I recently started teaching a women’s Sunday School class at my church. Right now we are taking a look at some of the challenging questions and issues we face as Christians. I’ll be posting the notes from my class here each week. Click here for last week’s lesson.
What is salvation? What is the gospel? (Cont’d)
I. God is holy. (Isaiah 6:1-5)
A. What do we mean when we say God is holy?
1. God cannot tolerate sin in His presence (Deuteronomy 23:14)
2. Since we are sinful, we cannot be in His presence (Exodus 33:18-23, Psalm 24:3-4).
Problem 1: God is holy, and we can’t be in His presence because we’re not.
II. God demands that we be holy. (Leviticus 11:44-45, Matthew 5:48)
A. We can’t, because:
1. We’re born with a sin nature (Psalm 51:5)
2. Because we’re born with a sin nature, we begin sinning before we are capable of understanding what sin is. When we’ve sinned once, we’re guilty of breaking the whole law (James 2:10-11, Romans 3:10-18)
Problem 2: God demands that we be holy as He is holy, but we can’t, due to our sin.
III. Because God is holy, He must punish sin.
A. God doesn’t just forgive everybody when they die. (John 3:36, 2 Peter 3:9)
B. Good works do not “balance the scales” and make up for our sins (Galatians 2:15-16, Romans 3:20).
C. God’s punishment for sin is eternal death and suffering in Hell (Romans 6:23; 2 Peter 2:4, 9-10; Revelation 20:13-15).
Every year at this time, there’s a lot of talk about New Year’s resolutions. The new year seems to bring with it a feeling of starting fresh, getting a do-over. I’ve never really been one for making resolutions, but this year, New Year’s coincided with some work God was doing in my life to give me a fresh start.
Sometimes we can get into a rut in our spiritual lives, a rut that’s too deep to just step out of by making a few minor adjustments. God has to reach down and pull us up and out of it. That’s where I was. Spiritually, I felt dry; as if God were in the other room, and I couldn’t quite find the door to get to Him. My Bible study and prayer time were shallow and hit-and-miss at best, and I was frustrated.
In answer to my crying out to Him, the Lord began to pull me up out of that rut. As He did, what He showed me was that I needed to get “back to the basics” in my spiritual life. This article is the first in a series exploring the basics God is leading me back to.
Grab God’s Hand
Also if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not win the prize unless he competes according to the rules.
2 Timothy 2:5
Looking back, I can see that one of the ways I got into my rut in the first place was some “stinkin’ thinkin'”. My spiritual life was just beginning to show some signs of dryness around the edges. I thought it was because I was doing my Bible study and prayer time out of habit every day rather than doing them because I felt a supernatural draw to them.
I decided that, rather than have my time with the Lord as a built in part of my every day schedule, I would ask God to give me a hunger for Him and his Word, and that when I felt that longing for Him, I would spend time with Him. I honestly did this with the best of intentions, because I felt myself slipping away from the Lord and wanted to be close to Him again.
Good intentions are a great thing, but if the action they inspire is wrong, the intention is worthless.
Good intentions are a great thing, but if the action they inspire is wrong, the intention is worthless. The action has to be the correct one. Mine was not. John Wesley said, “A fanatic is one who seeks desirable ends, but ignores constituted means.” “Constituted means” simply refers to the normal order of operations God has set up. For example, if I want a cake– a desirable end –I don’t hit my knees, ask God to send me a cake, and then go look in the oven to see if it’s there. I go to my cabinet, get out the ingredients, mix them up, and bake them. Those are God’s constituted means by which I can get cake.
It works the same way in our spiritual lives. Holiness, sanctification (spiritual growth), and hunger for the things of God aren’t three wishes magically granted by a genie, even if you call that genie “God”. You have to use God’s “constituted means” – the work of the Spirit and your obedience – to get there.
Holiness, sanctification, and hunger for the things of God aren’t three wishes magically granted by a genie. You have to use God’s “constituted means” – the work of the Spirit and your obedience – to get there
Paul describes our walk with the Lord as a race or athletic event. You don’t just rub a lamp, make a wish, and, BAM! you’re a great athlete. You get up every day and train and condition whether you feel like it or not. Some days, you’ll be excited about working out, other days, you’ll want to stay in bed, but regardless of how you feel, you still do it. It’s the “doing it” that creates the desire to hone your abilities more, and makes you love the sport more.
Likewise, we will never develop holiness and a closer walk with the Lord just by asking Him for them and then sitting and waiting. As we ask, we have to do the work of study and prayer– even when we don’t feel like it. It is in the “doing it” that God creates the hunger for more of Him. I discovered as I waited and waited for God to draw me close to His side that I was slipping farther and farther away from Him. I was trying to get to my desired end without using His constituted means.
So, when we’re down in that rut we can’t get out of, we should cry out to God to reach down and lift us out of it, but that’s not all. When God extends His hand to pull us out, we’ve got to reach up and grab hold of Him and hang on, even when we don’t feel like it. That’s called obedience, and Jesus said if we love Him, we’ll obey Him.
There are going to be some dry spells. After all, God didn’t talk to Moses from the burning bush every day, now did He? The answer is not to ask God to set the bush on fire, but to hang on to Him in faith when all we see in front of us is a charred pile of sticks.
The answer is not to ask God to set the bush on fire, but to hang on to Him in faith when all we see in front of us is a charred pile of sticks.
Whatever I command you, you shall be careful to do; you shall not add to nor take away from it.
Deuteronomy 12:32
Remember long division? Some probably look back on it fondly. For others, it was a nightmare of ghoulish proportions. Likely, most of us can still remember how to do it.
Ever tried to teach it to an eight year old?
That was my life last week.
If you think about it, it’s really not that any of the steps in long division are that hard. You have to know your times tables and you have to know how to subtract. That’s pretty much it as far as mathematical operations go. The tough part is working step by step and getting all the steps in the right order. One number out of place, one step out of order, and the whole thing falls apart.
And then, so does your eight year old.
The Old Testament is the story of long division. God told His people what to do, how to do it, and in what order to do it…
Bring Me the firstfruits, then you can use what is left.
Marriage first, then sex.
Work six days, then rest.
Put Me first in everything.
He spelled it all out for them, even carved it in stone, and still, they couldn’t get it. Many times, the majority of them gave up even trying and openly rebelled. For others, initially desiring to be obedient, striving became the order of the day. They added layers and layers of rules – on top of the ones God had given – to protect themselves from even coming close to breaking God’s original commands. And somewhere along the way, they lost the heart of God, and began to worship rule-keeping. Their steps were out of order at the deepest and most basic level, and things fell apart for them. Often. And badly.
But don’t judge the Israelites harshly or hypocritically. We do exactly the same thing. Some of us rebel lawlessly. Some of us strive legalistically. And both ways are equally displeasing to God.
Some of us rebel lawlessly. Some of us strive legalistically. And both ways are equally displeasing to God.
Because the first step in coming to God is to realize and admit that we can’t get it right. God never intended that we should be saved and in right standing with Him by keeping His Law and doing good deeds. Galatians 3:24 tells us that the whole purpose of the Law was to show us that we can’t keep it, and to lead us to throw ourselves upon the mercy of God for forgiveness and salvation.
The whole purpose of the Law was to show us that we can’t keep it, and to lead us to throw ourselves upon the mercy of God for forgiveness and salvation.
Does God desire our obedience? Of course. But not as a way to garner His favor or to outweigh the bad things we’ve done. Because it’s not our outward behavior itself that pleases Him, it’s a heart that’s wholly His. He desires that we obey out of a heart of love and gratitude to Him for saving us.
Love Jesus first. Obedience will be a natural outflow.
Just take it one step at a time.
Love Jesus first. Obedience will be a natural outflow. Just take it one step at a time.
I recently started teaching a women’s Sunday School class at my church. Right now we are taking a look at some of the challenging questions and issues we face as Christians. I’ll be posting the notes from my class here each week. Click here for last week’s lesson.
