Path of Evangelism X: What Is a Christian? | Behold Your God Podcast

Sanctification as the Next Step After Conversion

Welcome back to another episode of the Behold Your God podcast. This is episode 10 of our evangelism series. I'm Matthew Robinson, director of Media Gratiae, and I'm here again with Dr. John Snyder, author and host of the Behold Your God study series and pastor at Christ Church New Albany.

Now I mentioned we're on episode 10 of our evangelism series. It's actually part two where we're talking about the subject of sanctification. And we finally are going to make it back to our friend Walker of Truro, whose book on gospeling, on evangelizing, we've been drawing some help from.

Big question as we begin, and this really hit me hard in our last episode as we were talking about this, why in the world in a series on evangelism are we talking about sanctification, which comes after a person has been brought to Christ?

You know, why is this included in our teaching on evangelism?

Yeah, that really is a good question. And sometimes I like confusing things in religion most. Not that I can figure everything out, you know, as a pastor, I have to say a lot of times I don't understand.

But sometimes we're confused because there's a spiritual problem. And the fact that we have to stop and say, why, is a wonderful opportunity for us to move forward spiritually. And this is one of them.

Why would a man do that? As we were talking between the sessions, you know, generally evangelism is thought of as getting a person in the door. And then once they're in, that's it, where's the next guy?

Or yeah, cross the finish line. So why talk about what flows out of conversion?

And by finish line, we mean, you know, get them to accept Jesus or get them to make a profession of faith. So then, okay, now next, but here's sanctification, which is the ongoing work of God in the Christian's.

Life.

Yeah.

So that's such a good opportunity to ask ourselves, do we have the same view of the good news as Paul did, James, John, Peter, or Samuel Walker, even? I think we could say that with Walker including this as part of an evangelist's job, he's showing that discipling the person who has embraced Christ is part of the evangelist's job as well.

But also that the good news is so good, it includes more than a free pardon. A man is not merely pardoned when he cries out in desperation to Christ. He is also freed. As that, you know, the hymn Rock of Ages talks about, there's a double cure in the saving.

Work of Christ.

We are freed from its sin's guilt and its power. And we want both of those. And it's a good test for every believer. When I hear that, that there's pardon and freedom from sin's tyranny so that I may live for the rightful King, do I say deep within myself, I would not be satisfied with half the gospel.

I must have both. I do not just want to be told, you're not going to hell. I want to be told, you can walk with and live for a new King. But it's also a good test for an evangelist. When we talk to someone, is our goal just to get them to say a sinner's prayer and get them in the family of God, so to speak?

Or is our goal to see God work using the gospel we're sharing, work so thoroughly in them that what results is not only a pardon, but a transformed man who lives to the glory of.

God.

And one thing I have to ask myself, you know, even preaching, but talking with our kids, with our neighbor, when we talk to people about Christ, does the way we present Christ, if the Holy Spirit is using it and penetrating that armor, does it make them yearn for both aspects?

I want to be pardoned. That's not an option. But please tell me, is there provision in Christ to live for Him now? And there is. So both aspects.

Yeah, it's Christ who is the rock of ages. And when His name was announced early in the New Testament, we hear, you will call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins. That aspect of Jesus is wrapped up in who He is.

And if we don't have that, I don't think we have the Jesus that we read about in the Bible. So that, if you're wondering, is why sanctification is part of our evangelism series. We're talking about a good news that literally changes people forever.

The Motivation for Sanctification: God's Love in Christ

Well, now we're able to get to Walker, who gives three key points regarding sanctification, which again, he defines as the progressive work of daily renewing the graces and daily mortifying the body of sin.

Yeah.

The first one he says is one that we've kind of hit on many times, but we want to repeat.

It.

That the motivation of sanctification, and again, we're talking about both aspects of this. He says, what is the motivation for cultivating the fruit of the Spirit and cultivating the new desires that God has put within us in regeneration?

Well, we're going to talk about that. It's the same motive for putting to death the old habits, the old ways of thinking, the old ways of responding, the old ways of desiring. He says this, the motivation for sanctification is a sense on the heart of God's love towards sinners in Christ.

So again, this is just another way of saying what he's called in previous episodes an evangelical.

View of God.

When a man or a woman is aware of the love of God, not just agrees that it exists, but there is an awareness, an experiential weight comes on the heart when we hear those words, God loves sinners and it reaches them through Jesus Christ.

When they feel that He loves them, it's like fuel that moves the train of sanctification forward. And when they lose that sense for whatever reason, carelessness, neglect of the means of grace, then everything is like gummed up and it just grinds to a halt and sanctification really becomes just such a chore.

The second he gives, he says, this work of growing up of the graces and the mortification of the lust, he says, well, one of them really helps fuel the other, but they both must go together. So, filling up on the fullness of Christ and so renewing hourly, daily, those new virtues that God has worked within us, those desires for obedience, that fruit of the Spirit, that filling up on that really does help us want to put to death those old things.

Yeah, he makes a couple important points that a good offense is the best defense basically, but that it's impossible to add more to our graces if we're not making room by turning away from our old lusts.

And there was an illustration we were talking about, about fertilizing the yard.

Yeah, and this, you know, we could say this in a very simple way. If you take a yard, we're in the middle of the, just at the beginning of growing season in Mississippi, which lasts 13 months a year. So, we look out at our lawn and there's weeds sprouting up early and then the grass is coming.

Up.

And if we approach that problem, if we think of the Christian life as, you know, the good grass is the graces and the weeds are the sinful patterns, if we approach that problem just by throwing fertilizer on the lawn, then everything's going to grow and kind of just.

Be crowded.

So, we know that you have to do both things. You have to remove weeds, feed the grass. It's very tempting for a believer to opt out of the more difficult of these two, the killing. I mean, we don't like to kill and we don't like to kill things that all of our life promised to be our best friends, even though it lied to us.

So, when the old patterns are there and the call from God comes, put that to death for love of me. It is easy to say, well, actually, Lord, I'm going to just really focus on the more pleasant stuff, filling up on all the good.

If we try to do that, we read another book on Christ, we go to another conference on the Christian life and how much God loves us, and those are good things. But if we're not making sure that running alongside that is the continual determination to kill all that is offensive to God in my life, to put to death all the old patterns, then I think what we find is, it's like we go to those conferences and read those great books and we hear great sermons, they no longer affect us.

It's like the life is crammed full of junk and, you know, in a very human way of saying it, God could say to us, there is no room for me to give you more and more that is provided in the new covenant because you keep holding on to emptiness.

So the third means of sanctification, you know, God has given us means. This isn't just something that we need to come up with our own ideas about. He's given us certain tools that sanctification comes to us in our life through.

So what are some of those?

Yeah, those are important because without this, all of our highfalutin talk ends up doing nothing. You know, it's like we said, a man can say, well, I need to kill myself every day. I need to go to that great white funeral.

That's not what the Bible says. And even though he might be earnest and it's from love to God that he wants to do that, he's on the wrong path.

He's using the wrong means.

Right.

So what tools has God put in our hands? And this is especially dear to us because we're believers, but it's also the name that you chose for the ministry, Media Gratia, means of grace. What tools has God put in our hands?

Well, self-examination, prayer, the word, meditation on the word, corporate worship. And all of these, of course, there is worship, individual worship, but all of these can be individual and they all must also be corporate.

Using these so as to constantly be nourishing those aspects of the Christian life that God has placed within us, the fruit of the Spirit, and using these also to put to death the old habits of sin are, you know, so important.

That reminds me of a couple of quotes from some friends on sanctification that I think that on the surface, they might appear to be contradictory. But if we really think about them, they're not. And before we go to our next session, I just wanted to give those.

One is by a friend named Clyde Cranford, who led me to the Lord. And this is what he said. He said, Christian growth is growth downward, not upward. And when he told me that, I thought, well, you're a little confused.

You know, I'm going to become stronger and stronger. You just wait and see. But he was right. Christian growth is this. I go lower and lower in my own estimation. I'm not as strong as I thought I was.

I'm not even as good as I thought I was. And I thought I was a sinner. But I'm going to learn some things about my weakness and my sinfulness that are going to drive John Snyder in his own eyes lower.

But that will make room for Christ to be everything. Another quote is from our friend Richard Owen Roberts, who said, with sanctification, the way in, justification, is the way up. We come to Christ. We enter into this glorious relationship by this repentant faith I'm turning away from, and I'm putting all my hope and trust in Him.

But that's also how we're sanctified. Every morning, we just repeat it. Throughout the day, we repeat it. And we find that by doing that, we walk in harmony with Him, and He constantly supplies everything we need for obedience.

Justin Peters on American Gospel and the Prosperity Gospel

We'll take a short break and be right back in just a few seconds. So we're here on the last day of the Shepherds Conference 2019 at Grace Community Church, and I've run into Justin Peters. Justin is an evangelist, and you will also recognize him from the American Gospel film.

Thank you so much.

You're welcome.

I really appreciated your, I mean, your testimony here and your testimony to not just to be anti-prosperity gospel, but to be this is the gospel and to see how beautiful it actually is in contrast. How did you come to be involved in this?

Well, Brandon Kimber contacted me a few years ago and told me about the project that he was working on. And when he described it to me, it sounded like it was right up my alley and something I very much wanted to be a part of.

And I'm very glad that I was. I'm glad that he reached me. I think he did a great job with the film, put together really, really well, very compelling. And I think it does put in stark relief the contrast between the false prosperity gospel and the true gospel.

That's right. Well, and this film does a great job of that. It's not just a hit piece. You know, I think he takes about the first 40 minutes and just expounds what is the gospel? What's the message of the gospel?

And then the rest of it, you know, you just almost let these other guys talk. And the viewer says, wait a minute, they're not saying what the scripture is saying.

God in his good providence is using that film and the truth therein to open people's eyes.

Well, I know that I speak on behalf of so many of the people who will see this to say thank you. Thanks for spending time with Brandon. And Brandon, great job. We love your film. And we're grateful to see the Lord continue to use it.

Yeah. Amen.

All right.

For more information about American Gospel, Christ Alone, visit themeansofgrace .org. Welcome back to the Behold Your God podcast. This is episode 10 in our evangelism series, the second of which we've spent talking about sanctification.

And it's worth pointing out here that some people grow discouraged as they grow in grace, because as our friend Samuel Walker says, they didn't expect to see more problems. They thought, I've come to Christ.

I've accepted him. He's my savior. I believe the gospel. And then they begin to see more problems. They begin to see worse sins in themselves than they had seen perhaps even during their time where they were dealing with conviction.

Walker has something to say to the evangelist about this experience that people often go.

Through.

Walker says,.

Preparing New Believers for the Struggle With Sin

Yeah.

It is a wonderful thing that the way God deals with us, even leading us to clearer views of the dark colors of our portrait, you know, as you mentioned, oftentimes it's after we've come to Christ that we see how desperately sinful we are and that's ever increasing and.

How weak we are.

So who would have expected that God would use that very thing to move us forward in.

Christ?

And Walker is so wise to remind us we've got to prepare people for that. So you think of it, seeing our sinfulness, seeing our weakness in an ever clearer way, Walker says, help them. Use that very sight to drive them to Christ, to have an ever greater appreciation for His ability, His willingness to save them.

And not only that, but to guard them against becoming impatient. I mean, we all feel that. I remember talking with a man who professed Christ here years ago, who after a few weeks of being a Christian, he was quite shocked that he wasn't fully sanctified, you know, and he thought, well, but there are still some areas.

And I thought, well, there will always be those, you know, until we see Him face to face. And so not to become impatient with what we feel is the slow pace of our sanctification.

But also not to become impatient with the slow pace of the sanctification of Christians around us.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And John Newton mentions that in one of his letters, that being a baby Christian, you're very prone to do that, you know, because you have not yet seen how slow you will move at sometimes.

And then the third thing, you know, seeing those things, help them to avoid the twin sins of ingratitude. I forgot, I have, in light of my sin, I have forgotten just how much Christ has already given me, and of doubt that dishonors the God who promises that He will complete what He started.

And so it's so helpful for Him to remind us as we're doing evangelism, prepare the young believer for what's coming and help them to guard against these pitfalls.

Yeah, it's important that we know what we're signing up for with sanctification. It's the work of the Christian life. This is your job. This is your life going forward. It's growing in grace and killing sin.

And so a proper understanding of what to expect is so needful. And, you know, our confession of faith, the 1689 London Baptist, helps give that clear picture in chapter 13 on sanctification, reading here from the 1689 Baptist Confession in Modern English that's published by Founders.

In 13 .2, we read,. This sanctification extends throughout the whole person, though it is never completed in this life. Some corruption remains in every part. From this arises a continual and irreconcilable war with the desires of the flesh against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh.

In 13 .3, in this war, the remaining corruption may greatly prevail for a time. Yet through the continual supply of strength from the sanctifying Spirit of Christ, the regenerate part overcomes. So the saints grow in grace, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

They pursue a heavenly life in gospel obedience to all the commands that Christ as head and king has given them in his word.

Consolations in the Christian Life

Yeah, that is such, I mean, that's the, you know, the great thing about a confession. They take all the Bible, they hammer it out, and they put it in such a concise and precise.

Way.

What we're, you know, what Walker is not saying, what we're not saying is that we should encourage people to be complacent about disobedience. Like, look, you're still having struggles with sin. You still feel tempted at times.

Maybe you still give into those old temptations. Don't you worry about it.

You're all sinners.

Yeah, that's not what we're saying. There ought to be a yearning. There ought to be a groaning, a grieving over sin. But we're talking about having a healthy, honest, biblically informed anthropology.

What is man in Christ? Well, he is a new creation, and yet there is still the ability to sin. And there is still, there are things that are yet to be seen and experienced that can.

Break the heart.

So you have to be prepared for them.

Yeah, Octavius Winslow wrote a book called Soul Heights and Soul Depths. And he said, this is the Christian life. The Christian life is so full of depths that you go to when you see the sin that remains and you mourn over that.

But heights, when you remember that you are fully justified and sanctified in Christ Jesus. And so not only should we expect those depths, but we can also expect heights. We can expect consolations, Walker says.

So what are some of those consolations that he mentions?

He mentions two types. And this is very encouraging for us, because usually before we come to Christ, there's that stretch of period of conviction. We saw some of this before, and there was no consolation.

It was withheld from us. We were outside of Christ. We were holding the Redeemer's claims at a distance. But now in Christ, the sight of sin is matched by the comfort of the Savior. So he talks about what we would call the ordinary consolations and maybe the extraordinary, the ordinary.

What God gives us through Scripture. We study our Bibles. We labor to understand what's this really mean and how does it fit together? And where do I see myself as a little tiny piece of this great puzzle?

And as I try to understand that and God helps me, then by His grace, I grab hold of it as my life. I live on it. And just day by day, strong comfort is given. But then there are those times, sweet, special, rare seasons, what Walker would call gracious visits of the Holy Spirit, in which there is an extraordinary degree of comfort given, overflowing, you know, what we think would be, what we would be capable of, in which He witnesses to His work within us.

It's like He pulls back the curtains and we think all we're going to see is more of that sin and weakness. And we see the evidence of God at work in every aspect of us. And we are so overwhelmed with gratitude.

And He says that certain things result. First of all, humility, not pride. Wow, look how great I'm doing. But oh, yes, but oh, God, why would a man like me be permeated with every aspect of.

Mercy from You?

So humility, but then also, of course, thankfulness, and those result in a life of a more zealous, more close walking with the Savior.

Guarding Against Pride, Security, and False Foundations

Yeah, He gives some warnings, especially about that second aspect of these sweet seasons, maybe gentle visitations, where maybe you're reading in the scriptures and you're reading over a passage in the gospels you've read a million times, and suddenly the Spirit just lights it up and it's so clear and beautiful and wonderful.

And you think, has this verse ever, has this always been here?

Yeah.

You know, I could preach a million sermons off this one verse. Those are in a way, you know, that might be on the smaller end of it. And then actual real seasons of visitations, revivings in your life and maybe in the life of those around you.

Those seasons where we could say we have a special awareness of His presence with us and His love for us, those must not take the place of Christ and they must not be made an occasion of pride or security.

You know, Christ's visits are not Christ.

Yeah, those three things that He warns about there. Don't let them take the place of Christ. Don't let them promote pride in you. Don't let them become your security are pretty important warnings. And I don't know.

I mean, really as a pastor, I don't think of that often because those wonderful seasons seem to be so rare in our day, you know, on the corporate scale, but they do come. They come to individuals and they do come to churches.

And so we want to be wise in how we respond. We don't want the enemy to use the kindnesses of God to promote in us a wrong response. What does He mean by that? Well, Christ is our treasure, not the feelings we get when Christ draws near.

And so I think that's what He means there. You can't make a second Christ. There's only one Christ and He's the one we treasure. He's the Savior, not these feelings. And then we don't want to become proud because this was a pure gift.

It is a father looking at a child laboring to do what the father wants him to do. And he in his perfect wisdom knows now is just the time for one of those sweet seasons where I pull the child aside and just let them see what's so real.

And then the third thing, don't let it become your security. What's He mean? Well, it would be easy when you have those seasons to think, now I know God loves me. But what happens in the wintry spells?

If the season of extraordinary consolation was your foundation for hope, then now all that's gone. And you think, well, now I'm pretty sure God is sick of me. And I am too, so I don't blame Him. So the Christian enjoys these, but these are extra in a sense.

These are wonderful gifts, but they are not the foundation of our relationship, which can only be, again, the finished work of Christ received by faith.

What Makes a Christian and the Aim of Evangelism

Now, after all these weeks of looking at evangelism, here's how Walker sums up, you might say, the end or the fruit of evangelism. What is a Christian? And he uses these words, conviction, faith, and its fruit and conversion and daily sanctification constitute a Christian.

So it's a great question for us to ask. Is that our view of a Christian? Is that our goal in evangelism to bring about, to see those things in our life? Is that a church member? It's a really good time for us to ask that.

Yeah, and we think of it this way. If God has sent the believer as an ambassador every day to speak a word for Christ to the needy around them, then if it's right for us to be a spokesman on behalf of Christ, it's right for us to go to the Lord and in a humble but holy boldness to say to Him, I will not be satisfied with anything less than this when we're looking for a Christian.

This is what we're aiming at. He also describes an evangelist or the work of an evangelist. He says this, it is to humble the sinner and exalt the redeemer by leading the former out of himself to Christ in everything.

So next session, we hope to look at his second approach to evangelism, which is an abbreviated approach, because we feel that after 10 weeks of this, that our 10 podcasts, you know, that maybe you feel like we've lost you in the process.

So we'll be able to just kind of cover in one session, everything he's said over the last 10 weeks.

Thanks for listening to the Behold Your God podcast. All the scripture passages and resources we mentioned in the podcast are available in this week's show notes at mediagratia .org slash podcast. That's m-e-d-i-a-g-r-a-t-i-a-e dot o-r-g.

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