What is Regeneration, Part 2

One thing that I think people miss is the Bible says we're created unto good works

That means all works are not our own They are given to us where they're actually created in us by God now think about this and Andrew You're gonna say this even better than me think about somebody that's gonna say basically all good works are a gift

So if you're gonna claim a gift that is given to you in the stead of God, you don't want to be in that spot

I don't want to be in that spot Welcome to the rap report with your host

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

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

Welcome to another edition of the rap report I'm your host Andrew Rappaport the executive director of Striving for eternity and the

Christian podcast community of which this podcast is a proud member You can check out all the podcasts at Christian podcast community org 50 plus vetted podcasts

We actually only accept about 30 to 40 percent of those that apply so you will get good content there

The topic today is a continuation as we're working through our Doctrinal statement of what we believe it is available at striving for eternity org

Go to the about section what we believe we're in the section on Soteriology that is the doctrine of salvation

We're specifically continuing from the last in the series we did on the topic of Regeneration so that's what we're going to talk about Today on the rap report.

I have a fellow Podcaster from the Christian podcast community here with me helping me out today.

You will hear his voice We may need translation He is got this heavy,

New York accent. So if you have trouble hearing them, you're understanding them just you know

We'll have to work through this Pastor Dominic Grimaldi from street talk theology.

Welcome to the rap report. It's an honor to be here Andrew So you just did something on the gift? So you're trying to say we may need an interpreter when

I speak. Is that what you're trying to say? Yes, I don't know how many people in the audience understand, New York, you know

Speaking in tongues or anything like that. Are you I kind of thought New York accent was tongues. I could be mistaken, you know

Well, no wouldn't because I believe people speak other languages, you know New York is just kind of its own dialect of so help folks know a little bit about your background where you pastor a little bit about your podcast and something of your history because you do have a little bit of a

Dramatic history, maybe we'll say Yeah dramatic is uh, that's a pretty good word

Yes, and pestering here in Desert Sky Baptist Church in Casa Grande, Arizona Great church.

They treat me my wife Rachel Unbelievable. I do host a podcast called

Street Talk Theology We take theology and bring it to the streets coming from my New York background

I did well over 20 years in prison got saved while I was in prison. I guess

I can say Literally that God Broke my chains, right Andrew literally literally, right so yeah,

I was in I got in trouble in prison and I you can get in trouble in prison and I got thrown in the

Hole and I didn't get my property for a few days and there was a Bible there. I read it I was reading 1st and 2nd

Kings and I got saved and in 1st and 2nd Kings Wow It's all inspired right

I think your last show was on the inspiration of Scripture to a little bit, right? Yeah, we talked about that and you're right.

It's like God could use his word to save any of us So it's just usually people think it's the book of John that everyone has to read to get saved

But or Romans but 1st and 2nd Kings, you know Andrew, you know my whole life.

It was always About who was on top and when I seen this God was taking one king and knocking him down and bringing another one up that would that's what caused me to repent

I because I Related to that or does that make sense? I I kind of related to that Theology so to speak out, you know

And we see now what God would a Syria with Babylon and now he would raise one nation and knock it down So that kind of resonated with me and I said basically

I was serving the wrong King, right? Yeah, now you're serving the right King. No, I'm serving the right.

Nobody's gonna knock him off his horse. Nope No, he's on a permanent throne. That's the beauty of it.

Anyway, thank you for having me. It's an honor to be here Well, let's let's begin with as we dig into this doctrine of regeneration and folks again

If you want go to striving fraternity org under the about section is the what we believe we're doing this

Whole series as I said at the very beginning is because we've we write this doctrinal statement, but a lot of people don't know

Everything that goes behind a doctrinal statement in other words we write this and there's a lot of things as we if you've been tracking with us through this series of Things that are written that have a lot more behind it than just the words that are written and for that reason

We're taking the time to walk through this so that for one thing it helps all of us to understand our theology better But it also helps us to know

What we should be looking for if you're going and looking for a church, you know, you're gonna go to you know

Arizona and you're gonna go to see pastor Dom's page and you what's the first thing you're gonna do say

Do I want to go to this church? You're gonna look at the doctrinal statement. Well unfortunately, a lot of churches have these doctrinal statements that are like seven bullets long and tell you absolutely nothing about what they believe and Some people think that by saying less we have unity

The reality is the more we say the more unity we have because by having a detailed doctrinal statement we are

Saying this is what we all agree to and so if you have a church that has a lengthy

Detailed doctrinal statement and you're in agreement with it and everyone else's you have unity in the church

But when you have a very vague doctrinal statement as Dominic you were just mentioning the gifts of tongues continuing or not for today as we're joking

But if your church doesn't take a stance on that you're gonna have people that believe

Tongues continue for today those that don't and that's not unity So this is important for us to have unity in the body of Christ within especially within a local church

And that's why we try to write these things out We're also Trying to show you what's behind Doctrinal statements and hopefully when you would read a doctrinal statement that you may see at a church or another ministry

You would see as you go we go through this you start seeing how much is behind it and you start going

Oh, I learned this before this is what this refers to and you start to pick up more of what's in a doctrinal statement

So let's begin Pastor Dom, I'm gonna ask if you could read the section here on Regeneration.

Yeah for sure Andrew for sure So regeneration is a supernatural work of the

Holy Spirit what by which a new nature and eternal life are given it is an?

Instantaneous and is accomplished solely by the power of the Holy Spirit through the instrumentality of the

Word of God When the repentance sinner is enabled by the Holy Spirit responds in faith to the divine provision of salvation

Genuine regeneration is manifested by fruits worthy of repentance as demonstrated in righteous attitudes and conduct

Good works will be its proper evidence in fruit and will be Experienced to the extent that the believer submits to the control of the

Holy Spirit in his life through faithful obedience to the Word of God This obedience causes the believer to be increasingly

Conformed to the image of our Lord Jesus Christ Such a conformity is climaxed in the believers glorification at Christ's coming

All right So we're gonna pick this up now in the third sentence because this last Episode which will be linked in the show notes if you miss that one

You could go pick that up listen to that But we're gonna pick up now in the third sentence because this is where we left off so we've so far talked about the fact that Regeneration is a supernatural work.

It's something that the Holy Spirit does as part of the ministry of the Holy Spirit We talked about the fact that it was

Instantaneous, so this is not something that happens over time we talked about it that the

Word of God is the instrument that the Holy Spirit uses and enables the

Holy Spirit enables a sinner to respond to Regeneration in faith and so now we talk about genuine

Regeneration I'm stopping right with those two words for this reason There are people who think they are saved and they are not saved there are people who believe that they have the the gift of salvation and Yet what we end up finding is that they walk away from the faith later now

There's an entire book of scripture devoted to this topic actually as far as genuine

Regeneration what it looks like and in the aspect and we'll talk about this today in the aspect of our sanctification

When we're regenerated there's certain things that we would expect to see in a believer's life and the book of James the entire book gives us like a little over a dozen different ways of testing our faith those of us who claim we have faith to see if it is genuine so if you were

Struggling and wondering is my faith genuine go to the book of James James will help in that discussion

You say well Andrew, how do you know that people can walk away from the faith? How do you say they they didn't have genuine?

Regeneration. Well, let me give you one verse First John 2 verse 19

John says this they went out from us But they were not really of us

For had they been of us they would have remained with us

But they went out so that it would be shown that they all

Were not of us John is saying that we should expect people to think they're saved walk away later and We find out they're what we would might call a false

Convert they thought they were converted, but they weren't that's a great point You know, we think we were just talking about in just before the show about Demas The Bible says that Demas left for the cares of the world.

That's an interesting play for me because Who would think at least that he would know better you think

Paul would know? So at least for a little bit Demas had I don't want to use the word trick but Demas actually in Paul's eyes in the beginning looked like a believer and obviously

If you read the progression of Paul's letters one time he just says Demas left me for the cares of the world and and that's

So if you can pull the wool over Paul's eyes for a little bit, like you said There can be a lot of I hate to use the word false converts

That's probably not a good word. But ones who actually have not been regenerated actually could actually be in the church and Hopefully and prayerfully the longer they stay in the church if they don't walk away.

Hopefully they can be regenerate So that's a good point What I call them is hypocrites that and when they walk away they stop pretending

And they get upset with me when I say that because I used to be a Christian I said no according to 1st John 2 19 you were a hypocrite that just stopped pretending and and a better example

Dom would be Judas, I mean think about this. Here's Judas.

You have the 11 disciples even on when he leaves to go and betray

Jesus after Jesus says one of you will betray me and then Judas gets up and leaves Jesus says

What are you gonna do go do quickly and they think he's going to give money to the poor because that was part of a

Passover Seder was to go take care of the poor if you hadn't they're thinking the best of Judas No, one of them goes.

Oh, it's got to be Judas. No when Judas goes to betray him. They actually are going Oh, he must be going to give money to the poor me.

He must have so fooled them They're thinking the best of them even when he's going to betray

Christ and you know what else you know What I think about Judas, I know it's not in the scripture, but he was probably preaching to I mean, right?

I mean he that's the thing that gets me because I know I mean now we know that where the Bible is silent We're silent, but he went out with the 70

I mean he was preaching and teaching and that's the thing that for me that you know

We don't talk about that enough, but he was just not robbing money though He was robbing money, but he was preaching and teaching and robbing money

I guess at the same time when we see that a lot sometimes on TBN am

I allowed to say that? Yeah, we're not opposed to the naming names here on this program

But what we end up seeing though is that that we do see people who like you're saying preaching

I mean, I know men who got saved in seminary or even at the pulpit and so Knowing that we must start with the fact that when we're speaking of regeneration.

We're talking about a genuine Regeneration not the regeneration that people think they got where they they proclaim or profess to know

Jesus But they don't possess him and there's a difference there. And so we're being specific here.

We're saying genuine regeneration when someone is truly converted to Christ and So we're gonna say throughout

I've said this throughout the series people can't lose their salvation Once you understand what salvation is when you understand man's nature

We looked at that you understand God's nature and then you look at what salvation is

You can't lose that it was it all of our sin was paid at the cross all of it.

And so We recognize though that there's some people who think they're saved

But they're not and so that is what we're focusing on now genuine regeneration is manifested by fruits

Worthy of repentance So this is what we start getting into that the topic that we'll dig into late in later episodes on Sanctification but sanctification is it was that process were being made more like Christ But guess what?

It is the natural response to regeneration and This is where a lot of people struggle because they might they turn to James chapter 2 and they think that and we've discussed this here.

They think somehow that works are necessary for salvation But his argument that he makes if you look in James chapter 2 you have to actually start in verse 14 most people start in 15, but 14 is the question that's being answered in the rest of the chapter

He says what uses it my brethren if someone says he has faith

But has no works Can that faith save him? Well, what faith is he talking about that faith?

we were just talking about a false faith a Faith that is not tied to a genuine repentance

So what his whole argument here is that if you are truly regenerate

There are fruits that come along with that if there's no fruit

Then that causes concern now you say well, how long do we take to have fruit? Well, I won't speak for Pastor Dom here

I could speak for myself that there were certain things like foul language that I stopped almost

Immediately after getting saved, but there's other things that I've still struggled with today and There's going to be a progression in something some things we're gonna we're gonna stop right away

Others we're gonna struggle with for a long time. That doesn't mean that we're not saved

It means that we should continually day in and day out being made more and more in the image of Christ But if you've been saved for 30 years and there's no change it no difference after 30 years.

You're not more like Christ Then you should have concern. That's a great point I think right there's some things that God just alleviates

By grace and there's some things and that you will struggle with and some of those things that you struggle with Andrew is the very things that keep you on your knees, right?

I mean those are the things that there are some things that like maybe language or whatever it might be that God will just miraculously supernaturally

Take away but I believe there are some things that you just will struggle with that would keep you on your knees and and I think that One of the things that I that hasn't been mentioned and I know you know

But when you I was listening to the earlier podcast it you and brother Kofi did One thing that I think people miss is the

Bible says we're created unto good works That means our works are not our own

They are given to us where they're actually created in us by God And I think that's where so if people are not think about this and Andrew you can say this even better than me

Think about somebody that's gonna say Basically all good works are a gift

So if you're gonna claim a gift that is given to you in the stead of God, you don't want to be in that spot

I don't want to be in that spot because the Bible says that we're created unto good works

After the the regeneration so and I don't hear a lot of times people say that but that's

I think it's pretty clear in Ephesians If I'm if I'm not mistaken, yeah I mean if you have a child a baby just born the natural response the thing you want to hear is that cry?

well the natural response for the believer is The regeneration a changed life that is going to manifest itself by the fruits of the

Spirit Now or fruit of the Spirit and the fruit of the Spirit is love.

So that's the first thing we should see changed There is a thing where in our sin nature.

We're gonna be selfish prideful. That's our nature But when we're truly genuinely regenerated

There's gonna be a change where we have a love for others why because Christ first loved us we will love others

And so we're saying here that genuine regeneration the way you can see it is that by the fruits that are worthy of repentance and we could go through the scriptures and see countless times that the the fruit of the

Spirit is Explained whether it be in Galatians 5 where we have that but there's there are things that you end up seeing

Throughout where it Galatians you're gonna see the list of things to put off the list of things to put on that is the new creation and Pastor Dom you referenced

Ephesians 2 10 For we are his workmanship created in Christ for good works

Which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them So that's saying that this is the this idea of good works

We can't do them to get saved. But once we're saved that is the proper

Response to regeneration. So if you're not doing that if you see someone that doesn't have

The fruit in their life over time. That's a concern and I'm just gonna say this

Time and truth go hand -in -hand Give it enough time people will either walk away from the faith or they're gonna expose that they don't have fruit

Or they're gonna show that they do have fruit and you know this Andrew the word paratim a or the word walk

It's not like taking a walk around the block that word means a way of life in the

Greek language I know we use it for walking So, you know this like you said I'm trying to do that's we should walk in these good works that God prepared beforehand

This means this is up becomes our life Like you said, we're not gonna get everything perfect But this is something it becomes our life that was created to us and I heard you say before the foundations of the world

I like the way you put that like God speaks to us in our own level But I think the word walk is something that you know, that's a way of life

I think a good way of translating that would actually be pattern of life because I think that's what it's trying to describe

Right. We talked about it at being a walk, but really it's our pattern of life if I have a pattern of lying deceiving being selfish

You should not believe that I'm a believer if I've had this pattern for a long time and that's the natural pattern but if I have a pattern of love for others of putting others before myself of Being humble then that is fruit that we would see from the

Holy Spirit that is Manifested and and demonstrated that we have that genuine

Regeneration, so that's what we look for in the lies. Well is can you tell that I'm safe?

Can you tell that pastor Dom is safe? No, it's not like we walk around with some big letter E for elect on our foreheads

That would be nice then we know who to evangelize right but it's not that way So, what do we look at?

Well, we're basically fruit inspectors we go around looking to see the fruit of faith the fruit of Regeneration and we have throughout descriptions of what that fruit is but the greatest of them is love and so that's what marks a

Christian a Christian should be marked by love a Christian will be marked by forgiving others

These are the marks of genuine Regeneration because someone who is a hypocrite and pretending to be a

Christian They're not going to have humility because they still are Influenced by their pride and so pride and selfishness is what's gonna guide them

They may be pretending to be a Christian because that's part of what's guiding them to look good in the eyes of others or trying to earn

Salvation as many try to do but a genuine Regeneration is

Where the Holy Spirit is gonna work within us to bring us to loving others to humble ourselves and to submit to God That's really gonna be some of the things we're gonna see and so we say here in the statement is so genuine regeneration is manifested by fruits worthy of repentance and now

I say as demonstrated in righteous attitudes and Conduct.

So what are we talking about with righteous attitudes and conducts? Well, this is the idea of having the attitudes of submission now this may surprise people because a lot of people think of submission and they the verse that so many people think of when they think of submission is

Ephesians 5 in the context of wives submitting to their husbands

However, that's actually not what the Bible says. Let me read to you more literal translation

Ephesians 5 22 wives to their own husbands as to the

Lord So, where do we get the word? submissive from or subject from verse 21 verse 21 says and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ wives to their husbands

Husbands to their wives by showing love Children but to their parents in obedience

Fathers to their children by not provoking them slaves to masters

Masters to slaves you'll see that in Colossians so what do you see you see actually another place you'd see where we do see the word submit is in first Peter When speaking about submission with wives you see that but again he talks he starts off there

By talking about submission to all and then he gives a bunch of examples of submission submission to government an ungodly government to Wives to unsaved husbands

Masters or sorry slaves to bad masters So what he's doing is giving extreme examples where where it is

Difficult to submit and he's saying this should be the character in all these different ways

But you know what all of us should be submitting to one of that is the attitude

It's kind of the illustration I always remember was from a pastor friend of mine that he said he gives the illustration of submission this way he says, you know, there's little

Johnny in Sunday school and He's standing up and the teacher tells him Johnny sit down Johnny doesn't want to sit down Johnny you sit down right now.

I'm telling your parents So Johnny sits down and says well more I'm sitting down on the outside but inside I'm still standing up Well, that's someone who's not submissive

They're not they don't have the proper attitude. And so if we have a genuine

Regeneration the Holy Spirit is working on us. We're going to have an attitude of Submission to one another love for one another

Humility and it's going to work out in our conduct And this is an important point and I'm sure pastor

Dom who has done counseling would understands this as well Our conduct starts with our thinking.

So if we have the proper attitudes with the proper thinking It's going to affect the way that we behave

This is different by the way than the way culture says culture says change your behavior. You'll feel better about what you do

That'll change your thinking what the Bible says is if you change your thinking That will work its way out in your emotions

You'll feel better about what you're doing because you have a right thinking and that will change your behavior And that's why we started with attitude and conduct if you're genuinely saved that's gonna change your thinking about things

It's gonna change your emotions about things. It's gonna work its way out to your conduct So what can we see the conduct you can't see my thinking you can sometimes see my emotions

The thing you're looking really for in the emotions is you're seeing the conduct the outworking of it

Yeah you know I was looking at in Philippians where it says, you know thinking are more important of Others than yourself and then using the example of Christ in there who emptied himself

Taking the form of the slave, you know, just thinking about other people more than yourselves

I mean what I mean, that's a tough play Andrew I don't care what anybody says that you read that and then obviously given the example of Christ and you know coming down But you talk about it.

That's hard stuff and it's just hard I mean, well, you know one of the things I say it's really difficult to be able to measure

Even for ourselves our spiritual maturity. How do you do that? Well, what is spiritual maturity?

It's humility How can we measure even within ourselves an objective way of looking?

How we're doing with humility and one of the ways that I've kind of really realized and this is

Something each of us could do each one of you listening think about when somebody corrects you

How quick are you to defending yourself? Versus listening to what they say

Now there's there's times where people will say something and you you hear what they say, and you know

It's not true. And so you're correcting that we're not saying that it's about that attitude And each of us knows in our own heart

When we're doing that, we know when we're just rejecting what they say out of hand because we don't want to admit we're wrong versus hearing what someone says

Having already evaluated it and Realized that hey, let me let me correct that but how quickly do we defend ourself versus receiving?

Correction, that's a good measure. I think that each of us can examine ourselves and know

So that's one way that I kind of say we could look in how we're doing spiritually

Yeah You know what? I find and that's a great point because I was I don't want to say it was counseling it was speaking to a

Congregant and you know, it's it's tough in the beginning when somebody is whether reproved whether it's anybody in the beginning they may you know kind of Buckle against it or and then but later on when they sit down and they realize and think about it and they come back

You know Sometimes it just takes that realization of the the power of the Spirit in somebody's life to say hey

You know pastor was telling me this because or Joe was telling me this and I thank

God for that Conviction of the Spirit as you talk about I think those things are important I think sometimes in the beginning our pride is gonna jump up But I think as you reflect on these things and as you

I think reflection is huge I don't think we do enough of it I think we react more than we reflect but I think as true

Christians as we reflect thank God We have the maybe by God's grace the Holy Spirit to govern our thinking come back and say hey

Andrew Listen, I messed up you were right. I just was in my feelings There's nothing wrong with that I think we need to reflect more than we we react

I think David went through that a lot in his life, you know going from Reaction and reflection just think about the one he married

Abigail right? I mean she made him reflect instead of react Yeah, and you know my a lot of people don't think about this

But that's what the Lord's Supper is supposed to be about. We should be reflecting now Not many churches do that, but part of Lord's Supper should be a time of self -examination and some churches don't give enough time for that I do

So I mean this leads right into good works and so before we get into the good works Let me just let you guys know that as we're studying the

Bible you may want to dig in deeper You may want to get more out of your own

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So let's get into the next part of this doctrinal statement and it is about good works

It says good works will be its proper evidence and fruit now.

We've expounded this quite a bit I've really tried to focus the fact that we are genuinely saved genuinely regenerated

It's going to change the way we think the way we feel and it's gonna have its effect on our conduct

And therefore the outworking of a genuine regeneration will be good works.

That's what James is saying James's whole point in James chapter 2 is not that works are necessary to earn

Salvation as some try to argue know what he's arguing for is the fact that because he says right after he asks about Can that work faith save him in other words that that faith that someone's?

Saying they have but it doesn't have any works associated with it The very next verse is he says if my brother or sister is without clothing or daily food

And one of them says just go in peace be warmed and filled and does not give them what's necessary for their body

What use is that? In other words, the genuine Christian is going to take care of his fellow

Christians If you have a Christian that's not willing to care for fellow Christians Then you have to question their claim of regeneration

That's the argument that he's making there and what he ends up saying afterwards even so if faith has no works

Being by itself. It's dead In other words, you're claiming to have faith, but you don't have those good works that go along with the faith

Then you have a dead faith. In other words, you're not genuinely saved

That's what James is trying to say yeah, and I think a lot of times and I you mentioned on last show if Paul and James and not

Pitting against each other Paul speaks about the regeneration the work of God It's a work of God and James is saying if you truly have that work if God has truly worked that out in your life

Like Paul says then this is how you're gonna live So they they are not because you know some people will you know, we've heard people say, you know

James is like an epistle from short. No James is just Reiterating just backing up with Paul said like you had said

I think on your last show Regeneration is a work of God and if that's truly a work of God in your life

Then James is saying well if a happened then B should happen And I think people look at the way

Paul thinks and James thinks and says that doesn't make sense It makes perfect sense to me and I'm that that's more makes perfect Makes perfect sense, right because it's in the

Bible That's why it makes sense because this is what God says that this is the good works are The the proper evidence of fruit.

That's what we look for We look for the evidence of salvation how by looking at good works

And so we go on and say not only good works will be in it's the proper evidence and fruit but it will be experienced to the extent that a believer submits to the controlling of the

Holy Spirit in his life This is something we talked about way back when go back to the episodes when we talked about the

Holy Spirit there is a difference between the baptism of the Spirit and the filling of the

Spirit so Baptism of the Holy Spirit occurs at salvation It is a one -time thing when the

Holy Spirit indwells us this happens at genuine regeneration but what comes and goes is the filling of the

Spirit and that is when we Fight the Spirit or submit to the Spirit when we submit to the spirits controlling influence in our life

That is what's called the filling of the Holy Spirit I know you'll hear many in especially in the charismatic circles that confuse these two as if the baptism of Spirit can come and go and They confuse that with the filling

Baptism is a one -time event occurs at regeneration Filling is what we're talking about now that to the extent that you and I Submit to the controlling influence of the

Holy Spirit That is the level or the extent that we will see this these good works in our life so if you are a believer who is not seeing a

Lot of growth over a long period of time in your life. That's evidence that you are not

Submitting to the Spirit you are still trying to fight him and do things your own way Now that doesn't mean you're not a believer

You could be a believer and grow slowly if you're someone who never is growing That's the concern and so you may see slow growth you want fast growth

You want a lot of change in your life? Submit to the Holy Spirit stop fighting him stop trying to do things your way

Because to the extent that you submit to the Holy Spirit is the extent that you will see those good works in your life

Yeah, that's a great point now what Andrew is not saying is that he knows you could never lose the

Spirit But Paul says you can quench the Spirit Right. So and even when

Paul says you can quench it's not saying you can lose But the more you submit to the Spirit the more you can do the ordained good works that have been ordained in your life, and I you know what

I always try to Counsel people Andrew and you can expound on this if necessary Is that a lot of times if you are quenching the

Spirit you you're gonna as a true Christian You're gonna live a miserable life Because the

Spirit is gonna can I mean if you're not a true Christian then that's another story

But if you really are a true Christian and you continue to quench the Spirit, it's gonna be rough

Yeah, because he chastises his children and we will feel that chastising this is as we say here in the statement

This is the the faithful Obedience to the Word of God is the way that we submit to the

Spirit if we are not in the Word of God if you're a professing believer Let's change that.

Let's say you are a believer. You're a possessing believer. You have genuine regeneration But you're not studying the

Word of God. You're not reading The Word of God on a regular basis. You're gonna have a hard time

Submitting to the controlling influence of the Spirit because where I've already given the clue to this

So I'm gonna ask the question. You should already know the answer Where does this process start? with our thinking

So the Word of God is what provides that right? Biblical thinking that the

Holy Spirit is going to use to bring us To do good works, but if we're not in the

Word of God He's then we're not giving the thing that we need in our life

For the Spirit to use to bring us under control. And so if you're not

Regularly in the Word of God in prayer That is where you start and that's what we're trying to say with this is that the extent that the believer is going to submit

To the Holy Spirit in his life through faithful obedience to the Word of God, but I'm saying here the next sentence this obedience causes the believer to increasingly conform

To the image of our Lord Jesus Christ That's the goal of reading the Word of God It's not just so we know dates and facts and places and people and be able to impress people with how much we know or memorized

No, the Word of God is going to cause us to read that and see the areas

We need to make changes in our life And that's what the Holy Spirit is going to help us with Part of the ministry if you go back to the seer in the series when we talked about the

Holy Spirit we mentioned part of the ministry of the Holy Spirit is the illumination of the

Spirit and what that means is that he Illuminates the Word of God and the application of the

Word of God to our lives So we have a better understanding of the word and how to apply it to our lives

But if we're not in the word, he can't illuminate it and he can't apply it because we're not in it

So this obedience to the Word of God to the

Holy Spirit will make us Conform us more and more in the image of Christ.

This is the process of sanctification like I said Folks, there's there's areas that are gonna be very quick.

There's areas that just will not I've been walking with the Lord for over 35 years almost 40 years now and I can tell you

It's not any easier In fact, I will say that that conforming to the

Spirit actually gets harder because the easy things For us to work on got dropped off early

It's those things that are deeply rooted in us things We don't see that the Holy Spirit has to reveal to us that we have to start peeling away that is a hard work and the

Scriptures say we're not going to be done with this sin nature or the sin influence

Until we're die and glorified and that's what we're saying in the next sentence such a conformity is

Climaxed in the believers glorification at Christ's coming when we die

We're done away with this body of sin 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 I love that that chapter where it talks about that We're we get rid of this body of sin this tent this temporal tent

We'll be with Christ the one whom we love and we will not have this

Influences of sin in our lives. That's the climax, but we're not gonna get there

You know, it's a reassuring thing is what Paul says in Philippians That God is not only the author of our faith, but he's the finisher

I love that because it means that God's not done with us. God is gonna keep working on us that he is going to be there step by step and Eventually the moment we die

We're glorified Then we'll be sinless do not let any people tell you

What this is saying as I've said throughout this series the things that this says and doesn't say there is a doctrine that many teach called sinless perfectionism

What they teach is that we as believers could be sinlessly perfect and never sin

In fact, they'll argue that if you sin you lost your salvation Some of them will say you can get it back again

Some will say you can't Hebrews chapter 6 is one that they use in Hebrews chapter 10 and those two passages would say if that's speaking of your

Regeneration if you lost it, you can never get it back But I don't even think that's what those passages are talking about Those passages are talking about what we've been discussing this whole episode

They're talking about people that are hypocrites that pretend to be Christians. They go to church They put on the show and then eventually walk away

They had the light not meaning that they possessed salvation meaning that they sat in church

Heard the Word of God, but they didn't eat upon it. They did not have it within them

That would be the difference and so we are not sinlessly perfect on earth. We are sinlessly perfect in heaven

That's the climax That we receive in of our sanctification it's in glorification

Yeah, and the book I got a scripture here that is important, but I think in the epistle to the

Hebrews like you said I think the template there is the Wanderers in the wilderness how many of them fell and then then applying that to the church

I think that like you said there was many people in the wilderness. I think it was only Joshua Caleb who came out

There's a scripture here that says Paul says not that I have already obtained it or a very already become perfect But I press on that I may lay hold of that which also

I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus Brothers, I do not consider myself as having having late lay hold of it yet But this one thing

I do forgetting what lies behind and kind of stretch his neck forward So even

Paul is saying there I have not obtained it fully But I press on to do so and then and he even says later on that would fully be realized in the resurrection when he

Is with the Lord obviously, so it's a great point Andrew that we got to press on yeah, and the fact that scriptures talks so much about pressing on and Overcoming it doesn't mean that we are going to lose our salvation

If we don't if we sin one time and I know that those that are in the sinless perfectionist camp

We'll talk about a willful sinfulness Well, I got news for you. Every sin we commit is willful.

There's not a single sin We do that's not forced upon us where someone made us in No, so in the charismatic circles, they'll blame all the

Satan made me do it. No you chose to sin It is a willful act we do we may be so desensitized to it that we we don't realize we're doing it

That's a different issue But the thing that we would see as a genuine believer is that we should be sensitive to the work of the

Holy Spirit we should be sensitive when he's correcting us and Chastising us for our disobedience

Because we are want to be obedient as believers. We want to live a life that we made more like Christ So the steps that we're seeing is that what we're walking through in this doctrinal statement is not just hey

Here's what regeneration is. How do we spot it in ourselves and others? What do we look for?

We will we look for good works the good were the fruit of the Spirit We look for the

Spirit working within a person in that Process of sanctification we should be seeing that change and then looking for that change

We should ultimately know that by being able to look eternally and say, okay I see that I used to be really prideful and selfish and now

I'm seeing a humble That should cause us to say I can't wait as Paul argues can't wait to be with Christ Read what

Paul says in Philippians read what he says in 2nd Corinthians 5 you look at that He's saying

I can't wait to be with Christ. I'd rather be dead Than alive because in death

I'm with Christ is that our attitude Do you want to be dead in Christ?

I mean, is that something where you you're just trying everything you can to hang on to this life

Or do you see a greater value in being dead and with Christ?

Because a genuine Christian loves Christ so much that we're looking forward

To being done away with this body of sin being glorified being with Christ Being able to be with the one we love the most if that is your heart attitude

Then that's the natural progression we'd see in sanctification. You know, one of the questions I often ask people when they say they're struggling with the assurance of salvation.

There's a difference between Having a salvation Eternally secure and having that assurance the assurance is that feeling and often when we're sinning we have some sin in our life

We don't have that assurance of salvation Because there's sin in our life and we don't have that feeling because we know there's something wrong

That's the Holy Spirit working on us and convicting us And so when people struggle with that, well a good book to read would be first John That's a book that deals with it

So first John James great books to deal with these topics, but the question

I ask people is Do you hate your sin? Or do you hate the consequences of your sin?

It's a really important question See an unbeliever Loves the sin. They just don't want it to be exposed.

They don't want the consequences of it They'll steal from someone if they can get away with it They'll look at the pornography if they don't think anyone's watching but the genuine believer

Hates the actual sin why because we know that this is what Christ died for Yeah, you may steal from someone

But the act of stealing is what you hate Not the consequences that you got caught or that you might get caught

So what is it you really hate the consequences or the sin itself? Yeah, you know and in some of the conversations and you know

Andrew some of the conversations that I have with people and they'll come in and say man,

I just I want to do better. I want to and just the fact that they hate the sin not the consequence

Just the fact that they hate the sin. I says, you know what believe it or not. You're in a good place

You're in a good. No, I'm you know, because people will come in and they'll say I'm just struggling with this and they're not saying

I'm afraid to go to hell. That's not what they're saying. They're saying exactly what you're saying You know as a pastor, you know people come in and say

I'm just struggling with this I says just thank God that you're convicted of your struggle because if you weren't thank

God because that shows you have the spirit Now you got to stop quenching the spirit. But and just what you're saying now if somebody's gonna come in and say

Well, I don't want to sit no more because I don't want to go to hell. Well, that's not that's the wrong Attitude, but the right attitude is man

Andrew. I I hate my sin. I just can't stop sinning I wouldn't you know and things like that.

I think those are better Conversations and somebody that's concerned about the outcome more than the sin itself

That's a great point and it's a pastoral point that pastors need to kind of dichotomize of the difference

So that resonated with me. So thank you for that. Well, you're welcome I'm glad that I could be of some help to at least one person

So I I hope this is helpful for folks. I hope that you see there's a lot more we could say about the doctrine of regeneration

There's there's entire books that are written on it But this doctrinal statement is trying to say to basically give a divide between what's what we believe is

Orthodox and what's not So I would say sinless perfectionism not Orthodox someone who believes that they could be saved but no change in their life

No good works in their life. I would say that doesn't work that way But when you see someone who is

Having that change. That's what we're talking about. And this is what the doctrinal statement does. It helps us to identify these things

So hope this has been helpful for you. The next in this series is going to be the doctrine of We're gonna get in trouble

Election there are many who struggle with this doctrine. There's many who believe it.

They just have different definitions of it So we'll go through that What or who are elected when we talk of election is this something that we should be against Many people have a hatred for this doctrine many misdefine it

So these are the things we're gonna look at in the next in this series as we look through what we believe

From the striving for eternity website and with that folks That's a wrap

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