Life Is Not Just About the "Journey"

This post is inspired by John Piper's blog entry yesterday, The Sorrow and Joy of the Seasoned Soul (please read), and will piggyback my entry from yesterday.

A phrase I've heard a lot in the past is: "Life is not about the destination. It is all about the journey." I'm sure there are t-shirts and bumper stickers galore proclaiming this idea.

To a point, I agree with what they are trying to say by this. They mean "carpe diem", seize the day...even the moment. Don't miss the "right now" because that's all we have. Living in the past or future with the mentality of "what if" or "when this happens" can cause one to be discontent and anxious.

I agree with this. We need to live in the moment because it is all we have. We aren't promised a next breath.

BUT...if you (or I) use this phrase (or have this mentality), what is our definition of journey? of destination?

On this side of heaven, there is no "arriving".

What am I trying to say?...Don't think that your suffering and struggles are going anywhere in this life! Sanctification is NOT, "2 steps forward, 1 step back. 2 steps forward. 1 step back." It is not a steady and continuous incline to holiness. As Derek Webb says, "the point of Christian life is not to sin less."

Puritan John Owen said, "Sanctification is the complete renewal of our natures by the Holy Spirit, by which we are changed into the image of God, through Jesus Christ. It is the work of the Holy Spirit on the souls of all believers."

Sanctification, says the Westminster Shorter Catechism (Q.35), is "the work of God's free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness."

...basically, it is becoming more like Jesus.

This is a process, however. It is not a one-time zap and you're done..."BOOM" and you are sanctified.

A correct view of our sanctification is crucial in our Christian life.

In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus, Himself, says, "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Jesus calls Himself a teacher. This implies that we are students.

Why do we go to school?...to learn. What makes you a student is what you don't know. A good teacher (which Christ is) will not expect his students to know anything before coming to class.

If being sanctified is becoming more and more like Jesus (dying to sin/ourselves and becoming more and more righteous), then sanctification is learning from the person of Jesus how to be like Jesus. It will take time. The Bible says that it is a ongoing and often painful process.

Again, John Owen said, "...sanctification is progressive. It is begun at the moment of regeneration and is continued gradually (2 Peter 3:17-18; 2 Thessalonians. 1:3; Colossians 2:19; Philippians 1:6).

My old campus minister used to say to me, "Sanctification, in degree and mode, is different for every individual believer."

I would argue that the "journey" is this painful, ongoing process of sanctification.

How do you view your sanctification? Your suffering and struggles?

Paul said, "So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am!" Romans 7:21-24.

This seems to make us think that the sorrow we feel in our suffering and struggles is bad and to be either avoided at all costs or eradicated from our day to day experience as quickly as possible. This results from our believing that suffering and struggle has no positive affect in our lives and only equals pain...usually triggered by God's displeasure (because we too often live as though God only reacts to our behavior and can't use everything for our good as Romans 8:28-30 proclaims).

We tend to believe (at least in deed) that the Christian life is just about overcoming sin and taking two steps forward and one step back.

This was exactly how I always operated before my son, Owen, passed away. Struggle seemed to make me feel like I wasn't going anywhere. If I was, it was only backward.

But Paul didn't end with "wretched man that I am". He goes on to say in verse 24-25, "...Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin."

John Owen argued, "The Christian may be like a ship tossed in a storm. Nobody on board may be aware that the ship is making any headway at all. Yet it is sailing on at great speed."

Sailing where?...to a destination.

As believers, our only working definition of destination should be heaven, the place where the apostle John says in Revelation 21:4, God Himself "...will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

As I said earlier, it is not a steady incline of 2 steps forward, one step back.

Our associate pastor says that sanctification is a steady incline and decline.

The decline speaks of a deeper understanding of our horrendous sin in light of who God is. The incline speaks to the increasing knowledge of the mercy, love, and forgiveness of Christ in light of the depth of our sin.

These two things must happen at the same time. When they both happen, it forces us to the person of Christ. That's where we want to be. When only one is taking place, our mindset is screwed up.

We tend to despair because of our sin and fall back into thinking that our sanctification is a negative thing. We think we need to get rid of our suffering as quickly as possible, and it is all about not sinning. Perhaps we just curl up in a ball and give up.

If we don't see Christ and His finished work on the cross in light of our great sin, we become lawless and start believing in what the pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, Tim Keller, calls "cheap grace". We tend to trample on what Christ has done on our behalf and think that grace is free. You may say, "but I thought grace is free?!". It is free to you, but as Keller says, it is free to you because it cost God everything...nothing less than the death of the Son of God Himself.

I am slowly understanding what Samuel Rutherford meant when he said, "Needs are my best riches, for I have these supplied by Christ. I find that our needs qualify us for Christ."

I am beginning to see that struggle is the norm. Struggle forces me to Christ. Struggle is sanctifying.

In summary, life is about the journey, but life is also about the destination if our destination is being with Christ in His heaven. Christ Himself is the destination. He is the point. The journey (our sanctification) is preparing us for the destination.

We need to be destination-bound in order to be journey-minded.

To put it another way...we need to be heaven-bound in order to be earthly-minded.

The correct view of sanctification sets us free. Free to struggle. Free to hope. Free to live. Free to serve.

Let me leave you (after the hour it took you to read my frickin' long post...congratulations...no, really, thank you for sticking with it to the end) with something our pastor says to us as a congregation on a regular basis:

"The Christian life is not a struggle for freedom. Christ gives you freedom to struggle."

Take great comfort, Christian!!! You are free...in the journey. And you are free as you journey to the destination of Christ's literal open arms.

So, Life is about the journey and the destination.