My main take-away from T4G 2012 is nothing new or earth-shattering. It’s not even something that I didn’t already know. It’s something I’ve known and believed my whole life but which needed to be reinvigorated. The pursuit of holiness won’t happen by accident. I’m not going to be conformed to the image of Christ by osmosis. If I am to be sanctified, it will be a fight to the death. And that means much work, labor, and effort. Fie on passivity and quietism. The effect of God’s grace in me will be effort on my part. Where that effort is absent, so also is grace.
You would benefit from all of the fine messages delivered at T4G, but the key sermons on this particular theme for me were from DeYoung and Piper. Here are the key texts that will become the focus of my prayer and meditation in days to come. Maybe they will be for you too.
“Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able” (Luke 13:24).
“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12-13).
“I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10).
“Keep yourselves in the love of God, awaiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life” (Jude 1:21).