22 Sep Imperfectly New

We recently had something very exciting happen here at Samaritan’s Heart Mission Church (well, we found it exciting). We had our parking lot replaced. It had been in terrible condition for years, so it was exciting to see the old pavement broken up and removed and the new pavement replace it. Besides being a tremendous blessing, it got me to thinking about how God changes us.

When we accept Christ into our lives, He immediately begins the process of destroying our old selves, piece by piece (if we allow Him to), and begins replacing it with a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). There is, however, a critical difference between getting a new parking lot and being new in Christ. The parking lot is as good as it’s going to get the minute the asphalt company leaves.  Slowly, imperceptibly at first, it begins to deteriorate. The opposite is true for us:

22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Ephesians 4:22-24 (NIV)

The Apostle Paul spent some two years in Ephesus and saw many people accept Christ. Later, in a Roman prison, Paul wrote to believers there (although some scholars argue that we can’t be sure he was writing to believers in Ephesus). He shares the Gospel story in the first half of the letter and then explains to them in the back half how they should live as a result of accepting it into their hearts.

We often make the mistake of thinking that it’s supposed to work in us the way it works with our new parking lot, that once we are saved God tears up the old and gives us a completely perfect brand-new self. Yes, we’re brand new, but we’re also a work in progress:

10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. 12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:10-14 (NIV)

Paul makes it clear here that he doesn’t consider himself perfected because He has died with Christ. His pursuit of perfection was the pursuit of perfect conformity to God’s will.  As William MacDonald put it in “The Believer’s Bible Commentary,” Paul realized that “satisfaction is the grave of progress.”

I pray that you are encouraged by knowing that when God tears away the old you, He doesn’t expect an instantly perfect new you. Sanctification, becoming more like Jesus, is a lifelong process. Unlike our parking lot, the “new you” isn’t as good as it’s going to get. If we surrender more and more each day, the best us is yet to come!

Pastor Jerry Bader