The title of my message this morning is Living in Proper Biblical Balance. Living in Proper Biblical Balance. And I'm convinced this morning that if we're going to make progress in the New Year, if you're going to make progress in your Christian life, you need two things. You need, number one, to stay focused on, to stay tethered to, and to marinate your mind in the gospel of Jesus Christ. As the last phrase of the hymn we just sang, show me more what thou hast done. That's a reference to the work of God in salvation.
That's the first thing. But secondly, you need the proper response to those great biblical truths. And the second challenge you need is that you might properly be motivated by the gospel to live out the biblical imperatives of the gospel. We've talked about this a lot in this church, and so this won't be new to you, but this message is rooted in this paradigm, in this biblical pattern.
It's very conspicuous. There's an order here. And what is that order? There's an order between gospel indicatives and gospel imperatives. It's obvious here in 1 Peter chapter 1.
We've shown it to you many places. Romans chapter 12. Paul's expounded the gospel in all of its glory. And he comes to chapter 12, and he says, I beseech you, therefore, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
And he goes on. Paul does the same thing in Ephesians. First three chapters, doctrinal, theological, salvation, gospel indicatives. He's telling us what God has done for his people in Jesus Christ. But when he comes to chapter 4, verse 1 says this. I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called.
We have that pattern here. Back to 1 Peter chapter 1. There's so much in these 21 verses. You could preach four or five messages.
So I'm going to give a bit of an overview, and then we're going to camp on a particular portion. But notice how Peter's writing. Verse 3. He's talking to us about the mercy that God has extended in the gospel and in his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to his abundant mercy, has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
Then he goes on to talk about our inheritance. Where is it? It's in heaven.
Incorruptible, undefiled, and it does not fade away. It's reserved in heaven for you. Verse 5. We're kept by the power of God through faith for salvation to be ready to be revealed in the last time.
And then there's a section there we'll get back to here in a moment. But when you get over to verse 13, keep in mind what we're looking at. This biblical paradigm, this pattern, this order. The gospel comes first. Grace comes first. And then the demands come second. Grace comes first.
Verse 13, there's that word again, therefore, therefore, and here are the biblical imperatives, the gospel imperatives, and there's a half a dozen of them there or so. So I want you to take note of that pattern. Effort is hard work. Effort and hard work are not bad words. Okay?
They are not bad words. Putting forth effort doesn't necessarily mean you've lost sight of the gospel. We put forth effort in light of the gospel. A godly life, a life that pleases the Lord is going to take focused effort.
It's not just going to happen automatically because you're being exposed to the glories of the gospel. So we're talking about two critically important doctrines and their relationship to one another. And what are those two doctrines? They are justification and sanctification.
Listen to me. All who have been justified by God, all who have been declared righteous based on their faith in the merits and work of Jesus Christ, will, without fail, be sanctified. Only those who will be sanctified are those who have been justified. There is no sanctification apart from justification. But sanctification follows justification every time without fail.
Now what are we talking about with these terms? Justification is describing the finished work of Jesus Christ. God in mercy came to us in our sin. He made us objects of His mercy. He moved us out of darkness into His glorious light. He moved us out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His dear Son, out of the bondage of sin into the freedom to say no to sin now, which we could not do previously. Sanctification describes the ongoing process of becoming more and more like Jesus Christ by obeying the gospel imperatives. We are to pursue holiness. We're to put off sin and put on righteousness.
We're to put to death the deeds of the flesh. There's a balance here. Most of us have a background. Most of us haven't grown up under this reform soteriology. Most of us have come from different places.
I've come from different places and I've heard a lot of things. I've heard, let go and let God. That sounds like not too much for me to do, right?
No effort on my part. Just let go and let God. It sounds pretty freeing. Then I've heard, if it's going to be, it's up to me.
That's pretty discouraging because I know my track record. If it's going to be, it's up to me. What hope is there in that? Now, we've got to hold these two doctrines in balance.
We are people of extreme. So we have to find the biblical balance between resting in God and putting forth effort. So let me give us two gospel reminders to keep balance in our Christian life as we walk into the new year. Number one, don't ever get over where you started. Don't ever get over where you started. Remember where you came from. Remember the pit God rescued you from. Remember what you were apart from Jesus Christ. Don't ever get over where you started, but continue to elevate and celebrate the gospel indicatives in your life.
That's my first reminder. And again, an indicative simply means we're referring to what God has done for us that we could never have done for ourselves. We've been forgiven. We've been redeemed. We've been set free.
We've been adopted. We've been made children of God. All these things, God is the one moving and we're the one receiving.
And we've done nothing to contribute to that. I recall talking to a man who was just so frustrated with the gospel as it was presented to him time and time and time again. He said to me, not even knowing I was a pastor, he says, I believe salvation is all of God minus man. Never heard it quite put that way, but he wanted to be certain that man was negated out of the equation.
If any man is going to be saved, any man is going to be born again, it's going to be solely God's doing, man makes no contribution. And God's wired it that way. He's designed it that way.
It's a glorious gospel. Why? So that no man might boast. No room for boasting.
No room for human merit. All to the honor and glory and grace of God. Second gospel reminder.
Remember the first one. Don't ever get over where you started, but continue to elevate and celebrate the gospel indicative in your life. Number two, don't ever confuse elevating and celebrating the gospel indicative with making excuses for being spiritually lazy.
You see how that works? To believe what we believe is absolutely freeing, right? It's freeing. I'm accepted by God through the merits of his son. I'm not on a treadmill.
I'm not on a performance treadmill. I think it's Jerry Bridges that said, you need the gospel as much on your best day as you need it on your worst day. And what he's basically saying, the best we can offer to God, our best performance is still what?
Filthy rags. Completely and totally unacceptable, not because of our failures only, but because of who he is. He's holy. He demands perfection. And if there's anything true about us, it's that we're imperfect.
We need this balance. Listen to the balance that Paul communicates as he writes in the Epistles. This is 1 Corinthians 15. He says, For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am.
What's that? That's gospel indicative. That's what God has done. I am what I am by the grace of God. And he says, And his grace toward me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was working within me.
That's the balance. The English Standard Version renders that portion of verse 10 this way. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is within me. You know Philippians 2, 12 and 13. Work. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who is working in you, both willing to do according to his good pleasure. Now, we get in real trouble if we take that emphasis of work and move it out of the realm of sanctification and carry it over into the realm of justification. Because all the work in the world will not justify you before God. Right?
Right. But once you have been justified by God on the merits of his son, then there is work to do. Roll up your sleeves, get ready for warfare, get ready for battle with your flesh. Yes, there's work to do. God didn't design the Christian life to be easy.
It's going to take effort. It's going to take discipline and sacrifice to follow Jesus Christ. Romans 8, 13 says, For if you live according to the flesh, you will die.
But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. There's a story told of a man who came eagerly but very late to a revival meeting. He found the workmen tearing down the tent in which the meeting had been held. He was frantic. Frantic at missing the evangelist. So he decided to ask one of the workers what he could do to be saved. The workman, who was a Christian, replied, You can't do anything. It's too late.
Horrified, the man said, What do you mean? How can it be too late? The work has already been done. The man said, There is nothing you need to do but believe. So that's the gospel, isn't it?
Yes. Now, as I said, there's a lot going on here in this passage. Do you notice the pivot that Peter makes from the glories of the gospel and the mercy that has been dispensed by Almighty God to sinners like us? He pivots in verse six. He says, In all of this you greatly rejoice.
And you say, Absolutely. This is cause for rejoicing. God has had mercy on me.
He's promised to keep me. If you can't rejoice over that, then most likely grace has never dawned in your heart. In this you greatly rejoice. But then he says, Though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials. Now, we're in a world, how did he shoehorn that in there? Do you notice this consideration of trials is in the context of the glorious gospel?
What are we to make of this? Let me try and marry these two ideas together with my first point. Soaking in the gospel indicative will keep you rejoicing in the face of trial and suffering. Soaking in the gospel indicative, keeping the gospel front and center, keeping your heart and soul tethered to the gospel, will keep you rejoicing in the face of trials and suffering.
In this you greatly rejoice. Though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials. Peter puts our trials in the context of these great gospel indicative. And it helps us to begin to see our trials as short, necessary, and meaningful.
Short. Though now for a little while, in the light of eternity, they may seem to drag on and on and on in this life as you mark time, hour by hour and day by day and month by month, but they're short. They're necessary.
They're absolutely necessary. And because God is superintending them, they're meaningful. Whatever you are going through in this life, in the context of trial and suffering, it's for a little while compared to eternity. So you have to keep soaking your heart and soul in the gospel. Because if you don't, you're going to lose sight of the gospel and you'll get bogged down and your life will shrink to the size of your problem. That's why the Bible continues to tell us, set your affections on things above.
Pastor Latour is going to remind us this morning, fix your eyes on the Lord Jesus, this race that we're running. So you don't have to live very long to realize that things are very broken and fallen and twisted. And if you don't have something outside of yourself to cling to and hope to, you will not have any joy. But see, we're to greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you've been grieved by various trials. There's cause for joy and rejoicing in the midst of trials because of what God has done for us in the gospel. There is grace from God to match every trial, no matter how bizarre, however complex, painful, difficult, long, whatever it is, there's grace for it.
And that's cause for rejoicing. So point number one, we're to soak in the gospel indicative and as we do, we will keep rejoicing in the face of trial and suffering. I first wrote this down this way and then I thought, no wait a minute, I need to revise that. I first wrote down if you have a trial in your life right now, you say if, really if. Since you have a trial going on right now in your life, God decided that it needed to be there. God decided that it had to be there to accomplish His purposes because nothing just happens. God is at work in your life. Our trials, suffering, difficulty, they're necessary because they work on us and they work in us to make us more like our Savior.
They have a testing effect. I've had more than one believer tell me this has been one of the most painful trials I've had to ever endure. But one thing that's come out of it, I know without a doubt I'm a Christian.
I said, why do you know that? Because I'm still in the way. I haven't turned bitter. I'm still trusting God.
I'm still looking to Him. And that's good because that's what Peter is saying. It has a testing effect that the genuineness of your faith, verse 7, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Yes. But when you see people turn and bolt for the door and say, I'm done with this. That's not what I thought I was getting into. I was told the Christian life was this or the Christian life was that. I didn't sign up for this.
I'm out of here. What does that tell you? Well, their faith was tested and it was proven to be false, inadequate, insufficient. And I think we kind of minimize that benefit, that purpose that God has in trials. But we dare not because eternity is a very long time. And the more confirmation we can have in this life that when we die and breathe our last, we're going to end up in glory.
We need to rejoice in those things and not diminish them. Not say, well, yeah, I know I'm a Christian, but boy, oh boy, it's for a while. God has a purpose.
He's going to use it. So point number one, soaking in great gospel indicative is what will keep you rejoicing in the face of trials and sufferings in this life. Number two, obeying gospel imperatives will keep you from wasting your life and looking like you don't have any power or purpose for living.
Obeying gospel imperatives will keep you from wasting your life and looking like you don't have any power or purpose for living. And we're back over here to verse 13, therefore, therefore. So what is Peter saying?
Peter is telling his readers. He's telling us. God is telling us. In light of all that God has done for us, look at what our response should be. Look at how it should motivate us. Look how it should shape and affect the way we live our lives. There are six things I want to enumerate here for you.
Number one, verse 13. Therefore, gird up the loins of your mind. Prepare your mind for action. Prepare your mind for action.
We'll come back to these. Number two, be sober-minded or be self-controlled. Number one, gird up the loins of your mind. And the next thing is, be sober. Be sober, which means be self-controlled. Be sober-minded. Number three, he says, rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. What is the gospel imperative? Cultivate hope.
Rest in hope. Number four, he says, as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts as in your ignorance. Number four, don't let your sinful flesh squeeze you back into chasing after the same old lusts you were living for before because you know better. Don't let your sinful flesh squeeze you back into chasing after the same old lusts that you were living for before. Don't let your flesh do that. Your flesh wants to drag you back.
Don't underestimate the war that's going on. What does Paul say to the church at Galatia? Walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh, before the Spirit wars against the flesh, the flesh against the Spirit because they're contrary to one another.
Right? Warfare. There's a war going on between your flesh and the Spirit. The power of sin has been broken in your life. You're no longer a slave to sin. He's saying no to sin and yes to grace. But that's a decision you've got to make. God won't make it for you.
He's commanding us. Verse 15, but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct. There's the command of holiness. The writer of Hebrews says, without holiness no one will see the Lord. It's not peripheral.
It's not an add-on. It's absolutely necessary and critical. He's talking about holiness, but it's sanctification.
Remember what we said. If you've been justified, you will, without fail, be sanctified. But anybody who is not being sanctified really has to call into question if they've ever been justified. If holiness and the whole idea of living a holy life is, I'm not concerned about how I live.
That's very, very dangerous talk. And what's the last? There's six things I'm drawing out.
There are perhaps even more. But he says, Verse 15, but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, be holy for I am holy. And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each man's work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear, knowing... Well, let me stop right there.
What's the last imperative? Fear God. Fear God and live like you're just passing through.
Now, there's a lot to chew on here, right? Fear God and live like you're just passing through. What does that look like? What does that mean? What changes does that imply in the way we live our lives? Live like we're just passing through.
Let's walk back through these quickly. Prepare your mind for action. Verse 13, gird up the loins of your mind.
That's kind of interesting language. We don't tend to think like, what does it mean to gird up the loins of your mind? What means to get ready? In that day, men wore long robes.
And you reached down and pulled your robe up, got a belt or something around you, because you're getting ready for action. And what Peter is saying, get your mind in action. If you don't prepare your mind, your mind is not going to be following the course of holiness and righteousness. Your mind is going to be trained, because we've lived in this world and we're being bombarded all the time.
The world is trying to squeeze us into its mold. Why is this important? Because the Bible says, as a man thinketh in his heart, what? So is he.
So is he. So it's good to stop and think and contemplate and consider. Where does my mind go? What am I thinking on? What is occupying my mind?
Get your mind in gear. The Bible is filled with verses that call us to think and examine what's going on in our head. And to sift through those thoughts with the truth of God's word. 2 Corinthians 10, 5, casting down arguments in every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God in doing what? Bringing every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Some thought comes into your mind and you immediately, in the spirit of God, checks you and says, that is not becoming of a Christian.
That is your old life. That's going to take you down the wrong road. And when that happens, we need to consciously make a decision, I'm going to take that thought captive to the obedience of Jesus Christ. Get the chains out. Get a chain on it.
Get it locked up. Don't let it linger. Don't let it linger because it'll take on a life of its own and take you down a path you don't want to go. If you want to please God and finish well, you cannot go through life unaware of what you're thinking or unprepared for the mental assault that's happening in your mind every day. Satan knows that's where the battles won or lost.
That's why he attacked you in your mind. Because where you fix your mind will largely determine how you live your life. Where you fix your mind will largely determine how you live your life. And therefore, Colossians 3, set your mind on things above, not on the things of the earth.
For you died and your life is hidden with Christ and God. Philippians 3, 18 and 19, For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you, even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is their shame, who set their mind on earthly things. Is your mind set on earthly things? You say it's a battle.
I understand it's a battle. But if the only thing you're thinking on is earthly things, that's a major warning sign. Danger. Danger. Number two, be sober minded, be self controlled.
What do I want to say about that? Take charge of your choices. Take charge of your choices. Decide ahead of time what you will and what you will not do.
You can't wait till the heat's on. You can't wait until the temptation and the fires turned up and go, you know what, I'm wondering, how am I going to respond? Am I going to yield to this?
Am I going to resist this? Decide what you will and what you will not do, because the good news of the freeing message of the gospel is you don't have to live at the mercy of your feelings and your sinful urges. You don't have to.
You don't have to. Because the stranglehold of sin has been broken in your life if you're a believer. The presence of sin is still there, but the power of sin to own you has been broken. You're not a slave to unrighteousness anymore if you're a Christian.
You're a slave to righteousness if you're a Christian. Third thing there is what? Rest your hope. Set your hope in the right place. We should get excited and think on Jesus Christ that as we journey in this life, grow in grace and knowledge, we're going to learn more of our Savior, there's the prospect that we are going to know Him more, we're going to see Him one day.
That should fill our hearts with hope. Number four, don't let your sinful flesh squeeze you back into chasing after the same old lusts that defined your life in the past. Don't just go with the flow. Push back against the world and your own flesh. Ephesians 4, verse 17, This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart, who being past feeling have given themselves over to lewdness, to work uncleanness with greediness. And then he says this, But you have not so learned Christ. You have not so learned Christ.
This isn't the way of Christ. Just don't go with the flow, but push back against the world and your own flesh. There ought to be, when we pillow our head at night, on my day off, I'm working in my yard, I'm busy, and I'm grateful that I can pretty much work from sun up to sun down, and it's a good feeling to pillow your head at night and feel like, you know what, I'm tired, I'm exhausted, and anticipate a good night's rest. But for the Christian, there ought to be days when we pillow our head at night because of the assaults of the enemy and the pressures that have come against us and say, you know what, I am tired.
I'm mentally exhausted. I have put up and fought against and pushed back all day long. And I'm grateful that God has given grace to do that, but I'm wore out. Have you known that experience? Have you been able to revel and rejoice in the grace of God that's come to you afresh that day? Yes, it's been hard. It hasn't been easy. I've had to push back. I've had to say no. You say, yeah, but when I pillow my head at night, I'm thinking, you know what, there's another day, and it's tomorrow, and it's going to be just like yesterday. Right. That's why the Bible says don't become weary in what?
Well-doing. His grace is made perfect in our weakness. So, this business and the command to live a holy life. Stop making excuses for sin and start aiming for holiness. I think because we know ourselves so well and know that the goal of holiness and the goal of perfection is unattainable in this life, we've kind of almost surrendered to, well, you know what, there's no way you can live up to this standard. So, we let our guard down and we lower our expectations, but no, that's the wrong mindset. Stop making excuses for sin and start aiming for holiness.
I like to think of it this way. The goal of the Christian life is not sinlessness, but it's to sin less. We're sinning less the closer and closer we get. The longer we walk with the Lord, we ought to be sinning less. So, the Christian life is a life of percentages. You know, five years ago I was sinning a whole lot more. I'm grieved by it, but I was, but here I am five years later, and if I could somehow gauge that in percentages, I'd hope to be able to say, you know what, I'm sinning less.
My sin still grieves me, it still disappoints me, I want to be free of it, and one day I will be, but that's healthy Christianity right there. Be holy because what? He who called you is holy. But he who has called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct. And here's the argument. The argument is children inherit the nature of their parents, so if you're a child of God, you should live holy.
Why? Because he's holy. That's his nature, and his nature has been conferred to you. You have the nature of God. The divine nature has been imparted to you. So if there's no desire for holiness, no presence of holiness, no ambition to be holy, hmm, really calls into question, doesn't it, whether that profession is a genuine one or not. So, in five minutes let me ask some questions and try and leave a lasting impression with you about this message.
The first place I think to start is the most logical one. Are you in Christ? Have you believed in the Lord Jesus Christ to the saving of your soul? Because if you haven't, then all this talk of holiness and gospel imperatives is absolutely meaningless. There's some sitting here going, I can't wait till he's done. I'm so tired of hearing this.
I have no desire for this. You're here under constraint, but you're not here under Holy Ghost constraint. But you're here because God has ordered you to be here. You're here by divine providence.
You're here to hear this again one more time. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Today is the day of salvation. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's the first place. Number two, are the great gospel truths that we sing about, rejoice in, preach about, teach about, are they making any difference in your life or not? Is it just something that you can talk intelligently about doctrine and theology, is it making any difference in your life? Is your life any different? Have you been changed? Are you a new creature in Christ? Are you soaking in these gospel truths? Are you marinating your minds in these gospel truths so that you can practice in the trials and challenges and the difficulties of life in those, can you find joy?
Can you be rejoicing? Because you're marinating your mind in these gospel indicative. Have the scriptures become the prescription lens through which you see trials in your life? As you view trials and difficulties that God has ordained and brought in your life, do you see them through the prescriptive lens of scripture?
Because if you do, then you say, you know what? God has a purpose in this. He's preparing me for glory. It's for my good.
He's going to use it. I'm going to become more like Christ. I'm going to learn things about me and about Him that I wouldn't have learned any other way.
And it's only for a little while. Remember my message this morning, living in proper biblical balance. Where are you in this balance between resting in Christ and what God has done for you and putting forth effort, working, struggling, striving? Does there need to be a correction in your life? Or do you have the right balance? Have you become lazy? Have you become indifferent? Have you been not mindful of your, what you're under biblical mandate to do? You say, well, I think it's a good time, first Sunday of the year, just to think and weigh.
Is my life in balance or is it out of balance? I grew up in a church where suddenly you were taught that you could obligate God. That if you had really been doing well and having devotions and having your quiet time and keeping sin in check in your life, that God was going to bless you for that. Now, think through this with me.
Is there anything wrong with that? God is going to bless me if I do these things. What's wrong with that theology, at least in the context in which I was in church, is that my acceptance before God was based on my performance. God was smiling on me when I had my Bible open and I was praying and I was doing the gospel imperatives. God was pleased with me.
But when my Bible was closed and I was indifferent and I was cold and my heart was not where it ought to be, God was frowning on me. Is that your view? Is that how you view God?
I hope not, because that's a distortion. Listen, if you're in Christ today, God is pleased with you. And you know why He's pleased with you?
Because He's pleased with His Son. Because you've been accepted only because you're in Christ. Some say, well, I mean, that takes away my incentive for doing the right thing. No!
No, it doesn't! If you've been loved like that, what should be your response? I want to please this One who's received me, accepted me, on the basis of the merit of another. I don't want to go around acting like it doesn't matter to me. It hasn't affected me.
I don't care what Jesus did for me. No, if you really have been changed by this gospel message, it has to affect your life. And you're motivated because you love Him who loved you.
That's it, right? So let's work at that balance, because I think even in a place like this, that understands the gospel the way we do it, we can get out of balance. And our tendency is not to get out of balance over here and work and say, I'm going to work, work, work, work, work, and somehow God's going to accept me.
We tend to be over here. Well, I'm accepted in Christ, so why should I be working? I can't even accumulate demerits because there's so much merit in Christ. I can't accumulate enough demerit for God to cast me away. If my confidence is in the merit of Christ, then we tend to be lazy over here and passive and just think the gospel's going to carry us along.
No effort here. No, we've got to find the balance. So let's pray. Father, how we thank You for this glorious gospel that comes to men and changes them, transforms them from the inside out, makes them new creatures in Christ Jesus. Lord, we bow in humility and with thanksgiving in our hearts that You have had mercy on us, that You have redeemed us and made us Your own. Lord, I pray that You would use Your word as a means of grace in our lives today to bring us to a place of proper balance where we are resting in the finished work of Jesus Christ, but we are pressing on that we might know Him and know Him better. We might be men and women who are in hot pursuit of the God of holiness. Help us, I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
