The following message is by pastor John Piper. More information from desiring God is available at

W.W.

D. D. D. D.OR G. My assignment is to talk about fighting the fight of faith with the word. You know I suppose that that idea of fighting for faith is from 1st Timothy.

Fight the good fight of faith, take hold of eternal life to which you were called, 1 Timothy 6 verse 12 or 1st Corinthians 926

Paul says I do not run aimlessly I do not box as one beating the air but I pummel my body to keep it under control, lest after preaching to others, I myself should be disqualified.

Or 2nd Timothy 4-7, I have fought the good fight. I have kept the faith. I have

finished my course. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord the judge will give

not only to me but to those who have loved his appearing. So you have these verses that

speak of the fight of faith and it's a good fight.

Not all fight is good, this one's good. Now what I want to do is give, I don't know, six, seven, eight clarifying observations

about this fight. And I'd like to do the first half of the message

on those and and the last half on practical outworkings in how you use it against specific kinds of threats to your faith.

Here's clarifying observation number one.

I used to think that the life of faith was a more or less straight line at a diagonal from total loss

lossness to total perfection like this and when I was 16 I would look forward to 10

more years of faithful patience by the time I'm 26 and then 10 more years of faithful patients by the time I'm 36 and

then 10 more years of faithful patients by the time I'm 46 and it just would

get better and better and now I'm 62 and I've scrapped that vision.

Let me clarify now a phrase that I think misleads us. Justification, I'm groping for a word that doesn't sound

highfalutin here, but take it anyway. Justification is punctilier. It's at a point. It doesn't happen a lot of times. It's not a process.

Okay, it's whatever you want to, I ask David for a better word once for all or

the word you said David, instantaneous, okay. Now we usually say sanctification, growth in holiness, is progressive.

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