Equipping Eve Episode 11: Christ-less Checklists and Holiness (Part 2)

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Is the church today doing everything it can to provide women a firm foundation of truth in Christ Jesus?

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Well, it's true there's no shortage of candy -coated Bible studies, potluck fellowships available to ladies.

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But beyond Sunday morning, are Christian women being properly equipped to stand against the same deceptions that even enticed

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Eve in the garden? In an attempt to address the need for trustworthy, biblical resources for women,

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No Compromise Radio is happy to introduce Equipping Eve, a ladies -only radio show that seeks to equip women with fruits of truth in an age that's ripe with deception.

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My name is Mike Abendroth and I'm pleased to introduce your host, Erin Benzinger, a friend of No Compromise Radio and a woman who wants to see other women equipped with a love for and a knowledge of the truth of God's Word.

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Well, hello ladies and welcome to Equipping Eve, the show that seeks to equip you with fruits of truth from God's Word so that we can stand strong and firm in an age of deception upon the

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Word that we know to be true. There is no shortage of lies and twisted scripture running around out there, especially when it comes to women's ministries.

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But if we know the truth of God's Word, we will recognize the error and we can say, hey, that's not what

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God says. Let me show you what God says. So ladies, we seek to equip you with that Word and we hope it's working.

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I'm your host, Erin Benzinger, and I do, I speak in the royal we when I talk about Equipping Eve and it's, you know, it's really just me here right now.

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But that's okay. Thanks so much for listening. You can find Equipping Eve on Facebook and Twitter, at Equipping Eve is the

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Twitter handle there. You can contact me at equippingeve at gmail .com

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or at the website, which is equippingeve .com or .org. So there you go.

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There's all the fancy technical internet, social media, et cetera, et cetera.

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Just a reminder, ladies, at equippingeve .com, there is a blog there and what you can be guaranteed to find at the blog is a list of resources to accompany each episode and whether that is a list of links to any articles that we've discussed or whether it's just a list of the scriptures that were used on the show.

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I'm trying to get the scriptures up there as well because I know sometimes I can talk kind of quickly and maybe you don't get a chance to write them all down or look them all up.

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So I'm trying to post the scripture references there as well just so that you can have that for your edification because it's the

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Word of God. That's all that matters. It doesn't matter what I say, but what matters is the Word of God. So make sure you're checking out the blog with each show and hopefully those resources will be a help to you.

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I hope that's part of the way that we're seeking to equip you is by pointing you to these wonderful resources that are available to us.

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Something that I get asked a lot is for recommendations of women's

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Bible studies, Bible studies that are specifically for women, usually taught by women.

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And I often say that that's a bad question to ask me because I am not someone who particularly enjoys women teachers, which is ironic because here

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I am talking to you every week. But I'm just going to be honest.

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The resources out there for women are very, very few. And we talked about this in the last show and that's part of why

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Equipping Eve exists and I'm trying to point you to resources you can trust.

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But ladies, I'm going to be honest with you. The majority of the resources

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I am going to point you to, especially for Bible teaching, will be men. It will be sermons by faithful pastors because the reality is, and we've talked about this before,

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God has uniquely equipped men and uniquely trained up men to teach and preach

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His Word. That does not mean that women cannot do it. Obviously women are called, the older women are called to train the younger women.

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Obviously we have Equipping Eve, here we are, and I'm talking to you ladies. Side note, men, if you're listening, stop.

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This is for women only. And so I'm not trying to say that men are the only ones who can teach

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Bible. Women can teach to other women, to children, but I, by and large, am going to recommend to you male teachers.

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I just feel like there is a unique equipping there that those are the teachers who

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I have been trained by. That was bad grammar, but it's the truth. I will direct you to the resources that have helped me.

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And even in Bible study, I would encourage you to think about taking the approach of picking a book of the

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Bible and then finding a trusted pastor who has preached through that book of the

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Bible and listen to his sermons as you study and read through that particular book.

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And do your study that way. And you can do this together. I've done this with groups of women.

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This has been the way we've studied scripture. And we maybe had some accompanying questions with those sermons and with the

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Bible passages so that we could apply the scripture to our lives so that we can make sure that we understand the scripture as God means for it to be understood.

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And so that we can take that scripture and apply it practically to our lives. But the ultimate teaching comes from the man who is preaching the sermon.

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That is the one who is expounding on the text and is expositing the text and teaching you what the text is saying.

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And so I'm sorry if you love women Bible teachers, and you think that that's all that women should be seeking for their non -Sunday morning study, but I am going to point you by and large to men.

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And so I've done this with John MacArthur's sermons, and some of you

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I think are familiar with Pastor Don Green, and he has some amazing sermon series as well through Books of the

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Bible that I would highly, highly encourage you to seek out and listen to and study the word that way.

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And I think you will be uniquely blessed if you approach the scriptures this way.

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While I'm throwing out names, of course, many of you are familiar with Steve Lawson, Pastor Mike over there at No Compromise, Mike Abendroth.

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You know, he has done some sermon series, especially recently that I have really, really enjoyed his series through Romans.

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And of course, he has taken the works of S. Lewis Johnson and created a commentary through Romans and Pastor Mike's series through Ruth was wonderful.

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And so I highly recommend these things to you ladies. S. Lewis Johnson is another pastor,

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Martin Lloyd -Jones, again, this is all at your fingertips.

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We have the internet, and we can listen to these sermons, even these men who have since gone to glory like S.

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Lewis Johnson, Martin Lloyd -Jones, and we can still learn from them and we can still access their teaching and just benefit from these men that God uniquely equipped to build up and serve his kingdom.

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What a joy, what a blessing. And so I hope you're doing that. And that, as I said, that is probably my number one recommendation for your personal

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Bible study. It is not going to be to go pick up a little Bible workbook at the Lifeway Family Christian bookstore.

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It's going to be take a man who you know is faithful to the

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Word of God and get in there and study the Word that way. So if you ask me that question, if you send me an email, that's probably the kind of answer you're going to get.

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And you know, just a fair warning, I'm not going to give you a list of women authors and Bible study leaders because my familiarity is with these trusted men of God.

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And so I can only recommend to you what I know to be good and faithful and true.

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And so that's that. I don't know where that came from. That wasn't in my notes, but hopefully you found it beneficial.

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Okay, so last time we were talking about growing in grace, growing in holiness, pursuing righteousness and how that is a work of the sanctification of God, which is wrought in us by the

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Holy Spirit that we actively participate in by the power and enablement of the

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Holy Spirit and how it is separate from our justification, our justification that is settled at the moment of conversion.

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You know, Christ has saved us. He has paid the price. It is settled.

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You can't do anything to earn your justification, to make yourself look better before God, because it's not about you.

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It is about Jesus Christ. But your sanctification, God desires to conform you to the image of his son.

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And that requires activity on our part. That requires not just, you know, letting go and letting

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God, you know, no, it's God, you have saved me.

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I desire to look like your son, the Lord Jesus Christ, whose blood purchased me at Calvary.

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I want to look like him. Grow me, strengthen me, challenge me, convict me of my sin, help me to overcome that sin so that I may look like Christ.

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And so we were looking last time at J .C. Ryle's book, Holiness, and at a few passages in there, and we were talking about how he discusses this idea of growth in grace and how he says that there is such a thing as growing in grace.

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There's this mindset out there that we just, you know, we can get saved, but not really follow

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Christ and our lives don't have to change and we can just really continue on looking like the world, living in sin, whatever, but we're saved, so we're good to go, and later on we can accept

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Jesus as Lord, quote unquote. That's not the way it is. Jesus says that if you've been saved by him, you will bear fruit.

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He is the vine, we are the branches. Anyone who does not bear fruit will be cut off because they are not abiding in Christ.

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And so there is a reality of growth in grace. And just a few scripture passages we didn't get to last time.

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Philippians 1, verse 9, Paul writes, This I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ, having been filled with the fruit of righteousness, which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

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And what did I say last time? We seek to grow in grace and grow in holiness and be sanctified to the glory of God.

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It is about the glory of God, ladies. Everything is about the glory of God. I really want you to keep that at the forefront of your mind.

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I encourage you, as you go about your daily life and your walk with Christ, it is all for the glory of God.

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It is not about you, it is not about your husband, it is not about your kids,

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I don't care what Facebook tells you, it is not about you, it is about the glory of God, the glory of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. First Peter 2, 1 -3 says, Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, if you have tasted the kindness of the

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Lord. We are to seek to grow and we are to desire the milk of the word, the meat of the word, the truths that God has been gracious to give us in the

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Holy Scriptures. Okay, so the second point that J .C. Ryle makes that I found so interesting is he listed some marks of growing in grace.

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So really some fruit, if you will, for going back to John 15. And what

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I really appreciated about this particular approach that J .C.

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Ryle takes in his book Holiness is that he gives the positive. It's nice sometimes to think about things in the positive.

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So what will increase if we are growing in grace, if we are striving toward holiness?

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And the first thing that he says is that we will increase in humility.

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And I immediately think of the Sermon on the Mount when I hear this and I think of the

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Beatitudes. And so Matthew 5 verse 3 says, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

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Verse 4 says, Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. These verses are talking about, blessed are those who acknowledge their spiritual bankruptcy and mourn over it.

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Blessed are those who know they are sinners. Blessed are those who know they are hopelessly lost in their sin without the

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Lord Jesus Christ. And blessed are those who mourn over that sin and turn to Christ for salvation and seek to be more and more sanctified.

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J .C. Ryle says, Quote, The man whose soul is growing feels his own sinfulness and unworthiness more every year.

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And so ladies, I would ask you as kind of an assessment of your spiritual life, do you feel your own sinfulness and unworthiness more every year, more every week, every day?

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I know I have experienced this. And sometimes we may have a certain sin brought to our attention and think, why hasn't that been grieving me more?

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And then we think how gracious and good God is to have brought it to our attention, because then it starts to grieve us, doesn't it?

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And that is how God is growing us. That is one way that He is growing us. And the more of His Word that we read and know and understand, and the more that we seek to grow in grace, we will become increasingly aware of our sinfulness and our unworthiness before the

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Lord. And this, again, is to the glory of God. Because as we are aware of our sinfulness, we confess that sin, we repent of that sin, and we ask

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God to help us overcome that sin. And as we are aware of our unworthiness, Christ is magnified, is

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He not? Because the more unworthy we see ourselves, we are just—there's no word.

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Unworthy is not even—that's too good of a word. We are so unworthy of the love of Christ and the goodness of Christ and the mercy of Christ that He is just exalted when we realize our own unworthiness.

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Because the lower we see ourselves, the more Christ has to be magnified, because He has condescended to come to earth, live as a man, live the life we cannot, die the death we deserve, and has been resurrected and sits at the right hand of God the

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Father. He has saved us. That perfect, holy God incarnate purchased us with His blood.

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How unworthy are we? How magnified and exalted is He? A few examples from Scripture of men who felt their sinfulness and their unworthiness.

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Abraham, in Genesis 18, verse 27, says, Behold, I have ventured to speak to the

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Lord, although I am but dust and ashes. Do you ever think of yourself that way?

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Just dust and ashes. That's all we are before the Lord, and yet He is gracious to you.

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Who is man that you are mindful of him, O God? God is so, so good. Genesis 32, verse 10, talks about Jacob.

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Jacob says, I am unworthy of all the lovingkindness and of all the faithfulness which you have shown to your servant.

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For with my staff only I crossed the Jordan, and now I have become two companies. I am unworthy of the lovingkindness and the faithfulness you have shown to me, says

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Jacob. Job. Job, in chapter 40, verse 1, says that the

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Lord said to Job, Will the faultfinder contend with the Almighty? Again, it's that idea of who are we to speak back to the

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Creator? Let him who reproves God answer it. Then Job answered the Lord, verse 3, and said,

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Behold, I am insignificant. What can I reply to you? I lay my hand on my mouth.

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Who are you to speak back to the potter, O lump of clay?

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Psalm 22, verse 6, David says, I am a worm and not a man, a reproach of men and despised by the people.

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Do you think of yourself as a worm? I mean, in Christ, we have, we have significance in Christ, but that significance is in Christ.

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It's nothing of our own doing. We are worms. We are unworthy.

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Isaiah, chapter 6, verse 5, Isaiah said, Woe is me, for I am ruined. I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.

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And Peter, Peter in Luke chapter 5, verse 8, says,

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He fell down at Jesus' feet and said, Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.

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Ladies, are you acutely aware of your sin, acutely aware of your unworthiness before the

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Lord? And are you praising him for his goodness and grace and mercy in spite of your unworthiness?

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Are you praising him that he has given you Christ so that you may be cloaked in Christ's righteousness?

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Because your righteousness doesn't exist. Doesn't matter what you do. Doesn't matter how much money you give to church, how many prayers you pray, how good of a person you are.

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Your righteousness does not exist, except in your own mind, maybe. Paul himself in Philippians 3 .12

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talked about how he is the chief of sinners, and oftentimes you'll hear people say, Well, I'd like to argue with Paul.

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I am the chief of sinners. And I think it's important that we do have that mindset. You know,

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I am the chief of sinners. I have sinned against you and you alone,

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O God, said David in Psalm 51. And when we recognize that, it is by God's grace that we recognize that.

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And we realize that any growth that he gives us and any blessings that he gives us are wholly undeserved and come solely out of the goodness of a holy, righteous, pure, merciful, just God.

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J .C. Ryle also talks about how a mark of growing in grace will be that we have increased faith and love toward Christ.

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Do you just love Christ more and more? Do you long to see him? You know,

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I sometimes hear people say, Oh, I hope, you know,

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I see the world getting bad, but I hope I'll get to stick around to see my grandchildren. And I understand that mindset.

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But you know, when you say something like, Oh, the Lord could come any day. And someone says,

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Oh, I hope not. And yet this person calls himself or herself a Christian. I think, you hope

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Jesus doesn't come? Do you not want to see the Lord you claim to serve?

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The Lord who you claim purchased you? The Lord whose righteousness has saved you?

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I don't understand that. And so as we grow in grace, we increase in our faith and our love toward Christ.

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Another mark of growing in grace is increased holiness of life and conversation.

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And this comes back again to our striving to be conformed to the image of Christ.

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You know, seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. Matthew 6, 33.

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J .C. Ryle says the man whose soul is growing gets more dominion over sin, the world, and the devil.

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And I would add his own desires, his own sinful desires every year. He becomes more careful about his temper, his words and his actions.

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He is more watchful over his conduct in every relation of life. He strives more to be conformed to the image of Christ in all things, and to follow him as his example, as well as to trust in him as his savior.

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And ladies, I know I spoke in the last show about kind of the blight of women's resources that seem to be a list of do's and don'ts.

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And it may sound like we're kind of giving you a list of do's and don'ts here. We are called to live a certain way if we have been saved by Christ.

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That's just the reality of it. But we cannot teach these things or say these things without acknowledging that we grow in humility.

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We increase in our faith and love toward Christ. We increase in our holiness of life and conversation by the power of the

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Holy Spirit. We do this by God's grace. And, and we will not do it perfectly.

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We will fail. You will be talking one day, and something will come out of your mouth, and you will think to yourself, or even say out loud,

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Oh my goodness, where did that come from? Something just came out of my mouth, and I'm not even saying a curse word, just, you know, maybe an unkind thought or whatever.

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You will continue to sin. You will. You will fail. And that is why we need the gospel in light of these things.

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We still need the gospel even after we've been saved. We need to be reminded that we are sinners.

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Christ died for us anyway. And this is why we serve him. And this is why we seek to be more and more like him to his glory, because he was good to save us.

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And this is love that Christ died for us while we were yet sinners. Ryle says that another mark of growth and grace is increased spirituality of taste and mind.

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The man whose soul is growing, he says, takes more interest in spiritual things every year. He does not neglect his duty in the world.

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He discharges faithfully, diligently, and conscientiously every relation of life, whether at home or abroad.

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But the things he loves best are spiritual things. The ways and fashions and amusements and recreations of the world have a continually decreasing place in his heart.

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He does not condemn them as downright sinful, nor say that those who have anything to do with them are going to hell.

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He only feels that they have a constantly diminishing hold on his own affections and gradually seem smaller and more trifling in his eyes.

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Would anyone know if he is growing in grace? Then let him look within for increasing spirituality of taste.

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We are not of this world. Do not love the world.

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James 4. You adulteresses. Verse 4. Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God?

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Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Are you increasingly interested in spiritual things, ladies?

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Do you see your interest in the world waning? That was one of the first things I noticed when

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God saved me is my interest in the world kind of disappeared.

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I mean, there's things you need to have. I'm not saying don't ever buy new clothes or a new computer. I'm just saying that our focus is

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Christ. And these things that our co -workers are talking about, or our fellow students, or maybe our family members, they don't interest us because they are fleeting.

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They are of this world and they may not be evil in and of themselves, but they are not exalting

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Christ. They are not glorifying God and thus they hold no interest for us because our interest lies in eternal things.

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Ryle also says that a mark of growing in grace will be an increase in charity and an increase in our zeal for evangelism.

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Do you have a greater interest in sharing the gospel and in presenting that gospel to see sinners saved?

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And he goes on to say that there is a means of growing in grace. Even the ways in which

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God grows us, I mean, those are good gifts from God. And he works by means.

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You know, God has not only ordained the ends. He has ordained the means. And so men must use the means of growth.

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And these are within the reach of all believers, says J .C. Ryle. And this kind of goes back to that idea, that false idea of let go, let

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God. You just sit back and you don't have to do anything and you'll just be magically sanctified.

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No, no, no. Prayer, scripture reading, scripture study, self -examination, participating in the fellowship of the saints through corporate worship and keeping yourself under the teaching authority of a pastor and elders at your local church, being mindful of your conduct and of the company that you keep.

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Those are all things that we can actively do. And again, we will fail, especially if we try to strive for holiness in our own power.

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God has given us the Holy Spirit to enable us to grow in grace. And he has given us these means to cultivate that.

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And so it's so important that we utilize those means that he's been good to give us and that we pray that he would grow us in grace, that he would grow us in holiness, that he would diminish our affections for the world, that he would conform us to look like his son.

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Martin Lloyd -Jones speaks about the character of the Christian. And he's looking at John 17 and he says, we must consider what our

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Lord has to say about the Christian. Here is the character of the Christian. The first thing I notice is a negative.

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And as I said, he's in John 17. John 17, 6 says, I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world.

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Now that is the first thing he says about the Christian. He is not of this world. In verses 6 to 19,

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Jesus repeats that four times. In addition to verse 6, he says in verse 9, I pray for them.

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I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me. Again, in verse 14, I have given them thy word and the world hath hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

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And then in verse 16, they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Our Lord goes on repeating that phrase because he wants to impress it upon us.

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The first thing that is true about the Christian is that he does not belong to this world. In the light of this, it is vital that we should ask ourselves the question, am

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I of the world or am I not? That is the fundamental distinction that runs through the

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Bible from beginning to end. Ladies, Martin Lloyd -Jones hits the nail on the head here.

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He says there are only two groups of people in the world today, those who are of the world and those who belong to Christ.

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In the last analysis, there is no other division or distinction that has the slightest importance or relevance.

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That is why most of us are defeated by life in this world. We recognize other distinctions that are quite unimportant.

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But when we all come to die, does it make the slightest difference which political party we belong to?

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Does it matter whether we are rich or poor, learned or otherwise? There is only one fundamental distinction, and that is whether we belong to the world or to Christ.

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Ladies, if we are growing in grace, then we belong to Christ.

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We do not love the world. We are separate. God has called us out of the world.

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And that's what this growth and holiness and the striving for righteousness boils down to. We are called out of the world to be conformed to the image of God's Son, the

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Lord Jesus Christ. And we are called to look like Him, to serve

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Him for His glory. That is what it all comes down to, ladies, the

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Lord Jesus Christ. He is why we strive for holiness. He is why we seek to grow in grace, because He has called us out of the world.

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He died so that we would not be of this world. So why do we seek to grow in grace?

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So that Christ may be glorified through our sanctification, through our conformity to Him, the transforming, the renewing of our mind to one that seeks to live for the glory of God.

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You know, I ate a fortune cookie the other day. And I like fortune cookies.

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I know that's weird. They're kind of gross, but I like them. And the fortune said, it was very spiritual.

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It said, God will give you everything that you want. What a lie.

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I can't help but think that a few people might go to Matthew 7 and the whole ask, seek, knock passage.

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God will give you whatever you want. Ladies, there is one thing that you can be certain that God will give you if you ask

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Him, though. And that is, if you ask Him to help you grow in grace, grow in holiness, pursue righteousness, to look more and more like His Son, He will answer that prayer.

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He will mature you spiritually. He will convict you of your sin.

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He will help you overcome that sin. He will help you to look like Christ.

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And ultimately, that should be the ultimate priority in our life for His glory.

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That should be everything we want. And then that fortune can be true because God will give us that.

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And it will not look the way we may want it to look. It may bring pain.

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Sanctification always does. And we embrace it because it means that we are

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God's children. We are daughters of the King. We have been saved by Him. And He is refining us.

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What a blessing. What a mighty, wonderful God that is.

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I love Him, don't you? I know you do. Ladies, I hope that the last couple of shows have encouraged you to really want to seek the scriptures and learn the whole counsel of God.

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Let that whole word, those whole 66 books, shape you and grow you and challenge you and encourage you and comfort you and convict you.

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So ladies, get in your Bibles, get on your knees, and get equipped.

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Thanks for listening. Or you can check out one of our two websites,

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DoNotBeSurprised .com or EquippingEve .org. Thanks for listening.