Progressive Sanctification

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I'm Ryan Hill. I'm John Galantis and welcome back to the Clearview Today show. We're back in the studio today with our host Dr. Abbadan Shah, who's a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor and the host of today's show.

That's really hard to say in one breath. Dr. Shah, welcome. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. It's good to see all of you guys here and again to our listeners and our viewers. We really appreciate you for tuning in day after day, week after week. Our ratings are going up.

That's right. Our numbers are going up and it's awesome to see how God is using our little church, our little team right here to touch the world with the gospel of Christ. I think we'll probably be at 13,000 followers before the end of the day.

Wow, that's crazy. That means a couple of things for you, our Clearview Today show family. If today's episode impacts you, write in and let us know because we love hearing from you.

That's right. 252-582-5028 and share this podcast, share this radio broadcast, wherever it is you're listening from with somebody you know who needs to hear the hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And if you do, we've got a special award just for you. We're going to give each and every listener a million dollars, but it's going to cost.

No, trust me. I talked to the guys over the finance department of the Truth Network. They said they're totally good for it. Well, it wasn't the finance department.

It was Stu Epperson. He said it was all good. Just write it out under his name. Dr. Shah, $1 million and you can choose. This one's completely up to you. Either you have an iPhone and the rest of your staff is Android, or you have an Android and everybody else on your staff is iPhone. You can choose either one.

For a million dollars? Yeah. Or you could just say, no, I just want us to all have iPhones. Oh no, I'll take, um, I'll keep the iPhone and all you guys going Android. Ryan had the Android for the longest time. I did have an Android for one. And you were happy with it. I was happy with it. I enjoyed my Android and it did what I needed it to do.

Um, I will say it didn't do what we needed it to do. See, and that's, that's the point. Android in group chat settings, androids are fine. I can't tell a difference if somebody has an iPhone or an Android. I couldn't tell a difference if somebody had an iPhone or an Android. Um, however, now that I am an iPhone user, but I get it. I understand when that green, when that green pops up on the iPhone, I'm like, and then everybody's name disappears and it's replaced by their phone numbers. It's gross. Yeah. It's gross.

And I'm not even trying to get upset. It's an iPhone problem. It's an iPhone problem than an Android problem. It is a problem that we just, it's just us. It's just us here.

Let's, let's tune out the millions of listeners that are listening in right now. How do you feel when you're in a group chat and one of those green numbers comes up? Yeah, no, it was not fun. It's not fun, but if you give me a million dollars, you'll be green.

I have no problem with that green. We had to go on a journey of self-reflection and a journey of a really, really soul searching, um, on the Clearview staff, because Ryan and Elizabeth finally, finally, finally, they were like, all right, we hear you. We will get iPhones. We said, thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. But I guess what I'm saying is it was, it took man. How long ago did you switch? It's been, it's been a while. It's been like three or four years, right? More than that, like five or six years. That's how long it's not that much, but it's been, maybe it's been about four years. So that's how long it's taken for us to get everyone on staff on an iPhone and boy, that was rigorous. The problem is the expense. Yeah.

I think a lot had to do with the expense. Now, of course, I know some people may argue that the Android pictures are better and know what they say. So Android does take very good pictures, but not if you're trying to share with an iPhone.

If I, if I were to, if an Android user were to send an iPhone user a picture, the quality is super degraded. I think Apple products capitalized on a secret that believe it or not, I'm not even being funny when I say this, that I think Pokemon figured out in the nineties, Apple products are social. They're social thing. It's all about, Hey, if you have an Apple product and I have an Apple product, we're connected. Yeah, we are connected. We can do things that the rest can't do. Right. And that's an exclusive culture about it.

I mean, just walk to an Apple store and it's like, before I switched to Mac and Mac book and iPad and iPhone, I used to walk by the stores and just immediately feel dumb. Well, there's this, I mean, it seems like this huge think tank, like high brown, everybody's in on it other than me. And I get it. I get it. It's it's cause there's people listening who are like, but they've got you.

Y'all are sheep. And I'm like, yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. You're right. You got it. You're right.

I get it. But I like it. I like being, I like feeling like I'm part of the club. I'm like feeling like I've got the right computer and the right phone. And, and, uh, you know, the, the, nobody ever thinks that I'm gross for having an iPhone, but if you got an Android, there's people in your life that are like, Oh my goodness. I never say in your face, but they do the, I'll just take, well, let's get in our group. Let's get in our group chat. And then we'll just text him or her individually.

And it's, and it stinks for you. And I hope you're taking the money. Yeah. I'll, I'll, I'll keep my iPhone and rest of y'all can go Android or, um, I'll flip phone or whatever.

I saw someone the other day with a flip phone. Still sell them. Wow. That's like, yeah, they still do it.

While sound engineer, David said that they're coming back. Yeah. I've seen that because they're easy. They're less distracting.

They allow you to focus more on projects and things like that. Because, you know, when you have a phone like this immediately, you know, if you're addicted, you will go to your favorite social media, um, platform and there you go. And you're scrolling to see what's happening. Oh yep. That's going on. Oh yeah. That's going on.

And so, yeah, if you want to focus more, that's true. Maybe when I'm switched to, do you think, do you think if you challenge any of your students to text with T nine word that they would even have any clue what you're talking about? I'm positive. They don't know what that is.

I'm 100% positive. Here's how I know, because I have two, almost teenagers at home and they, you know, they can text from our phones. They don't have phones of their own, but they can text from our phones. Um, and we were trying to explain T nine to them and they're like, wait, so you had to press the letter more than the number more than once to get to a specific letter. Do you remember texting with T nine? You see this dial pad, you see the letters underneath there.

That was how we got to the letter. If it's in the third position, you press that number twice. So if you're good at it, we could text without even looking at 100%.

That's what I was about to say. I feel like I pressed that one three times, that one twice, this one one time. And you know, the message that you're sending in high school, I had, I wore a huge hoodies in high school and I remember having my phone, like I didn't even have to like hunch over. I could sit, relax and text without looking. Cause I knew the feel absolutely do without, without looking at it.

And they were like, I don't, that doesn't make any sense to me. Now I was standing on the other side of that conversation because I was a teacher, I was a principal and this is back in 2005 and man, so many, the board made the rule, right? No phones in school.

Couldn't even be on premises. No, you can have them, but they have to be shut off and in your bag. Got it. Because you can use it if you're traveling for baseball, soccer, basketball, whatever, or if you are, you know, having to call your parents after school to come pick you up or you have something going on. So you have to stay and stick around at school, whatever. So yeah, you're allowed to, you just cannot have it on and in class.

You can't use it. People did it all the time. And this is about the same time when hoodies became popular.

This is going back to about 2004, 2005. Am I right? Yeah.

That's my high school. Even, yeah. Even then when I was in high school, I got in like 2007 and it was still, still exactly the same way. Oh yeah, hoodies were popular back then. And so you would have these pockets and inside it would like go right through and through. Yeah. And so people would keep it over there and they would, they would be doing that. And I can tell because there's a look with people.

They would have this, this look of, they're way too focused. Yeah. Like they're looking through the room and they're doing this number and I'm like, Hey, are you texting? No, sir. You got it. And I would say, is it in your pocket right there? No, sir. Honestly, you can check if you want to. Like you're going to go reach in.

Yeah, I would like, and it was girls too. So I was like, no, I was like, look, I'm honestly, I'm telling you, you're wasting your time and mind. Cause when you do that, you're not studying. And then you're like, what, what was that again?

Cause they would do that. I missed it. I'm sorry. What was that again? I said, I said that already. I'm sorry. I have a tough time understanding. What do you call that?

ADHD. No, no, no. How do they, they're like, you have a problem kind of thing. Oh, they're gaslighting you. Yeah. They were like, like, and then they were like, you know, and this is a Christian school.

Okay. And they would do these kinds of things at the time. At first I was like, I'm the problem.

I am like, no. Then I later on realized, Oh no, we manipulated our teachers. Y'all are Christian school kids doing this for whatever reason. Some of them were there not because of Christian values.

They were there because of other reasons. And so I was like, and I told the board, I said, you have to make some really strong rules. They're like, okay, here's a rule.

One phone use and you are expelled. I said, no, no, we cannot do that. I'll tell you what, back in my day, when you used to do one thing, man, you know, when you give them a lot of chances and stuff, I was like, Oh my gosh, how did you get on the board straight to the nuclear option?

Yes. You cannot do that because the only person who ends up looking like a jerk is me. I said, no, we can, we not do that. Well, I'm telling you, Mr. Shaw, you know, when you, when you give people a lot of chances, it's going, it's, it's going to get out of control.

I'm like, fine. And then we started implementing that. And all of a sudden, you know, here we are faced with expelling somebody. Now parents got to come get involved because you expelling your kid over.

And so now you, what do you want to do? Because then how do you handle that for real? Like when they come to the principal, how do you, how do you as a principal, you can't just be like, Hey, I didn't want to, but the board, the board wanted to, you can't do that. Well, I have to say that's policy. Well, we didn't know. I said, well, it was, it was in the handbook.

It's everywhere. And inside I'm thinking it's like, I don't agree with it. This is silly.

This is ridiculous. So anyways, long conversation to talk about a sore spot. Well, maybe the, maybe the word of God will have a little healing for us. There you go.

Absolutely. One thing that phones can do now that flip phones can do is have God's word with every moment of the day. And the verse of the day today is coming from Romans chapter eight, verses 16 and 17. The spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children than heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together.

There's a clause in there, Dr. Shaw. I'm not really a, I liked all the whole heirs thing, like being heirs with Christ. That's pretty cool. And being glorified together. I like that. But what this whole like suffering with him, if indeed we suffer with, we could skip that part. Yeah.

I would love to just kind of, I'd love to just kind of scoot past that old part. Imagine some long lost uncle leaving you his, his will. Yeah. I'm all good with that. Yeah.

And then that will, he says from my dear, dear nephew with all my love and sound mind and body, I have decided to leave you all my suffering. Huh? Wait a minute. You said what?

That's okay. I think he probably didn't mean that. I mean, if you look at scripture, that's exactly what it means.

That's true. And it says we are heirs of God because if we are children than heirs, heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, then we may also be glorified together. See, we're cool with the man of suffering. Jesus is the man of suffering. He came to suffer. So I don't have to, that's my, that's my explanation.

Right? That's, that's my understanding of the Christian life. And yes, we'll have trials in life, but I don't like to think of my trials as suffering, you know what I mean? Like trials are like, I'm going to have some rainy days. I'm going to have some sore spots. Yeah.

I'm going to have some rough days, but hey man, there's a bright sunshine on the other side. Right. That's not always the case. No. Yeah. Especially for people who are in the, in the middle of trials.

I mean, how do I think about trials when I'm in the middle of them and there's no sunshine on the horizon? Exactly. Imagine telling the apostle Paul, as he is facing beheaded, being beheaded by Nero or Peter being beheaded by Nero that, hey, on the other side, there's a, you know, once this trial is over, it's a bright sunny day for you brother on, in, in, in Rome.

No, his head is about to come off. Yeah. And, and imagine like having to explain to a Christian today, like, you know, that's, that's always our go-to is like, Hey, endure this. And we think about this and we've said this on the show plenty of times, but we often think about our our trials as something to get through with the implication being that there's going to be sunshine on the other side. So the purpose of the trial is to get you through. And even then we'll, we might throw something in like, Oh, it's going to make you stronger. It's going to teach you how to trust in God. And while all those things are true, the purpose of trials, Dr. Shaw, and suffering in our life is not to get you through it.

Right. It's our sanctification. See this context in which Paul wrote those words under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is our sanctification. Now, for the benefit of our listeners who have been away or have not been following along on this this series through the book of Romans, sanctification comes in three steps. The first part is what we know as positional sanctification. The second is progressive, or you could even call it experiential sanctification. And the third part is our perfect or ultimate sanctification. You don't have to worry about the first and the last one. First one, of course, let's just talk about the last one first, which is perfect sanctification that's coming for us on the other side. Right.

That's going to happen no matter what we do. Yeah. Gotcha. So that's where God's going to completely sanctify us, set us apart, holify us, if you want to say that. No more sin, none of those vestiges of the old life.

The first one also you don't have to worry about because that is positional in the sense that it's already given to us. At salvation. At salvation. In fact, Romans 6 23 says, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. The gift of God, salvation is the gift of God. So we covered that on our episode in justification, you know, that we are justified, but this is also part of our sanctification as well.

Yes. The gift is typically people, people think that the gift is the justification that I am declared righteous and by faith I receive the gift. But sanctification is also part of our salvation. And that is also given to us positionally as a gift. So as a believer in the right now, I don't have to worry about positional because it has already happened at the moment of salvation. You don't have to worry about the perfect, the ultimate, neither do you have to worry about the positional, which is the gift.

The progressive is the only one. Right. Positionally you are already saints before God.

Right. Which is just a, is that a, just a doctrinal way of saying you're saved. You're saved, but you're also sanctified. Got it.

You have been set apart. You are holy unto God. When God sees you, he sees the holiness of his son, Jesus.

Got it. In you, in you, if you're truly saved, that's what he sees. But progressive, the middle part, which is how do you live in this life where you are, even though you are saved, even though you're positionally sanctified, even though you're heading towards heaven where you will be ultimately sanctified, how do you live in this life where you still have to contend with the old nature? Well, I like the way that you put it in your sermon as well. You've said that you're working out what's been worked in, meaning this positional sanctification that God has set you apart. He sanctified you. Now, what do I do with that? How do I live that out in my day to day life? That's a good way to put it.

Yes. And so that is what we're discussing here. That's what is what Paul is talking about in Romans chapter 8, our progressive sanctification. And it has a negative aspect to it or several negative aspects, but it also has some positive aspects to this progressive sanctification. Negatively speaking, Romans chapter 8 and verse 2, for the law of the spirit of life in Christ, Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.

Law of the spirit of life in Christ, Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. It's a negative benefit of sanctification. Negative in the sense that we've lost something.

Lost something bad. Right. Okay, so it's for our benefit, but it's negative in the sense that something is being taken from us.

Well, I would say more. It has a negative tone to it. You have been set free from the law of sin and death. Okay.

Not to be set free from the law of sin and death is to succumb to the law of sin and death. So negative in the sense that it's subtractive. Yeah, it kept you from going under. Got it. Got it. Okay.

Just to jump ahead so that people won't be confused any longer. You are joint heirs with Christ. That's positive. There's no negative aspect of sin and death and flesh or the old nature is mentioned here.

It's just you are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. Everything positive there. So both are benefits. One is more on the negative tone. The other is the positive. I got you. I got you.

Okay. So the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. That's what the holy spirit does for us. He sets us free as we submit to him, as we allow the holy spirit to guide us in the daily struggles, temptations, and the battles of the Christian life. As we submit to him, he sets us free from the law of sin and death.

For example, the law of gravity. That is like the law of sin and death. Right. It is always operating.

It will always operate. But when you put on a harness, which is hitched to a beam, then that law of the harness frees me from the law of gravity. Right. It's counteracting. It's not that the law of gravity no longer exists. Right. Or that it's not working on you for some reason, but it is still working on you, but temporarily you are freed from that law.

Because you are in a harness. So also the holy spirit of God is like that harness that separates me or releases me from the law of sin and death. But it's not a static condition.

It's a maintained condition. Right. As I submit to the holy spirit, this happens. If I stop submitting to the holy spirit, I will succumb to the law of sin and death. Does not mean that I stopped being saved.

Right. It's just that now I am doing things out of legalism. Great point, because I think a lot of Christians, and maybe there is some room for this, so I'm not saying it's not this way, but a lot of times when Christians fall into sin, we want to label it as an attack. The enemy has attacked me.

But really how much of what we label as an attack or a spiritual attack or the enemy is after me, how much of it is just, I'm just failing to submit right now. And so the natural laws of sin and death are taking their toll. That harness really is a great picture because if we put the harness on, the law is effective upon us. It holds us up from gravity. But if we discard the harness or if we fail to put it on, the harness still exists. So our relationship with God still exists. Our relationship through Jesus still exists. But we have failed to submit to the holy spirit in that we have failed to put the harness on.

Right. And not only legalism comes in, just doing things out of a heartless Christianity, but also death comes in. Not physical death. Not that when we stop submitting to the holy spirit that we die physically.

Of course not. You're still alive. But now there is a death-like experience that comes over us. There's a death-like experience where we're going through motions, but we don't feel it. We don't sense the presence of God. We don't see the victory of the Christian life. We cannot see Christ in our daily walk, in our daily journey. We don't hear his voice. I mean, think about a cadaver.

What can a cadaver experience? Nothing. Right. That's right.

Nothing. That's who we were before Christ. But now that you are in Christ, but if you go back to the law of sin and death, when you stop listening to the holy spirit, then in a sense, in a sense, you have this hybrid, this, I hate to use the word schizophrenic type experience of being in Christ and yet not seeing Christ. I think that term is a good term to use. I mean, it's a little disturbing to think about and it should be because we're bouncing back and forth between two things.

We can't regard both as true. There's a chaotic, unpredictable nature to it and I think that that is a really appropriate term. It should feel a little unsettling. And I like that.

Yes, exactly. And I like that you're bringing Christ into it because I think this is something, and I don't know if we'll have time to really delve into this on today's episode, but maybe we can talk about it tomorrow, is that a lot of people think that Christ got me saved. It was his, it was his work on the cross because of Jesus Christ, I'm saved. Now the holy spirit helps me to live this daily life. But I like the point that you keep bringing up is that the holy spirit is doing everything in Christ.

Yeah. Well, the holy spirit is constantly working in a believer's life, whether the believer is aware of it or not. Sin is much more than just actions. It's much more than pornography. It's much more than anger. It's much more than greed. It's much more than murder. It's much more than gossip and lying, name it.

Right. It's a deep internal problem that has, that has seeped into every part of who I am. It is full of self. It is full of enmity against God. So when I receive Christ as my savior, the holy spirit begins to work in the deep crevices of my heart, of my mind, of my very being.

I'm not even aware of it, but he is working. And that's wonderful. I praise God for that.

And yes, it does make a difference in my life. Having said that, the part that I can understand, experience, and even kind of describe is not that deep ingrained sin in my being. I can only express and understand and verbalize the things that I do, the tangible expressions of sin, my anger, my disagreement with my wife or my contention with my wife.

That's the only place I can do that. I can either submit to the holy spirit who's going to make the life of Christ real in me, in my marriage relationship, or I can be a self-focused pouting husband. Yeah. What's going to happen?

She hurt my feeling or I hurt her feeling or whatever's happened. And instead of submitting the holy spirit, because all the holy spirit is going to do is he's going to activate the power of Christ in me. He's going to remind me that my marriage is the Christ church relationship, that I am to be to my wife, what Christ is to the church. And in that mystery, there is not only deep significance, but there's also power. There is also joy. There is also a sense of purpose.

So I can submit to the holy spirit and allow him to activate the life of Christ in me and bring some purpose in our marriage, or I can reject it. Right. And the moment I reject it, then I go back to how dare she.

I go back to, I will not allow this to pass. And that's sort of where, and you said this from the pulpit and I think we've said it on the show too, but where sin really shows its true form, which is just self. Yeah. Yes. And death follows. Now there is death in that marriage. Not that you're divorcing, not that you are, you know, irretrievably separated.

No, but there's a death lag experience. You're married, but right now there's no communication happening. There's no love being shared. There's no purpose.

There is no joy. There's no awareness of those around you, whether it's children or church family or community or neighbors. It's just, it's just, that's where a lot of people are.

I think that resonates with a lot of people who are listening. You said death-like experience. And even if it's not a marriage per se, if maybe it's a friendship or maybe it's a family relationship, there's a death-like experience. Or even your Christian life. Maybe, you know, like, like you have the knowledge, like I'm saved, but man, I don't feel it at all.

I feel dark and I feel empty. Yeah. And so that's what we're talking about here. When you submit to the Holy Spirit, then immediately go, yeah. Yeah. The offense was real.

The hurt is real. But now if I'm submitted to the Holy Spirit, he wants me to live in the power of Christ. And he has already supplied that to me. He wants me to have the mind of Christ, which is already mine, but he's also going to enable me to obey and, and follow Christ and live his life. So I'm going to allow him to do that work, which means I'm going to submit my mouth to the Holy Spirit. Amen. And what's the mouth going to say?

He's going to say, tell her you love her or tell him you love him. What is, what are my eyes going to see? My eyes going to see how Christ sees me and sees lost people and sees broken humanity. You know, so just, just present your instruments as members of righteousness unto God. Amen. Amen. And so I hope our listeners and our viewers are beginning to understand this is Christian life. That's right.

This really does work. Yeah. This is not just doctrine for the sake of talking shop. This is how you live your life. Yeah.

That's right. So good. Guys, make sure you join us on tomorrow's episode. Same time, same station. We're going to be diving into another great topic here on the clear view today show. Thanks again to our sponsors for making today's episode possible. And don't forget that you can support us by subscribing to the show on iTunes or on pray.com or whatever listening platform you find yourself on. You can always support us financially at clearveetodayshow.com. John, close us out.

What you got for us? Well, I was just going to say, we are seeing the numbers going up and up and up on pray.com. We're approaching 13,000 followers. Listen, guys, that's 13,000 people who have chosen to say, I want to subscribe to all of Dr. Shah's content, especially the exclusive content over on pray.com. We also want to plug Dr. Shah's books. We haven't plugged his books in a while, but there are three of them with a fourth one coming out very soon.

Actually, there's three devotionals and there's two academic works as well, but you can find all of them on amazon.com. This one here is called 30 days of praying for America. And goodness knows, we can definitely use that right now. These are daily devotions to heal our nation. So make sure you pick up this copy right now. We've got more information about that fourth one coming out very soon.

That's right. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clearview Today. This episode of Clearview Today is brought to you by Mighty Muscadine. If you're looking for a natural way to boost your health, Mighty Muscadine has you covered. From 100% muscadine grape juice to premium healthy supplements, every single product is handcrafted to bring you the best of this extraordinary super fruit. It's backed by science and best of all, every muscadine grape is grown right here in the heart of North Carolina.

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