We end the week with episode 1800, yes, episode 1800.

It's an incredible benchmark for us and it's only possible for us because of you.

So thank you for a decade of support and for your encouragement and email questions and

for your 250 million episode plays and for hundreds of thousands of subscribes over the

years. This podcast happens because you invest time with us precious time. We don't take for granted.

And that's one reason why we don't have ads or sponsors. And it's one reason why we don't

dilly the alley around with windy introductions. So moving on to the episode today's question is a

great one, Pastor John. Scripture gives us a constellation of ways to think of the Christian life

and a listener of the podcast named Jason wants to know how they relate. Here's what he asks.

Pastor John, hello, can you help me figure something out? Is the key to personal sanctification more

about looking to Jesus as Hebrews 12 2 says? Or is it more about being united to him who has been

raised from the dead as Roman 7 4 puts it some more on union? Or is it mostly about be holding

Christ's glory as 2nd Corinthians 3 18 puts it? Or is it more just about obeying and doing the

work of faith as 2nd Thessalonians 11 says? I know the answer is likely going to be yes all of those.

But I'm trying to connect them all in a way that is practical to teach and to live and I find myself

jumping from one to the other as though they are multiple things. Surely there are logical

connections that make them all one and the same. Pastor John, how has you put this puzzle together

for Jason? Wow, I just love this kind of great question. Not only this kind of question, but

just this way of thinking. Taking different parts of scripture, they use very different language

and asking, are there deep, common, unified coherent realities here? That is so helpful to do.

So let's see if I can weave these four strands together into some kind of cord that the Lord

might use to bring us along in our pursuit of sanctification. That's what they're designed for.

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