One of the great privileges that I have of having this vantage point from which, as a pastoral counselor, that I get to see what's happening in the heart and mind of an average Christian who comes through my office door is the benefit of being able to see how it is their theology, how it is their Christianity is or is not working out into their lives. You know, one of the things that happened 50 years ago is we had this great revival, it seemed, in the late 60s and early 70s, that we've come to now understand and call the Jesus Movement. There was a movie out a couple of months ago called The Jesus Revolution, and it was all about the happening that occurred in the late 60s and early 70s, where so many young people coming out of the 60s that had been hippies and were coming out of the drug and alcohol culture, the rock and roll culture, found new hope and faith in Jesus Christ. Part of the downfall of that revival and part of the reason it quieted and came to nothing is because there was so much emphasis put on conversion that there was little or no emphasis put on anything beyond that. In other words, when we were seeing the conversion of the sinner through typically praying with them to receive Jesus into their heart, quote unquote, and then saw that as the outcome of the gospel. And then we would celebrate that for a season. And then when that season began to fade, we didn't know what to do with these people. And the movement itself simply faded into obscurity and died. And so now a lot of these people who prayed that prayer, who appeared to be in the happening of the moment, were converted, were in fact genuinely converted. Many, however, were not. A lot of them, once the revival faded, they just simply went back to their old way of life, and they'd had this encounter, this experience. They'd had the drug and alcohol and sex drugs and rock and roll experience, then they had the Jesus Movement experience, and then they went on to go into their careers as business people or raised families or what have you. They just, their Christian experience never took hold of them. But for some of us it did. I was one of those. I had a very genuine conversion experience, a very genuine regenerate experience with the Holy Spirit. It was a beautiful time in my life. And, but I too was coming out of that drug culture, out of that music and drug culture and the sex, drugs, and alcohol, to put it in rock and roll, I should say, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. And though I was converted and I gave up my old way of life for a season, I didn't know how to live the new life. And no one spoke to me about a new way of living. We were simply to be converted by asking Jesus into our heart and have this initial honeymoon experience, if you will, of love for Him and our time of singing together and celebrating together and witnessing on the streets of the city. But there was no instruction as to the newness of life that is to follow. And so I want to speak with you today about the grace of God and the all-encompassing power of the grace of God in regards to the new birth which naturally produces, which is to produce a newness of life. If we learn nothing else from the revivals of the past, it is that many people come into the church through those revivals who are not genuine Christians. This is part of Jonathan Edwards' reasons for writing the Religious Affections back in the 18th century. He understood that there was a great awakening, but who were the ones being awakened? Were they really genuine Christians? Were they really genuine children of God now through their conversion? Or were they simply becoming church members, churchgoers? And were they genuinely converted? So this has been a real problem. There's really only one Christian imperative, and that is the new birth that is by necessity to reproduce newness of life. But if we only preach the new birth, and of course we saw this too, didn't we, in the crusade culture, started primarily by Billy Graham and even others before him. But this crusade culture where an evangelist would send a preparation team in the town, they'd set it all up, get it up, get the auditorium or the stadium set up, they would come in, have a series of evangelistic evenings where they would preach and have people come down from all corners of the stands and the stadiums. They would pray the prayer, they'd get a card, they'd get some information, and then pretty much be left on their own. And we know that Billy Graham, for example, towards the end of his life, was grieved by the lack of fruit that came out of his ministry, because many times after those people had come down in the Crusades, there were just a small percentage of them, if any, at times, that really continued in the Christian faith. So it looked good, it sounded good, it was a big event, a big happening event. I mean, if you were ever part of one of those crusades, you thought something great was happening. And there was at times. But there was such emphasis, whether it was the Jesus movement, or the crusade stadium culture, or the evangelism that we were taught, you know, the four spiritual laws and the evangelistic classes that we took to help people come to a saving faith in Christ, when we saw that as the outcome of the gospel and not the newness of life for a person who is now in Christ, we are only preaching half of a gospel. Let me say that again. When what we emphasize is the conversion of to the neglect of the newness of life, which is to follow, we're only preaching half a gospel. Now, and besides that, when you preach half a gospel, you don't get half a Christian. You get a zero, you get no Christian at all. A half of a gospel does not produce half a Christian. It produces no Christian at all. And this is largely what's happened. Now, God remains sovereign, and even in the worst of evangelistic efforts, he will bring some people to saving faith. But those people often suffer the worst after that evangelistic effort has faded away, because they're not being taught what to do next. Let me ask you to turn to Acts chapter 20 with me. I wanna deal with this today, because it's so very important. I mean, I can speak from my own personal testimony, and I won't bore you with that, but I'll just go to say that after the Jesus movement and the coffee house and the culture and the high school groups that were so active for one or two or three years faded away, I was left like a man standing in the wilderness by myself. I hadn't connected with a church family. I hadn't connected with anybody other than my high school friends in the Jesus Movement. And when they left town and went to college or went on with their lives, or many of them fell back in their old way of life and never came back, it was frightening for me. And because one of the things that happens to a new convert is that if they're not then instructed. as to how to live the Christian life and what it now means to be a Christian. If they're taught what's next, then the struggle with sin and the flesh and the devil and the world doesn't take a vacation. It becomes very real, very present, especially for someone who's came out of the old sex, drugs, and rock and roll culture. there was enough toxicity in that culture to kill anyone. And so you become a Christian now, and you've given up the old ways, at least the grosser moral sins, and you've repented of those things, but you're not being taught how to be a Christian. The toxicity comes up from those old ways of living, and it's overwhelming. Acts chapter 20. I'm going to begin with verse 17. Acts chapter 20, verse 17. It says this, from Miletus, Paul sent to the Ephesus for the elders of the church. When they arrived, he said to them, now Paul was in Miletus, he sent to Ephesus for those elders to come to him. So Paul is speaking to the Ephesian elders here. When they arrived, he said to them, quote, you know how I lived the whole time I was with you. From the first day I came into the province of Asia. Now there's the beginning point. Paul modeled what it meant to be a Christian. You know how I lived. Right out of the gate, he says, you know how I lived. He doesn't start out by saying, you know how I was converted on the road to Damascus. And you know what a dramatic experience that was for me. And I know many of you have had really powerful conversion experiences too. Now that's all true. There's nothing wrong with any of that. But when it's to the neglect of teaching people how to live that out now, how to work that out, then we are really falling short. In fact, as we'll learn in just a few moments, we have blood on our hands. From Miletus, Paul sent to Ephesus for the elders of the church. When they arrived, he said, you know how I lived the whole time I was with you from the first day I came into the province of Asia. I served the Lord with great humility and with tears and in the midst of severe testing by the plots of my Jewish opponents. You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you, but have taught you publicly and from house to house. I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus. Now, he had not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to them. He didn't give them half a gospel. He knew that conversion was a beginning point. It wasn't the outcome of the gospel. I can't say this enough. It is, it is really spiritual holocaust. that has happened certainly in the last 50 years. And it's happening still today in many churches. When you talk the gospel, when you speak of the gospel in many churches today, if you were to ask an average evangelical Christian, what is the gospel? They would say to you that Jesus died for my sins so I can go to heaven. Or they would say I was converted. Received Jesus into my heart and so I was forgiven of my sins See and and that's true That's what's so difficult about this is that is true as far as it goes But the New Testament the apostolic witness both in the Gospels and throughout the apostolic letters is to That be in a beginning point You know that how I not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you, but have taught you publicly and from house to house." Paul preached publicly, he taught publicly, and from house to house, individually, counseling, encouraging, teaching, preaching, whatever vehicle he could use to instruct these people in Ephesus. He says I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus Now Let me just take a quick side note here both Jews and Greeks Had their own systems whereby they believed they could overcome the vices of humanity, common to humanity, and become people who were acceptable to God. So for the Jew, it was adherence to Torah, the five books of the Bible, the five books of the law. And so a good Jew would use his understanding of the letter of the law and his participation in the festivals, and the dietary laws, and the rituals, and the Sabbath keeping, and all that the Pharisees and the Rabbis would teach them as the systematic means. And by the way, they were children of Abraham. That was their entry point. It wasn't the new birth. They were children of Abraham. And so as children of Abraham, all they needed to do was obey the law, and they could use that law to overcome what they perceived to be the vices of the unrighteous, and become righteous before God. And the Greeks had the same thing. They had a philosophical base. They had their philosophy that taught them how to overcome the vices, how to identify and overcome those human vices that created misery for humanity, so that they could live the good life. I don't know if they had sweatshirts and t-shirts and caps that said, life is good, like many people do today. But they really believed that either whether it was a Jewish system of the letter of the law or it was a Greek system of philosophy, they could overcome those typical vices that were expressions of the self-centeredness that sin brings into our life by their system, by their program. So Paul is preaching both to Jews and to Greeks that their systems will not restrain the flesh. Rather, they must turn to God in repentance. They must turn to God in repentance, not to their system, and must have faith in our Lord Jesus as opposed to faith in themselves. So what we're talking about here is the danger of reducing Christianity to a self-made religion where we have this simple prayer. I mean, in the tradition I spent most of my young adult formative years, we had a tradition at the end of nearly every service where the pastor would say something along these lines. Well, with every head bowed, and every eye closed and no one looking around. If you're here today and you feel a tug on your heart right now, that's Jesus knocking on the door of your heart. You you can open your heart right now and let him in and you can begin a new life today You can become a Christian today this moment If that's you will you raise your hand and then he would spend the next several minutes. I see that hand. Is that you? Yes. Okay. Look at me. I see that hand. Okay, I acknowledge that and then they'd pray a corporate sinners for everyone pray after me and then there would be this moment of celebratory congratulations and applause at the end of the prayer because this whatever number of people that was Had now become Christians Now I know that was well intended I know it was a at times a legitimate thing for some of the people there and But it was such a shallow approach. Paul, on the other hand, was saying, I want you to turn from your Jewish and Greek system and turn to God in repentance and have faith no longer in yourself, but in our Lord Jesus. Verse 22, and now compelled by the spirit, I'm going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me. However, I consider my life worth nothing to me. My only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me, the task of testifying to the good news of God's grace. Paul was living out the Christian life. He had turned from being a self-centered Pharisee with his own self-made religion, whereby he would have self-attained righteousness, to now being a follower of Jesus Christ, an apostle of Jesus Christ, having turned to God in repentance himself, and having turned away from himself and his system, you can read about that in Philippians chapter 3, by the way, having turned from his system to put his faith in the Lord Jesus completely, without reservation. I no longer trust in myself and my own righteousness, but in the righteousness that comes by God, from God, by faith. And so Paul is living that out now. He's compelled by the Spirit to go to Jerusalem, knowing that suffering awaits him. See, he's no longer living a self-centered, self-comforted life. He's no longer looking for his best life now. And he's not looking for self-realization. He's not looking for health, wealth, and prosperity. He's living in self-denial. He knows the old self. And that's part of the problem for the average Christian today, is they don't know and have a good, healthy respect for the old self in Adam. It's common for me in my counseling classes to tell people that the old self that they were in Adam is a dangerous person. There's nothing about that person that you want to realize, or fan into flame, or discover the potential of. That old self was hostile to God, centered on itself, and destructive to itself and everyone within its sphere. The old self was hostile to God and destructive to yourself and to everyone around you. There's a reason why the New Testament teaches that the old self was crucified with Christ, because that's what it deserved. But Jesus stood in our place. and he took that old self upon himself, suffered and died on our behalf, and rose again as a firstborn from the dead, firstborn of a new glorious humanity. But that means that the old self that you once were in Adam has been crucified with Christ. We read that in Galatians 2.20, don't we? Paul summarized his whole Christian experience to these Galatians who were turning to Jewish tradition and practices and identity markers as a way of sanctification. Paul's saying, you can't go there. It didn't work and it's never going to work. Instead he told them, I have been crucified with Christ. I have been crucified with Christ. And I no longer live the ego. I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life that I now live in the body, I live by faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God. For righteousness could be gained through the law. Christ died for nothing." That's in the emphatic. So, the good news of the grace of God is what he's testifying to today. The Lord Jesus had given Paul the task of testifying to the good news of God's grace. Now, what does the average Christian think of the grace of God? What is the average Christian, and I can say this from observation, experience, and personal experience, what is your view of the grace of God? I dare say that the average American Christian, especially, views the grace of God as a get-out-of-jail-free card. Oh, they're really grateful. I mean, a lot of genuine Christians understand that Jesus died for their sins so they could have a relationship with God and go to heaven when they die. And that's true as far as that goes. But as far as the rest of their life is concerned, from the moment of baptism forward until they die or Jesus returns for us, it's, grace is viewed as a get out of jail card. I'm gonna continue to sin, I'm gonna continue to act out in ways in my relationships that are destructive, that are sinful, that follow the old pattern when I was an Adam, when I was a slave to sin, I'm gonna continue to habitually do those things now, but the difference is is that before I became a Christian, I would be held accountable for those things, and today, now that I am a Christian, I have this get-out-of-jail-free card called grace. And so I'm okay. Even though I do a lot of the same things that I did, and my pattern of life is still habitual slavery to sin, I have become a Christian, and so now I'm covered. That's the average Christian's understanding of grace. Some of us may connect the dots to the fact that, gee, you know, when I act out this way, it creates a lot of misery for me. It creates a lot of consequences for me. So I can see the virtue in not acting that way anymore. So they stop acting that way. But even that is a selfish act. They don't do it because of a power of God working in them to create righteousness and holiness of character. No, no, no. They do it because they finally connected the dots and any reasonably sane person will understand that murder and adultery and theft has consequences. So don't go there. But that's not repentance. That's self-preservation. Now, the good news of God's grace is that the standard of perfection that God will require on that final day, and which, by the way, No system of adherence to the letter of the law or religious rituals or philosophy, whether Jewish or Greek or some hybrid form of that, would ever bring about in your life. Never bring those things. So you were in a position where no matter how hard you were working on the letter of the law, how hard you were adhering to moral philosophy, how hard you were trying to be a good person, you were going to fall short of that standard and face the just wrath of God at that day. The good news is that God then, by his grace, sent his son into the world to set a new standard for humanity by his perfect life, to become the atoning sacrifice for his people, to rise again from the dead as the firstborn of a new humanity, and to be the standard of perfection that God demands in himself. And here's the extended version of that grace. We by faith then are united to his son in his perfection, in his righteousness. So that on that eschatological moment, when we stand before God, we are no longer going to be viewed in the perfection or the lack thereof in ourselves. but in the righteousness and perfection of Christ. Now, what is our assurance that that's going to happen for us? How do we know? And we should know this, by the way. We better know this. We better have some concrete evidence because that day is coming, beloved. Now is the day of salvation because tomorrow could be too late. That day is coming when that righteous, perfect standard of God in the eschatological moment will be enforced, will be the standard, be the measure by which humanity is judged. And only Jesus, fully God and fully human, Met that standard and only those in him will meet that standard on that day How do you know then if that's you how do you know I'm gonna get to that in just a moment So Paul goes on to say in Acts chapter 20 Now I know that none of you of among whom I have gone about preaching the kingdom of God will ever the kingdom will ever see me again Therefore I declare to you today that I'm innocent of the blood of any of you Think of the gravity of that statement For three years Paul preached in Ephesus Publicly and from house to house instructing with tears he says for have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God. Therefore I declare to you today I am innocent of the blood of any of you." Folks, if we are declaring anything short of the whole will, purpose, or counsel of God, our preaching and our teaching and how we model Christianity in our daily life, we are guilty of blood guilt. We have blood on our hands. Only the declaration, the selfish, by the way, the selfless, I should say, the selfless Declaration. This is the beauty of this text. Paul is selflessly, not selfishly, selflessly declaring and proclaiming the whole will of God. The gospel of God's grace is that you can now stand perfect before God. which you would have never been able to do with your Jewish emphasis on the law or your philosophical Greek virtualist. For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God. Keep watch over yourselves, he says, and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood." That's the other part, see? Paul says, I'm innocent of the blood of all men. For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will. Now that word will there can be translated counsel or purpose as well. The whole will, counsel, or purpose of God. And then, He tells him, keep watch over yourselves. That's the other way you stay innocent of the blood guilt, is to keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Listen, if you are a pastor, or a teacher, or an elder, or simply a mature Christian with influence in your church, You have a responsibility to watch over yourself and over the flock, whom the Holy Spirit has made you an overseer." He goes on to say, "...be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own blood." If you preach half a gospel, if you are not modeling your word and deed the whole counsel of God the whole will of God then you are guilty of blood and that blood is the denial of the blood of Jesus he purchased his people with his own blood and then he says this vote sobering statement in verse 29 I know that after I leave savage wolves will come in he he's not saying I hope this doesn't happen This might happen. Doesn't always happen, but it could happen. So let me just give you some more. No, he's saying this will happen. I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number, men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw disciples away after them. What will the distortion be? They will distort the truth. Well, they'll start preaching half a gospel. Or they will try to incorporate their faith in the Messiah back into their Jewish system of observing the letter of the law as a means of sanctification. Or they'll get some hybrid version of a Greek Hellenistic Judaism that focuses on secret knowledge, which is the early form of Gnosticism, that heresy. Either way, it's not going to produce the transformation in your life that only the grace of God can produce. So it's a distortion of the truth. in order to draw disciples after them. So be on your guard. Remember that for three years, I've never stopped warning you, each of you, night and day, with tears." I hope you catch the gravity of Paul's words. He's not messing around, folks. This is such a serious thought. I tell you, it is so burdensome on me as a pastoral counselor and a occasional preacher that some days it's overwhelming. Some days I just have to sit in my office chair or go to my office, my leisure chair, and just breathe and meditate and think on the things of the Lord, thank Him, worship. I have to do something because this is such a burden, such a reality. And because I look around the evangelical Protestant churches in my area, and I've been at many of them, I've spoken at many of them, I know what's going on there. I've consulted with some of the pastors. I know that they still have this mindset that the gospel of God's grace is this get-out-of-jail-freak-hard mindset. that somehow the grace of God means that even though you continue in sin, you now, because of what Jesus has done, you have this get out of jail free card or this free pass that when you sin, you just kind of swipe it and you're good again. There's no clear demarcation point. There's no newness of life being worked out in you. Well, I told you I'm going to give you a couple of reasons and things you can acknowledge in you, or the absence thereof, that will help you understand if you in fact are a Christian or not. If you can have assurance that on that day, and it's coming sooner than we'd like to think, that day when God will judge the secrets of men's hearts. And there's only one standard for perfection, and that is the perfection of Jesus Christ and the righteousness of Jesus Christ, which is ours by grace through faith. when we give up our own systems, when we give up our own subjective spirituality, when we give up our own spiritual formations, our own mysticisms, our own, all these other little, sometimes half of them are, quote, Christian, end quote, theories about how we can become better people. We give up all of that and place our faith in their Lord Jesus alone that we have confidence that we're going to stand before God someday and be accepted into his kingdom, into a new heaven and a new earth, a new day, and escape the eschatological and just wrath of God, how can you know in this moment? that that day is awaiting for you in the positive. How can you know that you're going to be judged as perfect at that point? Well, with that, and we'll close with that, we go to 1 John. 1 John 2, verses 5 and 6, first of all. 1st John chapter 2. In fact, I'll start at verse 3 just to maintain the context. 1st John chapter 2 verse 3. This is how we know we are in him. Listen carefully now. Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did. How are you going to know if on that day you will be saved from the just wrath, the eschatological wrath of God? When I say eschatological, we mean the study of end times, right? meaning there's no more chances after that. It's an end moment in human history. It's not a pause. It's not an exit from the highway that we can come back onto later. No, there's nothing more to come. Eschatological means end things, the study of end things, last things. Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus lived. He says something very similar in 1st John 4 beginning with verse 16. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God and God in them. Isn't that wonderful? See, that's half the gospel right there. It's true gospel, but it's only half the gospel. Let me read it again. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. That's what most Christians believe is the gospel. God is love. Yes, hallelujah. Whoever lives in love lives in God and God in them. Absolutely. But here's the other half of the whole gospel, the whole counsel of God. This is how love is made complete among us. This is the complete gospel now. So that we will have confidence, when? On the day of judgment. In this world, we are like Jesus. Let me read that again. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment. In this world, we are like Jesus. That's it. If we are growing in Christ-like character, that righteousness is not only imputed, it's infused, it's working its way out in our character. We are becoming more like Jesus daily, the selfless Christ who gave himself for the sins of his people. If we're becoming more like him on our selfless service to others and love for God and love for others, and less like the old selfish Adam that we once were, then we can have confidence. We don't place confidence in the fact that we prayed the sinner's prayer. We don't place confidence in the fact that we were baptized. We don't place confidence in the fact that we came down during the crusade evangelism. We don't place confidence in anything other than that we are becoming transformed into the image of his dear son in thought, word, and deed, and character. Listen, if you're not any more like Jesus than you were 10 years ago, or five years ago, or a year ago, or six months ago, you've got reason to be concerned. Or if you're having this mindset that the grace of God is a get-out-of-jail-free card so that even after you've professed Christ, you continue to live out an unmitigated, unrepentant sin, you're a liar. You're deceiving yourself. I mean, you can lie to me, and that's, you know, oh well. But lying to yourself is the worst form of deception. The grace of God is manifested in the fact that not only saves us from the penalty of sin, it saves us from the pollution of sin. And those things are inseparable in the New Testament. And it's not that we somehow become some somber, pious, depressed person trying to work out some kind of subjective system of holiness. No, the holiness that God requires is Jesus' own holiness. And only He can work that in us and then work it out of our character. In this world, we are like Jesus. That's the confidence we have. Not because some priest said hocus pocus over you at the end of the sacrament. not because you deny sugar and coffee during Lent. I hope you're hearing me, beloved. This is so very important. Remember, we're talking here about the difference between blood guilt or innocence. So we know that we are confident on that day because of the work of Jesus that we will rely on on that day is being worked out in our life today, this day, this moment. You, in fact, as a Christian are an eschatological person. The perfection that is yours in Christ by which you will be judged on that day is in fact being worked out in this moment. The old self has been judged, has been crucified with Christ. And the new self, that you are in Christ, is being worked out in your character. That's your sense and ground for confidence. Let me close with just one other passage here. 1 John 2, 29 through 33. I hope you're hearing my heart for you. I see the wreckage that bad theology, bad teaching brings into people's lives. I know that there are people this very moment who are slipping into eternity to face judgment one day who are going to experience the full force of God's wrath upon sin. but having thought that they were Christians when they passed and took that final breath. That's a sobering thought. My heart aches for the people that I talk with casually in the marketplace and in churches and in my counseling office that who believe they are Christians. But they have not even a modicum of Christ-like character. They believe they are Christians because of some other factor or factors. 1 John 2, verse 29 reads this way. If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him. See the theme you hear the theme here verse chapter 3 see what great love the Father has lavished on us That we should be called children of God and that is what we are The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him Dear friends now We are children of God now What we will be has not yet been made known that is fully realized What we will be in our perfection in Christ has not yet been fully experienced But we are now children of God. It is the now and the not yet But we know that when Christ appears we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is and Now listen to this last line carefully. Your eternal state, your eternal destiny may rest on this. All who have this hope in Him purify themselves just as He is pure. All who have this hope in Him Purify themselves just as he is pure. It's hope that motivates us to purify ourselves It's hope in us that God is working out in our character What gets me up every morning beloved? I'm just like you. I'm just your brother in Christ. I don't have I have Degrees I have credentials. I have an ordination certificate It matters nothing when it comes to this point What gets me up in the morning is none of that. What gets me up in the morning and gives me hope is that I'm going to become more like Jesus today than I was yesterday. I have the hope that tomorrow I'll be more like he is than I am today. It's a progressive working out of the eschatological perfection that is mine to come that I will fully realize one day and when I stand before God in him and that is now at work in my life being worked out. That's what I mean when I say you are an eschatological person. In the moment. Because salvation is eschatological. What will occur, what will benefit you at the end day, as you are fully realized in your perfection in Christ, is yours today. And it's that hope that motivates us to purify ourselves. Well, beloved, I hope you've heard me today. My great concern is that you repent of this half gospel that is so popular in the churches today. If you were to listen to most preachers, if you were to listen to most Christians, you would think that the gospel is that God has given you a get-out-of-jail-free card or a credit card that you can swipe every time you get into habitual, unmitigated, unrepentant sin and that you're gonna be good now. The difference between a unbeliever and a believer is that you got this credit card you can swipe every time and you're good while you continue on in sin. That's bad teaching, that's fallacious teaching, and those who teach it and those who practice it will have blood on their hands on that day. No, the gospel of God's grace is that we are not only free from the penalty of sin, but that the perfection of Christ's holiness and his righteousness is not only imputed upon us, it's also being worked out in us. so that we become more like him, and that, and that alone, is our ground for assurance. Amen.