What does this mean? It may be helpful to think, first, about what it doesn't mean.
We
must never think of the Holy Spirit as a reward that is given to us
because we have faith - the more faith we have, the more the Holy Spirit
is given to us. Where does this kind of thinking come from? It comes
from human pride. We make too much of our faith - and we get things the
wrong way round.
When faith is real, it changes us. This is
something that we must always emphasize - but we must make sure that we
never give the impression that the Holy Spirit is a reward - God's way
of recognizing how well we are doing in the life of faith. When we think
that we are being rewarded, the focus is on ourselves - 'Look at what
I've achieved. Look at the progress I've made.'
We are called to
make progress in the life of faith - but we must never forget where this
progress comes from. It comes from the Lord. Every thought of holiness
comes from the Lord. He puts it into our hearts. We do not begin with
our faith - 'I'm going to live a godly life', and, then, somewhere along
the line, we start thinking about the Holy Spirit as God's reward,
earned by us because of our growing desire to become more like Jesus.
The Holy Spirit isn't God's way of rewarding us - 'You've made some
progress. I'll reward you with the Holy Spirit.'
How did we come
to faith? The Holy Spirit, brought us to faith. He was working in our
hearts. He was leading us to see that there was nothing good in
ourselves. He was leading us to stop trying to save ourselves. He was
leading us to look away from ourselves to Jesus. He was leading us to
stop trying and start trusting - looking to Jesus to do for us what we
could never do for ourselves.
How are we led in the paths of
righteousness? It's the Holy Spirit who leads us closer to our Saviour,
Jesus. He shows us that the self-centred way of life will never satisfy
the deepest longing of our hearts. He keeps on saying to us, 'There's
something more. There's a different way of living. There's a better way
of living.'
Where does this new life come from? Do we make up our
minds that we're going to live a better life - and hope that God will
reward us with His Holy Spirit? What is this? - It's the religion of the
Pharisees.
What does it have to do with God's salvation? Nothing!
It's all about our human achievement. We'll never start looking to the
Lord for salvation until we stop trying to save ourselves. A reward is
earned by us. Salvation is given to us. A reward sends us back to our
own human resources. It says to us , 'What are you going to do to show
that you are worthy of this reward?' Salvation points us to Christ. It
tells us what He has done for us. It calls us to look to Him - to trust
Him as our Saviour, to confess Him as our Saviour. It calls us to live
for Him - without ever forgetting that He died for us.
The
religion of the Pharisees is all about keeping the law, and hoping that
you'll be rewarded. What happens when we're honest with ourselves, and
say, 'I can never keep the law the way I should'? That's when we start
to realize that we need more than the law. We need the Gospel.
We
don't begin with the law - what we can do for God. We begin with the
Gospel - what He has done for us. Go back to Exodus 20. There, we have
the Ten Commandments. Before that, there is God's declaration, 'This is
what I have done for you' (Exodus 20:1-2).
We must never begin
with something that we do. We must always begin with what God has done.
Even, beginning with faith is missing the point of the Gospel of grace.
Our faith can never be any more than a response to God's grace. His
grace comes before our faith. In grace, He reaches out to us. His grace
brings us to Christ. His grace leads us to put our faith in Christ.
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