Sanctification, Part 2, What We Believe, Part 32

When we submit we do good things right because the empowering Holy Spirit is going to take over So that when we obey the

Spirit when we obey the word that is going to be when we in this

Progressive sanctification are growing Welcome to the rap report with your host

Andrew Rapoport where we provide biblical interpretation and application This is a ministry of striving for eternity and the

Christian podcast Community for more content or to request a speaker for your church go to striving for eternity org

But welcome to another edition of the rap report I'm your host Andrew Rapoport the executive director of Striving for eternity and the

Christian podcast community of which this podcast is a proud member I'm joined this week again by some other well

I hope they're proud members, but we'll find out of the Christian podcast community. They are from the podcast

Religionless Christianity and Spencer and Nikki welcome again. Hi.

Thank you for having us again Yes, we are blessed to be here with you again today, and we are certainly very proud members of the

Christian podcast community We actually prayed before we came on here and every time before we do an episode

We pray that God would open up new ministry opportunities to us because you know Just through the podcast or whatever and we're like, well, this is one of them

Andrew Discipleship and opportunities to you know co -host so certainly blessed.

Yeah, you do jail ministry and the thing I'm always Confused with is like for some for some people like I'm amazed they let people out after you go in to visit

You know, you must have a pretty good record. They let you out and not like oh, you know, Spencer you you belong here more regularly

They looked a little closer. They might just keep me in there. But thank God we're not bound by our past Give us time that we're all gonna be doing prison ministry just because we're

Christian. So give it time. Give it time You're just ahead of the curve getting the lay of the land Before it's permanent.

I'm getting to know all the lunch ladies and the haircut the barbers So I'll have the inside scoop when we get there

Well today's topic we're gonna continue in our topic of sanctification this is part two from last week

Encourage you guys if you didn't listen to last week It is gonna be one where this week we're building off of a lot of what we talked about last week so it is important to go back to that one and Relisten, there is a link in the show notes if you want to go and do that But encourage you to follow the podcast so that they all download for you

And you don't miss a single one because I know none of you want to miss any of the brilliance of the co -hosts

Yes, I get it so I Realize that's what everyone's really listening for, right?

So what we want to do is we're in this series called what we believe and this is from the doctrinal statement

It's striving for turning org and you can follow along with us go to striving for turning org Click on the about section under there.

Click what we believe scroll down to where you see Soteriology, which is the doctrine of salvation

Expand that out and you'll look down and see it says Sanctification we're in the second paragraph and we were halfway through that paragraph

So as a good podcaster, I will give you guys a little bit of review Just in case you didn't go back and read listen, and then we're gonna jump into some new material

But before Nikki reads this this is a really important area of study because One thing that we've said when we especially when we looked at the doctrine of regeneration

We talked about how the Colts Confuse regeneration with sanctification and that is how

Every man -made religion that believes in the the Bible at least the New Testament Will add works into salvation

What they're doing is talking sanctification. So if you're Evangelizing if you're talking to someone from another religion you need to know the distinction between sanctification and Regeneration and that's why we're spending the time to make sure it's really clear.

I'm down here in Florida I was witnessing to a Catholic couple and One of the things is they're saying well, it's all works works works works

And I said, but that's not how we're saved and they started to see that Yes, they understood that the

Bible teaches were saved By what Christ did alone and they agreed that adding works is man -made

But they said but there's all these works we do and I had to try to explain that's sanctification so when they jumped to James chapter 2, that's our

Sanctification not our regeneration when you understand that that difference between Sanctification and regeneration it helps with speaking to people that have a man -made religion

So it's really important to understand this distinction. That's why we're taking the time This precision is not because we want to show.

Oh, look how much we study No, we want you as a listener to be able to know and see the difference between These issues when you come across and when you talk to someone about them

And what you're gonna see we're gonna focus on in today's episode as we did in last week's episode is when we speak specifically of Sanctification we drill down there and we get into two different types of sanctification that people get confused with one is positional sanctification and the other is

Progressive sanctification so positional sanctification is this idea that once we are regenerated

We have a position before God of being sanctified of being holy that's an immediate thing and Yet, what do you and I experience if we're believers what we experience is this

Progressional sanctification where we're still being made more and more in the image of Christ God keeps working on us

I know Spencer and Nikki he doesn't have to do as much work as he does with me I get it.

I get it. But I kind of think it this way I think what that means is, you know,

God just owes me more He has to work do more work on with me then Spencer Nikki, right? Or maybe it's the shameful thing that he has far less grand plans for us than he does for you

He's like, yeah, you got a podcast. That's good enough. You're sanctified enough for a podcast. You've got a calling maybe that's the

Who knows but I did have a question there and I guess it's kind of subjective But in your opinion, you know as far as when it comes to sharing with people

About this idea of sanctification Which one do you find to be more of a stumbling block for them because I know you know

You mentioned I do the jail ministry and I'm going there tonight and thank you for this opportunity because last week

I talked to them about justification and I'm gonna go there and talk to them about sanctification and I know in the jail ministry the

Positional sanctification they seem to really struggle with that. There's no way I'm a saint Do you know what

I've done to get here and to try to help them understand that whereas maybe somebody on the outside in a church?

Whatever happens to be they may struggle with this lifelong Progression. I'm just curious what you think?

Well, I think that you hinted on it, but the positional sanctification I think is more difficult not just for guys in jail for any of us

To really rattle our minds with. It is why so many Christians they struggle with their past sin it's that struggle because it's like look what

I've done and This is really what I think holds a lot of Christians back We talked about this a little bit last week too.

It holds people back because we don't realize we are Saints in God's sight.

It doesn't mean we go and do whatever we want We can go sin all we want if that's someone's view that shows that they really don't understand it it's the fact that we are amazed that God would have anything to do with us and Because of that we can sit and just be like God has made me.

Holy made me a saint. I Don't deserve this It should blow our minds in a good way but it's hard because positional sanctification is really sanctification from God's point of view and With God everything's already done in his mind right because he knows the future as if it was this moment he's got a perfect knowledge and Therefore he knows exactly what the outcomes of everything and I think that really is

Difficult for you and I progressive sanctification we get right we could see that daily change you guys have you know children and You can see that even in your kids we keep hoping that we'll see that Is there a deep progressive sanctification when they get to the teenage years,

I'm curious if you Experienced that at all. Yeah, it may seem that way but no they continue

It's just you got to get through the teenage years and then when they get in their 20s The neat thing is how smart you become again

As they start to realize what life is like and suddenly it's like, you know, mom and dad weren't so stupid after all

Oh, what do you know? Oh, I'm hoping for that some assurance for you encouragement Well, I do have a question though I guess cuz you know you you probably spent a lot more years as far as sharing the gospel and having these conversations is is this

Maybe why and maybe I'm off base here But why man and really the heart of man really desires the works based?

System because like we just can't really wrap our mind around You've already been sanctified.

God has already covered you the blood of Christ. You're sanctified in our minds like no No, I have to earn it.

I've done too much. I've got to earn this I don't know if that's something you've come across where they like the work.

So they want Yeah, because think about what was the fall about it was about our pride, right?

It was our selfishness and that's the curse That's the the sin nature is that pride and selfishness?

And so we want to praise what we do We love I mean every person loves praising their own works.

Yeah, right because that's the sinful nature and so There's two aspects to it when it comes to regeneration

I think one is we love to think we're good and we could do good and to We know we can't keep

God's standard and therefore keeping a man -made works based standard is something we can actually do and so I think that the purpose of the law was to reveal that we couldn't keep it and People turn that into saying see this is something we can keep

We'll just tweak it a little here and tweak it there and then we get something we can keep That's really what

I think is ends up happening. So yeah, and not only there but let's talk Before we even read this and we're going to talk about progressive sanctification

But the confusion that we are going to cover in this episode is the confusion people have with progressive sanctification

Where they make it a works -based Sanctification so just like you have a works -based righteousness or works -based salvation for regeneration

We could do this with our sanctification. Let me give you some some ways this works out And I'm gonna say this and folks if you're listening and going ouch that hurts

I'm gonna tell you just things that I have thought so if this happens to be like wow, he's speaking right to me

No, I'm not. I'm not I'm speaking to me and you're just listening in. Okay, so these are things I've had happen

I've had times where I Might have a bad day Whatever happens.

I'm just having a bad day and I go it's because I didn't start my day reading my devotions I didn't start reading the

Bible. That's why my day is bad or I have a really good day And I think it's because I did my devotions first thing this morning

Where I you know, things are going well and I go it's because I had a good long time in prayer today

These are all works -based sanctifications when we think that somehow our day is based upon how good we are spiritually like if we do good works

Then we're going to be rewarded with a good day That's just not the way it works folks sometimes

God brings things in our lives to sanctify us and even though they're painful they help us right and so that's the hard reality that we don't like to think about is the fact that our

Sanctification is going to be something that it's not a

Do reward type system? Yeah, is that like where we think we're in control of our sanctification in a sense?

Yeah Yeah, cuz I totally get what you were talking about Doesn't that just get us right back to our own pride and selfishness and oh, look what

I did. I had a good day and So if I do spiritual good things

Then we end up thinking well God's got a reward me somehow. Yeah, that could be the advice

We end up giving people which is the wrong advice. Like well, you're you're so negative. Maybe you need to start out

Reading your Bible in the morning or then you'll overcome. But yeah, I see what you mean about, you know work

If it sounds like word of faith it is Thinking as you're talking. I mean, is that not exactly what word of faith is all about?

so a seed reap a reward and that has influenced even

Conservative Christianity and people don't think about that Yeah, and you may be getting into this later on and I don't want to get us too far off track from actually getting into the statement here, but uh, maybe if you could explain for those who probably you know

Haven't gone back and listened to the superintending episode on how wait, wait, wait, wait There's someone that didn't listen to that one.

I know shame on them shame on them They will do their penance later penance is a perfect example of what we're talking about.

Is it not it's exactly right When I first got saved

I used to when I did something bad when I first became a believer Okay, I remember

I would watch an R -rated movie and see things I shouldn't see and then I would purposely not eat the next day as if I'm penance

I'm making up for what I did bad the night before or you know I whatever this

I lie, whatever it is, and I would like do something to punish myself That's exactly what we're talking about here when we talk about a works -based sanctification

That somehow if we do something bad, we got to punish ourselves to make up for it. Then we'll be spiritually good.

No That's not the way it works and we're gonna talk about how it works. But go continue. I interrupted you

I was just gonna see if maybe you wanted to cover briefly because we talked about it a little bit in the previous episode how

Your sanctification is it's really just the Holy Spirit working through you That's really your doctrine of superintending that he's not only saving you and justifying you but he's working sanctification through you so if maybe just a cliff notes version of that and then

If you wanted to just to reset it because the repetition is not bad. Actually, I'm down here in Florida January 1st great way to start the new year

I preached at Beulah Baptist Church with Pastor Casey Butner on the topic of superintending

He wanted me to cover the issue of salvation and how to resolve that God's sovereign to human responsibility and so That really a lot of people came up and was like that's really clarifying now the people who had struggles with that doctrine of superintending being applied to regeneration are people who had strong views either way and Theologically and they were struggling because This is what they've always believed

So that is where the people that struggle but what the idea of superintending this doctrine is superintending where we see this play out is the fact that we see

God's sovereignty Romans chapter 9 that God saves us We see human responsibility

Romans chapter 10 that we choose God we repent and believe we Confess with our mouth and believe in our heart and we'll be saved

How do we reconcile those the way we do that is to step back and understand this doctrine superintending

Which is the idea that when we have the writing of Scripture God works through the human authors Such that every word every letter they chose is exactly as God intended it to be

So we call it God's Word We don't call it man's word Why because men could not have written what they wrote without God working through them

So God gets all the credit so we see that an inspiration of Scripture. No one has an issue with it

We see this in sanctification as we're gonna look through it in this episode is the fact that God works through the human authors such that as We end up doing good works.

We choose to do good works That's a choice we make yet we couldn't make that choice if God wasn't working through us to make that choice with us and Therefore God gets all the credit

Well, the same thing is true here. It's also true in Regeneration.

So did I choose God? Yes. Did God choose me? Yes he worked through me so that the choice that I made is exactly as God intended it to be and God gets all the credit.

All right, I can't take credit for the choice and Where you have the problems on both sides

Is where you have people that say Well, you couldn't believe unless God made you believe and therefore that becomes the determinism

Where God's forcing our belief and people go he's doing it against your will but the other side is that we're choosing apart from God doing any work and That's just as dangerous because that's saying that God is sitting back like okay

I'm just hoping that Andrew believes in me I died on the cross, but I I don't know if he's gonna do it like as if he's not in control

No, he's in perfect control. He knows what he's doing Yeah, and that's one of the things just the sovereignty of God and salvation in him getting all the glory

That's what was so important to me when I was learning, you know coming out of the

Armenian I didn't even know what Armenian meant. I was like, oh, that's what I believed all these years I didn't know there was a word for that That was so important to me that That God is

God like to think that he's not sovereign over salvation That's frightening and then you just come back to God gets all the glory like I can't boast in anything

That's the number one thing it comes down to is that he is God completely

Yes, he is and he's sovereign and that's what makes him God and As human beings in a sinful nature we keep trying to take that control back and that's why we have so much difficulty in this

Sanctification and so what I'll do here Nikki before you read let me start off So we don't interrupt later with a word from our sponsors so that we could read that paragraph and work through it

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I know that Spencer and Nikki have it as well We're not gonna do a comparison of libraries because I have been working on my library

Well, probably longer than they've been alive. I don't know close to So, let's just get myself in trouble so I started my library in 1994 how old were you guys in?

Well, I was nine years old in 1994 But I will say I might rival you only because my logos library only consists of the master seminary library

So they've given me Hundreds and hundreds of resources. So I have access to a lot only because John MacArthur is a faithful man of God This is a bad story, but it's kind of funny for the listening audience

I had a pastor friend of mine and I was meeting someone who's gonna be my new pastor and we're at the

Shepherds Conference and I didn't realize that my friend he knew both of us and We get there and this guy who's gonna be my future pastor is bragging about his logos library

He goes I have 5 ,000 books in logos. I Kind of just kept my mouth shut and smirked, you know,

I mean, this is gonna be my pastor I don't want to embarrass him or anything, but my friend didn't mind embarrassing him. So he goes

You call that a library? What's a library? And I'm just like no, I you know,

I don't want to say it's a doubt The right new future pastor looks at me and says well, how many books do you have it?

I'm like sheepishly gone 50 ,000 Yeah, okay, so you still got me by a mile he was like Yeah, so I have been working on my library for a very long time, but I love logos

It is a very good tool to dig into studying scripture and if you want to get an upgrade to logos 10 or get logos on your own just go to logos .com

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So with that, let's dive into our doctrinal statement We've given everybody plenty of time to go to strivingforeturning .org

Go to the about section what we believe scrolling down to Soteriology expanding that and then get into the section on Soteriology and now that we're at that section

I'm gonna ask Nikki if you wouldn't mind just reading the second paragraph there. There's also by the work of the

Holy Spirit a Progressive sanctification by which the state of the believer is brought closer to the standing the believer positionally enjoys through justification through obedience to the

Word of God and by the empowerment of the Holy Spirit the believer is able to live life of increasing holiness in conformity to the will of God Becoming more and more like our

Lord Jesus Christ in this respect Every saved person is involved in a daily conflict the new creation in Christ doing battle against the flesh

But adequate provision is made for victory through the power of the indwelling

Holy Spirit This struggle nevertheless days with the believer and is never completely ended throughout this earthly life

All claims to the eradication of sin in this life are unscriptural Eradication of sin is not possible, but the

Holy Spirit does provide for victory over sin Okay, so to pick up where we left off last week.

We started to talk about this idea of positional and Progressive sanctification now the position

Positionally before God we are holy. We are saints. We're righteous.

We're perfect. We have the righteousness of Christ we don't experience that now, but that's what we have and so the progressive sanctification is we're basically we're trying to match our

Experiential life with our positional life, right? We're trying to match the holiness that we have in Christ but you know positionally

With our experience when they're trying to be made more and more holy. That's the goal and So we say here in this next sentence in the paragraph through obedience

To the Word of God and the empowerment of Holy Spirit and this is where we left off last week

So we're gonna pick up right here These are the two things that God has given you believer

For your sanctification. He has given us his word as an absolute standard a way that we could objectively study

To know everything we need to know for faith and practice notice what I said there and We've covered this in this when we went over the section on the

Bible on the Word of God The Bible doesn't tell us everything there is to know in the world

The Bible tells us everything we need to know for faith and practice There's nothing more that we need.

So you don't need to hear from God. You don't need some nudging You don't need a voice.

You don't need a vision. You don't need a dream everything that you and I need for faith and practice we have in the

Word of God and God gave us something else. The second thing that we're saying here is God gave us the

Holy Spirit himself who indwells us and empowers us that is part of the sanctification when we submit to the

Holy Spirit and Not try to fight in our own pride to take control when we submit

We do good things right because the empowering Holy Spirit is going to Take over so that when we obey the

Spirit when we obey the Word That is going to be when we in this progressive

Sanctification are growing as I was reading. Well one of the

Verses you have from the positional sanctification though First Corinthians 1 2

To the Church of God which is at Corinth to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be saints

So he's a saying that they are sanctified, but he goes on later He tells them that they are still carnal and there's envy strife divisions among them

And then in chapter 5, you know He says there are sexually immoral people among you and you aren't even mourning about that You are you're puffed up and then another correction, you know, they even cheat their own brethren.

So just even though they have Things that he has to correct them about he still addresses the letter.

They are sanctified but it just gives you encouragement that They they're called sanctified saints and holy and you know, we can relate to that.

That's just Encouraging that like every every chapter 1st Corinthians is like let me correct this and this and this and this yeah

Get done with 1st Corinthians. Go. Was there anything good that comes out of Corinth? No, I mean I mean it seems that way and So yeah, this is the whole thing is that?

When we look at someone whoever your hero in the faith is other than Jesus Christ Because he doesn't have the faith that we have he's perfect Whether it's

Paul Augustine You know George Mueller George Whitfield You know,

John Huss. I mean just whoever Right Martin Luther think of all the different people that we could look at and be like wow

That's a great man or a great woman of God They battled with the same sanctification you and I are right

And so if you look at them and go man, they're a great person of faith You could be too in fact what a very few people know about George Mueller Because they kind of skipped this in his autobiography

He gives a reason why he wrote his autobiography he actually gives a reason why he had orphanages and the reason is he

Decided as a young man. He was going to Submit to the Spirit and he was gonna trust the

Lord in little things Knowing those little things would grow to bigger things and the reason he started an orphanage is because he said what way could he show?

God's glory the best and he decided having an orphanage at that time when no one was caring for the orphans and That would be a great way having no money

No means just doing the orphanage and trusting God and it would force him To have to put faith in God and trust him at every step.

And so Mueller says in his autobiography He's not some great man of faith. He's not anything special.

He's a man who trusted God step by step taking one step of faith at a time and they each got bigger and When you do that, and then you look back at your life.

It's like wow Like such big steps of faith But we don't see those steps because each of those steps are small when we're taking them

That's what Mueller wanted to convey to people so if you'll look up to Mueller Mueller would say don't look up to me do the

Same and that's really what sanctification is It's to read the

Bible to study it to know it To be obedient to it and to be obedient to the empowering of the

Holy Spirit What happens when we do that? well the statement goes on to say the believer is able to live a life of Increasing holiness the more that we

Submit ourselves to God's Word and the Holy Spirit The more that we will increase in holiness

That's the whole thing. We all want that holiness. We just don't like the work of the holiness

Look, I'm down here in Orlando, Florida this past weekend Everyone was had been doing the marathon

So they had a half marathon on Saturday a marathon on Sunday and everyone that I was talking to here at where I'm staying

They've all ran it They either did one the half marathon or they were training for the the marathon the next day is kind of like one of the other and it gave a great opportunity for me to talk with folks as I share the gospel and even to a couple believers that we got to speak to and Some believers who had been struggling because as one gentleman said he's a wayward believer he he knew he should be doing more, but he really isn't living right and he's struggling with his sanctification and I could turn and say well, you know, you don't just wake up and run a marathon some people do

Okay, so there are some freaks of nature But the real marathon is not run on the day of the marathon the real marathon is run

The weeks before in the training because if you don't do the training

You're gonna have a real hard time if you even can finish the marathon And that's the sanctification process.

It's a marathon It's a long -distance run where we have to just put one foot in front of the other

That's how you run a marathon one step at a time with the eye on the goal and you and I as believers

Need to take that same attitude with our sanctification one foot in front of the other step by step

With our eye on the goal. What's the goal for us? Glorification being with Christ and being in a perfect state not only positionally, but Progressively we'll be instantly made glorified

That's the goal if that's your mindset these little steps They're painful and they hurt and you want to quit but you keep reaching for the goal and the more that we're obedient to God's Word and empowering of the

Holy Spirit the Increasing nature we're gonna have of holiness in our life

Yeah, I was curious about that You know as far as and I guess the other racing analogy is a perfect one as far as you know

Kind of practical, you know, I think it's Dave Ramsey has his baby steps practical Ways that the believer can live or act of the things they should be doing to Have obedience to the

Word empowerment of the Holy Spirit working through them and increasing in this life of holiness You know, we've talked on our show

The stats are increasing where I think it's over 60 % of Christians now say going to church online

It's just as good as going to church in person, you know, they don't read their Bibles anymore So like what are practical steps that someone that's like I want to be sanctified

So what should my life begin to start looking like? Okay, read the Bible. Like what does that mean?

Should I be going to church? I mean, what should I be doing to increase in holiness? You know,

I don't want to sound like a Sunday school answer, but read your Bible and pray I mean really that is the answer though, right?

You know, Ray Comfort always will tell people that you know Do you have a Bible nice? Yes, read it and obey what it says

I mean, that's really what it comes down to now. It doesn't mean you obey the things that it says are wrong

It's not like oh, well David had multiple wives. I could have multiple wives. No, no, no, it condemns that behavior But you look for the things to put on and the things to put off from Scripture You know, that's what the obedience to Scripture looks like.

It really comes down to just every decision We make trying to say is this what the

Lord wants me to do? let me look in Scripture and see if this is the right decision to make and The more that we submit to God the more we're gonna be conformed not only

Increasing holiness But we're also gonna have conformity to his will and so those decisions

We make the more we submit to his Word and the Holy Spirit the more the decisions we make

Will match what his will is and that's why we say a life of increasing holiness in conformity to the will of God Yeah, I think that's something you hear a lot with people that give pushback on The Christian faith or those that aren't believers yet is there's too many rules too many restrictions, you know

I can't do the things I want to do and when you try to impress on them that you won't want to do the sinful things as much anymore that the

Things you consider rules and restrictions now will become joyful You know, they'll become freeing when you actually adhere to it and you love what he loves and you hate what he hates

Yes, and the reality is those sins we struggle with become easier to battle them the more that we are

Working in our progressive sanctification the more we're being obedient to these two things the easier it is to fend off the temptations that we have

Because we're better prepared for it. And that's what it means when we say here becoming more and more like our

Lord Jesus Christ That's the goal of our sanctification and that's what we're working toward. Yeah when

I was reading 1st Corinthians chapter 6 verse 11 10 or 11.

Well, he's talking about who's not gonna inherit the kingdom of God either fornicators idolaters adulterers homosexual sodomites thieves covetous drunkards

Do the list goes on they won't inherit the kingdom of God and he says and such were some of you

You were washed and sanctified so those things you would say like if you are sanctified you definitely won't

Partake in any of that anymore other certain sins. You definitely God won't allow you to partake in anymore.

I guess would be Question someone might have or I kind of have I guess

Well, okay when we say that he won't allow he can interrupt things

Yeah, I just recently my bride and I were talking because in my devotions I'm in Genesis at the beginning of the year and I was just like I cannot believe that I just Been thinking about this for basketball days.

I can't conceive Abraham the guy everyone says a great man of faith Abraham goes to these towns and says to his wife.

Hey, you pretend like you're my sister I mean you are my sister because we share the same one like their stepbrother stepsister.

I'm going like What was Abraham thinking like what did he think was gonna happen when this woman who must have been really good -looking because After childbearing years, he knows people might want to kill him to marry her

She's taken into a harem twice What in the world is wrong with you that you're gonna let someone else sleep with your wife like I'm reading this

I'm just want to smack Abraham upside the head Okay, but on the second time that Abraham allows this to happen

God intervenes And God gives a warning to say hey

That's a married woman and the guy is okay. Okay. I didn't touch her But God had to intervene in that case.

So yes, could God do that? Maybe he did for Abraham. Is he gonna regularly do that?

We don't know I do think there's some things God works on us So there's certain sins that we may have dealt with prior to being saved

I think I shared this last episode when I got saved my foul mouth changed immediately I've never struggled with foul language ever since I got saved doesn't mean that I can't in the future.

It just hasn't been an issue But there's other things that have been why did God decide to clean that up and and not other things?

I don't know right But he did and So I do think that there's there's gonna be some things that he helps us right away with and I think it's just my personal opinion

I can't support this in Scripture. Maybe someone else can I think that God gives all believers

Something that he changes quickly So that we can see that those things that he allows for us to deal with that take a longer time

We can know I have son I can look to and say I Can see that I'm saved because look at this quick change in my life that God did.

Yeah, that's interesting. I Can't prove it in Scripture and it's one of the questions. I'll ask

Jesus when I see him and hey, is this theory, right? He'll just look at me go. No Andrew.

It's with many other things you've had wrong Yeah, so let's look at this next sentence we have here it's we say in this respect every saved person is involved in daily conflict

Okay, so When we talk about this daily conflict, this is not

Romans 7 I know I'm hearing it. I can hear you guys when you're listening.

I hear you going What are you talking about? This is exactly Romans 7 It is not

Romans 7 The reason I say it's not Romans 7 is because Romans 7 if you look in the

Greek, we don't have it as clear in the English But if you look in the Greek in the middle of Romans 7 Paul starts using past tense verbs and so what

Paul is doing there when he talks about the law is talking about his conversion experience and how the law

Showed him what he used to say was okay is now not okay and it showed him that his flesh wanted to fight against the law and So this is what was the battle.

It was the battle that he had coming to conversion It's the convicting work of the

Holy Spirit. And then soon as he says, oh what wretched man I am he goes back to present tense

Now when he says in there the things I don't want to do I do and the things

I do want to do I don't do that sounds an awful lot like our

Sanctification process and the problem is we don't want to allow our experience to interpret

Scripture Even though it sounds a lot like our progressive sanctification process

If it's not that we shouldn't say that it is Okay, so is there a passage that we can turn to that is our sanctification process?

You know Nikki. I am so glad you asked that question there is It is 1st

Peter chapter 2 11 and following where he talks about the warring that goes on with his flesh

Because that is the battle between the flesh and the spirit And that is more what we see when we think of the sanctification process.

It's the first Peter 2 That's the battle and he calls it a war. That is sanctification.

It's a war And I guess you know for those who again I kind of relate a lot of this to the jail ministry because they bring this stuff up all the time and They talk about their struggles with sin and how that to them

Leaves them to think that well, maybe I'm not saved Whereas maybe you know what you're saying in that struggle the fact that we're aware of the struggle and we're actually fighting

Should be that indication that we no longer just completely give over to the sinful desires

You know, we now have the spirit in us that's pointing that this isn't the way you should live anymore

So now you're at that conflict point. So that's a good sign That's right, if there's no conflict you should be concerned and that's why we say that in this respect

Every saved person is involved in a daily conflict the new creation in Christ Doing battle against the flesh the fact that we're a new creation is why we're at war with our flesh the world and demons and It's in that order on a purpose

Because the greatest struggle is not demon Satan is not fighting you I was at church Wednesday night and I was teaching some of the folks and One of the things

I said is someone made that comment refer to the enemy that they were out Evangelizing in the enemy.

I said stop it's the enemies and they just looked at me and I said, yes Satan is not everywhere present all knowing he he wants to be

God, but he's not God He's one being in one place at one time and has a finite knowledge

He had the whole world to corrupt and he picked you on a Wednesday Topeka Kansas or wherever.

Yeah, but that's the way so many people speak and the reality is is that Especially if you if a word of faith you end up hearing so many of them

It's like if you have an alcohol problem, it's because you have a demon of alcohol No, yeah, you're not submitting to the spirit.

You're submitting to the flesh. That's why you have an alcohol problem same thing with Pornography same thing with lying same thing with gossiping whatever the sin

It's the same thing if you give up the fight I always think of it this way if you're in a stream with a very strong current and You have one of two choices

You can go with the flow. Just let the river take you downstream That's the world where you can make the decision to fight that stream and go uphill, but I got news for you

Christian Every time you decide to give up you're tired The stream is just gonna push you back down You can never give up the battle.

You can never give up the fight for holiness It is a never -ending battle until the day we die

Because the moment you say I'm tired and you pick your feet up from that stream. The stream just takes you downhill and now

Going back to that place. You were just at oh, it's twice as hard You know why it's twice as hard because you have to not only fight the stream but you're fighting the stream going

I was already here Yeah, you're fighting the battle and the disheartening feeling of giving up and you know, and that's why this battle

Doesn't stop it's a daily conflict But notice what we say here

But adequate provision is made for victory. Well, how's it made?

How do we have victory through the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit?

This is the essential element of our sanctification the Holy Spirit Indwelling us that's how we can have victory.

We have victory in him and so we say the struggle nevertheless stays with the believer and It's never completely ended through this earthly life.

This is what I was trying to say. This is a battle This is a war we have every day Spencer you're in the military you go to war you're behind enemy lines.

They're looking for you Can you just go well, you know, I'm a little tired I'm gonna kick my feet up and I'm being chased by the enemy but I'm just gonna kick my feet up and in a foxhole and just take a little nap for a while and Rest and have a siesta.

Maybe the Hanoi Hilton isn't that bad this time of year. Maybe they have good food They never have good food.

Yeah You always have to stay ahead of in a war, right? If you're behind enemy lines, you got to stay ahead of the enemy

Well in our case the enemy is us It's our flesh.

It's with us 24 -7 a great book to read on This topic would be

John Owens books. He has got two books on The indwelling sin and mortification of sin if you have read

John Owens you go Oh, but John Owens is really hard to read. I was laughing. I was thinking

Telling someone like a good book on this is John. Oh, and that's like saying a good workout routine is a marathon

So then you know if that's too hard Let me make it easier for you because Chris Lungarner has written a cliff notes version of those two volumes

Now you're talking enemy within so just get that. It's a cliff notes version.

It's only about 200 pages and Much easier to read and that's where I stole the illustration with the screen because it really does depict well what our

Sanctification life is like we're gonna battle every minute of every day

We can never stop we can never give in because if we give in to to the flesh

It's just gonna take us downhill and now we get a fight to get back to where we were in our sanctification

Well, and I'll give another shameless plug to your episode on superintending But that's why the doctrine is so uplifting to know that I mean in your statement here has it as well

You know adequate provision is made for victory Through the power of the Holy Spirit because again, he is the one working the sanctification in you, right?

So it's hopeful, you know, yeah, it's struggling but the Holy Spirit's really good at his job the hope comes in the reminding of ourselves that we are positionally holy sanctified righteous in Christ That's where it comes from.

So can we have victory? Yes, we will have victory That's why we mentioned in here the new creation that reminds us we are not who we were

We are something new 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 and that's why we end up saying here the struggle nevertheless

Stays with the believer Right. We deal with it every day

It doesn't end however There's something we end up having to deal with we've mentioned this before and we have this in the next part of this

Doctrinal statement all Claims to eradicate sin in this life are unscriptural

Now, this is the doctrine that's known as sinless perfectionism and there are those who believe they are sinlessly perfect They do not sin in this life anymore.

In fact, they say if you sin, you're not saved That is the mark of they'll argue of a believer is that they're sinless and the only passages that they can argue

Realistically they talk about the passages spake about overcoming in Revelation and elsewhere of overcoming sin.

It doesn't say you will overcome it in this life It means we will overcome it one day But the big passage where they go to is first John the book of first John That's where they get all this doctrine

So let me just so you prepared in case you run into someone like this The book of first John is dealing with these

Gnostics that argued that they could be Sinless not sin when they go and sleep with a prostitute

They literally would say that everything physical is evil and everything spiritual is godly

So they would sleep with a prostitute and as long as they didn't give their spirit over to it

It wasn't sin. And so they would justify all kinds of sins Including something as perverse as that and they would justify it

Saying well, but I haven't given my spirit over to it. So that therefore it's not sin.

And so What you end up seeing with first John is John is answering these

Gnostics by the pattern of life and say if you sin You're not saved.

He's not saying if you do any sin he's saying to specifically to people like Gnostics who are

Justifying sin and by the way, that's the same thing sinless perfectionists do they justify their sin of pride and things like that Oh, it's not willful.

I lied, but it wasn't willful. So it's not a sin Yes, it is And I was just thinking on like we're told not to be a stumbling block to other believers and you doing that But you're saying it's not sin for me.

But if you do it as a new believer It's sin for you like I don't know how do they well

I would say even telling someone they can be sinless is a stumbling block To a new believer. I mean what a high bar to set that just seems hard to I don't know

How do you convince someone of that doctrine? I don't get it Well, no, yeah, the very next sentence is what we'd end up saying right or the eradication of sin is not possible

But the Holy Spirit does provide victory over sin So we get small victories and 1st

John he says if you say you do not sin you make God a liar

Mm -hmm. He tells us we should confess our sin Well, that would be a useless thing to confess our sin if we are not sinning now what people try to argue

They try to go. Well, he's saying confess your sin because that's regeneration No, no, no.

No, he's writing this to people that profess to be believers So he's telling them confess their sin and God will be quick to forgive you

But he says if you say you have no sin you make God a liar yikes

Don't want to be in that state, but notice how we're saying in this statement We're ending this section by still on the positive that there is

Victory over sin don't give up believer. Don't think there's no way you can have victory

You can have victory. Is it easy? Nope. Can you have victory?

Yep, but it comes through individual Small steps and over time they add to big steps so that's what we cover for this week this kind of wraps up the doctrine of sanctification and If you do have more questions, feel free to reach out to us info at striving for eternity calm

Info at striving for eternity calm you can get a hold of us there next week.

We're gonna deal with the topic of Security this is what we talk about when we talk about can we lose our salvation?

That's what we have to look forward to next week Let me just real quickly give you guys a rundown of where I'm going to be the next few weeks in case you want to Come and hear me speak.

I'm gonna be speaking at the open -air theology conference that will be held in I forget the town just do a duck duck go search.

Don't use Google do a duck duck go search on open -air theology conference if I think

I fly into I Forget DNA and I don't remember what be in,

Oklahoma. Does that sound right? That's a city. What's the state, Tennessee? Tennessee that's right.

That's it. That's it. That'll be in, Tennessee. That's going to be on February 17th and 18th.

They're gonna end that conference with a debate that James White is gonna have on the Legacy Standard Bible versus King James Bible.

Oh, that's good Yeah after that I head right from there February 20th to March 5th.

I'll be in Israel leading a tour there I will then come back from there and turn right around and head out to LA to Shepherds conference

So if you're out at Shepherds conference, come find me say hello if you're a listener, let me know that that is

Hugely encouraging to me when people come up and tell me that they listen to the podcast

March 17th to the 19th. We will be out in let's see.

This is a flight into, Indiana I really should get put the cities into Into these there's a family conference out there if you're in the

Indianapolis, Indiana area It's a couple of hours from there But you can email us info at striving for attorney org and I'll get you the information on that conference

That's a family conference that I will be speaking. I believe I'm doing all the speaking the topics are

Friday evening I'm gonna cover the marriage Relationships Saturday morning the role of the husband and the role of the wife

After lunch, the topic is child rearing Then we're going to have a

Saturday evening. The conference is going to close after that, but we're gonna do a special Session on the

Christian and political activism and then I'll be preaching there Sunday morning I haven't seen the details yet, but April 1st and 2nd

I will be at the South Texas Bible Conference. I don't think they've set the website up for that yet.

That is Coming as well. And then the reforming families Conference will be the end of April April 29th to the 30th

Several speakers for their dr. Anthony Sylvester will be speaking with me that Also is in the either

Indianapolis or Illinois I forget which to and so that schedule is starting to be worked out as well

So there's just some of the speaking events We have if you'd like to have one of us come to your church and speak we'd be happy to do it

Just contact us at speaker speaker at striving for attorney comm and we'll come to your church and Do one of our many seminars and some of those seminars are on our website at striving for org

So until next week That's a wrap This podcast is part of the striving for eternity ministries for more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church