“that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;”
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
5K races have taken off in popularity. All sorts of people who would never run the Peachtree Road Race in Atlanta or the Boston Marathon will try to run their local 5K race. But running a race is not a matter of rolling off your couch and hitting the road. You have to have good legs and healthy lungs. You have to get up and go. Most importantly, even if you have the willingness and the ability to do it, you have to actually practice running in order to grow strong, fast, and hardy enough to run a race.
So it is with our salvation. We are born again as new Christians through belief in Christ and the waters of Holy Baptism. God’s grace comes upon us and wipes us clean of sin and sets in us a right mind to pursue the things of God. Most starkly, instead of going to Hell, we now are going to Heaven. We do not earn this; this blessing of blessings is given to us. Like little newborns, we do not even have to earn any part of this gift of life; we are open and receptive and receive God’s goodness.
But as we mature, as we grow strong legs and strong lungs in the Lord, so must we exercise the good gifts which God has given us. We cannot walk the walk of faith by resting on our hindquarters. We must put our rear in gear and follow Christ with our legs of faith. We need to live under the shadow of God’s grace and use it every day if we are to grow strong in the Lord.
Thus, if we are to exercise the good gift or charism of intercessory prayer, we need to get to the business of praying for others. If we are to exercise the theological virtue of loving-kindness, that means we need to get to the business of loving the Lord our God and our neighbors through specific acts of love. If we are to exercise Godly wisdom, that means we need to get to the business of obeying the commandments of God and living in love each day, every day.
We are made fit to enter Heaven when our sins are wiped away in Holy Baptism. But for those of us who do not die immediately after our Baptism, we will sin again. God expects that we will sin less and our consciences will be convicted of our sin when we do sin, but we will sin again. I dare say that each adult here has sinned since Baptism. We will not stay clean and holy in the eyes of God if we do not confess our sins. In short, there is more to our salvation than God’s applying the merits of the Cross of Christ to us in Holy Baptism.
So it is that the instant act of new life in Christ is a necessary part of a larger movement of grace. If we are to live in Christ, then we must necessarily grow in Christ. This is what St. Paul is talking about here in his Epistle to the Colossians.
In this epistle, St. Paul says that he had not visited Colossae, and the Christians there did not know him except by reputation. As Fr. Massey Shepherd wrote, “St. Paul’s intercession is cast in general terms about the theme of spiritual growth both in good works and in the knowledge of God.”
So this epistle is a rather impersonal exposition about life in Christ and growth in the Holy Ghost. St. Paul mentions seven things which show maturity in the Christian faith: Wisdom, spiritual understanding, walking worthy, fruit in good work, increasing in knowledge of God, strengthened with might, and giving thanks.
Like him and the Colossians, we are each to be entering into and growing in these activities. Each one of us is a distinct creature made by God in his image, so each of us will not look exactly alike. However, each of us ought to be showing evidence of growth and maturity appropriate to our calling.
Are we wise? Do we show spiritual understanding? Do we “walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing?” Do we “bringeth forth fruit?” Are we “increasing in the knowledge of God?” Are we “strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness?” Are we “giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light?”
We do these things for the continued conversion of our soul and for the conversion of the souls around us, as well as the overflowing of God’s grace in our lives. Our bearing the fruit of good work, our being strengthened with might, our giving thanks will be changing ourselves from sinfulness to godliness, noticeable to others and convicting of others, and glorifying to God.
Married couples and family members, even if all Christians, even if all serious Christians, and even if all members of the same parish, can be expected to jostle and bump into each other as they grow. This is to be expected. Love and patience are needed as different people grow in their own ways.
Spiritual growth is the maturity and continuation of our salvation. As Christians, we are called to something, to a status, to a station, to a condition, to a way of being, not just to a person. Or rather, being called to the Divine Person, we will be changed along the way. Either way, sanctification is a real thing and one that is part of my journey and part of your journey.
Now, I am going to use five words which end in –ation. You probably have heard of these. If you are anything like me, then you also have a hard time remembering what they mean. But these words help us gain understanding about salvation and growth in holiness, such as written in today’s Epistle.
These “-ation” words are justification, sanctification, consecration, purification, and assimilation. Christ saves us in justification and sanctification. Consecration, purification, and assimilation are aspects of sanctification.
Sanctification is thoroughly united with justification, even though St. Paul uses different vocabulary for them. Sanctification is thereby tied to our salvation; our continued growth in holiness is connected with Christ’s saving us. The two are inextricably bound. This is one of the confounding aspects of both medieval and Reformation theology of salvation, or soteriology, where a host of different parties pried the two apart. That is no good.
Now, sanctification has three aspects: consecration, purification, and assimilation into the divine character. That is, we are set apart as holy, or consecrated. We are made clean from our sinful ways, or purified. We are made to grow into the likeness of Christ, or assimilated.
To make holy, to sanctify, to consecrate is to set apart for God’s use. Holy means set apart for God. We are called out of the sinful condition of humanity and made Christ’s in the Sacrament of Holy Baptism. We are set apart from the carnal, or fleshy, things of this world. This is often spoken of with regards to our salvation, to our justification, to use St. Paul’s term. To be set aside for God’s purposes is to be consecrated, so in consecration we are set apart for God.
This happens initially and powerfully in Holy Baptism. But we are re-consecrated from time to time as well. Each time we are given grace, whether in the Blessed Sacrament, in our marriage or ordination, or in our prayers, we are yet again set apart from the things of this world, we are set apart to be God’s.
But to be kept consecrated, we cannot sully ourselves with the stain of sin. Therefore, we must also be purified of all sin. This second aspect of sanctification called purification assists in the keeping of this first aspect of sanctification called consecration.
We must keep God’s will as it is known to us in Holy Scriptures, Holy Church, and in our conscience. We are to remain chaste and free from sexual sin. We are to live in loving-kindness with other people. We must live our lives in self-discipline. And we are to regularly confess our sins in our private prayers, in the Offices and Mass, and sometimes even in private with a priest. We must remain free from sin. We must remove all obstacles that keep us away from God.
We are to grow into the likeness of the divine nature of God as it has been revealed to us in Christ our Lord. He is God incarnate; He is God with us. As He lived, so are we to live. He avoided all sin. He lived in the will of God the Father. He prayed often and alone, yet He also worshipped in the Temple. He loved everyone He met. He prayed for His persecutors and died for our sins. This is the life we too must live. This is the life which will let us live in the presence of God for all eternity. This is the original image of God in which we were made. We must join in the divine character of God. We must assimilate into Godliness.
Only through this consecration, purification, and assimilation are we to be both justified and sanctified and fit for the Kingdom of Heaven. St. Peter quotes: “Be ye holy; for I am holy,” in I St. Peter i.16. Christ says, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” in St. Matthew v.48. It is only in the participation of the divine life of God that we are meet to enter into Heaven.
We are called to be mature Christians. We are called to be wise in the Lord, to live our lives with spiritual understanding, to walk worthy in the Lord, to show forth good fruit through good works, to increase in the knowledge of God, to be strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness, and to give thanks to the Father.
How are we to do this? We can only do this by growing. If we are to claim the Holy Name of Christ, then we cannot stay as we are. That’s right: We are not good enough. But not in the eyes of the world, but in the eyes of God. We are not acceptable. We are made acceptable through Christ, but we must afterwards grow to be like Christ. Consecrated for God, we must purify ourselves of all sin and grow into the likeness of Christ.
We do this in the same ways that we have considering for months now: Weekly worship, frequent Holy Communion, regular fasting, tithing, confessing our sins daily, weekly, and as needed, and keeping ourselves chaste. We will burst forth in holiness and prayer and thankfulness to our Lord God as we diligently apply ourselves to running the race which he has set before us.
“that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;”
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
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