I know. I’m old! I’m not sure how I got so old so fast, but here I am and there’s nothing I can do about it. One of the things that’s happened to me as I’ve gotten older is that my likes and dislikes have changed.
Example: I used to love football…and the New Orleans Saints in particular. Yes, La. Tech and LSU were close seconds, but man, those Saints. Even back in the day I would wear the paper bag and yet it didn’t deter me from my love for the black and gold. I lived in constant expectation of “next year.”
Back in the day, Vanessa would leave me home alone on Sunday afternoon if the Saints were playing. She didn’t want to listen to me whoop, holler and shout. I’d whoop, holler and shout if things went well and I’d moan, whine and complain when things didn’t go well (if you’re a Saints fan, you know that was most of the time). It really could be a spectacle at times.
Then, Facebook came along. I soon discovered that Facebook was the new way to watch football with friends. I’d share my comments about the game in real-time and friends would respond and it added to the fun of football, both professional and college.
Now, I really couldn’t care less. It’s just not fun anymore. My love for professional football in general and the Saints in particular really begin its decline after 2020 with BLM and Covid. Sports (not just football) became too political (which is really strange since I’m kind of a political junkie).
I suppose sports was one of the few places a person could go to get away from all the politics, where Democrats, Republicans and Independents could share the joys (or travails) of their favorite team for three hours on a Sunday afternoon. For three hours on a Sunday afternoon, we were united. Yeah, well that changed, and I think it changed me a little, too.
But, it’s probably just because I’m old now. I used to laugh at the old men who sat around the gas stove at Malone’s Hardware complaining about the state of the world. I no longer laugh now because I’ve become one of those old men and I now know why they complained so much and spoke as they did.
I am them and I think it has affected my love for football. Of course, it could be that sports have changed so dramatically in recent years, too. I’d prefer to say it’s that, but I suspect it’s really just that I’m old.
How has it changed? Well, for starters, there’s the money thing. I mean, really, a fan can’t afford to go to a professional game anymore (yeah, people do, but can they really afford it?). I wanted to take my sons, son-in-law and grandsons to see the Saints and the Cowboys. It was going to cost me over $1,000, and that was for standing room only and DID NOT include parking or food! We didn’t go!
Full disclosure: I did purchase four tickets (and no, I didn’t spend $1,000), but as the day approached I just didn’t feel like driving to Dallas, standing through a three hour game and then driving back home. That’s because I’m old! My two oldest grandsons utilized the tickets, so it wasn’t a total loss.
It’s the same with college sports, too. I suppose it really changed for me when NIL became a thing. Now, for the players, it’s all about the Benjamins. I don’t blame them. Get it while you can, I guess, but there’s no loyalty anymore. You never know who is going to be on the team anymore. The teams with the richest alumni can stock their teams with the finest players and claim the championships. These days there are 25 year-olds who have “eligibility” playing college football. Go figure!
I guess I’m just old and I don’t really care anymore. Seriously, I didn’t even watch all of the LSU game last night. I’d rather go to sleep. Besides, I’ve discovered (because things have changed) that I can watch a three hour game in 20 minutes on YouTube the next day. No big deal last night, though. LSU got spanked. You know what that means? It means I didn’t stay up late for nothing and I didn’t go to sleep frustrated, so there’s that.
Yeah, I still watch football, but only when I don’t have anything else I’d rather be doing (like sleeping). Yes, I’ll occasionally comment something on Facebook but I do so only to see if I can wrinkle a few feathers of fan friends. The reality is, though, if I never watched another game, I’d probably be okay with it.
The games I want to see these days? The ones my grandchildren are playing in, and only because my grandchildren are playing in them. I LOVE to see my grandchildren do anything. Because I’m old, I now know why they call them GRANDchildren. Everything about them is grand. I’ve told my children that if I had known grandchildren were this much fun, I would have skipped them and went straight to the grandchildren. You know what? You have to be old to realize that.
So, I’m grateful for getting old even if I don’t like some of the changes that happen when we get old. When I was young, we were told in ministry that we needed to keep working on our “growing edges.” Well, now that I’m older, I have to keep working on those “growing edges.” Those growing edges are just different now.
Let’s face it. The Lord still has a lot of work to do on me and in me, it’s just in different places these days. Will He ever be finished? One day, perhaps He will. After all, I’m a Wesleyan and I believe in the process of sanctification. It is a life-long endeavor. But, you have to get old to realize that.
A friend asked me a question this week. It was a simple question asked in sincerity, but it challenged me in a way I haven’t been challenged since I left full-time ministry.
What was the question? “How common in your career did you see pastors and leaders teaching entire sanctification?”
I had to think real hard the last time I heard a sermon on entire sanctification. Honestly, I couldn’t remember one. Honestly, I had to check my sermon file to see if I had ever preached one. Luckily, I found ONE sermon in my file. Entire sanctification is obviously something that was never high on my list of priorities to preach and teach.
Well, if it was impossible for me to remember if I had preached a sermon on entire sanctification, it was impossible to remember hearing one. I could only answer my friend with, “In The United Methodist Church, rarely!”
Perhaps that is what is wrong with The United Methodist Church (or any other Wesleyan denomination). The doctrine of entire sanctification lies at the heart of Wesleyan theology, and yet we (meaning me) rarely heard it preached (or preached it) from a Wesleyan pulpit.
Sure, we mentioned it (or heard it mentioned) in passing, but we never dug deeply into it or spent too much time on it. Let’s face it. When we pastors and laity went to Annual Conference, we didn’t get deep dives into Wesleyan theology. We got motivational speeches and rah-rah talks about best practices in ministry that we could take back to our congregations.
Same thing when we attended leadership conferences. Seriously, how many preachers (and laity) would ever sign up for a conference entitled “Sanctification Summit?” Nah! Not many. Instead, we’d rather flock to conferences with names like “Refuel,” or “The Global Leadership Summit,” or “Disciple Making Summit,” or the “Orange Conference” (what do oranges have to do with ministry?). After all, we want to grow our churches. I mean, isn’t that the point?
Entire Sanctification
Unless you’re a pastor in the Wesleyan tradition, you’re probably asking yourself, “What does he mean by entire sanctification?” I’m glad you asked.
Rev. John Wesley
Sanctification is a $3 theological word that means “holiness.” Well, if we don’t like the word sanctification, we probably like the word holiness even less. Me? Holy? Never! Yet, holiness is at the heart of John Wesley‘s theology, and we Wesleyans ought to be teaching it! Maybe that’s the key to our church growth? Maybe holiness is what will make the church stand out from the culture?
For most folks, holiness is reserved for monks, missionaries, mystics and martyrs, not everyday Mark and Mary. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was Chuck Colson who said, “Holiness is the everyday business of every Christian. It evidences itself in the decisions we make and things we do, hour by hour, day by day.”
Colson is correct, and his statement echoes the words of the Apostle Paul written to the Church at Thessolinica two thousand years ago. God’s will for our lives is holiness. Paul says so right there in chapter 4, verse 3: God wants you to be holy, so you should keep clear of all sexual sin. The NIV translates it this way: It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality. The KJV says it this way: For this is the will of God, even your sanctification.
Avoiding Holiness
One reason we shy away from holiness as a way of life is because of the “holier-than-thou” crowd. Actually, “holier-than-thou” is not really holiness at all. In Jesus’ day, the “holier-than-thou” crowd turned out to be the Pharisees—arrogant, prideful and self-righteous. Certainly not the traits Jesus would applaud and want his disciples to emulate. Rather, it was the Pharisees for whom Jesus reserved his most scathing condemnations.
Another reason we might shy away from the word holiness is the word’s close association with the “holiness” movements of the late-19th century, and the Pentecostal and charismatic movements of the mid-to-late 20th century (which actually had their genesis in the Wesleyan tradition).
The extremes of those movements gave too many people in the church permission to separate themselves from holiness. Use whatever excuse we may to lay claim to our own unholiness, it doesn’t change the fact that God’s will for our lives is for us to be holy.
Perhaps a third reason we shy away from the teaching of holiness (entire sanctification) is because we confuse it with “perfection.” We think we have to be perfect, and after all, no one is perfect (boy! don’t I know that to be true?). How can I teach what I am not? How can I be what is impossible to be? Well, let’s go back to Wesley…
The Heart of John Wesley’s Theology
John Wesley helps us understand better in his A Plain Account of Christian Perfection. Holiness is not sinless perfection. Unconscious sin will always remain. No matter what level of holiness we attain, there will always be more room to grow. This fact helps us live in humility. It’s like Jesus would tell the Pharisees, “Take the log out of your own eye before you complain about the speck in your neighbor’s.” Knowing we have further room to grow keeps us from the holier-than-thou attitude.
Wesley would further say that holiness (or perfection) does not mean freedom from errors or mistakes. We’ll always have inaccurate perceptions, deal with deceptive apperances, have clouded memories and distorted opinions based on faulty information. It does not mean the sin nature has been eradicated. The seed of the sin nature still exists, and abiding outside of God’s grace leads to the sin nature conquering us.
And, Lord help us, holiness is not about freedom from temptations. As a matter of fact, Satan’s attacks will likely increase because he thinks he’s losing control.
Well, if holiness is not that, what is it? For Wesley, as for the Apostle Paul, it is a heart full of love—love for God and love for neighbor. According to Paul, if we love God and love our neighbor, it changes our conduct. As our love for others increases, God establishes our hearts blameless in holiness. Our holiness is reflected in the way we treat others.
“It is thus that we wait for entire sanctification; for a full salvation from all our sins, –from pride, self-will, anger, unbelief; or, as the Apostle expresses it, ‘”‘go unto perfection.'”‘ But what is perfection The word has various senses: here it means perfect love. It is love excluding sin; love filling the heart, taking up the whole capacity of the soul. It is love ‘”‘rejoicing evermore, praying without ceasing, in everything giving thanks’.”
“…we wait for entire sanctification…”
We wait. Sanctification is not an overnight thing. Sanctification is growing in grace. Sanctification is a moment-by-moment, day-by-day decision on our part. Yes, it is done through the power of the Holy Spirit, by the surrender of our will to His, but surrender is done daily by our choice–that’s called “free will.”
Attaining and Maintaining
Don’t think you can attain holiness (entire sanctification)? Oh, I think you underestimate the power of grace. Also, how uncouth would it be for the Lord to ask something of us that He knew we couldn’t achieve?
John Wesley said it this way: “Christ died to deliver sinners from not only the guilt but also the power of sin.” Our salvation (which is God’s will for our lives) would be an incomplete salvation unless it delivered us from sin’s power as well as sin’s penalty. God never intended the cross to address only the “judicial” matters of our sin. God equally intended the cross to reshape those who believe toward the holiness to which He calls us.
Salvation is the simplest thing to attain, but it is the hardest thing to maintain. It is in the maintaining that we reach what Wesley termed “entire sanctification, for a full salvation from our sins…” Salvation is attained through the simple act of believing. Salvation is maintained through the difficult act of obedience. Believing and obeying both demand surrender.
Full salvation is a long time coming, but salvation is attained and maintained as a child. As a child trusts to attain and as a child obeys to maintain, but maintaining is so much harder than attaining.
So, how often have we taught entire sanctification? Not nearly often enough. How often should we teach entire sanctification? Well, if we’re truly Wesleyan, a whole lot more often than we have.
Well, that just what I think, but I’m not the perfect pastor, which is probably why I haven’t preached and taught full salvation more often. Maybe by His grace, I’ll do better.
Whether it is a lack of time or a lack of inspiration to write anything serious, I share today a few of the devotional thoughts I’ve pondered throughout the week:
The Majesty of the Mundane
Reflecting on Luke 24: 13 – 35 this week and one particular phrase “We were hoping…”
In this “Road to Emmaus” encounter with Jesus, the two disciples, in trying to explain to Jesus all that has happened in the preceding days (a rather hilarious image, by the way), make the statement in verse 21: “But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel.”
These disciples were dejected because circumstances didn’t turn out as they had hoped. Imagine that! I think that’s called life. It was in their dejection that they missed the fact that Jesus was right there with them. Jesus was walking with them in their hopelessness. They had been looking for earth-shattering changes in their lives due to Jesus Christ. What they got was Jesus in the midst of their brokenness, and they missed it.
We spend much of our lives looking for earth-shattering, life-changing events and episodes and we end up missing Him walking to Emmaus with us. There is much majesty in the mundane circumstances of our every day lives, but if we spend our time looking for the earth-shattering we will miss His majesty that is with us moment-by-moment, day-by-day. While I was hoping for something grand, I missed him in the moment of the ordinary. Silly me!
The Cost of Sanctification
I’ve been thinking a lot about sanctification (holiness) these days. That’s probably because it escapes me, but that’s for another blog. I was prompted by Paul’s writing to the Thessalonians:
“May the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely” (1 Thessalonians 5:23).
I’ve asked myself the question, “Am I ready to be sanctified?” Undoubtedly, I’m not, or else I would make Jesus the center of everything. Holiness, I’ve discovered, is not within me. Holiness can only come from outside me and can only come as I surrender to the Holy Spirit.
Perhaps I should say it this way: I need to stop pursuing holiness and allow myself to be captured by the holiness that is pursuing me. I have to be totally given over to the Holy Spirit’s power in order for Him to do His work in me. As I’ve said before, surrender is hard work. I love the benefits of salvation. I deplore the costs of sanctification. What a shame. I’m missing the best God has to give me.
Saved and Sanctified
We are saved and sanctified to become spiritually exhausted. Oswald Chambers intimates that we are not spiritually exhausted by sin, but rather by service. We are to be “broken bread and poured-out wine” for other people’s nourishment until they learn to feed on God. That, my friends, can be exhausting! That only means I must find my own supply by feeding on the Lord.
Finding my supply in the Lord means that I must first be “broken bread and poured-out wine” in prayer. To be poured out in service before I am poured out in prayer will lead to burnout and disdain for those whom I serve. Everything in the spiritual life begins with prayer. Prayer is the beginning, the middle and the end of the spiritual life. Until we are prayed up we can’t be caught up to the heights of glory God has planned for us.
Concluding Thoughts
You’ve gotten a glimpse this week into some of my devotional thoughts. I’d love to get a glimpse into yours. I invite you to leave a comment below about what the Lord has been saying to you this week.
You know my friend, Boudreaux? I think I’ve told you about him before. Well, Boudreaux and his wife, Clotile, go down to St. Peter’s Catholic Church, and down there at St. Peter’s, they hold weekly husband’s marriage seminars.
At the session one week, the priest asked Boudreaux, who was approaching his 50th wedding anniversary to Clotile, to take a few minutes and share some insight into how he had managed to stay married to the same woman all these years.
Boudreaux replied to the assembled husbands: “Well, I’ve tried to treat her nice, spend the money on her, but best of all is, I took her to Italy for the 25th anniversary!”
The priest responded: “Boudreaux, you are an amazing inspiration to all the husbands here! Please tell us what you are planning for your wife for your 50th anniversary?”
Boudreaux proudly replied: “I’m gonna’ go pick her up.”
A METAPHOR FOR GRACE
Oh, that life were that easy, right? We all know it’s not. Those of us who have been married any length of time know that marriage is hard work. As we continue resetting our understanding of God’s grace and how we experience our relationship with God, I remind us that our relationship with God can somewhat be compared to a relationship of a husband and wife in marriage. There is the courtship stage of the relationship, where one partner “woos” the other, inviting them into a relationship. That courtship stage, when God is wooing us into a relationship with Himself, we experience God’s prevenient grace.
Then, there is the moment we say “I do” to God, when we are, by grace, able to acknowledge that God desires to have a relationship with us…we hear His voice…and we say “Yes” to Him. That moment, that part of the relationship, we experience the justifying grace of God. We experience the forgiveness of our sins, and we are given new life in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. As a husband and wife stand before the altar and publicly proclaim their love and say “I do” to each other, so we proclaim our love and commitment to Christ.
Something happens after the wedding ceremony, though. Yes, I know we like to think it’s called the honeymoon, and there is that honeymoon phase of marriage that everything seems to be wonderful. Of course, I can say I’ve been on an almost 40-year honeymoon, but that’s for another day. Seriously, though, we know what happens…and it’s called life. It is God’s sanctifying grace that sustains us over the long haul of life. It is His grace made real in the challenging times, in the everyday times…when life happens.
A CALL TO HOLINESS
Sanctifying grace is God at work in us through the Holy Spirit to transform us. Our journey, our spiritual journey, is a journey toward transformation. When we come to Jesus Christ and he forgives our sin and gives us a new start, that’s not the end of the journey. In that moment, Jesus does something for us. If justifying grace is God doing something for us, sanctifying grace is God doing something in us. The something He desires to do is make us holy. We hear that word “holy,” and we think, “Who me? Holy? No way.” Yet, that is the life Christ call us to.
Let me pause here and insert that living a holy life is not living a holier-than-thou life. None of us will likely ever live a sinless life, at least that’s been my experience—but that could just be me. Certainly, John Wesley taught that not only does Christ deliver us from the consequence and penalty of sin, but he also delivers us from the power of sin.
As we journey through this life, there will always be temptations to sin. There will be challenges to our faith. There will be crises that cause us to doubt. We will deal with death. We will deal with disease. We will deal with difficult people. We will be angry. We will be frustrated. That’s life! In those times, we need grace, and God gives us grace so that we need not surrender to the baser instincts of our fallen nature. Christ gives us new life. Christ gives us new hope. It is Christ who sustains us through the journey.
The holiness Christ call us to is different than sinlessness. As Wesley taught it, and we understand it, holiness is nothing more…but also nothing less…than love for God and love for neighbor. It is to love as God loves. Jesus gave us two great commandments. We find them in Mark 12: 29 – 31: “The most important one,’ answered Jesus, ‘is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
Holiness is about growing up in love. It is growth, and as I anticipate the coming of summer and that first ripe tomato of the season, I’m reminded that growth is a process. We don’t miraculously love as God loves. Oh, that it would be so simple. Growth is a process, and holiness is a process. Yes, there is, in one sense, where we are made holy by the work of Christ on the cross, but holiness that is lived out occurs over time. Don’t be surprised if you didn’t wake up the day after you accepted Christ living a holy life. But also, don’t be surprised if he begins a work in you, too.
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis, perhaps the greatest theologian of the 20th century, explains it this way. When he was a child, he often had a toothache, and he knew that if he went to his mother, she would give him something which would deaden the pain for that night and let him get to sleep. But, Lewis said, he did not go to his mother–at least not till the pain became very bad. And the reason he did not go was this: He did not doubt she would give him the aspirin; but he knew she would also do something else. He knew she would take him to the dentist the next morning. He could not get what he wanted out of her without getting something more, which he didn’t want. He wanted relief from his pain; but he couldn’t get it without having his teeth set permanently right. And he knew those dentists; he knew they would start fiddling about with all sorts of other teeth which had not yet begun to ache. Our Lord, says Lewis, is like the dentists. Lots of people go to him to be cured of some particular sin. Well, he will cure it all right, but he will not stop there. That may be all you asked; but if you once call him in, he will give you the full treatment.
God’s sanctifying grace works on those problematic places…those sinful places in our lives. Conviction is part of His sanctifying work. Sure, most of us don’t wrestle with big sins…even the day after accepting Christ. You know, like murder and stealing and lying. No, what we deal with are much more subtle sins…like selfishness, jealousy, greed and envy. Those sins need transforming, too, and when we struggle with those along our journey, when they sap us of our energy and capacity to love, it’s then we need grace, and the promise of Scripture is that God gives us His grace—His sanctifying grace—to give us strength, to give us energy, to give us hope in the face of the struggle so that we move closer to the place…closer to the destination… closer to holiness
THE HARD WORK OF HOLINESS
Any relationship takes work. Whether it’s the relationship between a husband and wife, or between parents and children, friends or co-workers. If we don’t do the work to sustain relationships, they will break down and there will be distance between the persons in the relationship. In our relationship with God, it is God’s desire to make us holy. I think I’ve written before that God is not nearly as concerned about our happiness as he is about our holiness.
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Romans 12: 1-2 (NIV)
The Apostle Paul, writing to the Roman Church, says “be transformed” (Romans 12: 2). That’s passive, my friends. Transformation is something that happens to us and in us. We can’t say, “I’m going to transform myself, I’m going to change.” We may give it the old college try, but we’ll most probably fail because it is God and His grace that does the work.
I hear you asking, “How?” What makes us holy? I remind us of the disciplines of the spiritual life—prayer, solitude, fasting, accountability.
Accountability? Let’s not blow by that one. Yes, accountability is a spiritual discipline. As followers of Jesus Christ, we must hold each other accountable to living the “holy” life-the Christian life. We are meant to do life together. We can’t simply watch a brother or sister in Christ who struggles with sin and not offer encouragement, correction and hope. Jesus didn’t mind challenging his disciples when their faith waned, and he certainly never backed down from challenging the Pharisees. That’s accountability at work, and it is a means of experiencing God’s sanctifying grace.
We know about bible study, too. There is another one without which no transformation will occur. It is the spiritual discipline of submission.
Submission is the spiritual discipline that frees us from the burden of always needing to get our own way. In submission we learn to hold things loosely. We also learn to diligently watch over the spirit in which we hold others— honoring them, preferring them, loving them.
Submission is not age or gender specific. We learn to follow the wise counsel of the apostle Paul to “be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Eph. 5:21). In Ephesians 5, Paul is introducing the “household code” for the Christian, and he uses the analogy of husband and wife in speaking of the idea of mutual submission, but this submission is not limited to that relationship alone. Each of us is to engage in mutual submission out of reverence for Christ.
The touchstone for the Christian understanding of submission is Jesus’s statement, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me (Mark 8:34).” This call of Jesus to “self-denial” is simply a way of coming to understand that we do not have to have our own way. It has nothing to do with self-contempt or self-hatred. It does not mean the loss of our identity or our individuality. It means quite simply the freedom to give way to others. It means to hold the interests of others above our own. It means freedom from self-pity and self-absorption.
Indeed, to save our life is to lose it; to lose our life for Christ’s sake is to save it (see Mark 8:35). The cross is the ultimate symbol of submission. Again, the Apostle Paul writes, “And being found in human form, [Jesus] humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross” (Phil 2:7 – 8).
Jesus didn’t just die a “cross death.” He lived a “cross life” of daily submission to God the Father. We, too are called to this constant, everyday “cross life” of submission. It is as we submit to the Holy Spirit that He does His transforming work in us and we grow in holiness by His sanctifying grace.
A man and woman had been married for more than 60 years. They had shared everything. They had talked about everything. They had kept no secrets from each other, except that the little old woman had a shoe box in the top of her closet that she had cautioned her husband never to open or ask her about.
For all of these years, he had never thought about the box, but one day, the little old woman got very sick, and the doctor said she would not recover.
In trying to sort out their affairs, the little old man took down the shoe box and took it to his wife’s bedside.
She agreed that it was time that he should know what was in the box. When he opened it, he found two crocheted dolls and a stack of money totaling $95,000.
He asked her about the contents. “When we were to be married,” she said, “my grandmother told me the secret of a happy marriage was to never argue. She told me that if I ever got angry with you, I should just keep quiet and crochet a doll.”
The little old man was so moved; he had to fight back tears. Only two precious dolls were in the box. She had only been angry with him two times in all those years of living and loving. He almost burst with happiness.
“Honey,” he said, “that explains the dolls, but what about all of this money? Where did it come from?”
“Oh,” she said. “That’s the money I made from selling the dolls.”
Day after day, year after year, life happens and we make the daily choice to submit to the other, and we wake up forty, fifty years later and the love has grown deeper and more meaningful, and we discover our life in the other. Ultimately, the other for the disciple of Jesus, is Jesus Himself. We love Him and we love like Him. That is holiness. That is God’s sanctifying grace at work.
“Who am I?” We’ve all asked ourselves that question at one time or another. It is a question of identity. Another question we all wrestle with in at some point in life is “What do I want to be when I grow up?” It’s a question of purpose, and we usually don’t ask it that way. We more often ask it, “What am I here for?” So, two existential questions of life are “Who am I?” and “Why am I here?”
The questions get complicated really quickly, though. Let me illustrate. Who is Lynn Malone? Well, you would likely say, “He is the pastor of The House Church Movement, or Vice President for Business Development at Peoples Bank.” That is a correct if incomplete answer to the questions. It only answers the second question (“What am I here for?”). The original question is still unanswered. I asked who he is, but our tendency is to answer what he does. See the difference? Tricky, right?
It’s About Relationships
We can’t answer the “who” question without talking about relationships. To understand who Lynn Malone is, you would have to tell me about his parents, siblings, wife, and children. Then I would have a context for his relationships and would understand to whom he belongs. This belonging would help me more clearly understand who he is. This helps me understand his identity better than simply knowing what he does.
And while we’re talking about his relationships, here’s another important one to consider—his relationship with Jesus. Telling me about his earthly relationships only answers half of the “who is he” question. I also need to know about his relationship with Jesus to fully understand his identity because when Jesus enters the picture, everything changes. Literally—everything changes. This is what the Apostle Paul is telling the Ephesians in the second half of chapter 4 of his letter to the church.
Paul shares the tangible and practical aspect of the believer’s new identity which has been changed from what it was to what it is, and that change comes as a result of the believer’s relationship with Jesus Christ.
New Clothes
An Old Coat
Paul illustrates this change by using an analogy of taking off an old coat and putting on a new one. I’ve still got an old coat from a former life hanging in my closet. I wore that old coat (it’s nearly forty years old) when I was a sheriff’s deputy in Jackson Parish. It’s an old coat, but it still fits pretty darn good. But, Paul says it represents the old man, and in Jesus, we take off the old man.
I’m a bit of a fashion conscious guy. So, I go out to the mall a few months ago and I walk through the entrance and I see this red coat hanging there. I like color. I like bright colors. So, I see this red coat and I think, “I’ve gotta’ have it.” It is my newest coat. Paul says the believer puts on a new coat. He says we are changed!
As a matter of fact, were we to read back up in Chapter 4:17, we’d hear Paul tell them, “Live no longer as the Gentiles do!” Actually, that’s a little strange because most of the Ephesian Christians were Gentiles. So, Paul is saying that’s the old coat you’ve taken off. It’s not where your primary identity lies anymore. It’s NOT who you are. Now, you are in Christ, and because you are in Christ, you are changed.
Do we understand the implication for us today? Rather than finding our identity in tribes or groups, we find our identity in Christ. We are no longer oppressor nor oppressed. Our relationship with Jesus powerfully influences our identities because in Jesus we are new! Not reformed, refurbished, nor remodeled—we are simply and totally new! 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NLT) says, “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!”
In our old lives, we thought and acted a particular way and belonged (spiritually) to a particular entity. But when Jesus entered the picture, we became new. So as a result, we began to think and act a new way, and we belong to a new person—God.
The New Questions
This means when Jesus enters our lives, He changes the answers to our two questions. In fact, we need this new set of questions to explore our new identities:
Who am I in Christ?
Who is Christ in me?
Our truest and most powerful identity is hidden in the answers to these questions. Who I am is now framed most strongly by the One to whom I belong. I am no longer who I was. I am now who He says I am. The more I understand Jesus, the more I understand me.
But that’s not all. When I ask who Christ is in me, I discover all Jesus has done to set me up for the strongest contribution to the world. Jesus not only radically alters my belonging, but His power and presence in me now physically affect what I am capable of. His presence awakens spiritual gifts that give me a strong contributing edge I never had before. His passion for people awakens my passions, which give me fuel to pursue what matters to Him.
What is it that matters to Him? That’s what Paul lays out in one of the lists that he likes to make. He talks about sin, and they were sins that the first century Ephesians were dealing with. I don’t have time to go into all of them, and even if I did, we’d be focusing on the wrong thing. As Paul unpacks the nature of the 1st century world, he saw people who sinned and didn’t care. Their hearts were hardened to the sin they were in. He saw people who were shameless in the living of their lives. They did what they wanted to do and they didn’t care who it affected. It was the epitome of self-centeredness. I will say, however, that Paul’s take on 1st century Ephesus sounds eerily similar to 21st century western culture. Let that be warning enough for us.
The Christian life is not checking off lists of do’s and don’ts. It is about being changed by the power of God in our lives through His Holy Spirit. What matters to God is sexual purity, and if it matters to God, it ought to matter to us. Truth, generosity, compassion, love and forgiveness. All these matter to God and so they become guiding principles in our lives. They become part and parcel of who we are. They answer the question—“Who am I in Christ?”
Yes, we’ve put on a new coat, but just because we’ve put on a new coat doesn’t mean the temptation isn’t there to grab the old one and put it back on. Actually, that old one can be comfortable. Oh, and it still fits by the way! It’s easier to put the old coat on, too. Putting on the new coat is a conscious choice we must make every day. We put on the new coat every day by faith, by choosing to believe that we are who He says we are.
Sanctifying Grace
The Christian life is not a static life. It’s not a thermostat. Those are wonderful creations that we set it and forget it. Keeps things at a cool 68 degrees or a toasty 72 degrees. The Christian life is more like tending a fireplace. When I was growing up, my brothers and I tended to our grandfather, who was bedfast with arthritis. Every night in the late fall and winter, we had to stoke the fireplace with wood so it would keep the room warm during the night. In a fireplace you have to keep wood on the fire all day. That’s the Christian life. You have to keep working on it to keep the fire going.
This is what I love about Wesleyan theology. Wesley understood that the Christian life is not static. That’s what sanctifying grace is all about—going on to perfection—moving further along the road of faith today than I was yesterday—growing more like Christ every day.
We must put on that new coat every day, and through prayer, bible study, fasting, fellowship, worship, meditation, communion, solitude…whenever we practice the spiritual disciplines we open ourselves to the power of God that is within each of us. Everything God wants us to be we already are on the inside in the person of Jesus Christ.
Augustine of Hippo
One of the great saints of the church, Augustine, grew up in a Christian home, but by his own admission, rejected the values of his godly mother and lived a sinful life. One of the many sinful pleasures in which he indulged was sexual sin. Augustine lived with a prostitute before his conversion, and legend has it that after his conversion he was walking down the street and this prostitute saw him. She shouted his name and he kept walking. He saw her, but kept his eyes straightforward and walked. She continued crying after him and ran after him. Finally, she said, “Augustine, it is I.”
Augustine replied, “I know, but it is no longer I.”
We are changed. It’s who we are in Jesus Christ, but we only know that if we ask the right questions.
I was just a kid in the early 1970’s, but I remember vividly the music of Andre Crouch and The Disciples. I remember his music because I was part of a youth choir that often sang songs he wrote. One song in particular that I’ve been singing over and over lately is one entitled Jesus is the Answer. I’ve been singing it because I believe the Jesus IS the answer for the world today.
I also vividly remember many people who mocked Andre Crouch and the title to that song. Mockers asked, “If Jesus is the answer, what is the question?” I don’t know if there was a specific question Crouch was asking back in the 1970’s, but I know there is a specific question folks are asking today (and I’m asking it myself, too). With the racial and political brokenness facing us in this monster year 2020, the question is “How do we heal the division among us?”
Is it necessary for me to point out those areas of division? Probably not, but just in case you haven’t noticed, here are a few:
Ideologically–Capitalist vs. Socialists/Communists
Racially–White vs. Black, et. al.
Politically–Democrat vs. Republican, Trump vs. Never-Trump
Religiously–Traditionalist vs. Progressive
The list could go on. The divisions are tearing at the very fabric of our humanity. I am concerned about where the divisions will lead us unless we do the hard work of reconciling our differences, and learning again how to live with our diversity as a people and as a nation.
Of course, we aren’t the first generation to deal with divisions. The Apostle Paul’s generation had one, too. He writes about it to the church in Ephesus as an illustration—and a vivid one it is! In Ephesians 2, he calls it “dividing wall.” The wall to which Paul referred was a 3 1/2 foot high stone wall in the Temple that separated the Court of the Gentiles from the Court of the Jews, and on that stone wall were signs that basically read, “Any foreigner who enters beyond this point is responsible for their ensuing death.” Paul uses the image to tell the church that in Christ that wall has been torn down. The division that existed between Jew and Gentile prior to Christ no longer existed. Through Jesus Christ, the two people are made one. They are united in Christ. That was their new identity.
Try to imagine what it must have been like for the first disciples, steeped as they were in 2000 years of history as God’s chosen people, to be told that they were to treat Gentiles the same as they would other Jews. It’s hard for us to imagine because we don’t have any real equivalent today. Here they were, a tiny, insignificant nation, and yet God had chosen them and revealed himself to them. They had Moses and the Prophets. God said they were a holy nation, set apart for his service.
They actually had a somewhat arrogant view of their calling. William Barclay wrote that, “The Gentiles, said the Jews, were created by God to be fuel for the fires of hell.” He would also write, “It was not even lawful to render help to a Gentile mother [at childbirth], for that would simply bring another Gentile into the world.” It was such that if a Jewish boy married a Gentile girl, or a Jewish girl married a Gentile boy, the family had the funeral for the boy or the girl right then. No, Jews and Gentiles were not friends, and the Temple had a vivid image to remind them of that fact.
The chosen people had erected a wall, and Paul tells the Ephesians that the wall was the law, but Jesus abolished the wall through his death on the cross, and reconciled everything by the power of his blood to God, the Father. Now, everyone—Jew and Gentile—comes to God on the basis of faith in His Son. There is a key word there–reconciled.
So, what does Paul say is the result of this reconciliation in Christ? First, the Gentiles are no longer aliens and strangers, visitors without any legal rights, but rather citizens of God’s kingdom. They now enjoy all the privileges of being part of God’s people.
We are embroiled in a debate over the immigration laws in our nation, and I’m not going to give commentary one way or the other about that, but think for a moment the risks so many of those immigrants are willing to take to come to America. The benefits of being an American citizen are worth going to any lengths to obtain.
If being a citizen of America is so good, what about being a citizen of the Kingdom of God? But, it’s even better than that. Paul extends the analogy. He says, “You’ve now become members of God’s household.” You’re part of the family. Being part of a Kingdom is one thing, but being part of family of the King, is another. It means, in the context of this passage, that we’re now brothers and sisters of one another. No matter what our background, we’ve been brought into a new relationship of care, affection and support that may not characterize our earthly family, but does characterize the ideal family, the family of God.
Paul doesn’t leave the analogy there, though. He says Christ destroyed one thing to build another. He tore down a wall so he could build a house. He’s building a house on the foundation of the apostles and prophets with himself as the cornerstone.
I’m reminded of the story of the Tower of Babel, where people tried to build a great tower to reach heaven, and God came down and confused their speech so they couldn’t communicate with each other. They all went off to their own parts of the earth. That was the beginning of the alienation of the races. But in Jesus, we see the process reversed. In Jesus, we see a new humanity, a new community being formed in unity with Christ as its foundation. As this new community is formed, it becomes the place where God dwells and where his people come together to worship him.
Don’t miss how important the corporate nature of the church is here. If we are ever tempted to have an individualistic view of Christianity, to think that God simply comes to dwell in each one of us as individuals and the church is just an add-on, think about what Paul says here. As we’re built together we become a dwelling in which God lives by his spirit. As we’re united in Christ we become the new Temple of God, God’s dwelling place.
It’s important to note that Paul says we’re becoming a holy temple. That’s means we haven’t made it yet. God is still working to on us…individually and corporately. That’s part of Wesleyan theology…this whole idea that we are moving on toward perfection. It is part of the struggle we disciples have as we grapple with one another in this shifting culture. Where does God speak into the situations that divide us, and how does God speak into them?
Honestly, we start with what the Bible says. That’s what it means to be built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. They’re the human authors of most of the Bible. In other words, the church is built on God’s Word. That’s why we take it so seriously, and it’s why we don’t tamper with it. We know how dangerous it is to tamper with a building’s foundation. That’s why we should prick up our ears whenever we hear someone undermining the authority of God’s word, or questioning its authenticity. I’m certain the conversation won’t end there, but it at least must start there.
So, how are we to be united? I think there are implications for us personally and corporately. There is one word that I believe is key for our unity is Christ, and that word is forgiveness. Personally, we must begin to tear down the divisions we’ve built between ourselves and others by seeking and extending forgiveness as freely as God has extended it to us through Jesus Christ.
One of the ways we can do that is to acknowledge the person I’m listening to may know something I don’t know. Jordan Peterson has written a fantastic book entitled Twelve Rules for Life. Rule number nine says, “Assume the person you are listening to knows something you don’t.” When we listen to others, we can begin to find places where reconciliation may come, and then we’ll discover our unity in Christ.
Corporately, there’s nothing that happens in the Church that should cause a breakdown in relationships…nothing! The mission of the Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. How can we invite others into a reconciled relationship with Jesus Christ if we’re not reconciled to one another?
Internal harmony is one of the things architects look for when they’re sizing up the aesthetics of a building. But the harmony we’re talking about here is more than just aesthetic. We’re talking about a harmony where all the parts work together to bring the building to completion. We overcome this division, too, by seeking and extending forgiveness.
We are united in Christ. That which divides us fades into insignificance when we acknowledge ourselves as God’s sons and daughters. The worth of people different from ourselves can only be judged from God’s point of view. The color of our skin, the sound of our accent, the language we speak with most comfort have nothing to do with it. What matters is that Jesus Christ died to reconcile us to the father and to each other.
So, yes, I believe Jesus is the answer to the divisions in our culture. Unfortunately, the culture is turning further and further away from Jesus, but that’s an entirely different blog.
I am not a hiker, but I have been hiking. So, I know very little about hiking except what I’ve read. I mention hiking, though, because hiking comes to mind when I think about God’s sanctifying grace (yeah, I know, you can’t figure out how my mind works–sometimes I can’t either).
SANCTIFICATION
I am thinking about God’s sanctifying grace because I’ve been studying again the core beliefs of the Evangelical Methodist Church. Here’s what the Church says about sanctification and living a holy life: “We believe in entire sanctification following regeneration, whereby the believer is cleansed from the pollution of sin, saved from its power, and enabled through grace, to love God with all his/her heart,” and “We believe that every Christian is expected to live a holy life, one that is truly Christian.”
Regeneration. Sanctification. Those are three dollar theological words that mean “a new life” and “a holy life” respectively. New life (regeneration) comes when we accept Jesus Christ, and a holy life (sanctification) is what grows out of following Christ. Now, you’re probably wondering, “What does any of that have to do with hiking?” I’m glad you asked.
Do you know what G.O.R.P is? G.O.R.P. is an acronym that stands for granola, oats, raisins and peanuts, or as others have said, “Good old raisins and peanuts.” For a hiker on a journey, gorp is a snack designed to keep the hiker from crashing on an extended trip. It’s hard to pack a lot of food on an extended hike, and g.o.r.p. is sufficient in calories to keep the hiker from experiencing what is known in the hiking world as the “bonk.” A bonk is when a hiker doesn’t take in enough calories and energy and capacity deteriorates, thus preventing one completing the journey. Good old raisins and peanuts is meant to sustain the traveler through the journey, to help the person stay fueled to finish the hike.
That, in a nutshell (no pun intended), is the essence of God’s sanctifying grace. Life is a journey, and all along the way God’s grace is available to us, in different ways at different stages of the journey. It is God’s sanctifying grace that sustains us over the long haul of life. It is His grace made real in the challenging times, when energy and capacity wane…when life happens.
Sanctifying grace is God at work in us through the Holy Spirit to transform us. Our journey, our spiritual journey, is a journey toward transformation. When we come to Jesus Christ and he forgives our sin and gives us a new start, that’s not the end of the journey. In that moment, Jesus does something for us. If justifying grace is God doing something for us, sanctifying grace is God doing something in us. The something He desires to do is make us holy. We hear that word “holy” and we think, “Who me? Holy? No way.” Yet, that is the life Christ call us to.
HOLINESS
Understand, living a holy life is not living a holier-than-thou life. None of us will likely ever live a perfect life, at least that’s been my experience—but that could just be me. But, John Wesley taught that not only does Christ deliver us from the consequence and penalty of sin, he also delivers us from the power of sin. The Apostle Paul does a masterful job in Romans 6 explaining this idea.
(c) John Wesleys House & The Museum of Methodism; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation
John’s brother, Charles Wesley, also does a masterful job capturing John’s teaching with this verse from Charles’ great hymn, O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing:
He breaks the power of canceled sin, He sets the prisoner free; His blood can make the foulest clean; His blood availed for me.
As we journey through this life, there will always be temptations to sin. There will be challenges to our faith. There will be crises that cause us to doubt. We will deal with death. We will deal with disease. We will deal with difficult people. We will deal with anger. We will deal with frustration. That is the life. In those times, we need grace, and God gives us grace so that we need not surrender to the baser insticnts of our fallen nature. Christ has given us new life. Christ gives us hope. It is Christ who sustains us through life.
The holiness Christ call us to is different than sinlessness. As Wesley taught it, and we understand it, holiness is nothing more…but also nothing less…than love for God and love for neighbor. It is to love as God loves. Jesus gave us two great commandments. We find them in Mark 12: 29 – 31: “The most important one,’ answered Jesus, ‘is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
The spiritual journey of life is about growing up in love. It is growth, and growth is a process. We don’t miraculously love as God loves. Oh, that it would be so simple. Growth is a process, and holiness is a process. Yes, there is, in one sense, where we are made holy by the work of Christ on the cross, but holiness that is lived out occurs over time. Don’t be surprised if you didn’t wake up the day after you accepted Christ living a holy life. But also, don’t be surprised if he begins a work in you, too.
C. S. Lewis, perhaps the greatest theologian of the 20th century, explains it this way. When he was a child, he often had a toothache, and he knew that if he went to his mother, she would give me something which would deaden the pain for that night and let him get to sleep. But, Lewis said, he did not go to his mother–at least not till the pain became very bad. And the reason he did not go was this: He did not doubt she would give him the aspirin; but he knew she would also do something else. He knew she would take him to the dentist the next morning. He could not get what he wanted out of her without getting something more, which he didn’t want. He wanted relief from his pain; but he couldn’t get it without having his teeth set permanently right. And he knew those dentists; he knew they would start fiddling about with all sorts of other teeth which had not yet begun to ache. Our Lord, says Lewis, is like the dentists. Lots of people go to him to be cured of some particular sin. Well, he will cure it all right, but he will not stop there. That may be all you asked; but if you once call him in, he will give you the full treatment.
Sure, most of us don’t wrestle with big sins…even the day after accepting Christ. You know, like murder and stealing and lying. No, what we deal with are much more subtle sins…like selfishness, jealousy, greed and envy. Those sins need transforming, too, and when we struggle with those along our journey, when they sap us of our energy and capacity to love, it’s then we need grace, and the promise of the Gospel is that God gives us His grace—His sanctifying grace—to give us strength, to give us energy, to give us hope in the face of the struggle so that we move closer to the place…closer to the destination…closer to the trailhead…closer to holiness.
What is our G. O. R. P.? What sustains us so that we make it to the end? What makes us holy? I remind us again of the disciplines of the spiritual life—prayer, solitude, fasting, accountability. We know about bible study, too. Another is submission. All of these are the disciple’s G. O. R. P. They strengthen us and grow us in holiness.
There is another one, too. It is the sacrament of Holy Communion. There is strength here. There is grace here. At the Lord’s table, we are reminded of love, and we’re reminded to love. And, we’re reminded that love is sacrifice. It is sacrifice that the Apostle Paul calls us to in Romans 12: 1 – 2—the surrender of ourselves to Christ:
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
We recall Christ’s sacrifice for us, and we see in it his sacrifice, and we acknowledge he calls us to the same sacrificial life. At the Lord’s table, we find strength for the journey. Here we are enabled to keep moving forward.
The Australian coat of arms pictures two animals—the emu, a flightless bird, and the kangaroo. The animals were chosen because they share a characteristic that appealed to the Australian citizens. Both the emu and kangaroo can move only forward, not back. The emu’s three-toed foot causes it to fall if it tries to go backwards, and the kangaroo is prevented from moving in reverse by its large tail. In the following of Jesus, G. O. R. P. helps us be like the emu and kangaroo, moving only forward, never back…becoming more like Jesus everyday–that is holiness…that is sanctification.
Not the Perfect Pastor 