There Is A Standard

This message isn’t flashy, but it’s urgent: there is a standard God has set for His people. Join Matt as we confront cultural Christianity, rediscover the weight of grace, and learn how Christ’s love transforms us into obedient followers.

~Transcript Below~

I don’t expect that this video will be very popular. It isn’t one that will receive a lot of likes or that will share well. But it needs to be said, and it begins with a single, simple phrase:

There IS a standard.

For far too long, the church, those who have been called out, have pandered to a lifestyle of cultural Christianity, consumerism, and grace abuse. In short, we have stopped labeling sin AS sin, and rather than asking “what must I do to be saved?” our question has shifted to “what can I do and still be saved?” We have taken the gift of grace and cheapened it to the point where all manner of behavior is endured, and even sanctioned, by the people of God. We read words like “all things are permissible, but not all things are profitable,” from Paul in Corinthians and use them as an excuse to abide, or even celebrate, a lifestyle of sin, not fully understanding either the context – or the WEIGHT – of what is being said.

But there is a standard.

It is found on each and every page of the 66 books of the word of God, and exemplified in the perfect sinless life of Christ. The news here is both good and bad.

Let’s get the bad news out of the way first: we cannot reach that standard on our own. When we view the life that God has called us to as a list of responsibilities, as a duty, as an obligation, we inevitably attempt to rely on our own flesh to live that life. This will not work. Any attempt to live out the standard of God outside of a relationship with God through his son Jesus Christ only creates an atmosphere of shame, frustration, and condemnation. It creates believers who are constantly stepping up and falling away, repeating an endless cycle of bad behaviors.

The good news is this: the answer to how to live according to God’s standard is found, nestled in the 14th chapter of the gospel of John. Jesus, looking at his disciples, declares plainly, “if you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

We have a tendency to read this line backwards; we hear, “by keeping your commandments, I prove that I love you.“ But the Word also says that, “in our flesh dwells no good thing.” That being the case, we have no strength in us to be able to keep the commandments of God and thus prove that we love Christ.

When we rightly divide the Word, we understand that it is not our behavior that proves our love for Christ, but it is our love for Christ and his gift of the spirit of God that allows us to walk according to that Word.
This is the standard.

As we fall more and more deeply in love with Christ, that love draws us toward right behavior. That love will cause us to fall more and more in love with His word; it will cause us to want to study, to want to learn, and inevitably to live out what we have learned. Our love for Christ will cause us to love people, to see them differently, to view each and every person we encounter as a child of God worthy of love and capable of receiving salvation through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. Simply put, through Christ’s love for us, we are able to love Him more completely. That circle of love changes us. That love crucifies the flesh. That love keeps us in step. That love eliminates sin and pushes us to share the gospel with others.

If the Spirit of God, the greatest agent of change the world has ever known, is not changing us, then we cannot rightfully claim that we possess that Spirit.

1 John 3:8-9 says it this way: “Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God.”

Is that hard? Absolutely! But part of the work of love of Christ and the Spirit of God in the life of the believer is to root out and destroy the works of continued, unrepentant sin. The image then, is not some idyllic beach scene of footprints in the sand, but of ruts in the dirt where we have shouldered our crosses and, one trudging step at a time, followed a true and risen Messiah.

And how can we not? How can we look to Calvary, to the spotless lamb, to the King who stepped down out of Heaven to lay down His own life for our redemption, and reject the life that He has called us to? Salvation is through faith alone, by grace alone, in Christ alone, but that redemptive work will, without question, produce obedience in the life of the believer. We come as we are, but God loves us too much to leave us there.

There is a standard.

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