Why You Are Likely a Saint and Don't Even Know It

I have to admit.   I am a little bummed.   I really liked this joke, and now I wonder.  Can I even use it any more?   Ok, I guess it’s not so much a joke as a witty comment, but I still liked it. Someone would be talking to me about someone who was acting a bit holier than thou.   And I’d think.  Aaah, now I can use the witty words.   I’d say.   “Well, if someone thinks they are a saint, it’s a sure sign that they’re not.”    Now I realize how wrong those words were.

Why?   Because I am a saint.  I don’t think I’m a saint.   I know I am.  Not only that.   I’m pretty sure most, if not all, of you here this morning are saints too.   How did you become a saint?   In these words, God tells you.   More crucially, God tells you what such saintliness means.  And as you learn of your sainthood, it will free you.  It will free you of fears,anxieties and insecurities that plague you.  It will free you to view not only yourself but others in ways that will liberate you and them like no other.   So, how does this sainthood thing work?   In these words, God shows you the way.   So, let’s listen and hear what God has to say.   

Philippians 1:1-11

Hello saints.  How are you doing today?  If you didn’t think that word applied to you, then if you are a follower of Jesus, it does.  God tells you here.  That’s exactly what you have become, a saint.    But knowing that doesn’t have as much power as knowing how it came about.   When you know that, it changes not only how you view yourself but everyone around you.   For how your sainthood came about has nothing to do with you.   

Right at the beginning, Paul lays it out there.  Paul doesn’t lay it out as if he is sharing some amazing revelation.   He says it in a very matter of fact way.  He writes.  “To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi…”    But hold on, the word saints doesn’t even exist in Greek.   The translators just use that word.   So, what did Paul actually say?   He called the folks in Philippi “holy ones.” 

And in those words, God is pointing to how your sainthood happened.   For what makes you holy?   Does holiness have to do with you being perfect or even really good?  No, when God calls you holy, God is simply saying this.  You belong to me.   I, God, have set you apart for myself.   Holiness doesn’t describe a way of life or behavior.  Holiness describes a relationship. 

When I look at my son, Patrick, I don’t see just any child.   I see my son.  And that relationship with him, sets him apart from any other child on earth.   But Patrick didn’t have to do anything special to get this relationship.  Patrick got it by virtue of being born, which to be honest, he didn’t have that much to do with either.    

And when God makes you holy, it happens the same way.  God is telling you.   You have a special relationship with me, one that sets you apart.    But you didn’t do anything extraordinary to get this relationship.  In fact, you didn’t do anything at all.   And that’s incredibly good news. 

When I was growing up as a child, sure I wanted to be good, well, most of the time.  But even when I wasn’t, I lived with one bedrock reality.   I could not lose my sonship.   I was Matt and Louise’s son.  Nothing could change that. 

In the same way, God is saying to you.   You belong to me.   Nothing can change your set apartness, your holiness.   That’s because the fact of your set apartness doesn’t depend on you. 

Did any of y’all watch the royal wedding a few weeks ago?   It was amazing, the flowers, the music, all the pomp and circumstance.  And the American preacher, Bishop Curry, he hit the sermon out of the park.  Now on that day, Prince Harry did the royal family proud.  But that hasn’t always been the case.  In fact, in the years before, Harry had done some painfully embarrassing things.  But in the midst of even his most un-prince-worthy moments, do you know what he always was?    He was always a prince.   That never changed, no matter how un-prince-worthy his behavior became.    In the same way, you are holy, even on your most un-holy days.

And the more you know that, the more it frees you from all the anxieties and insecurities that tell you that you are not enough, that you are not adequate or good or worthy.   No, instead, God is saying, you are holy because you are loved.  My love makes you worthy, and nothing you do can take that love away.   And when you know, really know that, it changes you like nothing else.   A brilliant man who didn’t even believe in God saw that.  As Sigmund Freud put it; How bold one gets when one is sure of being loved.     

And because God has set you apart, God tells you here.  That means that I will never give up on you.  No, the work God began in you God says, I will complete.   But what is this work that God is completing in you?  

Paul tells you even as he closes this part of the letter.   Paul writes to the Philippians.   “And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight.”    Now, those words sound nice, but what is Paul actually saying?  What is God telling you in this prayer?

God is saying to you, as you see more fully how deeply I love you, it lead you to see others in the same way, as those too, whom I deeply love.   That means that over time, you will see the holiness in even the most imperfect and obnoxious people in the pew beside you.  And you will love them even in all their prickliness.   And for those who are far from God, even those that most disappoint you or even anger you, you will see them for what they are, potential saints, simply people who have yet to realize just how deeply God loves them. 

And that knowledge will always lead you back to Jesus, to what set you apart to begin with.  For Paul doesn’t simply say, to all the saints.   Paul says to all the saints in Christ Jesus.  For your holiness did not come cheap.   No, in Jesus, God gave up everything even God’s very self so God could have you with him forever, so that you could be set apart like that.   That’s how infinitely loved you are, that God did this for you.   You were so lost that God had to die to bring you home, and you are so loved that God was glad to do it.   And when you know that love, when it overflows out of you with knowledge and full insight, then you know how preciously and beautiful set apart you are.  And you realize.  This is not your own doing.  It is the gift of God.