By what WE do, as well?

So if we’re saved by the Holy Spirit (yesterday’s title), why does Scripture talk so much about what we do? 

Like the example of Abraham and the blunt question in James 2:21, “Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar?” The implication being verse 22, that “his faith was (only) made complete by what he did.” So is believing that we’re saved by the Holy Spirit only half the story, or not the complete story? Because it sounds like action on Abraham’s part was what made him righteous.  

But Romans 4:2 comes back with: “If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about – but not before God.” So according to Paul, Abraham wasn’t “considered righteous” (or justified) by his actions – the opposite of what James wrote. 

But James comes bouncing back with: “But what good is it if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds?” James 2:14. “Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead,” verse 17. It was Abraham’s action, the willingness to sacrifice his son, that credited him with righteousness. So, verse 24, “a person IS justified by what he does,” right?  

But Paul quotes King David, who spoke “of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works,” Romans 4:6. To Paul, “righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe,” Romans 3:22; and we are “justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus,” verse 24. So NO action of ours, or work we do (including “observing the law,” verse 28) leads to, causes, or makes us righteous. That’s Paul’s reason for using the example of Abraham.

But James’ reason for using Abraham is quite different. He’s not dealing with Paul’s people who thought faith wasn’t enough to be righteous and they needed their own works as well. James is dealing with people who thought faith was enough and they didn’t need works as well.   

Two different situations. But we’re still left with the question: “So where does what WE do come in?”…(more on this tomorrow)

By the Holy Spirit    

Christianity in our Western culture puts a lot of emphasis on OUR acceptance and belief, our choices and decisions, our growth and responsibility, our free will and how we use it, and on us being good enough on Judgment Day to go to heaven, not hell. 

It creates a problem, then, when not much is happening. Perhaps our church isn’t growing, or it doesn’t feel like we’re growing much personally either. And what if people aren’t impressed enough with our Christianity to ask us about what we believe? It may even feel like we’re going backwards rather than forwards if “we don’t bring anyone to Christ.” Oh dear, we’re not doing our part very well, are we?

But what of Romans 8:28 that says the Holy Spirit works everything out for good for those who love God? Isn’t that saying the Spirit has everything under control, despite appearances to the contrary? But shouldn’t there be an “if” in there somewhere – that the Spirit works things out for our good IF we love God? If so, do we love God enough to warrant the Spirit’s help? Oh dear, another thing to worry about.

But Scripture says it’s the Spirit that gives us the love. It’s the Spirit in our hearts that calls out, “Abba, Father” (Galatians 4:6), and Paul said it was “Christ’s love” that compelled him (2 Corinthians 5:14). So it wasn’t his own love, or love that Paul had to come up with by himself. The love that drove Paul came from Christ through the Holy Spirit, and there wasn’t anything Paul had to do to get the love flowing either. He simply found himself with it, and he couldn’t stop it coming either (Romans 5:5).

It didn’t mean that Paul was on an endless high of love and devotion, or that his focus was totally on God and off himself. It wasn’t. Life was extremely worrying at times, especially when people wanted him dead, or a health problem threatened his effectiveness. He learned through those experiences, though, that even when it seemed like nothing was happening, or it looked like things were going backwards, the Holy Spirit was still on the job.

No wonder he said, “I press on” (Philippians 3:14), believing to the end that his salvation was totally being taken care of by the Spirit…(more on this tomorrow) 

Part 20 – To make hope real   

Built into suffering is the promise of “hope,” Romans 5:4 – the Greek word elpis meaning confident expectation. But also built into hope is the promise, verse 5, that it “does not disappoint.” The Greek word Paul used for “not” was very strong. He meant we will NEVER face the embarrassment or shame of our hope turning out to be a horrible mistake. 

And what a promise that is, that the hope we have is way more than wishful thinking, or hoping for the best but with no certainty it will happen, or finding out what we were hoping for was just an illusion. Paul wants us to realize that we have a hope that’s real, where we “know in all things that God works for the good of those who love him and have been called according to his purpose,” Romans 8:28.

But how do we know God is doing that for us? Paul explains back in Romans 5:5; it’s because of “the love of God flooding through our hearts by the Holy Spirit given to us.” It’s because a miracle happened to us. We were given the Holy Spirit who keeps on making sure we know God loves us, so our hope in him never fades.

Which is where things can get sticky, though, because when we’re hit with suffering and frustration, where’s God’s love? Maybe this whole Christian thing is a fake, because it offers no certainty after all. And logically speaking, Romans 8:22, “It’s plain to anyone with eyes to see that at the present time all created life groans in a sort of universal travail.” So how can anyone truly have hope in a world like this? Or hope in a God of love being real too? 

But of course he loves us, says Paul in Romans 5:8, because “he demonstrated his love for us by Christ dying for us when we were utterly powerless.” We were in a hopeless state, with no idea that God loved us, no idea he even existed, and no idea what he created us for. So it’s not surprising that life for so many people turns out to be a disappointing,  frustrating, “What’s the point of it all?” existence. 

And it could have been like that for us too, but a miracle happened, the result of which is hope that does not, and will not, ever disappoint…

Part 19 – To suffer (series continued)   

So Paul gives us reason why we can “rejoice in our sufferings,” Romans 5:3. It’s because suffering was designed by God to make three things real in our lives, and since they’re purely the work of “the Spirit of glory resting on us” (1 Peter 4:14), then if they are becoming real in our lives “we know that Jesus is living in us. We know it by the Spirit that he gave us” (1 John 3:24), and by what the Spirit is producing in us. 

The three things the Spirit produces in our sufferings are hypomeneo, dokime, and elpis, with the first leading to the second and the second leading to the third. Hypomeneo is the ability the Spirit gives us to “abide under” anything the world throws at us, rather than try to avoid it or get out from under it, or hope it goes away and leaves us alone. Instead, the Spirit helps us when we come under fire to not shy away from it. He gives us the power to dive in and go for it, come what may. 

Because that’s what leads to dokime, proven by testing. Survive a steady barrage of trials and tests with the Spirit’s help, and there’s our proof that we are the real deal. We’re not fake Christians into Christianity for what we can get out of it (like a free ticket to heaven). God set things up in this life of ours “to see if we’ll stand the test and be obedient in everything,” as Paul phrased it in 2 Corinthians 2:9. God proves us by testing, which is wonderful, because if we can stand up to tests again and again with trust and obedience, thanks to the Spirit’s willing help, it leads to elpis, confident expectation.  

But confident expectation of what, exactly? Peter answers that in 1 Peter 1:7-9, “This proving of your faith is set up by God to bring you praise and honour and glory in the day when Jesus Christ reveals himself.” But it’s also confident expectation of joy in the present too, because in “trusting him without being able to see him, he brings you a joy that words cannot express and which has a hint of the glories of Heaven,” so that “all the time (now) you are receiving the result of your faith in him – the salvation of your souls (the ongoing restoration of what God created us humans to be).”

So God built three things into suffering, that understood and experienced would give us joy…(more on this tomorrow) 

Part 18 – To suffer (series continued)   

In Romans 5:4 there’s a third blessing the Spirit of glory resting on us does for us when we’re suffering. It’s to give us “hope,” elpis in Greek, meaning confident expectancy.

Peter gives us reason for such hope too: “Thank God,” he writes in 1 Peter 1:3-5, “that in his great mercy we’ve been born again into a life full of hope, because of Christ’s rising from the dead. We can now hope for a perfect inheritance beyond the reach of change and decay.” So, verse 13, “set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed.” 

That’s our reason for hope, isn’t it, that because of the risen Jesus “our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever,” 2 Corinthians 4:17. 

Our present troubles, then, have a glorious eternal purpose. But how does that relate to our everyday lives now? We’re in the middle of a trial, for instance, that’s burning up our energy, leaving us exhausted and emotionally drained, and no matter what we say or do to try to ease the pain, nothing works. So if someone was to say, “Tell me the reason for the hope you have” (1 Peter 3:15), what could we say in reply?

But for all our troubles we’re not giving up on God, are we – so what caused that? It’s the hope caused by the glory our troubles have already produced. When, for instance, we were “pushed to our limit by problem after problem,” 2 Corinthians 4:8-9, “we never got so frustrated we gave up. Or when we hadn’t got a clue what was happening to us and why, we didn’t despair. Or when everyone was turning against us, we never felt abandoned. Or when hit hard we always bounced back again.” And for one simple reason, that “we experience something of the death of the Lord Jesus, so that we may also know the power of the life of Jesus in these bodies of ours,” verse 11. 

It’s his life in us now, making us more thoughtful, compassionate, loving, wiser and calmer, that gives us hope – that the Spirit really is at work in our everyday lives producing the stuff of eternal life in us. And hopefully the person who asked us the reason for our hope has noticed it too…(more on this tomorrow)

Part 17 – To suffer (series continued)   

Another benefit God built into suffering is “character,” Romans 5:4. It’s the Greek word dokime, meaning proven by testing. 

Imagine a tire manufacturer wanting to prove their tires are tough enough to survive anything. So they do a video of a car with their tires on, and they drive that car over every possible road surface – blisteringly hot desert sand, swampy bogs, winter potholes, rock infested back roads, and even over nails and broken glass. Then after testing the tires in the real world, they take the tires off the car and use powerful machines to twist and stretch them, squeeze and pull them every which way, so that after all this testing they can hold a tire up and say, “What more could you ask of our tires? As you can see, they’re absolutely genuine.” And a sticker gets slapped on the tire, “Approved” – and rightfully so, because it’s been thoroughly proven by testing. That’s dokime.

So, what if God has that in mind for us too? After a lifetime of testing us in all sorts of situations, he can rightfully hold us up and with a flourish slap a sticker on us, “Approved. The genuine article. Proven by testing.”  

Well, it’s not only what he has in mind, it’s also what he wants us to realize too, that through testing WE know we’re the genuine article too. That’s why Peter could say in 1 Peter 1:6, “In this you greatly rejoice – that for now we suffer grief in all kinds of trials,” yes, but, verse 7, “these trials come so that the proven genuineness of your faith…may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed.” 

We rejoice in that, because we know this is what we suffer for, to prove to us that we are genuine. Through all the harrowing trials and tests we’ve been through, we’re still here, aren’t we? We haven’t given up on God. So face the lovely truth, that we really must have faith after all. We probably didn’t think so at the time, because we remember getting awfully close to giving up and quitting perhaps, but we came through and somehow stronger too. 

Like those tires our faith is tested to its limits, but we know what’s coming to us, a sticker from God, “Approved. Genuine through and through. Proven by testing. And not only do I know it, so do they”…(more on this tomorrow) 

Part 16 – To suffer (continued)   

According to Peter, suffering is a “blessing,” because “the Spirit of glory and of God rests on us,” 1 Peter 4:14. And Paul says we can “rejoice in our sufferings,” Romans 5:3 – “rejoice” in Greek meaning brag and boast too. Suffering is that great. 

Fortunately, Paul goes on to say why it’s so great: it’s because “we know that suffering produces perseverance.” Paul uses the Greek word thlipsis for suffering, which means a crushing weight – something Paul himself experienced in 2 Corinthians 1:8, when he was “under such pressure it was beyond his ability to endure,” to the point he “despaired even of life.” It was like having a massive weight on his chest, and he couldn’t breathe.

And that’s a blessing? It was to Paul, because being squeezed to the point he could pop got the message through to him “not to rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.” When the suffering is that bad, and you’re in a downward spiral you can’t pull out of, he learnt that God is more than ready to take over the controls and stop the death spin. And being rescued by God from these “deadly death spins” happened so often to Paul he could say with confidence that in the future “God will deliver us” too, verse 10. 

It was that knowledge, gained through personal experience time and time again, that produced in Paul a remarkable “perseverance.” The Greek word he used was hypomeneo, which combines hypo meaning “under” and meneo meaning “to abide.” It’s the ability to abide under a heavy weight and take it, rather than trying to get rid of it – Paul again being a great example, because faced with enormous pressure he didn’t try to get out from under it. And what that did for him was create an amazing fearless fortitude in him. 

Like the time in Lystra he was pummelled with rocks so badly he was dragged out of the city and left for dead. But “he got up and went back into the city,” and carried on (Acts 14:19-20). He’d learnt that with the Spirit of glory resting on him he could “abide under” anything the world threw at him. It only made him stronger, just like carrying a weight does. No wonder he considered it a blessing…(more on this tomorrow) 

Part 15 – To suffer    

Hardly a positive statement that “we’re saved to suffer,” is it? For Christians, however, suffering has a wonderful purpose and outcome. Just as it did for Jesus. 

Jesus, for instance, was “crowned with glory and honour because he suffered death,” Hebrew 2:9. He was also made “perfect through suffering” so he could become “the author of our salvation,” verse 10. So suffering not only had a wonderful purpose for Jesus, it also had a wonderful outcome for us, so that we too can be crowned with the same glory and honour that he has.

Should it come as a surprise, then, that as “co-heirs with Christ,” Romans 8:17, “we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory”? Peter answers in 1 Peter 4:12, “No, don’t be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange is happening to you.” Rather, verse 13, “rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.”  

Because in suffering two things are happening: first of all, that if we’re suffering as Christians (verse 16) “the Spirit of glory and of God rests on us,” verse 14. And secondly, verse 19, “”those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.” 

So, first of all, if we’re suffering as Christians, the Spirit makes sure it’s all turning into glory for us. And secondly, one of those “glories” the Spirit gives us is the ability to see our faithful Creator working out everything we’re going through to our eternal good, so we can relax and concentrate on doing what good we can now.  

And Peter obviously wants us to grasp this, because, verse 17, “it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God,” the big question being, “Do we believe Jesus is real, enough to trust him no matter what’s happening to us?” Can we, like Jesus, “commit our spirit” to God? 

Peter accepts it’s a hard thing to do (verse 18), because suffering in whatever form is the worst experience for us humans. But God built some things into suffering that have enormous benefit for us now too…(more on this tomorrow) 

Part 14 – To live a good life    

Since both steps in making us holy are our Saviour’s doing, is there any part we play in our being holy?  

No, there is no part we play. That job was given to Jesus. “HE saved us,” Titus 3:4-5. He’s the one “purifying” us (Titus 2:14). It is totally the “grace of God (therefore) that brings salvation,” Titus 2:11. And totally “NOT because of anything we’ve done.” It’s purely “because of his mercy,” Titus 3:5.

But what is the purpose of Jesus making us holy, in both redeeming us by his death and renewing us into people like himself through the Holy Spirit? Does the book of Titus cover that too? 

Yes, Titus 1:16, which speaks of people who “claim they know God, but by their actions they deny him,” which, unfortunately, makes then “unfit for doing anything good.” They’re basically worthless, no good at all.  

But the reason Jesus “gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify himself a people that are his very own,” Titus 2:14, is that we’d be “eager to do what is good.” The purpose for Jesus making us holy, therefore, is to enable us to become really good people. And it’s not out of some weird obligation or fear or feeling of superiority that we’re good. Instead, we find ourselves “eager to do good.” We can’t help it. 

And it’s wonderful. It makes “older men,” Titus 2:2, into wise, cool and calm, patient people, that makes them thoroughly worthy of respect. And “older women,” verses 3-5, just love making home a real home, so that young girls growing up see what’s possible and how wonderfully it all works. And “young men” too, verses 6-8, learn from their elders the value of self-control in speech and action, enabling them to keep their heads while all about them are losing theirs. 

Why? So that no matter how young or old we are, or what situations we find ourselves in, the good we do is so noticeably and obviously good “that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us,” verse 8. And what they see in us “makes the teaching about God our Saviour attractive,” verse 10…(continues tomorrow)

Part 13 – To be holy (series continued)    

The Sabbath rest God took in Genesis pictures God having everything figured out right from Creation, so well and so completely that we can rest too, in total confidence that everything in our lives is working out exactly as he planned. 

He even took into account that “At one time we’d be foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures,” Titus 3:3, and that we’d be malicious, jealous and hateful (verse 4). A real mess we would turn out to be, and for the most part totally powerless on our own strength to do anything about it too, personally and globally. 

But in his kindness and outrageous love for us God had also planned a Saviour too, and when God’s time came for him to appear, verse 4, “he saved us,” verse 5. And he saved us, note, “NOT because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy,” verse 5. It was all God’s doing – and already planned before we and our world even existed.

So he took all our bad choices into account (having also planned to give us the freedom to choose), and he included a rescue mission in his plan too. A rescue mission in two stages: redemption and renewal. 

To start the ball rolling, the “Saviour, Jesus Christ, would give himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify a people for himself that are his very own, eager to do what is good,” Titus 2:13-14. Because of Jesus’ death, therefore, we would stand in God’s presence “holy, blameless and without fault” (Colossians 1:22). His death, then, was the first step completed in making us holy.

But he also “saved us,” Titus 3:5-6, “through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Saviour.” This would be the second step, as verse 7 goes on to explain, that “having been justified by his grace (first step), we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.” Through this second step of renewal by the Holy Spirit the holiness we need for our eternal life is completed too. 

And both steps are God’s doing. Which has to raise the question: “But surely there has to be something we do, isn’t there?…(more on this tomorrow)