Each Friday for a few weeks we are focusing attention on how Christians change. We introduced this topic last week by suggesting that change indeed is possible. We did not say that it comes easily.
Mr. Hyde found to his horror that his wicked nature was uncontrollable. Jeckyll could not be contained. That this is true is the fear of many Christians. There is a part of them whispering (singing, actually, to a tune by Linda Ronstadt), “You’re no good, you’re no good, you’re no good, Baby, you’re no good.”
At some level we know that this is true, or was. But we also are told that the Christian is a new creation. There is something about the old being gone, and something new being created. So, my correspondent poses this question, still in terms of the story of Jekyll and Hyde and in the light of a sermon I preached on the subject:
“What could he have done to save himself?” The point of the sermon leads to the answer: nothing. There was nothing he could have done to save himself. Okay. I got that. Now…what if Dr. Jekyll knew Jesus? How does living like a regenerate man who has NOT forgotten Romans 6 look?
This is an excellent question. We can believe that it is God who changes us, but we instinctively believe that there is something that we must do. What confuses us is that we are told that keeping God’s law is not the path to real change. That was Jeckyll’s downfall. Lawkeeping stokes our pride, and condemns us. So is there anything we can do to further change in our lives?
To frame it in a Romans 8 way, the question is this: what does it look like to “walk according to the Spirit and not according to the flesh” (Romans 8.4). Clearly living a Christian life involves “walking”. There are actions involved, choices, direction, duties, responses, whatever you want to call them. We either walk according to the Spirit or we walk according to the flesh. Paul’s point is that walking according to the flesh, seeking to do that which pleases God by mere obedience to law, is fruitless and worse.
So the question then is really, how do we “walk” according to the Spirit. There is a path. There are actions to be embraced which are fruitful, but not dependent upon the law. This can confuse us.
“In my struggles with sin, I am turning to the law to overcome the sin. For example, I pray for more patience, more self-control, etc. Would you say that this is simply depending on the law to overcome my lack of patience and self-control?”
No, I would not say that. To long for patience and self-control, among other things is good. This is to long for Christ-likeness. To long for the things of the Spirit, to lust, even, after the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5) is a good thing.
To deal with that desire by simply trying harder (“I resolve today to be more patient, and by gum, I’m going to do it!”) is to apply the law and depend upon the flesh for our sanctification. But to long for what the law teaches (patience) and to be lead by our own weakness to see that we cannot produce in it ourselves and therefore to plead with Jesus to build patience into us, this is a good thing.
There is much more to say than this, but to pray that the fruit of God’s spirit would be worked out in my life is not law-dependence. I need to keep in mind that the law is good. It teaches us what is good; it awakens us to our need, and it shows us what Christ-likeness looks like.
Frankly, to feel the weight of this struggle, as wearying and as frustrating as it is is a good thing. I think the more mature a Christian is, the more he struggles with the presence of sin in his life. For the impatient, the evidence that the Holy Spirit is in him is that this desire for patience is warring in him against a desire to have his own way at the expense of others. (Galatians 5.17 “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.”)
So, to walk according to the Spirit is to first know (by the law, even) where we are supposed to be, as painful as it is to realize that we are not yet there. But where do we go from here. We’ll consider this beginning next Friday.
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Religion is often a privatized affair among modern American Christians. We practice our faith alone, content to miss worship, forgo small groups, pray solitary prayers and not communal. To battle that, we at the church I pastor place a heavy emphasis upon community, challenging Christians to practice their Christianity in the community of the church. We need that and cannot survive in a healthy way without it.