TRINITY SUNDAY 2009
Isaiah 48:12-16
Romans 8:12-17
June 7, 2009
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We talk a lot in the Church about getting ‘saved’. Are you saved, have you been saved, do you know if you’re saved? By ‘saved’ we generally mean having accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior, so that we are assured we will spend eternity in heaven. The Apostle Paul (who wrote most of the New Testament) never really uses the word ‘saved’. Instead, in his letters he moves back and forth between three different terms; justified, sanctified, and glorified.
The first word, justified, is when you make the decision to place all of your faith in Jesus. The moment you accept Jesus as your Savior your sins are all forgiven, and you are justified. The third word, glorified, is what happens when we get to heaven. We receive a perfect body, perfect understanding, perfect obedience, and we participate in perfect worship. Today we’re going to talk about the second word, sanctification; what happens after we make the decision for Christ, but before we become perfect in heaven.
A lot of people have spent a lot of time trying to decide exactly what Paul means by sanctification. Modern day theologian Gannon Murphy says sanctification is, “The translation which follows a unilateral pneumatological regeneration.” Well duh, of course, that’s the first thing we all thought right? (Goes without saying.) Thirteenth century Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas (who had a really big brain!) said sanctification is, “Prudence in the right use of reason regarding things to be done.” OK, there’s a definition I can get behind – sanctification is doing the right thing.
The only human to ever walk this earth in perfection, the only person who ever always ‘did the right thing’, was Jesus. So, sanctification is the process of becoming like Jesus. It starts when we place our faith in Christ, and it ends when we get to heaven. In between we struggle every day to be more and more like Jesus. Why are we talking about sanctification on Trinity Sunday? Because it is impossible to live a sanctified life without all three aspects of our triune God. We are the creation of, and fall under the authority of, God the Father. We have been redeemed, and we have had a perfect example set for us, by God the Son. Along the way we are encouraged, guided, and reprimanded, by God the Spirit.
How do we get sanctified, how do we live out the second step in our salvation? The Apostle Paul says first you must put to death the sins of your body. I think his actual words are, “You must mortify the sins of your body.” Step one is stop doing wrong things. That’s a lot easier said than done isn’t it? The moment we are justified God sees us as pure and perfect beings, redeemed by Christ and completely without sin (1 Corinthians 6:11). In theory, from that moment on we should always be able to do the right thing. And yet, in practice, we keep falling back into sin. Why is that?
My 28 year old son loves video games. Many years ago he became addicted to a game called ‘Halo’. He played online, with a team of other young men his age, who live all over the United States. He hooked his computer up to his big screen TV to make the game more exciting. Sometimes he would stay up all night long playing Halo. On the bottom left corner of the Halo screen is a radar depiction. No matter where you go, or what you do, that radar is always sweeping – looking for bad guys. As time went by, and my son matured, he moved on from Halo.
However, he noticed that he had played so much Halo, that the radar depiction had burned itself into the screen of his television. He doesn’t play Halo anymore, he watches science television, he researches information for his Master’s degree, he relaxes with light comedies – and yet the shadow of Halo remains on his TV. The shadow is always there reminding him of what he used to do, how he used to be, and beckoning him to come back and play again. In his own way Paul says that while we become new creatures when we give our lives to Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17), our bodies still carry the shadow of our sin; ever reminding us of what we used to do, how we used to be, and beckoning us to come back and play again (Romans 7:13-24).
Our struggle against the shadow would be hopeless if not for the Holy Spirit. Step one is to stop doing wrong things. Step two is to start doing right things. Paul says step two is possible, but only if you are connected and tuned in to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit works in direct opposition to the nature of our flesh. The only time the shadow isn’t present on my son’s TV is when the screen is filled with white light. The clean, pure, white light (with no other colors present) drives the shadow away. The shadow isn’t strong enough to overcome pure white.
When the Holy Spirit becomes present in our life we begin to exhibit certain characteristics, certain fruits. We begin to demonstrate love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). These bursts of pure goodness from God are too strong for the shadow. The shadow cannot overcome the Spirit, and so it becomes easier and easier to do the right thing.
Now, easier is a relative term. I’m not saying its easy to do the right thing, but it is easier with the Spirit. The reason for that is because life is not black and white. It seems like it should be. Don’t murder; that’s pretty black and white. But, what if murdering the Son of God would set every human free from slavery to sin? Would you murder then? For every black and white situation you can give me I can throw in a tiny twist that creates a lot of grey. The truth is that every situation in life is fraught with both good and evil. Without the Holy Spirit to interpret the situation, and guide us through all the grey, we can never hope to get better at doing the right thing.
It is important to notice that while justification is something God does to us, and glorification is something God does to us; sanctification is a process we participate in. Doing the right thing is a struggle we engage every day, and there are no shortcuts in this process. Paul says it takes constant training to get where we can recognize the guidance of the Spirit and distinguish good from evil (Hebrews 5:14).
How do you train to run a marathon? You don’t get up one morning, put on your sweat suit and running shoes, stretch a little bit; and then try to run twenty six miles. Nobody can do that. And, even if you tried it several days in a row, you would fail so much that eventually you would give up hope and quite even trying. No. You start with small distances, gradually increasing them; each day varying how far and how fast you run. You accept at the very beginning the fact that some days the running will be easy, and some days it will hurt. You understand from the start that fatigue weakens resolve. You know that from time to time you are going to stumble and fall. When that happens you get back up, dust yourself off, and start running again. And, eventually, you are marathon ready.
Sanctification is the training for glorification, not glorification itself. We get up each morning, determined to embrace those gifts of clean pure light and not give in to the shadow. But, when the shadow appears, we don’t give up on faith. We don’t abandon Christianity. We don’t turn away from the pursuit of sanctification. We get back up, dust ourselves off, and start running again. Eventually, we believe that sanctification is possible.
Step one is to stop doing the wrong things. Step two is to start doing the right things. Paul says step three is to honestly, sincerely, believe that we are son and daughters of God. The first time a marathon runner actually runs the full twenty six miles, is in the marathon. So, it is critical that they believe in their mind that they can do something their body has never done before. We take a huge step forward in our training when we finally believe that we really are the adopted children of God. That change in mindset is crucial to being able to complete the marathon.
In Jesus’ day a childless couple never adopted a child. Why would you want to do that? You don’t know how that child is going to turn out. You might not like that child when it finally becomes an adult. No. You adopted an adult (Genesis 15:2). That way you could already assess the character and quality of your adopted son. (I’m sorry – girls were not adopted because they could not inherit property, so there was no point.) Typically you adopted a slave or servant, who had no hope of a better life, and couldn’t believe their good fortune.
Paul says we have to mature through the training process of sanctification before the Holy Spirit can finally convince us that we really have been adopted. It takes that long road of preparation by the Holy Spirit before we can finally get it right in our heads, so that we feel it in our hearts. Sanctification is complete when we absolutely, undeniably, whole heartedly accept and embrace that we are in the family of God. No other family, just the family of God.
A few weeks ago someone asked me a great question. This is one of the all time great questions. She asked, “What if my husband or my son or my daughter isn’t a believer; they aren’t ‘saved’? When I get to heaven, how can I be happy there - knowing that a member of my family is in hell? How could heaven ever be a good place?”
Here’s the answer. When we get to heaven, and we are glorified, we finally understand that our family (our real family) is the adopted sons and daughters of God – the believers. We will finally understand that we are not connected by blood, we are connected by the Spirit. We will look around heaven and say, “Yes! Yes! Yes! Every member of my family is right here, right now. I can’t think of anyone who is missing!” We will be aware that there are souls in hell. But, our perspective (which is God’s perspective) will be that we never really knew those people. Their situation is regrettable, but they were complete strangers we never knew so it’s hard to get emotionally involved with their plight. That is the power of adoption into the family of God.
When you accepted Jesus as your only hope for salvation you were justified. When you get to heaven and are made perfect you will be glorified. In the mean time, embrace and pursue your sanctification. Stop doing the wrong things. Start doing the right things. Believe that you are in the family.
Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever” (John 6:53-58). He was connecting the process of sanctification to the ceremony of Holy Communion. Would you please open your hymnals to page 15 – a service of word and table III.