This
morning I was considering what it means to, “work
out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you,
both to will and to work for his good pleasure,”[1] along with, “The grace of the
Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be
with you all.”[2]
The
real-life context is that I have been watching someone cause significant
heartache to a child, and haven’t been able to do much about it except comfort
the child. However, this morning, God confronted my attitude towards this
person in a surprising, difficult, comforting, only-God-could-do-it kind of
way. Since I have heard many stories of people causing heartache and pain in
the can’t-do-anything-about-it kind of way, perhaps this work of God is for
more than just me!
I
began my morning by telling God how I was feeling about things that were taking
place. Let’s just say that tears come easily these past few days. If you know
what that feels like, we’re on the same page.
The
question is, how do we see the people who are the primary cause of the
heartaches we experience in life? It doesn’t matter whether we watch terrorists
killing innocent victims, mother’s killing their babies, or children living
with preventable pain. There are always those people who do the inflicting, and
who remain after the harm is done. What do we do?
The
strange and transforming thing that happened to me was that, as I described to
God what this person was like, I could not escape the fact that I was
describing someone who was a captive of sin, and showing the self-protective
strategies of someone carrying many heartaches of their own.
In
my experience of the gospel, this meant I had to see the person as a victim of
sin. The question now changed from the very personal, what do I think about
this one person and the harm they have caused, to the very general, what do I
think about people who are still living in bondage to sin, death, and the devil.
At
the same time, in my experience of the effects of unresolved trauma, I knew
that I had to see this person as a human being who had experienced enough pain
that hiding behind walls of self-protection was the only thing they could do.
With no connection to Jesus Christ, the sark does what it does. It creates
self-based systems for handling pain, which always requires shutting down the potential
attachment to levels of relationship that can cause more pain.
This
reminded me of what Jesus spoke from the cross. In reference to all the people
who had called for his crucifixion, he cried out to the Father, “Father, forgive them…”[3]As he had taught us to pray for our enemies,[4]he prayed for his enemies even in the most cruel and wicked thing
anyone had ever done.
However,
he included a clarification of what these people were like that was not only
important to the way he was praying, but also connects us to anyone who fits
the same description in our lives. His full prayer was, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
Now
we have to be honest. When dealing with people who are both spiritually “dead in their trespasses and sins,”[5]and hiding behind walls of self-protection, it will always be true
that they are behaving in ways that “they
know not what they do.” While I firmly believe that we are not to tell God,
“Father, I forgive them, for they know not what they do,” there is something
that happens to us when we can pray, “Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
The
primary thing that liberates the heart from bitterness towards sinful and
self-protective people is not something that we do, but something we trust God
to do. In the same way as the gospel itself is not about what we do for God,
but what we find that God has done for us, so, when dealing with sinful, sarky,
and self-protective people, we do not think in terms of what we must do, but
what we must trust God to do.
In
other words, we are not released from sarky responses to sinful people by
forgiving them while they are sinning against us. We are released from sarky
responses to such people when we experientially put our trust in God by praying
for them. When we can pray for people to be forgiven, and can pray for those
who curse us to be blessed,[6] and can pray for ways to do good to those who set out to abuse us,
we are not putting the focus on our own ability to do these things, but on our
awareness that God must do something in us and in them.
When
the issue is that we have faith in God, we can then look at things that are
clearly impossible for us to do, and ask him to do them. We can pray that God would
forgive people, knowing that he will bring that about however he chooses. It
will happen when he does it, not when we do it. The apostle Paul was such an
answer to Jesus’ prayer. The answer came when God decided, and to whom it was
ordained.
When
this comes to applying the two Scriptures I listed above, God is not telling me
about “the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ
and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit,” just so that I
can know these things for myself, and encourage our little home church with
what he is doing for us.
This
is not only[7] about God working in us to have the will to receive the grace so
freely given in the intercessory work of Jesus Christ our Lord,[8] and to work the things in our lives that will bring us to stand in
this grace,[9] and rest in this grace.[10]
This
isn’t only about God working in us to have the will to receive the love of God,
and rest in the love of God, and accept the wonders of our beloved state in
God.[11] This isn’t only about us working out with fear and trembling how
much God loves us,[12] and God working in us to work out the beloved realities of who we
are in Jesus Christ our Lord.
And,
this isn’t only about God working in us to have the will for fellowship with
the Holy Spirit of the Living God, and to pursue the fellowship of the Holy
Spirit in the church through the bond of peace we have in Jesus Christ.[13] This isn’t only about God working in us to do the work of receiving
this fellowship, and letting this fellowship with the Spirit heal us, and
restore us. This isn’t just about us working out our salvation with fear and
trembling so that we will keep putting off the sark, and keep choosing the
Spirit.[14]
This
is also about God working in us to have the will to show the grace of Jesus Christ
our Lord to everyone we meet, and to work out the real relational experiences
where we can show the grace of Jesus Christ to the most undeserving, even the people
who have come to mind while reading (and writing) this post.
This
is about God working in us to have the will to show the love of God to people,
to love them the way that God loves us,[15] to love sinners while they are sinners.[16] And God is working in us to work out the demonstration of the love
of God in people’s lives as clearly as God demonstrated his love to the world.
This
is about God working in us to have the will to bring people into fellowship
with the Spirit in his church,[17] the kind of fellowship that John talked about so beautifully.[18] And, this is about God working in us to work out real, tangible
ways of sharing this fellowship with people. Obviously this means sharing such
fellowship with other brothers and sisters in Christ, but it also means seeking
the salvation of everyone we meet so they can come into this fellowship as
well.
The
way God wants me to think and feel about hurtful people is that he wants to
show these people grace through us who are his children. He wants to show these
specific people love through us. He wants to use people like us to show hurtful
people the kind of fellowship they could have in the Holy Spirit.
This
is what God is working into us, that we would will this grace, love, and
fellowship, and work this grace, love, and fellowship. We are to work this out
with fear and trembling, not seeking our sarks, and not trying to figure out
how to do this. It is all about setting our minds on God’s Spirit, and paying
close attention to anything God is working into us individually, and into his
church corporately, and into our marriages, and families, and friendships.
Everything is about waiting on God to show what he is working into us, so we
know what to work out in each situation.
What
we cannot do is decide the things we cannot do! We cannot decide that the
Spirit can only work with certain people in certain ways. We cannot decide that
certain people are beyond the scope of the gospel, or are the wrong kind of people
for our church. At any given moment, what could happen is about what God has in
mind to do for his good pleasure, not what I feel ready to do, or what I feel
strong enough to do.
When
Goliath came against the Israelites, the Israelite army could not say that the
impossibility of the situation was really bad timing on God’s part, since the
situation was not impossible to God. It is never bad timing on God’s part when
he puts us in situations that can only be accomplished by faith in him, rather
than by human ability, ingenuity, or achievement.
The
truly Spirit-filled lifestyle is to always seek to work out what God is working
in. God is working in the grace of Jesus Christ, so we are to work out the
grace of Jesus Christ. He is working in the love of God, so we are to work out
the love of God. He is working in the fellowship of the Spirit, so we are to
work out the fellowship of the Spirit.
It
is fairly easy to put my focus on how to work these things out in the life of a
hurting child. Showing God’s grace, love, and fellowship to children is a
wonderful gift. However, people who hurt others, even children, are in as much
need of this grace, love, and fellowship, as those they have wounded. It is to
be like Jesus to seek the opportunity to show these things to our enemies, as
well as our friends.
Now,
instead of thinking how you can do this for God, ask God to show you who you
can share this with, and then ask him how he is already doing this. All you
will need to do is work out with fear and trembling what he is working in you
to will and to work for his good pleasure.
© 2015 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517,
Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted,
Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English
Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good
News Publishers.)
[1]
Philippians 2:12-13
[2]
II Corinthians 13:14
[3]
Luke 23:34
[4]
Matthew 5:44
[5]
Ephesians 2:1
[6]
Luke 6:27-28
[7]
Please note that the “only” in these paragraphs does not preclude that God is
working in the ways listed, but that we cannot limit our view to these things
as though that were the “only” things God was doing.
[8]
Hebrews 7:25
[9]
Romans 5:2; Ephesians 6:I Peter 5:12
[10]
Matthew 11:28-30
[11]
Ephesians 5:1-2
[12]
John 3:16; I John 3:1
[13]
Ephesians 4:3
[14]
Romans 8:5-6
[15]
John 13:34; 15:12
[16]
Romans 5:6-8
[17]
Acts 2:38-39
[18]
I John 1:3-4
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