The Sanctification Rag

So I've been hanging out once a week with a church planting couple in our area. He's saying the right things (by my lights) about being Christ-centered, about using Gospel methods to share the Gospel message. That piece, "gospel methods," is even more foreign to our evangelical churches than is the gospel message, which is saying something. Most churches, in my opinion, just have too much on their plate. They're preaching about money and sex and parenting and health and changing the culture and homosexuality and dream-interpretation and how to be confidant and optimistic all the time and everything else under the sun, and the Gospel that Jesus preached might make its way into the mix every now and then. Or it might not.

Perhaps most of the people who attend these busy-busy churches are happy with all that, and get a lift out of all the urging and the mandates and the focus on doing doing doing. Some people seem to thrive on that kind of stuff. Those that don't have probably all departed and are either struggling int the wilderness (angry, sad, or just spent), or perhaps they'v managed to stumble into a church that just kind of quietly reminds people of who God is and what he's done.

A bright young man named Nate wrote a pretty interesting blog post a couple of weeks back. Nate happens to be my son, and I thought I'd interrupt my blogging hiatus to respond to his post. He says some rather strong things about the Christian's favorite subject--sanctification. Says it's mostly idolatry. We idolize this ideal about the Christian life and pursue it and try to measure our progress and talk about how we're better than we're used to be, etc. Here's what Nate says:

If I'm going to worship God- through word, sacrament, music, liturgy, or anything-- it's going to be a God who commands and compels my attention, and the attention that we give to our sanctification is quite noticably not on this God. Christ, while he certainly does sanctify his people, is designed to be the object of attention. What he gives is not given to be an object of attention. Just a signature- something that draws attention back to him. In other words, why are we talking about your pornography problem? Or the fact that you overcame your pornography problem? These may be slightly interesting, but...

...not as interesting as Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. I will say this categorically about everything you can possibly experience in life. Tongues, prophecies, healings, helpings, victories, defeats, epiphanies, blindnesses, baptisms, and burns. The life more abundant is his life, not yours. And you think far too highly of yourself.

What Nate says of most if not all discussion about sanctification is that it is more often than not a rejection of the sufficiency of Christ and the cross. Or it reflects a desire to subjugate Christ and the work of Christ to the purposes of one's own sanctification (so that one can grow spiritually, be a good husband, etc.). And Nate says that when we do this we are operating as "enemies of god."

Nate's words have an undercurrent of deep frustration here. Maybe he's too strong in his dismissal of all talk of sanctification, I don't know, but I do think that we almost always over-confidant in our methods, and we almost always over-state their results. We talk about our sanctification as if life after we get saved is one long steady upward climb, when it's really more like a roller coaster ride for most of us. So in that sense I think it best to not go there, no matter how many Puritan preachers you can find who would tell me otherwise.

The only method I would give you is this. Get with Jesus. Stay close. Follow him around. Imbibe his words and his attitude. Sit at his feet. Even then you'll have shocking downfalls, just like Peter. But don't worry. Jesus still loves you.