Some
call him the new Oswald Chambers. Others say he’s written the best devotional
on the market today. I love what one reviewer said after reading his New Morning Mercies, “…Paul David Tripp
aims to energize Christian readers with the most potent encouragement
imaginable: the gospel.”
Listen
to what he writes on February 23rd when he asks the probing
question: “Why do we say we place our hope in the cross of the Lord Jesus
Christ and yet practically ask the law to do what only grace can accomplish?”
It’s done every day in Christian homes around the
world. Well-meaning parents, zealous to see their children doing what is right,
ask the law to do in the lives of their children what only grace can
accomplish. They think that if they have the right set of rules, the right
threat of punishment, and consistent enforcement, their children will be okay.
In ways these parents fail to understand, they have reduced parenting to being
a law-giver, a prosecutor, a jury, and a jailer. They think that their job is
to do anything they can to shape, control, and regulate the behavior of their
children. And in their zeal to control behavior, they look to the tools of
threat (“I’ll make you afraid enough that you’ll never do this again.”),
manipulation (“I’ll find something you really want and tell you that I’ll give
it to you if you obey.”), and guilt (“I’ll make you feel so bad, so ashamed,
that you’ll decide to not do this again.”).
This way of thinking denies two significant things
that the Bible tells us. The first is that before sin is a matter of behavior,
it is always a matter of the heart. We sin because we are sinners. For example,
anger is always an issue of the heart before it is an act of physical
aggression. This is important to recognize because no human being has the power
to change the heart of another human being. The second is that if threats,
manipulation, and guilt could create lasting change in the life of another
person, Jesus would not have had to come. So this way of thinking denies the
gospel that we say we hold dear. It really does ask the law to do what only God
in amazing grace is able to accomplish. If you deny the gospel at street level,
you will attempt to create by human means what only God can create by powerful
grace, and it will never lead you anywhere good.
Thankfully, God hasn’t left us to our own power to
change. He meets us with transforming grace and calls us to be tools of that
grace in his redemptive hands. He lifts the burden of change off our shoulders
and never calls us to do what only he can do. So we expose our children to
God’s law and faithfully exercise authority while we seek to be tools of heart
change in the hands of a God whose grace is greater than all the sin we’re
grappling with.
It’s
not just parents who endow the law with powers it can never have; it’s rife in
the Church today. But thankfully Paul suffers from no such parental malpractice.
As he writes to his “children in the faith” he never fails to lay the entire
burden of heart change on the person and work of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, even
in a text like the one we will examine this week, Paul underscores the unique
power of the pure, unadulterated gospel.
The
title of this section of Paul’s letter is a perfect give-away, “Walk by the
Spirit”. Unlike the legalists, when Paul juxtapositions two entirely different
ways of living, he unquestionably credits one to the work of the flesh, and the
other to the work of the Spirit of God.
We
will only begin our examination of this great text this week, but we will clearly
see the difference between the old human
heart and the new one that the Spirit is producing in us.
In
preparation for Sunday’s message, “Keeping in Step”, you may wish to consider
the following:
- How does Paul arrive at his conclusion that true obedience is a function of the work of the Holy Spirit in a life?
- In what way are the desires of the flesh and the desires of the Spirit opposed to each other?
- What is different about the work of the Holy Spirit after the resurrection of Jesus?
- Why does Jesus say what He does in John 16:7?
- What does the word, “walk”, mean in verse 16?
- Is the list of “works of the flesh” Paul cites in verses 19-21 original with him?
- What is meant by his warning in verse 21? Does this mean that if you refrain from these things you will inherit the Kingdom of God?
- What does Jesus’ warning in Mark 7:20-21 add to our understanding of what Paul is saying?
- How are both lists (verses 19-21 & 22-23) a product of the human heart?
- What is the role of the Holy Spirit in fruit production?
