God's Good Work - Philippians 1:6 (Dec 3) Myles Holmes

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

And God, our hearts are filled with gratitude.

Lord, what an amazing miracle to witness and to celebrate the miracle of salvation.

Lord, greater a miracle than the day that you said, Let there be light, was the day that you said into the hearts of Laura and Mike and all those who believe in you by faith this morning.

Lord, you said, Let light shine in the darkness of our hearts.

And so, God, we're amazed at your at your work of grace.

And as we open up your word, Lord, we want to hear more of this work of grace.

I pray, Lord, by the power of your Holy Spirit, that you would be tilling the soil of our hearts, that it would be fresh, ready for a fresh planting of your grace, Lord, ready for the fresh encouragement of your word.

Lord, you have such a word of hope for us in a world that is without hope.

You have such a word of love for us in a world that is without love.

And so, God, I pray that you would find here your children who are ready to listen.

And so, God, thank you for this moment that we have.

Bless us as we hear your word.

We pray this all in the name of your Son.

Amen.

Amen.

You can grab your seat, take your copy of God's word, and open it up to Philippians chapter 1, verse 6.

Philippians 1:6

And if you don't have a copy of God's word with you, our ushers are going to be making their way to the front of the worship center, and you can stick your hand in the air, and they would love to get a copy of God's word into your hands.

And if you don't own a copy of God's word, you can keep this.

This is our gift to you.

We uh the Bible says that his word is sweeter to the taste than honey.

And so we trust as you read it, your life is gonna be changed.

Here's my goal this morning.

I want to be up front with you.

Uh, we are in Philippians chapter 1, verse 6.

Philippians 1:6

There's one verse that we're working through this morning, and the reason for that, we don't do it very often, but the reason for that is because I really have one goal.

I want this verse to be at the end of this service on the top of your lists, each of you, for greatest verses of all time.

I want this verse to be in like the hall of fame for you of best verses.

That's my desire that after this morning you'll see the beauty of this verse as we take it kind of like a sponge and squeeze out of it all of its good promise.

You'll see the beauty of this verse and place it front and center and hold on to it in your life.

I truly believe that as we dig into this verse, we're gonna see amazing things, but only if we'll let the power of God's word, the power of Paul's belief in this verse, penetrate deeply to our hearts.

If we do that, this is the promise I have for you.

This is a verse that you can turn to time and time again, and it will always give you fresh encouragement.

This is true of God's word, isn't it?

That it's living and active.

So when any time we turn to it, it is a living word that speaks to us.

But I have found this verse especially so helpful in my walk with the Lord.

If you understand the value of these words, I truly believe you're gonna find warmth on the cold days of life.

You're gonna find light on the dark days of life.

And so let's read them together.

Paul in Philippians 1, verse 6 says this I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Philippians 1:6

Here is Paul's indestructible confidence for your life.

That if by faith God has begun a work of salvation in you, then by his grace that work will be completed.

God's confidence for you, for your life this morning, speaking relevantly into our lives thousands of years later, Paul's confidence is something that is stronger than optimism.

It is a surety, if your faith is in Jesus Christ, it is an assurance that Paul has that you are going to make it, that your future is secure.

And so, Paul this morning, he's kind of like that friend that we have.

You know that friend you watch a movie with, and they've never seen the movie, but they're always telling you what the ending is.

Like, you don't know, maybe they read the reviews beforehand or something, but there's that person in your life who always seems to know how the plot twist is gonna happen, how the story's gonna resolve, and you kind of grow to start hating watching movies with that person.

Okay, I see some of you looking at your spouse right now, they are that person.

Well, Paul is that person for us this morning.

Paul is looking at our journey from faith in Christ, from when God began his work in us, and he's looking at the end on that day, the day of Jesus Christ, where we'll stand before him, and Paul with great Holy Spirit-inspired insight is saying this.

You're gonna make it.

You're gonna make it.

It is this rock solid guarantee in Philippians 1, verse 6, that we are going to make it.

Philippians 1:6

And the astounding reality is that Paul is writing these words under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit so that we can say that what God is saying to us this morning, what God is speaking directly to you this morning, is that if your faith is in him, if God has begun a work in you, brother and sister in Christ, you are going to make it.

This is what God believes about your journey.

This is what God believes about the journey from when you placed your faith in him to the day where you will stand before him, that nothing, nothing will stand in the way of his good work, of bringing that work to completion.

You're gonna make it.

And so Paul believes it, God believes it, and the work that we have to do in the next these next few moments is for you to believe it.

For you to leave this place with the same confidence that Paul has with you in you, and the same confidence that God has in your future, that no matter what comes outside of the walls of this room, you are going to make it to heaven if in right now your faith is placed in him.

See, because Paul has this confidence in your story, because God has this confidence in your story, he's offering us this confidence in our story ourselves.

And so I want to see this in three ways in Philippians 1, verse 6.

Philippians 1:6

I want to see what God is offering you.

I want you to see what God is offering you in this promise here this morning.

And the first thing I want you to see is this God is offering me an unshakable conviction.

God is offering me an unshakable conviction.

Look down at your copy of God's word with me and ingrain these words in your mind in verse 6 where Paul says this, I am sure of this.

I am sure of this.

Friends, can I ask you right now?

What are you sure of in life?

I mean, what in this moment are you most absolutely nothing, no circumstance can shake me from this surety, from this conviction, nothing can take me away from this belief.

What are you sure of in life?

There are certain truths, I'm sure, that we are absolutely sure of, certain facts of existence.

You know, one plus one, I had to put this in a calculator.

You guys know how bad I am at math before this to make sure I was right.

But one plus one is two, right?

We're pretty sure of that.

And that'll be the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

There's also certain feelings, though, that we are pretty certain of, aren't there?

These feelings of love that we have for our family, and maybe even in particular for our spouse and for our children.

Like, like I will that nothing, nothing can stop me from having this deep inward, as as deep as like it human possibly, as humanly possibly goes, this this love is so knit to my being for you, and it will always be there, and there's nothing you can do to take that love away.

And this morning, God is concerned with drilling down into your life, drilling down past your opinions, deep down in the innermost being of your soul, deep down into your convictions.

He's concerned to drill down as far as he can into the inner depth of your soul and place there this conviction that his grace is for you.

That his grace is gonna carry you through.

God wants to bring us to this place where we have this unshakable conviction that his grace reaches the deepest parts of our weaknesses and that our future is secure.

He wants to speak to us in the area of our conviction.

And he wants to speak to this conviction that we ought to have as believers that we're gonna make it, that he's gonna hold us fast, that he's gonna keep us to the end, that if he began a work in us, he's gonna bring it to completion.

Now, this certainty, this conviction, it certainly goes a lot deeper than opinion, doesn't it?

You and I have many opinions, and as we look over the span of our lives, opinions are kind of like these surface level things that based on any kind of given circumstance, we might change.

I'm sure there are opinions that we hold in our life, that even at times have been pretty strong opinions, but we look over about the past few years and we've actually changed our opinion on them.

I have an opinion that I've shared with this church many times, and it's almost caused church splits.

Well, my opinion is this, or at least was this, that olives are the most absolute gross food of all time.

That there is nothing more gross to place in your mouth that at least is labeled food than an olive.

Now, there are some people that are absolutely disgusted with me.

I've lost all sort of foundation to be the pastor of your life.

You're like, what is this guy talking about?

Other people are putting up their hands saying, Amen.

Finally, this guy's talking about something important.

We gotta spread the message.

But I truly believe this.

I think if you were to cut up sponges and to mop the dirtiest floor you've ever found and take those sponges and put them in the mop water, and then to drain out all that mop water and eat those sponges, that would be like what eating an olive is like.

Disgusting.

Okay, some of you guys are like, you think about this too much, and it's true, I do.

But I'm also aware that your taste buds change over years, don't they?

And so the other day I actually took an olive and I said, Man, I wonder.

I wonder if all this time I've been spitting this hate about these olives, and maybe like I've changed, and it would be a change for the worse if this happened, but maybe I have changed.

And so I took that olive and I put it in my mouth, and it was still the worst thing that I've ever had in my life.

And so this opinion hasn't changed.

And yet we recognize that on an opinion level we may sway, but at this deep conviction level, it is much harder for us to change.

It's much deeper into the essence of who we are as human beings.

That's not to say that convictions don't change.

Certainly we might look at our back in our life and see times where, man, we held this conviction so core to our being as a human, and we're kind of like, oh man, I can't believe that I was once there.

But it is to say that to add for God to address us at this level, at the level of our convictions, it is to change us at the deepest human level.

Opinions can change without much impact.

Convictions change everything.

Convictions are unwavering against the tests of external circumstances, and so convictions, they they hold up in the storms of life and they're resolute in the bumps of the road of this journey that is life.

And so, church, let's let's come back to this for a moment.

What are you sure of this morning?

What are you most absolutely sure of?

And this morning, God is speaking to us at this level and telling us this we can be sure of his grace.

This is so good, church.

We we can be sure of his grace.

This truly is a phenomenal promise.

God is daring you this morning, he's daring you to test the limits of his grace.

He's asking you in Philippians 1, 6, to, with all the power of your imagination, to ask this question: how far away from God could I fall before his grace would not go deeper?

And the question is that no matter how weak you are, no matter how off track you feel like your life is, God's grace is deeper still.

You will never reach the end of it.

Recently, my family and I have moved to Bradford and we've become a bunch of uh booney hillbillies out in Bradford.

We live out in the boonies out there.

Yeah, there's a few, at least one of them.

We're gonna have trouble rising up against any of the suburbions here, but uh doing that, we moved to a place with a well, and this well's not very deep, and so multiple times over the six-month course of us being there, we've run out of water, and I know some of you are worried how long it's has it been since you've showered.

Uh, we we get it refilled pretty quick, but it is pretty inconvenient.

And we're constantly turning on water, this kind of feeling I've never had before, and wondering like, is there gonna be enough?

Is this gonna be like the last, you know, if I run this dishwasher, um am I gonna wake up in the morning and not be able to shower?

And so we found ourselves as a family, we start like dreaming.

We're gonna get a new drill drill, drill, drilled, well drilled, in the spring.

And we start, we we've started kind of dreaming of this day that there's gonna be like more water than we could ever imagine.

Like when that drill is drilled to a depth where it like, you know, maybe hits a spring or something.

I think I'm just gonna go on and I'm just gonna turn the water on and just watch it for like an hour.

It's like it just it just doesn't end, it just won't end.

And I can, you know, put a load of laundry in, and then after that's done, I can go and have a shower, and I don't gotta worry about anything.

The well is gonna be deep enough.

And what God wants us to know this morning is that His grace offers us an even deeper well.

It's a grace that is deeper than any amount of shame you may ever feel.

God's grace is stronger than any enemy you may ever face.

God's grace is sufficient to hold you up no matter any amount of weakness that you feel that you embrace on a daily basis.

It is a grace that is loud enough to call you back from your waywardness, no matter how far you wander.

It is a grace that is sufficient to stir up your passions when you feel like you are dead.

And what God is doing this morning is He is daring us to imagine how crooked the path could possibly get from the day that we place our faith in Him and are saved, and to the day that we'll stand before Him in heaven and enter into eternal life.

God is daring us to imagine how crooked that life could possibly be.

God looks at our most wayward path, the times that we seem most far from him.

He says, Try my grace.

Try my grace.

And you know what you're gonna find this morning?

It is sufficient.

It's sufficient.

See, here's our reality as Christians.

Isn't it true?

You know, all of us, if we're Christians, we certainly by faith believe that God's grace is deep enough for our salvation.

That's part of the baptism service, isn't it?

There's a certain confidence of uh by faith, I know that God's grace is sufficient to save me.

But you know what often starts to happen in our lives?

We we start by believing that God's grace is sufficient to save us, but when it comes to our growth, when it comes to us actually walking with the Lord and following his will for our life, we start to think, well, I must do it in my own power.

And the reason why I am so you know sinful and why I'm so far from who God wants me to be is because I I'm just not uh I don't try hard enough.

I don't perform well enough.

But here's what God's asking us today.

Do you believe that the well of his grace is deep enough both for your salvation and for your sanctification?

In fact, church, one of the ways that we could ask it is this who's more committed to your growth?

You or God?

Who's more committed to you getting to heaven?

You or God?

And the answer is always God.

You have never even begun to scratch the surface of how invested God is in your journey, in your pilgrimage from earth to heaven.

He is so invested, he's all in on you.

And he's telling you this morning, you're going to make it.

It's an unshakable conviction.

And so if God believes it, if God believes the church, isn't it right right now that we kind of do a heart check?

Do I believe it?

Do I believe it?

Do I have this unshakable conviction along with God?

This is what God is offering me, this unshakable conviction.

But I want you to see, secondly, what God is offering us this morning.

God is offering me an unstoppable pilgrimage.

He's offering me an unstoppable pilgrimage.

Here's what I love about this verse God is really telling us that our faith is a journey.

That to be in Christ is to be in the middle of a story.

And this is what I love about the baptisms that we celebrated it in very many ways.

What we are celebrating in the baptismal testimonies is that God has begun a work of grace in Laura and Mike's life, and now he is continuing that work of grace in Laura and Mike's life.

And part of what we celebrate is that he's going to continue that into glory.

See, in one way, their stories are very different, but in another way, it's it's all really the same story, isn't it?

That God began a work in us, that he's continuing day after day to lavish us in his grace, and that he is going to bring us to the end.

And so the sense we get of this story, and we especially had this this morning, these beautiful testimonies, is that it's it's not this this story is not about Laura and Mike.

This story is about God.

This is not about their power, this is about God's power.

This is about the work that God is going to do to bring them and you this morning, if your faith is in him, to heaven.

And you see, those who are in Christ, they they hear this, they rejoice because they recognize this this is our story as well.

That just like Laura and Micah are in the middle of their story, so too are we in the middle of our story.

Our story has begun, but it has not finished yet.

You see, you and I, do you understand this?

You and I are characters in the grand narrative of human history.

This is what human history is all about.

It is all about redemption, it's all about God's work of redemption.

This is why we're still around, because God has still still has work to redeem, He still has people to redeem.

Everything throughout all of human history revolves around this story, God's redemption of his people.

We are each in the middle of a story.

I think John Bunyan so helpfully understood this concept when he wrote Pilgrim's Progress.

And many of you, if you have not read Pilgrim's Progress, are at least aware of this book.

It's next to the Bible, the best-selling book in the history of the English language.

And many throughout history, since John Bunyan wrote this, have picked it up and found that they can relate to this journey of this man named Christian as we follow him through John Bunyan's story on the journey from his salvation to the celestial city.

And we see so many of the things that kind of trap Christian and keep him from getting there.

And we see how hard the road is.

And as we look at Christian walking through all these difficulties, the reason why this book has become so popular is because we as Christians can look at it and find that's us.

I've faced those same enemies.

I've walked on those same wayward paths, I've been tempted to those same distractions.

Pilgrim progress is so helpfully depicts the pilgrimage that all of us are on.

We read in of Christian story and we understand our own pilgrimage, our own story, our own need for progress.

Now, as we look at Philippians 1 6, what does God want us to understand about this pilgrimage?

And I want you to see that the first thing that he wants us to understand is that it has already begun.

Notice Paul's language here for your regarding your journey, if your faith is in him.

Notice that he says, I'm sure of this, that he who began of Good work in you will bring it into completion.

This is a work, we we look at that word begin and it is past tense.

This work has already begun.

And so, in other words, when we look at the GPS of your soul, the destination is already sent.

Heaven.

You're already on route.

You're already on the way there.

God has you on a journey, and he has begun that journey.

And so our question this morning is this when did this work begin?

And all throughout scripture, we find that this work actually began even before we placed our faith in Jesus Christ.

We're told that this journey actually began for us before the foundation of the world.

So Paul says this in Ephesians chapter 1, verse 4.

Ephesians 1:4

He says, He chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him.

Church, take a moment just to delight in this truth for a moment.

Before the foundation of the world, God had you in his mind and knew that he would redeem you.

The story had already begun.

Paul writes to Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 1, verse 8 to 10.

2 Timothy 1:8–10

He encourages Timothy, share in the suffering for the gospel by the power of God.

But then listen what he says about this God who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, not because we began a good work in and of ourselves, but because of his own purpose and grace.

And listen to this, church, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus.

See, the work that God is doing in you now has been a work that He has been planning before the foundation of the world.

That should give you really great hope.

Aren't there things in your life you're like, there are there are certain things in your life where you're happy with it taking a really long time, aren't you?

You're building a house and someone comes to build the foundation, you're happy if they say, Hey, listen, we're just gonna take a moment and check the blueprints, okay?

We want to make sure we do this right.

You say, by all means, go ahead, take your time.

Like, make sure you do this right.

And Christian, under do you understand this?

If your faith is in Christ, do you know how long God has been planning your journey?

Before the ages began.

All this time, God has been planning each and every turn and curve and wayward path of your journey.

This God who's perfectly wise, who's infinitely powerful, who's astoundingly good.

He has been planning every detail of your journey from that day when you placed your faith in Jesus Christ to the day that you will stand before heaven.

And because of that reality, there is nothing that has happened in your life, and nothing that will happen in your life, in which God has to take a step back and say, Oh no.

Eject from plan A.

We gotta get to plan B on Miles' life.

He really messed things up, okay?

So, all right, let's lay out the blueprints.

This is plan B.

We had a different idea for Miles, but he just couldn't get it together.

Let's go to plan B.

Oh man, it's the next day.

He messed up plan B too.

Better go to plan C.

Listen, understand this, okay?

God is not in heaven with a committee of his Trinitarian persons having to decide what they're gonna do because you have messed up your life so much.

That's just not happening.

God planned your journey from the beginning of time.

This is really interesting, isn't it?

Because when I came to Christ, you know what I kind of thought?

I kind of thought that like my journey from placing my faith in Jesus Christ to heaven was gonna be like a straight line, that it was gonna be like relatively easy, that there wasn't gonna be any major bumps in the road, that there wasn't gonna be any major detours in the road.

And and and I'll tell you, I was really shocked that first bump in the road where I had my eyes set on heaven, but then there was like, you know, maybe it was suffering or maybe it was sin, and all of a sudden I was off course and I was like farther away from my destination.

And I was shocked again when, you know, I got back on track, but I realized like the sin that I thought maybe at the beginning I'd be able to get rid of it, it's just kind of besetting, and I took like this another step away from the journey.

And I thought it was gonna be a straight line, but I just kept getting farther and farther away, and sometimes I even felt like I was going backwards.

You ever feel like that?

It's like, man, I was I was like more of a Christian two years ago.

Sometimes I feel like I haven't even been in the picture, like I'm so far away from God's plan that I'm like not even on the road anymore.

I'm not even on the path, I'm not even in the picture anymore.

And yet you need to understand that that what is a wayward path to you, what is a zigzag to you, was God's plan all along.

Why?

Because you are in progress, and it doesn't matter how many zigzags it takes you to get there, God is going to get you there.

Another way we can say this is this our faith journey is a scenic route for many of us.

For some of us, more scenic than others.

And yet for others, maybe more of a straight line.

And yet, no matter what happens, we recognize this.

It's all gone according to plan.

If he began a good work in you, he is going to bring it to completion.

And you know what this overwhelming sense should be right now for us?

Like, you know what should be happening in your heart right now?

It's this sense of like a breath of fresh air.

And this Holy Spirit peace is overwhelming you.

This Holy Spirit hope filling up your soul because you recognize like I'm not the one who needs to drive to the destination I'm going.

I could never do it.

I could never handle the roads along the way, I could never handle the terrain, and yet I am not in control.

God very much is in control, and I look at my Bible and I see in my Bible Philippians 1 verse 6 is in there.

Philippians 1:6

Church, do you see it?

Can you look at it for me right now?

Can you do you see it there?

Is it still there?

Because this would be an incredibly awkward sermon if in the middle of this sermon it just disappeared from the text, and you're like, where are you getting this from?

It's not in my Bible.

It goes from Philippians 1, verse 5 to verse 7.

Philippians 1:5

And yet you see the ink is there.

Here is God's word that he is sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion.

You're going to make it.

I want you to see God's good work here in your life.

He's so invested in you making it.

He has given you this promise, he will bring it to your completion.

In other words, this work of redemption that God is carrying out in your life, it cannot fail.

It cannot fail.

This is your theological reality in Christ, okay?

And so let's do something for a moment.

Let's put on our theological caps.

We're all becoming theologians.

We're gonna think deeply about this for a moment, but not just so that we can be really smart, because this is gonna change everything about the way that you live if you truly understand this truth.

That if you are in Christ, you're good.

You're set for eternity.

It's as good as done.

You know, we we sing this song pretty often, and I think hopefully kind of describes what we're after here.

It's a song, it's called You've Already Won.

And the words we sing often as a church are this I'm fighting a battle, you've already won.

You no matter what comes my way, I will overcome.

I don't know what you're doing, but I know what you've done.

I'm fighting a battle you've already won.

And it's one thing to sing that song, but we're what we're discovering this morning is that it is a whole nother thing to believe it.

This is why biblically, scripture is so comfortable to talk about your salvation and say three seemingly contradicting things all at the same time.

In one sense, you have been saved, in another sense, you are being saved, and in another sense, you will be saved.

How do we make sense of all these tenses regarding our salvation?

When is it going to happen?

Has it happened already?

Is it happening currently, or is it going to happen in the future?

And scripture's answer, yes.

You are living right now in the already accomplished, and at the same time, simultaneously, the not yet accomplished.

And yet, because both those realities are true, your future is secure.

Romans 8 is so helpful here.

In Romans 8, theologians call this the golden chain.

And it's very significant that you understand this.

In fact, this would be a good text to study, maybe this week.

Romans 8, Paul writes this for those whom he foreknew, notice the past tense here.

Those who he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

And those whom he predestined, he also called, and those whom he called, he also justified, and those who he justified, he also glorified.

Here is a golden chain that it that happens in the life of every believer.

If your faith is in Jesus Christ, what Paul is telling you right now in Romans 8 is that God foreknew it.

Before the beginning of time, he foreknew that you would be his child.

But not only did he foreknow it, what Paul is also telling us is that he predestined it to happen.

So it was not by mistake that as these, as Mike and Laura stood in the waters of baptism and said, you know, I was born into a Christian family where my parents proclaimed the gospel to me.

It was not by mistake, it was predestined.

It was not by mistake that so many years ago I walked into a country style wearing the coolest bathing suit, shirt, combo you could ever imagine as a grade six boy.

And someone told me for the first time I'd never heard of this Jesus Christ person.

Someone told me for the first time of who he was and what he did.

And in that moment I believed.

It wasn't a mistake, it wasn't chance, it had been predestined before eternity.

And Paul says, those who have been predestined have also been called.

And those who have been called have also been justified.

Now, that is, if you're in Christ, that's where you stand right now.

You are justified.

You've been foreknown, you've been predestined, you've been called, you have then been justified, and the next thing is a future reality, but it's really interesting how Paul says it.

Look at how he says it in Romans 8.

He says, Those whom he justified, he also glorified.

Okay, right now, if you are like, if this theological reality is drilling deep enough into your soul, your jaw should be on the floor right now.

Because you know what we read in Ephesians chapter 2 for our pastoral prayer?

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

You know what Jesus did?

He seated you in heaven with him.

Do you know that that's true?

Right now, according to Ephesians chapter 2, your theological reality is if you're in Christ, you are already past tense, seated with him in heaven.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

It's as good as done.

Paul says here, you're already glorified.

Past tense, it's as good as done.

Your faith is in him.

You're going to make it.

What's happening in your heart right now, church?

I'm praying that the Holy Spirit is driving this so deep into your soul that you are finding this comfort and rest that you have never found before.

Because you can't just like muster up this sort of peace.

You can't just like ignore the sort of the things that are going on in the world to achieve this sort of peace.

This sort of peace and hope and joy can only come from the Holy Spirit.

And some of you right now, like you're filled with this apathy.

I don't care, I can't wait for lunch.

And I just can't help but say you're missing out on the greatest reality that the Holy Spirit wants to drive deep into your heart right now.

See, the reason your salvation here is unstoppable is because of the nature of redemption, the nature of how God does his work.

When you believe in Christ, you are made a new transformation on the inside.

This is why baptism is so relevant, because if we didn't have baptism, all these people would have these inward transformations, but we would not be able to see it.

And so God gives baptism to the church as this gift, this symbol of an outward symbol of this inward reality, this new transformation.

By God's grace and salvation, you are given his Holy Spirit.

And now your desires are new.

Where you once had a heart that desired sin, you now have a heart that desires holiness.

And that heart is being increasingly sanctified.

Think about the history of redemption for a moment.

Before Christ, all that we had was law.

And you know, the law was a really good thing.

You read through scripture, the psalmist loved the law.

Why?

Because the law told you how to live.

It was great.

If you want to know how to follow God, you just follow the law.

This is awesome.

God, thank you for instructing us, showing us how to live.

And the law is good in our life too.

When God gives us his command, it is a good thing that brings life.

You know what the problem with the law was?

Was that in your power, in your own uh flesh, you could not live up to it.

You couldn't do it.

And if a law is given us to us that's good to follow, but we don't have the power to follow it, it's actually no good to us at all.

And this is what the law was, but God did a work in your heart so that you were then transformed and you could now follow follow and live according to his law.

Really, you might not even be a Christian here, and you recognize this.

You recognize that sometimes it's isn't it so much easier?

You know the right thing to do, but sometimes you just can't do it.

Like, I don't know what's wrong with me.

I don't know why, I don't know why I know the right thing to do, but I can't do it.

And also, maybe you're an unbeliever here, you also recognize like there's evil in this world.

Like this world is messed up.

I've never talked to someone who's like, yeah, things are going pretty well in this world.

It's messed up.

But you know what the most messed up thing is?

Is that the evil out there in glimpses, like maybe it's not as bad, but in glimpses it's in you as well.

Like you've gotten angry at the people that you love the most.

You've tried to tear other people down by gossiping about them and trying to slander them.

And the selfishness that you see like wreaking havoc in the world, the issue is that it's also inside of you.

But through faith in Christ, here is the promise you are given a new heart.

And that heart is being transformed to love good things more and more.

And one day it'll be completely transformed, and you will be in heaven in the presence of goodness himself, Jesus Christ, and you will worship him and you will desire nothing else than that which is good for your soul.

All the poisonous envy, it's gone.

All the materialism that was like running on a treadmill, you could never get to what you wanted, it's gone.

Finally, you found what your heart was made for, Jesus Christ Himself.

See, the law was insufficient because it exposed our inability to save ourselves with good work.

And the reason grace is so necessary is because we needed the good works of someone else.

And so God comes, and Jesus He lives the perfect life we could never live.

He dies a death that you and I certainly don't want to die for our sins.

And he is raised a new life with a power that we could never even imagine to display.

And he gives that to us through unity with him.

It's his good work, it's not yours, it's his.

This is so practically helpful for us.

The reason that you are going to make it, Christian, the reason why you are going to make it in heaven is because you are under construction right now, and the contractor who is working on your soul, bringing you to perfection, is God Himself.

And you can look him up on Google.

He's got millions and millions of five-star reviews.

He has never let anyone down.

He has never failed in the project that he has begun to bring one of his children from this broken and evil world to heaven.

100% success rate.

Church, what hope does that give you now for you?

He's never let anyone down.

He's never gonna let you down.

He's never failed anyone.

He's never gonna fail you.

And so the project of your journey and pilgrimage is going to be brought to perfection at the perfect time, in the perfect way.

That's what God is offering us, this unstoppable pilgrimage.

And thirdly, I want you to see this that God is offering me this morning an unquestionable future.

And so notice with me where Paul ends.

He says it's a good work in you.

He began this good work in you, and we'll bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

You know, God has a calendar, and he's got a big red marker in his hand, and he circled a day.

And it is the day where you will be brought before him.

It's the day when Jesus returns, and none of us know when that day is gonna come.

But on that day, on the so-called screen of our lives, is gonna show up that black screen that comes up at the end of the movies where it says the end.

And the credits are gonna roll, and it's gonna say Jesus Christ, and then it's gonna say hope.

And the answer to who played that role, it's gonna be Jesus Christ.

That's gonna say peace, and you're gonna say, Oh, well, who played that role?

It's gonna be Jesus Christ.

It's gonna say growth, Jesus Christ, salvation, Jesus Christ, joy, Jesus Christ, and on and on and on.

It's gonna say every good work that happened in your life, it was a result of Jesus Christ.

And you know what you and I are gonna be doing?

Like we are gonna be cheering at the top of our lungs, more than we could ever even possibly muster for the baptisms, because we're looking at each other and we're realizing God has done it all.

Every one of his children, it's been his work that has carried us to the end.

See, the day is coming when you will be complete and you will stand before the Lord in all of your completed glory, and he will delightfully accept you as his.

And you're like, I just hope I can get like enough knowledge in my head to be able to like pass this test.

I just need enough.

So you're you're like up late, you're cramming, you're making cards, you're trying to get as much into your head as possible, worried that you're gonna get that test and maybe not be prepared for it.

And God is looking at you and saying, the day of Christ is not like the test to see if you've done enough.

The day of Christ is when you will be presented to me and you will see that I have done enough, that I have brought you to completion, that I am presenting you to myself in all of your glory.

On that day, God will be receiving a completed work.

And he will say, just as Jesus has already said, it is finished.

It is finished.

You know, yesterday was uh it was a pretty special day for me and my family.

We my uh oldest daughter kind of participated in her first extracurricular activity.

She joined a choir and she was practicing at this choir for a very long time, for months, every Friday morning.

She was going to choir practice and and practicing.

And so yesterday, you know, with her junior choir, all these age six to twelve kids, they stood up and they performed.

They had been practicing, working so hard at it.

And and she was singing her first song, and you know what was welling up in me?

Like just this delight that she was mine.

Like I was I was so proud of her.

Now, if I had gone to that choir performance as a critic, I would have had a lot of like negative reviews.

She got like 50% of the words, and one of the most important things in the choir is that you stand still.

But I don't know, she was like playing in the snow and she like tore, she like pulled something in her neck, so the whole time she was just wiggling around.

And if I was like a critic, I would be losing my mind saying, You're not doing very good.

Like, we're not gonna sign up for this again because you do not have it.

And you know, she like sang 50% of the words, and like you she got the last line really good.

I but I was not there as a critic.

You know, I saw all those things, but there is nothing in my heart but pure delight.

Because she's mine, and I'm so proud of her, and I'm so proud of all the work that she has put in.

And all the work that her mother and I have put in to shape her to be the person that she is, I'm so proud.

I can't think of her journey apart from like, I've been a part of it and cultivated it.

And you know, if I feel that on such a microcosm as such a sinful and earthly father, how much more on that day when God receives you into eternal life as He going to look at you and say, This is my work?

I was there every bad day.

I was there throughout the whole sinful struggle where they felt like they just could not get rid of that sin that had rooted so deeply.

I was there right beside them the whole time.

All the depths of suffering, every tear the psalmist says I caught in a bottle, I was there.

And I brought them to that day, to this day.

And they could not have made it here without me.

And yet here they are, and for all of eternity, on the day of Jesus Christ, because you are a completed work in him, you will spend all of eternity with the Father who delights in you.

How do we know?

Because Philippians 1 6 is in our Bible.

And we take this verse and we declare to God, I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in me will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Would you stand with me?

We're gonna pray and respond in song to the Lord and the work that he has done.

And it's so right for us to bow our hearts before him and give him praise.

And so let's pray.

Father, we uh we bow before you, God, and I pray the Holy Spirit right now is doing a work that I could just never I could never do it.

I could never drive this truth as deep as it needs to go into any human heart.

It has to be you.

And so I pray that the Holy Spirit right now is doing this, and even as we sing this song, that there would just be this overwhelming sense of peace, of rest in you.

You, Lord, you you promised us.

You said, Come to me, all who are weak and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

And you promised us that your the character of your son Jesus Christ is a character of gentleness and a character of lowliness, that there is no heart that is more compassionate towards sin.

There is no heart that is more strategically compassionate towards our weakness.

And so, God, we come to you now to embrace this theological reality that is ours, that there is no depth of sinfulness in our own life right now that we could ever experience that is deep, that your grace is not deeper still.

And so, God, thank you that you hold us fast.

And we respond in this, whether we know the song and can sing these words with such great joy, or we don't know the songs and can reflect on these words, Lord.

We respond to say this, Lord, thank you that you are the God who at the end of the day, when all is said and done and history has closed its books, God, you have held us fast.

We praise your name.

We pray this in the name of your Son Jesus Christ.

Amen.