Jesus lived the Christian life – in dependence upon His Father to exhibit His life through Him as He yielded Himself to His Father for that purpose.
We can continue this idea by asking, “How did Paul say he lived the Christian life?” We know that Paul said to be imitators of him as he was of Christ. (1 Cor. 11:1) Many times we think Paul is saying, “As I ask ‘what would Jesus do?” and do the same, or ‘How would Jesus respond here?’ and respond the same, so should you. As I have adopted Jesus’ moral values and priorities and actions and responses, so should you. This is what it means to be a disciple.” But I don’t believe this is what Paul is saying here at all. To be an imitator of Jesus as Paul was does not start with externals.
“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” (Gal. 2:20, underlined for emphasis)
Paul is saying, “Just as Jesus let the Father live through Him, I am letting Jesus live through me. The person I am is no longer me but the nature and character of Jesus living Himself out through me.” He says it a little bit different in Col. 1:29 as he describes his ministry,
“For this purpose I also labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.” (underlined for emphasis)
Paul is saying his words of teaching and his works of power are not him but the release of Jesus’ words and works through him. He is saying the courage he needs to go to the next city where he knows he will be rejected by most, and probably beaten and imprisoned, is not a courage he manufactures but the courage of Jesus to accept the Father’s will no matter what the consequences might be.
He confirms this once again in Romans 15:18,
“For I will not presume to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me, resulting in the obedience of the Gentiles by word and deed.” ( underlined for emphasis)
Have you caught the parallelism between how Jesus lived the Christian life and how Paul lived it? Paul was an imitator of Jesus in that He relied on Jesus just as Jesus had relied on His Father. This is how we become imitators of Paul, by living in dependence upon Jesus just as he did. This is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. A disciple is one follows the philosophy of living and the pattern of living of another whom they respect and choose to follow. Jesus philosophy of life was to empty Himself and let the Father live Himself out through Him. If we are to be Jesus’ disciples we must choose to empty ourselves and allow Jesus to live Himself out through us. Jesus is more powerful than we are. Jesus is more powerful than satan. And Jesus is definitely more powerful than the sin which indwells our flesh. When we yield ourselves to Jesus, we live in the reality of who He is. His ability to defeat the temptations from the sin which indwells our flesh becomes our own. We experience victory over temptation as we accept the presence and power of Jesus living through us.
This reality of Jesus living Himself out through us in most clearly presented in the Gospel of John, Chapter 15, verses 1 – 11. Most of us recognize it as the “Branches in the Vine” passage. This passage of Scripture is vitally important because it is the last significant teaching of Jesus before He goes to the Cross. These are His “last words” so to speak. From the Upper Room He is traveling to the Garden of Gethsemane. As they pass by a vineyard, Jesus pauses to illustratively teach them the vital relationship they must have with Him if they are to be what the Father wants them to be and accomplish what the Father wants them to accomplish. It is significant to me that these “last words” come closely after He has had the interchange with Philip we looked at above. I can’t help but believe that as they heard Jesus teaching them about being branches in the Vine of Him, they associated His words to them in the context of what He had said about His relationship with His Father. “So, Jesus is saying we have to be branches in the Vine of Him as He was a branch in the Vine of His Father. As He emptied Himself and let His Father live through Him, we must empty ourselves and let Him live through us.”
This is the governing principle of the Spirit of life that Paul speaks of in Romans 8:2. This is the governing principle that gave Paul victory over the wretchedness of knowing what he wanted to do but ending up doing the things he hated. When Paul first came to realize that he could not live the Christian life, he was in despair. But then he learned that he was never expected to live it!! He was only expected to be a branch in the Vine of Jesus and experience the Christian life as Jesus lived Himself out through Him!!
It’s been said that only One Person has ever lived the Christian life, and that Person is Jesus. This is a true statement. Jesus is the only one who has ever lived the Christian life perfectly. And He is still the only one who can. Paul was wretched because he knew he had been reborn as a new creation with a new heart that was in sync with God as God had originally intended his heart to be, and yet, knowing all this, he also knew he could not live his life as God desired him to. He needed something beyond himself, as wonderful as he was as a new creation, to overcome the sin which indwelt his flesh. He needed a power greater than himself to give life to the new creation he was. He came to understand that Jesus was that Person and power. He came to understand that he could allow Jesus to live through him as Jesus had let His Father live through Him.
So how does this work? How do we let Jesus live through us? To understand, we must look in depth at John 15:1-11. We need to imagine ourselves standing with the disciples by that vineyard, hearing Jesus words. We must imagine that He is addressing us as directly as He was addressing them.
"I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away (lifts up – parenthesis mine); and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it, that it may bear more fruit. (Jn. 15:1-2)
What did those men with Jesus understand Him to be saying when He said, “My Father is the vinedresser.”? They stand there looking out over that vineyard. They know that the purpose of that vineyard is to produce as many succulent, juicy grapes for its owner as it can. Ultimately there was one person responsible for seeing that those branches produced grapes – the vinedresser. He was the overseer of the vineyard. By his efforts, and the efforts of the workers under his authority, the vineyard would produce or it wouldn’t. So the glorious good news is that coming to understand our life with Christ, and our reaching maturity in our walk with Christ, is in the hands of God the Father Himself. He is the one overseeing us to be sure we experience an abundant Christian life. God the Father is the vinedresser of our life. He is the One who will do whatever it takes for us achieve a dynamic and exhilarating life with Jesus. He will do this because in experiencing the abundant life He has planned for us we become the light and salt He wants us to be to the dark, needy world around us.
So how does He do this? How does He get us the bear the fruit of an exciting, exhilarating Christian life? Jesus says in verse 2 that, just as a vinedresser has appropriate methods by which to increase grape production, the Father has methods to increase the fruit a Christian bears. The literal vinedresser lifts up every branch that does not bear fruit and prunes the vine that does produce grapes so that it will produce even more of them. I realize the normal translation in verse 2 is “takes away” but the Greek allows for an alternative translation – “lifts up.” I believe this translation is better because the goal is to produce as many grapes as possible. What vinedresser would throw away a branch that has potential to bear grapes? Sometimes a potentially productive branch would get detached from the trellis and fall to the ground. On the ground it would become covered in dust and not be able to receive the sunlight it needed to mature. In these cases, the vinedresser would lift up the branch, clean it off, and retie it to the trellis so that the sun could reach it. A branch that has born fruit would be susceptible to sprouting secondary branches in the next growing season. A wise vinedresser would walk his vineyard, cutting away these secondary branches so the productive branch gets all the nutrients and minerals from the soil. If he didn’t, the number of grapes produced would be more numerous but the grapes themselves would not be the large, succulent grapes desired. The limited amount of nutrients and minerals would have been spread too thinly.
Thus, Jesus is saying here that God the Father sees our potential and lifts us up and prunes us so that we can reach full maturity in are walk with Him. But what does this metaphor represent in the reality of our lives? Some understand this process to be God condemning our sins and calling us to turn away from them. They believe Jesus is saying the Father will discipline us until we clean up our act. We must get a handle on our sins before He can abide in us.
But this can’t be right! We have already seen that we hate our sin and can’t overcome its power in our lives!! How can God expect us to do what we already know we can’t do??
This process of lifting and pruning is not us turning away from our sins. Rather, it is God’s process for getting us to let go of our self-sufficiency. It is the process by which God gets us to the place of Romans 7:24 – realizing we are wretches who can never, in and of ourselves, do what we want to do. God allows trials and tribulations and temptations into our lives so that we reach the point of saying “I can’t! I can’t be what you want me to be in these circumstances! I don’t have what it takes!” At this point we are ready to begin “bearing fruit.” God, our vinedresser, has brought us to the place where we are ready to “hear” and apply the most important truth of the Christian life.
Jesus goes on to say in verses 4-5 of John 15:
“Abide in Me, and I in you. As a branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” (emphasis added)
Many times we wonder why difficulties come into our lives. We struggle with “counting it all joy” for the trials and tribulations of our lives. We can choose to be joyous in these trials and tribulations when we come to understand that they are our Vinedresser’s means of bringing us to total and complete reliance upon Jesus. They are His means to open our eyes to the truth that apart from being a branch in the vine of Jesus we can’t do anything that satisfies Him and brings Him glory. Without being a branch in the vine of Jesus we will never be free from knowing what we want to do but ending up doing the very thing we hate.
Only One person has lived the Christian life, and only One person can. If we believe the Christian life is something we are to live for the glory of God, sooner or later we will cry out with Paul, “wretched man that I am, who will save me from this body of sin and dearth.” Sooner or later we will come to admit to ourselves, as he had to, “I can’t do it. I can’t choose to live as God wants me to. I know what He wants, and even though I want it too, I can’t live it.” But we mustn’t stop there! We must go on as Paul did to appropriate God’s answer, Jesus Himself. By abiding in Jesus, as a branch abides in its vine, we can experience the Christian life as Jesus lives Himself out through us. We can experience “living right” as the One who always lived “right” manifests Himself through us. We will bear the fruit of His nature and character in our thoughts, actions, reactions, desires, and priorities. We will reflect the image of God as we were created too.
The Good News” of the gospel is – we can’t live the Christian life, and we don’t have to!!! Jesus can, and He will, if we give Him permission to. Romans 6 teaches us that we have a choice. We can either offer our mortal bodies to sin, resulting in unrighteousness, or to righteousness, resulting in the life that is eternal. Moment by moment, we choose who our master will be. If we choose to allow righteousness to be our master, we are choosing to be an abiding branch in the Vine of Jesus, allowing His life to bear its fruit through us. By abiding, we allow His love, His compassion, His forgiveness, and the rest of His nature and character to be seen, understood, and experienced by others. We experience for ourselves, and express to others, the life that is eternal.
#6 I CAN’T – HE CAN
I can’t live the Christian life, and I am not expected to! Jesus can live the Christian life, and He will live it through me. I remember when these words first became more than an intellectual understanding for me. They made that long, 18” journey from my head to my heart. What a joyous freedom this brought to my life. “I can’t live the Christian life!” For so many years I had tried and failed to live the life God wanted me to. For so many years the expectations and commandments of God that I learned in my Bible study were a source of guilt to me because I never was able to overcome the inability to keep them. I felt ashamed. I felt God was disappointed in me. I felt that even though I believed He loved me, He didn’t like me very much.
Then, after so many years of struggle, frustration, and failure (35 to be exact!!), it was finally made clear to me that I would never be able to live up to God’s expectations. But the joy was that at the same time I learned that God had never expected me to. Only Jesus lived the Christian life, and only He can. The Good News is that He is still able to live that life in and through me. I don’t have to live the Christian life. I can experience the Christian life as Jesus lives Himself out through me.
The clearest passage of Scripture that teaches us this truth is John 15:1-11. Here Jesus compares the living out of the Christian life to that of a branch producing grapes in a vineyard. To clearly understand the importance of this passage we must put it in its context. This teaching takes place on the night Jesus will be betrayed. He and His disciples have finished the Passover meal in the upper room. They are on their way to the Garden of Gethsemane. As they journey, they pass a vineyard. This is Jesus last extended teaching to the disciples before His trial and death. In essence, these are His last words. Last words are always vital and important!! He knows they won’t understand their importance right now. They will soon be confused because of what will be happening to Him. They will be filled with fear for their own lives. Yet, He must teach them this. This truth will be the key to their lives and ministry after His resurrection and ascension. He will trust the Holy Spirit to bring it to their remembrance after He is gone. He will trust the Holy Spirit to confirm it in their hearts, and in ours!!!
There are three main points in this passage. The first point is discovered when we ask ourselves the question, “Who’s in charge?” In verse one, Jesus is quoted as saying, “I am the vine and My Father is the vinedresser.” Jesus is saying His Father is in charge. A vinedresser was the one who oversaw the vineyard. Ultimately, he was responsible to get the maximum amount of grapes produced. He would personally, or have the workers he oversaw, do whatever was necessary to get the branches bearing the maximum number of grapes and the highest quality of grapes possible. What would that entail? Jesus continues the analogy in verse 2, “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He lifts up (a better translation than ‘takes away’); and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so it may bear more fruit.” In a vineyard, branches would sometimes succumb to the pull of gravity and lose contact with the sun as they were overshadowed by leaves. A watchful vinedresser would take notice of this potentially productive branch that was in harms way and lift it up and attach it to the trellis so its leaves could feed off the sun again.
Pruning was also necessary. Branches that had produced good grapes the year before would naturally begin to sprout sub branches at the beginning of the new growing season. If allowed to continue to mature, these new branches would so divide the nutrients being supplied by the vine that none of the branches would be able to produce good quality grapes. The wise vinedresser would be sure and prune these new sprouts from all his productive branches so that the productive branches could once again produce the high quality grapes he wanted.
What was the meaning for the disciples, and for us? It is the Father’s responsibility to get us to live a productive Christian life. Our Father will do whatever is necessary in our lives to get us bear to the max His essential nature.
The second key point is found in verses 4 & 5. Jesus says, “Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the Vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” In a vineyard, if a branch is broken off the vine and falls to the ground it dies. It is not capable in and of itself to send out the roots necessary to draw “life” from the soil. In order to bear grapes, it must be connected to the vine. The branch is simply the conduit of the life giving nutrients from the soil that the vine has absorbed.
The analogy Jesus is making is that if we do not abide in Him we will be unable to exhibit the essential nature of God. We are incapable, in and of ourselves, to do so. We can only be conduits of that life as we abide in Jesus and let Him manifest that life through us.
Remember, a disciple is one who follows the way of life of his master. Is there any connection between what Jesus is teaching with the vine and the branches illustration and the way He lived His life? Yes there is! In the Upper Room Jesus made His often quoted statement, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through Me.”(Jn.14:6) Philip responds by saying, “Lord, show us the Father and it is enough for us.”(Jn.14:8) Jesus responds, “Have I been so long with you and yet you have not come to know Me Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works.”(Jn.14:9-10) Jesus is saying that He is an abiding branch in His Father just as we are to be an abiding branch in Him! He has been a conduit for the life of His Father just as He wants us to be a conduit of His life.
Luke confirms this truth as he records Peter’s sermon on the Day of Pentecost. In Acts 2:22 we read this, “Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst…..” Do you see/ Jesus didn’t raise Lazarus from the dead. The Father did it through Him. Jesus was the conduit for the Father’s power and work. Jesus didn’t give sight to the blind or feed the multitudes. All Jesus’ miracles were simply the work of the Father through Jesus.
This is the awesome, fundamental truth of the Christian life. Just as Jesus did not life the Christian life in and of Himself but allowed the Father to use His physical body to exhibit His awesome power and character, so we too are simply to be conduits of Jesus life and character through our physical bodies. This is what Jesus means when He says, “Apart from Me you can do nothing.” (Jn.15:5b) And as the vinedresser, the Father will use whatever means necessary to pull the rug of self-sufficiency out from underneath us. Our loving Father will do whatever it takes for us to realize that we are to be conduits of the life of Jesus and are not expected to be imitators of that life. Our Father will use any variety of trials and tribulations that He must to get us to the point of saying, “I can’t! I can’t be the person God wants me to be. I can’t keep His commandments or fulfill His expectations.” For when we finally get to that place, we will be ready to hear, “Jesus can. Jesus can live the life God expects through me as I abide in Him.”
This leads us to our third point. What is the end result of, or purpose behind, this abiding? The answer is two-fold. In verse 8 we read, “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be disciples of mine.” As we abide in Jesus, we bring His essential nature and character into all our life situations and relationships, and this glorifies God. But what does it mean “to glorify?” The root meaning of the Greek word translated “glorify” is “to enhance the reputation of something or someone; to cause the dignity and worth of something or someone to be clearly seen, understood, and acknowledged by someone else.” In other words, when we recommend a restaurant to someone, we “glorify” that restaurant. When we recommend a doctor to another person, we are “glorifying” that doctor. As we abide in Christ, and His patience, kindness, compassion, forgiveness, encouragement, understanding, and love becomes miraculously alive in all of our life situations and circumstances, God’s reputation is enhanced. God’s dignity and worth is clearly seen, understood, and acknowledged by those we interact with. What an awesome responsibility and significance this brings to our lives. God has put His reputation at stake in the basket of our choosing to abide in Christ.
Finally, in verse 11, Jesus says this, “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you and your joy may be made full.” The result of responding correctly to the Father’s work of breaking our self-sufficiency, the result of choosing to abide in Christ and let Him life His life out through us, is JOY! The joy of having that inner sense of “rightness” about ourselves because we are fulfilling God’s will for our lives.
There is a children’s story about a train whose responsibility was to carry cargo every day between Jonestown and Smithville. In the beginning there is a big smile on his face as he does his work. But over time, as he sees the “freedom” of the birds in the air and the rabbits in the field and the children flying their kites, he becomes discouraged and discontented. He longs to be “free” like them! He begins to believe his life would be so much better if he could just get off his tracks. And so, one day he jumps his tracks at a road crossing!! He is free!!!!! For a few moments he is happier than he ever has been. Then he gets stuck. He is not free. He is hopelessly bogged down and can do nothing. He then realizes that he can never be a bird or a rabbit or one of those children. He is a train, and without tracks to run on, he is nothing and can do nothing. He was created for one thing, and can be nothing else.
So when he is lifted back on to the tracks, he is content with delivering those cargos back and forth between Jonestown and Smithville. He is content because he is doing what he was created to do.
We were created to be expressions of the living God. We were created to express His essential nature. Our first father Adam ruined our ability to do so. Our rebirth in Christ returns us to being potentially able to do so. If we choose to abide in Him, we will be fulfilling our created purpose. We will know joy and contentment, significance and meaning.
The world, the flesh, and the devil say to us that they hold the keys to joy and fulfillment. They offer us power, materials things, “sex, drugs, and rock and roll!!” Will we foolishly “jump the tracks” of God’s way to seek life elsewhere? If we do, we will only get “stuck” in trials and tribulations of our lives as our Divine Vinedresser seeks to draw us back to being abiding branches, so we can glorify Him and know full joy.
Moment by moment, through out each day, we must choose. Will I abide or will I not? Our Father has chosen to stake His reputation on us. He has chosen to stake His reputation on our choice. Which will you choose for this moment?
#7 THE FRUIT OF THE VINE
“My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.” This is what Jesus says in John 15:8. This is the center piece of His last great teaching before He goes to the Cross. Our Father is glorified – His reputation is enhanced – when we abide in Christ and bear fruit. By this expression of God through us, those around us, and even the demonic world, come to see and understand the reality and power of the one true and living God.
But what is this fruit? Jesus and the disciples are walking from the upper room to the Garden of Gethsemane. They are passing by a vineyard. Jesus pauses to teach them a meaningful lesson, perhaps the most important lesson of their time with Him. Jesus’ lesson contains the understanding they will need to live life as He needs them to so that they can glorify His Father. The disciples clearly understood what the fruit of the vineyard they were looking at was – rich, luscious grapes. Obviously, Jesus wasn’t referring to literal grapes as the fruit by which His Father was glorified! So what did He mean?
Some see this spiritual fruit as the “fruit of evangelism.” As we share the message of Jesus with others, some will understand their need and acknowledge Jesus as their Savior. Bearing the fruit of witnessing is definitely a part of what Jesus is saying here.
Others add that we should think of the fruit of the Spirit as Paul explains it in Galatians 5:22-23;
“but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”
These will be the expressions of our nature and character as we choose to abide in Christ. For when we abide, we are literally choosing to let Jesus express Himself through us, and that expression is the fruit of the Spirit. Thus, the fruit of the Spirit is Jesus expression His feelings and His thoughts and His desires and His priorities and His actions and His reactions through us.
All of these give us insight to what Jesus was referring to. The question then becomes, “How does this work itself out in a practical way in the real world of our everyday lives? What is it that a person observing us or walking with us or riding along side of us would see?” Imagine your wife has spent the day cleaning the house, with the last room cleaned being the kitchen. The kitchen is now spotless from cabinets to counter tops to the floor itself. She has just finished and is standing there, leaning on the mop, admiring her work, when you walk in with muddy boots. You’ve been working in the garden all morning. You’re sweaty and you’re tired, and you just forget to take off your boots. You start across the floor, then, suddenly, you realize something is wrong. You see the look on your wife’s face. You turn to see the trail of mud you are leaving behind. You become aware of the sparkling clean kitchen, and especially the sparkling clean floor. You have made a mistake.
You are at a fork in the road. How will you respond to your mistake? In the spiritual battle affirmed in Galatians 5:17, the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh because they are in opposition to one another. Your response to your mistake is a part of this battle. The sin which indwells your flesh is asking you to go down one road, the road of self-centeredness and pride. It is tempting you to rationalize your mistake and defend yourself. It wants you to say something like, “Well, the house is always such a mess anyway, we can clean this up. It’s no big deal.” These words will bring great comfort and encouragement to your wife!!
The Spirit within you is asking you to choose a different road. It is asking you to abide in Christ and let His humility and humbleness live through you and express itself to your wife. In abiding, the Spirit will prompt words like, “Boy, I really blew it here. I’m sorry. I’ll clean this up. You’ve done such a great job here today. Please forgive me for messing it up.” And immediately there is a different atmosphere. It is an atmosphere of life – the life of Christ - in contrast to the atmosphere of “death” that comes from yielding to the sin which indwells the flesh.
Of course, your wife has a fork in the road as well. The sin which indwells her flesh seeks to create the atmosphere of “death” by tempting her to pour out anger and bitterness towards your carelessness. That indwelling sin will tempt her to remember the “100 other times” you have been insensitive to her work and efforts around the house.
Or, she too can choose the road of the Spirit and abiding in Christ. Then, instead of anger and bitterness and harsh words, the forgiveness and gentleness of Jesus can flow through her. She too has added “life” to the situation rather than “death.”
Every day we face a multitude of circumstances just like this. Sometimes when we think of “Glorifying the Father” we think we have to be Billy Graham or Rick Warren or Bill Hybels or Kay Arthur or Beth Moore or any of the others we consider “Spiritual Giants.” We feel that unless we are doing something extraordinary we aren’t doing anything worthy to be called “Glorifying the Father.” And since we can’t begin to be like them, we are convinced our lives are of no spiritual significance.
But “Glorifying the Father” is simply bearing the fruit of the nature and character of Christ through our mortal bodies in all our everyday situations and circumstances as we abide in Him as a branch does in a vine. The New Testament is filled with admonitions and commands to apply to the events of our daily lives. Things like: “Husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church.”; “Wives be submissive to your husbands.”; “Children obey your parents.” We know in and of ourselves we are unable to keep these as our Father desires. But Jesus can keep them all. He already has and always will be able to. By abiding in Him we are simply allowing Him to do it through us. Whenever we come to a commandment of the New Testament we have a choice to make. We have a choice as to how we are going to approach that commandment. Author Steve McVey in his book Grace Rules asks it this way, “Do we see the commandments of the New Testament as obligations or as opportunities?” What he means by this is when you come to a commandment, such as “bear one another’s burdens”, do you see that as an obligation that you somehow have to find the motivation or the empowerment or the desire within yourself to fulfill? Or do you see it as an opportunity to experience the compassion and the love of Jesus expressing itself through you? On the one hand it is an obligation – something we are do our selves. On the other it is something we are to experience as Jesus does it through us. In the same way ALL the commandments of the New Testament are opportunities to bear the fruit of the nature and character of Christ. All the commandments give us the opportunity to express the nature and character of Jesus to every situation and circumstance we find ourselves in.
This brings me back again to what I like to call the “mysteries” of our relationship with God. I don’t know how all this works. And not knowing how it all works isn’t something I need to worry about. I use a lot of things in my everyday life that I don’t fully understand. To say that I am “computer challenged” is to put it mildly. I can do e-mail, web browse, and use Microsoft Word. After these, my computer is a mystery. I can drive my car. I know how to turn the ignition key, start the motor, put it into drive gear, and be off. If none of those work properly, I am stranded. The mechanics of my car is a mystery. So it is with the abiding life. All I know is that this is the way God says the Christian life is to be lived. I know that from the moment I put my faith in Jesus as my Savior my sins were forgiven and I was reborn. As a part of that rebirth, the Holy Spirit, God Himself, came to live inside me. Eph. 1: 13-14 says that when we hear the Gospel and believe it we are sealed with the Holy Spirit until the day of redemption. Until the day I go home to spend eternity with God in Heaven the Holy Spirit lives and resides within me. But if you open me up, there is no physical place in me where you can find Him! There is no place where you can reach out and touch Him! I don’t know how this Person, the Holy Spirit, can simultaneously be in me and in you and in all of us who believe in Jesus. But that is what God’s Word says is true. And when I choose to be filled with the Spirit, I am choosing to abide in Christ. Then the fruit of the Spirit, the very nature and character of Jesus, manifests itself through me. The fruit of the Spirit comes to life in every circumstance I find myself in. The actions that flow from being filled thus fulfill the commandments of God. These actions impact every person I come into contact with. Every person I interact with when I am filled and abiding encounters the Person of Jesus.
This is the simple answer to the question, “What does it mean to ‘abide in Christ?’” It means to obey the commandments of the New Testament as I trust in Jesus to live Himself out through me as I am filled with the Holy Spirit. Like the word “believe” the word “abide” is one of John’s favorite words. John uses the word “abide” 11 (?) times here in these 11 verses. He uses the word 40 times in the Gospel of John and 27 times in his three epistles. We conclude therefore that the concept of abiding is important, both in the heart of John and in the heart of the God who is inspiring him. But how it “works” remains a mystery. All I know is that when I need to love my wife as Christ loved the church, by being patient and kind to her when I don’t “feel” like it; I face that fork in the road. I can live out of my flesh and bring to life a bad attitude expressed in a hurtful tone of voice and hurtful words or I can yield myself to the Holy Spirit and the patience and kindness of Jesus becomes real through me to her. I can choose the “mystery” and experience the miracle of Christ as life or I can choose “death” and manifest the flesh.
If this seems too simple, consider this. When we look to our brothers and sisters around the world who do not have access to all the things we have in relationship to our walk with God, wouldn’t be unfair if they were limited in glorifying God because they didn’t have a translation of the Bible in their native language? Wouldn’t be unfair if their life of glorifying God was limited because they didn’t have access to Christian radio and Christian music? Wouldn’t be unfair if their life of glorifying God was limited because they didn’t have access to bible study guides and commentaries like we do? The simplicity of the abiding life makes the Christian life an equal opportunity for all. Of course Bible study is important. Of course Christian radio and Christian music are wonderful blessings. But the simplicity of the abiding life must be the bottom line for us all. If it was all we knew, if it had been all we were given, it would be enough to live a life that glorifies the Father. If all we could say when the phone rang was, “Jesus, you answer the phone through me in a way that glorifies the Father.” it would be enough. If when we got into our car all we could say was, “Jesus, you drive this car through me in a way that glorifies the Father.” it would be enough. If every night we came home and all we could say was, “Jesus, you love my wife and children through me in a way that glorifies the Father.” it would be enough. We wouldn’t need to know how it works. The experiencing of it would be enough. And the awesome truth is it is enough. Even with all the other blessings we have, the abiding life, in and of itself, is enough. Everything else is just frosting on the cake. Should we partake of the frosting? Of course! But the cake doesn’t need the frosting to be wonderful and satisfying in and of its self.
But what is this fruit? Jesus and the disciples are walking from the upper room to the Garden of Gethsemane. They are passing by a vineyard. Jesus pauses to teach them a meaningful lesson, perhaps the most important lesson of their time with Him. Jesus’ lesson contains the understanding they will need to live life as He needs them to so that they can glorify His Father. The disciples clearly understood what the fruit of the vineyard they were looking at was – rich, luscious grapes. Obviously, Jesus wasn’t referring to literal grapes as the fruit by which His Father was glorified! So what did He mean?
Some see this spiritual fruit as the “fruit of evangelism.” As we share the message of Jesus with others, some will understand their need and acknowledge Jesus as their Savior. Bearing the fruit of witnessing is definitely a part of what Jesus is saying here.
Others add that we should think of the fruit of the Spirit as Paul explains it in Galatians 5:22-23;
“but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”
These will be the expressions of our nature and character as we choose to abide in Christ. For when we abide, we are literally choosing to let Jesus express Himself through us, and that expression is the fruit of the Spirit. Thus, the fruit of the Spirit is Jesus expression His feelings and His thoughts and His desires and His priorities and His actions and His reactions through us.
All of these give us insight to what Jesus was referring to. The question then becomes, “How does this work itself out in a practical way in the real world of our everyday lives? What is it that a person observing us or walking with us or riding along side of us would see?” Imagine your wife has spent the day cleaning the house, with the last room cleaned being the kitchen. The kitchen is now spotless from cabinets to counter tops to the floor itself. She has just finished and is standing there, leaning on the mop, admiring her work, when you walk in with muddy boots. You’ve been working in the garden all morning. You’re sweaty and you’re tired, and you just forget to take off your boots. You start across the floor, then, suddenly, you realize something is wrong. You see the look on your wife’s face. You turn to see the trail of mud you are leaving behind. You become aware of the sparkling clean kitchen, and especially the sparkling clean floor. You have made a mistake.
You are at a fork in the road. How will you respond to your mistake? In the spiritual battle affirmed in Galatians 5:17, the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh because they are in opposition to one another. Your response to your mistake is a part of this battle. The sin which indwells your flesh is asking you to go down one road, the road of self-centeredness and pride. It is tempting you to rationalize your mistake and defend yourself. It wants you to say something like, “Well, the house is always such a mess anyway, we can clean this up. It’s no big deal.” These words will bring great comfort and encouragement to your wife!!
The Spirit within you is asking you to choose a different road. It is asking you to abide in Christ and let His humility and humbleness live through you and express itself to your wife. In abiding, the Spirit will prompt words like, “Boy, I really blew it here. I’m sorry. I’ll clean this up. You’ve done such a great job here today. Please forgive me for messing it up.” And immediately there is a different atmosphere. It is an atmosphere of life – the life of Christ - in contrast to the atmosphere of “death” that comes from yielding to the sin which indwells the flesh.
Of course, your wife has a fork in the road as well. The sin which indwells her flesh seeks to create the atmosphere of “death” by tempting her to pour out anger and bitterness towards your carelessness. That indwelling sin will tempt her to remember the “100 other times” you have been insensitive to her work and efforts around the house.
Or, she too can choose the road of the Spirit and abiding in Christ. Then, instead of anger and bitterness and harsh words, the forgiveness and gentleness of Jesus can flow through her. She too has added “life” to the situation rather than “death.”
Every day we face a multitude of circumstances just like this. Sometimes when we think of “Glorifying the Father” we think we have to be Billy Graham or Rick Warren or Bill Hybels or Kay Arthur or Beth Moore or any of the others we consider “Spiritual Giants.” We feel that unless we are doing something extraordinary we aren’t doing anything worthy to be called “Glorifying the Father.” And since we can’t begin to be like them, we are convinced our lives are of no spiritual significance.
But “Glorifying the Father” is simply bearing the fruit of the nature and character of Christ through our mortal bodies in all our everyday situations and circumstances as we abide in Him as a branch does in a vine. The New Testament is filled with admonitions and commands to apply to the events of our daily lives. Things like: “Husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church.”; “Wives be submissive to your husbands.”; “Children obey your parents.” We know in and of ourselves we are unable to keep these as our Father desires. But Jesus can keep them all. He already has and always will be able to. By abiding in Him we are simply allowing Him to do it through us. Whenever we come to a commandment of the New Testament we have a choice to make. We have a choice as to how we are going to approach that commandment. Author Steve McVey in his book Grace Rules asks it this way, “Do we see the commandments of the New Testament as obligations or as opportunities?” What he means by this is when you come to a commandment, such as “bear one another’s burdens”, do you see that as an obligation that you somehow have to find the motivation or the empowerment or the desire within yourself to fulfill? Or do you see it as an opportunity to experience the compassion and the love of Jesus expressing itself through you? On the one hand it is an obligation – something we are do our selves. On the other it is something we are to experience as Jesus does it through us. In the same way ALL the commandments of the New Testament are opportunities to bear the fruit of the nature and character of Christ. All the commandments give us the opportunity to express the nature and character of Jesus to every situation and circumstance we find ourselves in.
This brings me back again to what I like to call the “mysteries” of our relationship with God. I don’t know how all this works. And not knowing how it all works isn’t something I need to worry about. I use a lot of things in my everyday life that I don’t fully understand. To say that I am “computer challenged” is to put it mildly. I can do e-mail, web browse, and use Microsoft Word. After these, my computer is a mystery. I can drive my car. I know how to turn the ignition key, start the motor, put it into drive gear, and be off. If none of those work properly, I am stranded. The mechanics of my car is a mystery. So it is with the abiding life. All I know is that this is the way God says the Christian life is to be lived. I know that from the moment I put my faith in Jesus as my Savior my sins were forgiven and I was reborn. As a part of that rebirth, the Holy Spirit, God Himself, came to live inside me. Eph. 1: 13-14 says that when we hear the Gospel and believe it we are sealed with the Holy Spirit until the day of redemption. Until the day I go home to spend eternity with God in Heaven the Holy Spirit lives and resides within me. But if you open me up, there is no physical place in me where you can find Him! There is no place where you can reach out and touch Him! I don’t know how this Person, the Holy Spirit, can simultaneously be in me and in you and in all of us who believe in Jesus. But that is what God’s Word says is true. And when I choose to be filled with the Spirit, I am choosing to abide in Christ. Then the fruit of the Spirit, the very nature and character of Jesus, manifests itself through me. The fruit of the Spirit comes to life in every circumstance I find myself in. The actions that flow from being filled thus fulfill the commandments of God. These actions impact every person I come into contact with. Every person I interact with when I am filled and abiding encounters the Person of Jesus.
This is the simple answer to the question, “What does it mean to ‘abide in Christ?’” It means to obey the commandments of the New Testament as I trust in Jesus to live Himself out through me as I am filled with the Holy Spirit. Like the word “believe” the word “abide” is one of John’s favorite words. John uses the word “abide” 11 (?) times here in these 11 verses. He uses the word 40 times in the Gospel of John and 27 times in his three epistles. We conclude therefore that the concept of abiding is important, both in the heart of John and in the heart of the God who is inspiring him. But how it “works” remains a mystery. All I know is that when I need to love my wife as Christ loved the church, by being patient and kind to her when I don’t “feel” like it; I face that fork in the road. I can live out of my flesh and bring to life a bad attitude expressed in a hurtful tone of voice and hurtful words or I can yield myself to the Holy Spirit and the patience and kindness of Jesus becomes real through me to her. I can choose the “mystery” and experience the miracle of Christ as life or I can choose “death” and manifest the flesh.
If this seems too simple, consider this. When we look to our brothers and sisters around the world who do not have access to all the things we have in relationship to our walk with God, wouldn’t be unfair if they were limited in glorifying God because they didn’t have a translation of the Bible in their native language? Wouldn’t be unfair if their life of glorifying God was limited because they didn’t have access to Christian radio and Christian music? Wouldn’t be unfair if their life of glorifying God was limited because they didn’t have access to bible study guides and commentaries like we do? The simplicity of the abiding life makes the Christian life an equal opportunity for all. Of course Bible study is important. Of course Christian radio and Christian music are wonderful blessings. But the simplicity of the abiding life must be the bottom line for us all. If it was all we knew, if it had been all we were given, it would be enough to live a life that glorifies the Father. If all we could say when the phone rang was, “Jesus, you answer the phone through me in a way that glorifies the Father.” it would be enough. If when we got into our car all we could say was, “Jesus, you drive this car through me in a way that glorifies the Father.” it would be enough. If every night we came home and all we could say was, “Jesus, you love my wife and children through me in a way that glorifies the Father.” it would be enough. We wouldn’t need to know how it works. The experiencing of it would be enough. And the awesome truth is it is enough. Even with all the other blessings we have, the abiding life, in and of itself, is enough. Everything else is just frosting on the cake. Should we partake of the frosting? Of course! But the cake doesn’t need the frosting to be wonderful and satisfying in and of its self.
#8 IT’S A WAR, BE READY!
“Be sober of spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary the devil prowls about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8)
They wake up every morning knowing this could be the day they die. They put on their gear, pick up their weapons, and go. They live each day sober and alert. They have to. If they don’t, they could die. If they don’t, their mistake could cost the life of a friend.
This is the attitude our combat men and women if Iraq and Afghanistan live with every day. It is the way we should be spiritually living every day. We are in a battle. We face an adversary seeking to spiritually destroy us. We face an adversary seeking to steal from us the abundant life Jesus has for us. We face an adversary seeking to destroy the reputation of God by destroying our testimony. Satan himself is our adversary. He is on the prowl seeking to destroy us!!
In John 10:10 Jesus said, “The thief comes to steal and destroy but I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly.” The word “abundant” means to have a meaningful, purposeful, superior life. A life that is better than anything this world has to offer. But notice the contrast. The thief comes to steal and destroy. Jesus comes to give. Who is the thief? Satan. Satan knows that those of us who have been born again by faith in Jesus are lost to him forever. He no longer has authority over us. He cannot steal our new life from us but he can destroy the fellowship with Jesus that makes the abundant life possible.
How do we protect ourselves against this thief? Peter says we are to be sober and alert. We need to wake up every morning realizing we are in spiritual warfare. Paul says it a little differently,
“for the flesh sets it’s desire against the spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, for these are in opposition to one another, so that you might not do the things you ought.” (Gal. 5:17 NASB).
Other translations say the flesh and the Spirit war against each other. This is the reality of our daily, spiritual lives. We are in battle every moment of every day.
I have never been in the military but I have read enough to know that one of the keys to standing firm against your enemy is to understand his plan of attack as much as possible. The more you understand your enemy and his strategy, the greater your chance of victory.
So what is Satan’s strategy? I see it as two pronged. First, he plants thoughts, ideas, and feelings in our minds and hearts using our own voices in the first person. We saw this earlier in our study of Ananias and Sapphira. So let’s look at a practical example. You are sitting at home after a hard day at the office. You’re watching your favorite T.V. program. The phone rings. Calling is a friend you have been ministering with because he is facing some really traumatic personal problems. Immediately you have a thought, “Oh, man, I don’t want to talk now. I want to watch my program.” You begin to feel resentful at being interrupted.
Where did this thought and this feeling come from? It didn’t come from you and your new heart. It comes from the one who seeks to devour you. It comes from the one who wants to prevent you from experiencing Christ as life. He has planted a thought that you believe emanates from yourself. If you choose to dwell on it, he will expand the thought and feeling. “John is always having trouble. Why can’t he solve his own problems?” Things start to snowball. Your emotions get stronger. There is an increased pressure to let go of Jesus, to cut your self off from life of the Vine. If you let go, you will be impatient and rude. And John will know!!! Plus, you will be counseling in your own power, with your own words, words of little or no value. You just want the conversation to be over as quickly as possible. You hang up and go back to your program. You feel rotten because you know you have sinned. Your selfishness over a silly T.V. program has hurt a brother. You have missed an opportunity to experience Christ as life.
This is Satan’s first strategic principle. He plants a thought we think is our own. He wants us to choose to set our mind on it. If we do, our emotions are heightened. We feel pressure to live out this desire of our flesh. When we follow through and sin, the result is a conviction of guilt and failure in our Christian life. Satan then speaks to us again in our own voice, “I am such a failure as a Christian. I will never get any better. God hates me. How can He love someone like me? Why do I even try?” If we stay locked into this cycle of deception, we will soon lose our faith in the truth that we are a new creation. We will lose our faith in the truth that we have been born again with a new heart and a new spirit. We will come to the conviction that Rm. 7:19 is the Christian life, “For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil I do not want.” Satan will have us well on the road to losing all hope and expectation of victory in our life with Christ. The Thief has stolen from us.
Satan’s second strategy is to getting us to live with a law mentality. Our thinking centers on “I must….”, “I will….”, “I won’t….”, “I should….”, “I can’t…..” We are constantly thinking in terms of performance. “Am I doing the right thing or the wrong thing?” “How well am I doing?” “I need to try harder to do it right.” A law mentality has us constantly thinking in terms of ourselves and our own abilities to live as God wants us to live. As a husband I wake up in the morning with a remembrance, “Husbands love your wife as Christ loves the church and give yourself up for her. Nourish and cherish her.” Immediately I am thinking of what I must do and what I must avoid to obey these expectations. I remember past failures. I remember past successes. I remember the areas of irritation from Carol and how I lost my patience the last time. I commit myself to doing it better today. And I fail. Somehow, in some way, I fall short. This is because the law kills. It kills because the prideful, self-centeredness that is the sin which indwells my flesh will always rear its ugly head somehow. Carol will use a hurtful tone of voice. I think, “I must be patient here and forgive.” I am under law. The focus is on “I must be….I must….” Perhaps I find it within myself to be patient and forgiving. With pride I pat myself on the back and feel I am being a good Christian husband. More likely, I cover an inner anger with a false patience and gentleness. If her tone continues, I lose it and say hurtful things back. Either way, whether I cover my true feelings or lose my temper, I know I have failed to live up to God’s expectation. I have not loved her with a genuine Christ-like love. I am guilty. I am convicted of my sin. I have failed once again.
Satan’s goal in using these two strategies is for us to forget what we have become and who we now are. His goal is for us to believe his lie, “See, you haven’t really changed. You aren’t really ‘new.’ You are still them same as you have always been. This is your true self.”
How do we over come his lies and deception? First, we have to IDENTIFY where these thoughts, feelings, and ideas are coming from. We have to stand on what God says is true about us. We must remember that any thought,feeling, or idea that is contrary to God’s commands or expectations for us does not come from ourselves. When tempted by them, we must consciously affirm that we know they are coming from Satan thru the sin which indwells our flesh.
Second, we must REMENBER what is true about us. This remembering is based on God’s word. It is remembering what He says is true even if we don’t “feel” like it is. God says we have been crucified with Christ. This means our old ways of thinking, feeling, evaluating, prioritizing, and believing are dead and gone. God inspires Paul to put it this way, “Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” (Gal. 5:24) God says we are dead to the every temptation Satan throws at us. We do not have to succumb to them!! Whenever we feel one of one of our emotional “old things” rising – jealousy, anger, maliciousness, covetousness – or whenever we are a moment away from an old action – a harsh word, reaching out to steal something, logging on to that pornographic site – we must remember that these no longer are our true self.
Third, we must CLAIM what is true about us. Paul said in Romans 6:11, “even so, consider your selves to be dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” We claim this truth and say to Satan, “That’s not me! That’s not coming from me. I am an abiding branch in the Vine of Jesus. This in not like Him, so it cannot be me. I resist you in the Name of Christ and you must leave me!”
We talk a lot about our co-crucifixion with Christ and our co-resurrection with Christ but there is a third truth we don’t proclaim often enough. This third truth is our ascension with Christ. Paul says to the Colossians, “”Set you mind on things above, where we are seated in Jesus at the right hand of the Father.” (Paraphrase of Col. 3:1-4) In Ephesians 1:19-20 Paul says that Jesus has been raised by the surpassing power of the Father and seated at the Father’s right hand in the Heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named. Simply stated, this means Jesus has greater power and authority than Satan and his demons could ever dream of having! When we choose to resist Satan and tell him to leave and take his temptations with him, we bring all the power and authority of Jesus into play. This is power and authority that Satan cannot stand against. He must go.
How do we apply this in our daily lives? Let’s go back to the interrupting call from a friend. When he calls in the middle of my program, the sin which indwells my flesh immediately plants the thought, “I don’t want to be interrupted now!” and couples it with critical and judgmental emotions. In that moment I must IDENTIFY where this thought and these emotions are coming from. Then I REMEMBER that I have been freed from my self-centeredness because I am a new creation in Christ. Next, I CLAIM this truth and resist it. As a result, sin is defeated and the life of Christ continues to flow through me to my friend.
I can’t put this process in a science lad and “prove” it. But I know it is real and true because I have experienced it. As I face the temptations the sin which indwells my flesh throws at me, this is the process that is now habitual for me. It has become second nature. Of course, sometimes I fail! This sin doesn’t give up easily. It sometimes throws the same temptation at me within a matter of moments. Satan must flee when I resist him, but he doesn’t stay away very long. There are times when I am being tempted with the same temptation for the second, third, or fourth time within moments that I lose sight of the truth. Satan wins, for the moment! Then I confess, get back on track, and press on.
It is a WAR!! Our enemy is relentless. He will never give up until he is finally defeated by Christ and cast into the Lake of Fire for all eternity. Until that time comes, we must fight with the tools our Savior has given us. It is a WAR, be READY!!!!
“Be sober of spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary the devil prowls about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8)
They wake up every morning knowing this could be the day they die. They put on their gear, pick up their weapons, and go. They live each day sober and alert. They have to. If they don’t, they could die. If they don’t, their mistake could cost the life of a friend.
This is the attitude our combat men and women if Iraq and Afghanistan live with every day. It is the way we should be spiritually living every day. We are in a battle. We face an adversary seeking to spiritually destroy us. We face an adversary seeking to steal from us the abundant life Jesus has for us. We face an adversary seeking to destroy the reputation of God by destroying our testimony. Satan himself is our adversary. He is on the prowl seeking to destroy us!!
In John 10:10 Jesus said, “The thief comes to steal and destroy but I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly.” The word “abundant” means to have a meaningful, purposeful, superior life. A life that is better than anything this world has to offer. But notice the contrast. The thief comes to steal and destroy. Jesus comes to give. Who is the thief? Satan. Satan knows that those of us who have been born again by faith in Jesus are lost to him forever. He no longer has authority over us. He cannot steal our new life from us but he can destroy the fellowship with Jesus that makes the abundant life possible.
How do we protect ourselves against this thief? Peter says we are to be sober and alert. We need to wake up every morning realizing we are in spiritual warfare. Paul says it a little differently,
“for the flesh sets it’s desire against the spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, for these are in opposition to one another, so that you might not do the things you ought.” (Gal. 5:17 NASB).
Other translations say the flesh and the Spirit war against each other. This is the reality of our daily, spiritual lives. We are in battle every moment of every day.
I have never been in the military but I have read enough to know that one of the keys to standing firm against your enemy is to understand his plan of attack as much as possible. The more you understand your enemy and his strategy, the greater your chance of victory.
So what is Satan’s strategy? I see it as two pronged. First, he plants thoughts, ideas, and feelings in our minds and hearts using our own voices in the first person. We saw this earlier in our study of Ananias and Sapphira. So let’s look at a practical example. You are sitting at home after a hard day at the office. You’re watching your favorite T.V. program. The phone rings. Calling is a friend you have been ministering with because he is facing some really traumatic personal problems. Immediately you have a thought, “Oh, man, I don’t want to talk now. I want to watch my program.” You begin to feel resentful at being interrupted.
Where did this thought and this feeling come from? It didn’t come from you and your new heart. It comes from the one who seeks to devour you. It comes from the one who wants to prevent you from experiencing Christ as life. He has planted a thought that you believe emanates from yourself. If you choose to dwell on it, he will expand the thought and feeling. “John is always having trouble. Why can’t he solve his own problems?” Things start to snowball. Your emotions get stronger. There is an increased pressure to let go of Jesus, to cut your self off from life of the Vine. If you let go, you will be impatient and rude. And John will know!!! Plus, you will be counseling in your own power, with your own words, words of little or no value. You just want the conversation to be over as quickly as possible. You hang up and go back to your program. You feel rotten because you know you have sinned. Your selfishness over a silly T.V. program has hurt a brother. You have missed an opportunity to experience Christ as life.
This is Satan’s first strategic principle. He plants a thought we think is our own. He wants us to choose to set our mind on it. If we do, our emotions are heightened. We feel pressure to live out this desire of our flesh. When we follow through and sin, the result is a conviction of guilt and failure in our Christian life. Satan then speaks to us again in our own voice, “I am such a failure as a Christian. I will never get any better. God hates me. How can He love someone like me? Why do I even try?” If we stay locked into this cycle of deception, we will soon lose our faith in the truth that we are a new creation. We will lose our faith in the truth that we have been born again with a new heart and a new spirit. We will come to the conviction that Rm. 7:19 is the Christian life, “For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil I do not want.” Satan will have us well on the road to losing all hope and expectation of victory in our life with Christ. The Thief has stolen from us.
Satan’s second strategy is to getting us to live with a law mentality. Our thinking centers on “I must….”, “I will….”, “I won’t….”, “I should….”, “I can’t…..” We are constantly thinking in terms of performance. “Am I doing the right thing or the wrong thing?” “How well am I doing?” “I need to try harder to do it right.” A law mentality has us constantly thinking in terms of ourselves and our own abilities to live as God wants us to live. As a husband I wake up in the morning with a remembrance, “Husbands love your wife as Christ loves the church and give yourself up for her. Nourish and cherish her.” Immediately I am thinking of what I must do and what I must avoid to obey these expectations. I remember past failures. I remember past successes. I remember the areas of irritation from Carol and how I lost my patience the last time. I commit myself to doing it better today. And I fail. Somehow, in some way, I fall short. This is because the law kills. It kills because the prideful, self-centeredness that is the sin which indwells my flesh will always rear its ugly head somehow. Carol will use a hurtful tone of voice. I think, “I must be patient here and forgive.” I am under law. The focus is on “I must be….I must….” Perhaps I find it within myself to be patient and forgiving. With pride I pat myself on the back and feel I am being a good Christian husband. More likely, I cover an inner anger with a false patience and gentleness. If her tone continues, I lose it and say hurtful things back. Either way, whether I cover my true feelings or lose my temper, I know I have failed to live up to God’s expectation. I have not loved her with a genuine Christ-like love. I am guilty. I am convicted of my sin. I have failed once again.
Satan’s goal in using these two strategies is for us to forget what we have become and who we now are. His goal is for us to believe his lie, “See, you haven’t really changed. You aren’t really ‘new.’ You are still them same as you have always been. This is your true self.”
How do we over come his lies and deception? First, we have to IDENTIFY where these thoughts, feelings, and ideas are coming from. We have to stand on what God says is true about us. We must remember that any thought,feeling, or idea that is contrary to God’s commands or expectations for us does not come from ourselves. When tempted by them, we must consciously affirm that we know they are coming from Satan thru the sin which indwells our flesh.
Second, we must REMENBER what is true about us. This remembering is based on God’s word. It is remembering what He says is true even if we don’t “feel” like it is. God says we have been crucified with Christ. This means our old ways of thinking, feeling, evaluating, prioritizing, and believing are dead and gone. God inspires Paul to put it this way, “Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” (Gal. 5:24) God says we are dead to the every temptation Satan throws at us. We do not have to succumb to them!! Whenever we feel one of one of our emotional “old things” rising – jealousy, anger, maliciousness, covetousness – or whenever we are a moment away from an old action – a harsh word, reaching out to steal something, logging on to that pornographic site – we must remember that these no longer are our true self.
Third, we must CLAIM what is true about us. Paul said in Romans 6:11, “even so, consider your selves to be dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” We claim this truth and say to Satan, “That’s not me! That’s not coming from me. I am an abiding branch in the Vine of Jesus. This in not like Him, so it cannot be me. I resist you in the Name of Christ and you must leave me!”
We talk a lot about our co-crucifixion with Christ and our co-resurrection with Christ but there is a third truth we don’t proclaim often enough. This third truth is our ascension with Christ. Paul says to the Colossians, “”Set you mind on things above, where we are seated in Jesus at the right hand of the Father.” (Paraphrase of Col. 3:1-4) In Ephesians 1:19-20 Paul says that Jesus has been raised by the surpassing power of the Father and seated at the Father’s right hand in the Heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named. Simply stated, this means Jesus has greater power and authority than Satan and his demons could ever dream of having! When we choose to resist Satan and tell him to leave and take his temptations with him, we bring all the power and authority of Jesus into play. This is power and authority that Satan cannot stand against. He must go.
How do we apply this in our daily lives? Let’s go back to the interrupting call from a friend. When he calls in the middle of my program, the sin which indwells my flesh immediately plants the thought, “I don’t want to be interrupted now!” and couples it with critical and judgmental emotions. In that moment I must IDENTIFY where this thought and these emotions are coming from. Then I REMEMBER that I have been freed from my self-centeredness because I am a new creation in Christ. Next, I CLAIM this truth and resist it. As a result, sin is defeated and the life of Christ continues to flow through me to my friend.
I can’t put this process in a science lad and “prove” it. But I know it is real and true because I have experienced it. As I face the temptations the sin which indwells my flesh throws at me, this is the process that is now habitual for me. It has become second nature. Of course, sometimes I fail! This sin doesn’t give up easily. It sometimes throws the same temptation at me within a matter of moments. Satan must flee when I resist him, but he doesn’t stay away very long. There are times when I am being tempted with the same temptation for the second, third, or fourth time within moments that I lose sight of the truth. Satan wins, for the moment! Then I confess, get back on track, and press on.
It is a WAR!! Our enemy is relentless. He will never give up until he is finally defeated by Christ and cast into the Lake of Fire for all eternity. Until that time comes, we must fight with the tools our Savior has given us. It is a WAR, be READY!!!!
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