Do you pray this?

I was taught by several that the answers to our questions are often found in the hymnal.  So, if you open the cover of Lutheran Service Book, you pray: ...open my heart to the preaching of Your Word so that I may repent of my sins, believe in Jesus Christ as my only Savior, and grow in grace and holiness... or again Grant me Your Holy Spirit that I may be ever watchful and live an dtrue and godly life in Your service... or again May Your Word pass from the ear to the heart, from the heart to the lip, and from the lip to the life that, as You have promised, Your Word may achieve the purpose for which you send it....

Of late the Lutheran blogosphere has erupted in conversation about sanctification. Some of the conversation has been heated.  It is related to the issue of the third use of the Law (the Law as guide to the good that we have been set free in Christ to do under the guidance and power of the Spirit).  Some Lutherans have come pretty close to denying the clear word of the Lutheran Confessions.  They seem to be saying that the Law only kills, and only the Gospel has a positive effect.  In effect, they are denying the third use of the Law (the use effective only for those whom God has already declared righteous in baptism and to whom He has imparted the Spirit working faith in their hearts).  This has created quite a stir.  On the other hand, there are those who speak of sanctification almost as the rehabilitation of the old man, the old dog, so to speak, learning new tricks in Christ.  They speak of the cooperation in this becoming holy as if there was some room to boast of our progress.

I am not intent on repeating everything here or attempting to fight anew this battle but in the venue of this arena.  What I am concerned about is that the huff has created an atmosphere in which we feel it is safe only to preach justification and to leave all the rest unsaid and up to the Spirit.  Such preaching would be clearly out of step with both our Lutheran forbearers and with the catholic and evangelical faith prior to the Reformation.  We must preach the whole counsel of God and this includes the preaching of sanctification -- NOT as the rehabilitation of the old man (for he has died in baptism) but as the birth of the new person created in Christ Jesus for good works that glorify God and show forth that faith is genuine.  There is a certain synergism here but not one in which we can credit ourselves for the progress.  We not are teaching the old dog new tricks.  We are becoming the people we have been declared to be in our baptism.  We are reaching forth with the new desire of the hearts made new for the good that is both our purpose and the fruit of Christ at work in us.  The same Jesus who justifies us sinners before God is the one who is at work in us so that we show forth His righteousness in our daily lives.  There is progress here (not one which we may chart or one for which we can take credit) but the Christian through the means of grace grows in grace and this has positive effect in our life and conversation.

To quote Luther:
This life is not godliness, but growth in godliness;
  not health, but healing;
  not being, but becoming;
  not rest, but exercise.
  We are not now what we shall be, but we are on the way;
  the process is not yet finished, but it has begun;
  this is not the goal, but it is road;
  at present all does not gleam and glitter, but everything is being purified.

To quote an Orthodox theologian (Schmemann) saying the same thing from the point of the liturgy:
"And the holiness of the Church is not our holiness, but Christ's, who loved the Church and gave Himself for her 'that He might sanctify her...that she might be holy and without blemish' (Eph 5:25-27). Likewise the holiness of the saints as well is but the revelation and the realization of that sanctification, that holiness that each of us received on the day of baptism, and in which we are called to increase. But we could not grow in it, if we did not already possess it as a gift of God, as his presence in us through the Holy Spirit." (Schmemann, Eucharist, pp. 23, 24)

It would seem that the big problem is how to talk about sanctification without talking about us, how to talk about sanctification without keeping a track record of our wins, and how to ascribe the cause and glory to Christ without letting ourselves off the hook for working to become the people God has said we are.  The answer is not a set of words or a formula but keeping the focus off ourselves and on to Christ.  There is no doubt that both justification and sanctification must be preached with the same vitality and conviction.  Love is not a job description.  The commandments have always laid forth the path of holy life.  Apart from Christ, it is the killing word that shouts our failure.  But in Christ it is the guiding word that shows us what this new life which Christ has given us is to look like.  The power and motive is not improvement of the old but the increase of the new as the old is being killed until that final day when it is fully gone and we close are eyes in this life to awaken in Christ for the life to come.

When I spoke of the single estate and of the call to holiness in this blog some days ago, I receive a number of personal emails thanking me for saying more than just "no" to the flesh.  These were from single folks who truly desired to live holy lives and yet in Church on Sunday morning they heard little of holy life (the calling of both single and married) and everything of the evils of sex apart from marriage.  It reminded me of how urgent the preaching of sanctification is.  The Christian witness cannot merely be no.  It must also be God's yes and in this respect the appeal to holiness and purity of life and conversation, to the good works we were created in Christ Jesus to do, and the new person we were raised up from the baptismal water to become.  What else are we to make of Christ's call to "Go and sin no more...?"

It would seem to me that what we have forgotten how to say from the pulpit has remained accessible to us in the hymnal.  From the cover and the prayers before and after worship to the words of the hymns themselves, we have a wonderful witness to the work of the Christ in me as well as the Christ for me.  Could it be that what preachers find hard to say in the pulpit is said with clarity and conviction in the prayers and hymns of the faith?  If so, when it is not clearly witnessed in the preaching, let us remember what is prayed and sung for this message of sanctification is no less the counsel of God and His Word than the justification we find so easy to speak...

1 O God, my faithful God,
True fountain ever flowing,
Without whom nothing is,
All perfect gifts bestowing:
Give me a healthy frame,
And may I have within
A conscience free from blame,
A soul unstained by sin.


2 Grant me the strength to do
With ready heart and willing
Whatever You command,
My calling here fulfilling;
That I do what I should
While trusting You to bless
The outcome for my good,
for You must give success.


3 Keep me from saying words
That later need recalling;
Guard me lest idle speech
May from my lips be falling;
But when within my place
I must and ought to speak,
Then to my words give grace
Lest I offend the weak.


4 Lord, let me win my foes
With kindly words and actions,
And let me find good friends
For counsel and correction.
Help me, as You have taught,
To love both great and small
And by Your Spirit's might
To live in peace with all.


5 Let me depart this life
Confiding in my Savior;
By grace receive my soul
That it may live forever;
And let my body have
A quiet resting place
Within a Christian grave;
And let it sleep in peace.


6 And on that final day
When all the dead are waking,
Stretch out Your mighty hand,
My deathly slumber breaking.
Then let me hear Your voice,
Redeem this earthly frame,
And bid me to rejoice
With those who love Your name.

You can follow some of the debate here...   and here...  and here....