R. C. Sproul - Growing in Holiness: Understanding Gods Role and Yours

K nowing where were going is crucial, but so is knowing how to get there. When we embrace the Bibles teaching that God created us so that we might praise Him through holy living, it is tempting to seek quick fixes and fast solutions. One of my greatest pet peeves is hearing Christians say things like Come to Jesus, and all your problems will be over. Are you kidding me? I dont think my life became really complicated until I became a Christian.

When I think of my pre-Christian days, there was a sense in which, even though my life was empty of any meaning or any significance, it was a whole lot simpler. For the most part, I did what I wanted to do. I had been able to sear my conscience to such a degree that I could enjoy myself without feeling a terrible amount of grief or remorse about it. But with the rebirth of the human soul also comes the rebirth of the human conscience .

The person who has become a Christian is now playing life for keeps. We begin to take life so much more seriously because we realize that it is indeed a serious enterprise. Unfortunately, conversion does not annihilate our propensity for sin. Christians are like the figures we see in comicsengaged in a moral battle, with an angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other. We are torn between the two and greatly influenced by each side.

The Christian life is indeed a complicated matter. God certainly helps us grow through the grace He gives in abundant provision. But great growth still requires great labor.

I remember those initial weeks after my conversion when I read the whole Bible through from beginning to end, like a novel. Ill never forget the impact it had on me, reading it that way. I understood very little of it, but it still had an overwhelming influence on me.

However, I was in great distress and anxiety because, as I read it, particularly the Old Testament, I thought, Wow, this God is playing for keeps. If Im going to be a Christian, its going to be all or nothing at all. I dont know why, but one of the first books I chose to study in depth was Philippians. I remember reading through the book and coming upon this passage: Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure (Phil. 2:1213).

Those verses were weighty to me because I began to see that spiritual growth is something that, in the ultimate sense, rests in the grace of God. He is working in us, through us, and with us. But at the same time there is an admonition for us to work out our salvation. I understood even then that spiritual growth, this progress in the Christian life, is a matter of labor, of toil. It may be a labor of love, to be sure, but the apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, chooses that word carefully and precisely: work.

Sanctification is not a casual endeavor. Paul tells us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Now understand, this is not the fear and trembling of someone who cowers in the darkness out of total intimidation or some kind of paralyzing phobia. Rather, hes writing about a labor of care and of concern and of diligence that we take very seriouslyto the point of fear and trembling. We dont tremble before our human adversaries in fear. We tremble before God and we do so with hope, knowing that God is working within us. We work because God works in us to work.

In my first study of the book of Philippians, I remember marking this significant section:

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 3:1214)

As a newborn Christian, those verses hit me between the eyes. The apostle Paul, the greatest saint of the early church, declares to his congregation, I havent reached the goal yet. I havent attained it. Im not perfect yet. And here I was, being impatient. I had been a Christian for three or four months, and I couldnt understand why I hadnt crossed the goal line yet. But the apostle Paul shows how this pilgrimage is something that lasts our whole life. That was difficult for me.