I was having a conversation with a friend last week we talked about how strange — and yet really not so strange — it is that the more mature you become as a Christian the less worthy you feel to be a child of God.
It seems strange because the closer you come to Christ the more his character rubs off on you.
But it’s not so strange because the closer we get to the real beauty of Christ the more obvious and ugly our remaining sin appears.
My friend had a great illustration.
When you are sweeping a hall you may feel pretty good that the dirt is being cleared away;
and then suddenly you move into a beam of light coming through a window and you see the true situation.
The air is filled with dust.
So we who are Christ’s are destined for now to live with a mingling of joy and remorse.
If we walk in the light as he is in the light we really are being changed from one degree of glory to another into his likeness (2 Cor. 3:18).
But it is precisely in the light that we see with greatest clarity the remaining evil of our own hearts.
We rejoice to know Christ and to experience his dazzling fellowship and mercy.
But we also grieve over our recurrent failures to walk exactly in his footsteps.
Jonathan Edwards has a great sensitivity to the real experience of true Christians when he said,
“The desires of the saints, however earnest, are humble desires; their hope is a humble hope; and their joy, even when it is unspeakable and full of glory, is a humble, broken-hearted joy, leaving the Christian more poor in spirit, more like a little child, and more disposed to a universal lowliness of behavior” .
So I have asked myself, what should we look for in the people as evidence that the Word is bearing fruit?
Something my friend said and something that Jonathan Edwards wrote warn me and should warn us against looking for perfection.
They warn us against looking for people who are proud of their growth;
speak highly of their spiritual attainments;
whose joy in the grace of God is not deepened by recurrent remorse because of failures to walk by the Spirit.
What should we look for to see if the message of Christ has begun to take root in our hearts?
What I would like to do to answer that question is to notice with you how there is a contrast between two mindsets.
The one is what Paul tried to drive out of the Galatian churches.
The other is the one he seeks to live by and teach.
He calls this second mindset a canon or a rule and says that those who are in sync with this rule receive God’s mercy and enjoy God’s peace.
Suppose I had the power to hold out to you two hands for your choosing.
In the one hand is the mercy of God to forgive all your sins and the peace of God for your eternal enjoyment.
And in the other hand was every desirable thing the world could offer you (money, leisure, health, popularity, big business savvy, a spouse — you name it) — but no mercy from God and no final peace with him.
Which would you want?
“What does it profit you if you gain the whole world and lose your soul?”
Only in the grip of a great Satanic delusion do people choose the world over the mercy and peace of God.