Progressive Sanctification, the Pursuit of Holiness, and the Quest for Full Assurance: 2024 Summer Sermon Series

 Progressive Sanctification, the Pursuit of Holiness, and the Quest for Full Assurance

Lake Country Bible Church

2024 Summer Sermon Series

Sermon 1- Confusing and Abusing Grace in the Name of the Gospel

Jude 3-4; Romans 6:1, 15-18.  

 

Sermon 2- Working Out Our Sanctification as God Works in Us.

Philippians 2:12-13

 

Sermon 3- Fruits of Genuine Faith  (Pastor Josh)

1 John (sermon overview of the entire book)

Sermon 4- The Hole in our Holiness and the Great Commission Omission.

Titus 2:11-14; Matthew 28:18-20

Confusing and Abusing Grace in the Name of the Gospel. Romans 6:1, 15-18; Jude 3-4 (part 1)

Beloved, while I was making every effort to write about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to (go the opposite direction) and to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. (WHY?) For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, these are ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. (Jude 3-4)  

Jude understood how glorious it is to celebrate our common union in Christ.  Magnifying the redemptive grace of God and our undeserved salvation never gets old, does it?  Having said that, this emergency 911 epistle (aka Jude), illustrates that it is pastorally negligent to ignore a clear and present danger!  To act like everything is spiritually ok, when it's not, is both dangerous and wrong!  True shepherds protect the flock at all costs (John 10).  On the other hand, when danger appears "hirelings" leave the sheep unprotected.  Jesus reminded his disciples that hirelings really only care about themselves.  Their personal comfort and well-being is what they are most concerned about.  Add to that, Jeremiah 6:14 reminds us that false teachers say, "'Peace, peace!' when there is no peace at all."

After a wonderfully enriching five year journey through the signature Gospel of John, my original plan was to begin a new expository study of a brief, yet power packed, epistle. Philemon. Sadly, I cannot do that at this time.  Though the heresy of flown blown Antinomianism has NOT crept into our beloved church family (as was true in Jude's case), hyper-grace sanctification and lower-case “a,” Reformed antinomianism- has!  To do nothing and just hope for the best would be a dereliction of duty.  

Allow me to illustrate. How would you react if you heard that your city fire station captain responded like this?  "Fire station 401. Fire chief Caleb speaking."  "Sir, please calm down!  So just your attached garage is on fire? Well, we’re really busy waxing our trucks and few guys are catching up on sleep. We had a really busy weekend… Please call us back if the fire spreads to the entire house- bye for now!"  You would be outraged...and rightly so!