SA Ep89 - Articles of Faith #13 Sanctification

SA Ep89 - Articles of Faith #13 Sanctification

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the Seeking Approval Podcast. I'm Dr. Chris Smelster from Iliad Baptist Church. You know life moves fast, and faith is not meant to be rushed. I want to take some time and slow down with you and have some honest conversations from the Word of God about daily living. So join me here today on Seeking Approval. If salvation is by grace, and justification is a finished act according to the previous article of faith. Then I guess the next question that would flow is can a person who is truly saved ever be lost again? Does salvation depend on our ability to hold on to God, to white and knuckle it, to continue working to keep it? Or is it his ability to hold to us? The answer to that question will either leave a person in abstract fear, in complete frozen, in terror, that they may die and go to hell without even realizing it. Or it's going to leave them with a settled peace and confidence that God is the one who secures our eternity and not us. This brings us to our article of sanctification. This doctrinal belief that is could be one of the more comforting truths that we'll have in all the articles. I mean, there's so many. I mean, the truth that there is a God, the truth that there is a Savior, the truth that there is a Holy Spirit. I mean, all of these are so comforting. And that's why I really wanted to deal with these as part of our daily walk because each one of these should allow us to walk through our day with a greater comfort and confidence in who God is and what He's done for us. And to remind those that say that people who believe in a whosoever will salvation, that we diminish the sovereignty of God, that's just not the case. So the question we get back to is what keeps a person saved? Is it our consistency, our obedience, our strength? Is it a certain election or selection? Or is it something greater than all of that? The Bible makes it very clear that salvation is not only a free gift given by the grace of God, but is also kept by God. Again, our role in salvation is merely faith. That is our role. We don't earn it, and we don't keep it. We didn't initiate it. No matter what people tell you, I don't initiate salvation. I don't call it down upon myself. I don't tell God when I want it. It's salvation by grace through faith. And then it's salvation kept by God. Jesus spoke in John 10 27 and says, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. That's a strong statement. Eternal life is not temporary. It's not a life that lasts until, oh, you failed, and now we gotta take it back. It's a life that's given by Christ and secured by his power and the work that was done at Calvary. And it was a completed work. And nothing will thwart that work other than lack of faith. Go back to whenever Jesus visited his hometown of Nazareth. A town of 500 people living in uh basically caves, that it was a very um rudimentary type of town, even of that day, very archaic. Everybody would have known everybody. I mean, if you think about it, if you would have lived, you know, 30 years inside of a Walmart with 500 of your closest friends, you probably would have known everybody after 30 years. You would have known them all. And uh he goes back to visit, and you would think that they would welcome him back. Hey, here's one of our own, one of the few, one we've spent so many years with. We knew your mom, your dad, and and uh you know, there was always something special about you, and all those things, but no, they they they mocked him. And it says he did not do many-mighty works because or for their unbelief. That's the only thing that can stop the work that Christ has done is unbelief. And that includes our salvation. If we if we never believe in Christ, we are never saved. And if we're never saved, then we don't have eternal life in heaven. Our soul will never die. Our soul will live in eternity. So eternal life, the question of eternal life is really a moot point. It's not if you're gonna live forever, it's where. And this life that we have, that so many people have been uh misled, falsely led, whether by uh choice action or by uh ignorance, have been led to believe that some kind of lack of of uh spontaneity or ability or some moment of of of um uh failure will will cost them eternal life. That if they don't and and I see but you know, sometimes people may think, well, preacher, you're just saying this is you're just making this stuff up. You're just you're just sensationalizing things. Let me let me say this. Now this uh husband and wife, they're they're already in heaven now. But I went to church with them, they were a deacon in the church that we went to for many years. Um matter of fact, my dad is still the pastor at this church. And when we went there, which he's been there now twenty-five years, I've only been in in uh three churches now in my entire life, and I'm uh pastoring, oh sorry, four churches, I'm pastoring the fourth. The first three uh we were at. Uh the first one until I was about eight years old, we were at the next one until I was uh about twenty years old, and then we were at the next one until I was about forty years old, and then I've been at the church I'm at now pastoring, and I spent almost twenty years as an assistant pastor, and now the last few years as the senior pastor. But the church we went to when I was about twenty years old, there was a deacon there, he's the chairman of the deacon board, he was uh at that time he was about eighty or so, and he and his wife, and he was the adult men's Sunday school teacher, he and his wife every night believed that they had to pray that God would forgive them of their sins because if they died without asking forgiveness, they would die and go to hell. And he was very open about that. He did not believe in eternal security. That is just that that is that is just absolutely against what what Christ says. Neither shall any man plug them out of my hand. That includes you and I. It's not that any other man but you can take away from God. No, any man, no man, not a single man. When you see the word any or all, that is a sweeping uh categorical statement. And then you have the qualifier put on that with man. So not any man, not any man except, he didn't say that. There's no hidden language in there that we need to try to figure out, like, okay, this means any but, you know, somewhere else in scripture along the way, we there was this other thing that was said that maybe we need to pull this in. There's there's no hoops you got to jump through. No man shall pluck them out of my hand. Period. So the security of our salvation is not rooted in our work, but it's rooted in the work of God. And when a person is saved, it is God who justifies that one-time act. We're justified right then. The adoption process is started, so our adoption will not be complete until we enter heaven. We can read about that in uh in Paul's writings. It is God who indwells us through his spirit, and it's God who seals us. That's according to, we can read that in Ephesians. Paul talks about the sealing, the sanctifying the sealing of us. And Ephesians 4.30 says that believers are sealed until the day of redemption. Until the day of redemption, not until failure, not until your works become lax, not until you fall into a you know mental senility that you have no idea what you're doing or saying, and then all of a sudden God's like, God, I'm done with you, now you can't help me anymore. That's not what it means. We are sealed until the day of redemption, and we will not be redeemed until Christ calls us home, whether through death or whether through rapture. Romans 8 gives us one of probably the most clear pictures of this security. Romans 8 begins with declaring there is no condemnation of them that are in Christ Jesus. I know you probably don't have your Bibles, a lot of you listen to this while you're driving, and I do appreciate all those folks who listen and take time out of your day. I want to try my best to maybe give you some of this. It says Romans 8.1, there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Jesus Christ. Now, so not only is is the Spirit in us, but now listen, we are in Christ. Who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life, for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus have made me free from the law of sin and death. Not free for a time, not for a short period. I'm free of it. For what the law could not do, and that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own son in a likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemns sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are after the spirit, the things of the spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, to be spiritually minded is life and peace, because the carnal mind is enity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be, so then they are they that are in the flesh cannot please God, but ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. If so be that the spirit of God dwell in you. See now, the spirit dwell in us, we dwell in Christ. Now, if any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by the spirit that dwelleth in you. Now we go he goes on to talk about being heirs and joint heirs, talking about future glory, and he talks about God works all things to the good and more than conquerors. He goes on talking about, and this is the uh what you might want to say, the benefits, if I can use that word. This is the benefits of salvation. And one of those benefits of salvation is that we are sealed until the day of redemption, and that is very constant work. Now, when it talks about walking after the flesh, that's not talking about, I mean, we are going to sin daily. And that's that's discussed all throughout the scripture. We could verse out of the word, we're going to sin daily. We're going to come short of the glory of God. That is absolutely fact. But because we have given our life to Christ and the Spirit dwells in us and we dwell in Christ, we are no longer walking after the flesh. We are now walking after Christ. Are we still in flesh? Yes. Is our flesh weak? Yes, Christ said that. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Our flesh will sin. This body, this mortal body, will die because of that sin. But our soul, which is now in Christ and the Spirit dwelling in it, will live forever. And one day it will be resurrected back together. As it said, be resurrected back together. But it will be glorified. As Christ's body was glorified. When Mary, when he said, Don't touch me, I've not ascended yet to the Father. He was clean, he was He was pure. That's what that's what justification and sanctify that is the ending of all sanctification. He that started a good work in me will finish that work. That finished sanctification, the sanctification, the work that he is doing now, will one day be a finished work, but it's not yet. It's an ongoing process. That is sanctifying, setting apart, gradually removing the things of the world. So we have security in our salvation. Now there's a difference in security and assurance. Security is the fact of being saved and kept by God. Assurance is the confidence we have in that. A person can be secure. I I just spoke with uh with someone just the other day. A person can be secure, but lack assurance. You see, assurance comes with your ongoing relationship with Christ. Not your relationship and salvation, but your ongoing relationship, relationship with his word, relationship with his church, relationship with his spirit, uh, relationship in prayer. That deals with your assurance. Because someone who does not have a strong relationship with Christ, as far as that daily relationship, is someone who will be lacking in that assurance. Let me give you a carnal uh example of this. Uh let's say your boss at work, you uh you you you're at a job that you don't really know your boss that well. I was just talking to the people from the gas company the other day that came by, worked on my uh gas meter, had to get it changed out for our new generator and everything. And uh was asking them how they how things were going. They I know they've got a new um uh new uh director or president or or whatever of the the the the gas company utility district. And um I said, well, that's good. You know, at least with the you know the last person, you kind of knew where you stood uh with them. You may you may be hated, but you know, you knew it. You may be liked, but you knew it. But the next new people we don't really know, we don't we don't get to talk to them that much, we don't really see them. That's that's the relationship that some people have with Christ. They don't talk to him every day. So then they're kind of unsure about the relationship with him. He's not unsure. He has there is security, he has already promised that. But the worker, the person, the Christian becomes unsure because they don't really speak to him every day. That's the difference in security and assurance. So there is a security. Now, there are preachers out there who have said in the past, there's somebody said, Don't you get in there and start preaching about eternal security in your church because as soon as you do, you're gonna have you're gonna have a bunch of rebel rousers and heathens in there that's gonna live and do everything they want to because they think that they're gonna be saved no matter what. Well, let's not twist this into an excuse for careless living. You will have to deal with that. There will be an answer for the things that we have done in turning the grace of God into lasciviousness. If I'm secure, then it's what people say, if I'm secure, then it doesn't really matter how I live. Yeah, it's a big misunderstanding of salvation. When a person is truly saved, his heart has changed. He's a new creature, he has new desires, he has a new relationship. Sin no longer satisfied the way that it once did. The Spirit of God will convict him and correct him and draw him and move him. That's someone who is truly saved. The Bible speaks of discipline quite often. There's two types of discipline. I tell my uh my students this all the time. There's two types of discipline. There's internal and external discipline. The Bible so so greatly leads us to an internal discipline. Having a, uh we call it convictions, having a discipline inside of us that will that will cause us to not do the things we want to do. Paul said that. Paul talked greatly about it. And he talked about his failures in it. Those things that I should do, I don't do, those things I shouldn't do, those are things that I do. There's a war that's going on inside of me. The flesh is always want to do this, the spirit knows I should be doing that. And the disciples that were asleep in the garden, Christ said it, you know, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. There's a battle going on all the time. But that internal discipline that we can do. Now, if we don't have internal discipline, then comes the external discipline. Hebrews 12 talks about the Lord will chasten those that he loves. And if you're not being chastened by God, he won't chasten one that's not his. Looked at my dad and said, You know, I think that we are seeing Romans chapter 1 played out in real life. I think that my daughter was turned over to a reprobate mind. That she could not desire anything but that. And God ultimately destroyed the flesh to save her soul because I know I was there when she got saved. I watched her life as she grew up, and I watched her turn to the things of the world. That is some that that is the epitome of external discipline. So the more internal discipline we can have, the easier maybe our walk will be. It may be hard. We may think it's hard. But the easier will be because the external discipline is far worse. Touch a hot oven eye sometimes. Pain is a great teacher. But I don't like it. I would rather learn the easier way. I'd rather have a little bit of internal discipline. This article reminds us of the security and the comfort of our salvation in God. Security of the believer is not a license to sin, but it's a reason to stand firm. It's not a call to loosen or to grow at ease in Zion. It's a call to deepen our gratitude and love for a God who gave his son for us. And it reminds us that the God who saves is a God who keeps. And from the moment of salvation to the day we stand in his presence, it is his power that holds us, not our works, not of us. And that is the reason we can say with confidence, our salvation and our hope is secure, not in ourselves, but in him. Thank you for joining us today on Seeking Approval. You know our faith oftentimes grows in quiet places. I hope today's conversation gave you something worth carrying throughout the rest of this day. And join me, Dr. Chris Smelser, again next time as we continue thinking, learning, and walking together. Until then, grace and peace to you from Seeking Approval at Gilead Baptist Church.