Month: August 2018

Fight the good fight of the faith. (I Tim 6:12)

Lord, grant me a greater faith to hold onto your precious promises.

We have been talking about the fact that the Christian life is a fight for holiness. In the last blog I discussed two principles that help us in this fight: 1) Understand that apart from Christ we are sinful and weak. 2) Rest in the work of Christ in us. Today I will focus on a principle that helps us do number 2.

Walk by faith, not by sight (II Cor 5:7). The Christian life is a life of faith. And one of the goals of Satan is to get us to live our lives without faith. That goal is not particularly difficult to achieve, for faith involves realities we can’t see, and distracting us from realities we can’t see is not a complicated task. Just show us something we can see.

God has done a new work in the life of the Christian. In Christ we are dead to sin and alive to God (Rm 6:1-11). In Christ we were washed, we were sanctified, we were justified (I Cor 6:11). These are truths we have already discussed, but the only way we can hold onto them is by faith. We do not exactly see with our eyes that we are clean in Christ. But we are. We see it only by faith. Nor do we see with our eyes that we are forgiven in Christ. But we are. We see it only by faith. Faith is how we hold onto what God has done. Faith sees that we are dead to sin. Faith sees that we were washed, sanctified and justified. Faith sees that we are new creatures. Faith sees that we have been perfected forever (Heb 10:14). Faith sees that we are saints in Christ. Faith sees that we are part of the radiant Bride of Christ. Faith sees that we are adopted children of God. Only by faith do we see our identity in Christ. This is crucial because it is this identity that helps us live in holiness.

So let’s get practical. When Satan deals with a genuine believer, he wants that believer to doubt the realities mentioned above, and in order to do this, he simply shows us realities we can see. And one of the biggest realities he shows us is our own sin. He has to be careful in his game, of course. When we are unaware of our sin, he will often do what he can to keep us blinded, but when we know we have sinned, he will use our knowledge against us. If Satan cannot tip the scales to the extreme of ignorance, he will then try to tip them in the opposite extreme and make us despair and doubt what God has done.   He is the accuser of the brethren.

So here is what Satan does. Let’s say, I get in an argument with my wife and demean her. Or let’s say a genuine believer gets caught up looking at pornography or finds in his heart an arrogant attitude or fails to help a destitute person or compromises her integrity at work or . . . fill in the blank. With a genuine believer who sees his sin, Satan wants to magnify that sin.   He puts it in big bold letters and thrusts it on a billboard in front of our face. That sin is now part of Satan’s marketing strategy for his own agenda. If we then say, “I am washed, I am sanctified, I am justified,” or if we say, “I am clean in Christ” or “I am part of a holy Bride,” Satan immediately puts the billboard before us in neon lights. He then says, “How can you say you are holy in Christ when you just treated your mother that way?” Or “Dead to sin in Christ Jesus? That Scripture must mean something else because you are quite alive to sin.” Or . . . you get the strategy. All he wants to do is make us doubt God’s Word.

It is precisely at this point that the believer has to choose what he or she believes. Do we believe what we seem to see? Or do we believe God’s Word?

We walk by faith, not by sight. If we are God’s people, we must hold onto what God says about our identity, and we must hold onto it even when we sin. Our sin is real. I am not denying it. But what Christ has done in us is also real, and that work has changed us.   A bride is no less a bride when she has a fight with her husband. Her standing in the home does not change.

Therefore, we fight Satan by faith, which means we fight the fight for holiness by faith.

This also means that when we sin, we must handle it a certain way. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins.” (I Jn 1:9) The first thing we must do is acknowledge our sin. We do not walk in holiness by denying sin. That’s what politicians do, and you see how well it works for them. Honest admission of our sin is crucial, but if we are in Christ, honest admission of our sin must never cripple our souls. If we confess, He forgives. We are now clean. If we are now clean, why can’t we be washed, sanctified, justified, perfected forever, a radiant bride, a saint, a child of God, dead to sin? The sin is gone. The sin is real, but the sin is wiped away. We hold onto forgiveness, sanctification, and all the rest only by faith.

When we let Satan make us doubt who we are in Christ, we hurt our ability to fight. The truths of what God has done are great weapons on our side. If we set them aside, it is like a soldier going into battle without a rifle. He will now charge the hill with his fists. That soldier is no threat to Satan. The billboard worked.

I have fought the good fight . . . (II Tim 3:7)

May I fight, O Lord, your fight — the fight for holiness.

Last week I discussed the fact that Christians are holy but mentioned as well that we still sin. Such talk may raise an eyebrow or two, for how exactly can holy people sin? Doesn’t holiness mean we don’t sin? To address this question, I want you to think of a bride at a wedding.   When she says, “I do,” she becomes a wife, and her identity changes for the rest of her life. At the wedding, she may have become a wife at a particular moment, but after the wedding she will spend the rest of her life learning how to live as a wife. Living with a man is not easy, and this new wife will quickly discover that fact.

Something like this is true of the Christian life. I have been discussing the fact that in Christ we have a new identity and that new identity includes the fact that we are holy. We are the Bride of Christ, and Christ gave himself up for his bride “that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Eph 5:26-7). Christ has already cleansed us. He made his bride holy so that she might be his bride, for Christ will not marry into sin. This is our identity. But this new identity does not mean that we live a perfect life. We now enter into the hard part — living out our identity. Just as a wife spends a lifetime learning how to better live out her roles and responsibilities, so do we as Christians spend a lifetime learning how to better live out our identity in Christ. This means struggle. Living in holiness is not easy, and the new Christian will quickly discover that fact.

Therefore, we are holy, but we are becoming holy. The first part of that statement is a fact we must rest in. The second part is the application of that fact. The first part is done. Christ has procured our holiness for us. The second part is yet to be lived. The writer to the Hebrews put it this way: “For by a single offering he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified” (Heb 10:14). In other words, the people who are becoming holy have already been made holy. Because we have been made holy, God now calls us into a fight. It is fight for holiness.

What then, are some principles for this fight? Here are a couple for this week, and we will discuss others in future blogs.

1. Understand that apart from Christ you are fallen. You are a broken creature, bent toward sin. You are weak, but sin is strong. If you think you can simply overcome sin by being strong, you have already lost the battle. You are like a cocky eight-year-old who thinks he can play in the NBA today. You are an alcoholic who thinks he can overcome alcoholism himself. You will never defeat sin by taking it on yourself. You need Christ. Without Christ, you lose. In Christ, you have already overcome. The fight is too big for you. You will win the fight only by the grace of God.

We cannot wage the battle for holiness in our flesh. This is one of the biggest mistakes Christians make in their fight. They fight in the flesh and with their own strength. “Are you so foolish?” Paul said. “Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Gal 3:2) We understand that salvation is by grace through faith in the work of Christ, but we often then live as if sanctification is by our own good works. It is not. It, too, comes by grace through faith in the work of Christ.

This concept that we are weak doesn’t tell us so much how to fight; rather, it tells us how not to fight. But this lesson in how not to fight is crucial, for virtually everyone at some point tries to be holy in their own strength. In fact, most people have to beat their fists against the wall before they see that their efforts are futile in producing real holiness.

2.  Rest in what God has done. You are not just forgiven from your sin; you are dead to it in Christ (Rom 6:1-11). Hold onto that fact. It may seem strange when you sin to think that you are dead to sin, but if your faith in Christ is real, then you are dead to sin. Period. Even when you may sin. Satan will use your sin against you to make you think that God’s Word is ridiculous. He will say, “How can you consider yourself dead to sin when you are so alive to sin?” He will want you to focus on your behavior and then use your behavior to make you doubt your identity. He wants your behavior to be the foundation for who you are. He does not want Christ or His Word to be the foundation for who you are. Satan wants your behavior to drive your identity. God wants your identity to drive your behavior. If you want to see holy behavior in your life, you must hold on to your identity in Christ. That identity is the work of Christ in you. Christ has made you part of his spotless bride (Eph 5:26-7). He has made you a son or daughter of God Almighty (Rom 8:12-17). In Christ, you are dead to sin but alive to God. In Christ, you are cleansed, holy, sanctified (I Cor 6:9; I Pet 2:9). In Christ you are a new creature (II Cor 5:17). In Christ you are seated in heavenly places (Eph2:6). All of these things are God’s work. If you want to live in holiness, then start believing what God has done. If you doubt these truths, you cripple your ability to walk in holiness, for you are doubting the very Word of God.