“My fear is that as we rightly celebrate, and in some quarters rediscover, all that Christ has saved us from, we are giving little thought and making little effort concerning all that Christ has saved us to. Shouldn’t those most passionate about the gospel and God’s glory also be those most dedicated to the pursuit of godliness? I worry that there is an enthusiasm gap and no one seems to mind.” – Kevin DeYoung
Kevin makes a salient point here. In all our talk about justification, we’ve lost the importance of sanctification. We speak and preach so heavy on what Christ has done, but make no mistake (and this is not works-based salvation I’m taking about), Christ has done this work to enable us to do something—to give us the means to grow in grace and godliness, to progress in holiness and piety, to bear fruit in keeping with repentance, to make our calling and election sure. But this pursuit of God (or rather, more of God) has largely been lost in this generation.
Preaching justification without encouraging sanctification will produce nominal, stagnant Christians who are no more capable of following God ten years down the line as they were ten years before. We’ve gone wide, but now we need to go deep. Robby Gallaty makes a profound point:
“When Christ measures the health of a church, He doesn’t count the number of Christians, He weighs them.”