Sanctification is Hard

One thing you can dismiss out of hand is the all-too-common promises of quick growth, easy growth or silver-bullet growth (doing one special thing guaranteed to work). That is simply not how spiritual growth happens. That is not to say that the Spirit of God does not at times do a dramatic work in a person’s life. That does happen sometimes as a sovereign work of God. That is God’s prerogative to accomplish, not our decision to manufacture.

The reality is that spiritual growth is one hard step at a time. One of the verses that states this so clearly is found in Galatians 5:16-17. Verse 16 gives us the two-sided nature of sanctification. When you walk by the Spirit, you won’t act on the desire of the flesh. Those are the two options: Spirit desires and actions or fleshly desires and actions.

Verse 17 shows the necessary hardness. The flesh wants one thing, and the Spirit wants the contradictory thing. The critical sentence is this, “so that you may not do the things that you please.” The perplexing issue we have as Christians is that we are a walking war. We are sinful flesh indwelt by the Spirit that is holy, holy, holy. What kind of harmony does sinfulness and holiness have? None. Therefore, we can’t know full pleasure in the here and now. We can’t do what we please.

On the one hand, when we walk by the flesh, carrying out the deeds of the flesh, there is a kind of pleasure that is found in it. It may be physical pleasure, emotional pleasure or the social pleasure of approval and affirmation. But with that pleasure comes guilt and conviction. We have done wrong, and the Spirit of God puts us under the weight of conviction, grinding at us in our conscience. On the other hand, when we walk by the Spirit, carrying out the deeds of the Spirit, we are walking in the light and in fellowship with God. We feel the glorious freedom of truth and righteousness. But the itch of the flesh is still there, calling us to the pleasures we are refusing ourselves. And it is worse than that, because the flesh lies to us with promises of greater pleasures than it can ever accomplish. During this season of being locked into fallen flesh, the flesh and the Spirit are both offering us pleasure; and the flesh and the Spirit are both warning of pain. As Thomas Chalmers says, there is an expulsive power of a new affection. However, the old affections are still there like familiar friends. They are removed by better and higher affections, but the old ones hang one. Either way you go, pain and pleasure await knowing we cannot do what we please.

Now is that it? Is misery our only lot in this life? I don’t believe so because the two sides of this war are not symmetrical. The Spirit is the freedom of truth and life, and the flesh cannot compete with truth and life. But what is true freedom? It is not just doing what you want. As we saw above, both pain and pleasure will come with whatever you want. True freedom is wanting what you ought. This is what signals spiritual growth. It is wanting holiness, the fellowship of Christ and the will of God. As we grow in the truth, we will want this more and more. The lies of the flesh are exposed with greater clarity. The pleasure of fleshly pursuits are diminished more and more considering the pain they cause and the perversions they are seen to be. When you truly want what you ought, you can do what you please, because what you please to do is what you ought!

Unfortunately, nobody is so spiritually mature that the flesh doesn’t tempt them in some ways with varying degrees of strength. This battle will be fought till our dying breath. We can’t do as we please in totality. We are just too sinful. But, by the grace of God, there can be areas that are conquered and done with. A person can mortify some area of the flesh. What does that look like? For any particular sin a believer will have chosen the way of the Spirit (Josh 24:15), will have sought and embraced God’s word about the matter (Ps. 119:11), will have denied the flesh despite the cravings (Titus 2:12; 1 Cor. 10:6), will have amputated certain areas of temptation (Matt. 5:29), will have made no provision for the flesh to sneak in a temptation (Rom. 13:14), will have put in place accountability just to make sure of it (Prov. 15:22), and will have prayed fervently for God to deliver them (Matt. 6:13). That sin is now dead in their life. In that area they can now do what they please. They enjoy the freedom of walking in the pleasure of God, both wanting what they ought and doing what they want.

As I said above, the flesh cannot compete with this. Unbelievers and unfaithful Christians can never know this kind of joy and freedom when they are running in sin full tilt. Why? Because they are made in the image of God and the law will haunt them. This is all the more so with unfaithful Christians because the Spirit of God will be disciplining them. Even when they try to embrace all the pleasure of sin and walk as they please (sinfully) those pleasures will dry up (Heb. 11:25) and their conscious will not let them go indefinitely.

Therefore, true Christians will be repentant Christians who are fighting sin. And even if there are areas where they have conquered sin, there are other areas that are still in process. The battle still rages. They cannot do what they please totally because the flesh is still strong in places. They want to follow holiness but they also want the pleasure of some sin. And so they fight. They preach the gospel to themselves that the righteousness of Christ is theirs by faith and they have no condemnation. In light of that gospel truth they have to consider themselves dead to sin and alive to righteousness (Rom. 6:11) because they feel like sin is alive and well and overwhelmingly powerful most of the time. They can’t do what they please, but nevertheless they choose the narrow path as they fight to want what they ought, though they still may not most of the time.

And this is why we need the encouragement of the body of Christ. We are each in a battle all the time and we need truth for each spiritual skirmish, wisdom for good strategy, prayer for empowerment, help to expose blind spots, and burden-bearers when we grow weary in the narrow way. We can’t do what we please, and so we call in reinforcements every week to remind us that there are pleasures forevermore for those who trust God. One day we will do as we please in every way, but not yet. So, press on in the battle for the victory is ours if we endure.