Is Sanctification the Pursuit of Perfection?

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Happy New Year's everyone.

00:00:06.120 | On this final day of 2021,

00:00:07.840 | we end our ninth full year of podcasting

00:00:10.600 | and we end it talking about holiness

00:00:13.640 | and the pursuit of perfection.

00:00:15.360 | Here's the email.

00:00:16.800 | Pastor John, hello, my name is Christopher

00:00:18.680 | and I live in Louisville, Kentucky.

00:00:20.840 | I've been listening to APJ for a little over a year now.

00:00:24.560 | First, thank you so much

00:00:25.720 | for the incredible wealth of knowledge you've given to me

00:00:27.680 | and to all your listeners through this podcast

00:00:29.440 | over the years.

00:00:30.840 | I've heard you on many occasions mention

00:00:33.240 | the danger of perfectionism as a Christian.

00:00:37.260 | I am guilty of this.

00:00:40.120 | After thinking a great deal about sanctification

00:00:42.540 | and listening to APJ 1663 about pursuing holiness,

00:00:47.480 | it only gets worse.

00:00:49.480 | I recognize that we are not justified by works,

00:00:52.320 | but also that the pursuit to live holy lives

00:00:54.980 | is the evidence that we are saved.

00:00:58.420 | I feel like this makes it very hard for me

00:01:00.360 | to come to terms with my own failure

00:01:02.960 | and instead of running back to Christ when I sin,

00:01:05.400 | I spiral down into thoughts like,

00:01:07.360 | well, maybe I was never truly saved.

00:01:10.360 | It's almost as though I condemn myself into depression,

00:01:15.160 | even though Christ brings no condemnation

00:01:17.640 | and it often takes days to work through it.

00:01:20.540 | How do I find the balance between pursuing holiness

00:01:24.220 | and moving past my failure to be holy?

00:01:28.160 | Is pursuing holiness the same as pursuing perfection?

00:01:33.160 | Well, that last couple of sentences

00:01:36.920 | really is two questions, isn't it?

00:01:38.640 | He says, how do I find the balance

00:01:42.240 | between pursuing holiness and moving past my failure

00:01:46.840 | to be holy, that's one.

00:01:48.640 | And then the last one was, is pursuing holiness

00:01:51.880 | the same as pursuing perfection?

00:01:54.440 | So let me answer both of those as best I can

00:01:57.800 | and start with the second one first.

00:02:00.760 | Is pursuing holiness the same as pursuing perfection?

00:02:05.760 | It's an ambiguous question

00:02:08.400 | because it switches categories on me

00:02:10.840 | from a quality holiness to a quantity perfect holiness.

00:02:15.840 | You can see the ambiguity if you ask the question like this,

00:02:18.480 | rephrase it like this.

00:02:20.160 | Is pursuing partial holiness

00:02:23.500 | the same as pursuing complete holiness?

00:02:26.560 | And the answer is, well, there is a difference

00:02:30.040 | between partial and complete.

00:02:33.000 | So when it comes to holiness, the question becomes,

00:02:37.160 | which are you pursuing, partial holiness

00:02:40.880 | or complete holiness?

00:02:42.560 | And what makes that question psychologically complicated

00:02:46.360 | is that the New Testament teaches that in this life,

00:02:53.160 | Christians will not attain sinless perfection.

00:02:57.480 | And yet we are commanded to be perfect

00:03:01.640 | as our Father in heaven is perfect.

00:03:04.340 | Not perfect just by human standards,

00:03:06.640 | perfect by divine standards, God's standards.

00:03:09.680 | So Matthew 5:48, you shall be perfect

00:03:13.300 | as your heavenly Father is perfect,

00:03:15.800 | which I think is just another way of saying,

00:03:18.860 | you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart

00:03:21.720 | and with all your soul and with all your mind.

00:03:25.000 | That's Matthew 22, 37, the great commandment.

00:03:28.760 | Or what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 7, 1,

00:03:32.960 | let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body

00:03:37.880 | and spirit, bringing holiness to completion

00:03:42.880 | in the fear of God.

00:03:44.600 | Or what James says in James 1, 4,

00:03:47.840 | let steadfastness have its full effect,

00:03:51.720 | that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

00:03:56.520 | And yet, in spite of these repeated commands

00:04:01.660 | to pursue perfection, we are taught in the Bible

00:04:05.240 | that our victory over the power of sin will be incomplete

00:04:10.000 | until we're in the presence of Christ.

00:04:12.320 | For example, James 3, verse two,

00:04:15.600 | we all stumble in many ways.

00:04:20.000 | And if anyone does not stumble in what he says,

00:04:22.840 | he's a perfect man able to bridle his own body,

00:04:26.520 | including the tongue.

00:04:27.560 | And then he says in verse eight, nobody can tame the tongue.

00:04:31.000 | Or Philippians 3, 12, not that I have already obtained

00:04:36.000 | the resurrection or am already perfect,

00:04:39.960 | but I press on to make it my own

00:04:42.080 | because Christ Jesus has made me his own.

00:04:44.340 | Paul never claimed, he explicitly said,

00:04:47.600 | I haven't attained perfection yet.

00:04:50.320 | Or the Lord's Prayer, we're told right after we're told

00:04:54.080 | to pray every day for our daily bread,

00:04:58.080 | we're to pray, forgive us our sins or our debts

00:05:02.160 | as we have forgiven our debtors.

00:05:03.960 | Now that's not a command to pray one time

00:05:07.800 | at the beginning of your Christian life

00:05:10.000 | that your debts be forgiven.

00:05:11.440 | That is the same kind of prayer as give us this day,

00:05:13.980 | our daily bread.

00:05:15.800 | He's talking to disciples.

00:05:18.360 | This is a command to avail ourselves

00:05:20.920 | of regular repeated forgiveness.

00:05:24.160 | So on the one hand, we have the command

00:05:26.920 | to be perfect, repeated.

00:05:29.200 | And on the other hand, we have the teaching

00:05:32.260 | that we will not in this life be perfect.

00:05:35.680 | So back to our question, what should we pursue?

00:05:39.800 | Is it even meaningful to say

00:05:43.100 | that we are pursuing perfection?

00:05:46.100 | Would it be like an athlete saying,

00:05:49.180 | I am pursuing a high jump record of 20 feet, that's my goal,

00:05:54.180 | or a long jump record of 100 feet,

00:05:58.900 | or a one mile running time of one minute?

00:06:02.940 | Now, none of those are ever going to happen

00:06:06.420 | while human beings are the kind of human beings

00:06:08.940 | they are now.

00:06:10.940 | - Yeah.

00:06:11.840 | - But as long as God is God,

00:06:14.340 | his standard cannot be less than perfection.

00:06:18.400 | And when he calls us to perfection, he is not naive.

00:06:22.900 | He knows that in this life we will fall short,

00:06:28.700 | but he also knows that he intends to give us success

00:06:33.180 | in the pursuit of perfection when we see him face to face.

00:06:38.400 | The quest is not in vain.

00:06:42.500 | We will attain perfection.

00:06:45.340 | And the pursuit of holiness now is essential

00:06:50.340 | to attain the final perfecting work of God.

00:06:54.780 | So it's never wrong, it's never wrong

00:06:58.460 | to say we are pursuing perfection in that sense.

00:07:03.460 | As we pursue holiness here,

00:07:07.220 | we are pursuing the perfection that God will grant us

00:07:11.100 | through the pursuit of holiness someday.

00:07:15.100 | But in the pursuit of perfection,

00:07:17.880 | which we will only attain in the presence of God,

00:07:21.220 | there is this brief period of time on earth

00:07:24.680 | when our pursuit is so embattled,

00:07:27.580 | indwelling sin is so strong,

00:07:30.380 | satanic opposition is so great

00:07:32.540 | that even though counted righteous in Christ by faith,

00:07:37.540 | we are not yet completely righteous in our conduct

00:07:42.180 | and will not be completely righteous in our conduct

00:07:46.020 | till we see Christ face to face.

00:07:48.420 | So perhaps we should say it like this.

00:07:52.700 | In our pursuit of perfect holiness

00:07:57.380 | in the presence of Christ,

00:07:59.920 | let us seek now to be as holy as a justified sinner can be.

00:08:04.920 | And we don't know what the limits are

00:08:11.140 | on that imperfect holiness.

00:08:14.860 | And there are always more victories to be attained.

00:08:19.860 | Now, back to Christopher's other question.

00:08:23.940 | How do I find the balance between pursuing holiness

00:08:29.420 | that way, I hope,

00:08:31.080 | and moving past my failure to be holy?

00:08:36.080 | How do we not let our failures to be holy

00:08:40.240 | as we ought to be, indeed, as we could be,

00:08:44.160 | we all fall short not only of what we ought to be,

00:08:46.880 | but could be,

00:08:48.540 | how do we not let those failures depress us

00:08:52.360 | and so discourage us that we are paralyzed

00:08:55.420 | with hopelessness in the pursuit of holiness,

00:08:58.160 | especially when we realize that our lives must bear witness

00:09:01.680 | that we truly are born again

00:09:03.560 | and have saving faith and are justified?

00:09:06.220 | We know that we're not justified by works,

00:09:09.440 | but we also know that our works confirm our justification.

00:09:14.440 | So how do we enjoy the assurance of our salvation

00:09:20.720 | when our holiness remains imperfect?

00:09:26.720 | Let me just point to one passage of Scripture

00:09:30.840 | that is so important,

00:09:32.960 | and I pray that we will all linger over it long enough

00:09:36.280 | to let it have its good assurance-giving effect.

00:09:41.040 | Here's 1 John 6-9.

00:09:43.920 | If we say we have fellowship with God

00:09:45.980 | while we walk in darkness,

00:09:47.600 | we lie and do not practice the truth.

00:09:51.160 | So, in other words, how we walk testifies

00:09:55.880 | to whether we really have a relationship with God.

00:09:59.240 | He goes on.

00:10:00.160 | But if we walk in the light as he is in the light,

00:10:05.100 | we have fellowship with one another,

00:10:06.940 | and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.

00:10:11.900 | So he's saying walking in the light is essential

00:10:16.900 | to show that we are being cleansed from our sins

00:10:21.980 | by the blood of Jesus.

00:10:24.080 | Now, verse 8.

00:10:25.120 | If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves,

00:10:30.120 | and the truth is not in us.

00:10:32.440 | So he says walking in the light cannot mean sinlessness.

00:10:37.440 | Let that sink in.

00:10:38.920 | Walking in the light cannot mean sinlessness

00:10:41.600 | because he just said, "You gotta walk in the light,"

00:10:44.540 | and he just said, "If you say you're sinless,

00:10:46.640 | "you're dead wrong."

00:10:48.900 | Well, what then does walking in the light mean?

00:10:52.800 | So he goes on, one more verse.

00:10:55.240 | Verse 9.

00:10:56.560 | If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just

00:11:01.280 | to forgive us our sins and cleanse us

00:11:04.240 | from all unrighteousness.

00:11:05.880 | So here is John's description of the imperfect Christian.

00:11:10.760 | He does not claim perfection,

00:11:13.080 | but he does claim to walk in the light

00:11:15.880 | because if you don't walk in the light,

00:11:18.140 | you don't have fellowship with God,

00:11:19.760 | and the blood of Jesus doesn't cleanse you from sin.

00:11:22.160 | It doesn't cover your sin.

00:11:23.880 | Well, what then does walk in the light mean

00:11:26.680 | if it doesn't mean sinlessness?

00:11:28.600 | And his answer is it means a pattern of obedience

00:11:32.600 | that involves regular, sincere confession of sin.

00:11:37.600 | The person who walks in the light has enough light

00:11:41.720 | to see sin for what it is and to hate it and confess it

00:11:46.400 | and to receive forgiveness for it with thankfulness

00:11:50.280 | and humility and to press on with fresh resolve

00:11:54.960 | to love God and people better.

00:11:58.040 | I think that's the apostle's answer to Christopher's

00:12:01.000 | question, and now we need to pray.

00:12:03.380 | We need to pray that God would work this miracle

00:12:08.380 | of this biblical pattern into our lives.

00:12:13.640 | Yeah, amen.

00:12:14.800 | It's one thing to talk about holiness.

00:12:16.040 | It's another thing to actually live it out.

00:12:17.800 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:12:19.400 | Well, this being New Year's Eve,

00:12:20.760 | our year-end fundraising campaign ends tonight.

00:12:24.280 | If you'd like to become a monthly ministry partner with us,

00:12:27.280 | today is a great day to join.

00:12:29.320 | You can set up monthly giving online

00:12:31.120 | at give.desiringgod.org.

00:12:33.520 | That's a web address, give.desiringgod.org.

00:12:36.840 | We're back next year on Monday.

00:12:40.700 | We begin 2022 with a great question, what are idols?

00:12:45.700 | Both the little carved trinkets that we read about

00:12:48.400 | in the Old Testament, and what are the heart idols

00:12:51.080 | that we read about in the New Testament?

00:12:52.920 | And how are these two different idols linked?

00:12:55.960 | Are they?

00:12:56.800 | It's a great question to inaugurate our 10th year

00:13:00.080 | of this podcast.

00:13:01.800 | 10 years, amazing.

00:13:03.000 | Thanks for being a part of our podcast over these years.

00:13:06.680 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:13:07.840 | Have a great New Year's Eve.

00:13:09.840 | Have a great New Year's Day.

00:13:11.760 | And Pastor John and I will see you next year.

00:13:15.760 | Take care.

00:13:16.600 | (upbeat music)

00:13:19.180 | (upbeat music)

00:13:21.760 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Is Sanctification the Pursuit of Perfection?

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