Have You Not Read S2E13 - Your Role in Sanctification

Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of Scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the

Saints. Before we dig into our topic, we humbly ask you to rate, review, and share the podcast.

Thank you. I'm Andrew Hudson and with me are Michael Deere and Chris Kiesler.

Well, we received a few questions via our website. We're gonna handle this in probably a two -part manner.

What does God require of Christians? What does he expect of them, particularly regarding sanctification?

Is it to sin less and less? Well, what is my role in sanctification?

And then also, related, how do Christians biblically understand and deal with guilt over sin?

What do you got for us, Michael? All right, so this is a good question. Both of them are good questions.

They're obviously related. This is often something that Christians will be thinking about, be meditating on, especially when having difficulty, when having given in to temptation, when wondering if they're doing what they're supposed to be doing, wondering if they are laboring hard enough for the

Lord, whether they are making enough changes. Very often these questions will come up in times when, as a believer in my own life, you know, these questions come up personally as I hear about this saint over here and look at all they did.

Here's their daily routine and here's what they were known for. And then, of course, the question slips into the mind, you know, am

I doing enough? Am I following God's will for me close enough? You know, am

I measuring up? Sometimes those questions can come in. Other times, after falling into temptation and failing and sinning, the question comes, you know, am

I actually progressing in holiness? Am I growing in the faith? And then many, many Christians have these questions about how am

I supposed to feel about the fact that I've sinned? What am I supposed to think about that? How am I supposed to handle that?

What now? So these questions are excellent. They really hit at the heart of a lot of the

Christian experience, and I think it's important that we consider a few passages from the

Bible that will help us. The promises of the scriptures are that the

Lord is going to succeed, right? We have the promises of Christ concerning himself as the

Good Shepherd, regarding his sheep, that of all whom the Father has given to him, he will not lose one.

So ultimately, there is this sense of victory, that Christ is going to achieve the end for which he died and was raised from the dead, this inheritance of nations, where by his life, death, and resurrection, he will successfully and fully and completely save his people.

So it's good to start with those promises and to root ourselves there as we begin to think about the variety of passages that lead us into considering what does

God expect of us? How are we supposed to progress? What does it look like in the Christian life to be growing in maturity, to no longer be infants, but to be growing up and being more mature?

What does that look like? And so I think we start with the promises that that is Christ's business, that he's going to be washing his bride with the water of his word, that he's going to succeed, that though we may be weak, that he is strong.

And so we start with those promises, then we move forward. So what does God expect of us?

Well, I think that the answer to that would be that we would look at Christ. What does God expect of us?

Look at Jesus. You know, there is a genuine concern in the life of the believer that we would be holy, that we would live holy, that we would turn our attention to the priorities of our

Lord who has purchased us at such a costly price, knowing how much our

Lord loves us and how God has saved us. In our love for God, we love him because he first loved us.

And in our love for God, we're concerned about the things that he's concerned about. We want there to be a pleasing change in our lives to the

Lord. We really do want to follow through on these things. In that, there are a lot of pitfalls.

You know, I think of some of the pitfalls that John Bunyan put into Pilgrim's Progress. There was all these opportunities to go the wrong direction, to think the wrong way, to make the wrong pursuits.

And at the end of the second chapter in Colossians, there's a list of some of these things.

And in verse 16 of Colossians 2, after affirming the fullness of our salvation in Christ, Paul says, "...so

let no one judge you in food or in drink or in regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths."

Those are all, I mean, that's just kind of a handful of the variety of different concerns of holiness in the

Old Covenant. It would make sense that those who had been converted out of Judaism, those who had been led to Jesus of Nazareth, who is the

Messiah, that they would be very interested in the Scriptures, very interested in these aspects of the

Old Covenant which were associated with holiness, about a people of God being set apart, made holy unto him.

And he wanted them to be holy and set apart. And so he gave them all of these things. And the temptation is for them, for these

Christians in Colossae, and truly it's a strong temptation today I've observed, is to look at these aspects and to begin to adopt them and to bring these rituals and kind of lay them upon ourselves in an effort and a sincere desire to grow in holiness and to be closer to God and to be more about his ways.

But Paul says, "...don't let anyone judge you concerning these things." He says, "...these things are a shadow," verse 17, "...a

shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ." So, and the word he uses for substance is the

Greek word for body, right? So there's a light shining on a body, and then what is cast from that body is a shadow, okay?

So the light of God's revelation is shining on Christ, who brings about the New Covenant, and that casts a shadow throughout the entirety of the

Old Covenant. And Paul's saying the point is not to adopt the customs of the shadow, but the shadow leads you to Christ.

So don't get caught up with the shadow stuff. Be captivated with the body, the substance,

Christ. Verse 18 says, "...let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels."

Well, hey, those are some things that are attractive, right, in terms of holiness. What does God require of me?

Well, there's false humility, isn't there? For sure. There's some virtue signaling that could occur.

There's all sorts of things. Pretending to be humble is not real holiness. Worship of angels and getting into those weird mystic areas of, you know,

I'm a really spiritual person. No, that's not where holiness is found. He says, "...intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the head."

And again, he's saying holiness, spiritualness, maturity, these things that the

Christians desire, this is not found in being vainly puffed up in the mind.

Having a bunch of experiences or a bunch of claims to knowledge, but not holding fast to the head.

And that's capitalized there in that verse. Who is Christ? "...from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God."

It is a good thing that Christians are concerned about holiness and spiritual life, spiritual growth.

What does it come from? It comes from holding fast to the head. Verse 20, "...therefore if you die with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why as though living in the world do you subject yourselves to regulations?"

And this is what I call the box of do -nots. Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle. "...which all concern things which perish with the using according to the commandments and doctrines of men.

These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self -imposed religion, false humility and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh."

Again, what was the hope? I'm gonna fight against the indulgence of the flesh. So what's a good thing to do?

Well, I'm gonna go out and get me a box of do -nots. Okay, I've got a dozen do -nots here. As long as I follow these dozen do -nots,

I'm gonna be holy. Paul says, sounds good, doesn't actually work well.

So I find that the end of Colossians 2, and again we could talk about Colossians 3 as well, but the end of Colossians 2 is a great way to begin to talk about kind of all those false starts that we commonly have.

So what does God expect of us? I think, Andrew, you had a passage you wanted to read?

When reading this question, my mind was taken to a place that I had studied recently in Ephesians chapter 4.

I will begin in verse 11. The full measure, attaining the measure of Christ's full stature.

We are becoming like Him, and He is the vine, we are the branches.

Yes. So our spiritual growth, our sanctification, what's our role in it?

There are these offices that are discussed, but we are to be doing the work of ministry.

It's not a cooperating, as you might hear discussed. It's a laboring for the sake of Christ, knowing that your works are not in vain.

You're not laboring to get these check boxes filled of do -nots.

You're following your Master, and that's it. And the promise is that we are going to attain the fullness over time.

Yeah, verses 15 and 16 of that chapter says, but speaking the truth in love, we see this gracious agency of how we grow, but speaking the truth in love may grow up in all things into Him who is the

Head, Christ, from whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies according to the effect of working by which every part does it share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

So Christ gave to the Church, to His body, all that is needed for the body to grow up into His full measure, and this includes all of those who are speaking the truth in love.

So this is what he expects. I guess my question is, and maybe this is more of a personality thing, there's the lists of the do -nots, and then there's the do unto others, you know, the one and others, yeah.

So there's the put off and put on. I know for myself, and I wonder if maybe for others,

I gravitate towards the do -nots as if those seem more attainable, and that the things that I'm supposed to do are harder.

Because it's easy to say, okay, don't do this thing, don't do these, and that's what he was just talking about. Don't gather all these lists of things, do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, but that tends to be kind of what you hear

Christians talking about when they're like, well you want to live a holy life, then don't, you know, drink, smoke, or chew, or go with girls that do, you know.

Here's a list of things that you don't do. Why do you think that seems to be kind of the mindset?

Why do we gravitate towards the negative instead of the positive? Well I think we can sometimes, you know, our hearts are idle factories.

Sometimes we just, we look at the, as Paul says, these things which perish with the using, these perishable items, these are easier for us to to isolate, easier for us to comprehend, you know.

And again, we're gonna move over to Colossians 3, and there are some warnings, there are some, there's a list of things to avoid, but it's not, you know, you need to avoid decks of cards, right.

It's not, you need to avoid wine bottles, right. You know, that's what we're talking about, you know, the box of do -nots, okay.

In chapter 3, what it gets at, it gets at our relationship with Christ, and in light of our relationship with Christ, you know, it does not make sense for those who are alive to embrace death, it does make sense for those who are alive to embrace life, right.

So listen to Colossians 3, if then you were raised with Christ, because we understand our union with Christ through faith unites us to his life and his death and his resurrection, and our own new birth, our own spiritual resurrection is caught up with Christ's resurrection from the dead, because he was raised from the dead, so we are raised to newness of life, and we have a physical resurrection ahead of us.

So if then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God.

You know, Jesus said, seek first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you. And what were they concerned about?

What am I going to eat? What am I going to wear? Well, what is the person concerned about holiness sometimes, unfortunately, concerned about?

Well, what I eat and what I wear, right. If I eat the wrong things then I'll become unholy, if I wear the wrong things

I become unholy, but that's the box of do -nots, and a lot of that's cast forward from the shadows of the old covenant, right.

So instead of that, set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth, for you died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

And that right there shows us our security, right. We are preserved.

Our life is hidden with Christ in God. No one's gonna snatch us out of Christ's hand.

No one is going to snatch us out of the Father's hand. Christ and the Father are one. This is what

Jesus says in John. Our life is hidden with Christ in God. That has already been established. So when

Christ, who is our life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. So the beginning of our life, the security of our life is established.

The future of our life is established. Where our seating with Christ, our union with him through faith is established concretely, and our future hope in Christ is established concretely.

Now what, right? So in light of this, every wave of sanctification that breaks upon the shore of our lives comes from the ocean of justification, right.

So that this is how we grow in our holiness by our deepening understanding, appreciation, our engaging with realities of our full and complete salvation.

So verse 5 says, therefore, therefore, you know, in light of this, thinking about this, keeping your attention upon Christ, therefore, in light of your life with Christ, therefore put to death your members which are on the earth.

These parts of your life that manifest, right. So yet there's fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

Why? Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them.

Now earlier in Colossians we're told we were taken out of the dominion of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of God's Son, right.

So this is no longer our identity, no longer our realm, no longer, we're no longer domineered by all of these things.

You might say, well, you know, you're not much of a Christian if you have fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry, in your life, right.

It says put to death these things, which means that they're making a stink and you need to bury them.

They're causing a problem and you get rid of them. It makes me think of Paul when he says, I do the things I don't want to do and I don't do the things that I want to do.

It's not as if they're not there at all. He is actively seeking to put those things off because they don't represent

Christ. Exactly, and the Spirit opposes those things. Now the difference, what's the difference then is the fact that we now are against these things, we want to war against them, we hate them, we resent them, and we know how to attack them, and we know what to say about them, right?

1 John 1 5 says, this is the message we have heard from him and declared to you that God is light and in him there's no darkness at all.

If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. What just happened there?

Sometimes we hear that God is light and we say, well, that means he's pure and holy, which he is, of course. There's no sin in him.

Well, that's true. That's very true. But in this context, when it says God is light and in him there is no darkness, it is followed up with, when we walk in the light with him, it means that we practice the truth.

But if we walk in darkness, it means we lie. So this expression of God is light means that it's perfectly true.

He's perfectly true, and all things are seen clearly when it comes from God's perspective. What do we do with the light?

We turn on the light to see everything clearly. So it says, verse 7, if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sin.

So it's not that we walk with God in the light because we have escaped all of our sin.

We walk in the light because we're speaking the truth and we have Jesus Christ who is cleansing us from sin.

We have Jesus Christ by whom we have forgiveness of our sins, which is the very next passage. If we say that we have no sin, and again

John is writing to Christians, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, meaning what? We walk in darkness.

And the truth is not in us. We can't walk in fellowship with God if we walk in darkness, if we're lying and say that we have no sin.

The way we walk in fellowship with God is that we walk in the light and we say the truth. The fact of the matter is,

I do have sin. And if we confess our sins, verse 9, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. So what does God expect of us when it comes to our sin, when it comes to our sin and our guilt?

He wants us to say the truth, confess, homilega, oh the same words, say the same thing about our sin that he says about it, including not only the reality of the sin itself, but also the reality of Christ's death upon the cross for our forgiveness, to satisfy the justice of God as our propitiation.

So putting to death our members here in Colossians, all of these things, putting those to death includes what?

Walking in the light, saying what they are, telling the truth about them, confessing them, seeking to be cleansed from them by the power, resurrection power of Jesus Christ.

Verse 8 says, but now put you yourselves are to put off all these things, anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth.

Do not lie to one another since you have put off the old man with his deeds and have put on the new man who was renewed in knowledge, speaking the truth in love, according to the image of him who created him.

The image of him who created him. Well who is the image of him who created him?

This is Christ. Christ is the image of the invisible God, and we are being renewed into his image.

Ephesians says we're being built up into him who was our head, to his full status of maturity. So, and this is where there is neither

Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all in and all.

In other words, our, whatever we used to identify as, no more. Right? Whatever we used to identify as, no more.

Christ is all in and all. You know, I belong to him. I'm being renewed into him, and that's what

God expects of us as Christians, to become more and more like Christ, more renewed into his image, more conformed to our

Savior. When it comes to the things of the old man, the things of death, well, it makes no more sense to to stay with that, so we put it off.

My example is Lazarus, okay? When Jesus came to Lazarus' tomb, he says, you know, open, open up the tomb, and everyone's complaining.

He's like, that's not a good idea. Right? He's decomposing now. It's too late. It's gonna stink.

And so he said, no, just open it up. And then he says, Lazarus, come forth. When Lazarus does that,

Jesus has further instructions, you know, unbind him. Because why? He's all wrapped up in all these grave clothes.

Now, it doesn't make any sense at all when when Jesus calls Lazarus, you know, come forth, and raises him from the dead.

It makes no sense for Lazarus to, you know, to sit up, you know, and kind of realize where he's at, and say, well, this is kind of homey.

I'm gonna stay here in the tomb. You know, I've, you know, he's feel kind of snug, and I feel cozy, and I'm gonna make the best of it here in this tomb, in these clothes.

The tomb is death. The clothes are death. You know, he's, this is all about death. And he's not supposed to stay in the tomb, and he's not supposed to keep wearing these clothes.

It would make zero sense, and it makes no sense at all for Christians to continue to engage in the things of death.

And that's why we're told time and again, reckon yourselves as dead indeed to sin, but alive to God, and Christ Jesus is our

Lord. Romans 6. So, given the fact of our resurrection in Christ, our new life in Christ, our birth in, a new birth in Christ, it makes no sense to continue in this sin.

Makes no sense to continue in with this death, and you were going to reckon it, put it off, reckon it as death, call it what it is, confess it, say, say about it what

God says about it, and turn away from it, and embrace life. Just like Andrew, you were saying, it's about following Christ, going towards Him.

Yeah, the disciples are trying to be like their master. They've learned, they learn from their master. They do what their master does.

They say what their master says. We want to be like Him. He's, it's called Christianity for a reason.

It's, it's all about Him. Yeah, and I even think there's the act of putting off sin, not doing those things, but then when the believer finds themselves having committed those sins, what you just said is not to focus on that.

You confess it, you say, that's death, and I'm walking in the light. I'm with Christ.

He cleanses my sins. I'll only find freedom from it by not focusing on it, but by walking with Him.

Yeah. That's where we get our forgiveness and freedom to continue to walk. We're told to confess the sins, and godly sorrow is praised.

We are to be broken about our, you know, we are to have a sorrow about our sins, but it's a godly, and in fact, it's a

God word sorrow. So it's a sorrow not focused on the self. It's not a self word sorrow, which never, which is worldly and doesn't really produce true repentance, but it's a

God word sorrow, a God word brokenness, which is the off -ramp. You know, I'm going the wrong way.

There's a brokenness. I get off. I'm gonna turn around, go the other way, because I'm gonna, I'm gonna call these sins what God calls them, okay, and I'm gonna repent from them.

Those are all good things. Those are all the grace of God at work in our lives. The trap is that when we realize we're going the wrong way, we pull over, turn on the hazards, and give up.

You know, look how far off track I got, and we're gonna sit here and think about that for a long time.

I'm gonna turn off and turn off the car, turn on the hazards. You know, this is terrible. Instead of, you know, recognizing the fact that, you know, hey, in the grace of God, you know, where am

I? I'm hid with Christ in God at the right hand, and my future is totally secure, and you know, this is, you know, this is

God's grace at work in my life. You know, I do need to flee from this. This is death. You know, this is awful.

You know, God has revealed that to me. God is faithfully calling me to follow Him, and so then

I'm gonna go ahead and turn around and head the other way, but not to get trapped in that and only think about that.

So the Scriptures would have us confess our sins, but we were told to confess our sins, to repent from them. Godly sorrow is a good thing, but the kind of, you know, self -loathing introspection, you know,

I'm never, I'm nothing but a worm. That's all that I ever am, and I'm gonna sit here in my worminess.

Okay, right, and some of the Puritans are really good at that, and that's not a good example to follow.

The other error, to go the other way, is to be very lackadaisical, be very careless and uncaring about our sins, and fail to confess, right?

You know, not agreeing with God about the wretched nature of sin, the loathsome nature of this sin and this death, and just kind of like, oh well, whatever.

You know, that's, that's the other error that, of course, we are not commending. Is that connected to Christian perfectionism or anything like that?

Yeah, it can be. I think there's, you know, Jesus, Jesus knows who we are.

He just, He's such a good shepherd, such a good Savior. He said, come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

And what is he saying there? Why are we so often burdened? Why are we so often heavy laden, worn out and weary?

Well, it happens when we, when we're not going unto Christ, following Christ, looking unto

Christ. When we're looking to the self, in any fashion, we're going to be weary and heavy laden, right?

There is no hope for my sanctification in my peering deeply into my navel, right?

The ground that I till by myself produces brambles. That's a very good point, right?

I think that we've got a lot of examples in the Scriptures. It's not a trite thing to say, to keep our focus upon Jesus and to follow

Jesus. It's not trite at all. That's at the very heart of what it means to be a Christian. So we have lots of examples in the

Scriptures to encourage us along those lines. And indeed, indeed, this is how the Savior saves us.

I think of his promise in Philippians 1 .6. He says, I'm sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

So to focus on our sin is to miss what he's saying. I started this and I will bring it to completion.

Yes, having those promises anchoring us in the fullness of our actual salvation in Christ, it is finished,

Christ said. In fact, he's at the right hand of the Father. And then that's on the one hand. On the other hand, we have the absolute confidence and hope of the fullness of our salvation to come.

And then we live in the meantime walking by faith, not by sight. Thank you for your question.

What are we thankful for? Well, I am very thankful for we're in my birthday season in my house.

And so, oh yeah, we've got like six birthdays and my anniversary.

Six birthdays and anniversary within a 10 -week span. And so it's just a celebratory season.

You know, of course, we throw Christmas in there too. It's just, there's just a lot of celebration going on and reflecting.

Just kind of reflecting on the last year, God's faithfulness, many answered prayers.

I just think of each one of my children as they're growing up one more year. And I find myself more and more just just thankful for the

Lord's work in their lives, the Lord's faithfulness and goodness. I'm thankful for just the knowledge that God has a plan.

And even if I don't know every step of the way, that he's guiding my steps, putting godly men in my life, putting me where where I am in my job, my church, all of those things.

That's not an accident and I have to figure it all out right now. I think during this crazy season,

I've changed jobs recently, and so just trying to get things figured out. Where am I going? What am I doing? And all of that kind of stuff.

But then just to rest and say, just be faithful, just trust the

Lord. And then his plan, he'll reveal his plan in his timing. And I don't have to know it all right now.

So I'm grateful for that. My wife and I sat down earlier today and looked at a budget for this next year, as well as, you know, well, what were our expenditures from last year?

And so we were going over one of the months. You could probably focus on lots of things during that time.

But what struck me was just being, I'm very thankful for that he provided his provision for my family all of 2022.

So I don't have to worry about 2023. I'll be a good steward, but he's the one who gave the increase.

So we're very, very thankful for that in my household. I recently retired.

And so there was some interruption in pay during a period of time, which

God has resolved that situation. And we're very, very grateful and rejoicing whenever we heard the news.

And that wraps it up for today. We are very thankful for our listeners and hope you will join us again as we meet to answer common questions and objections with having not read.