Life change, the doctrine of sanctification, can be confusing at times. Life change is hard. We can often feel stuck, and it can seem (key word) hopeless. The last few years have been hard. I’ve been working to address some sin in my life. I’ve been in mental ruts that have been difficult to get out of.
You Can Change: God’s Transforming Power for Our Sinful Behavior and Negative Emotions has been sitting in my book cart for a few years. That is where books in my reading queue are. When it was time for sabbatical, it seemed a good choice to take with me for personal growth.
While it took me months to work my way through it, it was a good choice. That length of time was not about the length of the book but the busyness of life. When I re-emerged from my sabbatical I wasn’t done and life grew very busy. But I finished. And then came the delay in blogging about it. (And people wonder why I haven’t finished my book)
Tim Chester’s book is short (about 180 pages and 10 chapters). That should not be seen as a disadvantage. It is succinct. True, he doesn’t say all he possibly could say, but he gets to the heart of the matter. He does cover some material that is often overlooked. There is no fluff in this book (I could learn from this). Chester drinks from the stream of John Owen and therefore Sinclair Ferguson, J.I. Packer and Jerry Bridges who were greatly influenced by Owen and John Flavel. He also read Berkower, and has been influenced by some of the CCEF books on this subject. Aside from Berkower, there is a strong Puritan (Reformed) emphasis in this book. This, in my opinion, is a great strength of this book. (I suppose some may say I live in a Puritan echo chamber, but I can think of far worse places to be.)
Each chapter ends with bullet point summaries for reflection, a few questions and a Change Project. He wants you to process and apply the information.In other words, he wants you to change. In my case, his desire was not accomplished but hopefully it will be more so in your case. That doesn’t mean I didn’t apply the truth here, just that I didn’t work through the projects.
What Would You Like to Change?
This is a good place to begin. Something brings a person to such a book. He wants to get that out in the open, so to speak. Too often we are focused, as he notes, on the less important changes. We want to be more successful in our careers, or feel more competent as a parent (insert laughter here). Chester wants us to know that God has bigger plans for you precisely because you are made in His image to be His representative here on earth. But we are a broken and distorted image: we fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23) because we are sinners. Our lives speak lies about God.
Jesus, the Second Adam (or Adam the Second as Sinclair Ferguson so often puts it) is the Son of God and the perfect man. He is the exact representation or image of God. His life spoke no lies, but perfectly revealed the character of God. Jesus isn’t simply our Example, but our Savior and part of that saving work is to restore the image of God in us. While we want to fiddle about with a few things that make our life more difficult, Jesus wants to remake us so we stop speaking lies with our lives. He wants to change us from the inside out.
As part of this, Chester points us to 2 Corinthians 3. To reflect the glory of Christ we must first behold the glory of Christ. We can’t change apart from Christ. We can’t change apart from meditating on Christ in His presence. Perhaps this is why we are so slow to change: we spend so little time beholding Christ because there is so much for us to do, and so much to distract us. This is really about beholding Christ as He is presented to us in the gospel (to borrow a phrase from the Westminster Shorter Catechism on saving faith).
“The message of this book is that change takes place in our lives as we turn to see the glory of God in Jesus. We “see” the glory of Christ as we “hear” the gospel.” pp. 19
This work begins in sanctification but is only concluded in glorification. We become as He is when we behold Him as He is either in heaven or at His return. God’s plan is not to simply rearrange the furniture of your life but to engage in a whole house remodel. He’s not simply changing the color of the walls and putting in a new sink, bu he’s going to remove the rot, fungus and termite damage and restore health and wholeness (loving God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength).
Why Would You Like to Change?
In the second chapter, Chester deals with the question of motivation. People can have wrong or mixed motives. Some people want to prove themselves to God. Self-righteousness runs deep in us. We want to make up for our sins. We may also want to prove God was right to save us (sounds crazy, right?) or earn it after the fact. We can try to prove ourselves to others. We may want to prove them wrong about us, or prove they can trust us after all. We can also try to prove ourselves to ourselves. We want to be a “former (fill in the blank)”.
Chester then moves us to the doctrine of justification. This guts our attempts to prove ourselves to anyone. Our attempts to look good are about our glory, not God’s. We can try to live the right way for the wrong reasons. God sees through that, and kills our pride through justification by faith alone. Many don’t grasp the right order of salvation, and try to put sanctification prior to justification. We are not justified by our sanctification. We are justified on the basis of Christ’s obedience. Justified, the Spirit sanctifies us or makes us more like Jesus.
God gives us a new identity to live out. We don’t earn it, it is graciously given to us. This new identity is to shape how we live in the present and future. Our new identity in Christ is that we’ve been adopted and are God’s children. The down payment of our inheritance as sons of God is the Spirit. He gives us the power to change. We are also the Bride of Christ- we are forever united to Him. As we see in Ezekiel 16, we were a bloody (unclean) mess, but God comes and makes a covenant with us, covers us, cleanses us and dresses us in beautiful clothes. We see something similar in Revelation. We are sinners whose robes have been washed white in the blood of the Lamb. He adorns us. We see this in Ephesians 5 as well- as Christ gave Himself to redeem people who were dead in sins and trespasses. He cleansed us with the washing of the Word. These truths, these aspects of our new identity, are to control how we live more than our desire for sin and/or self-righteousness.
“All too often we think of holiness as giving up the pleasures of sin for some worthy but drab life. But holiness means recognizing that the pleasures of sin are empty and temporary, while God is inviting us to magnificent, true, full, and rich pleasures that last forever.” pp. 35
How Are You Going to Change?
Not only can we try to change for the wrong reasons, we can try to change in the wrong way. We try to change ourselves with rules and regulations. We rely on disciplines and rituals. These are attempts to change from the outside in.
The law can’t change us. It provides a picture of what we should look like, but doesn’t provide the power for us to change. I’ve explained it before as the law being the tracks, but we need the power of the Spirit to move on those tracks. To rely on the law for sanctification is to return to the works of the law by which no man may be justified. As Paul warns in Galatians, we return to slavery.
Chester speaks more of legalism. Legalism focuses on externals, and makes holiness manageable. It seeks to make holiness something we can achieve. Pride drives us, and lies to us that we aren’t legalists.
While we have responsibility, transformation is God’s work. He sanctifies us. He cleanses us of our idolatry, He removes our heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh and places His Spirit in us to cause us to walk according to His law (Ez. 36). Paul speaks of God working in us so we will and work according to His will (Phil. 2:12-13).
As His children, the Father disciplines us so we bear the harvest of righteousness (Heb. 12). In this endeavor, He uses hardship to discipline us. Chester does warn us against considering it as punishment for specific sins. He is weaning us from the world, and our dependence on the things of this world. He grows our trust in Him.
The Son also sets us free. Chester points us to Romans 6:1-7. United to Christ, we died in His death. United to Christ, we were raised in His resurrection. He gives us the power of a new life in the Spirit. We are free from seeking justification through the works of the law.
The Spirit also works to set us free. The Spirit brings us new life so we can see Christ as delightful and trust Him and submit to Him. The Spirit leads us (and empowers us) to resist the works of the flesh and grow in the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit is about character, not just actions. It is about who we are inside.
So, we should recognize that our transformation is a Trinitarian work. All three persons of the Trinity participate in our liberation from sin.
Chester also brings regeneration into the mix. Regeneration is God’s work in us, but it bears fruit in our lives. Like an infant we grow, maturing. John Newton uses the illustration of maturing corn in his letters. In a class back in the early 1990’s Jerry Bridges was asked about Lordship Salvation. He noted that the important missing piece was regeneration. We can change because we’ve been born again and have a heart of flesh.
We are sanctified by faith in Christ’s work for us. In the Westminster Larger Catechism #75 we see that in sanctification the Spirit applies the death and resurrection to us in increasing measure so we die more and more to sin and live more and more to righteousness. He quotes Owen saying “Holiness is nothing but the implanting, writing and realizing of the gospel in our souls.”
Here Chester goes into the differences between justification and sanctification which we see laid out in WLC #77. They are inseparable, coming in our union with Christ (Calvin calls this a double grace). I’ve laid it out the differences in this table.
| Justification | Sanctification |
| Imputation of the righteousness of Christ | Infusion of grace and enabling its exercise |
| Sin is pardoned | Sin is subdued |
| Equally frees all believers in this life | Not equal in this life, nor perfect in any of us |
| Never fall into condemnation | Grows up to perfection (in glorification) |
When Do You Struggle?
Chester now wants us to consider the question of when we struggle with our particular temptations. To understand the context helps us in the battle to mortify our sin. He reminds us that “we are messed-up people living in a messed-up world.” Because of this, “we’re allowed to struggle. It’s legitimate to feel pain, disappointment, and heartache.” Note that he is NOT saying it is legitimate to transgress God’s. But, due to the remnant of sin, we will struggle with temptations. We can also deal with the pain, disappointment and heartache resulting from our temptations and transgressions.
God knows that we suffer from the sins of others, as well as our own sin and its consequences. Being justified removes our condemnation, not our struggle. Sanctification, being imperfect in this life, means we will struggle. Jesus doesn’t forsake us in our struggle. He doesn’t stand off in either disinterest or disapproval in our struggle. He works by the Spirit to help us in our struggle.
God uses our struggles for good (Rom. 8:28-29), which is defined as being conformed to the likeness of the Son. He changes us through the struggle. One of my contentions is that our struggle with besetting sins is often God’s way to humble us. With pride being a root sin, we need to be humbled and He often allows us to struggle with persistent temptations and/or transgressions to humble us. We are often focused on the surface sin that we don’t address the root sin. For instance, in one of her books Rosaria Butterfield notes that her real problem wasn’t her lesbianism (she’s not denying its sinfulness) but her pride (I can’t find my copy of Secret Thoughts to find the citation). Her lesbianism was one of the manifestations of her pride, and until the pride was addressed she’d make little to no progress with the manifestations of it. But I digress.
Those struggles reveal our hearts. It is out of the heart, Jesus says, that all our sin flows. The heart is the source of our desires and thoughts, and therefore my behaviors. Our temptations and transgressions give us a glimpse of what lies hidden within. While there may be external temptations, they only hook us because of the sin in our hearts. It is easy for a man to objectify an attractive woman he sees because of the sin remaining in his heart. It is easy for a woman to fantasize about romance while reading or watching a movie because of the sin in her heart that makes an idol of romance or connection (similar to how men make an idol of sex).
[As an aside, he quotes from the New Living Translation on pp. 66 and says it paraphrases Proverbs 4:23. No, it is a translation unlike the Living Bible. It is a thought for thought translation rather than word for word, but still a translation. It returns to the original languages and seeks to accurately convey the meaning in understandable words and grammar. So, I found his statement misleading,]
Chester notes that our circumstances can trigger our hearts. We are squeezed and bad things come out. The circumstances don’t create the bad things, but give opportunity for us to see the evil already within us. Here he points us to James 1 and James 4 to understand the reality of our desires which give birth to sin. We can’t blame God for the sinful or inordinate desires we have. We’ve been given over to sinful corruption as a judicial act on Adam’s sin as our federal head. The evil desires (sin original) in our hearts produce sinful emotions, temptations and transgressions (all sin actual).
The battlefield is within, not without. It can’t be handled by laws like “don’t touch”, as Paul says in Colossians 2. It is only addressed by the work of Christ as Paul labors to tell the Colossians all through that letter. Sin is tied to unbelief. We believe lies from others and our corrupt desires (Eph. 4:22). The word for disobedience in Eph. 2:2 conveys a stubborn refusal to obey due to unbelief. We are to speak, and hear, the truth in love.
“Sin happens when we believe lies about God instead of God’s word and when we worship idols instead of worshiping God.“
What Truths Do You Need to Turn to?
“Behind every sin is a lie. The root of all our behavior and emotions is the heart- what it trusts and what it treasures.“
Paul is clear that the thinking of people outside of Christ is futile, and their understanding is darkened. We see this in Romans 1 and Ephesians 4. In regeneration we are given the mind of Christ, and our mind is being sanctified. But it is not fully sanctified. We still believe lies due to our fallen nature, the remaining corruption in us.
We need the truth to set us free, and to sanctify us (Jn. 17:17). Our minds need to be renewed (Rom. 12). This means we need to stop listening to the lie that we can’t change, and believe that we can even if that transformation won’t be complete. We need to reject the lie that we can change ourselves, and believe that the Spirit works to transform us through the truth, particularly the truth of the incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension of Christ. We need to preach the truth, the gospel, to ourselves rather than listen to ourselves. We aren’t going deeper and deeper in self-analysis, but deeper and deeper in understanding gospel truth.
Some truths that Chester puts forth for us:
- God is great- so we don’t have to be in control.
- God is glorious- so we do not have to fear others.
- God is good- so we do not have to look elsewhere.
- God is gracious- so we do not have to prove ourselves.
We can also reject the lies of:
- Restless anger
- Joyless duty
- Anxious performance
- Proud comparisons
What Desires Do You Need to Turn From?
Peter tells us to “prepare our minds for action” (1 Peter 1:13). He continues to say that we are to not be conformed to the passions or corrupt desires of our former life. One of those corrupt passions is idolatry. When we turn to idols we also turn from the living God (Jer. 2:13).
The flesh makes life about us instead of God: our comfort, our prosperity, our pleasure, our glory and our will. We enslave ourselves in the ultimate paradox.
Some desires are corrupt in and of themselves. Deviant sexual activity is corrupt in and of itself. These desires are never holy. They are never good or acceptable.
Other desires are corrupt because they are inordinate: we want a good thing more than we want God. We can want vindication, for instance, but when it becomes more important to us than God it becomes corrupt.
Turning from these desires is repentance. It begins in conversion and continues through the rest of our lives. We turn from our sin and to God because we apprehend the sinfulness of our sin and God’s mercy in Christ. Repentance is an essential part of life transformation.
There is also mortification, the putting to death of temptations before they become transgressions. It is saying ‘no’ by the grace of God. The earlier the better lest you fall in temptation as Owen discusses. It is to fall under the power of temptation, becoming obsessed by it and moving toward transgression. Kill it or it will kill you, to paraphrase John Owen.
Chester quotes from Ferguson to help us to understand it. “It is the deliberate rejection of any sinful thought, suggestion, desire, aspiration, deed, circumstance or provocation at the moment we become conscious of its existence.” In my head I will say “no” to my prideful stirrings, and other temptations.
Corrupt desires feed corruption. They bear bad fruit. When we follow the lead of the Spirit we bear the fruit of the Spirit. Here Chester brings up establishing godly habits. This is something he’ll develop later.
Repentance requires faith. We must believe God’s evaluation of our actions, that they are sin. We must believe the truth of the gospel. We need to believe that “God is bigger and better than our sinful desires.”
What Stops You from Changing?
Chester identifies two basic reasons why we don’t change: self-love and love of sin. We are filled with pride, and prone to love the sin even if we don’t like the consequences of sin. The deceitfulness of sin has us focusing on its fleeting pleasure, not lasting punishment.
Pride leads us to believe that we deserve the pleasure sin provides. We need to repent of our pride and self-reliance. The road to holiness is paved in humility. Calvin ties this to self-denial.
We don’t change when we excuse our sin. We don’t change when we blame others for our sin. We don’t change when we blame our circumstances. Sin is our response to our circumstances, but not caused by it. We don’t change when we minimize our sin- thinking it is “not that bad.” This can also be tied to the quest for self-fulfillment, one of the lies of our culture which we can believe.
We don’t change when we hide our sin. We hide from one another. We don’t seek the help of others. We rely on ourselves. This can be a function of pride (not wanting to look like a real sinner). It can also be a function of shame (everyone will reject me because I’m so bad). Steve Brown used to tell us “demons die in the light” and sins grow in the dark.
What Strategies Will Reinforce Your Faith and Repentance?
Chester reminds us that simply knowing the truth doesn’t change us. We must act on the truth. We act with the gospel disciplines of faith and repentance. We have to remember that we reap what we sow (Gal. 6:7-8). Our present is (at least in part) the fruit of past decisions.
We are to sow to the Spirit, not the flesh. A desire for holiness, for change, will mean that we follow the lead of the Spirit (Gal. 5) and bear great fruit.
Chester also lays out some other important strategies connected to this:
- Avoid whatever provokes sinful desires. We shouldn’t ponder how close we can get to the lion before we get mauled. Stay away from situations that provoke your sinful desires.
- Avoid whatever strengthens sinful desires. Don’t feed them, starve them! I used to get book catalogs. I buy too many books. I stopped getting catalogs. Sadly I get emails now, but you get the point. He notes that the lies of the world will reinforce and resonate with our sinful nature.
- Saying “No!” to sinful desires. He provides a series of examples of this. This is mortification. Say ‘no’ to the click bait. Avert your eyes from the attractive person, or if talking with them look them in the eye. Resist unnecessary trips to window shop if you are a compulsive shopper.
“Some Christians sow to the flesh every day and wonder why they do not reap holiness.” John Stott, quoted on pp. 138
Sowing to the Spirit means we say “Yes!” to the Spirit’s prompting to read the Word, pray, be generous, etc. This strengthens the movement toward virtue and godliness. Chester focuses on the means of grace, which feed our faith which then receives grace. These are the Bible, prayer, community, worship, service, suffering (not running from it, which isn’t the same as looking for it), and hope.
How Can We Support One Another in Changing?
This is one of the best chapters because it is on a subject that is often neglected. We are in what Chester calls “a community of change.” We were not meant to be alone in this. There are some who think they don’t need the church. There are others who don’t properly utilize the community. And, sadly, there are graceless communities that beat up people who are repentant.
In Ephesians 4 Paul uses the illustration of the Body. We are to grow up to match our head. Babies has disproportionately large heads. They grow into them. Christ is mature, and the rest of the body is intended to grow up into Him.
Sin is a community issue. If it keeps individuals from growing, it keeps that individual from helping the body grow. Too many people hide their sin but disengage from the body so it suffers too.
We all need one another. You need others to grow and change. Others need you to grow and change. We need both gospel doctrine and gospel culture! In keeping with Ephesians 4, we are to speak the truth (in love) to one another. This necessitates attending worship and participating in congregational life.
“Love without truth is like doing heart surgery with a wet fish. But truth without love is like doing heart surgery with a hammer.” pp. 158
It is impossible to be a community of change if we aren’t a community of repentance. Because we are only superficially involved, we don’t know one another’s sins and don’t rebuke, encourage and help one another with those sins. We also have to be a community of grace so people can be honest, open and transparent about what is going on in their lives.
Are You Ready for a Lifetime of Daily Change?
In the final chapter Chester notes the reality that we are in for a lifetime of change, but that change only happens on the daily level. Our daily choices determine whether or not (or how) we change.
Without getting to philosophical, he enters the question of the will. He doesn’t get deep into divine sovereignty vs. human responsibility (Scripture upholds both with the doctrine of concurrence). Our wills have been freed by Jesus so we can now choose spiritual and eternal good. This is not a refutation of divine sovereignty, but a recognition of how regeneration changes us. We can still choose to do things that are spiritually harmful for us. That freedom is important. Free but certainly not perfected we will make good choices and bad choices. We choose according to our desires, and some of our desires are still messed up which is why we need to put off the old man.
Life change is a marathon, as he states. Precisely because we aren’t perfect, we will change and can change. There are many influences on our lives because they influence our thinking and therefore our choices (The will is the mind choosing- Jonathan Edwards). We listen to podcasts, blowhards in the break room, talk radio, friends, pastors (good and bad) and other media. People shape our thinking and therefore our choices. We are being discipled all day- by someone. (Conversely we can disciple others all day too.)
Change is a daily task over the course of a lifetime. Some decisions have bigger consequences, and we don’t always recognize the big decisions at the time. But just because I make the right choice today doesn’t mean I won’t be faced with the same choice tomorrow. Joseph, for instance, didn’t turn down Potiphar’s wife once. She was frequently trying to seduce him, refusing to take ‘no’ for an answer. Today’s ‘no’ to pride, porn, revenge, covetousness etc. is just that: today’s. Tomorrow we will face many of the same choices. Mortification of sin is consistently saying ‘no’ over the long haul. It gets tougher tomorrow when I say “yes” today.
“Change will not be easy. Sin is habit-forming- not just habits of behavior, but also habits of thinking. However, change is possible.” pp. 172
One of the “problems” is that growth often includes a growing awareness of our sin. We see it more clearly and more deeply. We are actually growing but paradoxically see more of it. This is the “problem” of holiness. The more godly you are, the less godly you will likely feel as you realize you are the chief of sinners.
He notes that it is very important to keep the “already” and “not yet” of change clear. We don’t want to be overly optimistic in the short run, nor despair in the long run. There are sins that have far less hold over me now. I experience periodic temptations and don’t succumb. While those temptations are far less frequent and not “overwhelming” they are still there. There has been progress in mortification, but they aren’t completely dead yet. I must remain vigilante lest I give them a foothold and feed them.
He summarizes the book in this way (pp. 173):
- Keep returning to the cross to see your sin canceled and to draw near to God in full assurance of welcome.
- Keep looking to God instead of to sin for satisfaction, focusing on the four liberating truths of God’s greatness, glory, goodness and grace.
- Cut off, throw off, put off, kill off everything that might strengthen or provoke sinful desires.
- Bring sin into the light through regular accountability to another Christian.
This is how we make progress. We also remember that because I am in Christ, though I remain a sinner, I’m also righteous in His eyes. The doctrine of justification is essential to the doctrine of sanctification. Apart from it, sanctification is a meritorious work on our part. Chester relates a less common Reformation slogan: semper peccator, semper iustus: “always a sinner, always justified”.
“Sin never has the last word for the children of God. Grace always has the last word. If we confess our sins to God, he is faithful. He’ll keep his promise to forgive.” pp. 176
This little book is very helpful. It is a great example of practical theology. It is understandable and meaningful. The cookies are not out of reach. His chapters on what and why we want to change, the community of change, and the last on a lifetime of daily change are helpful contributions that you don’t find often enough in books on this subject.
This makes the book a great resource for one-on-one discipleship, a small group study or SS lesson. The level of personal interaction will determine how much is theoretical and how much is accountability. It is also accessible enough to give away. Let’s hope this one stays in print for the glory of God and edification of the church.
Cavman Considers 
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