Growing in Christ

Romans 6: 15 – 23.

Introduction.

Tomorrow is the first day of school. I think many of you will have a hard time believing this…JoEllen will start the first grade tomorrow!

Do you remember what JoEllen looked like when we first moved to Lufkin? She was a baby in our arms.

In our first few months in Lufkin, Shauna and I led the chapel service at PineCrest. After chapel, we ate lunch with our church members in the dining room. JoEllen didn’t make it through lunch. She was fussy and wanted to take a nap. It was hard for Shauna to visit with everyone. So, Gaston Meadows took JoEllen back to their apartment. A few minutes later, Shauna had Jackie Meadows take her to the apartment to check on Gaston and JoEllen. They walked in the door and discovered Gaston stretched out in his recliner, with JoEllen asleep on his shoulder. … And now, that baby is going into the first grade!

Sometimes I wish my children would stay small forever. I don’t like letting them go. But, I don’t think it would be right for them to stay small forever. I want them to grow and to become the men and woman God wants them to become. Perhaps you can relate to similar feelings.

The truth is…It would be absurd for children to remain children forever. They are supposed to grow up.

In the same way…It would be absurd for Christians to remain immature forever. Christians are supposed to grow up.

I became a Christian when I was nine years old. I had heard the story of Jesus all my life. But, as a nine year old in Vacation Bible School, I realized I had to accept God’s Grace. I met with the pastor in his office one afternoon and was baptized a short time after that.

I suppose I am a slow learner. Because it took me nine years to start wondering what I am supposed to do next. When I was eighteen years old, I started feeling like there was something else. Sure, I’m a Christian…But what do I do now?

It was when I realized that I was not supposed to remain a baby Christian or an immature Christian forever. God wanted me to grow and to mature into the fullness of what it means to be God’s child.

It is unthinkable for a person to remain a baby or nine year old for the rest of their lives. But I think there are some Christians who do just that. There are 30, 40, 50 and 60 year olds who are still nine years old spiritually. Our problem is the way we think of salvation. We have a very narrow view of salvation as a “one time event” that happens the moment that we express faith in Jesus as Lord. We seem to overlook the fact that the Bible tells us our salvation is more than this. Salvation does happen as a “one time event,” but it also has an ongoing effect as well as a future result.

Consider the following statements: I have been saved. I am being saved. I will be saved. All three of these statements are true statements for anyone who has become a Christian.

I have been saved. For me there was a time, when I first trusted Christ as Lord as a nine year old boy.

I am being saved. God is not through working on me. I am not perfect. I still have things I have to deal with, so God is constantly and continually forming me to become more like Jesus.

I will be saved. There is coming a day, when I will die or Jesus will return. At this point in the future, I will enter into heaven and realize the result, or fulfillment, of what happened to me when I was saved as a nine year old.

Read Romans 6: 15 – 23

15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!

16 Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey-- whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?

17 But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.

18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

19 I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness.

20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.

21 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!

22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.

23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

(NIV)

I Have Been Saved.

If we are going to talk about salvation this morning, then we need to begin by describing why salvation is even necessary. In other words, in order to be saved, we must be saved from something.

While the Greek word for “saved” does not appear in our Scripture reading this morning, the concept is there. Instead, Paul uses a term that we translate “set free.” In this passage, Paul draws a mental image of a slave who has been purchased out of slavery to live as a free person. The technical term for this type of slave transaction is “Redemption.”

The New Testament uses a wide range of words and images to describe what we commonly call “salvation.” “Redemption” is only one image. At one time, we were slaves to sin. Then, God redeemed us through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

The image for salvation that I grew up hearing more about is the term “born again” from the Gospel of John. The technical term is “Regeneration.” The image of being “born again” or regenerated is that when we are saved we begin living a new life.

Other places in the New Testament describe salvation as “Reconciliation.” The image is of two people in a broken relationship who have been restored and are back together again.

Another common image is of “Justification.” Justification is something that happens in a court room when the judge declares the accused person “not guilty.”

Then there is also the image of “Victory.” All human beings have a common enemy known as death. But through the death and resurrection of Jesus, we have victory over death.

There are some people who choose one description of salvation and ignore all the others. However, all of these show up in the Bible and provide a limited view of what it means to be saved. The reason why these descriptions are limited is that each one focuses on one aspect of our human predicament. For example, if we describe our predicament as guilt, then we need God to declare us “not guilty,” to Justify. If we describe our problem as slavery, then we need to be “purchased,” or Redeemed. If the problem is a broken relationship with God, then we need to be Reconciled. And if the problem is death, then we need Victory over death.

Each of these images contains a portion of what it means to be saved. They do not happen in stages. No. Each of these will be accomplished once and for all at the moment we place our faith in Jesus.

I want to emphasize two things at this point. First, we cannot save ourselves. We must place our faith in Jesus to save us. There is no New Testament teaching that salvation is something we can achieve or earn based on our own worthiness. It only happens through faith in Jesus.

Second, I want to emphasize that we must be saved from “something.” This is where I always begin when I am talking with someone about becoming a Christian. I started this over ten years ago after reading an article in the Baptist Standard. The article was a discussion about when a child is ready to become a Christian and to be baptized. One expert quoted in the article was a child psychologist. She said that there is no age restriction for salvation and baptism. Instead, we must determine if a child understands the concept of sin. If you do not know what sin is, you cannot be saved. If you know what sin is, but think that you are not guilty of sin, then you cannot be saved.

In order to be saved, we must understand the predicament we are in. We must acknowledge that we cannot solve our sin problem on our own abilities. We must place our faith in Jesus.

I Am Being Saved.

The second aspect of salvation can be described in the present tense: “I am being saved.” At this point, we are not speaking of salvation as a one time event in the past. We now speak of salvation as a present reality, or a process, which takes place in the present time. It is ongoing, and it is never finished. The theological term for salvation in the present tense is “Sanctification.”

Paul uses the term “Sanctification” in verse 22, but it is translated differently in the NIV. The NIV uses the English word “holiness.” This is a fine interpretation of Paul’s words here, because Sanctification and holiness mean the same thing. The English word Sanctification comes to us from the Latin word for Holiness. A literal understanding of Sanctification would be “the process of becoming holy.”

Once again, let me stress that salvation is not something you can do for yourselves. As human beings, you and I are wholly incapable of saving ourselves, and this includes the process of Sanctification. We cannot make ourselves holy, as Jesus is holy. But God can. And God will. This is what God wants to do in each of our lives.

If your testimony is like mine—I became a Christian when I was nine years old—then God does not want you to remain a nine year old for the rest of your life. God wants you to grow…Grow in your understanding of God…Grow in holiness…And grow in the amount of control you hand over to God on a daily basis.

When Paul used the term Sanctification, or holiness, in verse 22, he described it as the result, or fruit, of something else: “But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit (result, fruit) you reap leads to holiness…”

I cannot tell you what specific plans God might have for the rest of your life. But I can tell you one thing…It is God’s will to Sanctify you and make you Holy as Jesus is Holy. You cannot make yourselves holy, but you can prevent God from doing the work he plans for you.

The process of Sanctification begins in us at the moment we place our faith in Jesus. At the moment of faith, God places his Holy Spirit in us. God is one. God is inseparable. We do not receive God in stages. At the moment of faith, we receive Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And at that moment, the Holy Spirit begins his work in us gradually, continually making us Holy as Jesus is Holy.

This process of Sanctification is a daily struggle. Since we are human beings, who are prone to sin, we often find ourselves at odds with what the Holy Spirit is trying to accomplish. Since we live in a fallen world, which is filled with temptation and sin, we often find ourselves struggling with the day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute decisions. Will I choose to follow my selfish and sinful desires? Or will I surrender myself to the work of the Holy Spirit within me?

The reason for our struggle is our divided allegiance. Once again, Paul uses the imagery of slavery…verse 22… “Slaves to God.” When we were slaves to sin, sin controlled everything we did. Now that we are slaves to God, God should control all we do.

I cannot save myself or make myself holy, but I can prevent the Holy Spirit from growing me into a mature adult Christian, rather than a nine year old Christian in an adult body.

I Will Be Saved.

The third aspect of salvation can be described by using the future tense: “I will be saved.” This is the part of salvation which will not be fully realized until we are with God in Heaven. The technical term for this is “Glorification.”

Again, verse 22 describes all three aspects of salvation: “But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness and the result is eternal life.”

There is coming a day when life as we now know it will end. Every human being will die, or will be living when Jesus returns to bring this world to an end. When the world comes to an end, there are two options for us. One, there is eternal death in Hell—forever separated from God. Two, there is eternal life in Heaven—forever living in the presence of God.

When I say that this world is coming to an end, please don’t think I have given up hope. NO! The Christian life is a life based on hope. When Jesus rose from the grave, he gave us the hope that we too can live forever. One day all Christians will be with Jesus in Heaven. Until that day, we are not to neglect or ignore the world we live in.

Conclusion.

A couple of years ago, I met with a family from our church to talk with the son about baptism. The parents had shared with him how he could be saved, and he had placed his faith in Jesus. At the end of our conversation, the parents asked me if he was ready to be baptized. Now, this is a very serious question. Like I said earlier, I always make sure children understand sin and why it is necessary to be saved. I do not want to pressure a child into baptism before he or she truly understands what they are doing.

I looked at the boy and asked him a question: “How old are you?” He said, “Ten.” I asked, “How much are you supposed to understand as a ten year old?” He said, “A little bit.” I asked, “How much are you supposed to understand when you are 15?” He said, “A little bit more.” I asked, “How much are you supposed to understand when you are 40?” He said, “A little bit more.”

That is exactly right. It would be absurd for a Christian to stop growing and remain a ten year old for the rest of their life. God wants you to grow...grow in your understanding of God...grow in the way you depend on God day by day...and grow in the way you trust God to lead you in every decision you make.