The Sufficiency of Christ In Salvation

Turn with me to Hebrews chapter 13. So last week we began a series, a very brief series, discussing the broad topic of the sufficiency of Christ.

Now, you can take that in a number of areas. In fact, it almost seems a little bit silly that we're only taking it as far as four weeks because there will be so much material left to be discussed by the time we get to the end of it.

But I had been thinking about it for a number of months and felt a comfort and a conviction to go ahead and move forward with it once we got to this particular point.

And so we're going to keep moving along here. And last week we set the tone, kind of introduced this topic, with first discussing the necessity of relying on Christ's sufficiency in the first place.

And we talked about how we can do it in the first place. How do we get to a point, how can we put ourselves, how can we get ourselves to the point where we are relying on Him, relying on His sufficiency to the degree that we need to in order to rest in Him, in order to have that trust and that faith in Him that we need in order to get through just about everything that life has for us.

And so after introducing that last week, today we're going to be talking about Christ's sufficiency in salvation.

And over the next couple of weeks after this, we'll be talking about a couple of other areas in which He is sufficient.

But look at Hebrews chapter 13. In fact, do me a quick favor. Hold that spot, but go over to Romans chapter 4 as well and just kind of be ready.

We're going to go between Romans and Hebrews a little bit to start us off this morning.

We're not going to be jumping around quite as much as last week. And so again, today we're going to be talking about the sufficiency of Christ in salvation.

Next week, we're going to broaden it a little bit. We're going to talk about the sufficiency of Christ in life in general.

How can we move through our lives as individuals with unique circumstances for all of us in ever changing times and rest and rely on His sufficiency to the degree that we need to in order to actually be comforted in those times.

And then we'll end the series by talking about the sufficiency of Christ in grief and in times of sorrow.

Not necessarily for us because we're in those times right now. We may, some of us may be, but more specifically to be prepared for those times and also in being prepared to point our brothers and sisters to Him when those times come in their own lives.

So let's start with Hebrews chapter 13 verse 8. And we will jump into today's topic, sufficiency of Christ in salvation.

The writer says, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today and forever, be not carried about with diverse and strange doctrines.

For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace, not with meats which have not profited them which have been occupied therein.

We have an altar whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. For the bodies of those beasts whose blood was brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin are burned without the camp.

Wherefore, Jesus also, that He might sanctify His people with His own blood, sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate.

Let us go, therefore, unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this wonderful day. Thank you for bringing us together once again and blessing this local church family with the unique gift of being able to come week after week to encourage one another, edify one another in peace, and to do so expecting to get to do it again.

Lord, we know that we live in such a unique time and in such a unique place to even have the privilege of getting to do that.

So we thank You for it. We ask that You help us not take it for granted. We ask that You abide with us today as we abide in Your Word together.

Let every word spoken be Your Word. And we just ask that Your hand of blessing will be on this service.

And we ask these things in Your name. Amen. Now, in a church like this, the statement that Christ is sufficient in the salvation of His people is about as given as any statement that could be made.

We're all very well grounded in this church with regard to God's sovereignty over salvation to the point where any given one of us could go out and wax eloquent on any one of the doctrines of grace.

And it's a blessing that we can do that. It's a blessing that we have the foundation that we do here. So when you hear the sufficiency of Christ in salvation, pretty much everybody here will go, well, sure, it's a no -brainer.

In fact, that's probably about the easiest statement that could be made with regard to us being able to affirm it, understand it, know that it is true, that it is of God, that His people are saved.

Of course, typically, when we're considering the reality that Christ is sufficient for salvation, we think of some amazing things such as our justification.

I'm going to break a couple of terms down to get us started in a second. Justification, that being the immediate result of the finished work of Christ in our lives, the moment that we were regenerated, the moment that we called upon His name.

In that moment, we were all justified. Those that believe in the

Lord were justified. And of course, we would all affirm quickly that Christ is sufficient over that.

What is justification? It's the act of God declaring that men are free from guilt, that they are acceptable to Him.

They are acceptable to a holy God that can't be in the presence of sin, but have been made acceptable to God.

And at the moment we call upon His name, when the Holy Spirit regenerates us, of course that happens.

We are justified. Look at that Romans passage really quick with me, Romans chapter 4. And I want to just give you guys a quick taste of this aspect of salvation before we move into the next phase that I'd like to look at.

A quick passage with regard to our justification. Romans chapter 4, look at verse 22.

And it says, And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness. The him there is Abraham.

Paul is talking about how Abraham was saved not just prior to the age of grace, not just prior to the church age, even prior to the law.

It was imputed to him for righteousness. It was because of his faith in God. Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but for us also to whom it shall be imputed.

A beautiful truth, the imputed righteousness of Christ that all of us get to benefit from, from the time of Abraham, even the time of Adam, all the way to the present day.

If we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, in verse 25 says, who was delivered for our offenses and was raised again for our justification.

So there's that term, justification, the act of making men of God not guilty for their sins any longer, that they may actually be in the presence of God at some point.

Go over one chapter. We'll see the same term again. In chapter 5, verse 8 of Romans.

It says, But God commandeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, much more than being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath through him, the act of God declaring men free.

That is what happens to us at the moment of our salvation. Justification is the biblical term for that.

It's an undisputed reality that Christ is sufficient for what you might call our initial salvation.

The moment that we get saved, as we say it in the Bible Belt. The moment we get saved, the moment we call upon his name.

Of course, he is sufficient for our salvation at that moment. The moment of our justification, which of course is the moment that we say we got saved.

But it's very important to remember that all other aspects of our salvation are inseparable from that moment.

They're inseparable from that moment of justification. It is a one -time thing, one point in history, when we are spiritually born again.

And that is the moment in which our salvation is made secure. It is sealed by the Spirit. All of the eternal security passages that Dad has been talking about for a good number of weeks all come back to that reality.

The moment we are justified, we are made secure. But it doesn't end there. It doesn't end there.

Every other aspect of salvation links back to that moment. It's inseparable from it. If you are justified, if you have called upon his name, if you have been regenerated, if you are justified, you will be sanctified and someday glorified.

There's not one or the other or maybe this one and that one. It's all three at different points in time.

They're all inseparable, one from the other. The Apostle Paul, along with many of the other New Testament writers, makes it really clear that there is this continual, present tense aspect of our salvation as well.

I'm just going to read one quick verse to you. You don't have to go here. But Paul tells us, For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness.

But to us which are saved, it is the power of God. That's 1 Corinthians 1 .18. Now, the phrase, which are saved there, when

Paul says, which are saved, the power of God, which are saved is a single

Greek verb. And it's in the present passive and it's a participle.

So in English, if we were writing this, we might say those who are believing, ING, we put that ING in the end.

That's the participle, but it's also the present passive. So what this means is that what

Paul is talking about is this thing called salvation is happening in real time as we live, as we move day to day.

But it's happening by one greater than we are. So it's ongoing.

It's present tense. And it's happening by one greater than we are. That's the passive aspect of the voice there.

This is why nearly every other translation of the Bible reads this way. To us who are being saved, it is the power of God.

In fact, I'm pretty sure the KJV is the only translation that doesn't have worded that way. It has something to do with the older English at the time it was written.

But the way that the Greek actually reads there is to those who are being saved, it is the power of God.

So, by the way, there are many, many other examples of that. That one particular verse kind of gives you an idea of it.

But this is, again, a thing that the apostles write about pretty often. Now, what do we make of this present tense aspect of our salvation?

Because we know, for example, in my personal testimony, I was saved at the age of seven.

That was many years ago at this point. Or, I guess Dave would say, not that many years ago. I was saved at the age of seven.

All of us have a quote -unquote spiritual birthday where we called upon the name of the Lord. And so what do we do with Paul saying here that we are being saved in the present tense?

Does that mean that we are continually being justified or that we are continually being glorified in some weird sense?

And, of course, the answer is no. He's referring to the part of our salvation which we call sanctification.

Salvation is a very broad term, and within it you can break it down into a number of areas. Justification, as we've already talked about.

Glorification is the moment that we meet Jesus in the clouds as he is returning. We receive our glorified bodies.

Of course, if we go to be with him prior to that day, we are glorified at the moment we enter heaven.

Of course, our bodies will someday be resurrected and glorified. So that is a promise. That is the great hope that we all have when we see him.

Our redemption draweth nigh. That's our glorification. But there's that other aspect as well.

And it's the aspect that we live with in the present tense as we grow as believers, as we grow as Christians, and that is what's called sanctification.

It's the process by which we are continually purified, consecrated. We are made more holy, like God, as we progress and mature in our

Christian walk. So that is the reference there when Paul says to those that are being saved in many other places throughout the

New Testament as well. It's very much true. We are being saved, present tense, with regard to our sanctification process becoming more and more holy as God is holy as we live our lives.

Now, it is this particular aspect of salvation that I want to address today. And I want to showcase the ways in which

Christ is sufficient, even in this, because there's a number of common misconceptions that while justification and glorification are of God, like I said, we would all affirm that hands down.

Some people go as far as to say that sanctification, though, is the part that we play, quote unquote.

Now, there is some truth to that, and I will demonstrate that shortly, but not in the way that it would sound when you first hear it.

In other words, our holy works, the things that we do in order to be consecrated, in order to become sanctified, are not done alone.

So it's not the part that we play in the sense that God justifies us and then sits back and watches to see how we progress in this life until the day that we go to meet

Him. That's the misconception. While there is certainly a part that we play in, and again

I'll demonstrate what that looks like shortly, we don't do it alone. That's the part that we have to remember.

Christ is sufficient for accomplishing this in our lives, too.

Just as He is sufficient for justification and glorification, He is sufficient for this as well.

And this is why last week's topic that we talked about is so important. We have to rely on His sufficiency in our lives in order to be making progress in sanctification.

If we're not relying on Him, if we're not putting our trust in Him, if we're not relying on His sufficiency in being able to get us there, to being able to get us to the finish line, then all of the sudden we're going to start, well, not living sanctified lives.

We're going to start living maybe even like we did prior to calling on His name in the first place.

Maybe we're going to be living like the rest of the world. Because we take our eyes off of Him, we put the focus on ourselves and our own capabilities, and the result will be not being sanctified in those moments however long that lasts.

You have to rely on His sufficiency first and foremost in order to have a good understanding and grasp of how this works and how we can be sanctified as we move throughout our lives, throughout our

Christian walk. Because it's only through His sufficiency, it is only through His sufficiency that we make any progress at all.

We stall out if we take our eyes off of Him. Now, does this mean removing our responsibility from the equation?

If we were to affirm or to say that Christ is sufficient in our sanctification, does that remove our responsibility from all of it?

Does it release us from the conditional exhortation from Jesus for us to bear much fruit in order that we may glorify the

Father? Well, of course, it doesn't remove our responsibility. It doesn't take that away from the equation. But it is an impossibility to do these things in and of ourselves.

And thus it requires a reliance on His sufficiency in order to accomplish it. So let's revisit that passage one more time in Hebrews 13.

Let's revisit that passage one more time. Let's take note of a few things here and flesh this out just a bit.

The sufficiency of Christ in salvation, specifically our sanctification.

Verse 8, of course, a beautiful verse, a testimony of the immutability of our

Lord, the immutability of God. Jesus, the same yesterday and today and forever, we can rely on His promises made because He does not change.

He doesn't break His promises. Titus 1 -2 tells us He cannot lie. And that is, again, inseparable, much like some of the other things we're talking about, is inseparable from His immutability, which is touched on there in verse 8.

Verse 9 says, Be not carried away about with diverse and strange doctrines, for it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace and not with meats which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.

Now, this is an interesting thing. It's a common exhortation that the

New Testament writers make. And it's because of the fact that you have these dispensations of time changing.

You have this overlap between the age of the law and the age of grace that the apostles are living in, and all of these believers they're talking to are living there with them.

And so often, you had the apostles needing to address this because you would have genuine believers incorporating some of the ceremonial law, something that Paul tells us in Galatians that was nailed to the cross with Jesus.

They would incorporate the ceremonial law with other practices of the Christian faith.

There's this kind of weird mingling of law and grace in an inappropriate way, specifically with regard to the ceremonial law.

And so it's very common for Peter or John or Paul, in this case,

I believe, in Hebrews, to remind their listeners or their readers that there was nothing to go back to.

There was nothing to go back to. You don't need to be preoccupied with meats that have profited them.

Nothing. There's nothing to go back to. The veil has been torn. Christ paid the sacrifice for our sins.

We don't have to do these things anymore. We don't have to go back to the altar anymore.

So at the moment that that veil tore, while Jesus was still hanging on the cross, Judaism became a dead religion at that moment, and it is to this very day.

There's nothing to go back to because Christ fulfilled the law, and he was the one and only perfect sacrifice to end the need for the ceremonial aspects of it.

Now look at verse 10. Now, in order to understand what's going on here, because it's kind of odd imagery, some of the things that the writer, that I believe

Paul is talking about here, is somewhat odd at first glance. In order to really understand it, though, is to understand that all throughout

Hebrews, not just at the end here, as you read the epistle, you're going to find that there's this emphasis not on the temple, not on the temple that, by the way, was still standing at the time this was written, but rather the wilderness tabernacle, the tabernacle that moved with God's people throughout the wilderness during the wilderness wanderings prior to Solomon's temple being constructed.

You have references over and over again to this tabernacle that had long since been done away with, and it's because it was the

Old Testament tabernacle that the writer uses as the types and the shadows of the greater reality that he's about to talk about in the next verse, in verse 12.

He says, wherefore, because of that type and shadow I just referenced regarding the wilderness tabernacle, the way that some of these things worked, because of that, wherefore,

Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood suffered without the gate.

Now notice the word sanctify there. In Romans 4, we were told that He justified us by His blood.

In Hebrews 13, 12, we were told that He sanctified us by His blood. What are we talking about? Christ's sufficiency in salvation, in the whole of salvation, not just any one aspect of it, but all of it, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood suffered without the gate.

Now, you may all recognize when you remember, when you recall the story of the crucifixion, that crucifixion did not take place on the altar in Jerusalem.

It didn't take place in the temple. It didn't even take place in the city of Jerusalem. Where did crucifixions take place?

They went outside the gate. They went outside the camp, so to speak. And they went on one of the main highways where everyone could see it, and they propped the victims up on the cross on a hill outside of the gate, outside of the city.

And in like manner, just like the sacrifices were burned in the

Old Testament outside of the gate, outside of the camp, Christ went outside the gate to the hill of Calvary to be crucified.

Something that, again, was foreshadowed when the meticulously rigid process of all of the animal sacrifices were given by God Himself in the first place.

All that weird stuff in Leviticus, all that weird stuff in Numbers and Deuteronomy, all of it was given to represent all of the things that Christ would accomplish, all of the things that He would fulfill in His manhood on earth, of course, culminating in His death on the cross outside of the city, outside of the camp.

But think about this for just a moment. We're talking about sanctification specifically. Some people will go as far as to say, and it's a devastating idea, a devastating false doctrine, that sanctification is ideal, but not necessary.

I want you to think about something for a moment. This blood sacrifice that was made on the cross, that was the fulfillment of all of those types and shadows in the

Old Testament every single time an animal was brought and slaughtered on the altar and then burned outside of the camp, this blood sacrifice made on the cross, it was efficacious, it was effective.

He didn't offer it so that sanctification, so that the sanctification of His people was made possible, but He did it so that they would be sanctified.

It's inseparable from our justification. It's inseparable from every other aspect of salvation.

He did not go and fulfill this type and shadow, offer His blood, as it says, to sanctify

His people. He did not do that in order to make it possible to sanctify His people. He did it so that His people would be sanctified.

It's not a take it or leave it. It's not that it's ideal, but it's not necessary.

It is absolutely necessary because it's going to happen as a result, as a necessary consequence of the blood price that was paid.

So we might ask, since our sanctification is a result of His successful sacrifice,

His efficacious sacrifice, then how could anyone ever state that sanctification is the part that we play on our own, or that sanctification is possible but not necessary?

Well, I think this particular passage answers that. Number one, it's certainly not possible to do on our own.

Now, remember, there's a key there. There's an important distinction to be made. It's not that it removes our responsibility.

It's that we can't do it alone. So this is something that we cannot do alone.

It's not the part that we play alone. We do it alongside somebody else. Of course, we know who that someone is, but it certainly refutes the idea that sanctification is possible.

Maybe it's ideal, but it's not necessary. To say that is to say that verse 12 of Hebrews 13, that He might sanctify

His people with His own blood, suffered without the gate, that that sacrifice was not efficacious, but rather making it a possibility.

So, verse 13 says, Let us go forth, therefore, because of this reality, unto

Him without the camp. Let us go to Him outside of the camp, suffering on the cross, bearing

His reproach with Him. You recall Jesus' own words, Pick up your cross, bear it with me. We are to go be a reproach, just as He was a reproach.

So our sanctification begins here, with the blood that was offered after Christ's suffering outside of the gates of Jerusalem.

And what should we do as a response to that great sacrifice made on our behalf, made for the specific purpose of sanctifying us?

Well, as it says here, we go to Him. Let us go, therefore. Let us go forth, therefore.

Go to the one by whom our sanctification isn't made possible, but rather is fulfilled, is completed, as we progress in our walk with Him.

So we have to remember that. We have to remember that it's expressly because of Christ's sufficiency that we go forth to Him, laying aside all of the sins that so easily entangle us in the grip of that slave master of our own sin.

That is a clear command from Paul. It's an imperative to live life according to the blood that was shed for our sanctification.

Let us go, therefore, to Him and be a reproach with Him. So now that we've established that even our sanctification, that continual experience of every believer, is also just as much a result of Christ's blood,

He is just as sufficient for our sanctification as anything else. Let's take a look at one more passage that beautifully combines both of the aspects of our responsibility as believers.

You could say the part we do play in our sanctification, as well as Christ's sufficiency in our sanctification, without which no progress is made, no sanctification is made, no purification is made.

Go back just one chapter in Hebrews, chapter 12. And this will be the final passage we kind of park on for today.

There's this beautiful balance all throughout the Bible of the responsibility of man in Christ's work, which of course cannot be undone.

There's no opposition to His work. There are perceived oppositions from our point of view because we are living in time and we are finite beings and we don't quite understand all of the nitty -gritty details.

We can't put out a chalkboard and do the math on how everything works. And the responsibility of man and the sovereignty of God may be one of those things.

We know that both are true. Both are plainly talked about. The details we leave to God because He is the originator of them.

But this is one of those passages where we see both side by side. We see the importance of both of them.

And we know that without Christ we can't do any of it. But at the same time, in this very odd kind of way that only

God would do it, He doesn't do it without us either. We can't do it without Him, and He chose not to do it without us.

What does that look like? Look at verse 1 of Hebrews chapter 12. And remember, we're talking specifically about sanctification, the growth that we all experience as individuals with our own individual circumstances in this life.

He says in verse 1, Wherefore, seeing we are all also compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, of course,

Hebrews chapter 11, filled with what is commonly referred to as the hall of faith, all of the great patriarchs and matriarchs that came before us that lived by faith in their

Lord and their God. Because of that, that's what the wherefore there means. Wherefore, seeing all of that, seeing that we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses everyone in our own life, brother

Bill, brother Otis, brother Rocky, Nana, every person that means the world to us, that maybe we're even our own spiritual mentors that went before us.

Because we're encompassed by this great cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight.

So notice, there's a little bit of responsibility entering the picture here. The topic is the sufficiency of Christ.

And yet, right alongside of it, what are we to do? Lay aside, let us lay aside every weight in the sin which death so easily beset us, which so easily entangles us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.

Now, because of those faithful saints that I mentioned a second ago, that came and went before us, now residing in the heavenlies with our ascended

Lord, we have all the more reason to live holy lives. In other words, to actually want to be sanctified, to want to be consecrated, to want to be purified.

We have all the reason in the world, not just because we want to be more like our Lord Himself, but because all of those that were faithful that went before us, we want to make them proud too.

We want to live up to some of the standards that they set, to the faith that they held firmly to. We need to live holy lives because of that, to mortify our sins, to lay aside again.

Those that entangle us in their grip. Prior to our regeneration in the Holy Spirit, we served an incredibly evil master.

Now, all of us are aware of the fact that the devil influences by his own will all of those that are around us, all of the unregenerate around us, including ourselves, prior to our salvation experience, prior to the day that we were converted, that we called upon the name of the

Lord. We think of Him as an evil master. We might even think of the world as an evil master. But in John 8, 34,

Jesus tells us of another evil master that we serve and have the tendency to go back and serve time and time again, even though we are not under His authority anymore.

And that evil master is the master of our own sin habits. The master of our own fleshly proclivities or the things that we want to go back to, even though we were freed from them, even though we were freed from that evil master.

We served an evil master, the evil master of our own sin, John 8, 34. And that particular master is a brutal master.

It's one that wants everything to do with the slow agonizing death of its slaves.

This is a terrible, terrible master that no person in their right mind should want to be under.

So, why return to that evil master? Why voluntarily return with the desire to die that slow death?

Because all of us do it for whatever reason. Those that have been freed from it, those that have been freed from every lesser

Lord after becoming saved, after calling upon the name of the Lord, as I've said, after being justified, for whatever reason, we want to go serve that brutal master again.

This master wants to literally rip our souls out through the consequences of sexual sins.

It wants our bodies to decay painfully through the consequences of things like drugs or smoking or alcohol, or maybe those sexual sins.

It wants to disfigure our appearances through the sins of bitterness, gossiping, our anger, our selfishness, our pride, the lies that we so easily go back to in order to save face or whatever it may be.

But, what does the writer tell us to do with this master? Let us lay aside every weight in the sin which so easily besets us, but here's the thing.

We're told to do this, but we don't have to do it alone. We actually have some help escaping this master, even though there's this odd dynamic of wanting to return to him, but not really wanting to.

Romans 7 is a great demonstration of that too. Paul tells us about this battle that he fought in his own life with wanting nothing to do with his master and yet going back to him time and time again.

It's a brutal master, but we have help escaping him because look at verse 2 of this Hebrews passage we're in.

Looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Quickly, at the very end of that verse, it is a great example of the importance of the fact that we don't just have a

Lord that lived a perfect life. We don't just have a Lord that was able to overcome death and was resurrected and was seen by hundreds of witnesses, but we also have an ascended

Lord that sits at the right hand of power. It's because of that, because he sits there, that we have him by our side now as the author and finisher of our faith.

Now the word author there is the Greek word archegos and it is an amazing word.

It's attributed to Jesus all throughout the New Testament and it's translated author here, but you could also translate it the chief leader.

You could translate it the prince or my favorite and the most literal rendering of this might be the pioneer.

The pioneer. Let me just briefly read a few passages from the New Testament that use the same word in different contexts.

So here we have looking into Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Listen to this one.

And killed the prince of life whom God hath raised from the dead, wherever we are witnesses. That's Acts 3 .15.

Prince of life. That word prince. Same Greek word that we see translated as author in verse 2 of Hebrews chapter 12.

Listen to this one. Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a prince.

There's that word again and a savior for to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.

That's Acts 5 .31. And then there's one more that's actually also in Hebrews. It's earlier in chapter 2.

It says for it became him for whom are all things and by whom are all things in bringing many sons into glory to make the captain of our salvation.

The word captain there. Same Greek word. The captain of our salvation. Perfect through his sufferings.

That's Hebrews 2 .10. Now in all of these passages, we have the same word, as I said, in the earliest historical period when all of these scriptures were being written, when the

Bible was being written, when the apostles were alive. They commonly use this term in application to Jesus because he is in fact the beginning, the source, the pioneer that's leading his people into new territory.

A place that they've never been before. He's the first one to lead them into this new territory.

He's the pioneer of their faith. So to be the author or the pioneer of our faith means that he has been clearing the path and he's been preparing for our settlement long before we got there.

Long before we got to this settlement to then live our lives and be sanctified continually, he was there first and he prepared it.

He was the pioneer that went into this new terrain and he prepared our settlement for us before we ever got there.

So when we read passages and we see that the faith that is needed for us to do things like work out your own salvation,

Philippians 2 .12, or to sanctify the Lord in your hearts, 1 Peter 3 .15,

these are things that we do, the ability to do those things was not only a gift from him,

Ephesians 2 .8, but it was established by him through his pioneering exploration of this new terrain, these new areas that had never been explored before.

He was our pioneer. He was the author of our faith. But, of course, you can't ignore that second term.

The finisher. He was the author, the pioneer, the author and the finisher of our faith.

It's from the same root word that he uses on the cross. It is finished. The word here represents the finish line of that great journey that this same pioneer started on our behalf.

The territory has been staked and it's now ours to experience through sanctification.

He is the author of it, he's the pioneer of it, but he's also the finisher of it. And then look at verse 3.

For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be worried and faint in your minds.

So, this is what happens when the sufficiency of Christ and our sanctification is lost, when we forget that, oh, wait a second, we can't actually live holy lives without him, without relying on his sufficiency.

We can't actually be sanctified continually without him right alongside with us.

We can't actually do this on our own. Oh, yeah, go figure. And when that is lost on us, when we forget about that, and we, so if you're, you know, picture sanctification like this.

Well, first, let's go back to justification for a second. You know, picture yourself living your life, you're just, you're meager human, lost as can be, being tossed around by the will of the devil himself, and then you are regenerated and you are awakened, you're quickened, and you're just living your life.

It's like you jump up to a new plane and then just start living up here for the rest of your life. It happens immediately, the moment you call upon his name, and it, you're on that higher plane for the rest of your life.

That's what justification looks like. Sanctification, on the other hand, is more like you're living, you're living your life, you get saved, and you have a little bump up, but it looks more like this on the way up.

You have a lot of dips, you have a lot of high points, you have a lot of dips. It is uptrending, but there are still some dips.

And it's those dips when you take your eyes off of him. How do the dips happen?

If I'm saved, if he is truly the finisher of my faith, how could there be any dips? Well, again, it's because we can't do it without him, but he chose not to do it, or he chose to do it with us.

He chose not to do it without us. I was going to put a double negative, but you get my point. And so the dips are possible because we are human beings, we are individual people that make choices that have great consequences for good and bad.

We chose to receive the knowledge of good and evil, so we got what we asked for. That is why sanctification is a little bit of a bumpy ride.

And so every time we take our eyes off of the sufficiency of Christ, we have a bump in the road. We have a little dip.

But that doesn't mean we're still not moving slowly but surely to that finish line, which, by the way, at the point in which that sanctification and that justification meet, that's when we're glorified, where our salvation is consummated, where the wholeness of our salvation, our redemption, is complete.

And so here, this is what it looks like at the end of verse 3 when we take our eyes off of Him and we forget about His sufficiency, when we get distracted and we set our minds on the sorrows that we do have to endure rather than on the author and the finisher of our faith.

What does it say? It says we become wearied and faint in our minds. And so it's not a good place to be when we forget about His sufficiency, when we take our eyes off of that, forget we can't do it alone.

We talked about this a lot last week. When we don't rely on Him, we become wearied and faint in our minds.

Have you ever wondered how the guy in the Gospel of Mark could say such a thing as, Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief.

How on earth is that possible? How does that work? There are going to be many times in our lives, just like that man in the

Gospel of Mark, even though, again, our initial salvation, our justification is secure, it's sealed, it can't be taken away from us, we have eternal security, but there will still be times where our faith is tested or all of it will be put to the test.

All of our affirmations of things like the inerrancy of Scripture, the sufficiency of Scripture, Jesus being the

Son of God, the resurrection, all of the power of Christ throughout 2 ,000 years of church history, all of it will be put to the test as we go out and we live our lives in the world.

And sometimes it will be put to the test through the skeptics who want to challenge us. And, of course, that's what Peter is talking about when he says, have a ready defense.

But there are times when all of it will be put to the test through our own sorrows, through our own grief, through a lot of the just natural consequences of being a human in a fallen world.

Again, receiving what we asked for in the first place in the Garden of Eden. We have the knowledge of good and of evil and the consequences sometimes are sorrow, grief, great trials and tribulations, depression, all of these things.

And so, sometimes our faith will be tested and we'll have the temptation at that time, when all of this happens, we'll have the temptation to rely on our own experience, again, a lot of what we talked about last week, rather than relying on His sufficiency in those moments, even in our own salvation.

Think about it for a second. Because of the fact that we have separated the realities of justification and sanctification from each other because that has become such a popular view, the

Roman Catholics handle it in a very bizarre way. Many contemporary

Protestants, most of the guys, frankly, from DTS, Dallas Theological Seminary, are the ones that write a lot of the materials attempting to refute the idea that sanctification is necessary in the first place.

And so when you live in a world like that and all of a sudden these aspects of salvation are separated, wherein biblically they're meant to be inseparable, when the going gets tough, we start working really hard to make things right and to make ourselves holy again, to make ourselves sanctified, but it's not us that can do that in and of ourselves in the first place.

When we start relying on our own experience, rather than relying on His sufficiency, even in our own salvation, because sanctification is just as much there as anything else, it can be bad really fast.

Because people try awfully hard to be holy. It's this really weird thing where humans go back to that evil slave master of their own sin and yet at the same time love the idea of being holy.

So what do they do? They come up with a rule book. They come up with extra -biblical codes of conduct, moral standards, all kinds of things.

Of course, this was one of the great sins of the Pharisees. And what does it do? When you try to sanctify yourself, you look like the ones that Jesus said were vipers and that were like tombs, whitewashed tombs full of dead men's bones.

That's what sanctification looks like without Christ. When you don't rely on the sufficiency of Scripture.

People try really hard to be holy, but it just doesn't work. But, when that faith is tested, it means that it's time for us not to start figuring stuff out, whatever that means, but rather understanding that our sanctification has already been purchased and we get to have the one who purchased it right alongside us, showing us the way to become more holy.

So it is possible. It's just not possible by ourselves. You have to rely on the one that purchased it in order to show you how to do it and to do it with you.

That's the beautiful reality in all this. We can be more holy, so it's not that I'm saying we can't, it's just you can't in and of yourself.

We can be more holy, like so many people want to be, even though they approach it in all the wrong ways, but that holiness requires us to walk in the

Spirit alongside Jesus, like He intended for us to all along, remember. We need

Him, but He chose to include us as well. And so I'll end with this. I said it before,

I'll say it one more time. In no way am I diluting our responsibility in the process of becoming holy as God is holy.

Be holy as I am holy. It's not diluting or removing our responsibility from the equation because sanctification was designed by God in such a way that by necessity we play an important role in it.

And so we can't forget that if you, you know, just throw everything to the wind and say, well, because it's all in God's hands

I can just do whatever I want, whatever happens is His will anyway. That's not how it works. It's a great balance that the

Lord gave us in His grace all throughout Scripture where He is letting us know He's not going to lose us.

We are secure, but He wants to do it with us. We have a responsibility to do it with Him.

We have a mandate even. We have imperatives given to us throughout the New Testament to do it with Him, to be along for the ride, to be part of the sanctification process.

We can't forget that. But, what I want you to remember today, and hopefully for a long time to come, is that when we experience times of spiritual depression or maybe disappointment in ourselves for just not being good enough, not living up to these standards that we are given, and becoming more holy, maybe the reason we feel that way is because we haven't been relying on Christ's sufficiency in our own salvation, in our own sanctification.

The old man is a very, very heavy burden. We carry him around on our backs with the desire to bury him in the ground all the time, but we just can't do it.

We're carrying around this heavy burden all the time. And when we put our focus on that, and we think about the old man and the struggle with him, and walking around hunched over, just can't shake this thing off, rather than on the reality that Christ has already buried him for us, because we couldn't.

And we remember that he is the author, that he is the pioneer, and the finisher of our faith, by his own blood that he paid to sanctify us with, then all of the sudden, that burden of our own man starts to get lighter and lighter.

And that is why the sanctification process, while it can be a little bit bumpy, it is going upward.

It is going toward God. We don't want the bumps, though. We want to avoid the bumps.

Anyone would. Even though we know some of them will be inevitable just because of the things that are happening around us in a fallen world, you still want to avoid the bumps.

So how do you start? Where do you start with that? You start by relying on the sufficiency of Christ.

So, we'll talk more next week about his sufficiency in our lives more generally, the ways in which we rely on him more generally, but it all starts with relying on him in the first place, and understanding his sufficiency in our own salvation continually.

Not just at the moment we called upon his name. Yes, he was there then too, but continually thereafter, and the fact that we need that as we progress ourselves.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this wonderful day. Thank you again for bringing us together, for allowing us to study your word together as a church family, to go to your word, to learn and to dig deep into the truths that do sanctify us, where we can go and learn more about the ways that you have set it up, that you have ordained for us to meet that finish line that you have set before us.

Lord, we thank you that not only do you create the finish line, but you also are the finisher yourself.

And that it is through you that our faith becomes complete, that it is through you that our sanctification becomes complete.

And of course, Lord, we just ask for your continual hand of protection, for your grace, for your mercy, as we continue fighting in this great struggle in this life on this earth, on this fallen earth, until the day that we get to meet you face to face for the first time.

Lord, we just ask that you continually work in us so that we can be the people that we want to be when we meet you for the first time.

And we ask you to be with us throughout the rest of the day, throughout the rest of our fellowship time. Lord, bless it.

Allow us to all be encouraged and refreshed by one another today. And we ask all these things in your name.