Conviction to Do Good (2)

Intro

“Do Better.” One of society’s newest phrases when something being done is not deemed adequate. In some ways, Jesus came to help us “do better.” In the redemption of all things, Jesus makes us better that we may do better. But the doing comes from our being. And the being comes from new life and the Spirit.

John 16:8–10 (ESV)

And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer;

The Spirit came to show us right and wrong. True right and wrong. The Pharisees’ legalism missed the heart of right and wrong. Their understanding made them a hollow representation of righteousness.

The Spirit forms true righteousness within us. The Spirit convicts us of our sin. It’s a two-way street with the Spirit. He removes the filth from our souls and replaces it with holiness. So this week and next week, these messages are going to come from this biblical concept, that the Spirit is here to convict us in regard to righteousness and in regard to sin.

The Role of the Spirit

A preacher tells the story…

Tony Evans Book of Illustrations: Stories, Quotes, and Anecdotes from More Than 30 Years of Preaching and Public Speaking Holy Spirit, Role Of

A YOUNG couple faced their first winter in a new home. As temperatures began to drop and the house began to get a little too cool for comfort, they decided it was time to flip the switch and turn on the heat. They got nothing. So, the lady of the house called the air-conditioning and heating guy and called him out to help.

In a matter of minutes the serviceman had diagnosed the problem. The young woman held her breath, expecting to hear that in order to fix their heating system, they would have to pay a pretty penny. But the pro had surprising news. The problem was minor, only a few bucks to fix. The igniter was out. The furnace was self-igniting—designed to ignite automatically. A tiny thing like an igniter was causing such a big problem. It worked but was not making the connection necessary to kick the heater into gear. The igniter was there but wasn’t doing what it was designed to do because of a bad connection.

The couple didn’t need a new heater. They had all the power they needed. They just needed to change out a small part that would enable them to access the power resident in their heater to heat their home.

Many new Christians wonder how they can have all the power available to them and have such cold, and sometimes miserable, lives. Their igniter is not working. When it’s not operative, the available power does no good.

When we come to faith in Jesus Christ, we have all the power we need. “Old things are passed away and all things become new.” We have all we need. God gives us a new heart, a new consciousness, forgiveness of sin, and empowerment. God has an igniter called the Holy Spirit. If the igniter is not working, it’s because we are not allowing Him to by responding to His prompting.465

THere’s something we must keep in mind as we consider the Spirit’s work in our lives. 2 Corinthians 5 has a good bit to say about the Spirit filled life, how it begins and continues.

2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

And what kind of life is the Spirit working in our lives to produce?

A little earlier:

2 Corinthians 5:14–15 ESV

For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

We are to become more and more like Christ in His holiness. I think it’s proper that we start with the goodness that comes about as a result of conviction, as conviction LEADS somewhere. It’s better to start with the positive rather than the negative. Why do we endure the negative? BECAUSE of the positive. BECAUSE we have a goal. Like an athlete working out, enduring the pain of muscle-building. There’s a goal there. Because of the goal, they can overcome.

Similarly, the Spirit works toward the goal of making us holy. So we can part with our sin because our desires should be set on Christ in such a way that we want to be like Him.

But the power for this comes through the Spirit. It’s not an on-off switch. It takes time. Our holiness is like a muscle. We can’t build it on our own. We MUST have supernatural strength. Without the empowerment from the Spirit, we will fail to build holiness and righteousness in our lives.

Holiness is a post-salvation reality.

Galatians 5:16–17 (ESV)

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 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.

There’s a battle going on in every Christian between the flesh and the Spirit. The Spirit is guiding you into all righteousness. How you respond determines the trajectory of your life: toward righteousness, or into your own flesh.

And that gives us a two-way street in pursuing righteousness.

Two-Way Street in Pursuing Righteousness

Love for God Results in a Pursuit of Righteousness

Psalm 37:4 (ESV)

Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

2 Timothy 2:22 (ESV)

So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.

There’s a direct correlation between our love for God and the pursuit of righteousness. It follows that if we love God, we will obey Him. We will pursue the things of Him because we want to be like Him and in His company.

It’s like the friends we surround ourselves with, right? We become like those we experience fellowship with.

Approval. You ever think about the role of approval in our lives? I think most everyone wants approval from somebody. We are dying and crying for approval. Our world cries out for approval. Why is that? Think on that for a moment. Why does everyone want approval? I would submit the idea that perhaps the reason we seek approval so much is because we know, deep down, that our behavior does not always merit approval. We can all point to times in our own lives where we don’t even approve of ourselves. And we find ourselves struggling with self-approval, so we look for approval from outside of ourselves.

This is one of the reasons middle school and high school can be so weird for students. There’s a currency in high school, and it’s called peer-approval. How many and which peers approve of you determine your social class in high school. Some call them cliques, but it’s really not about cliques. It’s about social status. And that social status is determined by whom you receive approval and inclusion from.

And sooner, rather than later, as you continue to hang around those folks and grow accustomed to their approval, you pick up their habits, their clothing styles, their choices.

Here’s the simple truth that sits behind that… You will become like those whose approval you seek.

So if we find ourselves wanting God’s approval…

Galatians 1:10 (ESV)

For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

And hear me clearly: This is pleasing talk, not appeasing talk…

God’s wrath has already been appeased… We are now free to please Him. Why? The same way we want to please the people in our lives that we love. I want to make my wife and children happy. It’s a good thing. I seek to give them a good model of a loving husband and father and Christian man.

This comes because I love them. So I pursue being the type of man that makes them happy. When we love God and want to please Him, we will seek to be the type of people to bring Him great pleasure. That is righteousness. It’s not out of fear, but love. That’s a good thing.

Disgust for Sin Results in a Pursuit of Righteousness

1 Timothy 6:11 (ESV)

But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness.

I can remember one particular time I was dealing with temptation, and I was struck with, “You know, when I act on my temptations, I create destruction around me. The people I love are hurt. The people I want to point toward Christ are then tempted to be drawn away from Christ.”

When we put our sinful temptation in that light, it can truly stop temptation right in its tracks. The next time you deal with temptation, consider the destructive power of sin. When dealing with temptation, we find ourselves thinking about what we can gain if we act on temptation, and we don’t consider the destruction of goodness and life that come about in the wake of sin.

When we consider the destructive force of sin, if you are a Christian, you should find yourself disgusted by sin. It’s when we fail to consider the destructiveness of sin that we fall into sin. But if you find yourself unbothered by the destructiveness of sin, I fear your conscience may be seared, and you may need salvation altogether.

But this disgust for sin should push us to a pursuit of righteousness! This disgust should have an equal-and-opposite reaction in pursuing the things of God.

Now, I’m a dog person. I love dogs. We have two. They are very well house-trained. However, there comes a certain point when even the best of house-trained dogs can’t hold it anymore, and they’ve been inside too long, and they have to go. It’s disgusting. And when that happens, out of disgust, I clean it up. And in cleaning it up, I don’t just wipe up the mess. I come back after disposing of the mess, and I get some cleaner after the mess!

Sometimes after falling in sin, we wipe up the mess and don’t clean afterward. Bacteria and stench are left to fester in our lives because we’re not disgusted enough with our sin. We leave just enough of our sin so that the festering rot rears its ugly head again. When we pursue righteousness in place of our sin, it’s like that act of putting cleaner on the mess.

The Good We Ought to Do

So what is the kind of righteousness we OUGHT to pursue? What is the kind of goodness we were made for? The Scriptures tell us:

Ephesians 2:10 (ESV)

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

So what is the good we ought to do? Someone once asked Jesus:

Matthew 22:36–40 (ESV)

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

This is the goodness we ought to be about: love for God, and love for others. Works that come out of love for others are the kind of good things we should be seeking. That of course goes hand in hand with what we’ve talked about recently. True love is not that which pretends to be love, or acts as though evil is good. True love is that which cares for the realities of that which the person you love faces, experiences, and believes.

Further:

James 4:17 (ESV)

So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

Goodness is wrapped up in the fruit of the Spirit:

Galatians 5:22–23 (ESV)

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

Likewise:

James 3:17–18 (ESV)

But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

Goodness is wrapped up in our true religion:

James 1:27 (ESV)

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

But the highest good we can commit ourselves to?

Matthew 6:33 (ESV)

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

What is the kingdom? Vital for Christians to understand. The kingdom is not a place. It’s a reality. And we are to seek the reality, of the Kingdom which is the rule and reign of God in people’s hearts. To seek the rule and reign of God in people’s hearts, we are to seek the best for them and the glorification of God. Let’s take a look at a Kingdom parable to describe both the Kingdom in and of itself, and what it looks like to seek this Kingdom:

Matthew 13:33 (ESV)

He told them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.”

See the Kingdom of Heaven is not Heaven itself. It’s the rule and reign of God over the earth. So when we read this parable in particular… Let me just show you what I mean when I talk about the Kingdom of Heaven being different from Heaven as a place. If we speak of Heaven as a place, this parable ceases to make sense… And I suspect Jesus meant to be understood. So if we see Kingdom of Heaven as simply Heaven, we’ll miss what Jesus means.

But Kingdom of Heaven talk is different. And seeking the kingdom of Heaven is to seek God’s rule and reign on the earth and in people’s hearts…. And THAT is the ultimate good. That means we have a particular responsibility to believers… To push one another toward Christlikeness… Toward our families… Outlined a few weeks ago in pastor Patrick’s sermon series in Colossians 3. Toward people across the earth… To introduce them to Christ through our words and actions.

And in doing all of this, we glorify God most High.

Vertical and Horizontal love.

Conclusion