Utumishi Blog

One week one of our pastors preached a wonderful message – “Press on” – from Philipians 3:12-15 – “straining forward” – also bringing in 2 Timothy 4:7 – fighting the fight, running the race to the end.  

The next week a different preacher was giving the message “Be still” from Exodus 14 – brilliantly bringing out the drama of the story, the trapped Israelites and the great climax: “Stand firm and you will see the salvation of the LORD. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.”

So which is it? Are we supposed to run and strain or are we supposed to stand still, let go and let God?  Are we supposed to fight the good fight or should we let God fight for us?

Perhaps the answer has something to do with the difference between sanctification and salvation – between discipleship and deliverance.

Philippians 3:12-15 and 2 Timothy 4:7 are talking about the daily Christian life, about discipleship, about facing all the challenges that we encounter from the world, the flesh and the devil. What we need here is to “labour with all His energy” (Col. 1:29), to struggle and fight and press on and work harder than anyone by His grace (1 Cor. 15:10). We work and God works at the same time. 

In contrast, Exodus 14 is talking about a great one-off salvation event. If we look at the whole Bible story, the Exodus from Egypt corresponds to the New Exodus (Jeremiah 23:7-8; Luke 9:31 “departure”=exodus).

Exodus 14 is saying the same as Ephesians 2 – salvation is by grace not by works. As the quivering faithless Israelites contributed absolutely nothing we contribute absolutely nothing to our salvation. When it comes to salvation, atonement, forgiveness of sins, entry to eternal life, we must just be still, stand by and look on while our God does absolutely everything for us.

The problem is we tend to apply these two different messages to precisely the opposite contexts. So when it comes to our daily challenges and problems – facing sin in ourselves and our society, struggling with finances or health or children – then we think we must simply ‘be still’, surrender, not do anything ourselves but ‘have faith’ that God will fight instead of us. And when it comes to our salvation, some deep part of us always thinks it’s a matter of us and God working together – yes it’s all by grace we say but we do need to be persevering and trusting and praying and fighting sin by his grace. So we end up with a Quietist understanding of the Christian life together with a Roman Catholic understanding of salvation.

So let’s stand when we should stand and run when we should run. When there’s something we can do – work, vote, get up, diet, exercise, sleep, go to a doctor, phone a friend, read, write, study, preach – let’s do it (I say this to myself) by grace. And when we face death and hell and sin and judgment let’s give up any idea of doing anything and stand by as God does it all on the Cross.