God-Given Motivations for Spiritual Growth

About this sermon

Introduction: Sanctification has more than one meaning in the New Testament. At times it speaks of something that is final, fixed, already accomplished by God. It speaks of the believer’s new position in Jesus Christ. We have been consecrated to God, devoted to God, by means of the Holy Spirit. This happened as He worked in our lives granting us the new birth. This happened the moment we were joined to Christ by virtue of the Spirit’s presence. We once belonged to a domain that we no longer belong to — the domain of darkness. We now belong to a new realm — the kingdom of God’s Son. But sanctification is also a present and progressive work taking place in the believer’s life. Everyone who is sanctified positionally, is being sanctified progressively. We are growing into the likeness of our Savior and Lord. This work is as certain as the previous aspect of sanctification. It doesn’t always look as certain, or feel as certain, but GOD FINISHES WHAT HE BEGAN. We can be sure that He is at work in EVERY ONE of His children’s lives. He is the perfect Father who disciplines, who trains, every son whom He receives. ESV Philippians 1:6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. That certainty, however, doesn’t lessen our responsibility. Progressive sanctification is a synergistic work. WE are involved. WE are making choices. Christ has set us free to obey. He has set us free to pursue. We are TAKING HOLD of that for which we were TAKEN HOLD OF. Every believer is being sanctified, but our choices make a difference in the sanctification process. The question is, how do we do that? How does the believer obey the commands of Scripture that call upon us to pursue holiness? We know that the means by which the believer is sanctified is the truth of God’s Word. Jesus made that plain in John 17, and the continual focus of Scripture on sound, healthy, doctrine makes this clear. But from a practical point of view, how does the believer act on that information? We saw, last Lord’s Day, that sanctification is the outcome of a thinking process. Your doctrinal health will determine your spiritual health. Specifically, it is the outcome of a thinking process about salvation. It is taking what God has revealed to us about salvation, believing those things, and applying those things. The New Testament pattern is a consistent one. This is who you were. This is who you are These are now the possibilities You are responsible to choose those possibilities This is why you must do it And it’s that last part of the process that we focus on today. We focus on the divinely revealed motivations for spiritual growth. OUR GOD IS REASONING WITH US HERE. Again, it points the vital role of the mind in the Christian life. The Christian life is supernatural. It is unexplainable apart from God Himself. But the Christian life is not MYSTICAL in any sense of that term that would make it UNREASONABLE.

Topics

• Spiritual Growth