Children, The Caterpillar and the Polliwog (Jack
Kent)
Romans 8.28-39
My joke: JP
stands for “just perfect”
Tell your
grace stories
Jesus: “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt
5.48)
Peter: “just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all
you do” (1Pt 1.15)
not absolute, not in knowledge, not mistake free, not free
from weakness or temptation, not sinless (see Wesley, “Christian Perfection” in
Outler) … living in obedience to the two greatest commands:
Love the
LORD your God with all your …
Love one
another as I love you
questions:
Have you
faith in Christ?
Are you
going on to perfection?
Do you
expect to be made perfect in love in this life?
Are you
earnestly striving after it?
“If you
have the Holy Spirit, you live a holy life.” (C. T. Studd, from bio by Norman
Grubb)
“Just as
you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him” (Col 2.6)
law. “There is no condemnation for those
who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8.1).
Sanctification is not about changing ourselves by our own effort. This is grace, it is unpacking the gift of
justification in daily life, the gift of pardon and peace, to which we respond
with love. “The one who is forgiven much
loves much” (Luke 7.47).
Lord has looked upon”
as
impossible (missing the point of John Wesley & Scripture – love)
as judgment
Sin
has consequence – that’s why there is justifying grace!
Forgiven
people change – it is NATURAL
we judge
ourselves over and over
something
I am good at as a perfectionist
we have
been judged over and over
as
failures, guilty, not good enough
we’re
polliwogs and will not be butterflies
and
we still listen to those voices and believe them
it is our destiny
conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn
within a large family” (Ro 8.29).
“We, who
with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into
his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is
the Spirit” (2Co 3.18).
Not about
destiny but pre-destiny.
DNA, by predestiny
Icon – image/likeness – open window to eternity
(Orthodox)
computer
language: open windows
grief. But our predestiny is
metamorphosis, to become an icon of Jesus!
How is this transformation, this sanctification, “written into our
DNA”?
The
polliwog in the story does not know what he is going to become, does not
even realize he is being transformed.
Then he discovers that he is a frog, and a handsome one too! Sometimes we may look at ourselves and wonder
if we are making any progress at all.
Sometimes we’re going to wonder if that stuff that we nailed to the
cross is going to dog us for the rest of our lives. Don’t worry, this is God’s gracious gift
Velveteen
Rabbit, “Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin
Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to
you. When a child loves you for a long,
long time, not just to play with but really loves you, then you become
Real.” We love because God first
loved us!
faith working through love” (Gal 5.6). That’s
what Sanctifying Grace is all about, this is the cross-purposes of God. God loves us enough for us to become real,
icons of his glory, just as he designed us to be. Welcome to your pre-destiny!
8:37-39 No, in all these things we
are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither
death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to
come, nor powers, 39 nor
height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate
us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
