117. Living Within God’s Limits

Thank you for listening to the Apostolic Ministry podcast. Today I want to talk to you about God's limits. God created each of us as individuals with limits. There is a limit to our energy, our intelligence, our talents and skills. There is a limit to our finances and there is a limited allowance to be made for the appetites of our flesh and the curiosity of our minds. Simply put, when limits are exceeded, the trouble begins. Living under the cloud of God's blessing happens only when we live within the established limits of God's Word. The first conversation between Eve and the serpent was one of limits. Even Eden in its perfection was a created world of limits. God had restricted the tree of knowledge, the knowledge of good and evil for himself. The serpent encouraged Eve to go beyond those limits. She herself was deceived, but Adam who had personally spoken with had a conversation with God about the limitations of his world, willingly crossed those limits. And the willing crossing of God's limits is sin. Iniquity is simply defined as casting off restraint or removing the limits. The spirit of iniquity has been heightened in our world for the last several years. Humanity is seeking to cross the limits of life, gender, so many other areas of morality. Our family used to live in San Francisco, a city where there are very few limits enforced. It is a place that is given over to iniquity, drugs in the streets, cars broken into and broad daylight, gender boundaries completely ignored, and even theft and not prosecuted. They enacted a law that no theft under a thousand dollars would be prosecuted. And as a result such theft was rampant. Businesses and restaurants began to close their doors. I believe it may have been the only in and out restaurant to ever close its doors. I've been there. It's in Oakland. It closed because the crime was just too wild. The environment surrounding the restaurant was limitless. Truly an urban wilderness without limits where police presence is absent and lawlessness is everywhere. This is also the tension that we find in the church. The apostle desired that we all speak the same thing that only comes when we have limits. Yet to do this we must not allow the spirit of the Nicolayotans to set into our midst. The Nicolayotans, as highlighted in the book of Revelation chapter 2, had a desire to be known outwardly as Christians. Yet they wanted to indulge in their appetites without boundary and in the sins of their world their deeds became a doctrine which the Lord said he hated. When I read that the Lord hates the doctrine of the Nicolayotans, I'm reminded of the passage in which he said of Jacob and Esau. Jacob, I have I loved and Esau have I hated. What a powerful statement. And it begs the question, why would the Lord who created Esau in his image say this of him? Perhaps it is because Esau wanted to worship without limits. He wanted to live within the lineage into which he was born yet without limits. He was willing to sell his birthright for his appetites and the limits that were breached ultimately caused him to completely lose out on the birthright and the blessing. Like the Nicolayotans Esau wanted to have his cake and eat it too. And he wanted to do things by his timing, his way, by his preferred mechanism. But God refused to allow Esau to set the limits and to remain blessed. If we are going to be blessed, then we must examine every area of our lives for lack of limits. There is a process by which God saves a man and it can be summed up in three terms. Justification, sanctification, glorification. These are not just theology terms. It is not just the language of educated theology, but this is the language of the Bible. These are words that we ought to know. Justification is when man who has lived in sin without limits comes into alignment with God through Acts 2.38 as he repents of his sin. Is baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and God fills him with the gift of the Holy Ghost. Justification is when the blood of Jesus Christ brings a man back into the boundaries of relationship and blessing. And the limits of God begin to be reestablished in his life. And then there is glorification. Glorification is the finality of this process. It is the finality of man's salvation which happens when a saint goes to be with the Lord. It is what the writer of Hebrews is referencing when he says, "The spirits of just men made perfect." Glorification is when we become like him finally in every way, every limit of life coming into proper alignment with his will. This will be the state of man in eternity. The millennial reign of Jesus Christ will see the church reestablishing in our glorified bodies the destroyed limits throughout a regenerating world. However, between justification which is the initial positioning of a person's life and right standing with God and glorification which is the final state of relationship that we will eternally inherit beyond this life, there is sanctification. sanctification can be a bit of a grind. Sanctification is the process of Christian maturity. It is the life that we are living right now. This is where the disagreements and disunity reside within the church today. We must understand that God is coming back for a holy church filled with people who are in the process of becoming more like him or being sanctified. Sanctification is the process of holiness and maturity in which there is an ongoing establishment of limits lost by sin and iniquity in our lives and in the church corporately. sanctification is not only an individual thing, it is both corporate in the body of Christ and it is individual in each believer. It is corporate in that the general truths of Scripture must be contended for by the body. They must be taught and preached and lived out. We are living epistles seen and read by others as the word becomes flesh in us. And sanctification is also individual in that it is the role and responsibility of every believer for the process of becoming more like him to be ongoing and progressive in our lives. The challenge arises when the forward progress of sanctification in a church, in a ministry, in a life, in a marriage stops. Sanctification must continue both within and without the believer, internal and external holiness. When a church, a pastor or an individual finds a comfortable settling place and says we have our set of ways and rules and regulations. And if we abide by these things, we'll coast into heaven. This is when stagnation sets in and progress in drawing near to God stalls. There is a misconception that this may be balanced and that balance. balance can somehow be found. But I would submit that balance is not a static place. When I was a kid there were tightrope walkers who would come to the town in which I was raised, the flying Wollendas. And I watched as one of those Wollenda family members would walk across that tightrope, and they had a pole in their hand. That pole was for the purpose of balance. But the thing about balance is that that pole was never still. When they leaned a little to the left, they shifted the pole a little bit to the right. This is what balance is. It is a constant seeking for right standing and right positioning with God. It is not getting to a place where we plateau and we think that we pretty much have things figured out and established. In fact, I would submit that when progress and forward movement and sanctification stops decline begins, it becomes the slow drifting, reminiscent to an iceberg drifting away from a glacier. It is not seen overnight, but over time it results in a great disconnect with what is true balance. Simply put, between justification or initial salvation and glorification when we go to be with the Lord, sanctification is a forward moving process of becoming more like Him. And I would also add that we must make room in a others to give them room to grow wherever they are in this process of sanctification. We must have grace and show love for them, who maybe they are not at the same place that we are. But the question is not, do they have everything perfect or do they do everything just right? The question is what direction are they moving? Are they moving backwards away from becoming more like Him? Are they static and really kind of beginning to drift into a certain comfort zone, a trap of complacency? Or are they moving towards God and seeking to become more like Him? I would also submit that there are some who have developed outward holiness, very much as the Bible teaches is. Their outward sanctification is very much developed, yet they may be moving away from God inwardly. This is not pleasing to God. The outward must match the inward. The scripture lets us know that when the outward does not match the inward, it is in a word, hypochrosy. Hypochrosy comes from a Greek word that signifies the changing of a mask. We ought not be the kind of people that are just putting on an image, but on the inside we are drifting away from God. Others who are progressing inwardly see their growth in God's stymied or stopped when they refuse to change their lives outwardly to reflect inward holiness. God begins his process on the inside, Paul writes to the church at Thessalonica, and he says, "Let the very God of peace sanctify you, holy spirit, soul and body." This is not just words that Paul was speaking, but I believe that he was stating the process of God chronologically here. He was saying that when a believer comes to God, God first begins on their spirit, renewing their spirit, but he does not stop there. He then begins to renew their mind. Their soul is the mind, the will and the emotions, and then finally what began in the spirit and what began to change things in their mind, their mind being renewed now begins to inform their actions. They change the way they dress and where they go and how they act in their body. The process of God is spirit, soul, body. And so there are those who allow the work of God to begin in their spirit, and to an extent they will allow it in their mind, but somewhere along the way they refuse to change the way that they act and dress and live. And in the same way as that one that is holy on the outside, but is drifting on the inside, they too begin to drift, and they fall into aiquity exiting the sanctification process of God. Brothers and sisters, we must humbly allow God to reestablish the limits in our lives that have been lost by sin. When we do, we begin the process of becoming a partaker of his divine nature, becoming more like him. And when we are striving to become more like him, we don't really have time to criticize and judge those who are not. And so I would encourage you today, let God shine the search light of his spirit into your life in every area. See if there be any area of iniquity, any area of life, whether it be in your mind, your spirit, your body, your actions, your marriage, your ears, your eyes, your tongue, any area that is not bounded by his word and his character. I say, let's move toward him, not away from him. I desire more than anything, and I believe you do too, to live life within God's limits, because that's where he blesses. If you have any questions or comments, you're welcome to email me at Jonathan Sanders at live.com, J-O-N-A-T-H-A-N-S-A-N-D-E-R-S. Or you can subscribe or leave a comment in the comment section. Thank you for listening to the Apostolic Ministry podcast.