GLORI(FIED)

October 26, 2008

Finish this statement: No guts…

No GLORY. There is something very powerful, very attractive about GLORY- something or someone or some event that is truly GLORIOUS. It draws us in and invites us to celebrate.

I’m sure most of us watched Michael Phelps this past summer in the Olympics. He is the kind of guy that we would say is a glorious athlete. He embodied the spirit of the Olympics, obliterating the standard for glory and excellence. The most gold any athlete has ever won, the most gold in a single Olympics ever won. It was truly glorious to just watch him do what he does- swim. To swim better than anyone else has ever swam before. To see a human that is almost more at home in water than on land. Quiet, meek, focused, listening to Little Wayne on his ipod. He takes his place on the podium, the buzzer would sound, and he would win. It got to the point where you just knew you weren’t so much watching a race, you were watching a win. We were glued to the set to see how this glorious swimmer would win his next gold. Would it be by a body length, or two body lengths, or just by a finger. It was like we all knew the victory has already been decided. We were just watching it play out. The victory has already been won through the hours of suffering through training and preparation and practice. The race was always his, the glory was his- he knew it, the competitors knew it, we knew it.

But one thing that amazed me was watching how Michael celebrated his glorious achievement. When he won a race he was obvious pumped- so thrilled to win. He always struck me as a gentlemen- never gloated, never said I’m number one, eat my wake suckers, in your face! He embraced the glory in a way that really showed some depths of character, I think. But what sticks out for me is how he reacted during his team events. During his first relay race, when his teammate took the lead in the last half-length of the final lap, he started going crazy. And when the team won, the place went nuts. I thought he was going to have a heart attack, or that his head was going to explode. He just went bonkers. There was nothing more glorious it would seem than when the team took that gold, and when he shared in the glory of that moment with others.

And that is the image I want you to hold in your mind this morning- that there is nothing more glorious than sharing the win. Sharing the victory. Sharing the glory. When we are part of something bigger than ourselves, something more than just us, and when we take the gold, the glory is greater than anything else in the world.

We are wrapping up this series that has walked us down the path of salvation as taught in the bible. We felt it was important to walk you through, in what we hope has been a very clear and compelling presentation, of the bibles explanation of salvation. Now on one level I never want to make complicated what is clear and concise. It should always be enough to say that it is enough to believe. It is enough the bible says to just believe. To just have faith. To say I believe in you God. I turn to Jesus as my savior and Lord. I give my self to you. That’s enough, and that’s really how it always starts. But how great that we have a very detailed and thorough explain of belief in the bible.

We started with the Petrified service. Here we examined the human condition. The bible says that on our own, left to ourselves, we are spiritually dead, and dead in our sins. And as spiritually dead beings, we find ourselves in a pretty helpless state. Just like a physically dead person cannot and does not spontaneously bring themselves back to life, so we, as spiritually dead creatures, do not spontaneously bring ourselves to spiritual life. We do not make the first move toward God. Instead, God takes the first move toward us. Ezekiel 36 gave us the promise:

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”

So God moves upon us, gives a spiritual rebirth. It may happen when we are young and can’t even really remember. It may happen when we are an adult, and we can see the change has happened. It may happen instantaneously. It may be a very long and drawn out labor with lots of pushing and pulling and grunted and sweating and fighting God at every turn. The important thing isn’t ultimately the details of the birth, but that we are re-born, regenerated, that God takes our heart of stone, and replaces it with a heart of flesh.

The next movement is our justification. This is the one that theologians have worked to define, explain, teach and apply for centuries. It boils down to this simple (not simplistic) truth- once we are re-born, we repent and we put our faith in Jesus. We have faith that Jesus is the Son of God, that he died as an atoning sacrifice for our sins, that he satisfied the real need for justice to be done in the eyes of God. This is so important to embrace. Our God actually deals with the real problem of sin in the world and in our lives. There is sin. How do I know that- because people hunger. Women are raped. Children are molested. People are homeless. Wars are fought. The wicked prosper and the needy are forgotten. How do I know sin is real- because I feel it waging a war within my own body and mind. I’m not the way I’m supposed to be. The world is not the way it’s supposed to be. And our God does something about it- he has begun the process of eradicating sin and death. He justifies me, he justifies you, he justifies all his children on whom he sends His Spirit, on everyone who has faith that Jesus lived, he died, he rose, he is coming again.

So far God has done all the work. God gets all the credit. He has taken petrified people and given us rebirth. He takes sinful people and he says we can be justified through putting our faith in Jesus. Now we step into the process of salvation. Now that we are in this relationship with God we begin to work with God. It is called our sanctification. Now God can start to do something with us, and we get the blessing of knowing we are a part of the process. God doesn’t just want us alive, he doesn’t just want us justified, he wants us sanctified- set apart for his plans and purpose in the world and on into eternity. Justification fixes our fundamental problem- we’re dead in sin. Our sanctification is the ongoing work of fixing our fundamental issue- we don’t love God, and we don’t love our neighbors. Through the ongoing work of the Spirit in our lives we grow more and more into the image and likeness of Jesus. Touch somebody and tell them- I’m being sanctified!

Here is what’s so awesome about sanctification, and what leads us into glorification- when God takes the trouble, when God pays the price to breath new life into us, because let’s be honest, justification has cost God a lot- when God does this in our lives, it is very clear why. Please don’t miss this- it’s because he loves you. God loves you; there is no other reasonable explanation or understanding for why God does all this. And then second, it’s because he has a plan for you. He sets you apart and begins growing you in this relationship because he has a plan for your life!

You set things apart for which you have a plan. When there is only one serving of ice cream left in the carton I set it apart for a reason- so that I can eat it and my kids can’t. I set aside time to be with my family. I set aside money to save for a vacation or a new car. I set aside certain things I own because they hold a very special place in my heart- like my skis or my bike. To sanctify is to set apart for a very special purpose and plan, and that is exactly what the bible teaches that God does with us- he sets us apart for a plan and a purpose- for his plan and his purpose. And what is God’s plan and purpose for this whole process of salvation- our regeneration, our justification, and our sanctification, is for His and our glorification. It’s all about his Glory friends.

Of all the words that are abused and have lost their significance in our culture, I’m so glad that Glory hasn’t lost it’s meaning. I say I love my kids then I say I love my coffee. Now early in the morning I may in fact love my coffee more than my kids, but still, it degrades the word love, because really, I like coffee. I enjoy coffee. I don’t love it. I don’t have a mutually beneficial and blessed relationship with coffee. I love my kids. I say God is awesome, and then I say a movie was awesome. You know this, you do this, and it’s the evolution of language. But glorious has resisted this degradation. We seem to use the word glorious in a very guarded way. And that’s why it’s such a perfect word for this final step in our salvation process.

Let me say what glorification is, then apply it to our lives. I have printed an extended passage of scripture for you to follow along. I’m going to read the passage, and along the way, interject some explanation.

Romans 8:18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.

Have you suffered in this world, in this life? If not, let me know how you’ve done it. In this world we will have trouble, Jesus says. But take heart, I have overcome the world. The Christ follower, the person who has put their faith and trust in Jesus for life, has this amazing, revolutionary, transformed and transforming outlook- nothing we suffer in this world is worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed IN US. Did you catch that part- IN US. There is going to be something glorious revealed in us through God. God loves you so much he brought you to physical life. He breathed into you spiritual life. He has set you apart, and he is going to reveal a glory that will shine through your life that is going to rock our world.

And he goes on-19The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21that[i] the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

Do you realize how green our God is? How green our glorification is? The creation is crying out for the glory of God to be revealed. People have subjected the creation to frustration and degradation. Folks, this was written 2000 years ago. 2000 years ago the Christians looked at what people had done and were doing to creation, and they said the world is already longing to be freed from it’s bondage to decay. Those words were true then, and they are like exponentially truer now. What we have subjected the creation to because of sin is anything but glorious- it is heinous, it is horrific, it is wrong, and it will be changed. The entire creation is going to be brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. You don’t start living the full Christian life until you catch a vision for the redemption not just of your body and your life when Jesus returns- you must catch a vision for the redemption of all of creation! We should be leading the way, raising the bar and greening the way to the glorification of all of God’s creatures and creation!

It goes on: 22We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

God have mercy this is like the most awesome passage ever! We go back to the re-birth analogy. But it’s more than just an analogy- it’s reality. We need to be reborn, and the whole creation, the whole world, needs to be reborn. The whole creation is in fact groaning, as if in the pains of birth. And we too are still in this birthing process. For though we are brought to life, we are justified, we are being sanctified, and we are yet to be fully and completely glorified. We have this hope that guides and directs and inspires our lives.

And so he pulls together this process in these verses. 28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Yes, God set you apart for a reason he is going to work everything out for good, in this world or in the one to come. Why…

29For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

And the final step in the process of glorification is this endgame when Jesus is celebrated like the first born among many brothers and many sisters and all of us together, we are predestined, we are called, we are justified, we are being sanctified, and we will be glorified.

The endgame of the Christ-follower is glorious my friends. And Glory is most glorious when it is celebrated and shared. Michael Phelps cheered when he won gold in one of his individual events, but he went nuts, he lost control, he went glorious when he was on a winning team. And folks, glory isn’t glory when it all about you or just all about me. Glory is glorious when it’s all about God, and when we step into a relationship with God, and when God does something glorious with all of us together.

And just like watching Michael Phelps win each time, glorification is about the absolute assurance that in the end God will win. That God has already won, and we are just watching that victory play out. It’s just like our history folks- there was a D-Day,and a V-Day. D-Day was when the battle for Europe was decided- the allies forces would defeat the Nazis. But it still took a year of fighting, and many lost lives, for V-Day, for the final victory to be secured.

And that’s what is happening in God’s redemption plan. D-Day happened 2000 years ago when Jesus rose from the dead. The battle against sin and death was decided on Easter morning. But V-day, complete victory over sin and death doesn’t happen until Jesus returns. For those that believe we have this faith, that we are simply in the process of watching God play out His victory. We know God is going to take the gold. It may see like he’s falling behind sometimes, it may seem like evil and sin are winning in the world and taking peoples lives and wreaking havoc on nations, which in fact it is. But in the last stretch, whenever that stretch comes, God pulls ahead, and we pull ahead with Him. And the win isn’t by a finger, or a body length, or a by a mile, it’s by an infinitely immeasurable gap. Because in the end glorification is about the ultimate and eternity victory over sin and death- all sin, all death, all that separates us from God.

Glorification is our great hope as believers in Jesus. It is the hope that there is a purpose and a plan for all our lives, and for all of creation. Glorification is the hope that God will make all things right in our lives and in all of creation. Glorification is the hope that the final death will be the death of sin and death itself. Glorification is the hope that there is an end to the sanctification process, because there is a time coming when all things will be set apart for God, when in fact nothing we be set apart from God anymore, all things will be drawn back to him, back into a relationship with their creator and with one another. Glorification is the hope that the work of justification is no longer needed, for there is no longer any sin to separate us or anything from God. Glorification is the hope that the work of regeneration is not long needed, for all God’s children will live into eternity with our God.

So what does this all mean? Is this some sort of pie in the sky, a new world is coming and everything will be great and glorious then? Absolutely. The bible teaches that this is the trajectory of redemption that is playing itself out before our very lives. That there is a great hope and a great and glorious future for all the children of God, for all whom he calls, and that we can begin living into it right now. And that’s the rub folks. Don’t miss this- don’t miss the glory now. Don’t miss the kingdom now. Don’t miss Jesus now. No guts, no glory. You needs to have the guts, the gumption, the gall, to start living now for the glory of God.

I mentioned in our first service that the message that Jesus preached more than anything else was this- the kingdom of God is at hand. The kingdom, the glory, of God, is at hand. It is in your grasp. It is stand there before you. And the message of Jesus is still the same. The kingdom and the glory is at hand- take hold of it. Take hold of him.

When you go to Starbucks and you get the pumpkin spice caramel frappuccino, you get a taste of the glory yet to come. When you wrestle with your kids and fall to ground in exhaustion and laughter, you get a taste of the glory yet to come. When you hold your wife or your husband in your arms, and there is nothing between you- no pretense, no façade, no lies, nothing but love, you get a taste of the glory yet to come. When you experience being forgiven of something that has weighed you down with guilt and shame for a lifetime... When you offer forgiveness to a brother of sister and you see the weight lifted off their shoulders… when you reach out in love to a neighbor…when you offer a cold drink to a weary traveler…when you offer a meal to the weak and hungry…when you offer you coat to the cold…when you open you home to the hurting. When you know you are alive in Christ. When you know you are forgiven by God. When you know you are filled with the Holy Spirit and are being set apart by God. When you share your faith in Jesus with those you know and love, and when they start to taste the glory of God for themselves. When you know God has used you, and is using you, and will continue to use you. When you have the hope, you just have it in your head and in your heart and down into you bones that God has a wonderful future in store for all his children- you get a taste of the glory of God.

Centuries ago the church realized that this is what life and living for God is all about. They wrote a confession of faith that started with this bold statement- what it the chief purpose of life? To glorify God and enjoy him forever. To glorify God and enjoy him forever.

As we now wrap up this series it has been and will continue to be our prayer, and our hope, that you will taste the glory of God. That you will want your life to be glorious and glorifying to God in everything you say and do and think and believe and embrace and embody. And when you do this- that you will enjoy God, you will delight in God, you will embrace and love and laugh and live with God.

SANCTI(FIED)

Sunday, October 19, 2008
Here's Ben Jolliffe's sermon- I commend it to you!

Welcome this morning. Excellent to be here. My name is Ben and I am part of Connections Community Church. I am not George. He is taking some much needed time off from preaching this week, and he asked me to stand in for him. I am having a few issues standing, I was in a 10k race yesterday and this old guy (he was about 35) tried to pass me and I nearly died trying to beat him. But beat him I did.

Nevertheless, I am here. For good or for ill. Let’s go.

We have been on a journey here as a church for the past few weeks, wading and sometimes swimming through some deep theological waters. Two weeks ago was Petrified. And we noted that though dead in our sin, God has moved on the hearts of men and women to regenerate them. He literally calls our spiritual lives back from the dead, back from being rock-hard and petrified and allows us to respond to Him in faith.

Then last week George spoke on what being Justified is all about. To quickly summarize, it is an act of God to declare us righteous in his sight. It is a one-time event where someone by the grace of God, through Christ by faith, becomes a Christian.

And the question is – what happens afterward? So let’s say we become Christians, then what? I mean, are we just treading water till Jesus comes back or we step in front of a truck? Or is there something in between justification and death?

The answer of course is Yes. Sanctification is in between.
But the problem with preaching on sanctification is that most of the Bible is about it. The stories and teaching often concerns Christians and our growth after being justified.

I think George gave me this week because he didn’t want to pick just one passage. So today we are going to spend some time trying to only get a drip of water from a raging fire hose.
To start with, let’s define Sanctification so we know what we are dealing with:

Sanctification is the progressive work of God and man that makes us more and more free from sin and more like Christ in our actual lives.

So let’s go to Romans 7. Romans is written by the apostle and missionary Paul, who of all people knows a great deal about justification and sanctification. Before becoming a Christian, his main job was throwing Christians in jail. God had miraculously saved him and he knew full well the journey that comes after that.

And we pick his reasoning and summary of his own life experience in Romans 7. Verse 14. I’ll read down to vs.24

For we know that the law is spiritual but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it but the sin that dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

20 Now if I do not do what I want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.

24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death.

Now what Paul is describing here is his own life after becoming a Christian. This is not a pre-Christian Paul describing how he really wants to put Christians in jail, but is unable to. He is a Christian and saying he wants to be like Christ, he wants to love God and love people, but for some reason, he keeps doing things he hates doing.

And is this your experience? Can you feel him on this one? I know many, many Christians struggle with guilt, disappointment, bitterness, all kinds of stuff, because they think – “life is not supposed to be this way.” After I became a Christian, stuff was supposed to work out, go better, be easier.

It’s not true, sometimes God blesses, but God is more interested in your holiness than your happiness. He cares more that you look like Christ than that nothing bad ever happens to you. And we swallow the lie that Christianity will make us cooler, or smarter, or richer, or better looking or fix our kids or get us a new job – and Jesus never promises that. He promises that you will look more like Christ. And in the meantime, you will struggle with sin.

I mean, how often do we do what we want? How often do you want to exercise but end up eating a big mac? You know it is wrong, but somehow the good you want to do just keeps ending up wrong.

Now think about this, Paul has a desire to do good. That itself is a demonstration that his heart has been regenerated and he has been justified by God. Some people are constantly worried about whether or not they are saved. One good sign is what do you want to do? Do you have desires to serve God? To love other people? That is a good indication your heart has been regenerated.

Also, unsaved people generally do not worry about whether they are saved or not.
Let’s move on.

Though our hearts may desire to do good, we are still twisted by sin. Though we desire to do good, we end up doing bad.

I don’t know if you can feel that in your life, but this passage reads like my diary. I have the desire to do good. I want to read my Bible, I want to love God, I want to love my wife, but my life does not reflect that. Instead, it is so easy to get caught up with all the other things that creep in: for me it is my fantasy hockey pool, video games, reading, playing sports. For you it might be facebook, TV, checking your stocks, playing barbies.

I don’t know what you do for fun that is legal.

Or take a step farther back – how many of us want to exercise? WE know it is good for us. We want to exercise. But instead we live lives of French fries, car driving and unused gym memberships. I am not condemning you, because it is the human experience. We want good things, but we lean toward bad things. Our desires are twisted by the other stuff that is inside us.

And this goes beyond working out and eating right. Your desire to read your Bible turns into a late night with the TV, watching junk that messes up your mind. Maybe you want to have friends and be known by others, but instead of initiating with them and sharing your heart, you make fun of them and drive the closeness away.

And it is because there is still sin that dwells in us and it wars against us.

Verse 22-23 is like my life verse. There is a literal war that goes on daily in my body and I can feel the push and pull of my mind vs. my sin. And that is what makes sanctification so dang hard. Because you still have junk in your trunk. When God saves you he doesn’t give you a get out of jail card that frees you from all sin forever. He does some work, rearranges some stuff, but says, take some time to figure out the rest. You are a big project. 50 years or so.

And he begins to use the ups and downs of life to work the sin out.

And where it gets really scary is here. Your sin is deeper than you realize. I tell the young punks I work with at UWO this all the time – if you want to know how sinful you are, get married. Because it not only brings out the best in you, your loving, sacrificing side, but you get Darth Vader along with Luke Skywalker. You discover depths of selfishness and pride that you never knew existed. It is amazing.

If you are single and want to experience this, pick a good friend and tie yourself to them with a short rope for 3 days. That about summarizes it.

Back on track.
And the wild thing about sin is that you realize that the surface sins, the everyday variety are just the tip of the iceberg.

Martin Luther, the great reformer and theologian, says it this way, “No commandment is ever broken without the breaking of the first commandment.”

That is, the first commandment is to love God with all your heart soul, mind and strength. If you always do that, you will never break another commandment.

Take this for instance. We are shooting a rack of pool and you beat me. I get angry and frustrated. Now this is the surface sin.

But the root sin, at the base of it, is that I need to win so I can feel good about myself. And what that actually that is, is self-worship. I am placing my needs for self-esteem as my god and letting that dictate my emotions.

And what that makes me realize is that I am a way bigger sinner than I ever thought. I don’t do just struggle with frustration and self-image, but I practically I worship myself instead of Christ.

If I worshiped Christ, I would be secure enough to lose gracefully because my identity and my validation has been purchased by Christ and he makes me who I am, not pool or my job or my car.

Think of this - why do people have sex when they are not married? Because they are worshiping pleasure, instead of Christ. It is not just that you are sinning against God by sleeping together, but you have displaced Christ with pleasure and you are figuratively bowing down to pleasure to worship it.

See what Paul realizes in this passage that will shock you, is that you are more depraved, and more sinful than you ever imagined. This is not a popular message in our narcissistic, our self-obsessed culture. You are not okay. You are in big trouble. Your sin will swallow you up.

That is, in my marriage, when Jen wants to talk to me and I want to sleep, I am not just being selfish, I am worshipping myself and my needs.

And we all have substitute saviours. We worship the approval of others, we worship a perfect body image, we worship success, we worship freedom or independence or pleasure or power – and that is Christians. That is us. We do not do what we want. We are sold as slaves to sin. We are incapable of changing on our own.

Even though we have been justified, we cannot sanctify ourselves. We cannot become more like Christ on our own.

And this brings me to despair. I have sat with my head in my hands as I surveyed the carnage of my life. Because as Romans says elsewhere, sin brings death. False saviours cannot deliver. They only bring death. Me worshiping me brings death to my relationship with my wife, it alienates friends, it destroys trust and it cuts the legs out from under living as a missionary to the culture.

And vs. 24 eloquently expresses that frustration: Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

And Paul uses exclamation points for a reason. Cause this is big. The level of our sin is disgusting. It is repugnant, even to us, let alone God.

But here is the astonishing beauty of the whole story. Jesus can deliver. He can absolutely deliver. And he loves us more and cares more for us than we ever dared dream.

Think of it this way, “If I am this dirty and this depraved and this sinful and this unfaithful and this evil and Jesus loved me enough to die for me and redeem me and justify me and work to transform me, then that is the greatest thing I have ever heard.”

The depth of our sin shows the awesomeness of Jesus as our Saviour. He looks absolutely glorious. Because he didn’t just pay for me junk, he paid for yours, and yours and yours. And that is truly mind blowing.

And first of all we become thankful people. We have just been forgiven a massive debt, Visa just called, the University just called, and said all is forgiven. And we should well up with thankfulness at a God who could love like that. Verse 25 sums it up exactly.

And we realize in 8:1, that there is no condemnation for those of us in Christ Jesus. We try our best, we continually repent and we are never condemned.

And our thankfulness leads to repentance and George hammered away at that, so I just want to touch briefly on it. But repentance coupled with the work of the Holy spirit in our lives, is how we deal with the idols is our lives.

When I realize that I am worshiping myself, the answer is not trying really hard stop. If I have a solution that only involves me, that is not Christianity, that is religion. Religion in the bad sense, is a man-made moral code imposed on other people. Religion says try really hard to stop being selfish. Be nice to other people.

But Jesus knows, you can’t stop. You are addicted to your idols. And so instead of going to religion for help, we turn to Jesus and say, “Help!” I am addicted to myself and I can’t stop. I need you to change me.

Repentance begins with an acknowledgment of your sin. Who or what are you worshipping instead of Christ? And we turn from them to Jesus.

And then as he changes us, we partner with him by arranging out life to bring him more glory. God promises in Phil 1:6 that once he begins to work in you, he will carry it through to completion. God promises to do his part in sanctifying us. But he requires a partnership.

And this is the other side of sword, and I want to walk a fine line today. Because there is this tension in the Christian life and people often fall off one way or the other.

1. Some people try to change themselves
2. Some people want God to do all the work.

Both of them fall into trouble. You trying to change you is futile. No man can change the heart. You can arrange your outward actions so it looks like your heart is different, but in the end you end up bitter, tired and shallow.

It becomes all about looks, all about the appearance. There is no joy there. God is not glorified there. And in the end, it doesn’t work.

On the other hand, some people want to “let go and let God.”

We ignore the Bible where it says “to offer our bodies as living sacrifices” or in 1 Corinthians where it says “to run [live] in a such a way as to win the prize… beat your body and make it your slave.”

D.A. Carson, in his book, For the love of God says it this way:
“People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith.
We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.”

And I think this is more us. We have seen and grown up in families and churches that had all the structure, but no heart. None of it meant very much at all.

And we react so strongly to overbearing parents and hypocritical churches that we avoid anything that sniffs of effort. Anyone who encourages you to read your Bible when you don’t feel like it, oh man, why do that?

But there has to be an element in our lives where we obey God when we don’t feel like it. We pray even though God feels distant. We go to church, even when it is early.

God will not change you if you are sitting on your butt waiting for something to happen.

But the Bible promises that as we work out our salvation and God works in us, we begin to change. A lot of Romans 8 covers the work of the Holy Spirit in us, and it describes how we need to walk with Him and let Him change us.

And change we will. Many in the crowd today, you can testify to that. We could parade people up here to tell stories of how they used to be and how with a lot of effort and a lot of God, they are different today.

I have a friend who grew up going to church, but there was nothing under the surface. He wandered from God and while attending church, began dealing drugs. He didn’t use drugs, because he didn’t want to be addicted, but he made thousands of dollars selling drugs to high school students. He stored the money in off-shore bank accounts and learned all sorts of skills that are useful for illegitimate operations. He learned to break into cars, pick locks, bring down web sites, the whole bit.

But when God got a hold of his life in university, it messed him up. He didn’t change all that much at the start. But through years of faithful Bible study, accountability, fellowship, he is a different man today. He loves God, serves in his church, disciples younger men, uses his skills for good. He gave away all his drug money and only breaks into cars when a friend locks their keys inside.

The sanctification that has occurred in his life is amazing.

And it took time and likely for you, it will take time. Sanctification is not always discernable, but it is there if you co-operate with Jesus.

And let me be really practical here, so that you don’t leave without knowing where to go.

1. Think of your heart idols – what are you worshiping instead of Christ?
2. Repent of your idols, worship Christ, glorify and thank him as the Saviour who is unbelievable in his ability to forgive and cleanse.
3. Ask God to change you from the inside out. You need Jesus to change you.
4. Ask him to help you live in ways that glorify God. Ask for the desire to read the Bible, pray, love your neighbours. Then start living that out as best you can.

There is nothing new here. I struggled with the message because many of you have heart this before. But this is the truth, that a holy life, one that looks like Christ is not won in a day, it is not imparted by magic or incantation or prayer, it is not bought by giving money to the church, it is not found in meaningless rituals, and it is not a one-time act.

It is the daily war against the sin that dwells in you. You, Jesus and your Christian brothers and sisters, fighting relentlessly, unflinchingly, courageously against the flesh and the Devil which would seek to drag you away from Christ and make you ineffective and impotent as a Christian.

So, I would urge you, be sanctified. Amen.