Andy wraps up the character section by discussing Christian virtues modeled in Scripture, traits to imitate. He also looks at vices, traits to avoid.
Welcome to the Two Journeys podcast. This is Sanctification Monday, and my name is Andy Davis. In this podcast, we seek to answer the question, what is spiritual maturity? And we believe that spiritual maturity can be broken into four main sections: knowledge, faith, character, and action. So today it’s exciting. We’re going to finish the character section. We’ve looked at various aspects of character. We’ve looked at the affection side, what you love and what you hate. We’ve looked at the desire side, which is what you desire, what you seek in your life. We’ve talked about the will, what you choose, and what you reject. We’ve looked at the thought life, those things that you ponder and cherish in your mind. And then last time we looked at emotions.
Now today we’re going to seek to put the whole character or heart package together into circumstantially appropriate virtues. We’re going to talk about the virtues, what you are moment by moment. Life is complex, and there are going to be different circumstances that you’re going to face in life. And the Bible calls on us to behave differently in those circumstances. We’re not talking about circumstantial ethics, where our ethics change from time to time or from circumstance to circumstance. But we’re talking about how we react, what kind of people we are given this set of circumstances. Now, as we look at virtues, we’re talking about descriptors that describe what we are. These character traits are, there’s lots of listings of them in the Bible. Probably the most famous is the fruit of the Spirit list in Galatians 5:22-23, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” This is what the Holy Spirit produces in us as we abide in Christ.
But we find as we read the rest of the New Testament, this list is not exhaustive. There are other virtues that are not listed in the fruit of the Spirit that are also beneficial. If you look for example, at the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes in Matthew 5 would extend the list of virtues to include being poor in spirit, mourning over sin, being meek, being merciful, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, being pure in heart. Other passages in the epistles add many other virtues as well such as compassion, forgiveness, Ephesians 4:32. Sympathy and humility in 1st Peter 3:8. Submissiveness in Ephesians 5:21, 1st Peter 5:5. Being peace-loving, considerate, impartial, and sincere, that’s James 3:17.
Bible stories don’t give a moral at the end like one of Aesop’s Fables, but as we read Bible stories, a sense of godly virtue and character emerges.
Well, it isn’t long before you get the sense that an exhaustive list of all appropriate virtues in the Christian life character traits would be very difficult to assemble. If you look also at the historical accounts in which character is displayed in this or that scenario without that character trait being named. But then we learn what’s put on display there, other traits could be added such as courage, boldness, confidence, et cetera. Bible stories don’t give a moral at the end like one of Aesop’s Fables, but as we read Bible stories, a sense of godly virtue and character emerges.
This is a major part, I think, of the purpose of the Old Testament narratives as we see how Boaz, for example, dealt very gently with Ruth, the Moabitess. And how Esther responded courageously in approaching King Xerxes though she had not been invited into the throne room. How Moses boldly dealt with Pharaoh’s hardened responses in the account there and many, many other stories. Now, these stories are recorded in part so that we could be encouraged by people who lived virtuous lives in the face of adversity, but they’re also in different settings. Each one of them is in a different setting.
We also should be warned by those who lived wicked lives so that we don’t follow their same path to destruction. So do not allow yourself to go the way of faithless King Saul who did not consult God. Do not open the door to adultery as David did. Do not lie about money or anything as did Ananias and Sapphira. So, 1 Corinthians 10:11 says that, “These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.” So, we’re to be warned not to be a certain way that we read in some of these narratives. On a more positive note, in Romans 15:4 it says, “Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us so that through endurance and the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope.”
So, the narratives give us a fuller picture of a godly character. Now, these Christian virtues which flow from the various passages of scripture are like the beautiful colors of the spectrum. And we are the prism in which the character of Christ gets diffracted out given the setting. These virtues are on display as God providentially orchestrates different settings in which we can display the character of Christ. Now, the one indwelling Spirit works all of them in us, and he gets the glory and the credit. All of these things, the fruit of the Spirit and the other things, those are the positive traits that we want to see.
But we could just as easily assemble a negative list of traits, things that we are not to be. As a matter of fact, a lot of the ethical portions of the New Testament mingle together, be this way and don’t be that way, actually almost side by side. For example, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves” (Philippians 2:3). So, there you have both don’t be this way, but do be this way. Or very plainly in 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter, verses 4-8, listen to how Paul goes back and forth from positive to negative and back again, et cetera.
“Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. It does not delight in evil, but it does rejoice with the truth. It always protects, it always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” So biblical morality or biblical virtues, a virtuous state, is a combination of what we must be and what we must not be. And each of these are going to be situational. They’re going to be tied to the specific circumstances.
Love best captures all the positive and negative traits that God is calling us to display.
Beyond all of this is just the sense of the perfection of love that sums all of these virtues up. Love, 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter, says that in effect, love is the most excellent aspect of all of the Christian life. “Over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity,” says Colossians 3:14. Love best captures all the positive and negative traits that God is calling us to display. Therefore, it’s not surprising that Jesus said that love sums up the entire law of God. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. And the apostle Paul says, “Love is the fulfillment of the law.” And yet for all of that, the scripture gives us more detail than that. And we’ve got the 66 books of the Bible to learn both positive character traits, virtues and negative character traits, what we should not have. Things that scripture encourages and exhorts us toward. And then things that scripture warns us or dissuades us away from. A positive list and a negative list.
Well, in order to kind of compile such a list, I went through my biblical dictionary. I’ve got actually a multi-volume dictionary tied to the original languages. And I went into the index, and I looked at all the words there, and I just circled in my mind and wrote down on a piece of paper all of the character traits or virtues that positively, I felt, that the Bible in some place would call Christians to display. Let me just read the list.
We are at different times called to be alert, bold, cheerful, committed, compassionate, content, courageous, determined, devoted, diligent, discerning, disciplined, faithful, forgiving, friendly, generous, gentle, genuine, giving, glad, godly, good, gracious, holy, honorable, hopeful, hospitable, humble, joyful, just, kind, long-suffering, loving, meek, merciful, modest, mournful, obedient, orderly, patient, peaceful, poor in spirit, praising, prayerful, prudent, pure, purposeful, quiet, reasonable, relentless, repentant, respectful, restful, reverent, sacrificial, satisfied, that is in God, serious, sincere, single-minded, sober-minded, steadfast, strong, submissive, sympathetic, temperate, thankful, trusting, truthful, understanding, vigilant, watchful, willing, wise, worshipful, worthy, yielded, zealous.
And I think as I went through that list, I thought there’s probably some missing. And as I looked at that I said, “Wow.” Not only do we have to be all of those things, we can’t be them all at once. They are actually to some degree kind of contradictory. And you have to sense in the Spirit what the situation calls for. Let’s go back to a verse we’ve talked about before, to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. Imagine going to a friend who has just found out that her husband has died in a car accident. And you’re going to go and sit with that person and you’re going to try to minister to them as best you can. You know that that is a time to be compassionate and gentle and quiet, not alert, bold and courageous.
At another time you may be called on to do some witnessing to a co-worker or even more, imagine witnessing, sharing the gospel with your unsaved boss who’s a very vulgar man. And God gives you an opportunity to share the gospel. You don’t want to be quiet at that moment. You’re not thinking primarily about being submissive, although you want to obey his authority, but you want to be bold at that moment, courageous, out of love, et cetera. So different circumstances call for different positive virtues.
Then I went through the same books and sought the opposite list things that we are called on to reject, that Christians are not to be, sinfully angry, anxious, complaining, covetous, deceitful, deceived, disobedient, disorderly, disputing, double-minded, doubting, dull, embittered, envying, foolish, greedy, hypocritical, ignorant, immoral, impenitent, impure, insolent, insubordinate, jealous, lawless, lazy, lukewarm, lustful, mocking, murmuring, pleasure-loving, prideful, quarrelsome, quick-tempered, rebellious, restless, scornful, selfish, self-willed, sensual, shameful, slothful, sorrowful, spiteful, stiff-necked, stupid, timid, unbelieving, uncharitable, unclean, unrepentant, unruly, unstable, unthankful, unwilling, vain, vengeful, violent, weary, willful.
Again, this list isn’t exhaustive. It’s just a long list of negative character traits we should avoid. Now, as I’ve been thinking about this book, which is called An Infinite Journey, and we’re talking about the journey to complete conformity to Christ and how Christ in every situation displayed the perfect virtues. Every person he dealt with, he dealt with just the right way. Whether it would be the woman that was caught in adultery that you read about in John’s Gospel, or the one that came who is known in the city as a sinful woman who was weeping and washing Jesus’ feet with her tears and drying them with her hair. He dealt with her in one way, but he dealt with the scribes and Pharisees a very different way. Just different situations called for different things.
And then I just think about just how comprehensive I was seeking to be in my book An Infinite Journey and on Sanctification Monday we’re looking at all of these different aspects, knowledge, faith, character, action. It is very easy to get under the pile. We look at that long list of positive virtues we are to emulate at the appropriate time, and negative character traits that we don’t ever want to see in us and yet we frequently do see them in us. It’s very easy to get under the pile, to get discouraged. What we need to keep in mind is that God is the one who’s at work in us. He is the one that through the Holy Spirit is transforming us little by little, so that in any and every situation, we will display Christ-like character.
Part of the journey of sanctification I think, I don’t mean this in any negative way, but I do believe that part of the journey of sanctification is just to humble us. That when we get to the end of our lives, if we have been really faithful walking with the Lord, we will have made significant progress toward conformity to Christ. But we’ll also be much more humble than when we began. And we’re going to realize how far we still have to go. And that indwelling sin is a deep, stubborn, difficult, complex problem. And that as soon as certain areas are dealt with in our lives, they’re not permanently dealt with, they can come back. But then new things get exposed by the Holy Spirit. And so, I do believe genuine progress and holiness can be made and we should seek it. But we should also realize that perfection in this world will elude us. We’re not going to be perfectly conformed to Christ in this world.
However, we are positionally perfect from the moment we trust in Jesus. We are seen by God in Christ to be righteous. And this is amazing, in an instant at glorification, we will be totally conformed to Christ. We’ll be instantly made just like him, for we shall see him as he is, as 1 John 3 tells us. So be hopeful. Don’t be discouraged. Go after the positive traits the Lord wants to develop in you. Put to death those negative traits that the Lord does not want to see in your life. And as we conclude today, I want you to go into your week knowing that God has gone ahead of you and will be using everything that you experience this week to sanctify you and to bring you more and more into conformity to Christ.
Welcome to the Two Journeys podcast. This is Sanctification Monday, and my name is Andy Davis. In this podcast, we seek to answer the question, what is spiritual maturity? And we believe that spiritual maturity can be broken into four main sections: knowledge, faith, character, and action. So today it’s exciting. We’re going to finish the character section. We’ve looked at various aspects of character. We’ve looked at the affection side, what you love and what you hate. We’ve looked at the desire side, which is what you desire, what you seek in your life. We’ve talked about the will, what you choose, and what you reject. We’ve looked at the thought life, those things that you ponder and cherish in your mind. And then last time we looked at emotions.
Now today we’re going to seek to put the whole character or heart package together into circumstantially appropriate virtues. We’re going to talk about the virtues, what you are moment by moment. Life is complex, and there are going to be different circumstances that you’re going to face in life. And the Bible calls on us to behave differently in those circumstances. We’re not talking about circumstantial ethics, where our ethics change from time to time or from circumstance to circumstance. But we’re talking about how we react, what kind of people we are given this set of circumstances. Now, as we look at virtues, we’re talking about descriptors that describe what we are. These character traits are, there’s lots of listings of them in the Bible. Probably the most famous is the fruit of the Spirit list in Galatians 5:22-23, “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” This is what the Holy Spirit produces in us as we abide in Christ.
But we find as we read the rest of the New Testament, this list is not exhaustive. There are other virtues that are not listed in the fruit of the Spirit that are also beneficial. If you look for example, at the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes in Matthew 5 would extend the list of virtues to include being poor in spirit, mourning over sin, being meek, being merciful, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, being pure in heart. Other passages in the epistles add many other virtues as well such as compassion, forgiveness, Ephesians 4:32. Sympathy and humility in 1st Peter 3:8. Submissiveness in Ephesians 5:21, 1st Peter 5:5. Being peace-loving, considerate, impartial, and sincere, that’s James 3:17.
Bible stories don’t give a moral at the end like one of Aesop’s Fables, but as we read Bible stories, a sense of godly virtue and character emerges.
Well, it isn’t long before you get the sense that an exhaustive list of all appropriate virtues in the Christian life character traits would be very difficult to assemble. If you look also at the historical accounts in which character is displayed in this or that scenario without that character trait being named. But then we learn what’s put on display there, other traits could be added such as courage, boldness, confidence, et cetera. Bible stories don’t give a moral at the end like one of Aesop’s Fables, but as we read Bible stories, a sense of godly virtue and character emerges.
This is a major part, I think, of the purpose of the Old Testament narratives as we see how Boaz, for example, dealt very gently with Ruth, the Moabitess. And how Esther responded courageously in approaching King Xerxes though she had not been invited into the throne room. How Moses boldly dealt with Pharaoh’s hardened responses in the account there and many, many other stories. Now, these stories are recorded in part so that we could be encouraged by people who lived virtuous lives in the face of adversity, but they’re also in different settings. Each one of them is in a different setting.
We also should be warned by those who lived wicked lives so that we don’t follow their same path to destruction. So do not allow yourself to go the way of faithless King Saul who did not consult God. Do not open the door to adultery as David did. Do not lie about money or anything as did Ananias and Sapphira. So, 1 Corinthians 10:11 says that, “These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.” So, we’re to be warned not to be a certain way that we read in some of these narratives. On a more positive note, in Romans 15:4 it says, “Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us so that through endurance and the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope.”
So, the narratives give us a fuller picture of a godly character. Now, these Christian virtues which flow from the various passages of scripture are like the beautiful colors of the spectrum. And we are the prism in which the character of Christ gets diffracted out given the setting. These virtues are on display as God providentially orchestrates different settings in which we can display the character of Christ. Now, the one indwelling Spirit works all of them in us, and he gets the glory and the credit. All of these things, the fruit of the Spirit and the other things, those are the positive traits that we want to see.
But we could just as easily assemble a negative list of traits, things that we are not to be. As a matter of fact, a lot of the ethical portions of the New Testament mingle together, be this way and don’t be that way, actually almost side by side. For example, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves” (Philippians 2:3). So, there you have both don’t be this way, but do be this way. Or very plainly in 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter, verses 4-8, listen to how Paul goes back and forth from positive to negative and back again, et cetera.
“Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. It does not delight in evil, but it does rejoice with the truth. It always protects, it always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” So biblical morality or biblical virtues, a virtuous state, is a combination of what we must be and what we must not be. And each of these are going to be situational. They’re going to be tied to the specific circumstances.
Love best captures all the positive and negative traits that God is calling us to display.
Beyond all of this is just the sense of the perfection of love that sums all of these virtues up. Love, 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter, says that in effect, love is the most excellent aspect of all of the Christian life. “Over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity,” says Colossians 3:14. Love best captures all the positive and negative traits that God is calling us to display. Therefore, it’s not surprising that Jesus said that love sums up the entire law of God. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. And the apostle Paul says, “Love is the fulfillment of the law.” And yet for all of that, the scripture gives us more detail than that. And we’ve got the 66 books of the Bible to learn both positive character traits, virtues and negative character traits, what we should not have. Things that scripture encourages and exhorts us toward. And then things that scripture warns us or dissuades us away from. A positive list and a negative list.
Well, in order to kind of compile such a list, I went through my biblical dictionary. I’ve got actually a multi-volume dictionary tied to the original languages. And I went into the index, and I looked at all the words there, and I just circled in my mind and wrote down on a piece of paper all of the character traits or virtues that positively, I felt, that the Bible in some place would call Christians to display. Let me just read the list.
We are at different times called to be alert, bold, cheerful, committed, compassionate, content, courageous, determined, devoted, diligent, discerning, disciplined, faithful, forgiving, friendly, generous, gentle, genuine, giving, glad, godly, good, gracious, holy, honorable, hopeful, hospitable, humble, joyful, just, kind, long-suffering, loving, meek, merciful, modest, mournful, obedient, orderly, patient, peaceful, poor in spirit, praising, prayerful, prudent, pure, purposeful, quiet, reasonable, relentless, repentant, respectful, restful, reverent, sacrificial, satisfied, that is in God, serious, sincere, single-minded, sober-minded, steadfast, strong, submissive, sympathetic, temperate, thankful, trusting, truthful, understanding, vigilant, watchful, willing, wise, worshipful, worthy, yielded, zealous.
And I think as I went through that list, I thought there’s probably some missing. And as I looked at that I said, “Wow.” Not only do we have to be all of those things, we can’t be them all at once. They are actually to some degree kind of contradictory. And you have to sense in the Spirit what the situation calls for. Let’s go back to a verse we’ve talked about before, to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. Imagine going to a friend who has just found out that her husband has died in a car accident. And you’re going to go and sit with that person and you’re going to try to minister to them as best you can. You know that that is a time to be compassionate and gentle and quiet, not alert, bold and courageous.
At another time you may be called on to do some witnessing to a co-worker or even more, imagine witnessing, sharing the gospel with your unsaved boss who’s a very vulgar man. And God gives you an opportunity to share the gospel. You don’t want to be quiet at that moment. You’re not thinking primarily about being submissive, although you want to obey his authority, but you want to be bold at that moment, courageous, out of love, et cetera. So different circumstances call for different positive virtues.
Then I went through the same books and sought the opposite list things that we are called on to reject, that Christians are not to be, sinfully angry, anxious, complaining, covetous, deceitful, deceived, disobedient, disorderly, disputing, double-minded, doubting, dull, embittered, envying, foolish, greedy, hypocritical, ignorant, immoral, impenitent, impure, insolent, insubordinate, jealous, lawless, lazy, lukewarm, lustful, mocking, murmuring, pleasure-loving, prideful, quarrelsome, quick-tempered, rebellious, restless, scornful, selfish, self-willed, sensual, shameful, slothful, sorrowful, spiteful, stiff-necked, stupid, timid, unbelieving, uncharitable, unclean, unrepentant, unruly, unstable, unthankful, unwilling, vain, vengeful, violent, weary, willful.
Again, this list isn’t exhaustive. It’s just a long list of negative character traits we should avoid. Now, as I’ve been thinking about this book, which is called An Infinite Journey, and we’re talking about the journey to complete conformity to Christ and how Christ in every situation displayed the perfect virtues. Every person he dealt with, he dealt with just the right way. Whether it would be the woman that was caught in adultery that you read about in John’s Gospel, or the one that came who is known in the city as a sinful woman who was weeping and washing Jesus’ feet with her tears and drying them with her hair. He dealt with her in one way, but he dealt with the scribes and Pharisees a very different way. Just different situations called for different things.
And then I just think about just how comprehensive I was seeking to be in my book An Infinite Journey and on Sanctification Monday we’re looking at all of these different aspects, knowledge, faith, character, action. It is very easy to get under the pile. We look at that long list of positive virtues we are to emulate at the appropriate time, and negative character traits that we don’t ever want to see in us and yet we frequently do see them in us. It’s very easy to get under the pile, to get discouraged. What we need to keep in mind is that God is the one who’s at work in us. He is the one that through the Holy Spirit is transforming us little by little, so that in any and every situation, we will display Christ-like character.
Part of the journey of sanctification I think, I don’t mean this in any negative way, but I do believe that part of the journey of sanctification is just to humble us. That when we get to the end of our lives, if we have been really faithful walking with the Lord, we will have made significant progress toward conformity to Christ. But we’ll also be much more humble than when we began. And we’re going to realize how far we still have to go. And that indwelling sin is a deep, stubborn, difficult, complex problem. And that as soon as certain areas are dealt with in our lives, they’re not permanently dealt with, they can come back. But then new things get exposed by the Holy Spirit. And so, I do believe genuine progress and holiness can be made and we should seek it. But we should also realize that perfection in this world will elude us. We’re not going to be perfectly conformed to Christ in this world.
However, we are positionally perfect from the moment we trust in Jesus. We are seen by God in Christ to be righteous. And this is amazing, in an instant at glorification, we will be totally conformed to Christ. We’ll be instantly made just like him, for we shall see him as he is, as 1 John 3 tells us. So be hopeful. Don’t be discouraged. Go after the positive traits the Lord wants to develop in you. Put to death those negative traits that the Lord does not want to see in your life. And as we conclude today, I want you to go into your week knowing that God has gone ahead of you and will be using everything that you experience this week to sanctify you and to bring you more and more into conformity to Christ.
