God has done everything for salvation, why pursue holiness? | Clip from Perseverance of the Saints

Yeah, really, um, you know one of the dangers that we want to warn against and I think that this chapter really it's helpful

It's an antidote against every bad idea of this doctrine Tenet really does a good job.

But one of the dangers we want to warn against is kind of an either -or reaction maybe we could say the pendulum swinging too far one way or the other so You know as Evangelicals, we might look at those who say you can't know that you're saved

It's based on continuing to do good works all the way to the end and we would say we we believe you have the wrong understanding of the foundation of our peace

How can Paul say things like there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ? Am I in Christ now?

Is there no condemnation for me then? Why would you say that? I can't know that you know, and I can't have any assurance

So we react against that kind of a works -based Justification justified by faith now, but ultimately if I add enough good works

I stay justified but in reacting against that have we gone so far to say that all that matters in Christianity is

Justification or the initial act of faith running the race is optional

Because Christ did it all and in my opinion. It's almost like hyper Calvinism, which says The death of Christ the preaching of the gospel the living of the

Christian life the prayer life of the Christian all of that is Well, let's be honest Optional because all that mattered was that in eternity past God elected.

So why is this even necessary? You know and the same fatal flaw falls over, you know in this category of if Jesus has died for me and I'm saved by grace then

Pressing on all the way to the end is just a nice option Peter really deals with that in 2nd

Peter where in his in the first chapter he mentions that It is the divine power of God that is granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness so everything, you know, there's there's nothing that you add and Then he turns around and the two verses later and says now for this very reason also applying all diligence in your faith

Supply moral excellence and in your moral excellence knowledge and in your knowledge self -control and in your self -control

Perseverance and in your perseverance godliness and in your godliness brotherly kindness and in your brotherly kindness love he talks about how if you have these qualities and They're increasing that you're neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of Christ, but not to have them is to be short -sighted

So he's you know How can he both insist that Christ has given you everything that pertains to life and godliness and then say for that reason?

supply these things Obviously, there's no lack if Christ has supplied them So He's not telling us to work for our salvation or add to our salvation

But because you have been saved There's a response and a life to to live and this this walk that we're going to talk about so he

Shows us that both are necessary and we can't ignore one or the other Well tenant does a good job of giving a balance here and every time you know

Your pastor may speak about this or every time you talk, you know, you think of talking to a person at work or in school

Maybe if you have children talking to one of your children about Christ, it's not as if you have to always give

Everything that could be given sometimes, you know in the pattern of Christ, it's pretty clear.

Sometimes he only says enough To make the people think and then he leaves them to think and so sometimes

We don't mention both sides of everything, you know, we don't always balance it perfectly But tenant because this is a chapter in a book, you know

And this is I don't know how close his sermon was to this, you know, whether he kind of Generally a lot of the books that we have of old old preacher sermons

They would have gotten their notes and they would have kind of filled it out and made it more Complete for print and so it is a good balanced chapter, but he he he does emphasize persevering our response more than God's initiative