God’s Part and My Part

 

One professor in seminary stated that Christians need to verbalize what they believe because in saying it, it becomes a deeper reality in our lives. This is much like these NT words:

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. (Romans 10:9–10)

These two things go together — believing in my heart and saying it with my mouth. For me, believing it in my heart and writing it on paper has much the same effect. I’m more visual than verbal and remember written truths far better than hearing the same truths. For that reason, I take sermon notes and write what I hear from God during my devotions and Bible studies.

Today, the topic is sanctification. The devotional author says it has two sides to it. I would not term it that way. It is more like the union between faith and verbalizing what I believe; both are necessary. That is, God sanctifies me and that sanctification is completed by obedience. I need to do what He puts in my heart or the sanctifying process is not complete. However, according to NT verses like this, both parts require the work of God:

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12–13)

I need to do my part in being sanctified (the word means to be set apart for God) yet it is God who works in me so I want to do His will.

Nevertheless, when God works, my part is not about being “zapped” but cooperating with what He puts in my heart. I see that in these verses…

…For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. (Romans 6:19–22)

In my new life, I have all I need to be set apart from sin, death, and this world — to serve Him. I know I cannot do godly actions without His enabling. My part includes listening to Him.

Abstain from every form of evil. Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it. Brothers, pray for us. (1 Thessalonians 5:22–25)

My part shown here is to say NO to evil and pray for other Christians to do the same. Jesus is faithful to set me apart for Himself and I need to cooperate..

So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. (Hebrews 13:12–13)

Jesus suffered that I could be set apart for Him. My part is to go to Him and rely on Him even if it means I may suffer too.

For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. (1 Thessalonians 4:3–6)

My part in this is obvious. Being set apart for God means I don’t mess around with this or any other kind of sin. Instead, I need to be thankful that I and other Christians belong to Him and can let that show up in godly living. We know that sin has consequences, even forgiven sin.

But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. (2 Thessalonians 2:13)

PRAY: Oh Lord, because of You, I am in Christ Jesus and cannot boast about anything, not even my obedience because Jesus is my wisdom, as well as my righteousness and sanctification and redemption (1 Corinthians 1:30). I am so grateful for this incredible salvation and that You have set me apart from the world, my old nature, and the devil’s deceit and adopted me to be Your child and to serve You.

His way or . . .

This week someone told me that a person at her workplace has the attitude “my way or the highway” and manages to get it. People use this narcissistic and dictatorial approach when they feel their authority is being challenged. It also happens to create false religions because “my way” is the very definition of sin.

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:6)

I can want my own way in the kitchen, in how I do my housework, in the way I make quilts, and so on, but when under the authority of an employer, that does not work. It does not work in religion either. As MacArthur says, at the heart of every false religion is the notion that man can come to God by any means he chooses—by meditating, doing good deeds, and so on. However, the Son of God said this: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

He did not say He is a way but the way, the only way to have a saving relationship with God. Other Scriptures say the same thing:

And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. (Romans 10:9–10)

The Bible is clear on this, even though some will find passages that seem to justify their ideas of how to come to God rather than by confessing and repenting of our sin, trusting in the atoning death on the cross of Jesus Christ, and affirming His bodily resurrection from the grave. “My way” never works.

Centuries before Christ’s death, God provided a means of worship and sacrifice. It began right after the first sin in Eden. Since then, all people fall short of God’s glory and are faced with God’s way or deciding to try their own way. That began back then as well:

In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. (Genesis 4:3–5)

God required a blood offering for sin. Abel came in faith, acknowledged his sin, and made the appropriate sacrifice. His offering was better than Cain’s because Cain neglected the prescribed sacrifice, thereby demonstrating his unwillingness to submit to God and deal with his sin. His offering was not the problem because grain, fruit, or vegetable offerings were included in the Mosaic Covenant, but the sin offering had to come first. Cain decided to approach God on his own terms and his name later became synonymous with rebellion and apostasy. Jude writes of false religious people with this:

Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam’s error and perished in Korah’s rebellion. (Jude 11)

Cain didn’t consider his sin problem and tried to be ‘religious’ without dealing with sin. Balaam had a different problem. He “loved gain from wrongdoing. (2 Peter 2:15) much like some of current false teachers.

So did Korah. He didn’t like Moses telling him how to live. He protested, “You have gone too far! For all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?” After a heated conversation, Moses declared that if Korah was in error, God would deal with him and his family in a way He had never done before. And it happened:

And as soon as he had finished speaking all these words, the ground under them split apart. And the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the people who belonged to Korah and all their goods. So they and all that belonged to them went down alive into Sheol, and the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly. And all Israel who were around them fled at their cry, for they said, “Lest the earth swallow us up!” And fire came out from the Lord and consumed the 250 men offering the incense. (Numbers 16:1-35)

PRAY: Jesus, I know that You are the way to the Father. Today I will pray for those who have not yet agreed or bowed before You. May You be merciful, patient with them and reveal truth with such clarity that they acknowledge their folly and give their lives to You.

PONDER: Jude 17-23 describes how I need to think and act regarding those who are caught in ‘my way’ instead of seeing Jesus as ‘the Way’ — and ask God to enable me to obey this and see Him rescue them.