"God is wonderful. You are wonderful. God's work in you is wonderful."
Stuart Olyott is one of my favorite preachers. not that it's good to place pastors (or really any human aside from Christ) in celebrity status. but there are definitely some who don't look for the spotlight, but seem to be on the "Most Played" playlist in my iTunes.
tonight we listened to his sermon on John 16:7-11.
"'But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment; concerning sin because they do not believe in Me; and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me; and concerning judgment, because the ruler of the world has been judged.'" (NASB).there are so many things in this passage, but the main thing I focused on is the difference between "I go to church, I give tithes, I am a good person overall, so I must be a Christian" and "am I really a Christian?"
true Christians say the latter. people who strut in their own confidence and assurances are condemned people, I think. after all, there are (at least two) Scriptures that speak of God giving them over to their own ways.
"So I gave them over to the stubbornness of their heart, to walk in their own devices." Psalm 81:12 (NASB).
"Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen." Romans 1:24-25 (NASB).and so, "professing to be wise", many nominal Christians, or church-goers, think they're a-ok. it's all good in the spiritual hood. no need to send their soul to the shop for checkups.
meanwhile, God works on the true Christian.
"For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God set beforehand that we would walk in them." Ephesians 2:10 (NASB).how beautiful is that? that we should find our assurance in our failures. in our realizing it is only through Jesus Christ, who left the Helper (the Holy Spirit) to mold us and remind us of who we are, and who Christ is. this was the point that Stuart Olyott drove home in his third tack, "God's work in you is wonderful".
after all, not only does He convict us of our horrible, filthy, wretched, shameful, embarrassing, grievous sins and natural, evil desires of the heart (John 16:9), but He then reminds us of the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. lest we look at our sins and conclude there is no hope like Judas Iscariot. no, instead we can say, "who can get rid of my burden of sin?? only Jesus Christ, the perfect, innocent, blameless, holy God-man".
and last but definitely not least, He warns us that the ruler of this world (ruler meaning the devil and the world meaning all who do not believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior) is headed for imminent and inescapable torture in the pit of hell. or as Stuart Olyott so quaintly put it:
"there is no future in wickedness."it might be hard to see the comfort in these verses at first. but after the study, I feel that I can carry them around with me in my heart. the Helper, the Holy Spirit, accompanies every true believer in Jesus Christ. because, after all, Jesus Christ personally appointed Him to us. not only will He admonish us, inflict guilt upon us, and bring us the the grim realization of our sinful nature, but then He will immediately and constantly showcase the excellence, the grace, the love, the righteousness, the perfect sacrifice of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
what hope! what comfort.
"All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness." Hebrews 12:11 (NASB).
