Welcome to the Redeemer Presbyterian Church podcast. Please enjoy our feature presentation. Well, we've been taking a little break from our series in the Book of Acts, and we've been doing a rather fun little mini-series which we've been calling Bumper Sticker Theology, where each week we take a different bumper sticker and apply the Word of God to it. And as we are getting to the end of this mini-series, We have today and then we will conclude next week on Easter with yet another bumper sticker and then Sunday following Easter we will go return back to the Book of Acts. And today we will, I introduce the sticker, Be Patient, God Isn't Done With Me Yet. And I thought that this would be a good sticker for a couple reasons. It speaks to a very reality in our life, that of our own sanctification. But also, my family was telling me I need to at least do one sticker that I agree with. So far, every sticker that has come up has been one that I have disagreed with. And so this is going to be one that we can wholeheartedly, as Christians, agree with. And the text that I chose to interpret this bumper sticker in light of and therefore to serve as our sermon text is 1 Thessalonians 4 verses 1 through 8, which we just read. Josh, go ahead and get rid of that. Thank you. There are eight verses in the text that we've read, and these eight verses have a single unified message. And that message is spelled out for us in the very first verse, in verse 1, where Paul writes, Finally then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus that as you receive from us how you ought to live and please God, just as you are doing, that you would do so more and more. So the single unified message that we ought to recognize from this text this morning is that the Christians in Thessalonica were given instruction in how they ought to live and please God. And they are being encouraged by the Apostle to do this and to do it more and more. In other words, the Apostle has given them instruction on how they can live a life of holiness and then he challenges them to continue to increase and that life of holiness. In verse 3, Paul gives them the mechanism by which this increasing life of holiness can be accomplished, and that being the process of sanctification. For this is the will of God, Paul writes, your sanctification. And finally, after giving an example of how a sanctified Christian should respond to sinful situations, he gives an example there of sexual immorality. Paul comes back to reaffirm the single unified message in verse 10. God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. So the single unified message of this text is that Christians are called to live a life of holiness. And that holiness will be accomplished in each of our lives through the process of sanctification, which, according to Paul, will have the effect of causing us to grow more and more in our understanding and our application of personal holiness. Now, our text ends with a warning. Verse 8 states that whoever disregards this, referring back to everything he had just spoken about, whoever disregards this, disregards not man, but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you. And so there's a serious warning that we're going to deal with. And so there are three points that we're going to consider in today's sermon. First is that God has given instruction for how we ought to live a life of holiness. You might say that this is the academic part or this is the head knowledge part. And the second point is that God will apply this instruction for holy living to our hearts through the process of sanctification. And during the second point, I'm going to define what sanctification is and how it works in our lives. And the third point in today's sermon is to take notice of the warning that exists in verse 8. Paul warns that to resist God's sanctifying work in our hearts is to disregard not man, but God himself. And that there's a strong warning here and we would do well to heed it. And so these are the three points of our sermon. The instruction of God, the sanctification of God, and the warning of God. And all three of these points contribute to the Christian practice of living a life of holiness that is pleasing to God. So let's begin. by diving deeper into point number one. In verses one and two of our text, Paul says that the Thessalonians had received instructions, that's in verse two, how they ought to live and to please God. And upon reading this, the questions that pop into my mind are, what are these instructions? Where did these instructions come from? And do we have access, you and me today, do we have access to these same instructions so that we can live a holy life as well? And the answer to that last question is yes. We do have access to these same instructions. They are the moral law of God. The instructions that God has given to all Christians for living a life that pleases Him is the moral law of God. Now this is a controversial statement for me to make in today's Christian church. The Christian church today has become very antinomian. And that word antinomian simply means against the law. So when I say that the church has become very antinomian, I'm saying that the church has become very opposed to the use of God's moral laws in today's culture. And the reason so many of today's Christians are prone to antinomianism is because of Here's another big word, dispensationalism. Within dispensationalism, there is no room for applying God's law to New Testament Christianity. The very structure of dispensationalism rules that option out. So if a person is committed to the dispensational approach to the Bible, then it's probably safe to say that that person is either consciously or unconsciously antinomian. Now I'm throwing out some big words here, and I doubt that everybody in the audience fully understands the implication or definitions of these words. I've already attempted at least to define antinomianism as that which is against the law or against the modern day application of God's law. So hopefully everybody's tracking with me when I use that word. But what about dispensationalism? What does that word mean? Well, dispensationalism is a way of approaching and understanding the Bible. A dispensationalist is a person who, he takes the 66 books of the Bible, he looks at these 66 books of the Bible, and then he begins to split them up. And he splits them up, dividing them into seven or so sections, separate sections. And each of these divisions is defined as a particular period of time that begins with God making a covenant and ends with God bringing some form of judgment. And each of these divisions is known as a dispensation, which the word dispensation simply means a period of time. There are a few dispensationalists who divide the Bible into three or four dispensations. And then there are a few other dispensationalists who divide the Bible into eight or nine. different divisions or dispensations. But the most common form of dispensationalism is classical dispensationalism, which divides the Bible into seven distinct divisions or dispensations. According to classical dispensationalism, the first dispensation is called the Age of Innocence. This period of time began when God created Adam. and ended when Adam and Eve fell into sin by eating the forbidden fruit. And so, from a biblical delineation, the first dispensation began in Genesis 1 and ended in Genesis 3. The second dispensation, according to classical dispensationalism, is the Age of Conscience. This began with Cain and Abel bringing their offerings to God and ends with the flood in Noah's day. So in terms of biblical delineation, the second dispensation goes from Genesis 4 to Genesis 7. The third dispensation is known as the Age of Government. This begins with God establishing a covenant with Noah as he exits the ark, and it goes all the way through to the Tower of Babel and to the confusion of tongues. The third dispensation goes from Genesis 8 to Genesis 11. From this point forward, the dispensations, at least from a biblical chronology, tend to get longer. So, the fourth dispensation is called the Age of Promise. It begins with God establishing a covenant with Abraham, and it goes all the way through to where the Israelites are held in captivity in Egypt. So, the fourth dispensation goes from Genesis 12 all the way through to the end of the book of Genesis. The fifth dispensation is the Age of Law, which begins with Moses. as we're introduced to him in the beginning of the book of Exodus, and this dispensation runs all the way through the Old Testament, all the way, technically, all the way through the Gospels to the day of Pentecost. And the sixth dispensation is the Age of Grace, which began on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was poured out, and will continue until the Rapture and the Great Tribulation. We are presently living, according to classical dispensationalism, in the age of grace. And the seventh dispensation is the final one which is called the age of kingdom. And it will last for a thousand years and it will begin when Christ returns. He will establish his kingdom here on earth and he will rule with a rod of iron for one millennium. And that completes the seven dispensations of classical dispensationalism. That in a nutshell is dispensationalism. And it's an approach to the Bible that divides all of history into seven or so periods of time and then interprets what is written in the Bible according to the unique aspects of that particular dispensation in which those events took place. Now, it's helpful to know that 200 years ago, this way of interpreting the Bible didn't exist. 200 years ago, there was no such thing as a dispensational approach to the Bible. This way of dividing and interpreting the Bible is a relatively new practice within the history of the Christian church. It was developed in the writings of a man named John Nelson Darby, who was a Plymouth Brethren, right around the 1830, I think 1827, if you want to fix a particular date to it, is the birth date of dispensationalism. And then this idea was championed by a man named C.I. Schofield, who made it popular when he published the Schofield Reference Bible, which was basically just a King James Bible, but had all these textual notes, these commentary notes that supported and embraced and taught dispensationalism. But before 1830, there was no such thing as dispensationalism. In the 1800 years prior to dispensationalism, people would view and interpret the Bible covenantally. Rather than dividing the Bible into seven different sections, the historical Christian church always saw the Bible as one progressive, expanding covenant that God made with his people at all times and in all places. So, according to the covenantal view of the Scriptures, there are no sharp and fast divisions within the Bible, not even between the Old and New Testaments. God began His story in Genesis 1, and that story continues uninterrupted until Revelation 22. And sure, there are going to be places in the Scripture where God expands His definition of the covenant, most noticeably between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, But this was all part of God's unfolding plan of redemption. It was his intention from all eternity past. And so today, there are basically two paradigms in which a person reads and interprets the Bible. Presbyterians, Lutherans, Reformed churches still hold to the covenantal view of the Scriptures, as do some Baptists. Other Baptists, along with the Pentecostals, the Brethren, And most, every non-denominational community church have adopted the dispensational approach to Scripture. And it's very important for a Christian to understand, not only that these two paradigms exist, but to know which one he or she is using when you read and study the Bible. Not only to know which one you are using personally, but then the people who influence you, your pastor, the radio preachers you listen to, the books you read. You need to know which of these paradigms they are using as well, because if you're using two different paradigms, if you're in one and your pastor is in another, then there's going to be some confusion. There's going to be quite a bit of confusion, because the tenets of dispensationalism will lead you to conclusions that are unfounded in the covenantal view, and vice versa. Redeemer Presbyterian Church is a Reformed church. It's a Presbyterian church, which means those who sit under the teaching ministry of this church are going to hear the Bible interpreted from a covenantal perspective. If you have attended a dispensational church previously, in the past, then you're going to hear things taught here in this church that are going to conflict with what you've heard taught in other churches. It's going to be your job as a good Berean to go back to the Scriptures and see what's true, see what's right. A perfect example of such a conflict is the use of God's moral law. If you were wondering earlier in our worship service why we were reading the Ten Commandments, then that question probably came to your mind because of some dispensationalism in your background. I made the statement earlier in the sermon that God's moral law is our instruction for living a life of holiness. Those who have been using a dispensational approach to the Bible are automatically going to be opposed to that statement. Without even giving it much thought, the dispensationalist is predisposed to antinomianism. Because his system of interpreting the Bible doesn't allow for the law that was given to Moses to be applied to Christians today. Why? Because according to dispensationalism, everything we read in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Numbers, belongs to the age of the law. Those books belong to the age of the law. We, today, live in the age of grace. These are two separate dispensations. And you cannot start moving pieces of this dispensation into this dispensation. They need to stay separate. They need to stay where they are. If it doesn't work, you can't mix and match. But for those who embrace a covenantal view of the Scriptures, hearing the statement that God's moral law is our instruction for living in holiness is not a big deal. There's no tension with that statement. Why? Because the covenantal approach of scriptures is committed to recognizing continuity from Genesis to Revelation. Where dispensationalism draws hard and fast divisions between the Jews and the church, covenantalism doesn't observe those distinctions. The covenantal approach is perfectly fine with applying God's morality as recorded in the Book of Exodus to today. So what does the Bible say about applying the old covenant law to the new covenant church? Well, it just so happens that Jesus anticipated this question and therefore he dealt with it on the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 5, 17, Jesus was speaking on this very issue when he said, do not think that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. From a covenantal perspective, this verse means that Jesus fulfilled everything that the law requires. He fulfilled all the ceremonial laws, such as those that required a bloody sacrifice to be brought before the Lord. Jesus was the final bloody sacrifice. His shed blood was completely sufficient to satisfy everything that was required by the ceremonial laws. And therefore, there is no longer any need to offer sacrifices. So Jesus didn't do away with the ceremonial laws. He didn't abolish the ceremonial laws. He fulfilled them. He made it so that we no longer have to shed the blood of bulls and goats. His blood is and was sufficient. His blood fulfilled the ceremonial laws. But what about the moral laws? Did Christ fulfill the moral laws well? Just like He did the ceremonial law? And the answer is yes. Christ lived the perfect life while He walked on this earth. He observed all the moral law that God had required of man, and thereby He lived a sinless life of perfect holiness. So as it pertains to moral laws, Christ fulfilled those laws as well. He didn't abolish them. He didn't get rid of them. He fulfilled them. And that's what it says in Matthew 5.17. Because Christ fulfilled the moral law, you and I don't have to. He did it on our behalf, just like he did with the ceremonial laws. And this is the good news of the gospel. Christ attained perfect righteousness and holiness by observing all the moral laws that God had required of His people. And what the Gospel says is that that righteousness that Christ attained by fulfilling all that moral law is now transmitted to us who have faith in Jesus Christ. By grace through faith, our sin is transferred to Jesus and His righteousness is transferred to us. Therefore, we are saved from our sins by grace and grace alone. But is that the end of the story? We are saved by grace and grace alone, not of works. By grace we are saved. But is that the end of the story? Is that the end of the moral law? Once we've been saved by grace, does that mean that God no longer desires that we live a holy life? This is the situation that Paul is speaking to, writing to, in Thessalonians, in our text. The Thessalonians were Christians. By the time Paul is writing chapter 4, they had already been justified. They had received Christ as their Savior. They had received the grace of God in their lives and they had placed their faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. So now what? Were the Thessalonians free to do whatever they wanted because they were already covered with the righteousness of Christ? No, not at all. What Paul is telling them is that they have a very real need in their lives to continue to strive to live a life of holiness. Not in order to earn their salvation. They're already saved. Nor are they supposed to live a life of holiness in order to maintain their salvation, for God is the one who maintains our salvation. The reason Paul told the Thessalonians to live a holy life is because holy living is what pleases God. It's gratitude for all that God has done for the Thessalonians. Paul is calling them to observe the moral law of God as a standard for righteousness and holy living. You are probably in the same situation as the Thessalonians. If you have received God's grace by faith and you have submitted yourself to Jesus as the King of creation, then you have been justified. This means that the penalty for your sins has been taken upon the Lord Jesus Christ and his righteousness has been given to you to cover over any imperfections that were once in your character. But you are still living on this earth. You are still dealing with temptation and sin. So how are you supposed to respond to that? You are to respond in the exact same way that the Apostle Paul is telling the Thessalonians to respond. And that is, you are supposed to live a life of holiness. You are supposed to live a life of obedience to God's moral law and the definition for holiness. is found in God's moral law. Remember what Jesus said about the law on the Sermon on the Mount? I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill the law. Well, he wasn't finished speaking about the law when he made that statement. He continued on, and he described the role and function that the law plays in the life of God's people. Here's what he said in Matthew 5.19, Okay, on the heels of saying he hasn't abolished the law but fulfilled the law, he now does a therefore. Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does them, whoever observes the law, and whoever teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. According to Jesus. If you are to be great in his kingdom, then you are supposed to observe the moral law. Then you are supposed to teach others to observe the moral law. One of the reasons the apostle Paul was so great in the kingdom of God is because he is teaching the Thessalonians to observe the moral law. And by Jesus's criteria from Matthew 5, this makes Paul great. How about you? Are you great in the kingdom of God? Do you observe his moral law as a standard for righteousness? You should. This is the point that Paul is stressing to the Thessalonians. And this is the first point of this sermon. You should obey and uphold the moral law of God. Now it's one thing to fill a person's head with a list of do's and don'ts. It's an entirely different thing to fill a person's heart. with that same list of do's and don'ts. You may be able to memorize the moral law of God, but unless you have learned to love the moral law of God, unless you have learned to embrace the moral law of God, then you will continue to resist that law and to kick against the goads. King David wrote in Psalm 119, I will meditate on your precepts, I will delight in your statutes, my soul is consumed with longing for your rules at all times. For I find my delight in your commandments, which I love." Which I love, he says. How does a person come to love the law of God in the manner that King David is expressing here in Psalm 119? The answer is by being sanctified. By being sanctified, Sanctification is another one of those big words, but it's a word that's worth our effort to define and understand because according to what Paul writes in verse 3, sanctification is God's will for our lives. Sanctification is God's will for your life. As Christians, we can spend a lot of time in prayer seeking God's will for our life. Sometimes God's will seems elusive and very difficult to discern. But then there are other times when his will is made perfectly clear and where there is no guesswork involved. And this is one of those times. Verse 3 tells us very clearly, for this is the will of God, your sanctification. Sanctification means to be set apart for God's holy purposes. If we read through the Old and New Testaments, we see that a lot of things were sanctified. For example, the furniture and the articles that were used in the temple were sanctified. They were set apart for God's holy purposes. To be sanctified means to be separated from that which is common. In a few minutes, we're going to celebrate the Lord's table and we're going to ask the Lord to sanctify the bread and the wine that we use for this sacrament. Now, we don't believe that God changes the bread and the wine into something other than what it really is, such as the actual body and blood of Jesus. There are some who do believe that. We don't believe that. But we still believe that the bread is sanctified, that the wine is sanctified. It's been set apart for holy purposes. These elements take on a heightened significance in the sense that they have been set apart from common bread and common wine for the purpose of God's sacrament. And just as the bread and the wine are sanctified, well, so can people be sanctified. God sanctifies people. He sets them apart for His holy purposes. But when God sanctifies people, He does more than just set them aside. He sends His Spirit to empower the individual to live a life that's holy. And that's the kicker. Now, it's common to hear Christians say that the primary agent in our sanctification is the Holy Spirit. You'll hear that a lot. The primary agent in our sanctification is the Holy Spirit. And there's truth to that. There's nothing wrong with that statement because it is the role and function of the Holy Spirit to apply the Father's sanctifying grace to our lives. But we also need to understand that our sanctification is the work of all three persons of the Trinity. In Jude 1, We read about those who are sanctified by God the Father. In Hebrews 2.11 we read about those who are sanctified by God the Son. And in 1 Peter 1.2 we read about those who are sanctified by God the Spirit. So this is a triune operation in the lives of believers. And the point of such sanctification is to incrementally strengthen and mature the faith of the individual so that he or she may live a life that's holy and pleasing to the Lord. Increasingly holy and pleasing to the Lord. This is what Paul is referring to at the end of verse 2 when he uses the phrase, more and more, right? He's talking about living a life of holiness. He says, do this more and more. He's referring to the progressive and the incremental nature of sanctification. And we need to understand, therefore, that sanctification is a process. It's not something that happens instantaneously. It's a process that our triune God begins at the moment that we are justified, the moment we are renewed and brought into his kingdom. And then this process continues for the remainder of our lives. If you've been a Christian for very long, then you should be able to look back at your life and you should be able to see spiritual growth. You should be able to look back at the way you were 10 years ago, if you've been a Christian for that period of time, and say, wow, if I look back to where I was 10 years ago and where I am today, I see growth, I see maturity. That's sanctification. You should be able to look back upon your life and you can see how you've come to know the Word of God better, how you've come to live your life more holy, how you used to have problems with anger or problems with profanity or problems with sexual immorality or problems with any type of sin. And by the power of the Holy Spirit, you've incrementally been able to overcome those sins. They're no longer a challenge in your life. And you look today and you say, that is sanctification. But because sanctification is a process and a slow process at that, it's a lot like trying to watch a child physically grow taller. Growth happens in such small increments that it's hard to tell from one day to the next. But when you look back over the course of a year or two, you look at the markings that you made on the door jamb, right, you suddenly see that there's been tremendous growth. You didn't notice it until you give it the perspective of a couple of years, but there's actual growth that occurs. We ought to expect a similar type of growth when it comes to our spiritual maturity. The process of sanctification is supposed to produce spiritual growth and maturity that translates into living a life of increasing righteousness. This is why the bumper sticker that we use to bring the subject forward is such an appropriate one. All of us should be very quick to ask those whom we offend, those whom we sin against, not only for repentance, but for patience. Because God's still working on us. We're not the finished product yet. There is a future me and a future you that's going to look so much better than the me and you that you see right now. God's not done with us yet. And so when there's conflict, one of the first things we need to do is humble ourselves, acknowledge that we have not been fully sanctified, and take ownership of our own sin. This sticker, therefore, recognizes that our sanctification does not happen overnight. It takes time. It takes effort. It takes effort on God's part. It takes effort on our part. According to the Bible, we either cooperate with God in our sanctification, making our sanctification process grow faster, or we fail to cooperate with God, making our sanctification process go slower. Now, just a point of clarification, because somebody's probably scratching their heads right now. There are some people who teach that we are entirely passive in our sanctification. Meaning that God does all the work, we don't do anything. We are just recipients of God's grace, we are entirely passive, we do nothing to further our sanctification. But that's not what the Bible teaches. As far as our justification goes, our salvation, As far as Christ redeeming us from our sin, we are entirely passive. God does all the work when it comes to our justification. But sanctification is different. We have the privilege of working in cooperation with God in order to accomplish our spiritual growth and holiness. That's why our text this morning ends with a warning. Verse 8, therefore whoever disregards this disregards not man but God who gives his Holy Spirit to you. If you disregard God's call to holiness, God's efforts to sanctify your character, then you are disregarding the triune God. That's not a good thing. You might remember the rebuke that Paul gave to the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 3. But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh." What Paul is telling them is that by now they should have been sanctified to the degree that they were more spiritually mature. that they should be able to handle the solid food of Christianity. But they hadn't reached that spiritual maturity because they had not cooperated with God for their sanctification. There's a similar rebuke in Hebrews 5 verses 12 to 14. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food. For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness. He is still a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil." What the writer of Hebrews is talking about here at the end, this constant practice to distinguish good from evil, is the work that we must put into our sanctification. It is the work that we must put into our sanctification. If we are like the people in Hebrews 5 who fail to mature, then that's because of our own laziness in cooperating with God in our sanctification. If we never mature beyond the milk stage to eating solid food, then that's a result of our own deficiency and working towards our own sanctification. Here's how we work in companionship with God. Here's how we work in cooperation with God. Faith. Faith. That is the instrument that allows us to work in cooperation with God. Faith allows us to contribute to that process of sanctification that we may grow in spiritual maturity. If you find that you are slow in your sanctification, that you believe that you may be disregarding the sanctifying work of God that He has initiated in your life, then the answer is not to try harder. The answer is not to try to work more at your sanctification. The answer is to respond in faith. The answer is to increase your faith. And when you increase your faith, then your natural response, your spiritual response, will be to work in cooperation with God instead of opposition to God. How does that happen, you ask? How does a person increase his faith? Well, let me suggest two ways. The first step is prayer. You simply confess to God your sin of disregarding his sanctifying work in your life, and then you ask him for an increased measure of faith. That's pretty simple. And there's a biblical precedence for this. In Mark 9, 24, when Jesus was about to drive a demon out of a man's son, the Lord asked this man whether he had the faith necessary to believe that Jesus could heal his son. And this man responded with these words, I believe, but help my unbelief. I believe, but help my unbelief. And if you know your Greek, then you probably know that the word for belief there is pistoua, which is the word for faith. And so what the father of this demon possessed boy is really saying, crying out to Jesus is, I have faith, but now increase my faith. And this can be your prayer as well. Anytime you perceive that a lack of faith is slowing down your spiritual sanctification, then you call upon God for his mercy in the same manner that this father did. And our Lord will have mercy upon you in the same way that he had mercy upon this father when he healed this boy's son. That expression of faith and a lack of faith or faith and the necessity to increase faith was perfectly fine for our Lord. He saw it and he gave the man exactly what he asked for and the boy was delivered of the demon. The second step that I suggest for those who believe that their sanctification is being retarded by their own lack of faith is to sit under the regular preaching of God's Word. Sit under the regular preaching of God's Word. That means, amongst other things, to come to church regularly. You need to hear the Word of God preached on a regular basis. Perhaps the reason your faith is low is because you haven't been attending church as often as you should. Where does faith come from? What does that often quoted passage from Romans 10, 17 say? So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. So in the context of Romans 10, it's obvious that the word of Christ spoken of here is the preaching of the gospel. So if hearing the preaching of the gospel is what produces faith, then every Christian ought to be in regular attendance at church Hearing the gospel being faithfully preached. It will have the effect of increasing your faith. Which is have the effect of causing you to cooperate with our triune God in the sanctifying process that he initiates in your life. So let's not take for granted this great gift of sanctification that the Lord offers us. Let's not, as Paul put it in verse 8 of our text, disregard God. But instead, let's regard Him. Let's regard Him as our Heavenly Father who wills for our sanctification. Let's regard Him as the one who desires for us to live a life of holiness. And let's regard Him as the one who has adopted us into His family. that we may be called His children. And He has bestowed upon us so many blessings, blessings of the kingdom, blessings of His grace, so that we may mature and grow in our sanctification. This has been a presentation of Redeemer Presbyterian Church. For more resources and information, please stop by our website at visitredeemer.org. All material here within, unless otherwise noted. Copyright, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Elk Grove, California. Furnished by Nathan Clark George. Available at NathanClarkGeorge.com