My Big Fat Sloppy Sanctification, by Mike Adams

Life is messy. Sloppy, really. We like to pretend it isn’t, but it is. We prefer hiding behind whatever mask we’re wearing in the moment that we think hides our messiness and undone-ness from others. But it doesn’t. Not really. Nowhere is this more true than inside the church.

It’s there that we refer to life on the ground as sanctification with the incorrect assumption that sanctification means continuous movement away from life’s messiness into some type of have-it-togetherness. We equate sanctification with self-sufficiency. That’s because the message we’ve heard for so many years has been heavy on progress and light on justification. Heavy on behavior modification and light on mercy and grace. The banner of the Christian life has become my (and your) progress. “Am I pulling it off?” has replaced “it is finished!” If it appears you aren’t pulling it off like I think you should be, I morph into fix-it mode which I think gives me Biblical permission to put you in a spiritual headlock until you cry “uncle!” and superficially produce the “change” I need to see in you in order for me to be happy. At least, that’s how I remember it.

But God’s acceptance of me in Jesus has nothing to do with my progress or lack thereof.

It has nothing to do with whether or not I look a certain way or if I fit someone’s mold of what they think a believer should look like. God isn’t going to abandon me in my sloppiness because his acceptance of me is due to the fact that he has declared me righteous in heaven’s court apart from anything moral or pleasing in me at all. But that sounds so impersonal.

Maybe this sounds better:

God loves me so much that he stepped into his creation to rescue me by doing for me what I could never do for myself. Since God’s standard is perfection (Matthew 5:48) and not progress (Matthew 23:27-28), he has, by grace alone, made me perfect apart from progress (Hebrews 10:14) based on the merits of another: Jesus. He has freely placed into my account the perfect record of Jesus, while putting to death my old record in Adam. In Adam, all die; in Jesus, all are made alive (Romans 5:18-19); all of this, apart from my progress or works of any kind. Jesus died the death that I deserved and in so doing, he gave to me his perfect record of righteousness and took upon himself, my bad record in Adam. God loves me because Jesus is my substitute and savior, not because I’m getting better, making progress, or becoming self-sufficient.

This is good news because none of it depends on me!

God freely justifies the wicked (Romans 4:5) and when he does, they are counted righteous. That righteousness comes from outside of us. Thank God! There is no room for boasting in my progress or fretting over my sloppiness and brokenness. I’m just as righteous in Jesus on my crappy days, weeks, months, years, or decades as I am in those brief moments where I’ve deceived myself into thinking I’m pulling it off or accomplishing something. My righteousness doesn’t depend on my progress or lack of progress. Life gets sloppy. Life gets dirty. But in the midst of all my sloppiness and undone-ness, Jesus loves me and he wants to be with me not because I’m making progress but because he loves sinners like you and me just as we are.