O Give Thanks to the Lord, Part 2

bibles and turn to the book of
Philippians or if you prefer your little booklet or if you
prefer the bulletin the passage that we will be considering is
there in its entirety with some special places for notes. I do
want you to have your Bibles handy though because we’ll be
turning to a couple of different passages this morning. I have for us this morning, I’m
sure every message that I preach, I consider as special. I remember
hearing one Puritan say that he preached as a dying man to
dying men. And I hope that I come with that
to some degree each week. But I have a kind of a special
sense about the passage in front of us today because I think it’s
for a special group of people in our midst. I want to preach
this morning to the discouraged. I want to preach to those who
find themselves in a battle. They find Christianity suddenly
to be not so easy. Perhaps they’re even weary of
the fight and discouraged and frustrated. They’re tired of
confessing the same old things to God. They’re tired of facing
the same battles. They’re just tired. They’re frustrated
and discouraged. It’s for you this morning that
I think the passage will be particularly helpful. Before we delve into
the passage at hand this morning, I want to review. I want to go
back a little bit We were looking last week at Paul’s opening words
there, beginning in verse 3. Paul expressed to the Philippians
that he was thankful for them, that he was praying for them.
As you know from the context, they had sent him some kind of
sizable gift. And because of that, he sends
Epaphroditus right back to them. to encourage them and to bring
gratitude from the apostles heart. What he writes, though, in verses
three and following really are far beyond just an expression
of gratitude. As we saw that they they kind
of for us lay out a pattern of what a Christian’s thankful recognition
should look like. And I call it a Christian’s thankful
recognition because I believe that only truly a Christian can
really look at what God’s hand is doing in the world and acknowledge
Him for it. That’s what Paul does. He’s not
thanking the Philippians. He’s thanking God for God’s work
in the Philippians. And only a Christian can recognize
that work. Would you join me again? Just
look at verse 3 as we pick it up. I thank my God in all my
remembrance of you, always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer
for you all, in view of your participation in the Gospel from
the first day until now. For I am confident of this very
thing, that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until
the day of Christ Jesus. For it is only right for me to
feel this way about you all, because I have you in my heart.
Since both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation
of the gospel, you are all partakers of grace with me. For God is
my witness, how I long for you all with the affection of Christ
Jesus.” Paul was a thankful man. We reviewed last week that almost
all of his epistles open with an expression of gratitude for
various things that God had done in and through the believers
and often for the believers themselves and for what they, by God’s grace,
had done or accomplished. Those expressions of gratitude
are found at the opening of all of his epistles. For the Romans,
he thanks them for their faith. He thanks God for their faith.
For the Corinthians, for the grace that was extended to them.
For the Ephesians and Colossians, for their faith and their love.
And for the Thessalonians, the most grand expression of gratitude
in all the epistles. He says, for their work of faith,
labor of love and steadfastness of hope. Thanksgiving was a pattern
for Paul, and we were reminded last week that Thanksgiving can
serve as a tonic, if you will, as a moral therapeutic, as one
called it, for that bitter and sour attitude that often leaves
us overly critical of others. We ought to pause and bow before
God and extend to him thanks not just once a year on a Thursday
in November, but as even our brother exhorted at our Thanksgiving
fellowship, we ought to be thankful people all year round. We ought to sit and examine what
God has done in our hearts and lives by way of His good providence,
by way of His protection, By way of the blessings that he’s
bestowed upon us, we ought to sit and enumerate and rejoice
before him in all that he’s done. And in a sense, that’s what Paul
does. But he also lays forth, as I suggest here, a pattern
for all of us to emulate. And I called it four qualities
of a Christian’s thankful recognition. The first one that we saw last
week was that Thankful recognition is built on a comprehensive memory. When Paul said, I thank my God
in all my remembrance of you, I believe that he conjured up
not by any way of repudiating the Philippian believers or in
casting their sin back before their eyes, but in Paul’s heart
and mind, he looked over the grand spiritual landscape that
was Philippi And he saw sinners, but he also saw some of those
sinners come to Christ. And that’s what he indicates
when he says, I thank my God in all my remembrance of you.
I thank my God, Lydia, when I came to the shore and you and those
ladies were there and you were a God fearer. But you didn’t
know Christ. I thank my God for that remembrance.
And I thank my God for how you responded to the gospel. And
I thank my God for what he did through you, that immediately
you had us into your home and lavished us with hospitality.
I thank my God. I thank my God, Philippian Jailer,
that you once were that man. You once were that brute that
locked us up in the dungeon, in the worst place imaginable.
But I thank my God also that you didn’t kill yourself. I thank
my God also that you too heeded God’s call. I thank my God that
just like Lydia, you had us all into your home and a grand celebration. I thank my God in all my remembrance
of you. And the one thing that a Christian
can do to mitigate against this critical spirit of their brothers,
is to bow and fall on our knees and to actively thank God for
the totality of the recollection that we have of every believer
in our midst. I told you last week, I probably
set some of you on a project that seemed a little daunting. I told you to pray through the
phone book. What I meant was the church phone book. I see
some of you took the bait. You’re probably still on A. What
I indicated there is take the phone book and use it as a prayer
guide. Pray for the children. Pray for the adults. Pray for
the families. Pray for one another. And thank
God for what God is doing in and through the believers in
our midst. That’s exactly what Paul does
here. Secondly, not only is a Thankful recognition
built on a comprehensive memory, looking back and seeing what
God is doing in believers lives. But secondly, a thankful recognition
produces a constant petitioning. Essentially, what Paul says here
or what Paul does is recognizing God’s grace actively at work
in the lives of believers, he says, can I have some more? It’s,
as I said last week, kind of a sanctified greed. It’s a good
thing. Paul sees this wealth of grace
available to him and available to others, and he acknowledges
what God has already done in believers’ lives, and he says,
may I have some more. Look at verse 4. Always offering
prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all. But the context of that statement
is, I thank my God. I thank my God offering prayer.
I thank my God by asking for more. That’s essentially the
thought pattern there. The word literally means that
offering prayer, making requests. I thank my God by making requests. One of the most thankful things
that we can do is to go to the God of all grace who has an infinite
storehouse available to us and to go before Him and to ask Him. I suggested last week that at
least in some way, shape or form, keep just a little prayer journal.
three-by-five card, a piece of paper, a notebook. I know the
ladies like the fancy ones that are perfumed and have flowers
and a little ribbon in them. Whatever works. But do something
and write down the requests that you make of God and watch. Watch
what a great means of thanksgiving it is to go back through those
prayer books and to see how God has moved and worked in people’s
lives on the very things for which you prayed. It’s a constant
petitioning. And we noticed last week, the
superlatives seemed to pile up like the snow in front of my
shovel last week, right? I mean, look at it. Always offering prayer with joy
in my every prayer for you all. I’m praying for all of you. And
every time I pray, I’m always offering more prayer for you.
Always, always, always. You get the impression here that
this is the prayer of an importunate apostle. One that would not give up. One
that kept coming back to God. And there are those prayer requests
that we have to bear up. And a lot of times, only we can
bear up. We can share prayer requests in prayer meetings and
Bible study. But we can’t hardly expect every
saint of God to take up the same cause that we do in prayer. God
doesn’t lay the burden on every child of God’s heart equally.
There are prayer requests that God has laid on your heart that
only you can bear up with the kind of intensity that He desires. Ask, seek, and knock. That’s the kind of intensity
that I get from Paul on this one. That he could not get the
Philippians off of his heart and mind. Thirdly, the third quality of a Christian’s
thankful recognition, still by way of review, is that thankful
recognition recognizes a cooperation in God’s plan. And by this, don’t
be misled. I’m not talking about our cooperation
in salvation. Not like God sits around twiddling
His thumbs waiting for us to respond. By cooperation, I’m talking about
the work of the Gospel. I am so thankful. I don’t even
know when it was I am so thankful that it dawned on me very early
that I am not in the ministry alone. Ephesians 4 teaches us,
taught me clearly that this is the work of the saints. We are
all working together. In fact, the image that I get,
I’ve shared this from time to time, I get the image of a wall
that’s being erected, right? brick by brick, and that we’re
all contributing to that wall. We’re all building. We’re all
intertwined with one another, all the other bricks. And I get
the image of a shuddering wall. It’s a shuddering wall until
that last brick is placed in the wall. It’s a work that we’re
all part of. That’s what Paul says in verse
5 when he says, I thank my God in view of your participation
in the gospel from the first day until now. Now, when he says
participation in the gospel, we looked at this. He’s not talking
about their coming to faith. He’s not talking about the fact
that they had yielded to Christ. What he’s talking about was their
faithful and constant support of his ministry. that he acknowledges
on numerous occasions, you sent a gift more than once for my
needs. And God has blessed you because
of that. This fellowship that he speaks of here, this koinonia,
this participation went far beyond just writing a check. Their hearts went with that check. They were deeply interested in
Paul’s ministry. And Paul acknowledges that ministry
is a group effort. I remember when we were preaching
through the Gospel of Luke. Remember Luke? We were preaching through the
Gospel of Luke and it came to a passage that initially was
one of those, you know, kind of filler passages for me. I
shared this some months ago. In chapter eight, listen to how
it rings in accordance with what we just read. This is about Christ,
and it says, soon afterwards, He that is Christ began going
around from one city and village to another, proclaiming and preaching
the Kingdom of God. This is ministry that’s in focus
here. The twelve were with Him. And also some women who had been
healed of evil spirits and sicknesses. Mary, who was called Magdalene,
from whom seven demons had gone out. Joanna, the wife of Cusa.
Herod’s steward. And Susanna and many others.
And it’s an interesting list. If you look back on it, the 12th
and the next part of that list is some women who had been healed
of evil spirits. And so he puts them in this crowd
that was all going from town to town. We know what use the
apostles were to Christ. Christ is actively teaching them
and training them to carry on the ministry. But one might ask,
what was the purpose of these women? Mary, who was called Magdalene. Joanna, the wife of Cusa. Certainly
having a notable dignitary’s wife with you wouldn’t hurt,
right? Traveling about. But the one that’s curious is
Susanna. The one that’s curious in this
list, as I said before, is Susanna. Because it’s the only time in
all of Scripture that her name is even mentioned. We might even
call her a nobody. But that’s not what Scripture
presents her to be. In this grand list of which Christ
is the head, the Apostles second, these other women, included in
that list is Susanna. And this is the women’s claim
to fame. It says, Mary, Joanna, Susanna,
and many others who are contributing to their support out of their
private means. Jesus points out right there,
by means of the Holy Spirit and what Luke records, that ministry
is a group effort. And what Paul called it here
was a privileged partnership, as we saw in 2 Corinthians 8.
The Philippians saw this as a very good deal. A great privilege
to be involved in the ministry of the apostle Paul. They counted
it as a great privilege. And Paul recognizes that this
cooperation in God’s plan, that it wasn’t just him. And when
we look about our own respective ministries, that’s one problem
that we have as we become so myopic that our ministry is the
only ministry. Our efforts in the church are
the only efforts in the church. And we ought to look. We ought
to bow again in prayer. We ought to express our gratitude
to God for the others that are gifted in various ways. But God
has allowed me this privileged ministry. That’s how we ought
to pray. Fourthly, and here we delved
into new material. And as I’ve done in times past,
I’m going to wrap up one sermon and go immediately to the next,
because point four in this study of Philippians 1, 3 through
8 would simply go like this. Thankful recognition, fourthly,
is strengthened by a confidence in God’s continued work. But with that, I want to just
set that aside and lay before you a new or perhaps even a second
tier of an outline. I told you at the outset that
this message is particularly for those who struggle. For those
who struggle with sin, and are frustrated by it. Perhaps you’ve
been a Christian for a long time and you still have the same struggle.
Perhaps you’ve stumbled even lately. You’ve sinned. Holiness seems like such an impossible
standard that the closer you try to draw near to it, the further
it seems to be. Perhaps like many Christians,
you’ve plateaued. Confession seems cold. You don’t
even know how to drum up new words to make what you sound
as heinous as you feel it to be. You feel like you’re acting
on the stage of stages. You’re weary. You’re frustrated
with fighting the fight like Paul in Romans 7. Like the sinner in Luke’s parable,
you come skulking into the back of the church and you say, God,
be merciful to me, a sinner. You feel unworthy, you feel inadequate,
you feel imperfect. To a degree, you feel hopeless
because the closer you get to God, the more impossible you
see that standard to be. You seem to be constantly under
conviction and because of that, weary in the battle. This message
is for you. And I’ve entitled the message,
The Hope of Sanctification, because that’s exactly what Philippians
1.6 gives to us. It gives to us the hope of change,
the hope of holiness, the hope of one day, even though often
a distance, one day being perfected and glorified as Christ is glorified. One Puritan writing some years
ago, said, a man raised from the dead may be and long
continue to be in a feeble, diseased and suffering state. I mean,
if you can imagine such a being raised from the dead. And he
goes on to say, so the soul by nature, dead in sin, may be quickened
together with Christ and not be rendered thereby perfect.
That is the state in which you and I as Christians find ourselves
this morning. We’ve been enlivened. We’ve been
raised from the dead, spiritually speaking, but we’re not perfect.
Far from it. The principle of life may be
feeble. It may have much in the soul.
with its nature, and the conflict between the old and the new life
may be protracted and painful, such not only may be, but such
is the fact in the case in all the ordinary experience of the
people of God.” So, if you’re here this morning and you have
named the name of Christ, welcome to the struggle. This message
is for you. Here, We find one of the characteristic
and far-reaching differences between the Roman and the Protestant
systems. This is exactly the point of
departure that Roman Catholics make from what Scripture teaches. as they begin to believe that
at the point of regeneration, at the point of faith, justification
as it were, you are made perfect. And that every step away from
that is a step in the wrong direction and that somehow you’ve got to
do things to recenter yourself in Christ. It’s not the case. According to what Scripture teaches,
the universal experience of Christians, he goes on to say, and the undeniable
evidence of history, is that regeneration does not remove
all sin. The Bible is filled with the
record of the inward conflicts of the most eminent of the servants
of God with their failings, their backslidings, their repentings,
their lamentations over continued shortcomings. With the teaching of the Scriptures,
the experience of Christians in all ages and in all parts
of the church is in agreement Their writings are filled with
the accounts of their struggles, with the remains of sin in their
own hearts, with confessions, with prayers for divine aid,
with longings after final victory over evil, which is to be experienced
only in heaven. The great saints of history were
humble, penitent, struggling believers, even to the last. And with Paul, they did not regard
themselves as having already attained or being already perfect. And what the Bible and Christian
experience proved to be true, history puts beyond repute. Either there is no such thing
as regeneration in the world or regeneration does not remove
all the sin of those who are its subjects. The bottom line is we have this
tendency to confuse wrongly what takes place at justification
and what is the nature of sanctification. And we’ll look at that by way
of building up our hope Our hope of change, our hope of reform,
our hope of Christ likeness, because we hear about it. But
the longer we walk with Christ, the more difficult it seems,
doesn’t it? Aren’t you discouraged to still be confessing to God
the same things that you seem to confess the day that you repented? I know I do. In every Christian, said one,
there is a mixture of good and evil. The original corruption
of nature is not entirely removed by regeneration. Even though
the believer is made a new creature and is translated from the kingdom
of darkness to the kingdom of God’s dear son, he is but partially
sanctified. His selfishness, pride, discontent
and worldliness still cleave to and torment him. They prevent
doing what he would. They prevent his living without
sin. They prevent his communion with God as being intimate and
interrupted. He finds that he is all too often,
even daily, overcome so as to sin in thought, word and deed,
but also that his faith, love, zeal and devotion are never such
to satisfy his own conscience. You know, what’s interesting
about that is our conscience isn’t even the standard. So if
we can’t even please ourselves in our walk with God, how on
earth can we please God? He is therefore daily called
upon to confess, to repent, to pray for forgiveness. I’m just laying the groundwork
here with what Saints of old have said about this common struggle
that we find ourselves engaged in. Another godly pastor said
it this way, he said, it is futile to argue that this conflict is
not normal. And that’s what you get from
a lot of counseling perspectives. You get the attitude that we
ought to be having been regenerated, having been saved. Why are you
continuing to struggle with sin? It is futile, he says, to argue
that this conflict is not normal. When the Apostle Paul in Romans
7 said, it is normal. It is the Christian struggle.
If there is still sin to any degree in one who is indwelt
by the Holy Spirit, then there is and will be tension. Even
contradiction within the heart of that person. Indeed, the more
sanctified the person is, the more conformed he is to the image
of the Savior, the more he must recoil against every lack of
conformity to the holiness of God. He’s not going to like what
he experiences. He is going to feel that inward
conflict. He goes on to say, and I close
with this, the deeper his apprehension of the mystery of God, the greater
the intensity of his love for God, the more persistent his
yearning for the attainment of the high calling of Christ Jesus,
the more conscious he will be of the gravity of sin which remains
and the more poignant will be his detestation of it. In other
words, welcome to the club, this message is for you. I want to
take you again to the passage. Go again to the passage. I thank
my God in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer
with joy in my every prayer for you all in view of your participation
in the gospel from the first day in until now. For I am confident
of this very thing that he who began a good work in you will
perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” I want to lay out before you the
hope of sanctification that is the believer’s possession. We
do have that promise of God, even if nowhere else in Scripture
we have it right here. in Philippians 1.6. I would even
refer to it as elements of gradual glory. We’re going to get it
piecemeal. We’re not going to get it all at once. All at once,
we got holiness in Christ. We got the righteousness of Christ
all at once by means of justification. That’s the only reason we’re
here this morning. That’s the only reason that we
can bow and pray to God and expect that God would hear us. It’s
because now we stand, as we said several weeks ago, in Christ. But this sanctification is a
different thing. It is gradual glory. It is eventual. One day we will have it in full,
but we’re not going to get a large chunk that completes the package.
until glory.” And we’ll talk about that in a moment. I just
want to lay out three simple thoughts to you, observing from
this passage. First of all, the Christian sanctification
is affected by Almighty God. I mean, when Paul says this,
I don’t have any doubt that the Philippians latched onto that
as their only hope. Look at verse 6, “…I am confident
of this very thing, that He…” Who? He. That is God. I am absolutely persuaded that
He will do it. Paul’s trust wasn’t in the Philippians. Paul’s trust wasn’t in their
great family heritage. Paul’s trust wasn’t in the great
local pastor they had. Paul’s trust wasn’t in the great
literature to which they had exposure. Paul’s trust wasn’t
in this intimate fellowship that they had developed. Paul’s trust
in their continuation in grace was in God alone. Paul’s trust
in God was in God only for the continuation of their fellowship.
God was the source of Paul’s confidence, not the Philippians. And it wasn’t even confidence
just for himself, but for his converts. Paul had seen them.
He’d watched their lives. He knew enough to know that God
had begun a work in them and that that same God was not going
to let up. God was not going to wash His
hands of the Philippians. God was not going to give up
on them. One said it this way, Paul expressed
his firm persuasion and hope of their perseverance for the
future. Not from anything in themselves,
but because God the Father, having begun the work, would preserve
and carry out that internal and spiritual work of any true Christian. God was at work. You know, honestly,
we’ve talked about this a little bit before. That’s what makes
this whole argument of, I don’t even like to call it lordship
salvation, so absurd. We don’t save ourselves, nor
do we sanctify ourselves. But the God that begins salvation
is going to continue the work in a believer by means of sanctification. And whether it’s 10 years or
50 years or 15 minutes, you’re going to be more Christ-like
in the future than you are now because of the nature of the
God who is at work. God is working and God will do
His work. God will bring you to repentance.
God will weed out that sinful tendency. God will bring you
to Christ likeness in time. God is at work. One pastor said it this way.
He said the apostles confidence that they’re united in public
spirit would continue rested on his knowledge of God’s character
and methods of operation. The good work originated by Him
is not suffered to lapse, but is fostered and blessed until
His end is accomplished. I mean, a lot of people look
at this whole ministry thing like it’s a garden. That if the
seeds that you sow, you know, maybe fizzle out, just plant
some more seeds. That’s not how God is operating.
When God begins work in a believer’s life, it is slow, it is gradual,
and I’ll tell you, it is eventual. Number one, they will be saved.
Secondly, they will be sanctified. When God begins work in a believer’s
life, it is a slow, and gradual process. But it is God always
that is at work in the believer’s life, as we’ll see secondly. The second element of this gradual
glory is that the Christian sanctification is not only effected by Almighty
God, but it is built upon the grace of salvation. As I said,
it’s the same God who did the work of salvation, now at work
with the same resources in the work of sanctification. Look
at the passage again. I am confident of this very thing,
that He who began a good work in you, it doesn’t say that He
finished the work of salvation, because if that was the case,
you would be in heaven. There are some who enjoy this morning
the finished work of salvation. God has sent His Son to die for
them. In time, He brought them to faith.
In this world, they perished. And now they enjoy salvation. For us, it is a work that has
begun. For the Philippians at the time
of this writing, it was a work that was begun. But it wasn’t
yet completed. No one will possess Heaven without
sanctification as well. It’s exactly what Hebrew says.
Without which, no one will see the Lord. Not only this justification
by His grace, but also sanctification by the same grace is necessary
for heaven. And both of them are works of
God, as we’ll see. This good work that he refers
to, it isn’t the good works of the Philippians. It isn’t the
fact that they were just great people with a generous perspective
and a liberal checkbook. It’s not what Paul’s talking
about there when it says that God had begun a good work in
them. It was the good work of the reception of the gospel.
That was first and foremost. It pointed to a comprehensive,
as one person said, a comprehensive work of grace in the hearts of
these believers. that affected not only their
standing before God, but also their outward activity, the way
they carried themselves. There’s no doubt that they were
changed people. That’s exactly why Paul is writing,
to acknowledge to them. But what Paul wants to say is
before you ever wrote a check for the mission, before you ever
had me into your house, God was at work and God saved you. God
began the work. One said it this way, that with
special intensity and significance is this attribute ascribed to
his work of saving grace in which he makes sinful men good by enabling
them to reflect his own image. The long and faithful continuance
of the brethren at Philippi in their fellowship with respect
to the gospel gave most convincing evidence that divine grace had
begun a good work in them.” A good work. wasn’t their good
works. The good work was their salvation.
And because of their salvation flowed these magnanimous good
works. Thirdly, and this is where we’re
going to spend our time for the remainder of our time this morning.
The Christian sanctification is effected by Almighty God,
built upon the grace of salvation and destined for perfection. There’s your hope, struggling
Christian. There’s your hope, downcast Christian. Your hope is that God is at work
and He’s not going to give up on you until you are complete,
perfect. until you do possess holiness
of life, even if it takes to the last breath. Then upon that
last breath, God will perfect you in the process of glorification
and you will be welcomed to heaven for eternity. But this isn’t
the effort of human exertion. This isn’t the fruit of human
exertion, but really just the the fullness of God’s grace at
work in a believer’s life. That’s what Paul says. That he
who began a good work in you will perfect it. He’s not calling
us to perfection. We’ll talk more later as Paul
begins to wrestle with this at the middle of the second chapter. He’s not telling us to do nothing,
but he’s also not telling us that it’s all up to us. that
if we’re going to make it to heaven, boy, we’ve got to be
perfect and we’ve got to get busy. Paul’s confident that his good
work of transforming and changing these Philippian believers would
not go unfinished. One person said it this way,
men conduct experiments, God carries out a plan. And when
God sets His electing love upon a believer, He intends to change
them into the image of Christ. I told you at the outset that
we needed to kind of look at this difference between justification
and sanctification. Justification is a point in time
decision that God makes. Sanctification, on the other
hand, is a progressive work. Justification is an act of God
who sits like a judge and declares us righteous because of the fact
that we are in Christ. Sanctification, on the other
hand, is an effect that is due also to God’s work in our lives
over time. The changes in justification
really refer more to our relationship with God itself. The change that
is involved in sanctification is a change of character over
time. If you will, if you want to get really theologically in
depth The changes in justification are objective. The changes in
sanctification are subjective. Justification is founded on what
Christ has done for us, said one. Sanctification is the effect
of what He does in us. Sanctification essentially is
declared to be a work of God’s grace. Just like salvation. And so there’s a couple of things
that are implied in that. Number one, the power or the
influence that is part of that sanctifying process is supernatural. That’s exactly what Paul points
to. God will do it. God is at work. But secondly,
it is also a matter of divine grace. It’s a matter of favor.
And that by granting this influence to one sinner in greater quantities
or at quicker pace than another is all part of God’s plan. He
said it was supernatural work. First of all, one said of this process of sanctification, It’s
proven that it is supernatural work by this. Every such prayer,
every thanksgiving for grace that is imparted to us, every
recognition of the Christian virtues as fruits of the Spirit
and gifts of God are so many recognitions of the great truth
that the restoration of man to the image of God is not a work
of nature, but it is truly and properly supernatural due to
the immediate power of the Holy Spirit. In fact, think back in
your minds, we don’t have time to go there right now, but in
Ephesians chapter one, in Ephesians chapter one, Paul prayed that
his readers would know, know, experientially know the exceeding
greatness of his power towards us who believe. which God brought about when
He raised Christ from the dead. He said, I want you to know resurrection
kind of power. And by saying that, what He wanted
the believer to know is that the same power that was used
at the resurrection is the same power that is active at work
in us in this process, this great process of making us more and
more conformed to Christ. The same power. As I said before, We don’t sanctify
ourselves. We don’t make ourselves holy.
Our holiness, our growth in godliness isn’t due to the fact that we’ve
latched hold of God’s hand and refused to let go. It’s not because
of our watchfulness or diligence, said one. These are required,
but it’s ultimately due to the divine influence. It’s God. It’s God Who is at work in you? It’s God who has begun a good
work in you that will complete that process. In Romans chapter 7, Paul wrestled
with this very thing. Remember, Paul didn’t end up
deciding that, you know what? Salvation is all of grace, but
the sanctification deal, that’s up to me. What Paul basically
concludes there is all of salvation, the whole process of it, is all
due to God’s grace in our lives. We’re not justified by our own
righteousness. We’re not sanctified by our own
power. One Puritan said it this way,
the sanctification and the ultimate salvation of believers are secured
by the immutable decree of God. For those whom He did foreknow,
He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His
Son. Those whom He predestined, He called. Those whom He called,
He justified. Those whom He justified, these
also He glorified.” What he quotes there from Romans 8, the last
sentence there includes sanctification, that whole glorification process. Salvation from beginning to end
is all a work of God. It is all of grace. It excludes merit, it excludes
any obligation on God’s part to do it for anyone or on anyone
else’s timetable, but God’s alone. And so for you who struggle,
for you who are frustrated and discouraged by the pace At your
growth in Christ, I don’t say that you shouldn’t long for it.
We should. But the bottom line, don’t give
up. And know that God has your ultimate glorification in mind.
God is the one who is actively at work in you, sanctifying you. In fact, that longing is placed
in your heart by God for Christlikeness. And it will continue until what
Paul calls the day of Christ Jesus. The day that He returns. The
day that God sends Christ back to earth to set up His grand
kingdom forever. That is the day of Christ and
that is the day of glory for the Christian as well. And I
know that for many of us, that all seems far off and we’re caught
here in the battle. Cry out for grace. God is at
work within you. Let’s pray. But it’s a work of grace. It’s a work over time. It’s a
work of God. And Lord, we take great courage
and confidence from that. We pray that it would continue
until the day of glory. We do thank You and praise You.
In Jesus’ name, Amen. Hey!