Sola Gratia #6 - Preserved by Grace
Description
Teaching Pastor, Mike Chilcoat, continues the Sola Gratia series focusing on the doctrine of grace. He explores how believers are justified, sanctified, and ultimately glorified through God's grace, emphasizing that the One who began this good work will faithfully complete it until Christ's return.
Summary and Application
In this message Mike Chilcoat explores the profound truth found in Philippians 1:6: "Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."
The Three Stages of God's Work
The sermon beautifully outlines the three major stages of God's redemptive work in our lives:
1. Justification (The Past Work)
This is where our journey with Christ begins. Through Christ's death on the cross, He paid the penalty for our sins. His resurrection stands as the ultimate victory, showing that we worship not just a sacrificial teacher who died 2,000 years ago, but a living Savior who conquered death. Justification happens instantaneously when we place our faith in Christ.
2. Sanctification (The Present Work)
This is the lifelong process where God continues to work in us, renovating us from the inside out. As Hebrews 3:14 reminds us, "We have come to share in Christ if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end." This ongoing work requires our perseverance and faith as we grow spiritually throughout our lifetime.
3. Glorification (The Future Work)
This is the ultimate destination of our faith journey. When Christ returns, believers will be instantaneously glorified to be like Christ and will celebrate with Him forever in heaven. This is the "completion" that Paul refers to in Philippians 1:6 - the moment of ultimate victory that awaits all who persevere in faith.
Finding Joy in Suffering
The sermon highlights how the Apostle Paul modeled perseverance and joy amid his own suffering. Writing from imprisonment around AD 61 to the Philippian church he had met a decade earlier, Paul demonstrates an eternal perspective that allowed him to endure hardship with joy.
Paul could joyfully suffer and persevere because he knew with confidence that the Lord who began the good work would faithfully carry it to completion. This eternal focus gave him the ability to see the bigger picture beyond his present circumstances.
The Security of God's Promise
The central message of this sermon is the security we have in Christ. Our salvation isn't dependent on our own strength or ability to maintain it, but on God's faithfulness to complete what He started. This truth removes the sting from death and helps us endure life's painful hardships, knowing we were ultimately created for eternal life with Christ.
God offers us "covering fire" as we navigate life's difficulties, providing grace for each moment while ensuring our ultimate glorification when Christ returns.
Practical Application Questions
Reflection Question: In what areas of your life do you struggle to trust God's ongoing work of sanctification? How might embracing the truth that "He who began a good work will complete it" change your perspective on these struggles?
Action Question: Paul demonstrated joy even while imprisoned. What specific practice could you implement this week to cultivate joy during your own difficult circumstances?
Community Question: How can you encourage someone else who is struggling to persevere in their faith journey? What truth from this sermon could you share to remind them of God's faithful promise to complete His work?
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Good morning, Orchard Hill Church. What a privilege and a pleasure it is to be here. We're so grateful that you came out with us this morning. My name is Mike Chilcoat or Chili. I am on the teaching team here at Orchard Hill.
My nine to five is I work for Young Life as the regional director in what's called the Keystone Region, which is most of Pennsylvania and a little bit of Ohio, but, my wife and I and our three daughters live right here in Pittsburgh, and we consider Orchard Hill Church our home church, and, we're just so thrilled and humbled to get to be here with you this morning. So we are continuing our series entitled Sola Gratia. This is a Latin phrase meaning by grace alone, And as we've continued on in this series, we get to a point here where this morning you could entitle this sermon, this message, preserved by grace. You could AKA, you could also call it eternity is secure in Jesus. Eternity is secure in Jesus.
We're gonna dive in a little bit and talk about security and perseverance and trials and the marathon, not sprint it is of following Jesus for the long haul. Throughout this series, we've looked at justification and the effects of Christ's sacrifice for all of humankind on the cross, the righteous for the unrighteous, his act on the cross, and Jesus willingly laying his life down as a living sacrifice for you and for me to free us from the bondage of sin and death. So when Jesus paid the penalty that we deserved on our behalf, he wasn't taken, wasn't under any compulsion, he wasn't forced into it, he willingly laid his life down in this moment to bring believers into the opportunity to have a relationship with him, this justification moment. So believers stand justified now before a holy, loving, and just God who willingly paid the penalty that you and I deserved on our behalf once and for all. Last week, Kurt talked about this upward trajectory.
If you can picture that sermon last week and picture the graph that, the screen that Kurt put up with the upward trajectory of our relationship with God as followers of him throughout our lifetime. It's this sort of jagged upward trajectory. You might step back, make a mistake. You there's moments of confession, moments of pain, moments of hardship, but either way, it's this sort of upward trajectory moving forward in our walk with Jesus, moving forward in this relationship with the God of the universe, in this experience that we have with him throughout this life. So this is the sanctification process that those who are in Christ, who are in a relationship with Jesus, this sanctification process is taking place, and we are all experiencing that, those that are in Christ, as we are being renovated from the inside out, transformed from the inside out as followers of Christ in this sanctification stage, in this period.
Finally, ultimately, so you have justification, you have sanctification, then finally, ultimately, you have this stage of glorification, that those that are in Jesus Christ will enter into this glorification stage when Christ comes back in victory, the second coming of Christ. So we've been looking at this all inclusive nature of God in this series. We're looking at this all inclusive nature of humans as his tool, as the method with which he reaches the world. And in this, there's three major stages that we're gonna look at. The past work, the present work, and the future work.
Past work, back to justification. Justification would be classified in this past work is Christ by his death on the cross. He paid the penalty for our sins, and His resurrection from the dead, right? Ultimately, He stands in victory that we worship not just a guy with his heart in the right place that sacrificially died for friends and even enemies two thousand years ago, but stays in the tomb. No.
We worship a living and active God who conquered death and resurrected. So in that, this past good work in the life of the believer starts with a single act of faith as you put your trust and confidence in Jesus, in this relationship with him. And this happens once for the believer. It's instantaneous. Bam.
It happens as God begins his good work in their lives. So the moment where we say, yes, Jesus, I want this relationship with you, that moment is instantaneous and it starts us on this journey, this trajectory towards a life with him. So the present good work we talked about was sanctification. So you have the past justification. Now you have the present work, the sanctification process, and that'll extend on throughout our lifetime.
That starts at that moment of conversion and continues on throughout our entire span of our life. This present good work, God's sanctifying work in the life of a believer. And it's an ongoing work that continues on throughout your lifetime, my lifetime as followers of Jesus. And this involves many acts of faith as we slowly and consistently grow in our walk with God. If you remember Kurt's trajectory on that screen.
The future good work is glorification in God as persevering believers are ultimately glorified to be like Christ. So the future good work is this glorification moment, and that happens instantaneously too. When we get to the end of sort of this ride of sanctification, and we get to the end and we're finishing strong, there's this moment of glorification as persevering believers are glorified to be like Christ and to celebrate with him forever and to live eternally with him in heaven. This happens once and is instantaneous the second Christ comes back. It's another instantaneous moment, this incredible gift, undeserved grace.
Now we will experience future grace during our life. Certainly, that will happen. We will have moments in the sanctification stage where God is offering, covering fire for us as hardships and pain and difficulties and things crowd in our life. Certainly, there'll be future grace, but the real good future work that we're talking about is this moment of ultimate victory at the glorification stage. This is like God's covering fire, offering us cover as we navigate life's pains and difficulties.
But Christ's second coming, when it comes, that instantaneous gift we get as we're glorified with him, grafted into his family, adopted as sons and daughters, it is mind blowing. So everyone has this opportunity for God to set this in motion. Everyone has the opportunity. Right? It's every tribe, tongue, nation.
It's a Revelation seven type thing. Right? It doesn't matter about, where you come from originally, ethnicity, color, race, socioeconomic background, how much, pain you've had in your life, maybe how much you screwed up. It doesn't matter all that stuff. God evens the playing field, and it's an opportunity for everyone to enter into this.
The green light is on for everyone throughout humankind. This free gift of eternal life that Jesus purchased for us once and for all on the cross. He paid it in full. When we begin this relationship, God assures us that we won't just abandon us the moment that we screw up. This is beautiful.
Beautiful for a screw up like me. God promises, hey, the moment you step out of line or you screw up or you fall short or your selfishness is exposed, These moments, I'm not just gonna leave you. I'm not just gonna, you know, cut my losses and run. God's like, no, I'm gonna be with you in the midst of it and roll my sleeves up in the midst of this. He assures us that at moments when we make a mistake, we don't suddenly lose our salvation.
Right? We don't fumble it away because of some decisions we've made. Right? It's past, present, and future work. This is an illustration I've used before, but it's a good one, so I'll use it again.
I have, three daughters. They're all grown now, but I remember when they were in that toddler stage. Maybe you have children that are in this stage, or maybe you've you're a parent that remembers this stage, but the toddler stage is such a fun one. I remember being at work and I couldn't wait to get home just to sort of play with my kids and watch them as they learned this initial, stage of walking. So I'd rush home from work and I'd come into the family room, and I would sit there and I'd pick one of them up, and I'd kinda place them on the side of the couch, and I'd step back two or three steps.
Remember this? And I'd be like, alright, come on. And they don't know what they're doing. Right? They sort of look like you're drunk, uncle, at the family picnic.
Right? And they'd sort of do this stumble thing, you know, where they're like going left, right, and all over the place, and then they'd fall backwards. Right? And you'd pick them up and you'd smile and you'd give them a hug and you'd put them back. Right?
Make sure they're not hitting the coffee table. Put them right here on the armrest, and then you'd step back three steps. Okay. Try it again. Sometimes they wouldn't even get one step and they'd hit their diaper.
Right? Again, they'd stumble around like that drunk uncle and you'd be like, this is hilarious as you're learning how to walk for the first time. Their feet are like fresh out of the package. Right? They've never been used before.
Right? It's unbelievable. Imagine in that moment as a dad that I'm sitting there and I'm so excited, and one of my daughters starts doing the, you know, left right thing, and then falls down on her diaper on the floor, And I go, well, obviously, you can't do that. That's terrible. You call that walking?
I thought you could walk. You can't, obviously. You know what? Stay there. You can't do it.
I'm embarrassed to call you my child. Right? And then, you know, at 17, they're like, dad, please, let's try again. I can do it this time. No.
You can't. I've seen it. You can't walk. Right? No.
Of course not. Of course not. And that's part of the fun and the process and the empathy and the understanding where I would grab them and dust them off and give them a hug and say, that was great. Let's do it again. And as they walk, as they move forward and they learn, it's a process that we do together.
See, that's the Lord with us. There's gonna be moments in this sanctification process throughout a lifetime that we're gonna stumble and we're gonna fall and we're gonna do it wrong. Right? And he's patient with us. He's loving with us.
Us. He picks us up. He dusts us off. He says, let's do it again. Let's learn and let's grow.
In fact, Hebrews thirteen five states that the Lord will never leave us and never forsake us. That's a promise in Hebrews 13. So those that have put their trust in Jesus have security when they are in Christ that they can't send their way out of God's grace. Thank God that we have security that we can't sin our way out of God's grace, which is pretty crazy. That is mind blowing.
God hasn't only paid for our past sins, but for the current things we are doing and the future things we will do. That is shocking. God's grace is shocking. He's paid in full what we have done, what we're currently doing that's wrong, and what we may do in the future. God has paid it.
When we receive this relationship with Jesus, we actually join God's family. We're being adopted in with the inheritance that comes with that adoption. We're adopted in to God's family. We are sons and daughters of the most high. When we place our faith in him, God gives us the certainty of what our future holds beyond death.
God graciously gives us that certainty to grab hold of, that foundation to stand on. But during that lifelong sanctification stage, remember the instantaneous past good work of God justification, and then the long sanctification work during our lifetime, the present good work of God, ultimately culminating in that glorification stage. But during this stage, what happens when people who once believed now don't believe? Can those who are once in Christ, once in this relationship with Jesus, lose their salvation? As followers of Christ, what role in our salvation does our perseverance in the faith play?
It's a big question. It's one we're gonna kinda kick around a little bit this morning. We're gonna continue to hop around to a few different scriptural texts during this study, but we're gonna mainly utilize Philippians one six as a sort of through line for us to come back to and to base most of our thesis this morning on. So we're gonna break down that verse and use it as a through line to answer some of the previous questions that I posed. So once again, Philippians one six says this, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion of the day of Christ Jesus. So this book, the book of Philippians, was written by the apostle Paul around AD sixty one. It was written ten years after Paul had initially met the church in Philippi. Philippi, is every time I hear the word, Philippi, every time I hear that town name, I think of the world's worst Bible joke of all time. This is awful.
All Bible jokes are awful. I'm sorry. I'll get back in a second. But, Philippi, this is an awful Bible joke. You're gonna be mad at me after I tell you this.
This is gonna be a collective groan. You're gonna be upset. But this is a joke that's unpublished, mind you. This is published in a Bible joke. Why do we know that the apostle Paul was a baker?
How do we know that? Because he went to Philippi. It's terrible. That is terrible. That is one of the worst jokes ever written.
It is literally in a Bible joke that I own. I bought it for a dollar at a Goodwill just to absolutely annoy people because that joke is terrible. But you can picture the guy writing it originally, can't you? Where he's like, honey, I've got it. This is gonna set us free.
Right? Look at this joke. Paul went to Philippi. Get it? He's a baker?
New York Times bestseller. Here we come. Anyway, I'm gonna close in prayer. No. That's not it.
That has nothing to do with anything. But Okay. So back to this. I digress. Church in Philippi, Eighty Sixty One.
This letter is delivered to the church ten years after Paul had initially met them. So this is some ten years later as he's writing this letter back to them. And you can sense it as you're reading this four chapter book in Philippians, that there's a real affection there. There's a warmth between Paul and these Philippians. There's this affection, but what's crazy is Paul is writing it from prison.
Paul's writing this, and he is in jail. And he's been there for a couple of years at this point. So here he is with this affectionate letter to these people he loves, but he's writing it from prison, and you can sense in this real warp Paul has towards this crew. At the time of the writing, Paul had already been in prison several years, but in this brief four chapter book, Philippians, it's only four chapters, The word joy, the Greek for joy is mentioned 16 times. 16 times in a four chapter book, Paul mentions the Greek word for joy 16 times.
Now, why do I mention this? Why is this significant? This is significant because Paul is modeling perseverance and joy in the midst of turmoil, in the midst of suffering. He's in this relational journey with Jesus, and it's hard, it's difficult, it's painful, but he continues to come back to joy that he's sharing consistently in this time. You see, Paul is joyfully willing to suffer, endure, and persevere here because he knows the Lord is the one who has begun a good work in Jesus, and he'll carry it on to completion.
He has eternal focus on his mind. He can see the big picture. He can see the 30,000 foot view. Focusing on God's good work and his faithfulness helps us to endure and helps give us eternal security in the midst of life's painful hardships. It removes the sting from death when we know that we were ultimately created to live eternally.
It removes the the finite nature, the scary nature, and the sting of death because it's like, I know it's not just about this life, but the next as well. When we don't know what death means and we haven't grappled with that, with the hope found in Christ eternally, when we don't know that, and we were wrestling with death and what it means and God's victory over it, then we'll never truly understand what life is about if we don't understand death in the context of knowing Jesus eternally. So speaking of salvation, speaking of salvation, back to Ephesians two eight nine. Here's a passage a lot of you know and probably know well. Ephesians two eight nine says this, for it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves.
It's a gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast. Right? For it's by grace you've been saved through what? Through faith. Other religions prescribe building up enough good works to their god or gods.
If I build up enough good works, if I heap up enough good deeds, maybe somehow I'll be acceptable before this god or gods, and he'll judge me worthy somehow. Right? I can just continue to pile on the good deeds and the and the works, but we're not saved by our works. You see, Christianity is different. Christianity reminds all of us and is a foundation that we stand on that God has done the work for all of us.
God's already done it. It's complete. He's done it on our behalf. We don't deserve it. We certainly don't deserve it.
He knows that all of our good deeds piled up could never even approach the glory of him, the perfection of God, the ultimate relationship with him. So he knows he needs to do it on our behalf. In his infinite love and his sacrificial caring, God paid it for us. That's why Christianity is different. We are not saved by our works.
It is God's work and his free gift to us. So Philippians one six says, he who began a good work in you. Well, that's the starting point. That's the starting gun going off. Right?
That's the starting point in this new relationship with Jesus. But the verse goes on to say, he will carry it on to completion. This gets us back up to that ultimate sanctification, that sanctifying work in Jesus throughout our lifetime, the span of our lives. This is a lifelong work. So Hebrews three fourteen says this, we have come to share in Christ if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end.
Let's read that one more time. We have come to share in Christ to experience this fellowship with them, this gift with them, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end? Boy, it sounds like perseverance. It's through faith that we actually grow spiritually. It's through faith that God allows us to continue to lean in the sanctification stage and to grow spiritually and to change and to be renovated from the inside out.
God wants to change your character and transform you. You, me, all of us, because he loves us, because we matter to him. Although conversion happens in an instant when we, as as Romans ten nine and ten states, right, it's it states, if we believe in our hearts that Jesus is Lord and confess with our mouth that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. So as we lean into this moment of Romans ten nine and ten, when you came to an understanding of I want this relationship with you, Jesus, right, that's instantaneous. A good passwork of God justified now before the father because of what Jesus did, not because of what we did.
When we say that, right, we start that work. Right? But sanctification continues on for a lifetime. Our ongoing obedience, catch this, indicates the authenticity and sincerity of our confession of faith. It's not just a check a box and you get a get out of jail free card.
I mean, how many people are like, oh, I'm good. I remember I I stood up at this say so or I was at this Christian convention or I came to an altar call at a church or you know, I heard this Billy Graham crusade. I remember I said this thing. That's an amazing moment. That's an amazing moment.
It's a miracle. Right? But that's just the starting gun going off. That's just that initial instantaneous deal. One of the things God wants to do is transform you so you become more like Jesus.
A lot of us come into this relationship with Jesus carrying a lot of hurt, maybe addictions, maybe insecurities, maybe misunderstandings of of of who we are and what we're about, or maybe there's pain or trauma, childhood trauma, maybe even adult trauma that you've experienced and endured. Maybe we've done a lot of things to other people. Maybe we've caused a lot of pain in other people's lives, and there's a lot of these things that we wrestle with. Right? Maybe we've done some damage to ourselves.
God wants an authentic inside out transformation. In fact, Romans twelve two puts it this way. It says, do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing, and perfect will. So we see clearly God calling us to this ongoing sanctification process.
We continually see him saying, yes, there's this moment of conversion, but then there's this ongoing sanctification process in our lifetime that God's calling us to. Is salvation at stake, right, if we don't continue on? Well, here's where the rubber meets the road. I'll say it plainly. If you're in Christ in an authentic way, that moment of conversion, once saved, always saved, you aren't able to lose your salvation.
But hang with me, because what I'm saying is perseverance indicates that the initial conversion was real. If not, the question pops up of, was it ever really authentic? Was it ever really genuine, or was it a get out of jail free card or checking a box? As a follower of Christ, if you bag your faith and walk away, was it ever authentically in your heart? This is an ongoing process and sanctification, and the Lord offers ongoing grace and forgiveness.
Don't get me wrong. And God can sanctify and change and transform the most hardened heart. And the person coming from a place of incredible immense sin. Think about the apostle Paul. Acts six through eight, here he is giving approval to the death of Christians.
So God can take anyone out of the depth and change him. So don't hear that wrong. But it's this ongoing sanctification process. If we have no evidence of a life devoted to Jesus and we don't possess a current faith, we won't have much assurance of salvation. We just won't.
If I never spend any time with my wife, my wife Kimmy of twenty almost twenty seven years now, which is wild, my best friend, she's amazing. She's the best thing that ever happened to me. If I never spent any time with her, and I never invest emotionally in in her, I never give her of my my varsity time, my best time, not just sitting in front of the TV, but real time together to get to know her and be there for her and sympathize and empathize with her and listen to her. If I never do that, and the the moments where maybe we're crossing each other and we I say, oh, well, you remember at the church when we got married on our wedding day, remember I stood up in front? Remember I said those things I was supposed to say?
I checked that box. We're good. Right? What kind of relationship would that be? Right?
If I'm pointing back to some moment years and years ago, I'm sort of drafting off this old, you know, the residual work of something I did years and years and years ago. If I'm on autopilot, what kind of relationship is that? No. Perseverance indicates and offers evidence that our original union with Christ was real. I, years ago had a small group of guys that I was discipling in a Young Life Club somewhere, and, shout out to small groups, by the way.
If you're not in one, jump in one. Orchard Hill's an incredible group of small groups. I'm in one on Monday nights. Shout out to the Monday night small group guys, Room 206. What's up?
Anyway, small groups are awesome, but I had this small group of guys that came to me and they said, hey, Chili, would you disciple us? And so I began discipling these guys at their request, And I'm just being honest, I love these guys. I had earned the right with them relationally for many years, but I'm just being totally real with you. I never saw any evidence of a transformed life at all in these guys. They're pretty mean to people.
They were gossips and slanders. They were all about themselves. They were it was tough. I'd come into these meetings and I'd be like, tell me about something cool about you and your walk with Jesus. This is when they had nothing.
And so there was a moment where salvation came up in one of these meetings, and they're asking me about assurance of salvation. And I said, well, you know, God's deal is salvation. That's God's work. I don't I can't tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt about salvation. Only the Lord can.
However, because I see no evidence of the fruits of the spirit in your world, in your life, I'd be I'd be honest. I'm just being real with you guys, and I'd earned it with them. I'd be nervous. I mean, that's harsh. I get it.
That's intense. It was just me being real and putting it bluntly. I don't see any evidence of a transformed heart. All these warnings this is a quote from John Piper. It says, all the warnings of the New Testament are to be taken seriously because God uses them to keep his children vigilant in the fight of faith.
We are found to be secured by how seriously we take all the promises and all the warnings of scripture. There might not be a more sobering passage in all of scripture than John seven excuse me, Matthew seven twenty one through 23. And it says this, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons, and in your name perform many miracles? Then I will tell them plainly, I never knew you.
Away from me, you evil doers. Wow. So it isn't an issue of losing salvation, but rather an issue that they never that they were never genuine believers in the first place. Think about John fifteen, the passage about the vine and the branches. Throughout that passage, the vine and the branches that if we're in Christ, right, it begins that relationship and that that growth period that we have with him.
But what does it say over and over and over? Remain in me. Remain in me is that constant, command and reminder to us. As a follower of Christ, ask yourself, do I have an active daily and current faith, or am I still trying to drift on my past conversion experience? Wayne Grudem puts it this way.
He says, if a testimony of saving faith is genuine, it should be a testimony of faith that is active to this very day. You should be able to see it. Are you consistently spending time in regular fellowship with Jesus in word and in prayer? Are you spending time with him? Are you just saying, oh, no.
We stood up. We said those things a long time ago. We should be good. Right? Not out of duty, but out of a heart's desire of knowing what an abundant exciting adventure that life with Christ really is.
We can make excuses all day to not persevere in the faith, but we're only cheating ourselves. One of my best friends in the world, I've been friends with him forever. Man, I love this guy. He's a guy named Jeff Trichler. Some of you that have been around Orchard Hill for a long time remember Gary Trichler, his dad, incredible pastor here at this church.
But Jeff and I have been, best buddies forever. He's an incredible guy, and we grew up together. And we went to camp one time together, and we went out to this camp, and we were white water rafted and doing all these things. And then we went up to this moment where we're gonna go on a natural water slide. And I've had the privilege of getting to go on some natural water slides around the nation, and it's so fun.
It's so crazy. And it's a little scary because it's not like going down to Sandcastle or something. This is like, you're not sure what's gonna happen on these natural water slides. Right? So we're there and it was, a weekend sort of like this weekend where it's been raining consistently.
So the water levels are really high, and this natural water slide is whipping. It is going crazy. So we walk up there, we're all like 11 and 12 year old kids, and we're sitting on this rock eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. And our leaders, right? He's like, you know, 19 or 20 year old guys come out, they're like, well, should we send these kids down this thing?
It doesn't look that safe. And I hear him talking, and one of the guys is like, oh, I'll go. I'll test it out. He's trying to impress a girl there or something. And so he's like, oh, I got it.
You know? He goes down, and we're all, you know, glued to this thing, sitting there eating our peanut butter and jelly. He's watching this guy go down and just getting thrashed. He's yelling. He's screaming.
He's like, ah. He's trying to stop. And the thing is just shredding him all the way down. And then at the bottom, you just hear sort of this, ah, you know, as he falls at the end, to his death. No, I'm kidding.
He's alive. He's with us to this day. I don't even know who that is. But anyway, so we're like, that's crazy. That is crazy.
So the guy comes up and he's missing a watch. He's got one shoe gone, and he's like, no. There's like blood on his sides. He's like, do not do that. Finish your PB and Js.
Right? So we're sitting there and we're laughing about this guy, and we're like, oh, it's a bummer we can't do this natural water slide. So like a lot of friend groups, we bust each other's chops. That's what guys do. We can't really get in touch with our emotions, so we just mask it by mocking one another.
Anyway, I'm sitting there, and Tricler's shoes are there drying on a rock. So I take one of his shoes, and he's like, Chile, what are you doing? I'm like, oh, no. This will be funny. So I throw his shoe, and there's a little waiting area at the top of the natural water slide, and the shoe sinks down into this water.
And he's like, looks at me like, hey, thanks a lot, pal. So he walks over and he's kind of tentatively getting into this moss covered water at the top of this really dangerous natural waterslide. He gets his shoe and he turns to me kinda like, nice try, pal. And right as we lock eyes and all of our friends are sitting there, Trikes goes like this, up in the air, falls right on his back, he turns, and you just see pain on his face as he takes off a hundred miles an hour. And all the leaders are like, no.
Who told him it was good? I'm like, I don't he just decided to go. I don't know. So he's going down, all the kids jump up. It's like a scene out of a movie.
We are chanting his name. We're going crazy. It's amazing. As Trikes is going on, you can hear him yelling out and screaming. He goes down and then the at the end, and he climbs back up as this triumphant champion as we're all going crazy.
Same thing, like one shoe, no watch, his shirt was all ripped up. And he gets to the top and there's some scrapes on him and stuff, and he goes, that was amazing. Right? He loved it, and we're all cheering, and we're like, that was incredible. And it just took this total turn.
And we thought, wow, that was awesome, Trikes. And we were asking him all night, tell us more about it. Right? And sure, he got scraped up and he was beat up a little bit, but he went for the ride of his life. He went on this adventure, this crazy thing, and we were all just sitting there jealous because we didn't get to experience it.
You see, this relationship with Jesus is a lot like this natural water slide. That natural water slide continues on. It never stops. In fact, right now it's going. Four in the morning it's going.
It doesn't turn off. It continuously flows. It's like a relationship with Jesus. It doesn't stop the moment we get in. We're just missing out on it if we don't jump in.
We can choose to get in or not. And if we don't get in, well, maybe we won't be scraped up as much. If we don't get in, maybe we won't get hurt at times. But we also won't get to go on the ride of our lives. We also won't get to jump in and be part of this adventure.
Wayne Grudem says this, our lives ought to be ones of imitation of Christ and likeness to him in what we do and say. If we have genuine saving faith, there will be clear results in obedience in our lives. So is here's a question. Is salvation achieved at an event or in a process? Is salvation achieved at an event or in a process?
Salvation is an event and a process. This sanctification process that culminates in sharing in Christ victory eternally in heaven is a gift and an invitation to go on the ride of your life. How are you gonna respond to this invitation this morning? I'm gonna pray. Lord Jesus, thank you so much for this time and this opportunity to be here.
Lord, thank you that you give us the opportunity to have a life to the fullest. And Lord, you even give us an opportunity to have assurance of salvation, Lord, in this long sanctifying process, this this loving process that you go on with us as you wanna help us grow in our faith, in our confidence as we put our hand in your hand, Lord Jesus. Lord, I thank you that you never leave us or forsake us, but you desire us to be made to look and reflect you more and more. In your name we pray, amen.
This transcript was auto-generated, please excuse any errors.
