Saved to Serve

…there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ.
(Philippians 3:18 – NLT)

Paul had earlier spoken of the legalists (3:2-3), now he speaks about the libertines. You are to forget the legalist path, the “make your own way” types of the past, but you are not to swing the pendulum too far. Your obedience is not the root of your justification, as the legalists would say, but it is the fruit of your justification, as the libertines wouldn’t say. Good works does not save you, but you are saved unto good works. Grace is a teacher – Titus 1:15-16, 2:11-14. Some are not walking the walk (Galatians 5:25), and they talk a different talk. It is all about what they are allowed to do, they use liberty as license, and they are deceived.

Be aware of this fact: it is not those who don’t even claim the name of Christ that Paul is talking about in this passage, it is those who remain self-indulgent, who don’t press on to maturity, but who keep feeding their old man, and then try and justify it by saying that they are allowed, or even that it is somehow right. They are ripe for deception, and are already deceived. It is not those who are trapped in sin, even, that Paul is discussing and warning about, it is those who defiantly state that they are of Christ but who won’t take their self-indulgent old man to the Cross. This is why Paul says to be following him and those who walk right because there are many who don’t, and they are dangerous.

When you are saved, you are saved to serve, and that means others, not serving yourself, like the people Paul warns about here. When you won’t go to church, what are you doing? Think about it. In order to get your food, you must always do what? Serve yourself, and you never serve others, do you? And you prevent others from serving you.

Paul says beware because these types tend to try and gain converts to appease their conscience. Other biblical writers warn us also. Jude 1:3-5 – obedience is believing, acting in accordance with what you believe (that sin is bad and that Christ has delivered us from its bondage). Look at 2 Peter 2:2, 10, 14, 18-20. 2 (sensual), 10 (despise authority, i.e. they won’t learn in community they won’t follow patterns they must make their own), 14 (they try and recruit others who don’t know better), 18 (they appeal to the flesh of those who are still struggling with it), 19 (they talk of freedom but they are slaves to sin and self), 20 (they are unfruitful in their knowledge – Hosea 4:6-10 / 2 Peter 1:8).

Their end is destruction, whose god is their belly, or their own appetites; they live for the pleasures of the body, mind, and soul. Romans 16:18 – and they try and win others to this view, which is why they are doubly dangerous, it spreads because it is an easy way. Their feelings, emotions, and passions rule them, meaning they do what they want to do; their god is their own self-ish desires, with its self-indulgent agenda. They are proud of their liberty, thinking they are more enlightened than those whom they see as more narrow-minded, and they are constantly trying to defend their “right” to import this or that practice from the world. They are worldly, they thought they could be whatever they wanted to be, worship however they wanted to, and approach a holy God anyway they saw fit, and still keep Jesus too.

They wouldn’t let anyone correct them, they wouldn’t accept rebuke or be admonished, and they thought that they knew better. They are not broken by their sin and instead of falling on Christ, He will fall on them to their peril (Matthew 21:44). They wouldn’t suffer the death of the flesh; they are enemies of the Cross of Christ.

In this way are they enemies of the Cross: they may have thought they believed in it for Jesus, and indeed that is all it takes to be saved, believing Jesus died on the Cross for your sins is a saving knowledge of Christ. However, the bible clearly teaches that this knowledge if held in truth will cause a believer to also follow Jesus to the Cross. Godliness teaches us to become more and more repentant, our lives will progressively become more and more unlike the world, not like the world.

The degree of effectiveness in an individuals life is not the question, the resolve to do it at all or to deny the need to is the matter at hand (1 Corinthians 5), the desire to become sanctified in practice, rather than defiantly avoiding the possibility of going to the Cross for the gradual death of the self life, that is the question. In essence, they deny this saving knowledge in practice, if not in doctrine, by not believing in and following Jesus to the Cross in their own life. They became progressively more and more deceived, their faith was proven not to be real, and they are damned.

Those that won’t go to church wind up serving themselves and that isn’t why we are saved.

How Do You Know You Are Saved?

Here's a re post of a video that created quite a controversy on my old blog. I find that when sanctification and obedience become optional in circles of neo-evangelicalism, it is nothing less than the display of spiritual decadence that we are currently in...is it a wonder that the Lord refuses to send revival the American "church", seeing that she will not repent of her harlotry?

Law and Disorder

Seeing the term “antinomian” mentioned a few posts back in the comments section led me diving into on-line search engines.
Anti = against (Greek)
Nomos = Law (Greek)
I learned that, basically, antinomianism is lawlessness - the opposite of legalism.
Interestingly, as of late I have heard more than a few Christian friends proclaiming with great glee their “freedom in Christ." Two of these friends recently agreed to end their marriage. I fear that “free in Christ” is coming to mean whatever suits the flesh.
As I was reading but a speck of the history of antinomianism on-line, it got me to wondering - Why aren’t the Gentiles to keep the Law as per the Jews’ adherence?
I have messianic Jewish friends who, although they outwardly keep (some of) the Law, they do so not for sanctification, but for the sake of being a closer witness to their Jewish family and friends. In their case, it makes sense to me. They would alienate their families and friends by proclaiming “freedom” from the Law, yet they share common ground with their unsaved brethren in their respect of the Law and keeping some traditions.
As I see it, the Law truly served to point to Christ. He is the goal – not the end – of the Law. I thought it to be aptly put on wikipedia as follows:
“Romans 10:4 is also sometimes cited: “Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.” [NIV] The key word here is ‘telos,’ see also Strong's G5056. Robert Badenas in Christ the End of the Law, Romans 10.4 in Pauline Perspective, 1985, ISBN 0905774930, argues that ‘telos’ is correctly translated as ‘goal,’ not ‘end,’ so that Christ is the goal of the Law.”
(Interestingly, studies with my aforementioned messianic Jewish friends led me to learn that the word ‘Torah’ in Hebrew is similarly translated. ‘Torah’ – which refers to Moses’ first five books of the Bible – literally means ‘target’ or ‘aim.’)
Is this why the Gentiles are not obliged to “keep” the Law – because its aim is Christ? Of course, we keep some Laws (10 commandments and others), but not all. I’ve heard the Laws distinguished between ceremonial, civil, and moral, of course, but I’m not sure that these distinctions neatly describe why we keep some and not others.
I suppose that messianic Jews are not required to “keep” the Law for the same reasons that Gentiles are not required, but I wonder if it’s not a bad thing if messianic Jews observe the Law (if only partially) anyway. Of course, we’re united in Christ, but the wikipedia article on antinomianism has me wondering about distinctions.
“The Catholic Encyclopedia: Judaizers notes: "Paul, on the other hand, not only did not object to the observance of the Mosaic Law, as long as it did not interfere with the liberty of the Gentiles, but he conformed to its prescriptions when occasion required (1 Corinthians 9:20). Thus he shortly after [the Council of Jerusalem] circumcised Timothy (Acts 16:1-3), and he was in the very act of observing the Mosaic ritual when he was arrested at Jerusalem (21:26 sqq.).”
Why the distinction: “as long as it did not interfere with the liberty of the Gentiles…”?
Not that Paul is our example as is Christ, but I find this passage interesting when contemplating distinctions among peoples – such as Jews and Gentiles.
I guess what I’m trying (albeit poorly and with half a brain) to say is that I’m not yet sure that the Law is so tidily wrapped up with Gentile dismissal saying “Christ set us free from all that.” I really wonder if there’s more of a place for it in our lives and is due greater consideration - well, greater than I’ve given it.
I think I’m just very frustrated by hearing “freedom in Christ” bandied about for fleshly justification of desires, and I’m bucking all of that to think with greater intention exactly what said “freedom” means in light of the Law – or what the “Law” means in light of freedom. Christ said He didn’t come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it, so I wonder about the place of the Law in all of our lives.