Introduction
The title of this message out of Romans chapter 3 is “The Pitfall of Pietism.” For the sake of clarity and sharp delivery of this message, allow me to offer a working definition of what I mean by pietism. According to the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology pietism is: “A recurring tendency within Christian history to emphasize more the practicalities of Christian life and less the formal structures of theology or church order. Its historians discern four general traits in this tendency: (1) its experiential character – pietists are people of the heart for whom Christian living is the fundamental concern; (2) its biblical focus – pietists are, to paraphrase John Wesley, “people of one book” who take standards and goals from the pages of Scripture; (3) its perfectionist bent – pietists are serious about holy living and expend every effort to follow God’s law, speak the gospel, and provide aid for the needy; (4) its reforming interest – pietists usually oppose what they regard as coldness and sterility in established church forms and practices.”
Transition
Perhaps upon hearing that very good concise definition you say “Well pastor, that doesn’t sound so bad. Pietists are concerned with living the Christian life, they are focused on the Bible, they are serious about holy living, and they oppose cold dry religion in favor of a lived faith.”
Indeed, there are many things that can be learned from pietists of old and the present day. Yet, there remains one central pitfall of a pietistic outlook which is highlighted in our text today.
“God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood… he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.” (Romans 3:25-28 NIV)
The pitfall of pietism is the tendency, of individual believers and Christian movements collectively, to mistake their own work for genuine holiness.
In other words, the pitfall of pietism is the pitfall of focusing on what we do rather than what God has done. How easily we forget that we are saved by faith when we turn our faith into righteous, self-righteous, activity.
In what follows, we will walk through this text, comparing the difference between saving faith and works; lived grace and trying to earn grace; the fruit of salvation and the pietistic assumption that we can somehow save ourselves.
Lord, give us ears to hear, hearts to received, and eyes to see.
Exposition
At least in my experience, I would suggest that there are two basic types of pietists. There are the “holy pietists” and the “unholy pietists.” To be sure, there is probably a little of each in all of us, though some fall squarely in one category.
The holy pietists are those folks who struggle genuinely out of a terrible burden, either to please God and / or to alleviate their own perception of personal guilt.
I knew a woman once that I sometimes referred to as the puritan. I never did this in front of her of course, but jokingly, half-affectionately, I would call her this. She was a young woman and attractive but her extreme pietism would have never allowed anyone to know how beautiful she actually was. She always wore long sleeve, very plain clothing, long jean dresses, plain shoes, and never, never, did she wear any makeup or fix her hair in anything other than a very simple braid.
When I first met her I was very impressed by her modesty and even remarked of how more young women could use to emulate just a little of the way that she presented herself. Indeed, modesty seems to be a bygone virtue which could use a healthy resurgence. However, the more I got to know this particular pietistic woman, the more I heard her speak and observed her interaction with the world, the more I realized, to some extent by her own admission, that she had no peace, no joy in her life. On the outside she exhibited a godly appearance but inwardly she wondered if she was good enough to please God. While on the outside most of us would have said, “Now there is a Christian young woman.” On the inside, she wondered if she was even saved; even a child of God.”
Recently someone remarked to me of how there had been some vandals perhaps about five or six years ago who had marred several headstones at a local cemetery. The man’s remark after telling me this was “There’s a sure way to get sent to hell.” On one level his comment may seem innocent enough; however, I think this comment belies a radical misunderstanding about the nature of grace.
Friends, we have all done enough worthy of gaining a golden plated ticket to eternal damnation. Our worthiness of hell is not judged so much by the weight of our offense but by the measure of His worth.
“Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin. But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3:20-24 NIV)
Both my puritan friend who tried to earn God’s favor and the man who thinks he can avoid damnation by avoiding particularly egregious sins are wrong.
Sadly, both are terribly likely to miss out on the beauty of freedom which comes in Christ because both overlook the truth that salvation is by faith alone. Good works won’t earn God’s favor, won’t build God’s peace, and through them no one has ever discovered God’s love!
The avoidance of particularly egregious sins and offenses will not cause anyone to be able to “squeak in” through the side gates of heaven! Salvation is by faith alone. Freedom to live a life of radical grace begins and ends with a right understanding of the nature of faith.
Faith is accepting that He did it all for you and then allowing Him to work within you to change you. It is about dependence upon God not striving to please God.
God has given us the gift of faith, He enables us to use it, and He guides our use of it. Erwin W. Lutzer, pastor of Moody Memorial Church in Chicago says it this way. “God’s investment in us is so great he could not possibly abandon us.”
The unholy pietists are really an interesting lot. These could also be called “casual pietists.” You know the type. While they are found within churches, they more typically abound outside of the walls of churches.
The catch phrases of the unholy pietists or casual pietists are things like “I just live by the golden rule. I do unto others as I would have them do to me.” Or “I don’t need church because everything really just boils down to being a good person.”
My favorite catch phrase of the casual pietists is “I am basically a good person so if there is a heaven I’m sure I’ll go there.” While the holy pietists work very hard and try to please God through their works, the unholy or casual pietists are no less guilty of nullifying the grace of God by trusting in their inherent goodness.
The common thread between the monastic church worker who spends all of their time trying to please God and the casual pietists who spend almost no time whatsoever trying to please God is that both are motivated in their form of pietism by the fundamental assumption that their works, their goodness, their ability is enough to warrant favor with God.
Both could not be more wrong. Neither will ever, through their own goodness, know what it means to be cradled in the arms of God’s grace.
Trust in works nullifies God’s grace because it makes faith a work rather than the gift of God which enables us to depend upon God. Saints, we are saints because God covers us with the blood of His Son!
We are made righteous because God imputes the righteousness of His Son onto us. We are justified by grace alone which leads to a life of faith. Friend if your religious experience is not fulfilling, if your religious life has not brought peace to your life, might it be that you have mistaken the purpose of religious life?
We gather to worship with hearts abandoned to the total worth of the one who has saved us, to Him who loves us. We open His Word regularly to be fed spiritual food to strengthen faith – which is abandonment to His will, His life in us!
He alone sustains us and “If God maintains sun and planets in bright and ordered beauty he can keep us.” – F. B. Meyer (1847–1929)
Conclusion
Where pietism fails, grace working in us succeeds. Where working to please God by keeping all of His laws or through a lazy sort of trust in our own goodness fails, trusting in God and allowing Him to transform us succeeds.
He transforms us through regular exposure to the preached Word. He changes our lives and families through a changed perspective of focus on making choices in light of His will. He renews our strength and enables us for the daily battles that we all face through abandonment to His divine will.
Some preaching reminds one of the soldiers firing blank cartridges. Their guns are good, they take aim, you see the fire and hear the noise, but it is only a harmless cartridge. Just so, it is possible for preachers to use a powerless cartridge. They may have a good sermon, mean well, and have a grand delivery—both loud and fiery—yet entirely without power to slay the enmity of the human heart against God. Without the power of the Holy Spirit the sermon will always be like the blank cartridge. There are perhaps these two reasons for such powerlessness on the part of preachers. Their sermons are like well-blended tea. The great object is to make it palatable to all. The flavor is the chief thing. And it has become quite an art in some quarters to mix up the thoughts of men with the Word of God, and so blend (corrupt) them that itching ears are highly pleased with the sermon. Law and Gospel, works and faith, are so artfully blended that unrenewed hearts receive it gladly. But we are not told to blend, but to rightly divide the Word of Truth.
Friends, what I have attempted to do here today are to expose the Word of God and highlight what it says in this instance. The question for all of us is whether that Word will find fertile ground to flourish or rocky soil.
“O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker. For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Today if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work.” (Psalms 95:6-9 KJV)
Hear the Word of God. We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone. Amen.
