The Gospel Saves from Morality - Piper

I loved this! This was completely divine that I just received this. The timing was impeccable. It made me cry (the gospel always does) and I had a paradigm shift as I listened to it.

Living from the Spirit, through sanctification after salvation vs. living by the law.... is like the difference between living by the external boundaries our parents exert on us (as is required by parents)... vs. becoming mature and having internal boundaries, a changed heart, a changed motives (growing up).

When we are mature, we no longer live by external requirements because those external boundaries (law, morality) have became internalizedsomehow (the Spirit). We are no longer bound by external boundaries. It's the same with our walk as Spirit beings as much as it is our walk to be thriving adults in our society. I got all the boundary think from this the book I'm reading, Boundaries....

Let me re-word it a bit....

As parents (and as young christians) it's so important to have external boundaries (rules/law if you will) but our prayer is for those external boundaries to not be needed. We pray the person will be changed and the boundaries are no longer necessary. What was external can become internal and then there is freedom. As our children grow from rule-needing youngsters into mature free adults... so we should grow through santificiation to a point where the outward pressures - from the Word, from people, from the church, from ourselves - are not even a factor.

Our motives are no longer to stay in the lines or to please --- our motive is simply to be alive. A life fully alive and lived out of the Spirit. Our Spirit fully alive with His Spirit in us.

This also really spoke to me the truth that when we see others around us struggling with the flesh, unless it is our children, it is not the time to pass on the law --- it is the time to even more than usual promote the gospel and pray for God to spur the person back into His arms and be cleaned out from the inside.

Sanctification cleans from the inside out.... *HIS* work in us.

The law spurs *us* to clean ourselves on the outside.

What a difference!!!

Like a whitewashed tomb, what is inside, who we truly are, can be dead and rotting as we clean up and make ourselves presentable again to the world to meet outside requirements --- but while we do that, we aren't even giving Him room to work. Do we even care what He thinks? He knows what is inside and He is concerned about the presentation to Him not the presentation to the world.

This surely puts a whole new way in my mind on how to to approach sin in myself and others. The problem is never a law problem - it's an inside issue that HE needs to take care of on the INside. The solution is not to get out the scrub brush ourselves. The solution is the gospel. Proclaiming the gospel to those we see struggling ("encourage"), reminding ourselves of it and running back to HIM so HIS work can be done.

P.S. some after thoughts: there are so many implications being gospel-focused brings. I realize that I really appreciate people who don't get out the scrub brush. As uncomfortable as it makes me sometimes -- why bother with the brush anyway? Let others see you as God does, good or bad. That's what true community is about isn't it? And I really appreciate people who allow the change to happen from the INside - out. It's always slower that way, more painful, yet it's TRUE change. Long term change. And finally... am I willing... truly... to stay and be around people who are not scrubbed up? For how long?