Work of the Believer

The point: Attend all public meetings of the church to receive comprehensive teaching on the whole counsel of God's truth.

Sanctification is conceived as a vast mountain of gracious provision with three great peaks: sanctification begun, continued, and completed. This helps visualize the scope and stages of the doctrine.

It is important that we understand the teaching of the word of God concerning this great provision of God's grace. Now, I've suggested that the vast amount of biblical teaching concerning this doctrine can be helpfully conceived of in the figure of a vast mountain of gracious provision A mountain with three great peaks. Sanctification is the mountain. The peaks are sanctification begun, continued, and completed.

2:41 - 3:15 Read in full sermon

The point: Watch and pray in the face of temptation, engaging all faculties with heightened intensity.

The concept of 'watchfulness' is compared to a soldier appointed to keep watch at an outpost, bringing conscious, concentrated engagement to look and listen for the enemy. This illustrates the intense, active engagement required in dealing with temptation.

Notice what our Lord commands them to do in preparing themselves for temptation. He commands them to watch as well as to pray. Now the word watchfulness, if it has any significance, bristles with the whole concept of a man who is appointed by his superior in a time of conflict to sit watch, to keep watch for the approach of an enemy, he may be placed at the outpost of the camp of the soldiers with whom he is identified in conflict. And to be watchful means he is to bring to bear upon his post the conscious, concentrated engagement of all of his faculties peering out into the darkness looking f...

14:07 - 15:15 Read in full sermon

The point: Work out your salvation with profound reverence and a wakeful conscience ('fear and trembling').

The phrase 'fear and trembling' is paraphrased as 'profound reverence and with wakeful conscience' to clarify its meaning in the context of Christian obedience.

Do it with profound reverence and with wakeful conscience.

35:40 - 35:45 Read in full sermon

Driving home: My friends, this is why no biblical Christianity will be characterized by jocularity. It is a solemn joy. It is a serious peace.

Martin distinguishes the 'fear and trembling' of a believer from the fear of a guilty criminal or an abused child. This clarifies that the fear is one of profound reverence and wakeful conscience, not terror or anxiety about judgment.

The gracious promise, my God, shall supply all your need. There is nothing inconsistent in the mind of the Apostle between a Christian life characterized by solid joy, sustained peace, the constant comfort of the provisions of God, and fear and trembling. Not the fear, not the fear of a guilty criminal who wonders if the judge will apprehend him and put him behind bars. Not the trembling of an abused child who never knows when he'll come home and find his father drunk and going around the house with a scourge.

36:16 - 36:52 Read in full sermon

The point: Beware of any theory of progressive sanctification that claims our working negates or dishonors God's working.

An example of a parent calling children to supper, either by commanding 'Come to the table! Supper is ready!' or stating 'Supper's ready! Come to the table!' is used to illustrate that the order of indicative (God's provision) and imperative (our command) does not change the essential relationship between them.

Come to the table! That's a command. Supper is ready. That's a statement of a provision.

42:58 - 43:04 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: He then addresses the motivation: 'for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure.' Martin draws five inescapable conclusions: God's and our…

The act of God giving breath is used as an analogy for God's working in us. Just as we know God gives us breath because we are breathing, we know God is working in us to will and to work because we are actively willing and doing.

Now, how do I know God's giving me breath?

44:53 - 44:55 Read in full sermon

The point: Let God's work in you be the focus of your confidence, prayers, and praises, but let your working be the focus of your conscious, whole-souled endeavors, avoiding spiritual laziness.

Martin quotes a 'dry-as-dust Dutch theologian' (likely Herman Bavinck or a similar figure) who states that believers act as if doing it all themselves, yet after success, prostrate themselves before God, acknowledging His work. This epitomizes biblical sanctification, balancing human effort and divine enablement.

So there is no sanctification by naked human effort here, nor is there sanctification by the negation of human effort. Let me close with a quote from one that you would never think would write words like this. He has the reputation of being a dry-as-dust Dutch theologian. No relationship between the dry of dust and the fact that he's a Dutch theologian.

49:37 - 50:00 Read in full sermon