Personal liberty is so precious that we are often in such a hurry to embrace it, we overlook the depth of the transformation it causes. It is not just about being free from guilt and shame, or from religious legalism and performance-related behavior. In fact, the dead give away of whether we have embraced gospel-grace is how we view others—especially spiritual brothers and sisters. We tend to give ourselves a break regarding our own inconsistent behavior while expecting our fellow believers to live up to standards of conduct that befit a regenerated person. We conclude that our hearts are right even if we don’t always do the right thing. However, since we can’t know another’s heart, we judge them by apparent behavior. And we find ourselves trying to fix each other.
We are “fixers” by nature. When something is wrong with our machines and structures, we get busy fixing them. When the car is broken, we fix it. When the faucet leaks, we fix it. If the government in our locale is malfunctioning, we fix it. When our friends are not working efficiently or satisfactorily, we try to fix them. We even try to fix our grown children who may not be “walking as close to the Lord” as we think they should. But people don’t respond well to fixing. They are not machines that need the problem identified and eliminated. They are people who are created in the image of God and are ultimately responsible to him as their judge. Believers have the very person of God living in them and he is energizing them to embrace the new life that they have.
Grace is the most glorious and liberating concept ever, but embracing it in every level of relationships is a challenge. Not only is it possible, but it’s also expected by the Lord himself. The point of the gospel is to produce lives that are different in practice as well as in precept. We seek to discover New Testament revelation regarding living the gospel in community.
First, we must look at the big picture of salvation. God designed creation to have a people who are his nation among the nations. They are to be distinct (holy) and the source of blessing for the other nations. While we often emphasize our national pride based on physical boundaries and bloodlines, we must rejoice mostly that the greatest nation on earth is the people from every tribe and tongue living in the kingdom of God where Jesus is the present and eternal king, ruling supreme. We cannot honestly review the creation story and conclude that life is merely about individual salvation and liberty. God created mankind to produce a people living in mutual submission, partnering with him to express the his true nature on the earth.
When the Law was given to the descendants of Abraham, they were constituted as a nation. It was the Law that was key to their becoming a nation with a distinctly divine mandate. They would be a nation of priests for the rest of mankind. Obeying the instruction of the Torah would create a culture that would be the envy of all nations and offer a way to know the true God, which would be a restoration to the original purpose for all mankind. Of course, we know the history of Israel’s inability to obey the Torah, and the gracious rescue of their destiny by the ultimate Israelite: Jesus. He came to finish the job of creating a people that would be holy unto the Lord. First he lived the different life. Then he made it possible for others to have his life and live it by his death, resurrection, ascension and gift of the Holy Spirit.
Later when Paul was instructing the new creation people of God in how to embrace their new life, he showed how the Spirit was the fulfillment of the Law and how it produced a culture of different people who live for the glory of God.
…but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Ephesians 5:18-21 (ESV)
He goes on in the text to show how this applies to wives, husbands, children, parents, slaves, and masters. In other words, the Spirit affects every level of responsibility and produces a people who actually represent God accurately on earth while subduing his creation according to his order. The Spirit is now doing internally what the Torah instructed externally. Being filled with the Spirit—though a wonderful experience for an individual—is a community dynamic.
This new life we have been given requires a community to live. How do we help one another to embrace it fully? There is a very helpful text that picks up a theme of New Testament accountability. We help more by reminder than by rebuke.
Since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
Hebrews 10:19-25 (ESV)
You will notice in this passage the word “since” is used two different times. This truth is foundational for the coming instruction. It is an assumption that we make and then act upon its implications. The two gospel truths that give us foundation for our choices are: confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, and a great priest over the house of God interceding for us eternally. Because these are true, we are free from anxiety of rejection or performance. The blood of Jesus is the key to intimate access, and the priestly work of Jesus guarantees our standing before God and our abundant provision forever.
Now we have three uses of “let us.” It is a plural imperative. The command is to the community of faith, but it also has individual application. First, we are to honor the grace of God by continually living in his presence. Then, we are to confidently profess our faith in the distinct reality as defined by Christ himself. Finally, we are to stir each other to love and good works…
The New Testament as a whole instructs us regarding how this is to be done. There are approximately 31 reciprocal commands in the ethical instructions of the New Testament. Sin, for the believer, is the result of not acting according to the gospel. One has to forget the truth about his standing, status and strength, before he or she will yield to the alluring but shallow offerings of Satan. There is a kind of temporary insanity that causes sin to make sense. Forgetting the benefits of grace is not something new for mankind. Remember, Israel kept forgetting the mighty acts of mercy on their behalf. That made them vulnerable to the threats of menacing enemies and confusing circumstances. How could one forget the Red Sea crossing, or the manna, or the fire and cloud? They did; and as a result they sinned by trusting something other than their God and his mercy. Anytime we choose to believe that our situation is evidence that God is not in control, we step over into the unreal, and sin is crouching at our door.
So, stirring one another must focus on reminding each other of the grace of God and its implications. Sons of God need reminding that their Father is present and ready to supply their needs for their assignment. We need reminding that the blood of Jesus is our way into the places of intimacy with God. We are encouraged when another believer recognizes our gifts and offers us opportunities to be useful.
We are not trying to reach some level of holiness measured by performances based on what we do or what we relinquish. People measuring their holiness are still focused on self and standards rather than on Jesus, the only true holy man. As we look again at how Jesus lived, we don’t see him measuring himself by norms of religious expectations. He is so consumed with honoring the Father that he is different. He lived for the honor of the Father. He didn’t take time to focus on his growth or maturity. He was busy about the Father’s interests. If we as his people are ever going to display holiness on earth, it will be a holiness based on selfless living; being so conscious of the privilege of knowing and enjoying the Father that we are unconscious of the measuring sticks of holiness.
We must note that mutual accountability is a serious responsibility for at least two reasons. First, the gospel is so supra-natural, we must be reminded often that it is both true and available now. Peter, in his second letter, sees this need:
Therefore I intend always to remind you of these qualities, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have. I think it is right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder…
2 Peter 1:12-13 (ESV)
Our natural inclination is to reduce the gospel to something we can both understand and manage. We tend to add our cultural values to it, and ultimately it becomes another of the “let’s-be-nice-and-help-each-other-and-God-will-sort-it-out” religions that dot the world map. We cannot afford to lose the majesty of the gospel. It is distinct. There has never been in the imagination of any person anything like the message of grace through Jesus. No other attempt to explain God and man is as ruthlessly honest about mankind’s helpless condition or as mind-blowing in its depiction of God’s mercy with the end result being men and women living on this earth by the same source of life as the eternal Son. Those who believe this must continue to remind the others. The deceitfulness of sin is deadening.
The second reason we conclude that this responsibility is serious is that Hebrews warns against any of us insulting the Spirit of grace (Hebrews 10:26-37). In the Old Testament, the sin offering was for unintentional sins. Those who choose to reject the authority of God’s word and neglect his remedy were simply cut off from Israel’s community of faith. In the New Testament, the author of Hebrews is stating how much more insulting it is for people who have come to taste the privileges of being sons of God through Jesus to neglect the Word of God and live as if there were no fulfillment of the shadows of the previous era. Laxity could turn into deafness and that to willful neglect. So, because we are concerned about each other, we must be diligent to remind—and if necessary rebuke—each other. The cost is too great to ignore. We can’t just watch a brother or sister in faith continue to walk in deception without trying to stir them to love and good works.
New Testament salvation is about community life. We have received the grace of God that saves us individually, so that we can participate corporately with the others in the holy nation of new covenant people. We can assume that those who are born of the Spirit are longing to do the will of God. We can stoke the small fires in their bosom to become raging fires of passionate love for the Father and the Son. We don’t have to fix them, but we can stir them.
