The singing of the doxology by the PCC student body begins Pensacola Christian College Chapel. At each chapel service, students have an opportunity to receive spiritual exhortation and enrichment during a time of music and meditation on God's word. This podcast shares selected recent chapel messages from guest speakers, faculty, and staff. Welcome to the PCC Chapel Podcast. Turn with me to the book of Ephesians, please. We're going to be in Ephesians, chapter number 5, and in just a moment we'll be looking together at one verse out of this passage and take some time to explain it, see what it is that God has for us this morning. I hope you're having a good start to the semester and looking forward to everything that's coming up over the next couple months through this time and through this time in your life. It is a special time. This has already been mentioned, and I'm sure that every alumnus that comes back mentions something like this, how grateful I am, how grateful we are for the ministry of Pensacola Christian College in my life. What was mentioned already about the calling of God on my life as an evangelist really is the case. And, you know, I would hear preachers come in and talk about their call to ministry, which was basically something like they argued with God and argued with God and gripped the pew in front of them with their knuckles white, and then eventually God got a hold of their heart. And I think that probably does happen with a lot of people. For the ministry and calling of God on my life, it's been a little bit different. I was raised in a Christian home. My dad was actually my pastor for much of my growing up life, and I grew up not wanting to be anything except for a preacher. It's just what I grew up wanting to do, but I was scared to death at the thought of standing up in front of people and presenting truth. Not so much about being in front of people. I grew up doing that, but presenting truth to people. And so, especially during my years here at school, at different times, God would have direct in my heart through different chapel messages or just some reading and spending time with them on a regular basis and just confirm and confirm and confirm that this was the direction. It was one step of obedience after one step of obedience, one step of obedience, my coming here to college. The major that I was involved in with evangelism and then just several steps afterwards and God just opened up the door For us to continue to walk and I'm grateful now To be able to be here as someone who's been called by God to this ministry and I trust and I mean this sincerely I trust that The ministry to which God has called me will will bless you The way that I was blessed by preachers who stood up and presented God's Word when I was a student to do that. In Ephesians chapter five, verse number eight, is where we're gonna spend our time here this morning. Now, real quickly, again, this was already mentioned. I have four boys. My wife and I, Britt and I, have been married for 23 years. We have four boys. I have a 17-year-old, a 12-year-old, a nine-year-old, and a four-year-old. And we're on the road about 10 and a half, 11 months out of the year and absolutely love what it is that God has for us to do. We live in a fifth wheel travel trailer. My boys are in services almost every night because I'm preaching usually revival meetings. So we'll come into a church and start on Sunday morning and preach Sunday morning and Sunday night, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday night. And so they're in service as often. Now, this may shock you to find out that my boys on occasion get tired of going to church. That is they, especially because I'm the one that's doing the preaching most of the time. And because of traveling, I will oftentimes preach passages that I've preached before. So the boys, Every once in a while, their attitude won't be just exactly what I think it should be. They should be excited about hearing Dad preach. And instead, they're like, Dad, which one are you preaching tonight? And I'll tell them what passage. And they go, oh, hey, that's a terrible response. Fix your attitude, young man. So I will oftentimes, in attempting to encourage my boys, I will say, look, look, you need to remember the reason why we're doing what it is that we're doing. And here's what I want you to catch this morning. Don't ever let a Bible preaching opportunity, don't ever let a service be wasted. So you have the opportunity while you're at school. on a regular basis, more regular than what you would hear, man, in four or five years when you're out in the workforce, this is interaction and connection with the Scriptures on a more regular basis in this kind of format. And the temptation can be, I know, I get it, the temptation can be just to kind of coast through and you're thinking about a lot of other things. Well, two things, guys and gals. Look, number one, know the reason. There's a reason why, there's a reason why we gather together and we look together at God's Word. And then don't ever, and don't ever let it be wasted. Every time you come into a service, every time you come into a chapel and the scriptures are opened, to the best of your ability. Engage your mind and open your heart and let God speak to you in a special way. Just be available for God to direct in your heart and He will. It's a prayer request that God will answer if you say every time you come into chapel, God speak to me today. I don't even know what I need. I don't even know what it is that you wanna deal with me concerning, but whatever it is, I want to know it, I want to know it. And then the know the reason, that is when you understand that this is on purpose and this is for the benefit of your spiritual life, look, that allows you to interact with the scriptures a little bit better. My wife, Britt, I mentioned, we've been married for 23 years. My wife gives me every morning something that I refer to as death juice. Now, death juice is a drink that Britt makes for me every morning. It is, let's see, a half a squeezed lemon, two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar, ginger, turmeric, I think a little bit of arsenic. I can't prove it. But it's all of these things. And then she pours warm water, mixes it together, and hands it to me. How many of you, just out of curiosity, how many of you have ever had apple cider vinegar before? Can I see? Oh, you have. Okay, so when I say, when I say apple cider vinegar, does your tongue start to sweat? Because my, it's just like this tangy, I don't wake up in the morning going, yes. another morning of apple cider vinegar, another death juice day. This is glorious. It's not it. What I'm thinking to myself is, make it through death juice, coffee's on the other side. Make it through death juice. All right. So why do it? Because Brittany promises me that if I will drink this every time she gives it to me, I will live four days longer than what I would have otherwise. And those are going to be a great four days. So I drink the dead juice because of what's on the other side. OK, look, it's supposed to do something for your gut health and make you happier and smile more or something like that. But sincerely, knowing the reason is what allows me to interact with the dead juice. The reason why I still drink it every time Britt gives it to me is because there's a benefit. There's a benefit to it. OK, now look, hey. I'm telling you, I get the fact that sometimes it takes just utter discipline. When you come into chapel so often, it takes discipline to stay engaged in what it is that's being said. It takes understanding that this is an opportunity for God to speak to your heart, for you to purposely connect with what it is that's being taught from God's Word. But there is a reason, and guys and girls, don't let a Bible preaching opportunity be wasted. always have your ears open, your heart available to God to speak to your heart. Now, let's get to the reason why we've gathered together this morning real quickly. This is Ephesians chapter five, and we're gonna look at verse number eight. And I love verse number eight in Ephesians five because it's a summarizing verse. And I am a fan of bullet points in the sense that just tell me what the overall, like tell me the truth And then I'll try to understand the details a little bit later, but understanding the truth of what it is that's being presented is super helpful to me. Maybe it will be to you as well. Here's what the Scripture says. Verse 8, for you were sometimes darkness, but now are you light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. And I don't know if you all do this normally or not, but if I give the reference, would you mind just reading the verse with me one time? Here we go, Ephesians 5, 8. For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. One more time, here we go. Ready? Ephesians 5, 8. For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord. walk as children of light. Okay, so this verse naturally divides itself into two parts. For you were sometimes darkness, but now are you light in the Lord. And then the second part is the, hey, why does this matter? And the instruction given is walk as children of light. Now, in the time that we have this morning, I'd like to real quickly give to you two words and define them for you. And they're good words, they're Bible words. They're not words that we use every day just in our common vernacular, but they're good words good for you to understand from this verse, as well as good for you to understand so that when you read them in other passages, they will make sense. The words are not particularly found in this verse, but the concepts of the words are found in this verse. I'll tell you that this morning, in particular, is gonna be a little bit more like I need to explain some things in order to set up why this matters to you in your life every day. So again, discipline, stay connected and get this. And then Lord willing, tomorrow morning, we'll finish out why it is that this matters. So two words real quickly. The first word is the word justification. justification. Verb form justify, justification. Okay, now obviously in a group this size, if I were to ask you to tell me what justification means and you were to answer, I wouldn't be able to understand what you're saying. But I do want you to answer in your mind. When you think of justification, and if you were going to give it a definition, how would you define Justification. What is it? You don't even have to necessarily think biblically what it means, though that's what we'll get to. But if you hear the word justification or justify, what does it mean? I was asking this question in a small church one time, and in a Sunday school hour, I said, okay, what does justification mean? And I was asking for some comments from the people who were there, and none of the adults were brave enough to answer, but there was an 11-year-old kid, and he was very willing to answer. And so this 11-year-old kid said something like this when I said, okay, what's justification? He said, it's why I say I'm right. And at first, like some of you did, I chuckled, and then I started trying to think with an 11-year-old brain. And so I go to, okay, here's an 11-year-old, and he's upstairs in his room with his kid sister, and all of a sudden, mom is downstairs, his kid sister cries, and mom comes up the stairs, opens up the door, and here's this 11-year-old boy with a bat in his hand, a plastic bat, and his sister's laying on the floor crying. And she looks at the situation and looks at him and he goes, OK, OK, mom, mom, look, look. OK, so she, she, she took my toy from me. That, that's the reason, that's the reason why, mom, look, you've got to listen to me. You've got to understand. And in his mind, he is justifying himself. He's explaining to her why it was okay that I did the things that I did. It's why I say I'm right. Now, in reality, he's not real far off from the meaning of justification. The word justification means literally to be declared righteous. to be declared righteous. Now justification is what happens the moment a person trusts the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior. You would know this, that in our natural state as human beings, as sinners, we are separated from God by our sin. He is holy, we are not. We can't get to Him because of our sin. It stands between us and Him. And there's nothing that we can do in ourselves on our own to be able to get to God, we need someone to do something for us that we cannot do for ourselves into the Lord Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ, God's Son, took on Himself our sin when He died on the cross and provided the payment for that sin that stands between us and God to wipe it out of the way. So that when a person accepts Jesus Christ as Savior, in that moment, God the Father applies the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ to their life. Their sins are forgiven. And beyond that, God also gives to that sinner, listen, the righteousness of Jesus Christ. so that I, as a sinner, having trusted the Lord Jesus Christ, by the blood of Christ, my sins have been forgiven, the righteousness of Christ has been given to me, and as the Bible puts it, in that moment, I pass from death unto life, and I have been, now catch this, guys and gals, I have been by God declared to be righteous. Now let me ask you, and you can answer this out loud, whose righteousness is it that has been applied to me so that in God's eyes I am righteous? Whose righteousness? It's the Lord Jesus. It's not mine. So that justification, and catch this, if your brain is wandering, bring it back in, all right? Justification is an act of God. It is something that takes place the moment I trust the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior. God, in that moment, forgives my sins because of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and He gives to me the righteousness of Christ. He declares me to be righteous, It is done and done in that moment. I am now a child of God, not by works of righteousness that we, that I have done, but it is according to His mercy that I have been saved, that I have been rescued from sin. I love justification because I'm reminded in this declaration of righteousness that there's nothing that I can do to save myself, but God and His love and mercy provided for what I cannot and could not do on my own or for myself. Now look, if this morning you're sitting here and your thought of why you are okay with God is dependent at all on something that you have done or brought to God or offered or some sacrament, some church event or even being here at college or some commitment that you've made to do something for the poor or to love other people. If you're thinking that it is because of that that you have good standing with God and that He will look past your sin, friend, listen, please catch this. According to everything that God has said in his word and he is the authority there is nothing your eye can do To take care of our sins or to gain the righteousness needed to stand before God But God because of Christ has declared us to be righteous When we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior Thank God for justification. So justification means to be declared righteous, first word. Second word I want you to see this morning. Sounds similar, means something different. Still with me? So justification, to be declared righteous, it happens the moment you trust Jesus Christ as Savior. In that moment, it's done and done. God forgives your sins because of the blood of Christ. He gives you the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Second word is the word sanctification. sanctification. So you have justification, second word, sanctification. Now the word sanctification is different, so is the meaning. The word sanctification means literally to be set apart. Here's the truth of sanctification in the Scripture. While, forgive me for repeating this so much, but while justification is a matter of God does it in the moment I trust Christ, God gives to me the righteousness of Jesus Christ, it's done and done, I am now His child. Sanctification is different in that this, sanctification is a process where over time I begin to live out what I am as a justified person. Okay, now help me, students. Help me. What am I as a justified person? As a justified person, I have been declared by God to be what? Righteous. And whose righteousness is it that I have gained in this justification? Whose is it? It's the Lord Jesus's. Okay, so in this process of sanctification, where over time I begin to live out what I am as a justified person, I'm righteous now because of this justification. It's Christ's righteousness. So literally, sanctification is a process where I begin to become more and more like the one whose righteousness I gain at salvation, namely Jesus Christ. So sanctification is this process where over time I become more and more like Jesus Christ. So sanctification is different than justification. Justification happens the moment I trust Christ. It's an act of God. It's done and done. It's taken care of. Sanctification is a process. It happens over time. And it's this matter of conforming into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I gave you those two words and you might be thinking to yourself, well, Tim, those two words aren't even in the verse that we just read. And that's true, but the concepts are. So that's what I want you to see in the next couple of minutes. Look down at Ephesians chapter five, verse number eight, and let me read this. And then I'm gonna stop partway through the verse, and I want you to tell me if the part of the verse that I read is talking about justification or sanctification. All right? So Ephesians 5.8 says, for ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord. Okay. Is that justification or sanctification? You think so? How many vote justification? How many vote sanctification? Hymen refused to raise their hand no matter what question I ask. Okay, thank you very much. It is justification. You were darkness, now you're light. That is, there was a time when you were in the dark, when you didn't get it. You were part of this world and headed in that direction, and towards that end, sin brings death always. You were darkness, but now, hey, now you're light in the Lord. You've received the righteousness of Jesus Christ, you're light in the Lord. So you were sometimes darkness, now you're light in the Lord. That's justification. Last part of the verse says, walk as children of light. Is that justification or sanctification? There's only one left, people. Get it right. So, sanctification. So, basically, the verse is laying out, look, this is what you used to be. This is what you are now. So, as a result, this is what your life ought to look like. Walk as children of light. You know this. The word walk in the scripture oftentimes refers to living your life. Your life is made up of the choices that you make. That is absolutely, absolutely true. that your life is made up of the choices. Well, you say, but Brother Tim, what about circumstances? Because sometimes don't circumstances help to direct our lives and push us in one way or another? And yeah, that would be true, certainly. But everybody has circumstances. Everybody does. But in those circumstances, you still make choices. That's your walk. So here's what the Apostle Paul, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is saying. Look, you've been justified. You've been declared by God to be righteous. You were darkness, now you're light in the Lord. Now, as a result of that, live like what you are. What are you? Well, I'm righteous. Whose righteousness? Christ's. How did you get it? God gave it to you. You've been justified if you've trusted Christ as Savior. Now live like what you are. Walk as a child of light. All right. Somebody says then, what does that look like? How does it happen? Well, I'm glad you asked. I want to mention a couple things, and in just a moment, I'm going to show you a passage. And I mean this, guys and girls, this, this, This passage has been such a help to me in my personal walk with the Lord and in understanding what it is that God wants to do in me and through me and what is, okay, please listen to what I'm saying, and what is available to me because of this matter of justification and sanctification, or as it's put here, this is what you are now, live like it. And this has been huge for me. This is not just a matter of, hey, needed a sermon, this looked like a good one, let's preach it. This is, forgive the epic sound of the term, this is life altering. This is really important. So here's the deal, sometimes in an attempt to make certain that everybody understands the difference between trusting the Lord Jesus Christ and living for Christ, here's what can happen. Even preachers We want to make sure that nobody thinks that the way you get to God is by the way you live your life, which is true. You don't get to God by the way that you live your life. So in order to make sure nobody misunderstands, what we do is we separate justification and sanctification and we say, look, what really matters is that you trust the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior. Get that settled. Get that taken care of. You need to be justified. You can't get your own righteousness. You need the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Make sure you get that. Whether or not you ever become more and more like Jesus Christ, that's secondary. We'll worry about that later. This is what's important. And what we do sometimes is we separate these two truths. Okay, now listen to me, please. That is a separation that God does not make, or at least not to the degree that sometimes we do. Now again, I understand the reason why we do it, because nobody who loves God, follows the Scriptures, wants anyone to whom they preach to think to themselves, the only way God will accept you is if you live like Jesus Christ. No, no, no, no. Justification comes first. But the intent, in fact, the word used in Romans 8 is this, that it has been predestined, predetermined, that those who have been justified will be conformed into the image of Jesus Christ. This is the plan of God. not, not predestining those who will be justified, but that those who are justified then will be conformed into the image of Jesus Christ. I say all of this because I don't want you to think that this is a secondary matter that, that doesn't really concern God all that much. This is in the heart and mind of God the very purpose of salvation in your life while you're on this earth. God has justified you, but He very much is intending that you will then be more and more like Jesus Christ. And you can see this actually in the book in which we read. Well, help me, help me this morning. Think for a second. You see both justification and sanctification dealt with, and you see how one leads into the other. Ephesians 2, 8, and 9. Anybody, just from your heart, you know that without looking? For by grace? Yeah, okay. For by grace, or you say through faith, right? Okay, is that justification or sanctification? It's justification. He's talking about this salvation. But then the Apostle Paul goes straight into in chapter three and four, this matter of, okay, God not only justified you, but what He has done is He has also provided for you through this justification, this opportunity to become more and more like Jesus Christ. And in Ephesians chapter four, which is where we'll spend the balance of our time tomorrow morning, in Ephesians chapter four, The Apostle Paul, again, listen to this, please catch this, by inspiration from God and preserved by God so that you would get this. In Ephesians chapter four, the Apostle Paul lays out, okay, here's how this process, this sanctification, this becoming more and more like Jesus Christ, Here's how this looks. Here's how it works. Oh, and I love this. And here's what the result is. Here is the actual working of God in you and then ultimately through you. Now, I will confess. that tomorrow when we look at this passage in Ephesians chapter four and understanding what it is that God has designed and that He's determined is supposed to be a part of your life, for each of you who have already been justified, you've trusted Christ as Savior, there's a part of it that when we look at it, you're gonna go, duh. Well, yeah, I mean, like this is basics 101. This is like, obviously, Okay, but I will tell you that there is a part of this process that a number of years ago, when I read it and the Holy Spirit of God turned on the light for me about it, it was one of those, oh, oh, that's how this works. Oh, that makes so much more of the Bible make sense. Oh, now I get it. Now I get it. And it has had such an impact on my life and I want it to have the same in yours. You've been listening to a message from Pensacola Christian College Chapel. You're welcome to pass this sermon along to others. Please don't charge for it or alter it without written permission from Pensacola Christian College. For additional information about PCC, visit us online at pcci.edu. Pensacola Christian College, empowering Christian leaders to influence the world for Christ.