There is a certain kind of sober-mindedness that seems to come over Christians as they age. It can flow from many sources, I’m sure, but I think it often arises from a kind of fear—a fear that they may not finish their race without some kind of a major stumble. After living the Christian life for so long, they have seen friends fall, pastors give up, and peers drop out. This has alarmed them, and they feel a brooding sense of fear that perhaps they could be next.
Hopefully, this sobermindedness causes them to rely more completely on the Lord and to plead for his mercy. Hopefully, it causes them to realize all the more that they cannot hope to be victorious in their own strength. Hopefully, it causes them to preach the gospel to themselves with even greater diligence and even deeper desperation.
But I have observed that this sense of sober-mindedness can also lead to what I have come to describe as “defensive sanctification.” Let me explain what I mean by that.
At our best, we do what we do before the Lord out of a sense of deep delight in him. We prioritize personal times of devotion because we love to be with him—to speak to him in prayer and hear from him in his Word. We worship him corporately because our hearts love to sing his praises, fellowship with his people, and participate in his ordinances. We share the gospel with others because we are so overwhelmed with his love for us that we simply long to share that love with others.
But when we shift our eyes from Christ to those who have stumbled and fallen, our hearts can become alarmed and even doubtful. We can begin to relate to God in such a way that it is no longer delight that motivates us but fear—fear that we may be next. Now we are prioritizing times of personal devotion because we fear that if we grow lax, we will fall into sin. We worship him corporately because we are desperate not to replace a good habit with a bad one and slide into disobedience. We share the gospel with others in the hope that God will see our acts of obedience and will not remove his hand of restraint.
This is defensive sanctification—a way of relating to God in which we may be doing the right thing, but we are doing it out of lesser motives, for our foremost concern is not delighting in the Lord, but trying to avoid a fall. It is perhaps like a hurdles runner who is so concerned about tripping that he slows down and oh-so-gingerly swings his legs over each hurdle. While he will probably not trip over any of them and will get to the line without scraping his knees, he is also not running his race in the way it is meant to be run. Though he may cross the line, he will not be victorious.
So aging pastors can begin to fear that removing themselves from the weekly flow of preparing and preaching a sermon will introduce a kind of spiritual apathy into their lives. For this reason, they may continue to preach, not first to delight in God or serve his people, but to hold off a calamity.
Aging church members can experience a disquieting sense that if they slow their service through this ministry or that, they will grow lax toward church attendance. They press on serving, perhaps beyond their capacity or ability, because they worry that to slow down will be to fall. They serve not out of delight but out of fear.
Of course, there can be benefits to considering negative examples and considering what led others to fall. And certainly we should take heed lest we, too, fall. Yet there is danger in shifting our hearts from a trusting posture to a distrusting one, and it is never healthy to shift our gaze from Christ to those who have abandoned Christ. Thus, my plea to myself and to others who may be prone to this kind of defensive sanctification is to keep “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith,” for it is only he, not our efforts, not our fears, and not even our diligence, who “is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy” (Hebrews 2:12; Jude 1:24).
