Since coming home from Kenya, I have been a bit depressed. Not because of what I left behind in Kenya, but because of some of the realizations I had while there.
Being a short term missionary was fun; I was able to go and be with Christians, but it also left me empty, because as a Christian, we are called to live out our faith in our communities. The pastors in the slums of Kenya are truly living out their faith in their communities; they are out on the streets visiting homes, working in the school, doing what needs to be done so that their faith community members become a light to those who think that life is hopeless because of their current station.
However, I realized while in Kenya, that I am not able to live out my faith like my brothers and sisters in other countries or even in my community because of my past. Let's face it, people all have a history before they encountered Christ and some make choices that come with consequences once they are Christians. Making a mistake is held against people in today's society; especially if that person is wanting to work ministering the gospel.
I am the first to admit that I haven't always been a shining light for God; I've made mistakes and I've paid for them. Often times longer than I should. That's why I am usually to alone, I don't have a lot of friends, I don't go out, and I can sit in my house binge watching episodes of Outlander and Orange is the New Black or whatever show I choose to indulge in.
Over the week in Kenya, I spent one day in reflection of my calling. I can tell you that I don't have a clear calling--I never have. I don't like church politics, but unfortunately in any church that is a necessary thing. I don't enjoy being with people 24/7; I am an ambivert, geared more towards the introverted. I am assertive--which to some is a bad thing--to me, not so much. But are these qualities that should be in a pastor's life?
Seriously all I want to do is preach Jesus! I don't care about reformation in the church as much as I care about revival, I care about souls who need Jesus! Maybe I am wrong, maybe I should care about other people's sins, but I don't. I have enough of my own issues to work through to care about other people's sins.
That brings me to Phillipians 2:12-13 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, 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.
But what does this verse really mean? I know it doesn't have to do with me ignoring other's sins. Work out translates a present middle imperative of katergazomai and indicates a command that has a continuing emphasis. The idea is, “Keep on working out to completion, to ultimate fulfillment.” Heauton, here rendered your, actually has the more emphatic meaning of “your own.” The command is for believers to make a continuing, sustained effort to work out to ultimate completion their salvation, which has been graciously granted to them by God through their faith in Jesus Christ.
The principle of working out salvation has two aspects. The first pertains to personal conduct, to faithful, obedient daily living. Such obedience obviously involves active commitment and personal effort, for which Scripture is replete with injunctions, both negative and positive. Sin in every form is to be renounced and put off and replaced by righteous thinking. Believers are to cleanse themselves “from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Cor. 7:1), setting their minds “on the things above, not on the things that are on earth,” because they have died to sin and their lives are now “hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:2–3). Just as they once “presented [their] members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness,” they should “now present [their] members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification” (Rom. 6:19), walking “in a manner worthy of the calling with which [they] have been called” (Eph. 4:1).
The second aspect of working out one’s salvation is perseverance, of faithful obedience to the end. Salvation has three time dimensions: past, present, and future. The past dimension is that of justification, when believers placed their faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord and were redeemed. The present dimension is sanctification, the time between a believer’s justification and his death or the Rapture. The future aspect is glorification, when salvation is completed and believers receive their glorified bodies. Believers therefore have been saved, are being saved, and will be saved. They are to pursue sanctification in this life to the time of glorification. In that glorious moment believers will see the Lord “face to face” and come to know fully even as they are fully known (1 Cor. 13:12). They “will be like Him, because [they] will see Him just as He is” (1 John 3:2). It was for that glorious moment that Paul so deeply longed. Looking forward to that time he exclaimed: More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 3:8–14)Because the fulfillment of that hope was a divinely decreed certainty, Paul could say with complete confidence that “salvation is nearer to us than when we believed” (Rom. 13:11). Although it is not yet completed, the testimony of Scripture is that every believer’s salvation is utterly secure.
Then I start to think about the fear and trembling part, and what all this truly means...Although God is loving, merciful, and forgiving, He nevertheless holds believers accountable for disobedience. Like John, Paul understood well that “if we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:8–9).
But over all I think that my time in Kenya taught me that working out my own salvation is that salvation isn't done by me; I looked to John Calvin (I know, a Methodist that reads Calvin, perish the thought!) To work out one's own salvation “is the true engine for bringing down all haughtiness—this the sword for putting an end to all pride, when we are taught that we are utterly nothing, and can do nothing, except through the grace of God alone. I mean supernatural grace, which comes forth from the spirit of regeneration.” To know this is not to take anything from us, except the temptation to think we have contributed to our salvation and to boast about it.
So while my calling isn't clear and I am at the point that I don't think it's pastoral ministry (and that is hard for me to admit), I am at a place of "Okay God, I will stand still until you say move." And as a Christian, that's not a comfortable place, it's uncomfortable...but that is where God has me.
No comments:
Post a Comment