The Methodist Way of Salvation, part 2

A quote attributed to Zig Ziglar says, “If you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time.” As Christians, we have an unfortunate problem that sometimes, in our attempt to be (as the Apostle Paul put it) “all things for all people,” we end up aiming at nothing and thus that’s what we hit. In its roots, the Methodist movement has always had holiness as its goal. Last week we looked at the difficulty for us; holiness is not so easily achieved because of our sin problem. We have so corrupted God’s image within us that we cannot even approach him…

Thankfully, because of God’s character, he bestows grace upon us when we least deserve it. The Holy Spirit extends Prevenient Grace, the grace that goes before us, and woos us, calls us, invites us to him.

But if this was where God’s grace stopped, we would be in trouble. It would get us to the door but no farther. It would be cruel, for God to show us our sin but to leave us in it. But that’s not what God does. God finds us in our sin and shows us our sin so that we can accept his grace and be freed from that sin.

When God confronts us with our sinfulness, through his grace, God also shows us the way out: faith in Jesus Christ. Some people talk about believing in Jesus, but that belief is more than just believing that Jesus was a real person. Believing in him means that we trust that what he did on the cross was enough to save us. Listen to this account from John Wesley’s journal:

In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. – John Wesley’s Journal

When we are confronted by our sin, we can do one of three things. We can ignore it. We can try to pretend that it didn’t happen. We can deny it. We can make excuses, blame someone else, postulate as to why it’s not so bad (for example, “everybody is doing it” or “at least I’m not…”), or we can own up to it. Owning up to our sin, or confessing, is the first step toward perfection. But simply owning up to our sin doesn’t cleanse us. As John Wesley wrote, we have to trust in Jesus to save us.

As we recognize what Jesus has done for us and confess our sin, two things happen. One is repentance. John the Baptist was famous for preaching repentance. Repentance simply means to turn 180 degrees. You’re headed in one direction, and you turn and go the opposite way. So when we are in the midst of sinning, our direction is death and hell. But we turn and go in the opposite direction. It’s not enough to just stop our sinful behaviors. Sometimes I get into the habit of thinking, “If I just get rid of sinful behaviors or thought patterns, I will be OK.”

Jesus told a parable about this. “When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean, and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.” (Matthew 12:43-45)

So instead of simply emptying ourselves of our sinful behaviors and thought patterns, we need to be changed and filled with the Holy Spirit, so that when the temptations return, there is simply no room for the evil spirits.

Something else happens when we accept Jesus’ gift that he made in his crucifixion. The Holy Spirit, the imparter of grace, justifies us. This sermon is filled with those great theological words that we don’t ever hear, and justification is one of them. Justification is a legal term; God is declaring us forgiven: “just as if I had never sinned.” It means that God cancels the punishment of our sin. I sometimes hear people express guilt over past sins. Sometimes the consequences remain, but you do not need to carry guilt with you.

You do not need to carry the guilt with you because your heart has been changed. Your sins are forgiven, and God has restored you to his favor! Not only does God’s grace justify us, but he also gives us a new birth!

You have probably heard the phrase “born again” so many times that it doesn’t carry any weight anymore, but the picture that Jesus painted when he told Nicodemus that “no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again” (John 3:3) is extremely weighty.

While we were born in sin, dead to God, this new birth is a spiritual birth, but it is truly a new creation who is being born. Not the sin-dead old self, but a completely new person. The old is gone, with all of the guilt and shame.

Now, in justification and the new birth, God has declared my slate clean. But God’s grace isn’t finished. One of the most exciting aspects of God’s grace immediately begins to work: sanctifying grace. While justification deals with the penalty of sin, sanctification deals with actual sin. In justification, God washes your slate clean, but when he sanctifies you, not only does he set you apart for his purposes, he actually makes you clean. Not only has the guilt of sin been lifted, but he takes away the actual sins! This is why sanctification immediately follows justification. You do not need to carry that guilt with you because you are no longer the same, dead sinful person who sinned! Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Sanctification is a confusing subject, because it is both instant and gradual. By God’s sanctifying grace, you are sanctified at the moment of your salvation. When Jesus tells his disciples to “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect,” (Matthew 5:48) he doesn’t leave us to try and do it on our own, but he actually does it for us. In an instant, not only are we forgiven, but our sins are gone. I remember being told that God forgets our sins when he forgives us. It sounded good when I first heard it, but there are problems with it. First of all, it perpetuates that tired old God-as-grandfather-in-the-sky stereotype. You know, the friendly old guy who just gives good gifts and conveniently forgets when we’ve been bad. Like Santa, except without the coal. That’s not God at all!

God doesn’t just conveniently “forget” when we’ve sinned. God actually takes the sins we have committed and disappears them. They are gone. I have heard sermons preached and read tracts about judgment and how God will take this big book or maybe it’s in movie form, but whatever the case, you will be confronted with everything you have ever done. This scenario offers only guilt, shame and fear… about things that no longer have any bearing, because they are gone! In 1 John 4, we read about God’s love being made complete in us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. (1 John 4:17-18)

I have seen the courtroom judgment scenario pictured too many times to count, (you know, you die, and all of a sudden you are in a court room with the devil as the prosecutor, naming all your sins. After all of your sins have been listed, God proclaims your guilt and names the punishment: death. But then Jesus steps up to accept the punishment). It is a pretty good understanding of the legal view of the atonement, but the problem is, this scene doesn’t happen after death. This scene has already happened.

So as Christians, we are no longer under the fear of death or judgment! This leads to the doctrine known as assurance. When we sing “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!” we are singing of the witness that the Holy Spirit bears to our spirit. John Wesley’s “heart strangely warmed” was his heart bearing witness. He knew that he knew that he was saved. That God had forgiven his sin. Instantly.

Now, assurance doesn’t mean once saved, always saved. What it means is that the Holy Spirit assures us of our salvation. Remember the illustration of the Go Bus I gave you last week? Where the bus starts at Athens and goes all the way to Cincinnati, whether you stay on it the whole way or decide to get off in Jackson? When it comes to our salvation, we remain free to decide to get off the bus if we so desire.

But staying on the bus is moving toward entire sanctification. Remember how I said that sanctification is both instantaneous and a process? If I let you think that the moment of justification, new birth, and initial sanctification was the final goal, I would be leading you astray. Unfortunately, and inadvertently, sometimes our traditional cultural style of evangelism has often led people to think that it is. We have large rallies, crusades, and revivals, where the end goal is to get people to the altar. While getting people to the altar is a good thing, a very good thing, it is not the final step! It is more like the starting line.

The starting line of initial sanctification is followed by the gift of grace by which God continually refines us and perfects us. John Wesley describes Christian perfection in two ways: first, as having a heart “habitually filled with the love of God and neighbor” – which we recognize from when Jesus was asked, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:36-40)

Jesus comes right out and tells the Pharisees that love, both for God and for neighbor, is the greatest commandment. And as God perfects us more and more, we will overflow with God’s love. The more of God’s love we experience, the more we will love him. And the more we love him, the more we will love our neighbor. This is why Jesus tells his disciples, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35)

Reaching out with Christ’s love isn’t optional for the Christian. If you are Christian, you will reach out with His love. This isn’t to say how we do it, or that the way you do it will look like the way I will. When we first became foster parents, I arrogantly thought, “since God called us to take care of orphans and widows, then everyone ought to be foster parents.” Like I said, that was pure arrogance on my part. Not everyone is called to that ministry. But just because everyone isn’t a foster parent doesn’t mean that we’re not all called to minister to orphans. So for living out our Christian lives, loving our neighbors as ourselves, it looks different for each one of us, but it is not optional.

If we are moving toward Christian perfection and entire sanctification, we cannot do it on our own. Make no mistake: the things that we do to demonstrate our love for our neighbor is not what moves us toward Christian perfection. It is a work of grace, God’s love pouring out through us and being expressed in our love for neighbor. As we receive God’s grace, we love more.

But perfect love is just the first demonstration of Christian perfection. John Wesley also understood it as “having the mind of Christ and walking as he walked.” In other words, Christlikeness. Wesley gets this from 2 Corinthians 3:18: And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

The reference Paul that is making is of Moses, who talked with God face-to-face. After these encounters, Moses’ face would glow, literally glow, with God’s glory. It actually scared the Israelites, so Moses would wear a veil after being with God. Paul is saying that our faces are unveiled and that they reflect God’s glory as the Holy Spirit transforms us more and more into Christ’s likeness. This only happens, however, when we’ve been in God’s presence.

Next week we’ll get deeper into how Methodists traditionally spend time in God’s presence. In the meantime, this week’s homework is not to do homework. If you’re anything like me, you work really hard to make sure you’re doing your best for God. You won’t get more grace or more sanctified or more perfected by working harder. You won’t earn God’s love more by working harder. Just enjoy God this week. Enjoy his grace. Take the time to just relax in his love.