“Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”
2 Corinthians 3:5-6
How do you know if you are bound by a legalistic “letter of the Law”? How do you know that you are not abusing your freedom in Christ? There are potential dangers in both directions: toward legalism on the one hand and libertarianism on the other. We can fall into an excess of law, burdening ourselves and others with unending lists and rules. Or we can fall the other way into laziness and passivity, using the gospel as an excuse to indulge our sinful nature.
“You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.”
Galatians 5:13
In the Jerusalem council in Acts 15 we see the early church wrestling with the Old Testament Law as it related to Gentile converts. Most of the first wave of believers were Jewish, so they continued to eat kosher, follow ceremonial practices of hand-washing, Sabbath-keeping and synagogue attendance. Shouldn’t Gentile (pagans) adopt these helpful traditions for their own good? Some did, but others preferred not to. And the apostles agreed together – “it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us” (Acts 15:28) – not to burden the new believers with the Law of Moses. They gave a few basic instructions but left the majors (circumcision, Sabbath, holidays) and the minors (food, washing, ceremonial practices) out.
This was a momentous shift and it has tremendous relevance for every generation of Christ followers. Just because you grew up going to church every Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night doesn’t mean today’s believers are unfaithful if they don’t. Just because you grew up with Sunday School and Awana club doesn’t mean a church has abandoned the Lord by relaxing or removing these programs. Just because you grew up with little or no TV, no secular music and not a drop of alcohol doesn’t mean every believer is bound by those convictions and practices.
Here is the rule:
“Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand… So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God. Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister.”
Romans 14:4,12-13
You answer to the Lord Jesus Christ. He is your Master, not me, not anyone else. Your job is to listen to the Holy Spirit and obey His leading in your life. It is not for us to judge another believer. We should be gracious, understanding and supportive of one another – including being supportive of the disciplines and convictions they have embraced.
And we should be zealous and disciplined with ourselves. Let’s be honest that we all battle the flesh and most of us incline more to laziness and lack of discipline than to legalism and excess discipline. “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9). This is why we need personal disciplines, resolutions and commitments. And it’s why we need accountability!
I pick on Disney’s “believe in yourself” and “follow your heart” mantras because they are so opposite the message of Scripture. Don’t trust in yourself and always be skeptical of your own proud, selfish heart. A great sign of one who is maturing in the Lord is a stronger awareness of the depths of your own sin. If you think you’re a pretty good person you have not come to know the holiness of Jesus very much.
We will draw inspiration from John Wesley this week. Arguably the most influential British person of the 18th century, Wesley not only contributed to the first great awakening but he founded the Methodist movement that continues today. Our commitment to small groups as a church can be traced directly to the “method” Wesley instituted while at Oxford in his “holy club” with his brother Charles and his friend, George Whitefield. What started as a slur about “those Oxford methodists,” grew into a movement that reached millions in England and America.
But Wesley’s disciplines at that point in his life were not yet infused with gospel life. It was more than ten years later that he experienced the joy and liberation of the gospel. From then on his preaching caught fire and the movement took off – because he had personally experienced the transforming and invigorating power of Jesus in his life.
The order here is essential. Disciplines on their own are burdensome. They are the letter that kills because no amount of discipline is ever enough. You can never make yourself holy enough. And the Law was never intended for that anyway. The purpose of the Law was to expose the sinfulness of people and prepare them to cry out for a Savior! The Law cannot REMOVE sin it can only REVEAL sin and to some extent RESTRAIN sin.
Only Jesus can remove the penalty and power of sin.
“The law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ from the law of sin and death.”
Romans 8:2
“He breaks the power of cancelled sin, he sets the prisoner free. His blood can make the foulest clean, his blood availed for me.”
Charles Wesley, O for 1,000 tongues to sing
Once you have experienced the liberating power of the gospel, personal disciplines help you apply the grace of Jesus to your sinful flesh – they help you walk in the freedom and holiness He has already given you. No amount of discipline, apart from Jesus, can get you to holiness. But once Jesus has given you the gift of holiness (justification), your spiritual habits are essential to grow toward maturity (sanctification).
So where are you today in terms of disciplines? Have you resolved, like Wesley, to use every hour of your life to advance the kingdom purposes of God in the world? Do you track your progress, as he did, in a detailed journal? That sounds extreme to our lazy American 21st century Christian ears. But surely we have something to learn from a man who changed England and America forever. If we want revival in our day we need more of the spirit of John Wesley in our hearts, churches and our city!
“No, Aleck, no! The danger of ruin to Methodism does not lie here. It springs from quite a different quarter. Our preachers, many of them, are fallen. They are not spiritual. They are not alive to God. They are soft, enervated, fearful of shame, toil, hardship. . . . Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen, such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the kingdom of heaven upon earth.”
John Wesley, writing at age 87 to Alexander Mather, quoted in Luke Tyerman, The Life and Times of the Rev. John Wesley (London, 1871), III:632.