Addition through Subtraction
Pastor Glenn Newton 2-5-00
Text: Titus 2:11-14
“ For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. 12 It
teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled,
upright and godly lives in this present age, 13 while we wait for the blessed hope--the
glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, 14 who gave himself for us
to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very
own, eager to do what is good.”
1 Thess. 5:23-24 “ May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and
through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.”
This morning I want to draw your attention to two phrases that we find in these passages,
the first phrase in Titus 2:14 that says, “to purify for himself a people”, that’s what God is
wanting to do, and then the second phrase, found in 1 Thess. 5:23, “May God himself, the
God of peace, SANCTIFY you through and through.” I want you to notice the word
Sanctify, and notice that it is God who wants to do this work in you.
Friends, this morning I want you to know that God wants to have an active part in your
life. He’s not just interested in Cameo appearances on Sunday mornings.
He didn’t create you to just be an acquaintance........
He didn’t offer His Son Jesus Christ as a Sin Offering on your behalf so He could
be talked about as “the guy upstairs” ....
My Friends, God the Father, your Heavenly Father he has a vested interest in you
that goes beyond what you could imagine.
He Knew You before he knit you together in your mothers womb.
He knows how many times your heart is going to beat today.
He knows the number of hair on top of your head ...... now for some of you that’s
not that hard ........ My Friends, he is interested in you more than you’ll ever understand,
and he knows you better than you’ll ever know yourself, and His Will is to have an
Intimate, Personal, Real Life, Up to date Relationship with you.
And the Truth is, God’s Word tells us that if we want to make Heaven our Eternal
Home, we must have a personal Relationship with God, one that’s up to date, a
relationship that makes a difference in your life.
You see God has a process in mind for our lives. As our two passages point out,
and by the way there are many, many others that would further establish these two that I
have picked, but these verses tell us that God is in the process of “purifying or Refining”
His people, and His will is to “Sanctify” us through and through. I want to bring these
two ideas down to a practical level so we can fully understand what it is God wants from
us, and also so we can respond to him in obedience and in Faith.
This morning we are going to discover a New Math, this would be God’s Math.
Throughout Scripture we can see times where God Subtracts in order to add more to the
Kingdom.
Is there anyone here this morning wearing silver jewelry? Well, probably most of
us have something that has Silver in it. Have you ever seen the process of purifying silver?
This principle of “Addition by Subtraction” is played out everytime silver goes through the
refining process.
Some of you I know have worked in mines, and you could tell us that they are
dark, dirty and dangerous places to work. But out from the depths these minors bring out
the ore. Then the crushing, the smelting must be done. Silver does not melt until it
reaches 960.5 degrees Celsius; and only then does it start to yield up it’s impurities. King
Solomon and the prophet Isaiah understood this process as they wrote about God’s
purging process, the purifying of our hearts and lives.
Solomon writes in Proverbs 25:4-5 “Remove the dross from the silver, and out
comes material for the silversmith; remove the wicked from the king’s presence, and his
throne will be established through righteousness.”
Listen to the prophet Isaiah in 1:25, “I will turn my hand against you; I will
thoroughly purge away your dross and remove all your impurities.”
The Silversmith heats up the fire so that this silver becomes liquid, and as he stirs
the pot, the impurities come to the top, and he will remove the impurities, as the New
Living translation says of Isaiah, “skim off your slag”.
That’s a pretty neat process, but rarely would we think that same process needs to
take place in our lives, and hearts. Many folks today get quite uncomfortable with the
idea that God would want them to make major changes in their lives. We don’t mind it
when God says things like, “I will never leave you or forsake you .... or I will bless your
coming and your going out.” and so forth. But the fact is God also talks about a refining
process for his people, for you and for me. When there’s impurities in our lives God
loves us so much that He will tell us, He will convict us and invite us to allow him to
purge that from our life by His Cleansing Blood.
God deals with us much like a responsible parent deals with a child. Sometimes
you give a compliment or a pat on the back; however, at other times you do what the
apostle Paul told the young minister Timothy to do: “Correct, rebuke and encourage --
with great patience and careful instruction.” 2 Tim. 4:2
Remember we are talking about God’s purifying process, and how sometimes,
many times it means subtraction of something in our lives so we can be more like Christ.
Being Christlike is the essence of Holiness, which is our goal as a Christian.
All you parents that are here will be able to relate to this. You know what it is
when you see too much junk food going into the mouths of your children and you decide
that you have to do something about it. Or maybe your child is being affected by some
bad influences at school. When you take action, it doesn’t exactly make you popular
---right? But you do whatever you can to subtract these things from your child’s life.
Your not trying to rain on your child’s parade; you do it because you love him/her.
The Bible tells us that, “the Lord disciplines those he loves...”
God’s purpose for us is a lot deeper than just how we feel at the moment. He lovingly
permits pressures and trials, lets the bottom fall out from time to time, so that our wrong
reactions come right to the surface. We see our Lack of Faith, or our lack of Love -- and
that’s his aim, now we can be obedient to what we know, and he can purify us of these
impurities.
My friends, sometimes it gets hot, real hot in your lives, and you don’t think your
going to make it, well God is just heating you up so that the impurities in your life will
come to the top, and as you agree to rid your life of these impurities, God will lovingly
skim these from your life.
You see God is drawing us away from our strength to his. He knows exactly how
much heat to allow in our lives. He will never scorch us, but if we decide to jump out of
the heating pot because it’s too hot, he has others waiting. You must understand, He is
Holy, and We are commanded to be Holy as He is Holy, so the Impurities must be
removed.
Do you know how the ancient refiner knew when he was finished, and the heat
could finally be turned down? It was when he looked into the cauldron and saw his own
reflection in the shining silver. As long as the image was muddy and rippled with flects
of slag, he knew he had to keep working. When his face finally showed clearly, the silver
had been purified.
Friends, this is exactly how it is with our spiritual refining process. God’s eternal
plan is for us “to be conformed to the likeness of His Son” it says in Romans 8:29. Jesus
Christ is sitting on his refiner stool, because he’s the Refiner and purifier of his people, and
as he works on our lives, he keeps looking into us to see his own reflection.
What does Christ see in you this morning? As we turn our lives over to God, as
we consecrate our lives to him he will begin to see more and more of himself in us, and the
people around us will see more and more of Jesus in us.
But I don’t have to remind you that this isn’t a easy process, we have to let God
dig into our lives, into our heart of hearts. But God ever so tenderly will bring those
things to the top, and as we give them to Him, he removes them forever!
1 John 1:9 says, If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us
our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. What will he do? He will purify us
from all unrighteousness, in other words, he Sanctifies us through and through, we
are made Holy by his Forgiveness and His Blood that cleanses us.
I don’t know about you but that gets me excited!
I need to warn you this morning. If you fight this process in your life, it is the same as
running red lights. When God brings conviction to your life, to your attention, he is
warning us about a coming disaster.
You see there are allot of things that hinder us, things that keep us from growing
spiritually and keep us from listening and hearing God’s warning signals.
When you know more about the TV guide, and the lives of all the Hollywood stars
than you do about God’s plan for Spiritual improvement, something is amiss in your
spiritual life.
When we are more up to date on what our Sports Teams are doing, and what are
Sports hero’s are up to than what the apostles and prophets taught in the name of the
Lord, we are in spiritual danger. These type of weights slow us down as we try to run the
race of Faith.
I believe this morning that God is dealing with some of you, you know exactly
what it is that God is trying to remove from your life, but you’ve been holding on. I
believe that there are some here this morning that would admit that When Christ looks
into their Life, He has a real hard time Seeing His Reflection, because too much of self is
in the way.
This past Summer Millions around the World became fascinated with the story of
the Titanic and the night that it sank into the cold waters of the North Atlantic. But it was
child’s play compared with the spiritual tragedy of men and women who shun the purging
of the Refiner’s fire, only to find themselves in cold and dark places they never imagined.
Today, with an act of your Will, You can be Cleansed from any Sin in your Life,
and You can begin to Walk this Journey of Faith and God will Refine you to be the person
He created you to be.
If your a Christian this morning, how’s the reflection? What does Jesus see when
he looks at you? Today you can consecrate yourself to Him and His Refining Fire, you
will never regret it.
True Freedom and True Peace comes when God Subtracts what needs to be
subtracted, He then ADDS to your Life beyond measure.
Let’s not grieve the Holy Spirit this morning as he has spoken to your hearts, Let’s
respond, your not responding to the pastor, your responding to God as He has talked to
your heart this morning, come and pray as we sing.
chorus #196 “the greatest thing”
