Yesterday we invited the community to come through the church as part of Doors Open Ottawa. Not many came, as we did not do as big a production like last year, but those who came were given 1 on 1 tours through the church. We were a bit discouraged as no one had come for hours and were thinking of packing in early when suddenly we had a rush of three visitors. So I showed a man named Tim around. As I showed him around, Tim shared with me a little of his background- much like mine, baptized and Christmas and Easter Catholic, he was raised functionally atheist. He asked me about the church and our services and then asked which denomination we are a part of. Now, you may or may not know this, but our church is part of the Evangelical Free church of Canada. So then he asked, what’s an evangelical? Has anyone asked you that? How would you answer? I usually answer something like, Evangelicals believe you need to have a personal encounter with Jesus, that it’s important to tell people that Jesus is able to reconcile us to God, and we take the Bible very seriously as our rule of faith and life. And then I usually say “free” means that we believe in the separation of church and state.
Here’s another question - how would you feel answering that question? Defensive? Apologetic? Wondering what the person has heard? I sometimes feel like that. For many in our culture, the only impression they have of evangelicals is through the news or social media. Some think that we are a political group, or they hear us associated with “white evangelicals” in the US. i always wonder when people ask me that question, how much ground I may have to make up with them, because of the public reputation of Evangelicals. Some Evangelicals even are thinking of changing their branding.
Now I believe much of the public reputation of Evangelicals is slanderous. I believe Satan wants to tarnish our reputation, and slander of the negative always spreads faster than the encouraging or positive. However, I do believe some of our reputation is rightly earned. If we’re known as a political organization, then maybe we have allowed political stances to eclipse our love of Jesus. If we’re derided as hateful, then yes, it is true that some of us struggle to love our neighbour. If we’re called hypocrites, well there is some truth to that as well.
What is the reason for this hypocrisy? I do believe that if we’re honest with ourselves, many evangelicals have allowed a gap to enter into our thoelogy, and thus we are not living biblically. What is that gap? The sanctification gap. Evangelicals focus on conversion, to evangelize someone. That they might be born again. We sometime refer to the past tense of salvation. Having been saved from the penalty of sin. Evangelicals often also focus on the future tense of salvation, our eternal destiny, that someday the kingdom will come and we’ll be at home with Jesus and perfected, removed from the presence of sin. Yet, for some evangelicals - that’s the gospel, we’re saved from the penalty of sin, and someday we’ll be in the presence of Jesus.
Do you see something missing there? There is another tense to our salvation - our sanctification. The present outworking of God’s salvation through us in the here and now in which we gain ever growing victory over the power of sin in our lives. It is this tense of our salvation that actually affects our reputation in this world as God’s children. And it is this tense of salvation that Paul speaks of as he urges the Philippians to go on and grow in their maturity without him. In Philippians 2:12-18 Paul speaks of the process of our sanctification and the purpose of our sanctification.
Phil. 2:12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
Phil. 2:14 Do all things without grumbling or disputing, 15 that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, 16 holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. 17 Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. 18 Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.
The Process of our Sanctification: Work Out What God Is Working In You
as you have always obeyed: First Paul encourages them, as he has before, that he has seen God’s work in them already, because he has seen a consistent obedience in them, conforming to the gospel of Christ. That is, Paul is not doing, what we sometimes are guilty of doing, he is not expecting non-Christians to live like Christians. What he’s doing is encouraging them, saying, I’ve observed this genuine mark of faith in you - God’s started a work in you, I’ve had the joy of partnering with you in the gospel from the first day until know, he has begun a work in you. So they encouraging affirmation is there from the beginning of this text. So many times as parents and pastors and friends, we are so quick to look at what is not present in the faith of our kids or fellow church-members, or even ourselves, and yet when we do see marks of faith or obedience, it is proper to celebrate and affirm. Paul never does this in a way that puffs up pride, but sets the Philippians obedience in the context of God’s work in them. He does this through prayer, thanking God for His work in them. He does this through encouragement, sharing with them how he sees God working in them. He does this through teaching, stating explicitly as we will see, “this is God working in you.” Yet when he sees God working in his friends Paul notes it and not only notes it but points it out.
so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence Second, Paul encourages them to keep on doing what they are doing, especially since he may be absent from them. While they were a young church they leaned on the presence and work of Paul, but Paul knew that in order for them to mature as a church, they must take all the more care to remain obedient to Christ in the absence of himself. Parents, it’s a joyful thing to see children obey when you are present with them. Yet it is a very, very, very, joyful thing to hear that a child has obeyed what you have modelled for them when they are not in your presence. It’s harder, particularly in that transition. You leave home for university and suddenly your parents aren’t around, there is no curfew, there’s pressure around. You’ve always obeyed in the presence of your parents, but what will happen now? Part of growing up and particularly a great part of maturing in your faith is when you realize that you are standing firm and striving on and not fearing without the presence of your parents or spiritual mentors present with you.
And so Paul begins by encouraging them by letting them know he’s observed their consistent obedient up until this point, but making them aware that there will now be a new challenge facing them that they must prepare for as they grow toward maturity. This brings us to Paul’s charge:
work out your own salvation: this is the imperative, the command, the charge that Paul places on this church and its members. They are to work out their own salvation. What does this mean? Remember, Paul has referred to salvation twice already in this letter. First Paul says in 1:19: for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance [and the word there is “salvation”], and if you remember, we suggested that though Paul likely had in mind his deliverance from the prison cell, the context suggests that he was thinking something more, because he begins to speak of the deliverance that his own death will bring. That’s is, because Paul believed confidently that his ultimate and eternal deliverance is secured in Christ, he knew that he would be delivered from his chains either in the present through his release, or in the future through his death. Salvation, in this context, has a primarily future orientation that may be brought into the present through our prayer and the help of the Holy Spirit. And I think that is indeed the sense that Paul is getting to when he says, work out your own salvation: take from the future surety of your salvation and bring it into the present more and more, and thus experience the power of salvation ever more victoriously in your daily life and Christian community. Salvation is future oriented, but it can’t be set off to the future, it mist be more and more apprehended in the present. This all ties back into the Lord’s Prayer: Our Father, in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
with fear and trembling: in reverent awe of God as you hold on to your salvation as a precious treasure. The idea is not that we are afraid and therefore paralyzed, but that we recognize the value of the burden that we are carrying. Imagine if you were a waiter or waitress carrying a large try of priceless vessels. Think of the care and the seriousness and the concentration you would conduct yourself with so that you may not be distracted in your work. We have taken hold of the eternal and are carrying it into the present, and how can we not tremble at that?
for it is God who works in you both to will and to work: So here is the Christian mysterious teaching on sanctification - it is our work, and it is God’s work. And note, it is not the we have the desire and God does the work, or that God gives us the desire and we do the work. We work out our salvation, 100% and God works his salvation in us 100%, both the willing and the doing. Before we try to understand that, which is probably beyond our understanding, I want to set apart this teaching fro other faulty views of sanctification:
Faulty views of sanctification
God does the initial work to save you, but you’ve got to do the work of keeping yourself saved. This is like God helps you out of a pit, but you’ve got to walk home. This is the Galatian controversy, “Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?”
You do everything you can to save yourself, and then God brings you home. This was the position of one of Martin Luther’s teachers, a man named Biel, who taught that God had made a deal with us, that God committed himself to give grace to those who literally, “did what was in them” (did their best). When I read this I realized this was exactly the religion i was taught growing up, whether through the church or through popular conception of religion. Growing up I had understood that God is a perfect, holy God who makes demands upon us as his creatures, but he understands that we are imperfect and weak. So we try to live a good life, try not to do anything too bad, and hope that God will be merciful and say, “Hey, you tried. It’s ok I got this” and then He would kind of push me through the rest of the way. This is truly the “God helps those who help themselves” idea.
God does X% and we do X% and it equals 100%. Either of the above ideas are that God does some and we do the rest, and neither convey the Biblical understanding of sanctification, that we work out what God works in, we work at as God is at work. this is neither deterministic, or robotic, but neither is it man-centrered or chaotic, it is grace through and through.
We shouldn’t be surprised to find this mysterious paradox in the matter of sanctification; we find it in a lot of other ways as well in the Scripture. I often put it the way to people struggling with the relationship between our activity in salvation and God’s activity. Can you grant that God is able to one thing that is beyond our understanding. And usually they grant that yes, it is possible that God may in fact be able to do one thing that is beyond our human understanding. And then I suggest that one thing at least that God does in scripture that is beyond our capability to understand is what we call the hypostatic union. That Christ is fully god, while fully human. Taht the word of God is 100% god breathed, and 100% man authored. That our salvation is 100% God’s work in us, yet salvation is by or through the instrument of faith alone. That our sanctification is 100% God working in us to will and to work, and 100% us working out our salvation in fear and trembling. Now I believe that in all those cases, God’s activity is logically prior to our own, for he is the source of all and we are dependent creatures. however, that doesn’t negate our human activity in any of those spheres. There is also an awareness of our need for God in our activity, for we do not will and act in and of ourselves, but even our activity come from a heart yielded to God. As the Psalmist prayed:
Psa. 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
11 Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.
The Purpose of our Sanctification: That We Might Shine Before the World
Phil. 2:14 Do all things without grumbling or disputing, 15 that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world,
Do all things working out our salvation, with an attitude of agreeability, and here is the purpose, verses 15: that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.
There is an allusion, as we’ll see, here to the journey of the children of Israel. Which makes sense as the exodus event is used throughout scripture in providing a picture of the spiritual life. Israel was redeemed in Egypt through the substitutionary death of an unblemished passover lamb, just as Christians are redeemed by our passover lamb, Jesus Christ. Israel passed through the red sea and was formed into a covenant community, a symbol of sorts of our baptism which includes us in the new covenant community of the church. And of course, Israel was journeying toward their promised land, just as we are promised a home in the kingdom of Christ. Yet we also know that the exit form Egypt was not immediately followed by the entrance into the promised land. There was a journey in between, and this is the journey that is a shadow of our sanctification. For Israel, it was a journey often marked by spiritual failure, by grumbling among themselves and disputing with Moses and Aaron. In fact, you can see the contrast Paul is making between the wandering children of Israel, and his hope for us, if you compare Philippians 2:15 with Deuteronomy 32:5. Straying Israel was called blemished children, whearas Paul is saying if we continue to work out our salvation, we will be “children of God without blemish”. Straying Israel was “a crooked and twisted generation.” Yet as we work out what God works in us we will be “in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world” But Paul is saying, church, as you work out your salvation, you don’t need to replay the experience of Israel - Do all things without grumbling or disputing.
Finally, We are Pointed to the Joy of Sanctification
16 holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. 17 Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. 18 Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.
We must understand that we have an active, not passive part to play in our sanctification.
We must call out to God for the willing and the working
There is also an awareness of our need for God in our activity, for we do not will and act in and of ourselves, but even our activity come from a heart yielded to God. As the Psalmist prayed:
Psa. 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
11 Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit.