1115. How Do We Grow In Gospel Grace (part 2)?

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville South Carolina today will hear the conclusion of the sermon from Dr. Sam Horn preached at the Bob Jones University Bible conference where the theme was sanctification from first Thessalonians chapter 5 and so sanctification is built on a foundation and the foundation is the work that God did when he declared you righteous in Romans chapters 1 through three and when you understand that you have a question. What shall we say this. This is in Romans chapter 6 verse one what shall we say down this, shall we continue in sin and Paul's answer that couldn't be more definitive. He said no. May it never be so. The theological ground on which your segregation is built and harasses justification. It's spiritual acts of immaculate actualization. In other words, how is it actualized involves spirit, energized obedience, we can say this by becoming more like Christ and less like the world involves personal effort that is affected by the spirit is energized by grace, and it is directed by I think in pictures. So let me give you a sort of embarrassing illustration about this. My wife and I enjoy the trails that are around our house. There is a lot of walking trails and jogging trails and hiking trails and then there is this immense sale.

It's a it's it's a California term for a bike path and and it's about a 30 mile trail and so I had a bike and I started biking that trail. I really enjoyed it and I thought you know Beth might like this and so I I went to Beth and assumed you would you enjoy this and she said sure I would enjoy that and and I thought well you know it's 30 miles I need to get her the kind of bike that she can navigate this trail and so I went down I had a buddy, I met a buddy that had a bike store and went down there and they had a an electric paddle assist like how many of you have a mom that has an electric bill… By yet you know somebody that has a bike like that. I never heard of this. So I talked to Beth about it in and I bought this bike for her and and so she started riding around her neighborhood and then we had a day when we get to go on this bike only 5 mile bike so we got out there and I clip and and I will bike helmet and off we go, and I I am tooling down this bike path and I'm just pouring.

I mean it. It's hard it's difficult I'm trying to keep about an 18 to 20 mile pace. As I'm writing, and I mean it's just, and I'm flying down this path and I look back and I can't see Beth I thought well okay and I just kept writing just drive along. You know, being a loving husband.

I know it's as I'm she's back there. God will take care of it on Friday.

I love and and my legs are burning, looking back there and there's no so I get ready to settle my kind I catch my breath, but this would be a good excuse.

If she comes up to just say honey I was waiting for you spring for you while you were writing this one. Make sure you okay so I'm having only Stutzman doesn't get ready to pull over stop and get on the bike and says I'm looking back like this. I swing around this way and I look over there in there's bath in front of me just come in behind like this.

I'm like, just she's right up on her little bike 20 miles an hour nap. You know bike that doesn't sound like a lot, but if you bike at that screen your legs are dying in your ear like chill at your outcome off those rides. I might just like trying to get in the car without crawling and here's my like standing up or sitting upright.

This look around, you know, waving like a queen and that's cheating. It was the paddle assist you know she was working she was pedaling just like I was paddling she was doing all the same things she was keeping her balance. She was even on the Paseo she was going off the path she was all the things I was doing, but there was something different. There was immense assist and you know what there is an immense assist when it comes to God helping you in Christian sanctification. It isn't just you pedaling the bike. It's it's not good happen if you don't get on the bike is not good happen if you don't paddle is not good happen if you don't stay on the path but if you try to do it like I did it. You are going to exhaust yourself and it isn't going to happen because God didn't design sanctification to work that way in your life. God designed sanctification to involve your faithful effort, but you are faithful average is going to be energized by his insurmountable find a measurable strength that will take you far more the distance and anything you could ever do with your own little pedaling. It is grace enabled spirit energized obedience and the pathway that you have to stay on that fuels all of it and guides all of it is the word of God.

That's the indispensable agent of all John 17 that we were last night. Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth. Second Corinthians 318. Because of this we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, when we look into this. Whatever it is that he's talking about and find out later when we looking at the word and we see the glory of God in Jesus, there we are changed into that same image from glory to glory, even as by the spirit of the Lord. So that's how it functions in her life and how does it actually happen. That's our third question, how does it happen individually in our personal lives. We were a sort of answer the question but just just review in your mind quickly. It happens through the consistent engagement. We had daily with the word of God. That's why reading your Bible is so essential reading your Bible every day is not sorta like this deal he made with God so that your day goes better. Your reading your Bible is insert like the spiritual vitamin E takes a you don't catch a cold or is not like the sort of answer to some big question that's coming up in your life reading your Bible is indispensable because it is the fuel that the spirit of God uses that energized and direct the process of Christian sanctification as you paddle your bike involves not just the consistent engagement with the word of God, but a willing obedience to the will of God that is revealed to you that day by the word of God is enhanced by an essential dependence on God through prayer, God hears what your word said open my eyes so I can really understand it and grasp it.

There are there are parts of sanctification that involve more than just your eyes reading the word on the page of your Bible. There has to be the spirit of God opening your eyes spiritually so that you can understand what God really put their so God opened my eyes so I understand you will three words a day in the give me the grace to submit to your spirit as I do that word, and here's why. All that matters because one of the ways that sanctification happens individually in her life. In fact, it's one of the one of the more common and most effective ways that God uses to sanctify us in here it is. It is suffering is trial pressure and suffering you say God I want you to sanctify me okay. Fair warning. God is very upfront with you. The process of sanctification is going to rub up against your will and it's gonna rub up against things in your life where your flesh is going to want to push against it and by the grace of God through the word of God, and in submission to the spirit of God, you have a look at your flash and say die die and to be anything that God gives you may have a roommate that that's God's instrument of sanctification in your life you may be in a marriage and that's God's instrument, but it may be actually a hardship or trial, or it may be, it may be something that rubs up against you.

Why do we just always have to do it this way.

Why does this have to be this way there. There's nothing in the Bible lessons you do and all of a sudden there's something that's cutting into your life and at that moment, you got a come to God's words, a God, what did you tell me to do about because that's the part of you that God is trying to sanctify at that moment, I am happy to talk about sanctification and all the errors in my like the gods not talking me about, but it's this one area. At that moment that God is working on and that's where the battle for Christian sanctification is actually happening and that's where all this theology has to be pointed. There is this rule and it irritates me and it bugs me and it just gets is all right.

That's about. You have a God, you know, I want to talk about same fusion over here because this is an area my life that I'm really working on United on my prayer life and I should be my Bible more and you know there's this I'm really interested in serving over here. Gus is and what we okay that's great and really do all of that for right now were talking about this. That's the battleground. So here's a real important question for you this morning. What is the this right now in your life today that God is dealing with when you have set some services and Uganda workshops and you've heard all kinds of things in it. I mean could be anything.

And all of a sudden you're beginning to realize the spirit of God is saying to you. Here is the area of conflict and you and I are going to have to focus attention here and you're gonna have to paddle and when you paddle in obedience to me. I will give you all the grace and assist that that is at my disposal, but it's in that area and so it happens individually. This way in her personal life and that it happens corporately together as a body of believers through the careful and accurate preaching and hearing of God's word. That's why preaching is so important he can I just say you don't underestimate the value that you have of being at a place worth four times a week for half an hour 35 minutes you come in and the word of God comes and it encourages you and it strengthens you and I know it comes in the middle of your day and I know you got a history test and you got a great test to get all the other things are going on in your life but don't ever underestimate the importance of this informative. In your life where for 3 to 4 years every day and then on Sunday you are sitting under the concentrated careful preaching of God's word because you will never have another period of life quite like it.

It happens through the careful and accurate preaching and lead to the teaching of God's word.

It happens to Christ. Focus worship. It happens in the context of God's body, the church. That's why it is so essential for you and for your sanctification that you be a member in good standing local church and that you be involved say want to be sanctified right what church are you how's your church playing out in them.

Baptism is an ordinance that reminds us how this all started, you know an incredible tool that God uses inner segregation is the Lord's supper. You have been invited to this amazing banquet that God prepared for you, through his son and through the death of that son, and however many times your church observes this. Whether it's monthly or bimonthly or or every couple of times now I hear how many times he does every time you come to that table, there is this an opportunity for sanctification. The Lord's supper is a powerful tool for Christian sanctification. If you take the Lord's supper seriously. Well what is it look like when it is at work in a believer's life that's her fourth question. It looks like a group of believers to wash what you say let's get real particular here. What should it look like when sanctification is happening in the student body here Boston University what it looks like this. It looks like a group of students who are cleansing themselves from every defilement both of the body, and spirit to bring holiness to completion and fear of God. Second Corinthians 7 looks like a group of students who are serious about that in there helping one another in their praying for one another in their coming around one another in their encouraging one another and there there cleansing themselves from every defilement both the body and spirit and bring holiness the Lord. So here you are in your dorm room and and you walk and and there's obvious stuff that is not part of Christian segmentation and you got a choice at that moment. What I do is not my business is not me.

I'm not do any of that will Christian sanctification doesn't happen in isolation, it may mean that for the good of that other person you just go put your hand around that person's shoulder and you say luck brother and I talked about something and we pray together about as I was on your life but but I don't think you want this.

I know God doesn't want this. And I would be a help. There is this community of believers striving together to cleanse themselves from every defilement looks like a group of people who are consistently displaying the fruit of the spirit in their individual and corporate life. They are marked by love and peace and joy and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control. Relationship five looks like the student body. A group of people dorm room a society full of people who are loving one another. Working hard to keep the unity of the Spirit through humility and gracious gentleness and long-suffering and forbearance and it looks like a group of students who love Christ enough who are committed to his word enough who love the gospel enough to invest their life and gospel opportunity.

It's what drives.

It's what's happening here with this offering that you're talking about sitting on the platform last night and in the most impacting a practical Dr. Pettit this morning. The most impacting thing about that was not the clinic and and not even the amazing amount of money that came out of that. But what you guys got excited about the 15,000 people who are going to come through that clinic every year to hear the gospel, you can be a lot of universities that are doing mercy projects and water were to go drill wells were to build affordable housing ready to go to education. But you are to go far and long to find a place full of people who get excited about the fact that 15,000 people are going to hear the gospel and that's what I saw in you last night. That is a mark of Christian sanctification. Here's a final question, why does it all matter, what's the big deal. Why does it matter I think there are three big reasons why matters and one is in Christ's chief objective for believers, it is Christ's chief objective any theater chapter 5 verses 25 to 27 Paul says that Christ is presenting his church in radiant splendor, without any wrinkle or any model any any spot any any mark he is presenting his church in radiant splendor as a spotless bride and he is present. Seeing that brine to his father. Some of you are engaged. You understand this, you can't wait for your parents to meet your girlfriend the one that you believe you're getting married, you can't wait for your parents to meet her, you know, there is a sense in that imagery breaks down a lot of ways.

But there is coming a day when Jesus Christ is going to take you and he's gonna present you to the most important person in the universe. His father and he is getting you ready for that day. It's a 70 year preparation.

He's getting you ready for that day.

It's the chief objective of Christ as he prepares you to present you to his father. It's number two the gospel's greatest validation. How do you know the gospel is real. In other words, if your last person. Why would I want to believe that that's ludicrous makes zero sense to me. And then they need somebody they grew up with. They need somebody who they are who they say and what they need they meet someone whose life was just like there's an it is radically different and they can explain it and they just want to know did that happen what happened to you, and there's only one answer. The gospel and sanctifying work of the gospel is what transformed me from what I used to be to what I and it is thirdly heaven's present expression. This isn't about you.

It is about you, but it isn't about you. There's a much bigger thing going on here in the much bigger thing is this in Ephesians chapter 1 God is reconciling and re-gathering everything in the cosmos under his son and that indicates that there was a time where everything was rightly related to God and the last time you saw everything in heaven rightly related to God was before the fall of Lucifer and the last time you saw everything rightly related to God on earth was in the garden without any God's is not enough time to reconcile everything in the regathering everything in a minute do it under Christ.

It sounds almost to to astronomical to believe in. And all of a sudden you start looking at a group of people who are living in the midst of a broken, dark, dangerous world and they are and outpost of what that future creation will be. They are the first taste of it. If you want to know what heaven is going to be like on earth. Look at this group of people that God sanctified is present, it is heaven's present expression right. We need to end, so let me end with this application. So how does all of this and I would say you need for things that need to come in your life.

Number one, you need to read the Bible you need to read the Bible you will never ever engage in the process of sanctification. If you are not reading your Bible need to read regularly repeatedly reflectively receptively repetitively in any other are you can think of.

You need to read the Bible and then you need to pray as you read, so that the spirit of God is his communing with you through that word and and through your prayer so you need to read and you need to pray, but there's a particular thing that has to happen is not enough just to read. It is not enough just to pray you need to do what the Psalm listed in Psalm one and you need to do what the Psalms did in Psalm 119. You need to agitate a meditation is. This is the active using and thoughtful contemplation of all or a portion of God's word for the purpose of understanding what God is really said and embracing what God really wants you to do. It is the active thoughtful contemplation of all or a portion of God's word for the purpose of understanding it, so you need to read you need to pray and you need to meditate, but if you just read, pray and meditate.

I fall short, you're gonna find yourself with the Ferrari at the gas station and your and you need fuel and you don't how to get gas.

See need to do one more thing you need to do what James you need to come with a certain kind of commitment that comes out of a certain belief you need to come to your Bible and this is the commitment God. What ever you say in these words I'm to do exactly what you say and I'm gonna do these things because I have absolutely no doubt I have time swerving unshakable confidence that your words are true and the example that James gives you in the Bible is is this one hits. It's the example of Abraham whose faith was was validated was justified. His faith was validated by something that he did and it's the kind of thing that God wants from you. So what is it that Abraham did what James tells you about one story in Abraham's life way back in Genesis chapter 22 when Abraham got a shocking request from God. This son Isaac that you long for you to pray for. You've waited for that all of your hopes are pinned on this son I want you to take him and I want you to go to this mountain, Mount Moriah, and when you get to the top. I want you to offer him him to me as a sacrifice shocking on so many levels. So Abraham got up. The text is almost is this direct a man got up gather his son gathered his servants gathered the implements for the offering and off they went and they got to the base of the mountain were not told what went on Abraham's mind, we it's this was unbelievably or without any doubt that the deepest moment in Abraham's journey gets to the base of that mountain and goes up to the top of the mountain and you know what happens there at the top the mount, but Abraham didn't have any clue what was but just before he started up to the top of the mountain where he was in a do this unspeakable thing he said something to the service and here's what he said wait here. My son and I literally the lad, and I my son and I will return you read that detail and just went to. And just like okay great post it to the list get to the good part.

The dagger you know God the RAM but don't miss that statement it it's it it you you need to let that statement just jump off the page at you, Abraham literally looked at his servants and he said something stunning. He said Isaac and I are going up and worship.

And then we're gonna come back together. What enabled Abraham to do that. What we don't find out until the book of Hebrews in the book of Hebrews gives a little detail that we didn't know about.

In Genesis 22 but it's something that the writer of the New Testament watching did know was going on Abraham that enabled this kind of Abraham believed that God had made a promise and that God would keep that promise.

And he was confident that God would raise Isaac from the dead.

The writer of Hebrews is now didn't happen physically but figuratively that's exactly what happened. God gave him Isaac again but Abraham believed in the words of God to the point that he knew he was going to go do and he looked at the man and he said nowhere, back, and the reason he could put the we there is because he believed that God would keep his word, even if it meant raising Isaac from the dead. Melanie asked question. Do you believe God's words like that because until you do.

Sanctification will always be this thing that you're chasing you will be peddling your bike with all of your strength and you won't quite get there because sanctification is a work of the spirit that comes out of your faith. Lord, thank you for this text and for this topic this week. Lord I don't know where everybody is this morning in their journey with you but I know that all of us are probably dealing with things in our life that right now.

This week you appointed to that may seem so simple for others but for us there.

The mountain are supposed to climb. Not sure for coming so Lord.

The only thing we know to do right now is do what the apostles didn't say Lord, we do believe that please help our unbelief build in us through your word and by your spirit through the Enlightenment and the enablement comes a deep commitment to putting our feet exactly where you tell us to.

In the journey of our Christian sanctification together for your glory and our good and for the sake of the gospel Jesus name, amen. You've been listening to the conclusion of the sermon by Dr. Sam Horn from the 2021 Bible conference series on sanctification. Thanks for listing and join us again next week.

As we'll hear more soul stirring sermons from the Bob Jones University Chapel platform