We're going to look at a couple more, two more aspects of sanctification this afternoon. So if you have your Bibles, we're going to turn to Philippians 2. Philippians 2. As you're doing that, just in light of the end of this morning's service, I just want to thank the church for your commitment to care and provide for me and my family. And I love you and I appreciate you very much. Philippians 2. This is one of those aspects of sanctification that often we need to be reminded of, and that is that sanctification is a cooperative effort. Sanctification is a cooperative effort. That would be different from justification, what we talked about this morning. In justification, we are passive in that. It's based on Christ justifying work for the dead alien sinner, for the sinner who has no ability at all to justify him or herself. Christ does all of that. But whenever we think about sanctification, that is dealing with the corruption of the flesh, this is a cooperative effort. And passages like Philippians 2 would help point that out. So when I say cooperative effort, again, I just mean God is exercising effort or God is working, and in sanctification, you are working. Let me just read it. Philippians 2, starting in verse 12. We're looking at 12 and 13. as you have always obeyed, not in My presence only, but now much more in My absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure." And as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago as we were talking about this passage, it's worth noting who all is working in this. So in verse 12, you're called Paul is calling you to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. There's an implied you there. As you have always obeyed, not just in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, you work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. How or why? Because it is God which worketh in you both the will and to do of his good pleasure, or that is both the desire and the ability to do his good pleasure. We could go to other passages like 1 Corinthians 1510. I'm not going to go there, but it's the passage where Paul talks about the fact that he labored more abundantly than they all, yet not him, but the grace of God that was at work in him. So there again is a cooperative effort going on I think Jerry Bridges really, I think, encapsulates this in a succinct way as it relates to sanctification and the pursuit of holiness when he says that we cannot do what God must do and God will not do what He's called us to do. So we cannot do what God must do. We are unable. But God will not do what he's commanded us to do as it relates to growth and sanctification. Doesn't mean he can't do it. It just means that's not the way God has set it up. So as we think about this cooperative effort, I want to look and see both sides of this. So number one, God is active in your sanctification. God is active. in your sanctification. Look in 1 Thessalonians 5. 1 Thessalonians 5 after Paul in verse 14. Paul begins to exhort the Thessalonians. And it's almost these rapid fire exhortations. Do this, do this, do this, do this. And then we get down to verse 23 after a long list of things that you're being called to do. And Paul says, and the very God of peace sanctify you wholly. And I pray, God, your whole spirit and soul and body. be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." So even in the midst of you rejoicing, praying, giving thanks, not quenching the Spirit, not despising prophesying, proving all things, holding fast to that which is good, abstaining from all kinds of evil, it's the very God of peace who is sanctifying you, and He's sanctifying you wholly. God the Father, if we think about the Godhead in sanctification. One of God the Father's specific roles in sanctification, if you turn to Hebrews chapter 12, and it's like I said last time, there's a lot of passages here. There's a lot of ground we're covering. If you want the notes, then just ask me and I'll send them to you. But in Hebrews chapter 12, we learn that one of God the Father's specific roles in sanctification is that He is committed to disciplining us as children. Chastisement. We know from this passage, the entirety of the passage is verses 5 through 11, but we know from this passage, particularly in verse 11, where the writer says, Now no chastening for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless, afterwards, It yielded or it produces the peaceable fruit of righteousness. unto them which are exercised thereby." That is, the disciplining or the chastising hand of God on my life and on your life is for a particular outcome, and that is that it would yield or produce the peaceable fruit of righteousness. We could just say it this way, that it would yield or produce more Christlikeness in my heart and in your heart and in our lives. And so one of the ways that the father will grow you and sanctify you is that he will providentially discipline you as you go astray. God knows how to get your attention. As you wander, God knows how to discipline you and to bring you back, not just to where you were, but bring you back and grow you from where you were. We could go around the room and hear testimony after testimony about how God has done that. Second, as far as Jesus is concerned, there's two aspects. One of those we talked about this morning when we talked about positional sanctification. Jesus earned our sanctification for us. 1 Corinthians 1 verse 30, God has made Him unto us, he has a list of things, but our sanctification. So, our sanctification was earned by what Christ did for us on the cross, but there's another way, and this way would be one that would seem more practical in our minds. I mean, you can't get any better than the fact that He earned it for us, but as we're trying to think, you know, what effects and so forth, It's also in the New Testament explicitly said that Jesus has set Himself up as our example. So we are to be Ephesians 5 imitators of God. Or in Hebrews 12, verse 2, we're to be looking unto Jesus, who is the author and finisher of our faith, looking at the example that He endured the cross, despising the shame, and now He's sat down on the right hand of the Father. We are to consider Him that endured such contradiction. So there's the example there. Peter would just explicitly say that we ought to be looking to Jesus as an example in 1 Peter 2. 1 Peter 2 verse 21. when he's talking about enduring unfair treatment, Peter says, "'For even hereunto were you called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow in His steps, who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth, who when He was reviled, He reviled not again. When He suffered, He threatened not, but He committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously.'" The reason that Peter even uses this is to instruct the recipients of this epistle, and then by extension us, to instruct us how we ought to endure unfair treatment. How is that? Well, we should not return sin for sin. We should not return insult for insult. We should entrust ourselves to God who does all things rightly. This is the example that Christ left for us, and you can get very specific with those, depending on what your circumstance is. But again, the point here, as far as sanctification goes, if you're being conformed to the image of Jesus, it makes a ton of sense that you'd pay attention to the example of Jesus and then seek to follow that. As it relates to the Holy Spirit and sanctification, So, again, these are one role. We could name more out of each of the Trinity, but as it relates to the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is really our means or our power source when it comes to practical sanctification, progressive sanctification. You cannot grow and change. You cannot overcome sin. Or as we talked about for how many ever months in Galatians chapter 5, you cannot overcome the flesh unless you are walking in the power of the Spirit. So the flesh, we remember, let me just read the passage in Galatians 5, 16 through 18. This I say then, walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary, the one to the other, so that you cannot do the things that you would. But if you be led of the spirit, you are not under the law. So again, there's this back and forth, and I'm not going to spend a ton of time on this, because we've talked about it recently, but you cannot overcome the flesh unless you are seeking to walk in the Spirit. That is, arrange your life around the Word of God and through the power of the Spirit, turning from sin and seeking to turn to God. in growing in what we see here as the fruit of the Spirit or in sanctification. So the Holy Spirit is your source of power. You could not overcome sin by yourself. You could not overcome sin in your flesh. And so God is active. He must be active. But on the flip side of the coin. You are active in sanctification. So I'm not going to look all these up. I'm just going to tell you what they say and you can go back and look them up later. We were looking. This morning at 1st Peter chapter or we were looking at 2nd Peter 1 and then I think we spent a little bit of time in 1st Peter 1, but in 1st Peter 1 5. 2nd Peter 1 5 we are called to make every effort, give all diligence to add to your faith. So the question then would be, Who is it that's making the effort? It's through the power of the Spirit that's true. But who is it that Peter is calling to make every effort? Well, it's you. You're the one who has to make every effort. Or in Romans 6, verse 13, Paul calls the Romans to begin to yield themselves to righteousness. That is, to make themselves servants of righteousness. Who's doing the yielding? Do we pray? Some people have these ideas that there's a prayer of deliverance. Do we pray that an individual would be delivered, or for ourselves, that we would be delivered from a particular sin? Well, there's a sense in which, in the Lord's Prayer, we say, Lord, deliver us from temptation, those kinds of things. But as far as in the battle when it comes to righteousness and unrighteousness, you are the one who will yield yourself one way or the other. Now, if you do it and you yield yourself unto righteousness, then praise God, because it's through the power of Christ and the Holy Spirit that you were able to do that. But you're the one who still did it. You're not passive. Romans 8, verse 13, where we're called to put to death the deeds of the body. Put to death the deeds of the body. Who's doing that? You're doing that. Romans 12.1, we were just there this morning. We are called to present ourselves a living sacrifice. Who's supposed to be doing that? At this point, you're getting tired of the question. Hebrews 12.14, follow or pursue or strive for holiness is the command. Who's doing that? You're the one who's supposed to be doing that. So I guess the question would be, as we're thinking about sanctification, What should we emphasize? I mean, it's a cooperative effort. So should we emphasize God's work and minimize man's, or should we emphasize man's responsibility and minimize God's work? What's the balance in that? And, you know, I've kind of gained a little bit of clarity on these whole balance issues, at least in my mind I had. Years ago when I finally realized as we're trying to balance things out God's sovereignty and man's responsibility of what God's doing and what you're supposed to be doing How do we balance that out? And here's here's a little secret. The Bible never calls you to be balanced. The Bible calls you to be biblical you emphasize what scripture emphasizes so if in sanctification God's working and you're working and you're spending a ton of time trying to quantify and What we ought to be emphasizing? You are wasting your time. You ought to be working through the power of the Spirit to grow. We're not called to make equations that Scripture doesn't make. You work out what God has worked in, and you be busy doing what you've been called to do, depending on the Spirit of God to bless you and strengthen you in that. So, sanctification is a cooperative effort I really can't emphasize enough that by and large, this is one of the major sticking point. It's not really the right word, but one of the major misunderstandings in the Christian life that you will somehow just passively grow, that God's just going to grow you and you're not going to have to do anything. And, you know, you can you can pray the immaturity away. It doesn't work that way. You ought to be praying and you ought to be depending on God's work. But you also ought to be obeying what God has called you to do. And those things lead to growth. You can't leave out one or the other. And then finally. We think about the blessing of sanctification, the blessing of sanctification. So we've said, you know, we've said a lot about this this morning and some this afternoon. But really, as we think through the work of growth and change. Brothers and sisters, it is a blessing from God. That any individual has the ability to be set aside for God's purposes and to grow more and more into God's likeness. Now here's something that maybe sometimes we miss. Did you know that the more you become like God, the more you will enjoy fellowship with God? You know that? The more you become like Him, the more you will enjoy Him. The more it will bless you, and I mean that from a standpoint of enjoyment and satisfaction as you're seeking to walk with Him. So, the more sanctified or the more you grow, the more you're going to enjoy being in God's Word. The more you're going to enjoy being in prayer. the more you're going to enjoy just your communion with God and with God's people. So it's a blessing. So we see this throughout Scripture and various passages. One obvious one is Psalm 1. where the psalmist starts. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. This man is blessed who has been separated from these things. His life does not mimic the life of the ungodly. The counsel that he is walking after, receiving, is not the world's counsel. He's not standing in the way of sinners. He's not sitting in the seat of the scornful. He's been separated from that. And then verse 2, but his delight is the law of the Lord. He's been separated to God and he's delighting in his law and so forth and so on. The Psalms start out with this man is blessed. Favored by God. Or we could think about Jeremiah 17, 7 where Jeremiah says, blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord. Do you know growing trust is part of sanctification? It's not just what you're doing. It's what you're believing. We said already, it's the way you think and the way you live. It's your way and your thoughts. This whole business of trusting God, you know this already. The longer you walk with the Lord, the more your trust for Him grows just through your experiences in life. You go through difficulties. You go through trials. And it's not that all of a sudden they become easy. But you've seen the Lord at work firsthand to know He's not abandoned me here. He's faithful. It's hard, sure. It's sad, sure. It's very, very unpleasant, sure. But God's with me. And so far in my life, God has yet to make bad on one of His promises. And I don't think He's going to start here. It's this business of trusting God and a growing trust in God. This does happen over time and experience. Now, it's not automatic. So, again, you have to know, I mean, one of the things that I've tried to push in this whole business of trusting God, it's one thing to say, I trust God. It's another thing to actually know what it is you're trusting. What are you trusting God to do? If it's not what He said He's going to do, you're going to be disappointed every time. But if through maturity and growth, you've grown to not only know what these great and precious promises are, but you also know how to look for those and what they look like as they come to fruition, then your trust begins to grow and be stable and to stabilize you. So the blessings of sanctification. OK, back in second Peter, this is where we'll end that we started here this morning. We'll end here just rattling off some of the blessings. Of sanctification. And that's in our our second Peter chapter one versus one through 11 passage. So what are some of the other blessings? Well, one. We become partakers of the divine nature, according to 2 Peter 1, verse 4. Now, it's sometimes kind of vague. What is he even talking about? Well, notice he doesn't say you're a partaker of God's divine essence, but it's of His divine nature, character. It's the same thing we're talking about when we're talking about you being conformed more and more to the image of Jesus Christ. You become more and more of a reflection of God's image, or at least a reflection of God's character. We think of it that way. Number two, the blessing of sanctification, you escape the corruption that is in the world through lust. You escape the corruption that is in the world through lust. You know, foolish, sinful decisions have very hard consequences. The book of Proverbs tells us that the way of the transgressor is hard. So we know that because of Christ's justifying work for us on the cross, that we have been forgiven of every single sin that we've committed or will commit. But that doesn't mean that the consequence of every sin that you have or will commit is wiped out. We live in a corrupt world. We live in a world where one or two foolish decisions can plague you for the rest of your life. An ongoing pursuit of sanctification will spare you from that. Sometimes we think about this as being a young person's problem. a young person's problem. And there's good reason why we encourage young folks and teenagers and early 20s and all that to be serious about their walk with the Lord and not make foolish decisions at the outset of early life and so forth and so on. But how many testimonies do you know of of men and women in their 40s, 50s, and 60s that all of a sudden started making extremely foolish decisions that took what would have been a godly legacy and just crumbled. I think, well, we could rattle people off a good bit. I won't do that. But this isn't just for the young folks. This is for all of us. You will escape the corruption that is in the world through lust, which is through your desire. Number three, one of the blessings of sanctification. You will avoid a life that is barren or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. An unfruitful life. I think that would be a blessing for all of us. I don't think at anybody's funeral you're hoping that one of the things that will be said in your eulogy was they lived a wonderfully unfruitful life. We desire to be fruitful. We desire to be useful in God's kingdom. We want to be a blessing to God's people. We want to be glorifying to God. And as we pursue sanctification, one of the blessings is that we are living fruitful lives through the power of Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit. Number four, we avoid a life of short-sighted blindness that has forgotten that we were cleansed from our sin. Short-sighted blindness. You know, so often when people make stupid decisions and you try to ask them why, I don't care if they're 5 or if they're 65, the answer is almost always the same. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know why I did that. I don't know how I could have done that. I just don't know. Well, Peter tells us how we do these kinds of things, and then afterwards we just don't know. We become short-sighted. We forget. the reality that we have been purchased by Christ and we have been redeemed from the power of sin and from the penalty of sin and that we are no longer living a life that is dominated by sin. We're going to talk about this kind of is in the same vein, but I'll go ahead and lump it in. The fifth one is in verses 10 to 11. We enjoy the assurance of our salvation. We enjoy the assurance of our salvation, where it says, if you do these things, you shall never fall. The Greek word there is that you will never finally fall away. Doesn't mean if you do these things, you'll never stumble or you'll never sin anymore. It just means you'll never finally fall away. So it's this assurance. There's this entrance that's given to us, made for us. I've talked to a lot of people who have struggled with their assurance of salvation. And it's almost always happening, not every time, but almost always happening, when they are completely enslaved to a particular sin. Someone who at one time had strong assurance, all of a sudden is questioning everything. For us, it usually looks like this. I don't know how many times I've had this conversation who was, again, falling away. And it goes like this. Well, you know, the more I think about it, I just don't think I'm an elect. I just don't think I'm elect anymore. I think God hasn't chosen me, and that's what's going on. You know, there's nothing in scripture that gives you the ability to decode an elect without obedience, right? You're not going to feel like one of God's children, not because you've solved the eternal riddle of predestination and election. But because your heart is pursuing the world. When you ought to be pursuing God, and so I typically tell people you got the cart before the horse. Your assurance is not based on your ability to go back and discern God's eternal counsel. The question is, what are you doing with Christ? What are you doing with Christ? Are you believing Him? Are you trusting Him? Are you following Him? If you are, that's where your assurance is going to be found. It's not going to be found in some sort of eternal decree that you think you've used. an excuse for people who are rebellious. I've heard other people say, you know, in almost an impressive way, I was talking to somebody who used to be zealous and now they fell off. And when I talked to him, they said, you know, I've just determined I'm a goat. I'm not a sheep. And that's why I am where I am. That's idiotic. There's nothing biblical about that. Now, maybe they are a goat. That may be the case. But the reason they're not following Christ is because they love their flesh more than they love Christ. It's not because they somehow got secret access into God's eternal counsel. So the assurance of your salvation is going to be directly tied to. Again, we're talking about sanctification. It has to do with your walk. It has to do with your thoughts. It has to do with what you're trusting. And so your assurance is going to be tied to that. So the blessings of sanctification and you know, we could say more, but for today's purposes, that's that's where we'll end progressive sanctification. what Scripture has to say about growing and changing. And then in a message coming up in the future, we're going to look at how do we practically apply that and think about that.