“If you have dirty windows in your house, I doubt you are saved” proclaimed our professor, also wife of our Bible professor. This is just one example of the extreme “works” theology that Donna and I were taught. Since then, we’ve spent a lot of effort unlearning, in order to relearn. Through the years I’ve worked with several ministers who believed this same sort of erroneous theology. They were afraid to even study the subject of grace with an open mind. I’ve often wanted to grab them, to shake them, and then to tell them about our wonderful Father who has poured out His free grace on us.
I was dialoguing with one pastor who made a statement that still causes me to cringe. “Yes, you are saved by grace, BUT you are kept saved by your works.” The truth is that we are saved by grace and kept saved by grace. He had spent his entire adolescence trying to please his unpleasable dad. Sadly, he transferred this mentality to his heavenly Father. It was ‘work, work, work, and more work’ but never feeling he had done enough at the end of the day to gain God’s approval, so more work early the next morning.
Well, as the saying goes, ‘I’ve been there, done that, got the tee-shirt, and don’t want to go back”. I pray every day how I can help Christians who are enslaved by such teaching—and I know a multitude. Paul addressed this kind of bondage when he wrote to the Galatians, It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery (Gal 5:1). Trying to work for our salvation only brings about misery and disappointment, because we can’t ever do enough. That was what the Old Testament Law was intended to teach. Christ finished the work of salvation. What can we possibly add to that?
But note, there is a flip side. This freedom is not a license to sin. Paul had apparently faced this kind of thinking when he wrote to the church in Rome. What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! (Rom 6:1).
We don’t work to obtain or to keep salvation. Rather we work because we have received salvation by His grace. Paul instructs the Philippians, they should cultivate their salvation or work out their salvation (Phil 2:12). Our freedom is freedom from the bondage and fear of sin that makes us free to do God’s work.
Imagine salvation as a field that God gave us for a garden. It is our field regardless of what we do with it. If we neglect it, the field will turn into a briar and weed patch. It is up to us to turn it into something productive. Along with our salvation, God also gives us the desire to make our lives productive and gives us the Holy Spirit to guide us, to empower us, and to teach us. You can have a barn full of garden tools, seeds, and fertilizer, but unless you work at it, you will still end up with a field of briars and weeds.
But also note that we don’t become a master gardener the first time we plant. Donna and I like to tease our son about his effort to grow corn in a planter here at our suburban home. He had two ears about the size of those you put on your salad. Last year he and I both planted ‘ghost peppers’ for the first time. I think I picked 10 peppers off my two plants. He harvested several hundred from his two. He could have become discouraged after his failure at growing corn and given up as a gardener. But he didn’t and did better than me with pepper.
I know so many Christians who have abandoned their spiritual garden because they failed and fear failing again. All of us try and avoid the word sin, so we dress our failures up and call them errors, mistakes, etc., but the Bible calls them sin. Here is the greatness of the Gospel. Christ not only forgave us of our past sin and gave us a garden, He continues to forgive us so we can keep cultivating our garden until we get it right— cultivate our salvation or work out our salvation (Phil 2:12).
Jesus preached at the synagogue, He has sent Me to proclaim freedom to the captives (Lk 4:18). God used this passage in my journey to freedom in Christ. I was in my apartment in Romania preparing to preach this passage that night. I realized I was a spiritual prisoner of war held by the bondage of man’s false teaching. I stood up, imaged an open jail door, and took a step outside my spiritual confinement. I’ve been free ever since.
Is there a preacher or a minister that’s holding you captive by their teaching and making you afraid to serve God in freedom?
Sustaining Word for the Week:
Christ has set you free; take off your yoke of slavery. Step out the open prison door and get your garden tools.