How Can I Fight Sin Without Losing Sight of Christ?

00:00:00.000 | Well, in our fight against sin, do we focus our attention on Christ or do we focus our

00:00:10.040 | attention on ourselves?

00:00:11.560 | It's a very tangible question today from a listener.

00:00:14.680 | "Pastor John, hello.

00:00:16.000 | My name is Matthew, a Christian college student in Colorado.

00:00:19.600 | I just listened to the recent episode, 'Fight Sin Like a Victor, Not a Victim'"—that's

00:00:24.480 | APJ 1559—"and it brought up a question for me that I've been struggling with for

00:00:29.600 | the past few years.

00:00:30.920 | In that episode, you say, and I'm paraphrasing, that having the verdict of not guilty on the

00:00:35.800 | basis of Christ's sacrifice on my behalf is the key to overcoming sin.

00:00:42.020 | From books like James and 1 John, I also see that obedience to God is the necessary evidence

00:00:47.360 | that we have saving faith.

00:00:49.880 | There is a great confusion for me with these two truths.

00:00:52.900 | This confusion keeps me from joy and gets my eyes on myself instead of Christ.

00:00:57.760 | The following question is the source of my confusion.

00:01:00.920 | How can I rest in being justified if I need obedience as the evidence to truly know that

00:01:05.760 | I am justified?

00:01:07.720 | In other words, how can I rest in the verdict of not guilty if in reality the verdict could

00:01:13.320 | be guilty unless I see obedience in my life?

00:01:17.460 | This circular reasoning inevitably puts the focus back on myself instead of Christ, the

00:01:23.200 | opposite of what it is intended to do.

00:01:26.760 | I am almost sure that I'm thinking about this the wrong way, but Pastor John, would

00:01:30.480 | you please help me see how I am misapplying these truths?

00:01:35.560 | Let me begin by affirming Matthew's dilemma and then suggest a new angle on the problem

00:01:44.160 | that might help.

00:01:45.800 | Matthew's dilemma is this.

00:01:48.640 | On the one hand, the New Testament is wonderfully clear that our permanent and full acceptance

00:01:55.440 | into God's eternal fellowship of joy is based on the blood and righteousness of Jesus,

00:02:04.160 | whose death on the cross is counted as our punishment and whose obedience is counted

00:02:13.480 | as our righteousness.

00:02:15.920 | So when God looks at us in union with Jesus Christ by faith, he reckons us to be free

00:02:24.920 | of guilt and full of righteousness.

00:02:28.280 | That's amazing.

00:02:29.800 | So for example, Paul says in Romans 8, 3, "By sending his own Son in the likeness

00:02:34.600 | of sinful flesh and for sin, God condemned sin in the flesh."

00:02:40.360 | In other words, in his own crucified flesh, Christ received from God our condemnation

00:02:50.840 | for sin, so that Paul says two verses earlier, "There is no condemnation for those who

00:02:57.880 | are in Christ Jesus."

00:02:59.440 | It's all on Jesus, or as Galatians 3, 13 says, "Christ became a curse for us."

00:03:08.960 | So we aren't cursed anymore in him.

00:03:13.120 | We enjoy this forgiven, guilt-free, no condemnation, standing before God because of our union with

00:03:24.240 | Christ through faith.

00:03:27.440 | Through faith—I say it again, through faith, not through works—God creates faith in us

00:03:35.560 | and unites us to Christ through that faith so that what he endured on the cross counts

00:03:44.840 | for us.

00:03:45.840 | Here's the way Paul said it in Ephesians 2, 8, "By grace you have been saved through

00:03:51.200 | faith.

00:03:52.840 | This is not your own doing.

00:03:55.040 | It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

00:04:03.080 | For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works."

00:04:12.640 | So that's one horn of Matthew's dilemma—saved by grace alone, through faith alone, on the

00:04:22.680 | basis of Christ's righteousness alone.

00:04:25.000 | Now here's the other horn of his dilemma, and we just saw it in Ephesians 2, 10.

00:04:32.240 | Even though we are put in a right relationship with God, not as a result of good works, nevertheless

00:04:41.920 | we are in a right relationship with God for good works, in order to do good works.

00:04:50.360 | And these good works, this new way of life in love and holiness, is not just an opportunity,

00:04:58.080 | it is a necessity.

00:05:01.200 | That's Matthew's dilemma.

00:05:03.160 | He feels a tension between the finished justification and the necessary sanctification.

00:05:13.640 | A new life of holiness is necessary evidence, necessary confirmation that we are in fact

00:05:24.320 | saved, born again, new creatures in Christ, justified.

00:05:29.500 | Our new transformed life of obedience is not the ground of our justification, it is the

00:05:37.760 | result of it.

00:05:40.120 | Obedience is not the root of faith and salvation, but the fruit of faith and our regeneration,

00:05:51.040 | our justification.

00:05:52.800 | Jesus said, "You can know the tree by its fruit.

00:05:58.120 | The bad fruit shows a bad tree.

00:06:00.540 | The fruit doesn't make the tree healthy, it shows whether the tree is healthy."

00:06:05.640 | That's the way Jesus talked about this.

00:06:07.880 | So for example, in Hebrews 12, 14, it says, "Pursue holiness," that is, pursue sanctification,

00:06:17.480 | "without which no one will see the Lord."

00:06:22.400 | It's necessary.

00:06:24.160 | This sanctification is necessary to see the Lord.

00:06:27.640 | Or 2 Peter 1.10 says, "Be diligent to confirm your calling and election."

00:06:37.000 | You don't create your calling by your diligence, you confirm your calling by your diligence

00:06:45.640 | in good deeds.

00:06:47.800 | So Matthew is asking, "How can I rest in my forgiveness and justification and acceptance

00:06:56.500 | with God when I know I must obey and pursue holiness in order to confirm that I'm accepted?"

00:07:05.320 | Isn't the pursuit of obedience, he wonders, the opposite of resting in Christ's obedience

00:07:12.240 | for me?

00:07:13.240 | I'm going to say that again, because that's a paradox lots of us wrestle with, and the

00:07:19.880 | Bible wrestles with us.

00:07:22.920 | Isn't the pursuit of obedience the opposite of resting in Christ's obedience for me?

00:07:29.840 | And the answer is no, it's not.

00:07:33.360 | It is not.

00:07:35.420 | They are not opposites.

00:07:36.960 | They are not in conflict.

00:07:38.880 | They go together.

00:07:39.880 | Now here's my new angle that may help feel that, feel the coherence and have peace about

00:07:46.080 | it.

00:07:47.080 | Here's the new angle that I want to suggest for Matthew to consider, or all of us to consider.

00:07:52.480 | For sure, Matthew's right to emphasize resting in Christ's finished work as the foundation

00:07:59.160 | of our acceptance with God and as fountain of all our obedience.

00:08:05.840 | But here's what's missing in that correct emphasis.

00:08:10.440 | Christ's past payment for our eternal life is not the only sovereign act that God performs

00:08:19.280 | to get us to heaven.

00:08:20.760 | Our security, the certainty that we're going to get there is achieved not only by the infallible

00:08:29.320 | work of Christ's sacrifice, but also by the infallible work of his spirit in us to make

00:08:38.200 | us holy.

00:08:39.200 | That's an infallible work bought by Jesus.

00:08:43.040 | Another way to say it is that what Christ secured for us on the cross is not just pardon

00:08:50.400 | for sins, but God's power to break the bondage to sinning.

00:08:56.400 | The blood of Jesus is the blood of the new covenant.

00:09:01.360 | That's what Jesus said in Luke 22, verse 20.

00:09:06.160 | This is my blood of the new covenant.

00:09:09.760 | And the promise of the new covenant is not only I will remember their sin no more, but

00:09:17.760 | also I will put my spirit within them and cause them to walk in my ways.

00:09:26.160 | Christ's blood bought and secured and guaranteed that.

00:09:32.400 | Or to put it yet another way, when we think about resting in the work of Jesus to save

00:09:40.200 | us, we should think about what it means to rest not only in his past work of justification,

00:09:48.520 | but also his daily and future work of sanctification.

00:09:53.680 | God's commitment to sanctify his elect is just as sure as his commitment to justify

00:10:02.680 | his elect.

00:10:03.680 | That's why Paul says in Romans 8, 30, "Those whom he justified, he glorified," because

00:10:09.000 | glorification is the completion of our sanctification.

00:10:12.920 | Sanctification is a process.

00:10:14.040 | It ends with glorification.

00:10:15.720 | It is guaranteed for everybody who is justified.

00:10:19.080 | No one who is justified will fail to be sanctified.

00:10:23.280 | So perhaps it may help if Matthew and all of us meditate on and rest in promises like

00:10:33.640 | these because they're blood bought promises.

00:10:37.520 | The God of peace who brought Jesus alive from the dead will work in us that which is pleasing

00:10:44.880 | in his sight through Jesus Christ, Hebrews 13, 21.

00:10:49.240 | Or God is at work in us to will and to do his good pleasure, Philippians 2, 13.

00:10:56.080 | Or I am sure that he who began a good work in you will complete it for the day of Christ,

00:11:02.960 | Philippians 1, 6.

00:11:04.560 | Or may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely.

00:11:09.480 | He who calls you is faithful, he will surely do it, 1 Thessalonians 5, 23 and 24.

00:11:19.480 | Those we called, in other words, he sanctified.

00:11:22.800 | It is done.

00:11:24.800 | He is going to do it.

00:11:26.520 | In other words, instead of thinking, "Christ died to secure my justification, and now I

00:11:33.960 | have to work to confirm my justification," rather think like this, "Christ died to make

00:11:43.640 | my justification absolutely certain, and Christ died to make my sanctification absolutely

00:11:52.640 | certain.

00:11:53.640 | Therefore, my resting in Christ and his work is not just a past-oriented resting in tension

00:12:06.240 | with my work, but rather it is a past and present and future-oriented resting precisely

00:12:16.540 | in his absolutely certain sanctifying work as well as his justifying work."

00:12:25.800 | I read a whole book called "Future Grace" on this, and the point was simply this.

00:12:31.200 | It is a glorious thing that the past grace of blood-bought justification is the guarantee

00:12:42.360 | of the future grace that will get us home to heaven through sanctification.

00:12:48.560 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for the follow-up question, Matthew, and thank

00:12:54.040 | you for listening.

00:12:55.160 | You can ask a question, search or browse all 1,600 of our past episodes or subscribe to

00:12:59.960 | the podcast.

00:13:01.200 | You can do all of that at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:13:06.960 | When Romans 8:30, the Apostle Paul gives us what has been called the golden chain of redemption,

00:13:12.340 | God predestines us in order to call us, and he calls us in order to justify us, and he

00:13:18.840 | justifies us in order to glorify us.

00:13:22.480 | It's an amazing chain of grace, but if we stop here, we behold some amazing works of

00:13:27.440 | God in our lives, but we miss the 35-carat diamond that hangs from this golden chain.

00:13:33.560 | It's the question, why?

00:13:36.800 | Why are we saved?

00:13:40.120 | It is absolutely essential.

00:13:41.760 | You must understand this point, and we're going to address it next time on Wednesday

00:13:45.720 | when we return.

00:13:47.320 | Thanks for listening.

00:13:48.320 | I'm Tony Reinke, and we'll see you then.

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How Can I Fight Sin Without Losing Sight of Christ?

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