There is No Second Blessing

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All right, this morning, we're going to be discussing the difference between justification and sanctification.
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When we talk about these two things, the problem that often arises is that people tend to get them confused.
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And in fact, they tend to use them sort of interchangeably.
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Sanctified and justified tend to tend to run together in the minds of people.
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And we're going to discuss why they're different, but yet inseparable.
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They are different, but inseparable.
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And that's an important understanding.
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But before we go any further, let's just go ahead and define our terms.
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What does the word justification mean? Does anyone want to take a stab at the definition? Go ahead.
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OK, well, justified by faith is a doctrine.
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But what is the word justified? If you don't mind.
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Justified by faith is the doctrine sola fide.
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But that tells us what justification comes through the medium of faith.
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But what is justification itself? Does anyone know? Yes.
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Being saved.
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OK, that's it's a part of our salvation.
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But what does justified mean? Do you want to be made right? In fact, that's very close.
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But I'm going to add a nuance.
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Justification is to be declared righteous.
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Justification is the declaration of righteousness.
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You know, if you stand before a judge, if you have been accused of a crime and the judge says you are justified, that means you've been declared righteous in your actions.
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Whatever you did have been declared righteous.
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Right now, let's let's take a step out.
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Are we righteous by nature? What are we by nature? We are sinful by nature.
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But yet God calls us righteous.
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He declares us righteous.
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Why? OK, Jesus paid our penalty, which means our sins are washed away.
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But that doesn't make us righteous.
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That just makes us not sinners, imputed to us.
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Right.
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His positive righteousness imputed to us.
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And that is why we're declared righteous.
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It's not just that our sins are gone, because if that were the case, we would just be neutral.
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If our sins are gone, we sort of stand neutral before God.
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We need righteousness.
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So Christ's righteousness is imputed to us.
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And so we stand not having a righteousness of our own, as the Apostle Paul said, but having a righteousness which comes through faith in Jesus Christ, because the righteousness of Christ is given to us.
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And thus God can look at us and say, you are righteous, even though you know you're a sinner.
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That is why Martin Luther used the phrase simul justus et peccator, the Latin phrase, at the same time, just and sinner, at the same time, righteous and sinner.
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And why he was saying that, he says, yes, I'm a sinner.
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I fight a battle with sin every day.
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Every day I go through this this battle in my mind and with my flesh with sin.
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But I'm justified before God, not because of my own righteousness, but because God has declared me righteous through the work of Jesus.
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All right.
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Let's look at a verse real quick.
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Romans chapter five and verse one.
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And if you don't have your Bible, look on with your neighbor.
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Romans five and verse one.
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Everyone surrounds Courtney.
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All right.
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Yeah, we're not doing your normal books this morning.
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You get you get a substitute substitute pastor teacher.
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Romans chapter five, verse one says, therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
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The key to this passage, it uses the term justified and it uses this in the past tense.
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It says we have been justified, which means that this is an action that took place in time.
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And it is an action which took place in the past.
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It is something that has already occurred.
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Our justification, our declaration of righteousness is something that has already occurred.
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If we are a Christian, we have been declared righteous.
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I understand that's important because in a moment we're going to see that some people don't believe that.
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But that's something this verse to me is an absolute assault against the teaching of Roman Catholicism, because Roman Catholicism teaches that you are sanctified to get justified.
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We believe that you are justified and that begins sanctification.
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So I'm going to show you that on the board, because before before we go further, let's define sanctification.
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If justification is being declared righteous, what is sanctification? Yes, it is the textbook definition, at least as I understand it, it is the process by which we are conformed to the image of Christ.
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OK, the process by which we are conformed to the image and person of Christ, that we we are made like Christ through sanctification.
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So while justification is a declaration of righteousness, sanctification is a process of righteousness because it deals with our actual behavior.
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Justification is not based on behavior.
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Justification is based on grace through faith and not of ourselves.
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It's a gift of God, right? That's what the Bible says.
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So justification is a declaration from God.
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But sanctification is a process that we go through after having been justified.
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So for the for the reformed person, for us, we look at it like this.
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Justification is first.
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That leads to sanctification, which goes like that.
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It goes in a process.
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If you think of a crescendo in music, we begin justified.
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Our sanctification, when we first get saved, is very, very low.
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We don't understand ourselves.
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We just got saved.
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We don't understand what it even means to start where you are.
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And the process begins and we begin to be conformed to the image of Christ.
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The goal, of course, is to be like Christ.
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We know that in this life we'll never be perfect, but the goal is confirmation to Christ.
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The false view is this.
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The false view is sanctification leads to justification.
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Do you see why that would be false? Because the idea with this is that you get better and better and better and better.
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And eventually you'll get good enough to be justified.
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You understand you become conformed to Jesus and the better you get, the more closer you are.
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The.
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Yeah, well, they still say it's a grace, but they say the process is is you are you're moving towards justification.
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It's not something you've already received.
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Yeah, it becomes it becomes a workspace system ultimately.
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But you see where this would fly in the face of Romans five one, because Romans five one tells us having been justified, we have peace with God.
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So the justification comes first.
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Sanctification comes second in this system, which is the Roman Catholic system and a lot of other false systems as well.
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Peace and sanctification leads to justification.
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So we are not going to worry about this one because we know this one is incorrect.
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At least from a biblical perspective, I think Romans five one blows up when out of water because it uses the past tense, tells us when it happened.
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Having been justified, this is the correct view.
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Now, from this, there are four perspectives on how it happens.
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That's what we're going to talk about today, since we understand that of the two views of the two bigger views, this is the one we've taken in this view.
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There are four perspectives and I'm going to give you a chart which shares those perspectives with you.
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And we're going to talk about why we believe certain things and not other things.
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Here you are, my friend, little man.
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Me, me, me.
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OK.
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All right.
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On this chart, and obviously it's not all encompassing, but it has four distinct, specific views.
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We have the Wesleyan view.
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We have the Keswickian view.
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We have the reformed view and we have the Sheffarian view, which is the one from Louis, Louis Sparrow, Sperry Schaefer.
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So we're going to look at these and sort of address what each one of them teaches.
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Now, obviously, we teach what kind of theology here, reformed theology.
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So so we already sort of are we know at least where we're likely to land in the chart because we teach reformed theology.
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And there's one that's called the reformed perspective.
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So you kind of know where we're going to go.
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But before we do that, I want to address first the idea of Wesleyan perfectionism.
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The idea of Wesleyan perfectionism, as you see on the chart, is that a person receives first faith in Christ.
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They exercise faith in Christ.
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And that's what is considered by the Wesleyans as the first work of grace.
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You receive this ability to have faith in Christ and you exercise faith in Christ.
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That's your first act of grace.
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Now, the second happens later.
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What's they called the second blessing.
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And at that moment, you are totally surrendered and you become.
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Essentially, perfect that you no longer sin in thought, word or deed.
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And they call that the second blessing.
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So instead of the crescendo, as we've seen in Wesleyan perfectionism, you begin saved having been justified.
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And then at some point.
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There's a moment where the Holy Spirit gives you a gift of righteousness and instead of any type of progression, there's just an immediate gift, a second blessing.
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And now you are essentially perfect.
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And they wouldn't say you're perfect in the sense of never having sinned, but you're perfect in the sense that you no longer battle with sin.
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Your sin nature is eradicated.
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Yes, it's believed that it is possible to have it happen.
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I don't know a lot of Wesleyans who believe that it's happened to them.
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There are some, though there are some who believe that it has occurred in their life and that they no longer sin and thought, word or deed.
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And I have heard people who have announced that.
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I no longer battle with sin.
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I no longer sin.
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One of the passages of scripture that I'm often reminded of is in First John, where it says that if we say that we have no sin, we are liars and the truth is not within us.
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And and that's in the present tense.
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If we say we have no sin, we are liars.
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And, you know, that that's important there when we talk about this, because we all fight a battle with sin.
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And I think that this view of the second blessing is false.
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I think that this is an incorrect view of sanctification.
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Moving on to the you guys understand how that would be different from what we believe.
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Right now, let's look at the Keswickian teaching.
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This looks at the Christian life in two ways, and this is actually very popular.
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And I remember being taught a somewhat similar version of this in seminary.
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Not this, not these words, but in a very, very much a similar way.
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They talked about the defeated Christian and the victorious Christian.
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And that was the separation in terms.
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It's almost the idea of the same thing here, though they would not proclaim any type of perfection.
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And that's the real difference.
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Wesleyanism took a very strong position on perfection that you receive a time when there's no more sin.
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However, in this view, the idea is that, yes, you're you're still waiting for that second blessing.
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But the second blessing comes a result.
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You have the defeated life.
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You're a Christian, but you're not victorious.
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But at some point there is a you will you will learn to let go and let God.
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That's that you've heard.
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Maybe I've heard that for you.
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Yeah.
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Let go and let God.
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And when you.
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Yes, that sort of is birthed out of this idea, because the idea is that at some point you'll let go and let God.
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And when you do, you'll experience the victory.
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You'll live the victorious Christian life.
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And that's a that's a big buzzword for people because everybody wants to.
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Nobody wants to live in defeat.
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Everybody wants to live in victory, you know.
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And so the idea there is not just, hey, we want to have victory in our life.
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It's the idea that victory is a state of being that prior to that, you're in a state of defeat.
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Yes, you've received Christ, but you're still defeated because you're still battling these sins.
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There's a point at which you're going to let go and let God.
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And at that point, you will experience the true victory.
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So that's another view.
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Again, we do not believe in this view because this essentially creates two states of being for the Christian, the defeated Christian and the victorious Christian.
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And we would not agree that such a dichotomy or such a divide exists among believers.
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So let's move on to the one at the bottom, even though it's not the view that we take.
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I want to jump past the view we take and do that one last that you notice they all sort of deal with this same two tier model.
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But the difference in this one is.
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The tears, the dividing line, if you will, starts here and there's upward path.
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This is actually almost exactly what I was taught in seminary, by the way, not everything you learn in seminary is correct.
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And I don't say that to to be ugly.
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I love the men that I trained with in the seminary that I went to or there were godly men and good men.
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But not everything you learn is in accord with the with with the whole truth.
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And then that happens, you know.
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And one of the things that they used to talk about all the time was the carnal Christian.
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And that's where this idea comes from, is that when you come to Christ, you are carnal.
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But at some point you'll become spiritual.
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There will be a time in which God will bring about obedience and submission in your heart.
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And you'll finally submit him, even though you received Jesus at some point.
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Maybe you were eight years old when you received Jesus.
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But when you were twenty five, you finally realized, hey, you know, I need to get with it.
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And you went through all the teenage years and you've gone through all your craziness.
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But now you're twenty five and you're an old man.
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And it's because twenty five year olds are old, you know, and you're twenty five and you're an old man.
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And now you've got to get serious about it.
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So now your spiritual life begins.
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And you see, can you see how that would be easily taught, like with groups that say, oh, yeah, well, this little, you know, child got saved.
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But we don't expect him to exercise any spiritual life until much later.
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And that's when the real sanctification begins.
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Up until that time, he's a, quote unquote, carnal Christian.
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Carnal means fleshly, means of the flesh.
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And there is a there is a passage in Scripture that they often use.
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It's in First Corinthians where the Apostle Paul talking to the Corinthian church says, I cannot even speak to you as spiritual, but I have to speak to you as people who are carnal, who are in the flesh.
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And this is where the idea of the carnal Christian comes from.
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And they say, well, this proves here Paul is talking to Christians and he says that they're carnal.
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So the idea of carnal Christians does exist.
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Here's my argument against that.
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Paul is not commending them.
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He's condemning them.
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He's not saying that I'm, hey, it's good.
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You know, I can't talk to you as positive spiritual guys, but hey, that's all right.
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No, he's not.
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He's challenging the fact that they're not in the right state, that they're not doing what they ought.
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And somebody says, does that mean that they're not saved? Well, it means that they're very immature in their salvation.
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It means that they have not grown in their salvation.
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But it does not mean that that's the right way to be and that there's a period of carnality which precedes the spirit of a period of spirituality.
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And that's the problem with this model is this model shows, well, yeah, you're going to be fleshly for your first 10 years of Christianity or your first 10 months of Christianity or maybe even your first 10 minutes of Christianity, whatever they say.
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But you're going to have this time where, yes, you've received Jesus, but you're living in sin.
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But there'll come a time at some point in the future where that will change and you'll start living righteously and it will begin a process.
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I believe that such is not the case.
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I believe, as the third thing on your chart says, the right view is this.
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When a person comes to Christ, when a person receives the Holy Spirit of God, they are at that moment justified.
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But at the same time, the process of their confirmation to Jesus begins.
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But I believe that it looks the the line looks like this because we, as people who still live in the flesh, have peaks and valleys.
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But the process is a crescendo.
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It should be.
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It should be.
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Yes.
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The goal, of course, is confirmation to Christ.
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He has saved us, but we also want to be like unto him.
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We have times and that's why on the sheet you notice the person who drew this.
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This is obviously hand drawn.
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They drew peaks and valleys, maybe not as many as I did, but the idea is the same.
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There are times when I, as a minister, feel very good in my sanctification.
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I feel like I've done a good thing or a good job.
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And then there are times when I feel like I really blew it.
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You know, I just man, I did bad today and I feel horrible.
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But yet I can look at my life now, some 15 years since my conversion.
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I can look at my life and I can say, you know what? I'm certainly a different man today than I was 15 years ago.
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Here's the here's the hard part, though.
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I'm much more aware of my sin now than I was 15 years ago.
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So a lot of times I actually feel worse about myself than I did 15 years ago, because when I was 19 years old, prior to my conversion, I felt like I was a pretty good guy.
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Yeah, I'm you know, I work hard.
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I, you know, I got married.
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You know, I've done good things, you know.
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But when I was converted, I realized I was a sinner.
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I realized I needed Christ and I realized how desperately sinful I was.
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And now, 15 years later, I realize every time that I sin, just the weight of it.
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And the more you are conformed to Christ, the more the weight of even the smaller sins in your life will hang heavy on your heart, because you'll begin to see, man, this is an area that I need confirmation.
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This is an area that I need to be.
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I need to be changing.
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You know, most of us live our lives.
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I say our lives are like a house and in our house, there are rooms, you know, we have compartments in our house and in our lives.
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You know, you sort of you have your friends that are in a certain compartment and then you have your family that's in a certain compartment.
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And we sometimes these bleed together because sometimes we're friends with our family and sometimes we don't, sometimes we're not.
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But, you know, there's this there's this relationships that we have.
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And then, of course, we have our hobbies that we that we do.
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And then, of course, we may, if you're an adult, you have your job.
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And of course, your spouse is a is an integral part of your life, more so than any other part of your family.
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And we tend to fill our rooms up and we say God is over all God is is is over my whole life in every aspect.
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But yet there's a part where we lock the door.
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And this is our sin because we don't want God in there.
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That's the part we say, no, he can he can he can be in this part, he can be in this part, he can be in this.
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But he can't be here because this is the part that I have to hide from him.
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This is the part that I have to sort of keep to myself.
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And it's my closet of sin.
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And the process of sanctification is the erosion of this closet.
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It's the it's the turning away of this.
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Over to him, and it is a process, it's not something that magically one day you're just going to wake up and not want to sin anymore.
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You're not going to magically one day wake up and say, you know what? Sanctification.
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I'm done.
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Drop the mic.
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I'm out.
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You know, you're not going to have you're not going to have a magic moment, but you're going to have a life of battles.
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You're going to have a life of running into spiritual hurdles that sometimes you're going to trip over.
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I once heard an analogy and I'll end with this analogy.
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There was a there's a river where the the fish swim upstream.
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You know, what is the type of fish that swims upstream? Is it salmon? If you imagine that river with dead fish, let's say all the salmon died.
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Which way are they all going to go if they all died with the river? They're all going to go with the river.
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If one of them was miraculously awoken to life, he was brought back to life by a miracle.
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His natural inclination then would be to go upstream because that's the way they swim.
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But as he begins to go upstream, he's going to be fighting the current.
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He's going to be fighting the other dead fish, because with every time he swims, he's going to be getting hit smack in the face by dead fish.
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And that's a good analogy for sanctification, because what happens is we are dead fish.
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We're going down a stream with all the other dead fish of this world right towards hell.
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God gives us life and he brings about our spiritual regeneration.
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We are born again.
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And thus we begin to swim against the stream of this world.
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And not only is the world itself pulling us back, our flesh is heavy, but we're also getting hit in the face with all the other dead fish.
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Why are you a Christian? That's stupid.
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Don't you know that science can tell us everything about the world? That's a dead fish trying to hit you in the face.
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Why are you a Christian? I think that organized religion is ridiculous, which I don't understand.
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I always when people say to me, I don't believe in organized religion.
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Would you prepare? Would you prefer disorganized religion? That's the opposite.
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What if we all came in and ran around in circles screaming? Would that make you happy? You don't prefer organized? OK.
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You know, it's always something.
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Right.
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But that's the point.
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Sanctification is a process.
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It's a battle.
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It's a fight that we go through daily.
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It's not one act of miraculous gift that we receive at some point in our Christian life.
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It's a process that we go through all of our days.
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All right.
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Let's pray.
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Thank you, Father, for giving us this opportunity to study.
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I pray that you would encourage these young people to understand what has been said, that you would use this lesson to help them be conformed to you.
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And I pray, Lord, if there are those here who are not saved, that they've heard the necessity today of justification and the process of sanctification which comes afterward.
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In Christ's name we pray.
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Amen.