We Are Being Saved

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Spencer Valeri; Philippians 2:12-13 We Are Being Saved

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You are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan. My name is
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Spencer. I'm one of the pastors We would just like to welcome you. We are glad that you've joined us this morning
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Hopefully on your way in the door you grab one of our little miniature Bulletins, you'll notice that there's not much information in here
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That's because most of the information we want to give to you is through the app So we'd encourage you to download the recast app, but there are two pieces information
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I want to draw your attention to inside little bulletin there. The first is a giving envelope
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We don't pass a plate or anything like that So if you want to worship the Lord through giving this morning We would encourage you to take your offering put it in the envelope and then you can drop this
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Envelope through the slot in the table in the lobby there and we also have a connection card
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So if this is maybe your first or your second or your third time here We would love to connect with you if you would like to fill this out and take it to that same table in the lobby
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We have a gift for you there. We'd we'd would love to bless you a little bit this morning So take advantage of that if you are new with us besides those things
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We've just got a few announcements for you this morning We have a regular kind of meeting kind of a get to know you that we do around here with the pastors
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It's called lunch with the pastors. So if you're fairly new here at recast Maybe maybe you've been coming for a month or so and you've never been to one of these
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We would like to invite you to our next lunch with the pastor events It's going to be next Sunday, October 24th, right after the service.
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They usually start around 1230 something like that So if you've never gone to one of those you would like to we'd love to have you just email office at recastchurch .com
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And Aaron will get you all the information for that Also next Sunday night if you call recast church home, we would love to have you out for our kind of our quarterly family meeting
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That's October 24th next Sunday again at 7 o 'clock at night right here
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So if you're a member or a regular attender, we'd encourage you to come out to that two more announcements for you real quick We are going to have another church wide potluck
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These are just great fellowship events where you can get to know other people that you might not rub shoulders with on a regular basis
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Our next church potluck is going to be November 7th right up right after the service
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We'd encourage you to sign up via the app or you can also sign up by going to the website For kind of a dish to pass something to bring so encourage you to take advantage of that and then finally
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Here at recast we love to do baptisms But we don't regularly have them kind of just scheduled every two months or something like that So if you've been thinking about baptism, maybe the
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Holy Spirit's been nudging you to get baptized We would love to have you reach out to to us through the app and we'd love to get in touch with you and schedule
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Baptisms so those are just a few things. I wanted to make you guys aware of this morning once again.
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Thanks for coming This morning it's kind of the Spencer show I guess
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I hate being up here one thing after the next but Don is at the men's retreat in Barak al up in northern,
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Michigan And so I'm gonna preach this morning. So we're just gonna jump right into a brief introduction of our text this morning this morning
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I'm gonna leave the song of songs things for Don. I'm not brave enough to tackle that. Yeah a
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Little break. How about that? So this morning we're gonna be in the book of Philippians if you want to start to turn there
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We're gonna be in Philippians chapter 2 So go ahead and turn there if you have a
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Bible We're gonna look primarily at verses 12 and 13 this morning But as we read the text to get started,
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I want to read verses 9 to 13 just to give you a little more Context the concept that we're gonna be talking about this morning is is a fancy theological term called sanctification
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Right, don't get scared when we use fancy terms around here. We explain them All right
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So all that really means is to become more like Christ or to become more holy
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And this is a concept that a lot of people are confused about in Christianity. How do we become more like Christ?
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What is God's role in that? What's our role in that? Do we have to be perfect? I I sin
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What do I do when I sin all those types of questions that revolve around? Really how you live the
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Christian life are tied up in this concept of sanctification so we're gonna take that up this morning through a verse -by -verse exposition of Philippians chapter 2 verses 12 and 13
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So if you have a Bible, let's go ahead and read those texts this morning If you haven't brought one the text is up there on the screen for you
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All right, Philippians chapter 2 starting in verse 9
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Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and Every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is
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Lord to the glory of God the Father Therefore my beloved as you have always obeyed so now not only as in my presence but much more in my absence
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Work out your own salvation With fear and trembling for it is
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God who works in you both to will and to work for his good
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Pleasure. All right before Dave and the band come up to lead us in worship this morning. Let's let's pray
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Lord we are so thankful to be gathered here together as a local expression of your body
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Lord I pray that as we open your holy and inspired and authoritative word this morning that it will just Cultivate our hearts that your
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Holy Spirit will work through us to make us more into your image Lord This text is such an encouraging one for me because it promises us that you are at work in us
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That what might seem like a large uphill battle to become more and more like Christ is not something
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We have to undertake under our own strength But rather it is a journey that you initiate in our hearts and that you continue on to completion
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So Lord for that we are thankful We are thankful for your spirit that dwells inside of us that that convicts us and motivates us to be more like Jesus and so this morning
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Lord I pray that we would have ears to hear and attentive hearts to listen as your Holy Spirit speaks to us through This inspired word.
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We are so thankful for Jesus and his death on the cross And the salvation that has been offered to us
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Lord, it's it's that salvation that gives us a basis to to become more like you and I just pray that your spirit
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Will will make these truths come alive for us this morning Lord as we worship you. I pray that We will just have hearts that are listening for your truths to come through these songs
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We are so thankful for this this team that is leading us this morning I pray that you bless their efforts as they point us toward your cross.
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We pray all this in Jesus name. Amen All right You can all have a seat but just as a reminder as I talk if you guys feel free to get up grab some coffee some donuts if there's any left in the back help yourselves
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Not much will distract me I was supposed to preach this sermon back in July and some people had we had
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Publicized it and some people and then I wasn't here all of a sudden and everybody was like, well, what happened to Spencer? We we had our daughter that weekend
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Unexpectedly, so that's why we didn't do this in July and we're doing it today. But that's exciting
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We have now have what almost a three -year -old daughter this week. So that's fun But this morning we're going to be in Philippians chapter 2
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So if you have a Bible go ahead and turn there and keep it open this morning I like to go back to the text over and over again so you guys
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Hopefully can see what I'm trying to bring out of the text but in order to get started this morning
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I just wanted to ask you guys a question I kind of want to show of hands But how many of you have ever been in a situation where you knew where you wanted to go?
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But you didn't know how to get there anybody Hey, that's more than I would have thought right with Google Maps.
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You can get anywhere you want nowadays, right? But yeah that happens occasionally, right? Well two weeks ago
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I was in the mountainous desert of Nevada Hunting pronghorn antelope and Nevada is really wild.
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It's it's desert, but it's high elevation stuff and Make a really long story short.
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I was chasing this group of antelope around all day long and I mean all day long I was going up and down and around and here and there and everywhere and I'm out of shape
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And so I was exhausted but by the end of the day all I knew was that I was miles and miles and miles from my truck and I was over a thousand feet higher in elevation than when
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I started and so I'm standing there at the top of this mountain and Dark is like right now.
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I mean it is right around the corner It's about to be pitch black and I'm standing there and I got about a 65 pound load on my back and I'm like Man I know where the truck is
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I know it's way back to the north of the middle of this valley, but I have no idea how to get there and So not only is it gonna be dark, but I ran out of water
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Five hours earlier. So I'm here in the desert. I got this huge load on my back and I'm like, all right
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How am I gonna get from here to there without either dehydrating or slipping and breaking my leg? And I'm trying to contemplate this and as it gets dark and figure out what's what's the best route to get
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Problem was I Hadn't really paid attention on my walk in there I was so focused on what
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I was doing And I don't know how to get out of there and take the best route possible And if you guys have ever done any serious hiking before we got anybody that hikes
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Some of you right if you've ever gone hiking before there's there's two things that really are pretty crummy when you're hiking, right?
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The first is to go down Going down is a lot harder than you would think
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Because it's very hard on on the joints in your knees and in your ankles, right? So you want to go down a hillside that you can kind of switch back, you know
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Walk this way and then walk this way and then walk this way if you go down too steep It really leaves you in a lot of pain
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So you want to avoid steep faces and then the second thing is more demoralizing than anything else
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But if you don't pick your route while going down you can find yourself in one of these situations Where you are going down a couple hundred feet just to find out that now you got to go up a couple hundred feet more
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To go back down again, and that's just crummy when you're tired and beat up So I start hiking and I have
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I don't know where to go and I'm really like, okay I got to get out of here. I told my wife
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I'd get out alive Right, which which she is hoping for right, but I don't know what to do
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I know where I get want to get right, but I don't know what way to go and Depending on if I pick the wrong route,
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I'm gonna wind up in a very bad situation, right? And so as I was thinking about that and I was thinking about this text this morning
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I think that happens a lot in the Christian life, right? We know where we want to go
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Right, we know that we want to be more like Jesus. That's the goal That's that's the destination
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But a lot of us don't know how to get there and if we take the wrong route or we go on the wrong journey we can wind up finding ourselves in some pitfalls that aren't helpful and can be
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Discouraging and leave us in a place where ultimately God doesn't want us to be
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I think the problem for a lot of us is that when we don't understand we know where we want to go, right?
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We don't understand how to get there because we don't know what our role is in this journey of the Christian life
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And we don't know what role God plays in the journey of the Christian life And so we have a tendency to take bad routes on the journey
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We either believe that that our striving and our energy especially in spiritual disciplines makes us
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Acceptable to God to some degree right and allows us to earn credit with him or we believe that God loves us
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Unconditionally because he's declared us as righteous and forgiven and free from condemnation in Christ And we acknowledge those truths and then think because of all that we can live loosely in regards to our obedience
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And what I want you to realize this morning is that neither one of those is the right route neither one of those is the right
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Journey, there is a better way and that is that Christ Expects us
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God expects us rather to pursue Christ Likeness and this expects is not like a wishy -washy thing.
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It's not okay. If you don't meet this this is this is a requirement It's it's a demand right
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God expects us to pursue Christ likeness, but he also Enables us to do it.
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So that's the truth that we're gonna unpack this morning in Philippians in verses 12 and 13 and just to refresh your memories
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I would like everybody to turn there and we're gonna read those two verses again Before we start to really dig into them
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But Philippians chapter 2 verse 12 Therefore my beloved as you have always obeyed so now not only as in my presence
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But much more in my absence Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling
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For it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure
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Verse 12 is one of the most important verses in the Bible for understanding how human effort in the
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Christian life relates to salvation and the sovereignty of God However, this text is also very confusing for a lot of us, right?
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If you look at verse 12 there, you're gonna notice that Paul is commanding the Philippians to work out their salvation and he says to do that with fear and Trembling and this word work out here literally means to produce
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To produce or to bring about or to cause to happen So you could translate the sentence as bring about your own salvation
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That fire any red flags in the air for people right should for a lot of us So we're gonna try to unpack that this morning as a good evangelical
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You're gonna believe right the salvations by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone
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We know that we don't work for our salvation, right rather it is a gift from God Romans chapter 4 verse 5 says that God saves the one who does not work
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But believes in him So I think the automatic question then becomes what does
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Paul mean when he says work out your salvation? I think the easiest way to understand this is to think of salvation as having really three stages and Theologians give each of these stages a different name and they're all time oriented
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We're not going to dive into a lot of the wheat weeds there because a lot of you may be familiar with those Stages, but I do want to briefly define each one of them and give you kind of a corresponding verse as an example
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So the first stage of salvation is in the past tense. It's often referred to as Justification right a lot of us have heard that term
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That's what we commonly think of when we think of someone being Saved right because that's what happens the moment a person places their faith in the work of Jesus Christ It's a judicial act of God in which he forgives the sins of the person removes their guilt removes the penalty for their sin
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Imputes to them the righteousness of Christ and then sets them apart to himself
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We see this stage of salvation Referred to in Ephesians chapter 2 verse 8 where Paul says for by grace
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You have been past tense saved through faith. And this is not your own doing it is the gift of God So that's the first stage of salvation.
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The second stage of salvation is what we might more broadly call Sanctification but more specifically you'll often hear it referred to as progressive
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Sanctification and this is the process of a person being saved This is where the sermon gets the title from it's the idea of becoming more holy
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Actually and practically becoming more holy. It's it's the outworking of the positional holiness that you receive in Justification or initial salvation, you know, we talked about Justification justification is the deliverance from the penalty of sin.
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You might think of Sanctification as the ongoing deliverance from the power of sin
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So we have delivery from the penalty of sin first and now we have deliverance from the power of sin second
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You're progressively becoming more and more like Christ and this stage occurs in the present time
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We see this in 1st Corinthians chapter 1 verse 18 Paul writes for the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing
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But to us who are being saved it is the power of God And then the third stage of salvation the future stage is what we might call glorification
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Glorification occurs at the coming of Christ when we will receive our glorified resurrected bodies and it involves being saved from the
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Presence and the pollution of sin being saved from the presence and the pollution of sin
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I want to show you this in Romans chapter 13 verse 11 Paul writes for salvation is
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Nearer to us now than when we first believed here when he says when we first believed he's referencing that first stage of salvation
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Justification but he's looking forward here to a salvation That's yet future a salvation that's closer now than it was when he first got saved in this and here
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He's looking forward to to glorification this final stage of salvation So to kind of put a bow on all of that and to summarize it for you
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I think we could say that biblical salvation is a three stage process occurring in the past present and the future whereby a person is delivered from the penalty of sin from the power of sin and then from the presence and the pollution of sin
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So what I want to do is use that Definition as a framework and go back to Philippians chapter 2 here in verse 12 where it says work out your own
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Salvation. I think we can clearly understand this working out or this bringing about of salvation not as a reference to to the first stage, but rather a reference to the middle the present time stage of salvation and for the rest of the morning what
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I want to do is explore some truths about this idea of Sanctification that are revealed to us in these verses so the first thing
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I want you to notice about sanctification is that Sanctification is a response to Christ where we commit to be more like him
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It's a response to Christ where we commit to be more like him Once you look back with me to kind of draw this truth out
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We're gonna look at verse 5 and give ourselves a little bit of context here
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Paul tells the Philippians have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus Who though he was in the form of God did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men and Being found in human form.
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He humbled himself by becoming Obedient to the point of death even death on a cross
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Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name
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So that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue
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Confessed that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father and then notice our verse starts with the word therefore
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So as we think about that section of verses, I want you to notice what the verse says, right? What did
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Christ do he emptied himself? He became a servant. He humbled himself He was obedient to the point of death and because of all of that God highly exalted him
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So what we see here is a response of God to the work of Christ. Jesus came to earth, right?
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he lives his perfect life he dies to pay the penalty for sin and God responds to that work by Exalting him and bestowing on him the name that is above every name
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Which is really cool, but there's also a response that we're supposed to have to this work of Christ Notice what
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Paul says here He begins verse 12 with therefore and I think that therefore here at the beginning of verse 12 is looking back to that work of Christ and introducing for us a
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Response now, there's a lot of extra phrases here in verse 12
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And so I want to cut a few of them out so you can see the main thrust of this response to the work of Christ He says therefore my beloved
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Work out your own salvation That's the response that you and I are supposed to have to the work of Christ And the idea is that because Christ came and he lived this perfect sinless life and he died for you you now have a responsibility to respond by working out your
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Salvation and we talked about how the working out of our salvation is this idea of becoming more holy, right?
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Becoming more like Christ. And so the first thing that I want you to grasp about sanctification this morning is that idea?
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That's it's a response to Christ where we commit to be more like him
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The goal of sanctification then is Christ likeness back in the late 80s and this this study seems to have
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Been contradicted a little bit over time, but but I think you'll get the point I'm trying to make back in the late 80s the
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University of Michigan conducted a study And found that couples who were married for longer than 25 years
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Began to look alike, especially in their facial features Even if the couple didn't have much resemblance at their wedding day
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They showed some resemblance in their facial features later in life And it was interesting the researchers in this particular
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Study found that the happier the couple was the greater the increase in facial resemblance
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And their conclusion was that the change was due to decades of apparently shared life
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Emotions and experiences and similar lifestyles and I think that's a good illustration for the
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Christian life, right? If we commit to being more like Christ the more that time goes by the more we should
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Increasingly resemble him right our lifestyle should reflect his our emotions should reflect his and our thinking should reflect
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His thinking and as you spend more time with the Lord, you know The Holy Spirit will shape your heart and your life will look more and more like Christ's There's also a challenge here to us in this idea
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I think and that is that if we say we're Christians, then we will not stay the same, right?
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That's a biblical truth. And the challenge is that if there's no growth in holiness in your life then
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There's a good chance. You're not safe And we have to seriously examine ourselves and and think about that I think over time we become more and more sensitive to to reality so I was listening to a preacher this week and he's kind of a revivalist type of guy and he made the
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Observation that when they when they go into churches and they do revivals and they call for repentance and all these things
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He says interestingly enough Usually the people that come forward are the 60 year olds who have been walking with Christ for 40 years and are broken over You know what we wouldn't even notice in their lives and yet the backroom
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Baptist who was at the bar next week who really needs to come forward never comes forward and I think that's a good picture of Sanctification is that the longer you walk with Christ the more the
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Holy Spirit is going to work in your life and make you Sensitive to what is not glorifying to to God and and that's a result
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I think of a constant Submission to the Word and to the Spirit where the Word and the Spirit are working together
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To mold us and to change us into the likeness of the Savior. So that's that's the goal of sanctification
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The second thing I want you to know about sanctification this morning is about the nature of it
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Sanctification is a lifelong Obedience sanctification is a lifelong obedience
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Let's look a little bit closer here at verse 12 And once again, I want to take out a clause here to make a little easier to follow what we're focusing on here
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He writes therefore my beloved as you have always obeyed so now
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Work out your own salvation And and that small phrase there So now makes a connection between the idea of the
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Philippians previous obedience when Paul was with them and their current exhortation to work out their salvation the working out of the salvation really is
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Expanding upon the idea of obedience And so essentially what he's saying here is that we should respond to Christ with obedience which is the working out of your salvation and I think implied in all of that is the idea that our
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Obedience is modeled after that selflessness that humility the obedience of Christ That we saw at the beginning of the chapter, right, you know
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But but often when we we think about obedience, we often kind of have a negative connotation of it, right?
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We think of it as an obligation Usually to some set of rules that that we often begrudgingly follow out of fear of punishment, right?
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But that's that's not what Paul has in mind here. The word obedience here is a compound word and it means to place
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Oneself under what has been heard to place oneself under what has been heard so in that sense
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It's the application of truth Obedience is the application of truth.
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So sure there are times where it might mean that we shouldn't do something But I think it's broader than that It's gonna carry with it the idea of of be like this as well as we study these texts and apply them to our lives
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So it might be be like Christ be compassionate serve those in need love those around you
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Demonstrate humility by putting others needs before your own right? That's the idea of applying truth now that understanding of obedience,
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I think can ease some of the tension that we feel between grace and Obedience, but it doesn't eliminate it.
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So in an attempt to kind of scratch that surface there are a few things that I want you to notice about this obedience that is commanded here before we dive more into the relationship between God's grace and Obedience.
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So the first thing I want you to notice about obedience from this text is that our obedience no matter how
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Hard we try will be Imperfect. This is so important.
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No matter how hard you try your obedience will be imperfect
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Scripture portrays a believers relationship to sin in a multicolored fashion
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We are portrayed both as sinners who are completely forgiven and stand accepted and loved by God And at the same time we are portrayed as saints who continue to struggle with sin
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And that's something that's taught in this passage. The word work out here is defined by one
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New Testament scholar as continuous sustained effort and he defines it that way because it's used in the present tense here and when when
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Greek present tenses are used they're used to Imply ongoing action rather than kind of a once -for -all
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Action and so this working out this pursuit of holiness is an ongoing Process because it can't be perfected.
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That's why theologians call this progressive sanctification, right We see this idea.
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I think of imperfect obedience and sending Saints all over the New Testament all over the New Testament Here's just a couple quick examples
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Ephesians chapter 4 verses 22 to 24 Right to put off your old self
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Which belongs to the former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds
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And to put on the new self Created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness now without going into the weeds a whole lot here
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I've studied this text wrote a paper on it in seminary And what I want you to remember is that the putting off here and the putting on here is also
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Presented in the present tense. It is an ongoing Continual thing for the
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Christian life. It's not just something that happens at Salvation It happens throughout your walk with Jesus.
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You need to continually put on and you need to continually put off Alright, the second text
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I want to show you is in Hebrews chapter 12 verses 1 to 2 He writes therefore since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses
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Let us also lay aside every weight in sin Which clings so closely and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us looking to Jesus the founder and perfecter of our faith
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So the putting on and the putting off and the laying aside of the sin
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That's clings so closely to us and instead looking to Jesus. Those are examples of progressive sanctification
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Because we have a sin nature. Nobody is going to lay aside sin
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Perfectly right this side of heaven. Nobody's gonna do that. And that's it. That is a theological truth
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You have to cement in your mind if you want to have a realistic Expectation of how to interact with other
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Christians Nobody lays aside every sin perfectly before they before they die and meet
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Jesus, right? But There's a fine line here though as we think through this we don't want to emphasize
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Imperfection to the point where grace abounds and abounds, right? But in our emphasis of obedience, we don't want to create an artificial guilt complex for people, right?
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Why because there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Which means that they're not going to be held guilty before God for their past their present or their future sin
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But I think by grasping that the Bible does indeed portray us as sinning
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Saints We can keep from distorting grace and at the same time prevent people from having a guilt complex, right?
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So that's the first thing that this text teaches us about obedience. Is that it's going to be imperfect
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The second thing I want you to notice about obedience this morning. Is that obedience is not
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Circumstantial obedience is not circumstantial if you flip back there to chapter 2 verse 12
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One of the clauses that we crossed off earlier Referencing their obedience
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Paul writes not only in my presence but much more in my absence
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Paul is giving them a commendation here. Essentially. He's saying hey guys, I I love you
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You were really good when I was there at being obedient But even when
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I'm gone even when your circumstances change and I'm not there to correct you and to teach you and to encourage you
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There's still the expectation that you're going to be obedient to Christ. You just think for a moment
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Why does Paul have to remind him of that? Why does he have to remind them to still be obedient even though he's there?
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I think he has to remind them of that because both of them and us are Influenced to some degree by the power of sin, right?
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We're influenced by the power of sin and because we have a sin nature that we're going to be Battling with for our entire lives.
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We are inclined to be Self -justifying to blame circumstances or other people when we fall short of God's glory, right?
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We've all done that and here Paul saying hey You can't do that Even if I'm not there to encourage you and keep you going in the right direction
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Even when your circumstances change you still have to pursue this obedience
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I Remember when I got saved I spent a lot of time with two different groups of people The first I would spend time with Christian friends and I would spend time with non -christian friends
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And when I was with my Christian friends, I often made really good godly choices, right?
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The fruit of the Spirit was a parent in my life I was growing in holiness but when I was a new
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Christian here and I wouldn't hang out with my My Christian friends and might hang out with my non -christian friends.
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I made some really bad Sinful choices that weren't honoring to God and I would find myself
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Justifying that behavior by saying hey, you know, I was just peer pressured I I just did that because I wanted to fit in right and yeah sure that may be true on a human nature
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Level, but Paul says that should not be right our Sanctification wells up from our
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Regeneration the fact that we have a new birth and we have a new nature and God expects us to be obedient Regardless of where we find ourselves and what circumstances we find ourselves in our obedience should flow
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From our regenerated hearts and from our love for God But we also have to recognize that we have a sin nature right that dwells inside of us
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So I think in wisdom Paul is recognizing here that certain Circumstances provide temptation, right when he's not standing there telling the
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Philippians what to do There is a greater temptation that they're gonna do what their sin nature wants them to do, right?
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Yes dragon with me. So I think in very practical terms here sometimes obedience might be
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Changing your circumstances, right? I think of it in the sense of like Obedience to fleeing temptations, right?
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Jesus has told us flee from temptations sometimes Changing our circumstances is doing that now thinking back to the illustration.
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I gave I think in that situation I was often setting myself up for failure. My buddy would call me
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Hey, you want to hang out on Friday night? And what what do unsafe people do on Friday night? They go to the bar
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Yeah, sure. I'll come along You go along as a new Christian have been been saved for a couple of months and go to the bar good things
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Usually don't happen, right? So I think that in wisdom I should have drawn some boundaries, right?
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Probably would have been fine for me to hang out with those guys if the guy would call me in the morning and say hey Spencer you want to go play around the golf, you know, man
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Not much bad can happen when you play around a golf though I did manage to throw a few clubs in the lake and wrap one around a tree
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But that was more the result of my immaturity than my circumstances But if that guy called on Friday night wisdom would have dictated
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Hey, this is not a good circumstance for me to be in. I should flee from this and choose something else to do our
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Circumstances. All I want you to take away from this is that our circumstances can have an impact on our holiness
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And so we need to consciously think through them choose the circumstances that we put ourselves in I think if we're going to be faithful in our pursuit of holiness another good reminder in our pursuit of holiness is that God wants our obedience to be accompanied by fear and Trembling he wants our obedience to be accompanied with fear and trembling.
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Look with me at the key phrase in Philippians 2 12 there Work out your own salvation with with what with fear and Trembling now this verse is implying that we should have some attitude of cringing when we're working out our
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Salvation you all know that kind of fear right? Like if you've ever seen somebody yell really harshly with a dog, right?
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What is the dog do he kind of he kind of recoils he crouches down. He lowers his shoulders.
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He's gonna lower his head He's gonna look up at you out of the corner of his eye, you know with kind of this sideways glance.
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That's fear, right? That is not the kind of fear that you and I should have toward toward God It's not the kind of fear that's spoken about here.
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Anyway, this is a kind of healthy fear think being back to the beginning of Chapter 2 where we read that that Jesus has been exalted and given the name that is above every name
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So that one day every knee will bow before him and every tongue will confess that he is Lord I want you to think about the context here.
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This is fear in that context that people will bow before Jesus and what do you do when you bow before somebody you're showing them a level of of reverence and awe
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There's a sense in which it's a very deep profound respect. It's a respect that recognizes their
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Authority and then humbly submits to it. That's what Paul's getting at here when he says fear and trembling
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There are theological truths that recognize that we should be afraid of God because he is great and we are not
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But in this context, I think it has in mind this idea of awe and reverence he wants our obedience to be accompanied by that awe and reverence and the idea is that when you
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Recognize that Jesus is the all -knowing The all -powerful Lord of creation that he is highly exalted then your response to him
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Which is what we're talking about here cannot be a flippant one. It can't be a flippant one You can't walk in here this morning and walk out and do nothing with this message
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You have to have a response and it cannot be a flippant one It should be a humble response where you realize that God is all -powerful and that you are not
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You see that the gospel folks cannot be lived out
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Casually rather our obedience should be worked out in awe of the living and all -powerful
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Jesus Christ who it sits on his throne And I describe it as awe because there's also a sense of wonder about it right that this
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God who who is high and lifted up and in control of the entire universe is also
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Close to us and at work in us High and lifted up and yet close to us that that to me is just an awe -inspiring
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Reality and as we think about that, I think it's it helps us to understand how God Works in us in this process of sanctification, right if we don't think about that we wind up emphasizing obedience at the expense of grace and what happens there is that people begin down the the slippery slope of pride and legalism or external behavior modification
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You know a few years back to illustrate this I want to demonstrate to you a study that the Barna group did a few years ago this was a nationwide survey the title of the survey was
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Christian beliefs about spiritual life and the church and The survey had six statements and people were asked to respond to them
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One of the statements was the Christian life is well summed up as trying hard to do what
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God commands Summed up as trying hard to do what God commands
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Why don't you think about that for a second think about how you would respond to that question if you were taking the survey
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Is that your basic understanding of the Christian life? interestingly 82 % of people who took this survey said that they agreed with that statement that surprised any of you
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Rises one person. All right Um Interestingly, you know what you got to think why do people agree with the statement?
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All right The surveyors found that people agree with it because that's what they believe about the Christian life that it's primarily a human effort
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It's something that you do you are commanded to do God to follow God's commands. And so it's all about your effort
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The problem with that understanding is that it's not a complete picture, right? Yes.
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Obedience is commanded, but it is not Primarily produced through human effort your obedience is not produced primarily through human effort
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Now that may sound strange to you, but I want to suggest to you that that Sanctification which we've defined is the lifelong obedience of believers, which which leads to growth in Christ likeness
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Sanctification is by grace through faith by grace through faith.
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Why do I think that look with me again at these verses? 12 and 13 work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for Meaning because it is
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God who works in you Both to will and to work for his good pleasure
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Now verse 13 is a short sentence, but man, there is a lot packed in there
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We're not going to unpack everything that's there this morning But I want to begin to unpack a little bit of it for you and give you a few takeaways the first thing
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I want you to notice is that the only reason we can pursue Christ likeness and The only reason that we can ever be obedient is because God is at work in us
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God is at work in us there That's the relationship here between our working out of salvation and and God's working because God works in us
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We can work out all of the working out of salvation on our part All of our human effort is the effect of God first working in us
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This is a relationship of consequences here, right? God does this and then we do this without God doing this piece over here.
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We can't do this That's what this text is saying here. Sure. You might be able to do this external behavior modification
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That looks like you're a good Christian But if God is not working in you if this is not coming out of a source of your regenerated heart in your new life
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It is not sanctification, right? It's legalism with a holiness look to it, right?
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God has to first work in you in order for you to work out your salvation now
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I This can sometimes be confusing and so I kind of want to illustrate this relationship for you in terms of a boat
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Let's think of sanctification in terms of a boat for the next couple minutes. All right some people think that Sanctification is is like a rowboat, right?
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I sit down in the boat and the harder I row the faster I go Right the harder I row the faster
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I go my growth is then totally dependent on how much effort I put in If I just sit there and I don't put the oars in the water
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I'm just gonna get tossed about by the waves and go every which direction the world and the sea want me to go
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Right, but if I row hard, I'm gonna make forward progress toward holiness I'm gonna make forward progress toward my goal
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The problem with that is that it's not an accurate picture in the Christian life, right? Because your growth is not solely dependent upon how much effort you put in Other people will think of salvation the sanctification rather like a motorboat, right?
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I get in I fire up the engine I get saved I sit back and off I go The engine does all the work occasionally
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I might have to move the steering wheel a little bit But but that's it. That's the let go and let
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God mentality, right that I don't have to do much work God's gonna do all the work the motors move in the boat.
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It's doing the work, right? the problem with that view is that it doesn't do justice to the idea of a
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Continuous sustained effort to the idea of a working out of our salvation
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There's no real effort involved in that picture I think the best way to think about sanctification is to think of it in terms of like a sailboat
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The first thing you got to know about a sailboat is that nobody even thinks about sailing unless it's windy, right?
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Because they know it's not gonna work, right? You don't go out on the lake when there's no wind in the sailboat You're just gonna float off to nowhere, right?
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So you got it You got to have the wind going first But if you enjoy going out on the sailboat and you wake up one morning and there's going to be a good breeze to move
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That boat along you're motivated to go right so you go out on the sailboat But but what do you have to do to move the thing right?
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You got to make some effort, right? You got a rig up the lines. You got to get the sails angled in the right direction
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You got to put the sails up you got to adjust the rudder a little bit and all while you're doing all that the winds been blowing the whole time and as the as you work the wind
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Causes the boat to move you make forward progress because first the wind
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Motivated you to get out and then you put in some work to catch the wind and ultimately the boat move forward, right?
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That is a good picture of sanctification God works in you this tick says both to will and to work
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Just like the wind is going to motivate the sailor to go out on the water God works in your heart causing you to will that's the idea of desire causing you to desire
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What is right, but just as the sailboat only moves forward under the power of the wind
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You can only make progress and holiness because God is in at work in you
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He gives you the enabling strength to do any work and to ultimately move forward
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Think of it this way in that sailboat illustration the winds constantly blown, right? No The power of the sailboat to go forward is there and as soon as the sailor rigs up the sail
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Forward progress is made God provides you with the power to be faithful and when we respond in obedience
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We make forward progress toward holiness John Calvin Commented on this verse and said there are in any action
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Two principal parts the will and the effective power
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Never thought about that before any action has two parts the will and the effective power
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You can't have forward progress toward holiness without both of those pieces right real holiness is the result of both of those
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For example, if God only caused you to will and the willing fell short of working then you'd never bear fruit, right?
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Likewise if you if he only worked the working, but he didn't work on your attitude or your will you would be an unwilling doer
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You would begrudgingly obey you do things with the wrong attitude, right? That can't be right either because we know that God wants us to have what not only right attitudes but right actions and he doesn't really care about your right action unless it comes from the right source with the right attitude and a
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Desire to do what the Holy Spirit's leading you to do. This is not folks just about external conformity
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God does not care about what you do if it's coming from the wrong source
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This text I think gives us a great encouragement though, because sometimes we want to do what's right, right?
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We in the back of our mind we want to do what's right But we seem to lack the energy or the ability anybody ever been there, you know, what's right?
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You want to do it? You somehow just can't can't find a way to do it. Here is a promise
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We are assured that God will help us in those cases other times. We cannot seem to do what is right here
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We learn that God also provides the desire to do his will when we don't seem to have it and folks
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That is grace. That is God's help, right? we don't deserve God's help in this this walk of the
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Christian life, but he lovingly and freely gives it to us and Enables us to pursue
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Christ likeness and that's why I can say this sanctification is by grace through faith
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God undeservedly works his power in us both to will and to work and and that power is
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Appropriated to our lives through faith. This is so important for us to grab the powers appropriated to your life through faith
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What's faith, right? It's a competence we in what we hope for and the assurance about what we do not see right from Hebrews In this pursuit of Christ likeness, you have to believe that Christ is in you, right?
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The hope of glory is in you and when you're faced with a decision to be obedient or not
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You assure yourself that God is at work in you that he will provide a way out, right?
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That he will give you the desire and the power to do what is right. That is grace
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That is faith rather appropriating grace to your life
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Galatians 2 20 I think paints this picture well for us. It really brings the idea home for me
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Paul writes I have been crucified with Christ. That's Justification right?
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It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me
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And the life I live in the flesh. I live by Faith in the
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Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me So Christ lives in him, but he has to live that life by faith in the
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Son of God because he is in the flesh Folks there is effort required in the
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Christian life There is obedience required in the Christian life, but at the very crux of it all we don't grow by effort
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We grow by faith in Jesus Christ as we trust that his grace and his spirit are working in our lives both to will and to Work and obedience is realized when you and I believe that Christ is in us
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Changing us to think more like him and giving us the power to be like him
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That's sanctification by grace through faith Folks this text
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I think is such a powerful one because God in his wisdom Has an answer for both the legalist and the one who pursues freedom for the legalist
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We're reminded that we are imperfect and yet God still loves us We're reminded that we don't earn favor with God by our right actions rather He already views us as holy right?
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We're reminded that he is not concerned with it simply external behavior modification But he's concerned with a heart that loves him and sees that fleshed out in in our actions, right?
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And finally, we're reminded that our efforts to grow are not the result of our own doing rather God by his grace is changing our wills and providing us with the power to pursue
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Obedience and any progress that we make in the Christian life cannot be attributed to ourselves
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But must be attributed to the work of Christ in our lives but on the other hand for the one who pursues freedom
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God in this text gives us a sobering reminder that he expects us now he requires of us regardless of our
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Circumstances to be obedient and become like Christ There is no such thing as a
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Christian who is not growing in holiness because God Works in us this text gives us a promise
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God will be working in you both to will and to work and yet Because of grace we recognize that we have been saved right?
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We are no longer guilty We're no longer condemned, but it's by that same grace that we can pursue holiness
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God who saved you from the penalty of sin is also in the business of saving you from the power of sin is grace
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Not only pardons you but it empowers you and if you're on the side of freedom
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That's what you have to remember. You don't have to do this on your own effort, right? God is empowering you to do it and by faith you can become
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Progressively more like Christ and I don't know which of those people you can identify with more
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The legalist or the one who pursues freedom, but notice this at the end of the day for both of them
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The answer is the same, right? Jesus is the answer Jesus reminds the legalist that he'll always fall short but that grace is always right there at work in his life and Jesus reminds the one who pursues freedom that obedience is not a chore
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Rather it is the vibrant Outworking of the Spirit of God and it's the result of God's grace in his life and our obedience and our practical holiness springs forth from our being regenerated right are being made a new creature and being
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Justified before God by our faith in Christ and so every week when we when we end sermons we come to communion
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Right, and we come to a communion to remind ourselves of these truths
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We're in this morning. I want you guys to think about the fact that that if you're a Christian God has started a work in you, right and He is going to be faithful to bring it to Completion as we think about our actual and our practical holiness.
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Sometimes we can be discouraged But I want you to think this morning about Jesus's sacrifice on your behalf
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Think about his perfect life and his death on the cross and his resurrection to conquer sin
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So that you can live out the holiness that he has accomplished for you
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Remember that as we partake in communion this morning Dave and the band are going to come up and play a song
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Communion if you're new we we kind of get up and walk toward the back there's stations at the end of every aisle where you can can grab the the wafer and That represents the body of Christ and you grab the cup which represents
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The blood of the new covenant that Jesus has shed for us and I would just encourage you to think about the work on the cross and how you can
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Appropriate that power to your life this week. Let's pray and and we'll turn to the
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Lord Lord Jesus we are so thankful for Your sovereignty we are thankful that you have conquered sin and Provided a way for us to come back to God We are thankful that we do not have to grow by our own efforts
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We are thankful that it is your spirit working in us Both to have have right attitudes and to accomplish what you have called us to do and Lord There are times when it can be overwhelming
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Because we fall short and in those times Lord May your spirit remind us that that you have paid for those sins at the cross and Lord There are times where we don't want to do what it is
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You want us to do and we want to do our own selfish desires, but Lord in those times may your spirit remind us that That we are called to live out the life that you have bought for us on the cross
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And Lord as we turn to community now, may we be reminded that your sacrifice was sufficient to pay for all of our sins
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That it's because of your death. We can have hope and that we can have a new life that we can have born -again
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Regenerated hearts and may those hearts spring forth in us a desire to do what you are calling us to do
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We're thankful for Jesus. We're thankful for his sacrifice and Lord We're thankful for the spirit that helps us to be more like him each and every day