A More Excellent Way

If you’re new to Things Unseen today, you’re very, very welcome, and we hope you’ll become a regular part of our weekday podcast community. Our theme this week has been one of the Bible’s big words: sanctification. And sometimes, the simplest way of saying things is the best. And we’ve been reflecting on this, that at the end of the day, sanctification—being holy, being a saint—is just a matter of becoming more and more like the Lord Jesus. And today, I want to think about what that might look like.

Here’s one way the Apostle Paul comes at this question: What does it look like to live the life of a saint, to become more like Jesus? You remember the problems he had with the church at Corinth? One was that some people were emphasizing their spiritual gifts but doing that in a very un-Christlike way. And gifts without real holiness can be very dangerous indeed. Actually, it’s a mystery, isn’t it, how this occurs—gifts without grace. But it does.

At one point in his letter to the Corinthians, Paul gives a longish list of spiritual gifts, and then he says, “Earnestly desire the higher gifts” (1 Cor. 12:31). Well, you can imagine some of the Corinthians saying: “Wow, let’s go for it. We are really into the higher gifts here. Prophecy, speaking in tongues, working miracles—we’re all for the higher gifts in Corinth.” But then he lets the Corinthians down with a bump. He says, “And I will show you a still more excellent way.” Higher gifts, but a still more excellent way?

Now, here’s a quick-fire question: What are the next words in 1 Corinthians? Ten out of ten if you know them. And if you don’t, make sure that from now on, you’ll always get ten out of ten for that question, because in fact, the next words are words with which we’re all familiar—these words: “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong and a clanging symbol. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing”—zero, zilch, nothing. That’s 1 Corinthians 13:1–3, isn’t it? That’s the more excellent way.

You notice that all these things that Paul lists here, that apparently can be present when love is actually absent, are things we do, things we accomplish. But none of them describes who we really are, what we’re really like. And that’s the point: gifts are not the same as grace. Accomplishments are not necessarily indicators of love. But love is an essential indicator of holiness, of sanctification, of being a saint.

You remember how Paul goes on in great detail to describe what love is like. And if maybe later on in the day you look up 1 Corinthians 13 and read it through, you could try something. When Jewish people read the Old Testament, they never actually say the divine name, Yahweh. Instead, they say Hashem, “the Name.” Well, read through 1 Corinthians 13 out loud, and every time the word “love” appears, you replace it as a Christian with a different word. Replace it with the word “Jesus.” I think that will make 1 Corinthians 13 come alive to you.

If you want to know what love looks like, then look at Jesus. If you want to know what it means to be Jesus-like, to be someone who grows in Christlikeness, then look at the way Paul describes what he calls “the more excellent way.” In fact, why don’t I simply end today’s podcast by doing that?

Jesus is patient and kind; Jesus does not envy or boast; Jesus is not arrogant or rude. Jesus does not insist on His own way; Jesus is not irritable or resentful; Jesus does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Jesus bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things. Jesus endures all things.

Sometime today, you and I will probably be in situations where one or other of these statements will come to mind—situations where we see, or we ourselves might envy or boast, or be arrogant or rude, or insist on my way, or be irritable or resentful, or be secretly pleased when someone does something wrong. But this passage teaches us that sanctification, becoming like the Lord Jesus, is all about these nitty-gritty situations in daily life. That can be very humbling, can’t it, because it’s so often there that we fail.

But remember this too: it’s in these very ordinary things in life that Christlikeness appears in us. And as we grow in grace and love in a Jesus-like way, that’s how we grow in sanctification. And perhaps some of the people we know who don’t know the Lord Jesus will be able to catch a glimpse of Christ in us and through us and begin to seek him for themselves. I pray that this will be so.