I am thankful for this book from Jerry Bridges since it contains and expands so much on the topic of sanctification. It’s so helpful for anyone’s Christian walk to learn from this book how foundational it is to be more like Christ.
Sanctification is not a noble pursuit, not a higher pursuit, not an optional pursuit — it is the pursuit of every Christian. It’s as normal, natural, and healthy as a person breathing, walking, and eating. Many a spiritual sickness and weakness is healed by the discipline of holiness. It’s sad to find a saint in a state of slumber or stupor in their fight against sin.
May these select quotes from the book give you a quick overview of the rigorous knowledge on practical holiness you may find contained in this work by Jerry Bridges.
- Christianity is not a do-it-yourself thing.
- Holiness is obedience to the will of God in whatever God directs.
- Holiness and usefulness are linked together. We cannot bring our service to God in an unclean vessel.
- It is compromise on the little issues that leads to greater downfalls.
- Holiness is not a series of do’s and don’ts, but conformity to the character of God and obedience to the will of God.
- God has not called us to be like those around us. He has called us to be like Himself.
- Granted, the love of God to us through Jesus Christ should be our primary motivation to holiness. But a motivation prompted by God’s hatred of sin and His consequent judgment on it is no less biblical.
- The only safe evidence that we are in Christ is a holy life.
- To continue to live in sin as a Christian is to go contrary to God’s very purpose for our salvation.
- When God saves us through Christ, He not only saves us from the penalty of sin, but also from its dominion.
- We must be careful that we are not the source of temptation to others. For this reason, modesty of dress and actions is required among both men and women.
- Only those who are obedient — who are pursuing holiness as a way of life — will know the joy that comes from God.
- Faith enables us to obey when obedience is costly or seems unreasonable to the natural mind.
- The Bible speaks to us primarily through our reason, and this is why it is so vitally important for our minds to be constantly brought under its influence.
- It is vain to guard our minds and emotions against that which comes from without if we do not at the same time deal with habits of sin which are within. The battle for holiness must be fought on two fronts without and within. Only then will we see progress toward holiness.
- There is absolutely no shortcut to holiness that bypasses or gives little priority to a consistent intake of the Bible.
- The more we ourselves grow in holiness, the more we hate sin.
- Instead of withdrawing from contact with the world, we must strive to resist its influence.
- Reason leads the way in understanding the will of God, the will consents to God’s will, then the emotions delights in doing it.
- True joy comes only from God, and He shares this joy with those who walk in fellowship with Him.
These are some meditations from Romans 6 answering the question:
If our sins are forgiven, what is then our new relationship with sin?
Salvation has affected our relationship with sin in many ways, the one that Romans 6 mostly focuses on is its lost of power in our lives.
- Because of this idea of free costly grace talked in Romans 5, Paul clarifies emphatically that this does mean a license to sin. This grace does not mean lawlessness.
- We have been united with the death and resurrection of Christ; those who have died have been freed as well from sin.
- Since we have died with Christ, we have the benefits of this new life through Christ.
What a glorious thing, the gospel saves us from the penalty of sin, and helps us come out from being under the power of sin.
Transcript:
Teaching The Scriptures Without Teaching Christ
CARLOS: This is Carlos.
JESSIE: And this is Jessie.
CARLOS: And in preaching Christ in Christianity, I wanted to ask Jessie to share a story. It’s a story from man like nine, maybe 10 years ago, many years ago, in which you kind of like see how some your interaction with somebody. And it helps, it kind of points to the fact that now you can kind of like, we’re going to be talking about how you can focus on the scriptures, but it can kind of miss the point about pointing to Christ as like, it says something I would like, I feel like you need to learn to be as part of like, getting into your theology on how we do things, and how we talk about things. So you want to share the story?
JESSIE: So it was a while ago, many years ago, someone had shared a sermon on the word, and I don’t even remember all of the exact details of it. But I do know that it was on the Word of God. And basically, it was, “read the Word of God.” follow its principles, and you will live a good life, a successful life, a godly life, which is all true. But I felt like in the sermon, it was just missing Christ and missing that element of knowing Christ through Scripture. And it was more about, living living out Christian principles, instead of knowing Christ through Scripture. And the person who shared it was a friend and a brother, someone I could talk to. And so I remember, I think it was the same day or I’m not sure if it was. I just talked to him after I was like, “Hey, you know, I enjoyed listening to your sermon. But I, one thing I felt was that it was missing Christ.” And he’s like, “What do you mean, because Christ, the Word is Christ, Christ is the Word, like the Word became flesh, and who was Christ?” So he was like, “what do you mean, it’s the same thing.” And it just felt like Christ was not so much the topic of why we read the Scriptures, it was more about an outcome, actions for our life instead of knowing Christ.
Two Routes
And I was just trying to explain that we don’t come to Scripture, just to simply see the principles that it lays out for us, and then act upon them and live a godly life. But we come to Scripture, to know Christ, and to know who He is, and to love Him more. And to see Him in the Scriptures. And as a byproduct of that, we become more like Him, because Scripture is living and active, and it’s changing us. And as we read Scripture, it is literally changing our souls; it is working in us and it is feeding us. And as it changes us, we become more like Christ. And as we become more like Christ, we are sanctified. And as we’re sanctified, we live out godly lives. It’s like a natural byproduct, but we don’t come to the Word just simply for behavior, modification and changes, but we come to the Word to know Christ and to love Him and to magnify Him and to glorify Him and to see Him and just grow our souls, our love for Him. And so the I see, I see a big difference between coming to the Word just simply for actions and changes and behavior. And then coming to the Word, to know Christ and see Christ.
Transcript:
Introduction
Good day, this is an introduction to Luminary and to what this podcast is for. So basically, what Luminary is, is a ministry, with one thought in mind, which is to preach Christ in Christianity. So this has been for me personally, a theme, since I’ve become a Christian, and discovered not only my experience, but in the Scriptures as well.
Old Story
Early on in my Christian walk, I remember talking with a bunch of brothers, around 10 of them, I would say, in a circle. And I basically asked a question to the brothers there about why they had accepted the gospel. And I remember person after person telling me that they had accepted the gospel to go to heaven. And I noticed that and I, I left from that conversation, thinking a lot about that, and I, it didn’t sit well with me to hear several people who were just telling me they accepted the Gospel because of heaven, because it didn’t sit well with me and I didn’t understand why yet. And what was bothering me is that they, I came to the conclusion that they were accepting the gospel in their part for a place, not a person.
Defining Eternal Life
Years afterwards at some point, in that kind of same vein of thought. I understood that while the gospel in Christianity is really about the person of Christ, and about anything else, whatever it may be, I love this thought of how accepting the gospel gives us eternal life. But we have to look into the Scriptures into what eternal life means. I love placing these two verses side by side, John 3:16, and John 17:3 I’ll read them, one after the other.
In the time of Daniel, God’s people went through 70 years of captivity in Babylon. Why did this happen? Discipline. Judah had been disobedient to God’s commandments and even though prophets had warned the people numerous time, there was no change.
One of these prophets was Jeremiah. He prophesied long before the time of Daniel that Judah would be captured by a ruler called Nebuchadnezzar. Jeremiah pointed out the evil doings and idolatrous acts that Judah had committed through several centuries (Jeremiah 25:3-4) and had not listened. As a consequence God’s people would be taken captives for 7 decades.
There was something significant about the 70 years in captivity. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown commented that 70 was chosen since it was “the exact number of years of Sabbaths in four hundred ninety years, the period from Saul to the Babylonian captivity; righteous retribution for their violation of the Sabbath (Le 26:34, 35; 2 Chr 36:21)”
God had commanded that every 7 years, on the 7th year the land should be placed to rest. However, God’s people didn’t do that, they didn’t do it for 490 years. If you do the math they had skipped 70 years of rest. They had worked the land continually, with no stops. Our God has given us an ethic of work, but He also given us an ethic of rest.
We pride ourselves for our work ethic, especially in the US. Some would be embarrassed to admit even to rest, finding it shameful even to admit taking a break or a vacation. Some think that admitting rest, would be to admit being lazy. God modeled both work and rest for us in creation (Genesis 2:1-3). God rested. What a thought! That the omnipotent (who doesn’t get tired) stopped… and rested.
Recently, I was talking with a friend who’s a mental health counselor , and he mentioned how sometimes people unknowingly find themselves stressed and tense due to lack of rest. In a sense, it’s humbling to submit to how God designed humanity. It can be humbling to rest. Ultimately, we know through the Scriptures that for our bodies, for our minds, for our souls we have the “Rests of rests” in the person of Christ (Matthew 11:28-29).
Christians need to have both a healthy work theology and a rest theology. If not, like the people of Judah, with no rest, we will pay for it at some point.
The book of Daniel is known to be taught to children in Sunday school and teenagers. Mostly due to the fact that the book begin with him as a teenager and standing boldly against an evil regime. But that was not the end of Daniel’s story of faithfulness amidst opposition.
When Daniel was captured, some scholars say he was as young as 15 years old and died being around 85 to 90 years old. This means that he continued to be faithful to God for 7 decades and through the rule of four kings.
Daniel is not only an example for those younger to stand for God, but also for getting to old age, persevering in faith amidst strong opposition and terrible circumstance.
Daniel had his eyes set beyond the surrounding opposition, like Jesus (the greater Daniel) had his eyes set above, enduring the Cross (Hebrews 12:2) knowing that glory awaited.
It is no wonder that God encouraged Daniel through an angel in a message recorded in the last verse of the book:
But go your way till the end. And you shall rest and shall stand in your allotted place at the end of the days.
Daniel 12:13
Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
Ephesians 5:15-17
Every beginning of the year, feels like a brand new start in which we evaluate our lives and make some plans and resolutions.
This is a two part teaching to evaluate life in light of the Scriptures. First part is on foundational knowledge we have on what God desires from us as His creation. Second part is practicals on how we can evaluate our lives and give it some order as good stewards of the lives God has given us.
Theology – What does the Bible Say About Living Our Lives
Teaching Outline
- Main Text – Ephesians 5:15-17
- Theology – What does the Bible Say About Living Our Lives
- Contemplate the end.
- Memento Mori
- Life Is A Countdown
- Why is remembering death helpful?
- All Our Stuff Are The Things Of Future Garage Sales
- We Were Created To Spread God’s Glory
- The Creation Mandate, Lord’s Prayer, Great Commission
- Be Content With God’s Smile
- The Need To Be In The Scriptures
“Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”
– John 7:38
One of the marks of Christian character in the New Testament is self-control (Titus 2:12). As we surrender more and more to God, and He takes more control of us, a human (in a holistic sense) is able to have self-management. In other words, as His Kingdom come, more of His reign comes into our lives.
For those that our ministering to others, if one is to help others to understand what it means to live under the rule of God, and experience His kingdom, we ourselves must be ruled.
The point, for example, of the beginning of Matthew 7, “Judge not, that you be not judged…” — it’s not that we should not judge. It’s that we better be judging ourselves a lot before judging others. It’s good to help others with the toothpicks in their eyes, if we are doing the regular work of removing logs from our eyes.
If we are to serve others rightly by leading them to the life that is in Jesus, we must first have had managed to lead ourselves there first. If we have tapped into the well of Jesus daily and often, it is natural that we are to be giving this loving grace to others. In fact, it would be unnatural to have tapped in to the well of Christ and not have that flow out to others.
The Pulpit Commentary has this to say on John 7:38:
From his newly given, divinely imparted life shall proceed, as from the innermost depths of his consciousness, illimitable supplies of refreshment and fertility for others as well. Each soul will be a rock smitten in the thirsty land, from which crystal rivers of life-giving grace shall flow.
It is a primary matter for the Christian, to get themselves tapped into the life-giving well of Christ, to do the natural duty of overflowing that Life to others.
The first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day is to have my soul happy in the Lord.
~ George Müller