THE PROCESS OF SANCTIFICATION

I wrote this a few weeks ago for some friends and want to share it with you today. May it encourage you as it has encouraged me.

A Summary of the Process of Sanctification from an Exposition of Romans 8.12-13

Based on sermons by Martyn Lloyd-Jones in his commentary on Romans 8.5-17

“So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” Romans 8.12-13

          How is the Christian to wage the battle against sin, especially as it tends to come to him and defeat him through his body?

          The Bible provides a twofold answer to this question. The first part of this answer is to know and understand who we are and what God has done for us in Christ. The second part is to act upon this knowledge and understanding. Paul does not teach us, as some do today, that sin can suddenly be taken out of us and completely eradicated, or as others teach, that Jesus will do-it-all-for-us if we hand it over to him. No! God’s way of sanctification is to know His work in us in our union with Christ and then to act on that reality.

          The “So” that begins this verse points back to verses 9 to 11 where we are told that as believers we are no longer in the flesh but in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God dwells in us, otherwise we do not belong to God at all. As believers our body is still dead because of sin but the Spirit is life because we are now righteous in Christ. The Spirit of life in us brings hope of the complete redemption of our bodies in the future resurrection. So the fact is that as a believer I am alive in the realm of the spirit, and dead to sin, to the flesh (Romans 6.6), and to the law (Romans 6.14, 7.4-5). Because of these things that are the result of my union with the death and resurrection of Christ, I am no longer a debtor to the flesh. I owe the flesh nothing. I am under no obligation to the demands the flesh makes upon me. In fact to live after the flesh and to sin is for the believer a contradiction of who he is in Christ under the realm of grace.

          My body is death because of sin, and there lies the trouble; but my spirit is life because of the Spirit of life, and there lies the power for the body to be delivered from sin until that future day when I will have a new body that is alive unto God as my spirit is alive unto God. This fight against sin is temporary until my promised salvation is complete. I am to live in anticipation of this full redemption (Romans 8.23).

          I am also to put to death the deeds of the body. “Put to death” is a present continuous which means my continuous, habitual mortification of the flesh in response to who I am and what God has done in me in Christ.

          To put to death the deeds of the body does not mean practicing a monastic kind of life separated from the world, or putting aside all comfort and money, no longer enjoying food and drink and entertainment, with much fasting and harsh treatment of the body and ascetic practices. Neither does putting to death the deeds of the body mean legalism which establishes a code of allowed and disallowed practices, which restricts my joy and happiness, based on fear.

          As a believer I need to understand that mortification of the body is by the Spirit. As a believer I have power by the Spirit to put to death the deeds of the flesh. When I allow the flesh to rule over me it is not because I do not have power over the flesh but because I desire and chose to have the flesh rule over me and not the Spirit.

          Let me sum up. 1) I need to know and understand my spiritual position in my union with the death and resurrection of Christ. This is an essential foundation to the process of sanctification in my life. I am not helpless and hopeless with regard to sin in my body. In Christ I am dead to the power of sin and dead to the demands of the law. In Christ I have the life of the Spirit in me. When I sin I grieve the Holy Spirit. Sin is more than fulfilling my desires for satisfaction and happy feelings, it is dishonoring who I am in Christ and grieving the Holy Spirit. 2) Also as a believer I need to remember my destiny in Christ and the destiny of my body which will one day be made like unto his glorious body. I am to live now with God’s final goal for me in mind. This mortal body is temporary and will one day be replaced by a glorious body. For now I am to deny the flesh until the flesh in me is no more. I belong to heaven, I carry a heavenly name, and I need to honor my heavenly citizenship and my family heritage in the way I walk in this life. I represent a righteous country and a holy king. 3) So because of who I am in Christ and what God has done in me in Christ I am to abstain from sin. I am to discipline my desires, to flee tempting people and places, to make no provisions for the flesh. Here is an important point. Deal with the first motions and movements of sin and temptation within you. Deal with them the moment they appear. If you do not you are undone, you will go down. Move to a new circumstance, stop your wrong thinking, call a friend, throw off those first motions and movements toward sin. Look for those triggers that lead you to sin. That particular feeling, that website, those pictures or movies, that relationship. Cut it off at the root. Stop it before it captures you. Don’t go over the edge of the downward slippery slope. Repression is not helpful here for repression will eventually explode into unbridled action. We need to say, “I am not having anything to do with this temptation to sin. This is evil, this is vile, and I denounce it”. It is not enough to push it away in fear without exposing it to the light and denouncing it as a new person in Christ. 4) Should you fall into sin, examine what happened and why. Take time to grieve over your sin and repent but not to the point of despair and depression. Remember you are justified by God and your righteous position before God has not changed. Confess you sin to God and accept his forgiveness in Christ (1 John 1.9). And then remind yourself again who you are in Christ and move on in the Spirit of life.

TANZANIA SUMMARY

I want to take the opportunity in this post to thank all of you for your donations and prayers and encouragements on my trip to Tanzania. Despite the anxiety I felt before I left, the trip was filled with peace and joy and satisfaction in teaching the students at East Africa Christian College. I was much encouraged by how God has led the leadership of the school up to this point and the great plans they have for the future of the school and for the training of Pastors and leaders for the churches in the Northeastern area of Tanzania. It was also a joy to meet four other TLI teachers as we worked together for the week. I learned a lot from Dick, whom I was teaching with, about cross cultural teaching. I was also blessed with spending a day in the Serengeti Game Reserve before I flew back to Canada. The landscape was literally aweeess soommme leading me to worship God for His marvelous creation. To see the animals in herds in their natural habitats including elephants, warthogs, topi, giraffes, hyena, water buffalo, hippos, crocodiles, lions, wildebeest, gazelle, impala, baboons, zebras, and many colorful birds was incredible.

 We also were made aware of the reality of the law of the jungle, and the reality of sin and death in the world.

 On my last day in Tanzania, I had the remainder of my lunch stolen from our truck. I piece of chicken and half a ham sandwich. Fortunately one of my teammates got a picture of the thief in action. I am posting the pictures below.

 If you recognize him/her please let me know.

Lord willing I would love to make another trip this year. Meanwhile I continue to pray for God's work in the various countries I have visited  and the people there, and through Operation World. Let me encourage you to do the same.

FROM TANZANIA 2

Greetings, our internet telephone hotspot seems to be working well this afternoon so I am going to attempt to post again.
As we flew in we passed by Mt Kilimanjaro which at 16,000 feet is the highest peak in Africa.

Here is another picture of our class with my co-teacher and the translator. He has excellent English skills.

Notice how small the class is. In the bottom right corner is the teaching desk and then there is a blackboard behind us. A great bunch of Pastors and Evangelists.

Across the street from the school is the Tarime village dump which is smoking most of the time, has dogs, goats, and pigs and people sorting through the garbage and these big ugly ugly birds. In the evening we get the smoke coming into the compound which is not helping my cough.

We have a young man cooking for us whose name is Johnie and here is what he has to work with. More smoke.

Johnie's Stove

 I am feeling well and sleeping well except for coughing fits. My room mate is also fighting a cold and having coughing fits at night so we have learned to accept one another. Tomorrow is teaching in the morning and then the students write an exam. Friday evening we will drive for 3 hours to the Serengeti Game Reserve and stay at a hotel just outside the park and begin our safari at 6:30 am and stay in the park all day, then drive to Mwanza in the evening to another hotel and get up early to begin our trip home on Sunday morning. I arrive back in Buffalo Monday evening.

Thank you for praying. Though this has been an emotionally trying and physically trying trip, God has shown His Goodness to me and my family and I praise God. What a joy to see the church growing here. One area we visited today had people killing each other with bows and arrows and knives 10 years ago but today because of the Gospel things have slowly changed. I will close for now hoping to see you soon. ron
 




 

 

FROM TANZANIA 1

Three of us are working through a 3G hotspot on a mobile phone to connect to the internet so I am going to make this short and hopefully get it sent out tonight.
Flight and connections all went very well so thank you for praying. We arrived at the school here after a 3 1/2 hour drive into the country after we landed in Mwanza. This is a more remote area not a city. Running water is not working at present but we do have plenty of bucket water from the cistern for all our needs and bottled water to drink. Below is a picture of my mosquito netted bed and African toilet.

The classrooms are small. We now have 5 students which we are teaching through a translator and this is going well. 

 Here is the church I preached at on Sunday from Colossians 3.1-17

Getting to this church was quite a ride with major potholes on a dirt road the width of a motorcycle path. Nothing like the sound of the bottom of your vehicle scraping on the road over and over again. The church is at the foot of the mountain away from the village and I commend this Pastor for his willingness to build his church and his house here as he said because these people have no church is this area. My heart was warmed to see the sing below.

I will consider it a miracle if this makes it your computer. Here goes. ron

MEDIOCRE NO MORE

Tanzania Update: I leave in 5 days. The pressure is on and we are all feeling it. Please pray. We had a team meeting yesterday afternoon via internet. One teacher is on the verge of strep throat and our team leader was flat on his back all day with back problems. I am feeling the anxiety of leaving my family behind and the burdens that go with it. Please pray. Mark (he is the one with the sore throat) has only one hour in Amsterdam to change to his plane to Nairobi. All of us are looking for good weather for plane travel and making our connections and getting luggage to our destination. Please pray. We are all thankful for the school and the opportunity to bless the school and the students. Mark works for Baker Books and they have donated books for the College library and others are bringing books as well. These books will be a great blessing so pray that this luggage will get arrive safely for the graduation ceremony on Saturday night. Please intercede for East Africa Christian College, Tanzania and our service there. This would be a good time to look up Tanzania in Operation World and pray for that country. I praise God for your fellowship in the Gospel.

For the last couple of weeks I have been pondering my mediocrity. Whenever ministry opportunities present themselves, such as this mission trip, I question my capacities and abilities. As I get older, and weaker, and too often search for simple words that I know that I know but in frustration cannot grasp, and misname people and places sometimes without even noticing, and misspell words and even find upon rereading what I have written that I have used a different word than what I meant to use, and when I fumble with the simplest tasks, I see myself slowly slipping into mediocrity. Mediocrity is described as a quality of moderate ability or value. As ability declines I also feel that my value is declining with it.
Looking backwards I must confess that in the past I thought of myself above mediocrity. I saw myself for the most part as able, useful, valuable, a leader, a risk taker, a better example than most. Now I realize that I was mediocre then as I am now and compensated with natural strength and natural energy, and a loud personality. I thank God that in spite of myself, God has been gracious in my service to Him.
We read in 1 Corinthians 1.26-31, "For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, 'Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.'"
From this passage I learn some important lessons of which I need to constantly remind myself. 1) According to God, value is not related to ability. In Christ I have value before God. End of discussion. This I must accept without dispute. 2) It is not my ability and capacity that gets the work done but God's ability to work through a surrendered individual. God chose the what was foolish and weak and low and despised by the world, not what was wise and powerful, and noble and strong. My mediocrity doesn't matter. Who God IS matters. (Moses: Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt? God: I will be with you. Jesus to Peter after Peter betrayed Jesus: Feed my sheep). The end result, as it should be, God is glorified in all that is accomplished by His people. 3) I must put one foot in front of the other today and in my future, even I as see the growing deterioration of my capacities, trusting in God's valuation of me in Christ, depending on His ability working in me and through me, walking in faith and not by worldly evaluations or unbelieving personal evaluations, with a growing hope that in my future are unimaginable capacities which I will lay at the feet of Jesus in eternal worship. May God grant us to grow old in faith, and joy, and peace, with a warm sense of our Father's near presence often moving us to tears.

INTERCONNECTED FOR MUTUAL GROWTH

Tanzania Update: It is just over a week before my trip begins. Preparations are going well. I will be spending extra time on my lessons next week. Please pray that other immediate needs do not interfere with this preparation time. My primary concerns at this time are the preparation of my lessons and teaching them through a translator; the extra burdens that will be upon Gloria and Michelle while I am away; maintaining good health and stamina before and during my time away; and my flight connections. If you could especially hold up these concerns I would much appreciate it. Please pray that God will teach and show Himself to the students both in the formal setting of the classroom and in the time we spend with them in the college compound. I thank God for your fellowship in the Gospel.

"We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings (weaknesses) of the weak, and not to please ourselves". (Romans 15.1) This verse is part of a larger section of teaching (Romans 14.1 to 15.7) on not allowing personal convictions and practices about food and drink and special days to bring disunity and destruction to the body of Christ. Some believers were still influenced by their Jewish rituals and beliefs, and some by their Gentile practices. Paul calls the believers who have carried some of these influences and convictions into their new Christian life, "weak in faith". They did not yet understand and practice their full freedom in Christ.
To some degree we can apply "weak in faith" to Christians in our churches today who still believe and live from their unchristian, worldly upbringing. In the scriptures above we are told that the convictions of these weak believers were to honor the Lord. This is not the case with these new recently-delivered-from-the-world believers but they are still "weak in faith". The church has many such people and should expect many more to come to faith in Christ. They become believers with little biblical background and often with distorted beliefs and practices. They will carry into their Christian life convictions and practices with no biblical basis or from a misunderstanding of the Bible's teachings.
Paul has some clear instruction on how the "strong" in the faith are to respond to those "weak in faith". First we are to welcome them (14.1). Paul's idea of welcome is not that of a man wearing a big grin, rubbing his hands together, ready after greeting the weak believer to pounce on him with a rebuke from the Bible, an itemized list of new behaviors and ideas, with a fierce determination to make him into his envisioned christian icon. No! Paul says in the same breath as welcome them, "but not to quarrel over opinions". We are not to despise them or pass judgement on them (14.3).
In 15.1 Paul says we have an "obligation to bear with the weaknesses of the weak and not to please ourselves". The strong are not to ignore the weak and hang only with the strong, nor are they to rule over the weak with an attitude of pride and disdain, but they are to bear with the weak in an unselfish way. This is more than pity and tolerance.

Paul does not say we are obligated to bear with the weak in their weaknesses but with the weaknesses of the weak. This is unusual wording and deserves some meditation. Paul is not asking the strong to approve of the weaknesses of the week but for the strong to accept the consequences that their weakness will have on the christian community as a whole, and to identify with those weaknesses and how they effect one another in the community in the day-to-day experience of life. In love and in Christ, this will promote hope and unity, opportunity for growth in love, in patience, in truth and in character both for the weak and the strong. God is strong in our weaknesses, and brings much fruit through weakness. The principle at work in these verses is more than toleration for the weak and putting up with the weak because we have to while living our own life in spite of the weak. This will only lead to a marginalization of the weak by the strong. No! God has a fuller plan to use the weaknesses of the weak to bring godly fruit, character, deeper love, sensitivity, mercy, compassion, dependence on Him, and a Spirit filled life to the whole community. Praise God for giving the community weak believers for as we respond to them God's way we will know God's growth as a body of believers.
Paul gives the example of Christ who was willing to identify with sinners to save sinners, and was willing to accept the reproach of others in this seeming unholy behavior (15.3). The end result will be the glory of God (15.6-7). "Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God".
Tell me, how did Christ welcome you? Did Christ tell you to become perfect and then to come to Him? NO! Come as a sinner and I will forgive you, come and I will fully accept you and love you, come as your are and I will teach you, and I will identify with you even though the world despises you, to the glory of God.
A lot more could be said about these verses but I leave off for now.

LOVE, HONOR

Tanzania Update: The East Africa Christian College website is <http://maxpoint.org/eastafricacc>. Pray for the conversion of the Muslim people of Tanzania, especially from the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba. Conversion among Muslims has increased but pray for more. There is a spiritual battle between Muslim fundamentalism and Christianity for the souls of these Muslim people. Pray for the work that is being done in Tanzania by a number of different Christian groups. Pray for ongoing Bible translations. 51 languages have no Scripture at all and 32 only have portions of the Bible. Pray as the nation increases in literacy that Christian tracts and books and digital resources will increase. Pray for the ministries of Christian radio, the Jesus film and Gospel Recordings, which has recorded gospel messages in 88 languages and dialects. God is working in Tanzania but the need is great. Especially pray for the church and the Pastors of the nation.

Romans 12.10 says, "Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor." As followers of Christ we are called to glorify God by loving and honoring others. Loving others as we read in 1 Corinthians 13 is selfless and sacrificial. We are to give to others and treat others in a way that helps them not so much to get what they want, but to discover what they need and have in the fullness of Jesus Christ. Sometimes an act of benevolent love is a voice of support for the Gospel that someone else will preach at a later date. At other times the action of love is in the form of a rebuke or even a withholding of support that God may have room to work in the life.

As Christians we are especially called to love and honor fellow believers in Jesus. We are commanded to show them genuine appreciation, affection and admiration and to put them first as we are told in Philippians 2.3-11 and shown in the example of Christ. Of course other believers are people and that is the problem. We know that we are easy to love, but them, well that is another situation!!! God enables the Christian to embrace the porcupine in love and honor as well as the teddy bear.
We are to outdo one another in showing honor. What a loud message to a back biting, self-centered, proud world. As smiling, humble, serving, honoring, loving Christians we may be mocked for our beliefs and marginalized in our social circles, but let us make sure we are never accused of hypocrisy, and partiality. Let's at least be attractive to the world and not give any valid reason for their rejection of Jesus. "Let your light shine before others, so they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven". (Matthew 5.16). "Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation". (1 Peter 2.12).
Grab a coffee or tea or juice or water. It is time to take 1/2 hour to quietly meditate on 1 Peter 2. God has given us much and also calls us to much as we live in Christ.