The Restless and Reforming Blog posted an article the other day that was a great way of thinking about the connection between justification and sanctification. When we stop trying to justify our sins, we can then be freed to pursue sanctification.
I write a lot about justification in this blog (okay, I haven’t in a while but I like to- at least that’s my justification. A friend of mine writes a lot about writing and this time he wrote about how important it is to take criticism as a writer.
This is true whether or not you are a writer.
Knowing we have been justified by Christ and his work helps us take criticism. When I have the hardest time listening to criticism, its because I am forgetting about the justifying work of Christ on my behalf.
The other day someone called the church. In an extraordinarily thick accent a man spoke. “This is Willie. I’m from Wilkes County, North Carolina- that’s between Winston-Salem and Boone. I am here at the Days Inn in York- between the Wal-Mart and the Lowes. I want to speak with the Preacher.”
“What can I do for you?” I asked, assuming he was going to hit me up for money.
“Preacher, I’m in the suite at the Days Inn in York- between the Wal-Mart and Lowes- and I want to know if you can marry me and my fiance.”
My recent guilty pleasure is the CMT show, My Big Redneck Wedding. It’s a reality show that follows an earthy couple as they seek to get married- inevitably involving camo, beer, and mud.
The best part of the show is the sense of self-righteousness I get after watching it. I feel far superior to the simple couples because of the craziness that goes on.
Of course, this self-righteousness is false-righteousness. The only true righteousness we have is through Christ.
The Desiring God Blog recently posted a list of 12 sins we blame on others. Although I think this list could be expanded indefinitely, it shows us how we seek to justify ourselves apart from Christ, which becomes a barrier to our sanctification. If we trusted in our justification by faith in Christ we would not need to blame our sins on others and could move to address our sins instead.
The narcissism of ego-searching has finally given way to worries about one’s online reputation. Here’s an article about how to protect your appearance online. It’s justification in the 21st century!
I am always reviewing my life to see the many ways I try to justify myself instead of believing in my justification through Christ. I am very sophisticated in how I do this because justification by faith is almost too good to be true- and I’d rather have a reason for God to love me than have to rely solely on his grace.
This is why I also like to observe how others attempt to justify themselves. While it it tempting to justify myself by showing how other people justify themselves as well (does that whirlwind of justification make sense) I intend to point these things out to remind myself of the many ways I try to do it myself.
One existential example I recently came across is the restoration of Roy Williams in the eyes of Kansas Basketball fans. You see Roy was our basketball coach and left us to become the coach of his alma mater- North Carolina. At first it was hard to blame him for making the change- who wouldn’t want to coach their own school’s team. Soon, however, people started hating Williams. Rumors started to circulate about how he left KU- which I won’t gossip about here- which gave us a reason to hate him (justified our hate).
On mondays I usually go a little grungy- figuring that I won’t be meeting many people in an official capacity as a pastor. Today that means I am wearing an old hoodie, KU baseball cap, and didn’t shave. That’s why I was surprised to hear someone ask me if I was a pastor, while I was waiting in line for some lunch. Then I realized that the book under my arm gave me away- The Reason for God by Tim Keller.
I can’t let the day go by without mentioning my alma matter’s winning of the NCAA Basketball Championship- Go Jayhawks! It’s been too long (since I was in Jr. High school) since this has happened. What makes this particularly exciting is that we did it by beating our previous coach- Roy Williams- who was never able to give us a championship!
So I stop my bragging there, I have to justify the mention of this topic by somehow talking about it in terms of my blog. In fact, that’s how it might fit- justifying the win and the loss.
Last week I traveled to the Big 12 tournament with my Dad. It was the second time we were able to go. We always have a great time rooting the Jayhawks on to victory- and seeing the K-State Wildcats loose made it even better.
Half of the fun is talking with the other fans- whether they are rooting for the same team as you, or not. Through all these conversations you can’t help but pick up on the rationalizations people use to justify a loss. It is never that their team wasn’t as good as the other team- there’s always something that justifies their team despite the loss. To justify my blogging on the Big 12 Tournament I wrote down some of the justifications people used to justify their team. Here are a few of them. Since the NCAA Basketball tournamet is just getting started, I am sure I will hear (and say) many more than these.