Maybe you remember the story, 39 years ago, in Midland, Texas? Baby Jessica, just 18 months old, was playing in her aunt’s backyard when suddenly she vanished. Not only had Jessica fallen 22 feet down an 8 inch well casing, she was pinned, with her leg over her head. As firemen, oil drillers, and mining experts rushed to the scene, the three news networks started rolling cameras wall to wall.
Rescuers began drilling a horizontal tunnel, but realized Jessica was encased in rock. Their jackhammers weren’t designed for horizontal drilling. A mining engineer suggested they try a new technology called “waterjet cutting.” As they drilled closer to baby Jessica, they could hear her singing Winnie the Pooh! It took 58 hours before they pulled her to safety! News of her rescue appeared on jumbotrons in sports stadiums, it was broadcast around the world, movies were made. President Ronald Reagan said, "Everybody in America became godmothers and godfathers of Jessica while this was going on."
Think of the drama surrounding our salvation. Was it any less dramatic? Jesus died, was buried, lay in a tomb across three days, but then God raised him from the grave. Colossians 1:13 says, “[The Father] has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.” While we were still sinners, while we were still powerless, Christ Jesus died for the ungodly. He snatched us out of darkness and delivered us into our Father’s loving hands!
Cut forward to 2026. Baby Jessica was back in the news this week—evidently, she hasn’t lived such a great life. This past week she was picked up for domestic disturbance and charged with assault for causing bodily injury to her husband, and for endangering her grandchild. It’s been reported that the million-dollar trust established for her wellbeing is largely unaccounted for. The subtext of all these stories is that Grandma Jessica hasn’t been living a sequel “worthy” of her hope-inspiring, blockbuster rescue!
There is a verse in Philippians 1:27 where the Apostle Paul says, “Just one thing! As citizens of heaven, live your life worthy of the gospel of Christ!” Salvation—being rescued—is the easier thing. God calls out to you, you cry out to him from your darkness, and God delivers you. The harder thing by far—is living “out” our salvation. Living a life “worthy” of the gospel. By the way, Churches love to dramatize the baptism part. You crank up the music, set the lighting and mood, fire up the smoke machines (the more dramatic the better). If you’re a good church cameraman, you capture the person’s hair whipping up out of the water, along with the smiles, the joy, the cheers. The emotion of the moment carries us through the day of salvation. But then the sequel begins.
Do you realize we need just as much help “after” salvation than “on” or “in” the day of salvation? If we’re to be honest, there are a lot of Grandma Jessicas sitting in our pews. Because once the cameras stopped rolling, we were left staring at the person in the mirror. We were forgiven, praise God! We were showered with love and grace, praise God! But what now? Fast forward 39 years, and you’re still that child with water dripping from your hair. Saved, but unchanged.
What if there were only four books in our New Testament? Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The story of salvation, what a blockbuster! Second to none. But friends, there are 23 others book of our New Testament! What’s the sequel to Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection? Is it not living life in the Holy Spirit? When Jesus was physically on the earth they so badly wanted to cling to him. But what did Jesus say? John 16:7, “Nevertheless, I am telling you the truth. It is for your benefit that I go away, because if I don't go away the Counselor will not come to you. If I go, I will send him to you.” Without God’s help, the call to walk worthy would crush us.
So many things I want to say this morning. Let’s go back to Philippians 1:27, “Just one thing! As citizens of heaven, live your life worthy of the gospel of Christ!” Notice the sufficiency of Christ’s work on the cross. Colossians 1:13, “[The Father] has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.” Grace is always our home base.
Because of Christ’s shed blood, our position (status, standing) in Christ is secure. We are heavenly citizens (period). We’ve been legally transferred into Christ’s Kingdom (period). The curtain, the veil was torn. A new way was opened. We were reconciled to God by way of Christ’s sacrifice. We’ve been adopted, sealed by the Holy Spirit, declared to be legitimate sons and daughters of the Father by faith. We were chosen in Christ, forgiven, justified by Christ’s blood, saved, our destiny secured! We’ve been given bold, confident access to the Throne of Grace. We died, our old self buried, our life hidden with Christ, we were made alive, raised in Christ Jesus, seated with Christ in the heavenly realms, blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
Our “citizenship” changed, but now for the sequel. Just as we need the Son to change and secure our “position”, we need the Spirit of the living God to transform our condition. There is a verse in Hebrews 10:14 that captures this perfectly! Sadly, the CSB translation misses the mark. But Hebrews 10:14 (NIV) says: “For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”
The first part speaks of our position in Christ. Our legal justification by faith. By one sacrifice we’ve been made perfect forever! We’ve been made holy, acceptable to God. But the second part is all about our condition, what the Bible calls our sanctification. Salvation is an event, but sanctification is a lifelong process whereby God makes our condition worthy of our position. When Paul says, “live a life worthy of your calling” he never intended that to be by our own power or might!
In fact, right after Hebrews 10:14 (NIV) what does the Bible say? “For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.” Then the sequel! Hebrews 10:15-18 says, “The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. For after he says: 16 This is the covenant I will make with them after those days, the Lord says, I will put my laws on their hearts and write them on their minds, 17 and I will never again remember their sins and their lawless acts. 18 Now where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer offering for sin.”
As Christians, we don’t have to keep worrying about whether we’ve been forgiven, or whether Christ’s sacrifice was enough to cover our sin. No, our salvation is settled, Jesus settled it forever. What’s needed now is to entrust ourselves to the presence and power of the Holy Spirit to put God’s law in our hearts, to etch God’s law into our minds, and yes, to cause this flesh to both desire and obey everything Christ commanded! The sanctification of the Spirit (the sequel) is to be just as much a spectacle as is the day of our salvation.
And the really beautiful thing is that the sequel to our salvation doesn’t disappoint. In Philippians 3:20 Paul writes, “Our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly wait for a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humble condition into the likeness of his glorious body, by the power that enables him to subject everything to himself.” Philippians 3:20 is what Christians call “glorification.” First comes justification, then a life-long process of sanctification, which culminates in glorification on the day of Christ Jesus! In the end, we rescued will look and be like our rescuer!
Listen to how Paul describes all this in 2 Corinthians 3:16-18. “… whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is removed [this is our salvation, we’re forgiven our sin]. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom [this is our sanctification, we’re set free from sin] 18 We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit [this is our glorification, we’re completely transformed into the image or likeness of Jesus!].” Philippians 2:12-13 is our every confidence: “...work out [not for] your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who is working in you both to will and to work according to his good purpose.” Hebrews 4:16, “… let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need.”
What is grandma Jessica to do now? [story: I don’t like who I see in mirror] We keep coming back to same God who rescued us by grace, for the grace to sanctify us. We keep working out what God works within.