Would you take your Bibles, please, and turn to 2 Peter chapter 1? So we talked an eyeed about being paralyzed by grace. One of the things I think that may be the greatest challenge of life as I get older. I'm convinced that the most difficult thing to be is to be a balanced person. We just as sinners are imbalanced people sin skews us one way or the other. We don't have the refinements and the beauty and the balance of the character of Jesus Christ. So we're prone to binges and fads and movements and excesses and I think that's easy to illustrate in life. For example, if I ask you where you would go on on Monday night to get an objective balanced view of the evening news? Where would you send me? Well, you couldn't. You're out. That was a rhetorical question. Because of whatever I say, I'm going to offend. Well, you couldn't send me to Fox. Even though that's probably the popular one here because they are rather right-ish. They're pretty sensational. Sometimes even crude and they are at least mildly Republican. But then again, if you sent me to CNN or headline news, you'd get the opposite side. You get people who are openly left and pro-democrat. If you sent me to a major network, ABC, NBC, CBS, then I would get sophisticated political correctness. If I went to MSNBC, I would get far left to buzzardness. And if I went to PBS or NPR, I'd probably get socialism or worse. We simply are not able, it seems, to look at the events that are happening in our life and comment on them in an unbiased and a balanced way. And this imbalance is not just in the world. It finds itself in the Church as well, hence that's why we have so many different denominations. And if we were to look at the denominations, well, we'd have to say that the PCA is the Fox version of religion. We are right-wing and fundamentalistic and we can be rough and even crude at times. And then we can go all the way to MSNBC version of things, the National Public Radio version of things, which is the emergent church, which is a classical liberalism revisited in a rejection of all that's historic and biblical and miraculous, anything that might offend sinful sensibilities. And even in our own lives, if we look at the short time that we've been alive in the six decades I've been around, the evangelical church has swung an appendulum from left to right. It appears about every decade. I remember as I came into the past, I noticed that people who were raised in the church were young people and young parents in the 1940s and 1950s were really kind of infected with a benign sort of liberalism and they were unclear about a testimony of saving faith. And then the 1960s and 70s came and there was the rise of the evangelical right in jerks and in the Jesus people and the campus movements and the Maranatham music and all that sort of thing. And that gave rise to the moral majority in the eighties and nineties and focus on the family and the American Center for Justice and taking America back for God and talk radio. And then there was a reaction against the turn of this millennium. The great reaction I call it from activism to the me generation where we are concerned mainly about our music and our and our programs and our children. Now there's a swing in a different direction beginning to emerge called the emergent church which when it's all said and done will end up in the same place the church ended up in the 40s and 50s in liberalism. In fact anyone who's read anything about the emergent church about Brian McClaureen and his new kind of Christianity can see that all he's packaging to us in postmodern garments is the old classical liberalism of the turn of the last millennium. Indeed Solomon is right there is nothing new under the sun. What has been already in ages before us will come again and what has passed will return once more. There is nothing new under the sun all is vanity and striving after wind. Even in evangelicalism we go through these swings where in the 40s and 50s we were traditional in our approach to religion but very non-descriptive. In the 60s and 70s everything became personal. We had a personal faith in Jesus Christ and a personal relationship and a personal Bible and a personal quiet time and everything was relational and then we went into the 80s and 90s that the activism that fueled itself into more noble causes but pretty soon let's be honest we got confused about who was a Republican and who was a Democrat and always assumed they were the same and we began to ask ridiculous questions like can a Democrat be saved and then we reached the turn of the century and it was the triumph of emotionalism about music and feelings and being authentic as they called it which meant you could just let loose of any emotion that you felt and now we're in a stage where young people are trying to reinvent Christianity and we're returning to the bland and the unsatisfying liberalism of the 40s and 50s. The point I'm trying to make is that Christians swing back and forth between gospel works and gospel faith every ten years they just seem to struggle with balance. It's true in our own denomination in the three decades I've been in the PCA. We have those in our denomination who might be on the right side of things. They're concerned about the law, about holiness, works and theology. They're known as the Southern Presbyterians sometimes derisively called the TRs, the truly reformed or the theonomist or the federal vision people and then on the left are people concerned about grace and gospel and experience and emotion and they're found in the sunship camp or the secret driven camp or even the emergent church. It feels almost as if there's a generic rule that if you're in the suburbs you're going to lean to the right and if you're in the urban church you're going to lean to the left and back and forth our denomination goes that's even the history of our own congregation over the 25 or 30 years it's been in existence. From the right and to the left and back and forth always trying to find that dead center of balance and I say this not critically, not judgmentally, this is simply a fact of life. It's a pattern of church life it's the pattern of church history it's the pattern of personal faith and spiritual growth and the apostles realize this they face the same challenges in their day there is nothing new under the sun the inspired bible says and so to correct the imbalances of too much emphasis on the law and works and holiness we have books like Romans and Galatians and Philippians and Ephesians and Colossians and then when things began to be a little bit too imbalanced in terms of a cheap grace a grace without holiness we have the Corinthian letters and Hebrews and James John's epistle the two Thessalonian letters Jude and this fellow named Peter these apostles are writing these pastoral letters to congregations to correct the imbalances of their historic faith and Peter offers a solution he says in chapter one of second Peter as he's writing against these nostic heretics this first great heresy that doubted the creation of the world that renounced the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ that said that the Old Testament God was not the same as the New Testament God that said we needed to be holy but then it didn't matter what we did with our bodies because the flesh was of no count to God and heaven the counteract them Peter's solution is spiritual transformation that we as he says at the end of the letter grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ he talks about this golden chain of virtue grace and faith in virtue and knowledge and self-control and steadfastness and piety and brotherly affection and godly love all flowing from grace all the duty and the experience of the Christian both and all either cognitive or relational. In fact if you take these eight virtues on this golden chain of virtue for them tend to be rather cognitive and speak of our duty of works obedience holiness the virtues knowledge and virtue and self-control and steadfastness and four of them tend to all set that because they are experiential and relational and they are faith and piety and brotherly affection and love. Peter is giving us a correction to the imbalances that often affect our lives and our congregations and our faith and so he comes to this first chapter and he introduces exactly what he's doing he says that he wants us to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and he reminds us how that grace has grounded us in Christ and given us everything we need pertaining to life and godliness. Second Peter chapter one beginning in verse three his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness in other words to experience and holiness both sides of this this package of faith and personal growth his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desires now there's the fountain head of all that we want to be and all that god wants us to be in the Christian life this grace and this life divine nature that the Holy Spirit brings to us experientially and objectively when he and dwells as once were converted and then he says for this very reason because god the Holy Spirit dwells in you and has given you this grace for experience and for holiness he says for this very reason make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue and your virtue with knowledge and knowledge self-control and self-control is steadfastness and steadfastness with godliness and godliness with brotherly affection and brotherly affection with love so we've been working our way down this golden chain of virtue we talked about developing your faith and adding virtue to life adding knowledge to grace exercising self-control mastering steadfastness rediscovering piety living in brotherly affection and pushing on towards true godly sacrificial love finally he comes in this third paragraph and he warns us that in this pursuit of all of these these virtues we must not be paralyzed by grace he says in verse 8 for if these qualities are yours and are increasing they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ for whoever lacks these qualities is so near sighted that he is blind having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins in these two little verses Peter calls us to a balanced Christian life in fact in verse 8 he reminds us of the sanctification of the Lord a work of god in us and in verse 9 he reminds us of the justification that we have in Christ an act of god for us he gives us the balance between sanctification and justification and he says as long as these two are living in the point of biblical tension in your life you will be kept from in balance extremes and ineffective unfruitful Christian experience so that's what I want to look at tonight verse 8 and the balance that sanctification gives to our life and verse 9 the balance that justification gives to our life because we live between the point of tension in these two great works of god first of all look again at verse 8 where Peter is obviously talking about sanctification for if these qualities are yours and are increasing they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ now Peter is reminding the early church Christians that they have a moral and spiritual obligation to grow and holiness he's not denying they are justified by faith he is assuming that in verses 3 and 4 of the previous paragraphs but rather he's reminding them that because god has given his grace to them and all things pertaining to life and godliness they are empowered and expected to produce the good character the good works the beauty of holiness that god expects from them and what Peter is saying is pretty much a typical statement of all the apostles let's just take a survey of some of the places where the apostles say this turned to Ephesians chapter 2 you know exactly where we're going to these famous verses 8 9 and 10 for by grace you have been saved through faith this is not of your own doing it is the gift of god not a result of works so that no one may boast there is justification by faith and then in verse 10 sanctification through obedience for where his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which god prepared beforehand that we should walk in them flip over a few more pages to Philippians chapter 2 Philippians chapter 2 where Paul is encouraging the saints and Philippi to keep this tension and balance between justification and sanctification Philippians 2 verse 12 therefore my beloved as you have always obeyed so now not only in my presence but much more in my absence work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for it is god who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure there it is god is it working you so you can work for him there's the act of god called sanctification working in you so that you can produce good works for him turned to Titus chapter 2 where in verse 11 through 14 Paul tells us the reason why Jesus Christ came to save us from sin Titus 2 verse 11 for the grace of god has appeared bringing salvation for all people training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled upright and godly lives in the present age waiting for a blessed hope the appearing of the glory of our great god and savior Jesus Christ who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself of people for his own possession who were zealous for good works he'll go over in chapter 3 and tell us that we have received the washing of the Holy Spirit in his renewing grace in order to live for Christ we don't have to look at it but there's the famous chapter 2 in James where our faith without works is dead we are not justified by works but we can't be justified in the end without them James says and finally we have John in first John chapter 3 just a few pages beyond 2nd Peter chapter 1 first John 3 verse 4 everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness sin is lawlessness you know that he appeared to take away sins and him there is no sin no one who abides in him keeps on sinning no one keeps on sinning as either seen him nor knows him little children let no one deceive you whoever practices righteousness is righteous as he is righteous whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil for the devil has been sinning from the beginning the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil no one born of God makes a practice of sinning for God see the bides in him and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God by this it is evident who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God nor is the one who does not love his brother there is a a corrective balance between justification and between sanctification that Jesus Christ came to destroy the works of the devil to save us from our sins to forgive us of our guilt to impute to us his righteousness and as a result of that we if we're truly converted will not go on sinning there will be a great and a constant conflict between our sinful natures and the spirit within us but slowly and surely we will be sanctified we'd find the same thing in Hebrews we'd find the same thing in Jude we'd find the same thing in all the epistles written by all of the apostles struggling for this biblical balance for to the apostles to be saved by grace and to be sanctified by obedience go hand in hand you really can't have one without the other God desires to save us from sin and its consequences so he sends Jesus into the world to quote destroy the works of the devil Jesus redeems us for this very purpose to redeem us from everybody lawless deed and to purify it for himself of people for his own possession who are zealous for good works he then gives us the Holy Spirit God who is at work on us both to willing to work for his good pleasure he gives us the means of grace to build us up in holiness primarily the word of God and now I commend you to God Paul says and to the word of his grace which is able to build you up and give you the inheritance among those who are sanctified and God expects us to rest in this grace and to push forward in this confidence in efforts to obey him and over the habit of developing virtue to become more godly that's what he means here in verse 8 for if these qualities are yours and are increasing they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ why is it that we struggle with this well the obvious answer is we're just him balanced sinners but if we probe a little bit deeper it appears that we struggle because we are paralyzed by grace our Westminster confession of faith says faith thus receiving and resting on Christ in his righteousness is the alone instrument of justification yet it is not alone in the person justified but is always accompanied with all the other saving graces and is no dead faith but a faith that works through love we are justified by faith alone that never remains alone that's a statement in the Westminster Confession of Faith filed directly from the writing and preaching of Martin Luther justification by faith alone is never alone but always accompanied by sanctifying grace and one of the problems I think we struggle with is that we are we are paralyzed by grace that's what Dallas Willard says in his books and he's written four of them he's a southern Baptist minister a professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California the author of four books one called the Spirit of Disciplines understanding how God changes lives way back in 1988 and then the divine conspiracy rediscovering our hidden life in God which about discernment on the mouth so that's why we're hearing some from from Dallas Willard on Sunday mornings the great omission reclaiming Jesus' essential teaching on discipleship and finally knowing Christ today why we can trust spiritual knowledge his primary emphasis is to promote the practice of traditional spiritual disciplines in order to enable us to grow in discipleship and holiness he is not a Calvinist he reads and quotes medieval Catholic mystics he is not a fundamentalist he's not a liberal he's an evangelical but he's not liked and reformed circles and so even in quoting him there is the risk of danger and maybe tonight I can just take a minute of your time and encourage you to give me some leash up here just because I quote somebody doesn't mean I agree with everything they say you're comfortable with me quoting C.S. Lewis but he didn't believe in an air and C. and he did believe in purgatory two things that I don't accept I believe in an air and C. and I don't believe in purgatory you don't mind if I quote Tim Keller but I don't agree with sonship or C.K. Chesterton but I'm not a Roman Catholic or Luther although I'm a Calvinist and I don't agree with Lucer's perspective on the law Chuck Holson although I renounced evangelicals and Catholics together and I wrote him about that years ago didn't get very far but it was valiant effort I quote R.C. Sproul but I don't subscribe to his eschatology and John Piper but I don't believe in baptism by immersion or speaking in tongues he does so just because I quote somebody doesn't mean I endorse everything they say I looked at an email somebody sent me and it said this was the critique of one of the men who dredd his latest book at the end of the book Willard opens the door for inclusivism he writes many people who are Christians by certain identifiable human standards say by baptism or church membership or having prayed to receive Christ or regular partaking of the sacraments still lack the inward circumcision of the heart which Paul here speaks of on the other hand any who lack these recognizable marks but have the inward heart of God that God looks for it are acceptable to God no matter in what other ways they may or may not be identifiable now the conclusion of the blogger was because he wrote that he's a universalist he's too inclusiveistic and he believes that people can go to heaven without accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior so I did something that few of us ever do I just went to the book and I saw the quote that they were referencing in its context I want to read you exactly what Dallas Willard said just as an illustration of how imbalanced and sometimes dishonest we can be when we represent other people were not that crazy about this is exactly what Willard said we should note very carefully that Paul is not saying that everyone is okay with God he is not a pluralist in that sense far from it he's trying to warn precisely those he knows are not okay his point is that one's identity as Jews will not guarantee that they are okay with God you could be a Jew by the recognized marks and yet not be right with God the same point applies to Christians today now here's the quote many people who are Christians by certain identifiable human standards say by baptism church membership having prayed or received Christ or regular partaking of the sacraments still lack the inward circumcision of the heart which Paul here speaks on the other hand any who lacked those recognizable marks but at the inward heart God looks for is acceptable to God no matter in what other ways they may or it may not be identifiable this is the Christian pluralism of which he we speak here the old apostle John put it in terms of love everyone whose loves is born of God and knows God and whoever does not love does not know God for God is love did John mean that these people of love earned their salvation by love that they deserve their acceptance by God not at all it is simply a description of the wideness of God's mercy the idea that God works with humankind strictly on the basis of merit is a mistake especially when that merit is defined in human terms which it usually is but the idea that anything and everything is accepted to God is likewise a big mistake in his goodness and wisdom he responds to the flawed efforts of humankind to reach him by reaching them he looks upon the heart and that is how he knows us as we seek to know him now does that sound like a guy who's a universalist did he say that you could go to Christ be saved without putting faith in Christ did he say that everybody was okay with God you see what we do when someone doesn't agree with us we vilify them and maybe the reason we vilify him because Dallas Whittle and I think has put his finger on what the problem of the church is today as I often point out to folks he writes today we're not only saved by grace we are paralyzed by it that there is anything we should know by now it is that a gospel of justification alone does not generate disciples discipleship is a life of learning from Jesus Christ how to live in the kingdom of God now as he himself did and that I think is precisely Peter's point here that unlike the Nosty Caratics who were resting in grace but leading a godless immoral life he describes them in chapter 2 Peter says no if you are resting in grace that grace will propel you forward it's a power in your life to cause you to work out your salvation because God isn't working you to work at sanctification in other words don't be afraid he says to his saints his congregants in Asia Minor don't be afraid to obey and to work at spiritual transformation because the ignorant Nostyx say well that's legalism use the grace that God has given you tell you the holy life look exactly what he says in verse 8 let's let him speak for himself for if these qualities are yours and are increasing what qualities this golden chain of virtue in verses 5 6 and 7 and if they are increasing that word indicates continuing growth it's in the Greek present tense which means it's something that is going on onward it's a continuous action and if they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in other words God expects you to be effective in your faith and fruitful in your lives it was Jesus who said you did not choose me but I chose you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain I saved you as Paul said by grace through faith in Christ for good works that's what I'm looking for and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ Peter is saying the false knowledge of the Nostyx won't lead you anywhere but to destruction but the true knowledge of Christ is to know Christ and to love Christ and to love Christ and to seek to obey him so in presenting the balanced Christian life to us Peter begins contrary to where we would when I don't know why he begins kind of backwards he begins not with what chronologically comes first justification but with sanctification mainly because he's been speaking about that in verses 3 through 7 and he says in so many words the same thing as the author of Hebrew says without holiness no one will see the Lord but in fact that holiness cannot result unless we're justified so to the balance of sanctification he adds now the balance of justification in verse 9 for whoever lacks these qualities is so near sighted that he is blind having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. In other words Peter reminds us that justification is a cleansing from sin his doctrine of salvation what we call soteriology from the word soter which means savior is simply that Jesus Christ justifies us by his grace he sanctifies us by the inner work of the Holy Spirit and our cooperation with him and he will glorify us at the end of life when we will become sinlessly perfect in heaven just as he is and if we were to look at first Peter about our living hope that he has caused us to be born again in Christ Jesus if we look at his statements that even though we don't see him yet we love him and rejoice with him with joy and expressible in full of glory we went to the end of both first Peter and second Peter and saw how he emphasizes the coming of the Lord and how we will be found in him either in obedience and holiness or wilderness and destruction Peter is reminding us that justification is a cleansing from former sins we don't have time but we could go through Hebrews chapter 9 and first John chapter 7 and Acts chapter 15 and Titus chapter 3 and all of these places our justification is referred to as a cleansing cleansing our conscience from dead works a cleansing from all sin a cleansed heart by faith in fact in first Peter chapter 3 Peter says that's what this baptism fought symbolizes baptism which corresponds to this now saves you not as a removal of dirt from the body but an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ here is the great confidence for which we operate in which we operate in when we're being sanctified we have confidence that we've been cleansed from all sins so if we attempt to do the right thing and we fail we do not lose heart there was therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus we simply get up and say you know Lord I was disobedient but I thank you that you're justifying grace the work of Jesus Christ has cleansed me from this and in your eyes I am clean I am not guilty in fact I am righteous that is my position in you and I need to learn how to practice my position live out what in fact I really am and so I pray for your grace again for filling an enabling of the Holy Spirit and I step out in obedience again in fact that's the only way I know to conquer sin one habitual sin at a time one great battle where grace meets the flesh and it's a fight that will go on all through life read Romans 6 and 7 and 8 that's what it's all about shall we who are in Christ shall we continue and sin that grace may abound Paul says by no means how can we who died to sin still live in it and he talks about how he goes through the struggle and the very thing that he doesn't want to do he does because of sin abiding in him and he says who will treat me from the body of this death well it's Jesus Christ and he takes comfort in that the fight's not over he's going to battle against things like this all his life but then he says at the beginning of Romans 8 there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are on Christ Jesus and that gives him the courage to embrace his adoption as a child of God to look for the resurrection and hope and to know that nothing even his own sins will ever separate him from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord that's the power of justification in fact our understanding of justification is weak if it enables us to continue in habitual sin and not be bothered by it Isaiah says oh taste taste and see that the Lord is good wash yourselves make yourselves clean remove the evil from your deeds from before my eyes cease to do evil learn to do good seek justice correct oppression bring justice to the plead the widow's cause come now and let us reason together though you sins are like scarlet they shall be as white as snow but they are red like crimson they shall become like wool you will be washed he says with a fuller soap you will be clean you've tasted of this this cleanliness this righteousness this goodness in God's justifying grace and it should make you want more of it if you slip if you fall back into sin if you get dirtyed up a bit this confidence in Christ justifying grace will encourage you to get up to confess and clean up to push forward and pursuit of holiness and God says that we will inevitably be victorious in this through Jesus Christ who loves us there is the balance of the Christian life and that is the truth the truth wherever we find it and we must stop this idea that truth can only be found in people who agree with us on every minutia in detail truth is found in the Bible truth is found in the creeds and confessions of the church even the creeds and confessions of churches that are not our church the found in reformed people like John Calvin and non reformed people like Dallas Willard and truth can even be found in secular professors at universities like Jean Twenge of San Diego State University she's done a lot of research on the development of children in education and she's right now experiencing a lot of backlash for her published research but if you read what she says and you look at the research data it's pretty conclusive here's what she says that students with positive self-image do not in school or in life exceed students with a low self-image she's going exactly against the grain of popular education that self-image has nothing to do with success in fact she said the opposite good self-esteem does not produce success but success produces self-esteem so here's her conclusions for parents and teachers don't don't on your children she said and I quote don't give everybody a trophy who plays the game let students fail let them try again and try again and try again until by trial and error they succeed and they will gain confidence but if you tell your children that they are special that they're a winner while they're just a wonderful person you will not equip them to go out into the world with ugly will will smack them right in the face and will not help them get up once they're down make sense to me let's transfer that over to the church we're not doing ourselves any favors when men from the pulpit after pulpit after pulpit constantly dwell upon the fact that God loves them that they are sons and not orphans that they can never lose grace or be rejected by God what it does is build a false sense of assurance and does not leave the saints to success and strengthen holiness how do the children of God grow up by trial and error by what we call in the reformed faith progressive sanctification it's just a dog fight but God's grace is in us and great is he who's in us then he's in the world the scales are tipped in our favor and make no bones about it we stand in our justification and that gives us great confidence that's what he says God by his grace has given us everything pertaining to life and God that's a done deal you know once we're trusting in Christ we can't fail and go to hell just can't happen and so that gives us the confidence to go out and try and if we fail to try again and if we fail to try again until we are successful until we obey until we're godly until we increase in this golden chain of virtue and that is what gives us assurance that's exactly what Peter is going to say in the next two verses about making your election and calling sure how by growing in godliness that's how now and that is the balance of the Christian life we're justified by grace and sanctified by the work of the Holy Spirit in us that causes us to work for him we would like it to be easier we'd like it to everybody got a trophy in life that's not the way it is everybody in Christ gets a trophy at the end of life but now we work we fight we try we suffer and we don't want to rob ourselves of the confidence and the strength and the assurance of sanctification by being paralyzed by grace grow he says something you can do a command grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity let's pray father we are people who lack balance and we're always looking for short cuts to difficult things easy answers to complex problems we want we want the benefits without the the work that's entailed and I guess that is just our fallen nature there was something in each one of us a vestige of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Innocence that remembers a day when things came easy for us that is no more and so you have sent your son into this world not just to be around us but to live in us to become one of us to take us into his life and his power and his grace himself he's left the Holy Spirit in us both to will and to work for us so that we can will and to work for you Holy Spirit producing in us this golden chain of virtue as he reminds us that grace is operative and grace is powerful but grace can be paralyzing if we do not obey and extend the Christian effort towards holiness this is a difficult balance to keep each one of us day in and day out we'll swing from one side to the other from a cheap grace to a works righteousness back and forth we go but we thank you that even in that the Holy Spirit holds us to the day of redemption and never lets us stray from the truth once he's apprehended us and captured us for Christ so in the confidence that we will never be condemned we will not ultimately fail some day we'll all get trophies we ask that you give us grace to be obedient and to work for your good pleasure and that it will produce in us this character that makes being godly and obedient in Christ like a little more easier with each passing year until the habits of sin replaced by the habits of virtue and we glorify you by our good works so that all may can see what you do for those whom you redeem send this forward from this place tonight with the confidence to do just that this coming week to rest in the justifying grace of Jesus Christ and to work through the sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit and produce in us these great virtues for our strength confidence and our success and for your pleasure and glory as we ask this in Jesus name amen.