Sanctification

A friend of mine emailed me a response to the recent podcast,"flying solo". In short, he believes that the we don't actively fight against our evil desires, but rest in Christ. The fight according to him, is to allow God to do the work. Here's my response to the "let go and let God" fallacy. I believe that sanctification is 100% god and 100% us. We are actively involved, not on the sidelines. Holiness does not come through osmosis. Let's look at some verses to see how this plays out. 1 Cor6:18 "flee immorality". This is active. He is talking to members of the body saying they should not be joined with a prostitute. Your body is not your own and it was not intended for fornication. His admonition is to not engage in this act, not that they do not trust Christ's work on the cross enough. The problem the Corinthian church had was not that they were trusting in themselves too much, but they were not even trying to live a holy life and bragging about their evil acts. Actually, I think this comes from the Greek idea that body and spirit are seperate and opposite. the physical world is fallen and evil, the spirit is holy and perfect. So one could do all the evil acts with his body and remain holy in the spirit as a christian. Paul destroys this idea and says not even to associate with someone who does this in the hopes that those that are truly born again will repent and return, and those that are not will fall away and not contaminate the church. Paul's admonition is strictly for those in the church. Those unsaved pagans naturally pursue these things and need to hear the gospel. 1 Cor 10:12-14 12So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall! 13No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it. Here is a warning for proud christians who think they are above falling. So we should not actively engage in things that could cause us to stumble. Our holines is purely God's grace, not our own knowledge or spirituality. God allows a temporary time of testing, we are to resist the devil and God provides a way out and restores us. 1 Timothy 6:10-15 10For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. 11But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. 12Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 13In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you 14to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15which God will bring about in his own time Paul here warns Timothy of the trappings of this world. People ministering the gospel fell into a love of money and left or changed their focus and teaching. Paul says to actively flee this temptation and stay focused on the eternal glory of Christ in his life and in his teaching to the body. 2 Tim 2:19 "The Lord knows those who are his,"[a] and, "Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness." 20In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for noble purposes and some for ignoble. 21If a man cleanses himself from the latter, he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work. 22Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Here Paul is instructing Peter to teach sound doctrine and not into pointless arguments. If you confess the Lord, you must turn from wickedness. You actively remove the ignoble articles in your life so you can be an instrument of God. You are to actively pursue the things of God, and run from your evil desires. James 4:7-10 7Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. James is speaking to quarreling in the church. These come out of selfish desires, wrong motives, and a love for the things of this world. James says to actively fight against these sinful desires and humble yourself before God. 2 Cor8:9 8I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him. 9The reason I wrote you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything. I like this one because the testing is to the obedience of forgiving a brother as Christ has forgiven us. We are not allowed to hold grudges in the kingdom. So despite someone's sin, we are still forbidden to discipline out of anger and resentment. It can never get personal, always perfect judgement and justice is required. Vengeance is a temptation we must actively fight. And Paul acknowledges this as Satan's scheme to break up the body. 1 Peter 5:8 6Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. 8Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. 10And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. This almost brings our two points of view together. Our trust is entirely in God, not in our abilities. So we are completely humble in a trial, and completely confident that God will deliver us. If we are not alert and self-controlled, we are easy prey for Satan. I like the predator/ prey analogy. We resist, suffer for a time, then God restores us. We are not winning God's favor. We already have God's favor by grace through faith. The Lord disciplines those he loves. This is a sovereignly ordained trial, just as Jesus in the desert. Job is tested by Satan to curse God. God invites Satan to test his servant and puts parameters, or hedges of protection around Job. After each trial is passed, God allowes less protection. Finally when the trial is over, Job is given manifold more than he had at the start. Job is able to do this because he knows "his redeemer lives" and he knows the character of God despite his present circumstances. The great sin committed by Job's friends is they spoke what was untrue of God and questioned his character. Job was to pray for them. Joseph actively flees Potipher's wife, and does not want to sin against His God by committing adultery. It's interesting that he says against his God and not against Potipher. Finally, there is Romans 5:1-5 (there is much more, but this is what i was able to come up with for now). This shows the active proccess of sanctification. We rejoice in our sufferings because they produce character which produces hope in our God. This is a proccess we are actively involved in. I don't think the suffering is do to not letting God do the work, or accepting the atonement on the cross. Paul accepted it, embraced it, preached it and still had more suffering than we could imagine.