These spiritual mysteries have really highlighted the place of tension in which we live as Christians.
We exist in a kind of in between place, where we see glimpses of God’s kingdom come and yet we
don’t see it in all of its fullness. We are redeemed but we still feel the pull of guilt. We are set free
but we feel enslaved by the desires of the world. We are wholly loved but still look for approval in
every direction. We are deeply known but we still long that someone might truly understand what’s
going on inside of us. We live in the in between; in the gap between the earth that Jesus stepped into
but has not yet made new. There’s tension here.
One of the greatest tensions that we face whilst in this in between place is another spiritual mystery,
caught up in the concept of holiness. When we say ‘YES’ to Jesus we know that the slate is wiped
clean, that in the eyes of God we are made holy. By trusting in him, he has washed us clean, he has
set us free, he has wiped our sins away and made us holy by his blood. We sing it, we preach it, we
learn from the age of tiny children if we’ve been in church that long. It is written on our hearts that
we are pure, sanctified and washed by the blood of Christ.
And yet here is the tension. Whilst we are told that we are washed clean, it feels painfully hard to
believe. Life so often feels marked by our own failure to be holy. There are relationships that don’t
function the way that they should, doubts and insecurities, things we do and say that are
fundamentally bad. Our human minds can’t help but think things that are wrong, our tongues slip up
and fail to choose to speak goodness, and we make choices that we know stand in total opposition
to what Jesus has called us to. Whilst we have probably all come a long way since we began the
journey, we are so deeply aware of our own weakness.
As ‘sanctified’ and ‘pure’ Jesus followers it seems strange that we are most often incapable of
choosing the narrow gate. It’s difficult, and it requires hard work and discipline. And it feels like it
makes no sense in a world where we’re told that as Christians we are already holy.
So here we stand again in the middle of the mystery. This is the complexity of a world that Jesus
has entered but not fully redeemed. We stand justified and made right, but the fight against our own
sin continues, painfully. In the big, cosmic picture we are pure and holy, but in the day to day the
battle rages on.
We could unpack all of this theologically, and I encourage you to do that sometime. There’s real
depths to be plumbed in all of this. But for right now I’m going to encourage you to do the same
thing I have encouraged in each of these blogs – and that is to stand in the tension. Stand there, look
around, soak it up. Don’t fight the mystery too soon.
Sarah Bessey has a helpful way of thinking about all of this, and that’s that she calls Christians
‘apprentices to Jesus.’ When we think of ourselves as apprentices rather than professionals it’s
easier to remember that we’re still in the learning process. Although God has had grace enough to
make us holy through his action on the cross, he’s wants us to actually learn and grow into that
holiness. He makes us apprentices so that we can learn daily to turn to him, to copy him, and to
know the way he does things. Apprenticeship is all about learning alongside somebody else who is a
little more skilled; and by being apprentices to Jesus, it turns out we’re learning from the best.
We’re learning directly from the holiest man that ever was.
During our apprenticeship, as we stand in this in between place where the Kingdom of God is
coming but is not yet fully realised, we get to be part of ushering it in. We get to play, to be involved
and contribute. God’s Kingdom is coming and he lets us, even on our worst days, be a part of the
story. I love these words from Sarah Bessey:
“In the Kingdom of God, we join with God in co-creation, in the work of the new earth. We love
Sarah Bessey
and we follow Jesus. We shape our lives into His life, to live here on earth as He would live among
us. We weren’t called to follow political parties or ideology, nationalism, consumerism, or power.
Instead, we were called to apprentice ourselves to Jesus’ way of life. We were called to be part of
establishing the Kingdom of God here and now in our walking-around lives. Partnering with God to
see the Kingdom come.”
The invite is open to you. Regardless of how unholy, unworthy or messy you feel today. You are
called to continue to apprentice yourself to Jesus, to learn from him and walk with him and
contribute to the coming of the Kingdom. In the now and the not yet of this time, there is an open
invite to play a part and be involved. The invite is open even to those of us who feel we are still
right at the beginning of the journey towards holiness, daily making small choices to turn towards
goodness and truth. In fact, our daily choices to turn towards goodness are actually one of the ways
we contribute to the coming kingdom; whilst we wait for all heaven and earth to be redeemed, we
get to play our part by turning each moment towards holiness. And the best part of all is that even as
we fail, even as we feel totally unworthy, the grace of God has already once and for all sanctified us
by the cross. Now that is good news.
