“You need to get the horse before the cart!” It’s true in many things, including theology and the Christian life. We need to get things in the right order, the right sequence – or things will get seriously messed up! There’s a story about a boy who wanted to play Little League baseball, in spite of the reality that he actually had never played the game or had even SEEN a baseball game. His father, who was a bit of a baseball star in high school, trained the boy in the basics: throwing, hitting, fielding – but never engaged the boy in an actual game. They showed up for tryouts, and sure enough, the boy was first up. The pitcher threw his best fastball, but the boy swung hard and connected powerfully – the ball practically went into orbit! And the boy ran – FAST – right to third base! He tagged that base, ran onto second and tagged that, then on to first, and finally to home – all just beating the ball! But instead of cheers the boy heard laughter! The coach went up to him and said, “You’ll do fine, son. You just got to remember to go to first base first!” Order matters.
In the last session, we
learned about the glorious Gospel of salvation!
We learned that Jesus is THE Savior – we aren’t, even in part. Salvation and the spiritual life we now have
are a result of what JESUS did/does; life is always a gift – the gift of
God. We don’t cause ourselves to come
to spiritual life anymore than we caused ourselves to come to physical
life. It’s a gift. We are but receivers.
But our birthday (our
coming to physical life) is not the end, it’s the beginning! The beginning of a life-long journey,
hopefully one of growth, hopefully becoming more mature, more responsible, more
ethical, more giving/serving, more “other centered,” more loving. It’s a process, a life-long process to which
God and society call us. In the same
way, our salvation, our coming to spiritual life, is not the end, it’s the
beginning! The beginning of a life-long
journey, hopefully one of growth, becoming more Christ-like, more spiritually
mature, more ethical and loving. We
call this process “sanctification” or “Christian discipleship.” It is a process in response
to our salvation. It’s not HOW we are
saved, it’s HOW we live as ones who are saved.
When we were born, we were fully human. Nothing is going to change that.
But at that moment, we begin a lifelong, progressive journey of ACTING human,
as living as the people our parents call us to be and society needs us to be. When we fail (and we do daily!), we don’t
cease to be human – we just fail to live as humans should.
It’s important to get the
horse before the cart or all kinds of crazy (and often heretical!) ideas
result. If we confuse justification with
sanctification, we can end up with the “terror of the conscience” or “prideful
Phariseeism” (addressed in the last session) or still worse, we end up
rendering Jesus irrelevant and wandering out of Christianity, either declaring
ourselves not needing salvation or declaring ourselves as the savior of
self. No! God loves us – THEN we live and reflect this
love. God adopts us as His people – THEN
we live as His people. It’s important
to not confuse Gospel and Law here. BOTH
apply! God loves us – unconditionally. God saves us – fully. Gospel!
But God also calls us to great things – and such is not a mild
suggestion, it’s a divine mandate!
Law! NEITHER should not be
“watered down” or mixed together, they are both fully true.
Let’s carefully look at
the Scriptures….
“A new commandment
I give to you: Love, just as I first
loved you.” John 13:34
“By this will all
the world know that you are my disciples: if you have love.” John 13:35
“Do
not let sin reign in you, to make you obey it.” Romans 6:12
“Since
we live by the Spirit, let us now walk by the Spirit.” Galatians
5:25
“By
this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and therefore
obey His commandments.” 1 John 5:2
“God
is at work in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” Philippians 2:13
(Paul
writes) “Not that I am perfect, but one thing I do, I forget what lies behind
and I strain forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal of the
prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:14
The
“marks” of a Christian are his love and his morality, his heart and life. Neither are “perfect” or complete this side
of heaven (remember: sanctification is a process!), but we “press on” to make
it more and more so. It’s “growing
up.”
Our
love and life are a “reflection” of Christ.
Our life is not a flawed effort to get God to love us, it’s a joyous
sharing of the love He first poured into our lives. We love and forgive and care and more –
BECAUSE we have received all that, in full measure, right from God
Himself. We don’t give so that we might
receive, we receive so that we might give.
This
is known as “sanctification” and it refers to the whole of our lives in
response to our justification. It is
our sharing, our applying of what is ours – however ‘faint’ our sharing might
be. Justification (salvation) is sudden
and complete – done on the Cross of Calvary, but Sanctification (our life
response) is gradual and incomplete, a process never perfect this side of
heaven. Justification is God’s work (Jesus
is the Savior, we’re not) but sanctification is a “cooperative” process – God
empowers it but we need to actually do it.
Also
see the section on “morality” in Session One and on “good works” in Session
Four.
Questions
and reflections….
- There’s an old adage: “We can’t give what we don’t have.” How does that apply to our study here?
- Jesus gave The Great Commandment, “Love! Even as I first have loved you, so you must love.” Do you see a significance in Jesus’ foundation for the command? How is becoming more “Christ-like” also becoming more loving?
- OUR love to others is never a perfect reflection of God’s love to us. Why not?
- How have you seen salvation and sanctification confused? Have you seen this lead to one of the 4 things mentioned (“terror of the conscience” “Little Pharisees” “I don’t need salvation” “I’m the Savior of me”)?
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