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| ==Because you are justified, you are sanctified== | | ==Because you are justified, you are sanctified== |
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| In the New Testament justification (the acceptance of believers as righteous in the sight of God) and sanctification (progress in actual holiness in our lives) are closely intertwined. Justification is God’s acceptance of us. Sanctification is our actual holy life. The gospel, the heart of the gospel, the essence of the gospel is the order. | | '''Why do we stand against the message, people have asked us. Why didn't you just go away quietly?''' |
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| | In the New Testament, justification (the acceptance of believers as righteous in the sight of God) and sanctification (progress in actual holiness in our lives) are closely intertwined. '''Justification is God’s acceptance of us. Sanctification is our actual holy life.''' The gospel, the heart of the gospel, the essence of the gospel is the order. |
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| It’s not just this and this and this and all these things are part of the Christian life. It’s the order, the logic. Which is the primary and which is the result? Which is the cause and which is the effect? That’s everything in Christianity. It utterly changes your view of yourself, the world, God, everything, if you get the cause and the effect mixed up. | | It’s not just this and this and this and all these things are part of the Christian life. It’s the order, the logic. Which is the primary and which is the result? Which is the cause and which is the effect? That’s everything in Christianity. It utterly changes your view of yourself, the world, God, everything, if you get the cause and the effect mixed up. |
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| ...justification and sanctification, the order in the gospel, is, because you’re justified, the effect is you’re sanctified. Because you are justified through grace, because of what Jesus has done, you’ve been totally accepted. Now you’re living a life without fear, in gratitude to God, with a new dynamic of joy and a new desire to be what God wants you to be. So justification is leading to sanctification.
| | Justification and sanctification - which is the cause and which is the effect? That’s everything in Christianity. Because you’re justified, the effect is you’re sanctified. Because you are justified through grace, because of what Jesus has done, you’ve been totally accepted. Now you’re living a life without fear, in gratitude to God. |
| | | However, that’s not the way it works in the message, not at all. In their day-to-day existence, message churches rely on their sanctification for their justification. They have it reversed... drawing their assurance of acceptance with God from their sincerity, their past experience of conversion, their recent religious performance, or the relative infrequency of their conscious, willful disobedience. |
| Another way to put it is your sanctification over here is based on your justification. However, that’s not the way it works in most conservative churches, not at all. Lovelace says: “… in their day-to-day existence, they [conservative Christians] rely on their sanctification for their justification …” They do it the other way around, “… drawing their assurance of acceptance with God from their sincerity, their past experience of conversion, their recent religious performance, or the relative infrequency of their conscious, willful disobedience.”
| | Christians who are no longer sure that God loves and accepts them in Jesus, apart from their spiritual achievements, are subconsciously radically insecure persons because they have too much light to rest easily under the constant bulletins they receive from their message environment about the holiness of God and the righteousness they are supposed to have. |
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| Lovelace goes on to say, “Christians who are no longer sure that God loves and accepts them in Jesus, apart from their spiritual achievements, are subconsciously radically insecure persons — much less secure than non-Christians, because they have too much light to rest easily under the constant bulletins they receive from their Christian environment about the holiness of God and the righteousness they are supposed to have."
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| Their insecurity shows itself in pride, a fierce defensive assertion of their own righteousness and defensive criticism of others. They come naturally to hate other cultural styles and other races in order to bolster their own security and discharge their suppressed anger. They cling desperately to legal, pharisaical righteousness, but envy, jealousy and other branches on the tree of sin grow out of their fundamental insecurity.” This is powerful stuff.
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| You go into liberal churches, and you don’t see changed lives. You see people living like everybody else. You see people being devastated. They’re told God loves them in general, but there’s no electrifying love of God which comes from the knowledge that though we were under wrath, look what Jesus Christ has done for us. There are no changed lives, but when you go into conservative churches, I don’t know that you see changed lives any more.
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| Galatians is a controversial book. It’s the most controversial book. Therefore, I can’t preach it without saying more controversial things than I usually do. '''In conservative churches, what do you have?''' You have lives that through willpower have been changed in the sense of, “I don’t cuss anymore. I have my quiet time. I read the Bible. I get to church all the time. '''I dress differently.''' I don’t hang out on the street corner anymore. I’m doing all these right things.” That’s not a changed life. In fact, what Lovelace is saying is true.
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| In conservative churches, there’s a tremendous amount of insecurity, of '''defensive criticism of others''', of Phariseeism, of legalism, of condescending, condemning attitudes toward anybody who isn’t right on everything: baptism, government, Christian conduct, tongues, or against tongues. They’re down on everybody. '''Why? There hasn’t been that change on the inside.''' They’ve utterly reversed the gospel.
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| When in the conservative churches you say, “Here’s the gospel. If you give yourself to God, if you promise you will serve Jesus Christ, if you ask him into your life, he will come in and forgive your sins and change your life,” is that the gospel? Yeah, in the most general possible … Yes, plenty of people have become real Christians through that.
| | Their insecurity shows itself in pride, a fierce defensive assertion of their own righteousness and defensive criticism of others. They come naturally to hate other churches in order to bolster their own security and discharge their suppressed anger. |
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| Usually in the follow-up, usually as they study their Bible and start to figure it out, usually they did not become Christians the day they heard that invitation, because what is it? When it comes right down to it, that is saying, “If you really are good, if you are really sorry, if you really work your heart up into a certain kind of condition, then God will reward you.” That’s no different than what any other religion says. That’s not a gospel. That’s advice.
| | They cling desperately to legal, pharisaical righteousness, but envy, jealousy and other branches on the tree of sin grow out of their fundamental insecurity. |
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| Do you see what’s going on? No wonder so many people who never actually understand that … They reverse them. Instead of sanctification based on their justification, it’s justification based on their sanctification. Instead of saying, “Because I’m accepted, now I’m going to live a life of gratitude,” what they say is, “Because I’m living this wonderful, good life and following all the rules, therefore, I’m accepted.”
| | In message churches, what do you have? You have lives that through willpower have been changed in the sense of, “I don’t cuss anymore. I read message books. I get to church all the time. I dress differently. I don’t hang out with the world anymore. I’m doing all these right things.” |
| Don’t you see the difference? What is the motivation behind the second kind? Fear, being frightened, always looking around to make sure, and you’re never sure you’re being good enough. You never know if you repented enough if you think it’s your repentance that makes you saved. You never know that you are submitted enough, surrendered enough, purified …
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| You never know, so you have to look around all the time, and you cannot handle criticism. In fact, you have to criticize other people so you feel like, “I’m a pretty good person.” Don’t you see to lose the gospel at all is to lose it entirely? To change it a little bit … Any other gospel is no gospel. Any change is a complete loss, a complete reversal, utterly.
| | That’s not a changed life. |
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| The other thing he says in verse 7 is, “These people who are reversing the gospel are troubling you.” I think in the NIV it says in verse 7, “Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion …” Almost no matter how I’ve seen it translated, no matter what the translation, that’s just too weak. The word means to destroy. That’s not too bad. It means to throw into confusion, to knock down the house.
| | In message churches, there’s a tremendous amount of insecurity, of defensive criticism of others, of Phariseeism, of legalism, of condescending, condemning attitudes toward anybody who isn’t in the message: baptism, dress, conduct. They’re down on everybody. |
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| This is what Martin Luther says about what Paul says. Baptism is not the article on which the church or the Christian stands or falls. Tongues is not the article on which the church stands or falls. Church government is not the article. Whether Christians should drink or not is not the article. None of these things … But if you pervert the gospel, if you reverse the gospel, you destroy the church. It’s gone. It’s not there. There’s nothing to stand on.
| | Why? There hasn’t been that change on the inside. They’ve utterly reversed the gospel. |
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| Therefore, we must begin to make a distinction. There is no doubt in my mind that because of a loss of orientation to the gospel and the power of it, the luminescence of it, the incredible beauty and wonder of it, on the one hand you have, in liberal Christianity, no need for controversy at all. Everybody has their own beliefs so we never fight. In conservative Christianity we’re fighting about absolutely everything.
| | Instead of sanctification based on their justification, it’s justification based on their sanctification. Don’t you see the difference? What is the motivation behind the second kind? Fear, being frightened, always looking around to make sure, and you’re never sure you’re being good enough. You never know if you repented enough if you think it’s your repentance that makes you saved. You never know that you are submitted enough, surrendered enough, purified … |
| | You never know, so you have to look around all the time, and you cannot handle criticism. In fact, you have to criticize other people so you feel like, “I’m a pretty good person.” |
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| In both cases it’s because of a lack of orientation to the gospel. Neither understands it. They don’t see it. Over here they’re fighting all the time. '''It’s because they need to throw bricks at other churches and other Christians so they can deal with what Lovelace called that fundamental insecurity,''' deep insecurity. Over here you might say liberal Christianity has no concept of why the gospel is special at all. “You have your gospel. I have my gospel.”
| | Don’t you see that to lose the gospel at all is to lose it entirely? To change it a little bit? '''Any other gospel is no gospel.''' |
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| Do you see? There has been no transformation either place, and as a result their understanding of controversy is lousy. What Paul is trying to say is this is the only thing worth fighting for, but you must fight for it. If the gospel is at stake, to paraphrase Dylan Thomas, “You must not go quietly into the night. You must raise your voice against the dying of the light.” You have to lift your voice up.<ref>Timothy J. Keller, The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive (New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2013).</ref>
| | And if the gospel is at stake, to paraphrase Dylan Thomas, “''You must not go quietly into the night. You must raise your voice against the dying of the light''.” |
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| | '''That's why we have raised our voices against the message. The Gospel is at stake. We can't go away quietly...'''<ref>Adapted from Timothy J. Keller, The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive (New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2013).</ref> |
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| =More quotes of William Branham= | | =More quotes of William Branham= |