Andy introduces the parts of sanctification: knowledge leads to faith, and together they transform character. And out of a transformed character, we live a new life.
Welcome to the Two Journeys podcast. My name is Andy Davis and we’re beginning a new podcast this morning, Sanctification Monday. We’re going to be talking about what Christian maturity looks like. What is Christian maturity? And this is a vital topic for all of us as Christians. We believe with all of our hearts at Two Journeys, that God has left us here on earth after we’ve come to faith in Christ, to bring him glory by making progress in two journeys, the internal journey of growth into Christlikeness or towards spiritual maturity and the external journey of leading other people to salvation through faith in Christ, both through evangelism and missions. Those are the two journeys. I want to zero in on the internal journey in this podcast, Sanctification Monday. I want to talk about what that internal journey of sanctification looks like.
There are lots of biblical terms we could use for it. One of them is just holiness, a growth in holiness. Sanctification literally means to make holy so that we would, little by little, grow into holiness. But for me, Christian maturity is a little more of a technical term. It’s not something that necessarily a lot of scriptures would talk about, although the word maturity is found in some translations in the New Testament. But I like Christlikeness better, conformity to Christ. As it says in Romans 8:29 that God foreknew, “Those whom God foreknew, he predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” So, our salvation is all about being conformed, perfectly conformed in the end, to Christ. And so, when we are in heaven, when we’re in the new Jerusalem, where we’re in the new heaven, new earth, we will be perfectly conformed to Christ.
We will not be the second person of the Trinity. We’ll never be God the Son, but we will be perfectly conformed to him. And that makes perfect sense. From the very beginning, God created man in his own image, male and female, he created them in the image of God. Sin came in and defaced that image. Corrupted it, defiled it in some sense and pervasively to the very core of our being. God sent Jesus into the world that he might save us from our sins. And he lived a sinless life, interacted in this world as the incarnate son of God. Perfectly obeyed all of God’s laws, interacted with various people in different settings, did incredible miracles, did all kinds of works of service and cared for others. But primarily came to die on the cross for our sins as a substitute for our sins. He died under the wrath of God, and he was buried. And on the third day, God raised him from the dead.
And for 40 days he gave many convincing proofs to his disciples that he was alive. And then God took him up to heaven. And then at the Feast of Pentecost, God poured out the Holy Spirit on the followers of Christ. And the Holy Spirit has come to take the finished work of Jesus Christ. That redemption that he accomplished finely and perfectly on the cross and applying it, applied it to individuals all over the world. It’s been going on for 20 centuries.
Now, essential to this podcast, Sanctification Monday, is the concept that we get our salvation in stages. We don’t get it all at once. It is a salvation, a full and final salvation from sin in every regard. The effect that sin has had on us personally, on our minds, on our hearts, the effect that sin has had on our bodies. But not just that, the effect that sin has had in our world, even in our universe, all of that is going to be rectified in the new heaven, new earth, and the New Jerusalem.
the main stages of our salvation are justification, sanctification, glorification. These are the three great stages of salvation.
But in the meantime, while we’re still alive here on earth, in this sin-cursed, groaning, defiled, corrupted world where we ourselves groan. Knowing that we’re not finally saved, knowing that we have a long journey to go, that we have become aware (and the more mature you are scripturally you know it’s true) that our salvation comes to us in stages. Now, the main stages of our salvation are justification, sanctification, glorification. These are the three great stages of salvation. Justification, the beginning of the Christian life occurs when we hear that gospel, which I just recounted briefly to you about Christ, about his perfect life, his atoning death, his bodily resurrection. That as we repent and believe in him, repent of our sins and believe in Jesus, we are instantaneously forgiven for all of our sins.
We are given a new nature. We are made new creations. We’re born again as Jesus said to Nicodemus. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “We are new creations. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” We’ve been made new, that’s justification. And along with that regeneration, we’re transformed into a new person, a new man, or a new woman of God. But we have all these habits. We have all these patterns. We have all these things that don’t change instantaneously. And so, we then have to begin the second phase of our salvation, which is sanctification. And that’s what this podcast is all about. Sanctification Monday. If you’re a Christian, if you’ve been born again, your sins are forgiven, past, present, future, all your sins are forgiven and for eternity, they’ll be forgiven.
You’re going to stand forgiven on Judgment Day, you’re going to go off as a forgiven person into heaven. You’ve been redeemed, but now you’re supposed to grow in grace in the knowledge of Christ as it says in 2 Peter 3:18. And we hope that every Monday you’ll tune in to learn how to do that. “How can I become more and more conformed to Christ?” And I’ve written a book called An Infinite Journey, Growing Toward Christlikeness. We’re going to talk about content in that book. We’re going to go through it little by little. We’re going to talk about aspects that come from Scripture on what it means to be a fully mature Christian. And so, for the rest of your life, you’re going to be working out your salvation with fear and trembling. Paul says in Philippians 2:13, “For it is God who works in you according to his will and his purpose to get you to be conformed to his will and his purpose.”
He’s at work in you. He always precedes you. The Holy Spirit always goes ahead of you. We never lead him, he leads us. But little by little we are conformed to Christ, made more and more like him in our hearts, our minds, and in our actions, our habits. And so that’s what we’re going to be doing. We’re going to be talking about that. And we’re going to give you a comprehensive kind of roadmap of what sanctification looks like. We’re going to break it into four main sections: knowledge, faith, character, and action. I think that those are four good receptacles or containers of a lot of biblical truth.
And I think there’s a sequence there that knowledge precedes faith, knowledge and faith together transform character. And out of a transformed character, we live a new life. And that whole thing tends to be somewhat of an upward spiral. That as we live a new life, as we develop new habits, we grow in our knowledge, biblical knowledge, our experiential knowledge. And then our faith gets stronger, and our character keeps changing, and we keep growing. And so that’s the pattern we’re going to be describing on Sanctification Monday. We hope that you’ll tune in every week and learn more and more about what it means to be Christ-like. The goal for you would be as you are increasingly conformed to Christ, that you’ll bring glory to God. You’re going to more and more put Christ on display. Jesus said, “You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14). And that’s an incredible statement. He also says that of himself. He says, “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12).
the more conformed to Christ you are, the more Christ-like, the more spiritually mature you are, the more you’re going to shine.
And both of those are true because the light we shine is his light in our lives by the Holy Spirit. And so, the more conformed to Christ you are, the more Christ-like, the more spiritually mature you are, the more you’re going to shine. And you’re going to bring joy to, if you’re married, to your spouse, if you’re single to your roommates, to your co-workers, to neighbors, to your family members. You’re just going to give glory to God in everything you say and do. And that is much to his glory. “You will bear much fruit,” as Jesus said in John 15:5. He is the vine, and we are the branches. You’ll bear much fruit as you abide in him. That’s the goal. There are also negative aspects of it. We need to be honest about that. It’s going to be hard.
There’s going to be warfare involved. You’re going to have to fight. You’re going to have to put sin to death by the Spirit. You’re going to see more and more sin in your lives. The more you grow, the more humble you’re going to get because you’re going to be aware more and more, biblically aware, as we go through these topics and Sanctification Monday. You’re going to see more and more areas of growth that you didn’t even know were there. You are complacent or ignorant in that area. All of us are like that. And then Bible the shines a light in a certain area. The Holy Spirit convicts and says, “You really need to grow in that area.” And so, some of it’s going to be painful, but it’s a good kind of pain. We hunger and thirst for righteousness. We mourn over our sin, we yearn. We’re spiritual beggars crying out to God, saying, “Oh God, would you please grow me and make me more and more like Christ.”
So, we’re going to look at that. We’re going to follow this roadmap of knowledge, faith, character, action. We’re going to look at details in each of those categories. We’re going to urge you to be in God’s word regularly. It’s going to be super-saturated with scripture. If I can’t support what I say from scripture, I ought not to say it. The scripture has been given to bring us to full completion in Christ, and it’s amazingly comprehensive. It’s remarkable how much the Bible teaches about all these areas of Christlikeness. It’s more than we ever thought. And so, I’m excited to share these things with you. Please join us every Monday. This is the first, we hope, of many podcasts and Sanctification Monday. So have a good rest of your week, and we’ll see you next week.
Welcome to the Two Journeys podcast. My name is Andy Davis and we’re beginning a new podcast this morning, Sanctification Monday. We’re going to be talking about what Christian maturity looks like. What is Christian maturity? And this is a vital topic for all of us as Christians. We believe with all of our hearts at Two Journeys, that God has left us here on earth after we’ve come to faith in Christ, to bring him glory by making progress in two journeys, the internal journey of growth into Christlikeness or towards spiritual maturity and the external journey of leading other people to salvation through faith in Christ, both through evangelism and missions. Those are the two journeys. I want to zero in on the internal journey in this podcast, Sanctification Monday. I want to talk about what that internal journey of sanctification looks like.
There are lots of biblical terms we could use for it. One of them is just holiness, a growth in holiness. Sanctification literally means to make holy so that we would, little by little, grow into holiness. But for me, Christian maturity is a little more of a technical term. It’s not something that necessarily a lot of scriptures would talk about, although the word maturity is found in some translations in the New Testament. But I like Christlikeness better, conformity to Christ. As it says in Romans 8:29 that God foreknew, “Those whom God foreknew, he predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” So, our salvation is all about being conformed, perfectly conformed in the end, to Christ. And so, when we are in heaven, when we’re in the new Jerusalem, where we’re in the new heaven, new earth, we will be perfectly conformed to Christ.
We will not be the second person of the Trinity. We’ll never be God the Son, but we will be perfectly conformed to him. And that makes perfect sense. From the very beginning, God created man in his own image, male and female, he created them in the image of God. Sin came in and defaced that image. Corrupted it, defiled it in some sense and pervasively to the very core of our being. God sent Jesus into the world that he might save us from our sins. And he lived a sinless life, interacted in this world as the incarnate son of God. Perfectly obeyed all of God’s laws, interacted with various people in different settings, did incredible miracles, did all kinds of works of service and cared for others. But primarily came to die on the cross for our sins as a substitute for our sins. He died under the wrath of God, and he was buried. And on the third day, God raised him from the dead.
And for 40 days he gave many convincing proofs to his disciples that he was alive. And then God took him up to heaven. And then at the Feast of Pentecost, God poured out the Holy Spirit on the followers of Christ. And the Holy Spirit has come to take the finished work of Jesus Christ. That redemption that he accomplished finely and perfectly on the cross and applying it, applied it to individuals all over the world. It’s been going on for 20 centuries.
Now, essential to this podcast, Sanctification Monday, is the concept that we get our salvation in stages. We don’t get it all at once. It is a salvation, a full and final salvation from sin in every regard. The effect that sin has had on us personally, on our minds, on our hearts, the effect that sin has had on our bodies. But not just that, the effect that sin has had in our world, even in our universe, all of that is going to be rectified in the new heaven, new earth, and the New Jerusalem.
the main stages of our salvation are justification, sanctification, glorification. These are the three great stages of salvation.
But in the meantime, while we’re still alive here on earth, in this sin-cursed, groaning, defiled, corrupted world where we ourselves groan. Knowing that we’re not finally saved, knowing that we have a long journey to go, that we have become aware (and the more mature you are scripturally you know it’s true) that our salvation comes to us in stages. Now, the main stages of our salvation are justification, sanctification, glorification. These are the three great stages of salvation. Justification, the beginning of the Christian life occurs when we hear that gospel, which I just recounted briefly to you about Christ, about his perfect life, his atoning death, his bodily resurrection. That as we repent and believe in him, repent of our sins and believe in Jesus, we are instantaneously forgiven for all of our sins.
We are given a new nature. We are made new creations. We’re born again as Jesus said to Nicodemus. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “We are new creations. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” We’ve been made new, that’s justification. And along with that regeneration, we’re transformed into a new person, a new man, or a new woman of God. But we have all these habits. We have all these patterns. We have all these things that don’t change instantaneously. And so, we then have to begin the second phase of our salvation, which is sanctification. And that’s what this podcast is all about. Sanctification Monday. If you’re a Christian, if you’ve been born again, your sins are forgiven, past, present, future, all your sins are forgiven and for eternity, they’ll be forgiven.
You’re going to stand forgiven on Judgment Day, you’re going to go off as a forgiven person into heaven. You’ve been redeemed, but now you’re supposed to grow in grace in the knowledge of Christ as it says in 2 Peter 3:18. And we hope that every Monday you’ll tune in to learn how to do that. “How can I become more and more conformed to Christ?” And I’ve written a book called An Infinite Journey, Growing Toward Christlikeness. We’re going to talk about content in that book. We’re going to go through it little by little. We’re going to talk about aspects that come from Scripture on what it means to be a fully mature Christian. And so, for the rest of your life, you’re going to be working out your salvation with fear and trembling. Paul says in Philippians 2:13, “For it is God who works in you according to his will and his purpose to get you to be conformed to his will and his purpose.”
He’s at work in you. He always precedes you. The Holy Spirit always goes ahead of you. We never lead him, he leads us. But little by little we are conformed to Christ, made more and more like him in our hearts, our minds, and in our actions, our habits. And so that’s what we’re going to be doing. We’re going to be talking about that. And we’re going to give you a comprehensive kind of roadmap of what sanctification looks like. We’re going to break it into four main sections: knowledge, faith, character, and action. I think that those are four good receptacles or containers of a lot of biblical truth.
And I think there’s a sequence there that knowledge precedes faith, knowledge and faith together transform character. And out of a transformed character, we live a new life. And that whole thing tends to be somewhat of an upward spiral. That as we live a new life, as we develop new habits, we grow in our knowledge, biblical knowledge, our experiential knowledge. And then our faith gets stronger, and our character keeps changing, and we keep growing. And so that’s the pattern we’re going to be describing on Sanctification Monday. We hope that you’ll tune in every week and learn more and more about what it means to be Christ-like. The goal for you would be as you are increasingly conformed to Christ, that you’ll bring glory to God. You’re going to more and more put Christ on display. Jesus said, “You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14). And that’s an incredible statement. He also says that of himself. He says, “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12).
the more conformed to Christ you are, the more Christ-like, the more spiritually mature you are, the more you’re going to shine.
And both of those are true because the light we shine is his light in our lives by the Holy Spirit. And so, the more conformed to Christ you are, the more Christ-like, the more spiritually mature you are, the more you’re going to shine. And you’re going to bring joy to, if you’re married, to your spouse, if you’re single to your roommates, to your co-workers, to neighbors, to your family members. You’re just going to give glory to God in everything you say and do. And that is much to his glory. “You will bear much fruit,” as Jesus said in John 15:5. He is the vine, and we are the branches. You’ll bear much fruit as you abide in him. That’s the goal. There are also negative aspects of it. We need to be honest about that. It’s going to be hard.
There’s going to be warfare involved. You’re going to have to fight. You’re going to have to put sin to death by the Spirit. You’re going to see more and more sin in your lives. The more you grow, the more humble you’re going to get because you’re going to be aware more and more, biblically aware, as we go through these topics and Sanctification Monday. You’re going to see more and more areas of growth that you didn’t even know were there. You are complacent or ignorant in that area. All of us are like that. And then Bible the shines a light in a certain area. The Holy Spirit convicts and says, “You really need to grow in that area.” And so, some of it’s going to be painful, but it’s a good kind of pain. We hunger and thirst for righteousness. We mourn over our sin, we yearn. We’re spiritual beggars crying out to God, saying, “Oh God, would you please grow me and make me more and more like Christ.”
So, we’re going to look at that. We’re going to follow this roadmap of knowledge, faith, character, action. We’re going to look at details in each of those categories. We’re going to urge you to be in God’s word regularly. It’s going to be super-saturated with scripture. If I can’t support what I say from scripture, I ought not to say it. The scripture has been given to bring us to full completion in Christ, and it’s amazingly comprehensive. It’s remarkable how much the Bible teaches about all these areas of Christlikeness. It’s more than we ever thought. And so, I’m excited to share these things with you. Please join us every Monday. This is the first, we hope, of many podcasts and Sanctification Monday. So have a good rest of your week, and we’ll see you next week.
