Philippians 1:3-11
Psalm 51: 6-12
My father is a very
practical man.
He’s the kind of person
you want around when a tire goes flat or a furnace filter needs changing or a
pipe is leaking. He and my mom live in North Carolina where I believe he’s in
the process of building himself a work bench.
Like I said, he’s a
very practical man.
It’s funny what we
remember. I remember my dad’s shoes. As a child I watched my dad polish his
shoes, something that he did, as far as I could tell, perfectly. He would
spread newspaper all over the kitchen table and shine away until he had restored
the row of shoes in his closet to perfection.
I think I always took
for granted what my father did. He would try to teach me how to do something,
how to plant a garden or caulk or work with wood, and I would only half pay
attention, because I knew, I just knew,
that I would grow up and I would know how to do all these things. I figured
that there would come a time that I was a grown up, and as a grown up I would
know how to do grown up things. Why learn how to do them as a kid?
Well, I turned 10, and
then 13, and then 16. When I was 16 I figured that I would be a grown up after
high school. When I was in college I felt like I would be a grown up after college.
And suddenly I was 25 and I still didn’t magically know how to do all these
grown up things that I guess I thought I would suddenly be able to do at some
point.
It turns out that I
still have a lot of learning to do. Life’s not done with me yet.
I wonder how many of us
are like this when it comes to our walk of faith. I wonder how many of us have
gone through life thinking that there would come a time when we were finally
where we wanted to be spiritually, when we had finally learned all that we
could of God and we had become perfectly the disciples we are called to be. I
don’t know about you, but I wonder if perhaps some of you have felt a sense of
frustration about spirituality, a sense of not doing enough or praying enough
or reading the Bible enough. I don’t know about you. But I know that I feel
this frustration. That I often say to myself, “next week I’ll read the Bible
more” or “come Lent I’ll pray more.”
There is good news for
those of us who feel this sense of spiritual incompleteness, who wonder why at
this point in our lives we don’t have it all together like we thought we would,
that we’re not suddenly spiritual grown-ups like we thought we’d be. The good
news is simply this: God’s not done with us yet.
I think we get a
glimpse of that good news in Paul’s letter to the Philippian community. Paul is
writing this letter from jail, and so it’s striking how joyful a letter this
is, how reflective of the wonderful relationship in Christ that Paul and the
Philippians have. This is a community that Paul (along with Timothy) planted,
that he has watched grow up, that has supported his ministry from afar and
welcomed him when he is near. And as joyful as Paul is about the Philippian
disciples of Christ, as proud as he is of this community, he does not believe
that they have finished their journey. Listen to his words: “I am confident of
this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion
by the day of Jesus Christ.” God, Paul believes, will complete the growth of
this community. But not yet. Not yet. God isn’t done with them yet.
This concept of God’s
continued work in our lives is often called “sanctification.” John Wesley, the
founder of the Methodist movement, did not by any means invent this concept,
but he did put a particular focus on it in his writing and sermons. Wesley, who
emphasized the importance of grace, argued that humans experience grace in
different ways. There is prevenient grace, the grace that comes before—that is,
the grace that is at work in our lives before we even realize it, before we
even know to call it grace. There is justifying grace, or pardoning grace—the
grace through which we experience forgiveness from God and reconciliation with
God. And then there is sanctifying grace, that grace that continues to be at
work in our lives, growing holiness and deepening our relationship to God.
Wesley actually
believed that it was possible for a believer to achieve what he called
“perfection”—not perfection in the sense of making no mistakes but perfection
in the sense of always acting out of love. But he also felt that he never
achieved perfection in his lifetime, that he was always going on towards a
goal. In other words, John Wesley, the founder of one of the great revival
movements in the church’s history, felt that God wasn’t done with him yet.
We can see the concept
of sanctification in Paul’s letter to the Philippians. Paul writes: “And this
is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full
insight, to help you determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you
maybe be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that
comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.” Even the
Philippian community, Paul’s favored child, had growth still to do. Their love
could overflow more, and more, with more knowledge of God, more insight into
the love of Jesus Christ. They had come a long way. But God wasn’t done with
them yet.
We can see the concept
of sanctification at work in the psalm that we read as well. Psalm 51 is a
penitential psalm, begging forgiveness for past sin. But the psalmist doesn’t
ask only for forgiveness. It’s not enough to be restored to a past state of
affairs, before the sin. The psalmist wants transformation. Wants “wisdom in
[their] secret heart.” Wants “a new and right spirit within [them].” Psalm 51 is a prayer that has
faith in forgiveness. But it doesn’t stop at forgiveness. God isn’t done with
the psalmist yet.
And so God is at work
in our lives. Growing. Transforming. Leading. There is no magical point in our
lives when we have learned everything we need to learn about God, when we have
walked every step of discipleship there is to be walked. We continue in prayer,
in Bible study, in meeting together in worship, not because we have it all
together but exactly because we don’t. Exactly because we are still growing and
learning in Christ. Exactly because the one who began a good work among us is
still working in our lives to bring it to completion. Exactly because God isn’t
done with us yet.
God is, this very day,
extending God’s grace to us. Grace is already here. We are merely putting
ourselves in the way of grace. Putting ourselves in the way of grace with our
actions, with our prayers, with our life together. It’s something we commit to
again, each day, knowing that God is not done with us yet.
I have to admit that I
still don’t know how to polish a nice pair of shoes, and that’s just the least
of the things my dad can do that I still need to learn. I have a long way to
go. All of us, no matter what stage of life we are in, still have a way to go
to be the people that God intends us to be. But this is not like a test to see
how much we can achieve in a lifetime. This is growth, fast or slow, growth
toward the sun of God’s love for us. We
have a long way to go but we don’t go alone. God isn’t done with us yet.
Oh and one last thing.
Paul’s letter to the Philippians was written to a community, not an individual believer. God is at work in our lives
together. Spiritual growth is not something that happens just to one person or
another person in isolation. We grow together
in love. We lift each other up. We hold each other accountable. We pray
together and study the Bible together. Because no matter what stage of life we
are in, life is something we share. And God isn’t done with us yet.
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