good afternoon or good morning good evening wherever you are it's my great pleasure to welcome you to this very important session to discuss women's health my name is Shyam Bishain and I head up the Center for Health and Health Care at the World Economic Forum it's my great pleasure to welcome your Excellency Minister Smriti Irani esteemed speakers as well as all distinguished guests here we all know gender health gap affects everyone it affects our families our communities our workplace our societies it has been mentioned that there are many implications for gender health gap for example a woman will spend an average of nine years in poor health affecting her abilities to work at home and in the community we just launched a report earlier today together with our knowledge partner Makinji it's called closing the woman's health gap that we published this morning it shows that not only we are able to avoid 75 million years of life loss due to poor health our early death per year but also we can significantly boost global economy the report finds that closing the gender health gap would enable women to participate more actively in the workforce and this can lead to 1.7 percent increase in GDP we are calling it a trillion dollar opportunity we close the woman's health gap we are calling it a trillion dollar opportunity so this is huge today we also launched our global alliance for women's health together with the some of the board members here it's a collaboration with Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation we had our first board meeting today co-chaired by her Excellency Nisia Trinidad Lima health minister of Brazil and Dr. Anita J.D. president of gender parity at Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation we have other board members that are present here we have fairing CEO we also had the managing board director from Siemens we have few other board members the executive director of UNICEF president of National Academy of Medicine health minister our secretary from Kenya finance minister of Morocco so these were other board members that participated in the discussion now without further do I would like to hand it over to our great moderator Gina Sufand senior anchor from Ashok news who will moderate our discussion and properly introduce each panel speaker here so over to you thank you so much she am ladies and gentlemen esteem the panelists distinguished guests and dear audience watching us live on Ashok news television and digital platforms welcome to a pivotal discussion on an issue that lies at the heart of our shared future closing the gender gap in health today we stand on the cost of making history as we launch the global alliance for women's health and the groundbreaking women's health investment case here at the world Economic Forum imagine a world where investing in women's health fosters a windfall for global economies boosting them by an astounding one trillion dollars just as she I'm just said annually a 1.7% increase in per capita GDP that fosters societies where everyone thrives for too long the profound disparities in women's health have cast long shadows over our progress underscoring a dire need for change females form the bedrock of robust families dynamic communities and flourishing economies they often bear the brunt of a legacy marred by gender bias from the persistence of the male default in medical research to systemic underfunding of women's health yet within these challenges lies an unprecedented opportunity the chance to infuse economies with bigger simply by harnessing the untapped potential of female health the equation is simple yet powerful for every dollar invested in women's health three-fold returns in economic growth await it's an investment that transcends monetary value unlocking cycles of prosperity that resonates through every layer of society from education of our young girls to the leadership of women to the highest echelons of power the statistics are more than numbers they are clear a clarion call for urgent action woman out living men but spending 25% of that time in poor health common drugs resulting in adverse side effects due to miscalculated doses for women and the hidden cost of untreated conditions like premenstrual syndrome which are more prevalent than male specific conditions yet significantly under research our panel today is more than a discussion it's a catalyst for real and measurable change the global alliance for women's health in bodies emission to ignite investments spur innovation and shape agendas to bridge the health gap that women disproportionately bear we are not just advocating for equality in health we are strategizing for a future where every woman's well-being is a cornerstone of economic strength and societal well-being join us as we embark on this journey of transformation because when we invest in women's health we invest in the wealth of the world and I am extremely honored to be joined on this session by her excellency Smriti Zubin Irani minister of women and child development of India and it has idea who is the president of gender equality at the Baleen Melinda Gates Foundation who co-chairs the global alliance for women health burnt moon talk the chief executive officer at Siemens health in years and pair fog the president offering pharmaceuticals and allow me to open the discussion with you and so why the alliance now why the alliance first why the alliance now and why was it very important for you to frame the whole issue of women health care as a gender inequality issue yeah thank you for that and so what the opportunity in front of us is actually laid out very clearly in this report where women's health has been a long underinvested neglected area in global health but actually overall in all of the investments that we make and there's so much that we can do and so much potential that there is to make rapid advances in this field that we felt that that moment is right to bring together a multi-stakeholder platform to bring attention to this issue to increase investments in women's R&D there's so many health problems that women have that have been very long understudied under researched lack of data so that we address address the lack of research and science and innovation and women's health that we bring attention to the poor health care that women get and and how do we change that and we also pay attention to the lack of data that exists about women's health and now the of course the added benefit and we are at the World Economic Forum is the tremendous economic return that investing in women's health can can make and that's what this report has outlined and I encourage all of you to read it further we know now that there are actually tools that already exist and innovations that already exist that if we use them widely they would make a huge difference in women's and girls' lives around the world and they would make a huge difference in the economies one example is the HPV vaccine that we can come back to we can come back to that I'd like to move to your excellency do you think that we've been looking at women's health care for too long from very narrow perspectives and missing out on sort of linking the dots I mean what can you tell us after long years of experimenting with very remarkable initiatives in India when it comes to women's health care I think women's health care systems or conversations never were mainstreamed and that has been one of the greatest challenges how do you provide solution to an issue which is never spoken of yeah mostly there is a presumption that women do not want the psychological burden of their own medical challenge to fall upon their family unit or hinder the economic progression of their contribution and that is why they tend to either self-medicate or not medicate at all from the Indian experience let me provide you a big context post 2014 when Prime Minister Modi took office in the year 2010 11 there was a World Bank report which said that if there is a lack of sanitation facilities for women there is a negative 6% burden on the GDP of India that being said there's also the issue of security of women who are violated if they decided to defecate in the open now this information being available was politically and administratively acted upon by Prime Minister Modi who first said that if you want to ensure the health and dignity of women let's start building toilets now so far from a cultural context building toilets has never been politically glamorous but Prime Minister Modi did that and we built under his leadership 110 million individual toilets which means it was an added impetus given to a woman's menstrual health as well under Prime Minister Modi for the first time in the history of our country we had an administrative protocol set up for menstrual hygiene management by governments at the center state including administration at the district or the grassroot village which means that the narrative about women's health was mainstreamed politically and administratively then Prime Minister Modi said let's look at the issue of access to safe cooking fuel a hundred million poor women given cooking fuel clean subsidized directly by Prime Minister Modi we saved because there has been a WHO report which said we saved 400,000 lives per year of women only by providing access to clean cooking fuel then there was the water promise 130 million individual portable water connections given to poor families women who spent half a day either collecting firewood or collecting water for their domestic consumption lessening their burden and then came a program called the Aishman Bharat which is the world's largest health care system let me come back to this program when we talk about access your Excellency I want to move to Burnt here and ask why are you joining the Alliance so VRS is a little bit of a commercial break now we are even if it doesn't sound like it we are a young company as we did we are public companies in six years but what we really want to achieve is the transition from a technology company which is respected for the great equipment to something bigger and we gave ourselves a purpose the pioneer breakthroughs in healthcare for everyone everywhere sustainably and this is not a tag line this is something which is a real responsibility yeah we measure ourselves that we really say what is the impact for 8 billion people and about half of these people are women and we need to be serious about it and that is why we join and that is why I think it is impossible in the long run yeah that women typically take care of the health matters of the families the majority of nurses is female in Germany the majority of medical students is female and since this year the majority of medical doctors is already female yeah but there is this huge gap and whatever we can do to contribute we want to do pair why are you joining and do you think the alliance comes at a critical time perhaps not only for women but for humankind I think it's for everyone we should and I think that's one thing that is very important we should stop looking at this as shall we say solving an issue for women we're actually not we're solving in which an issue for the population of the world because and the report clearly shows that that you know beside the inequity and obvious fairness which of course is very authoritatively described in the report we should remember that reports like that have been generated with regularity for decades and led to nothing we know this very well because we are a solution provided within reproductive medicine and maternal health so we've been in maternal health for five decades and we have seen that no matter the best efforts and how well we try there is no traction or interest from payers or from science in this area so I think it is at a critical time I think it's overdue so let's make it happen now we are so happy to be here and I think the the composition of the alliance board as well as the people up here shows the complexity of the problem we're trying to solve it's not only a problem of drugs or of infrastructure it's a policy issue it's a it's changing hearts and minds of policy makers and decision makers and for that you need this multilateral group of people who can provide different perspectives so for us it's natural to be here and we're really really happy that we can join I want to go back to you Anita so as Per rightly said we've had reports before what's different this time do we have more of an opportunity map and what does what does a report like the McKinsey report with all the figures in it bring to the discussion yeah it was a great question and you know so what so case foundation has been working on gender equality and on maternal health for a for a very long time what's new is that three years ago we we made a new division called the gender equality division which is really looking at what are the we continue the the the work that we've been doing but we're looking at what are the where are we missing impact right and one of the areas that we identified where we thought that we were missing impact and we could do much more was women's health and we had the pleasure and privilege of organizing a convening with the NIH in the United States last year where we brought together NIH hosted this meeting and we brought together 250 women and other interested individuals from around the world representing industry academia science philanthropies venture capital regulatory patients patient advocates like people women suffering from diseases that have no cures very little investment right now to come together and in a meeting and then discuss what is it that we should be doing for women's health right and this group these 250 women over the next year worked to produce a report called the called the opportunity map for women's health r&d for women's health innovation which has eight areas of work that if we fund it would solve so many of the health issues that we see among women and 50 very specific opportunities that could that the that we should all address by investing more in science and innovation as well as in better health delivery and better gender specific and ethnic data because a lot of the burden is right now hidden and it doesn't it does not get attention because nobody's measuring right because measurement is undervalued your excellency I want to go to the Ayushman Bharat program that you have in India you had just started speaking about it so it touches the the lives of 100 million families in India you can tell us more about it but what I am really interested in knowing is after over five years of working on that program what can you tell us about your observations of the outcomes of giving women access access to healthcare so I think first before I just address the issue on hand I would like to reflect a little bit on what pair said all reports are not useless in fact the one that sham comes up with gives not only a cause for action but also a cause for reflection for instance when I talk about Prime Minister Modi looking at what has been said before by experts on issues of women's health he did it at various levels and I've described some of it there were also reports and a plenty of them which spoke about access to healthcare and making it affordable and looking at that challenge which had been documented in many such agencies and many such possible organizational outputs Ayushman Bharat today serves 440 million Indians across 27,000 hospitals for over 1900 diseases the hospital admissions only under that program now stands at a count of 62 million apart from that the prime minister also dedicated his efforts towards preventive healthcare so they are close to over 120,000 health and wellness centers that are operational there when you look at opportunities in women's health it does not only subscribe itself to access to healthcare institutions it's also an economic opportunity for women to come up and become a part of the healthcare workforce the pandemic showed that 6 million women turned up at the front line of delivering vaccine and pharmaceutical support to all Indian families we did it digitally also today in the health and wellness centers that are operational in India 130,000 healthcare workers 66 of them are women but there are segments of healthcare vis-a-vis gender which need direct focus on Anita spoke about this opportunity segregated eight such segments and when as a woman I hear talk about oh healthcare is to be for everybody I agree we're far too long have we said healthcare is for everybody hence everybody will get addressed but they are issues which are culturally contextualized to some parts of the globe where certain aspects of women's health do not get a public exposure for instance Aishwan Bharat Yojana ended up helping 270 million Indian women get screened for cancer of the breast and the cervix now there was a presumption let's say in the global north that cancer of the cervix is a culturally taboo issue will never be spoken about and no government will address it what this success or these numbers tell us is that all women needed was access and affordable care another issue which is not gendered but gives you cause for possible reflection 360 million oral cancer screenings men women everybody alike now these are data sets on which governments like ours are ensuring the privacy of the patient at hand are also ensuring that we have this whole ecosystem where we have over 600,000 data sets which are now available for investors and medical institutions to build on and service the medical community and women at large better my work let's say in the ministry of women and child development we have created something called the potion tracker which is a digital platform where 2.2 million women feed data from 1.4 million nutrition centers it covers a hundred million beneficiaries 25 million are women who are pregnant and lactating 75 million are kids under the age of six we track them monthly and Sofanya would be shocked that WHO standards of measuring nutrition mostly has smaller sample sizes of families that are measured we measured 75 million children every month as per WHO standards we made that data digitally available to local governments but also at the center we red flag each and every child who possibly has had their nutritional status challenged till such time if one child is found to be severely acutely malnourished the medical officer lands up at the door along with weight support for the mother so that we can give them institutional care till such time the child is completely healed we will come back to data and specifically with women's healthcare burned I want to go to you back to access and which you have identified as a strategic growth vector I want to ask where you see the opportunity and if you can illustrate through some examples I mean a little bit where we come from yeah and and I say it don't don't be too negative yeah I mean typically we come from an environment where our business is to cater even better technologies to those who already have it here and we are working with the leading institutions they are our innovation partners and we can rely on the ecosystem existing yes there is the MD Anderson cancer center and they need a better CT scan and whatever and then here we are and we are proud yeah so that is a little bit of a caricature yeah so but in this transition to really be about for everyone everywhere we have clearly understood we cannot wait for the ecosystem to call us yeah we need to help building the the ecosystem we have to transcend our normal way of looking at ourselves and we need to go into new types of partnerships and we need to be inspired not by those not only by those who have it all but by those who don't have it yeah so and that this is an as proud source of innovation as the next level of of whatever cancer care image quality or whatever what it is yeah so this is the transition for that the work we build partnerships with NGOs with governments but also with healthcare providers who have the same target yeah to to solve the access to care issues whether it is in the U.S. even yeah where there is a big difference in in coverage yeah depending on where in the city you live um to emerging countries yeah and one of the topics is similar to what you mentioned um high focus on bringing breast cancer screening to underprivileged communities yeah with mobile deployments as one of the examples yeah whether it's in the U.S. or in Indiana let me pick on some of what burnt said and come to you because he said the word innovation and he said access and you have solved a problem of access through innovation when you came up with a drug that resists a sensitivity of oxytocin I hope I'm saying it correctly to heat and oxytocin is really needed for women who get bleeding after they give a birth how did this invention come about okay how did you come with it and how many lives is it saving well let's start about what happened and how we this and again we could never have done this ourselves burns point is is very valid here we this is thanks to a very constructive public private partnership starting with the WHO and MSD from others so in 2013 the WHO recognizing the heat and climate sensitivity of oxytocin which actually puts women at risk because when you have a profuse bleeding you don't have much time to stop it so if you start using a drug which may not be fully potent you increase the risk of of a fatality significantly so there was a request for proposal for a uterotonic whatever it looked like that could withstand temperature and therefore did not require refrigeration in transport or in storage and and faring had then worked with oxytocin and oxytocin like molecules for a very long time and and simply engineering wise if I allow myself to be a little technical by exchanging one out of nine amino acids to an unnatural amino acid this molecule became heat stable and so when the request for proposal came we had the solution and we started this public private partnership in 2013 now it's now on its 11th year it's moving into its second wave of clinical trials and validation because it's not like we have a molecule we give it to the WHO and they go out and try it we we went together through a 30 000 trial 30 000 women in a prospective controlled clinical trial to validate the safety and efficacy of the product we got it approved in swiss medic first now we have a commitment to the partnership that we will ensure regulatory approval in all low and low middle income countries in the world which is close to 90 and most of them probably countries where we usually do not operate or do business and we're also responsible to to train healthcare providers to do this probably so for us this has been I would say a transforming moment because it sort of puts us on the global healthcare map as an important contributor to a global ecosystem right and and I would just end by saying these partnerships are not necessarily easy I think there have been many times when the people around the table and I can attest to that have sort of wondered why we're actually here because we do see things different I'll come back to you with public private partnerships but I want to go to Anita here and ask her um you've been through from your experience long years of different kinds of collaborations what can you tell us about the type of collaborations that can really push innovation yeah so I'd say three things Zana one is um bring people from different types of backgrounds together you know people who are like improbable partnerships people who've not had a chance to be in the room together and in fact the innovation equity forum that I just talked to you about those 250 women literally many of them were crying because they said they had never been in a room together talking to a venture capitalist or talking to industry uh or talking to scientific uh experts in in a disease that they they they suffered right and so just the operating the convening and the opportunity for improbable partnerships improbable people who have an interest in the area right to come together that's something that um we have to do better and I think it's a real opportunity for women's health area I've had the the privilege of doing it in other parts like typhoid uh was like that you know we didn't have a solution for typhoid and yet we knew that there was a solution possible you just have to bring all of the different people together to make it happen right so that's one thing the other thing is like the commitment right people who are really committed who are not just like talking heads like they really want to get stuff done so if you can do those two things diverse group of individuals and committed individuals you can really make things happen that's my experience your excellency I heard you once say that there's a confidence gap between that needs to be bridged to move from failure to success can you tell me what you mean what you really meant by that when it comes to women health care well I'd set this back home that women have no problems speaking up problem is how much are they hurt and I think that articulates the gap it is not as if the challenge or the opportunity or the capacity to address the challenge did not exist as Anita says there's a need to get convergence there's a need to get money on the table to supplement the cause there was also a need to have policy makers come to the table and collaborate better they are parts of the world Xena where public private partnerships become untouchable in many areas of engagement the health sector is one such area where public private partnerships have done well both for the private sector and for citizens at large and I think women's health is one such arena in which much is to be done but if it can only be done if the public private partnership and the development sector can spearhead it I think that's where the solution lies so for me as far as health and women goes women never had a problem articulating the challenge was hearing now there are many years and that's I think a cause for celebration and this is where I come back to you we were just starting to tell us about what it felt like to sit with the stakeholders at the table the first time each coming from a different world what what level of trust was there in the air I think in there was a long period of feeling each other out and trying to come to grips with what is our actual incentive for sitting at this table and and I think the challenge with the public private partnership runs around economy of course right where we have to respect how we sustain ourselves as organizations and to to find a way to come over that that step right that for me as the president of a pharmaceutical company no one gives me money and and I have responsibilities for sustaining my organization of 8 000 people with salaries their breadwinners and with infrastructure that allows my organization to to exist and grow and thrive and for that I will need the money that I there's left after I sold something pay taxes do some fees and then I can decide what to do then there are other funding agencies that I can't use but but you know we we basically have to overcome that and I think there was a lot of doubts in the beginning there was a lot I wouldn't say conflict I commend everyone who has been at this table people who have come and gone but what kept us together in the end and kept us at the table was that we're all here to solve a vital problem 70 000 women die every year from profuse bleeding after delivery most of those deaths are clearly preventable and and the the consequences of those debts are of course a tragedy and unacceptable is a loss of life but it's a loss of so much more for the family that in the end we found a way and I think now after 11 years we are very comfortable in working with each other and finding good solutions then I'll go to you with this imper just said basically in one of his points that philanthropy cannot solve alone the woman health care issue you have to have real investments now you as semen's health in years okay you take equipment state of the art equipment to underserved communities you can't just leave them and go I mean I'm sure there's a lot to be done capacity building education working with the local community walk me through the cycle and tell me when you think business kicks in so in order to address this challenge yeah we we um we are as part of especially of this access to care um program very actively partnering um with on the one hand local governments local providers um and NGOs yeah so that we build the infrastructure which is which is critical and then we and as you said it only makes sense it is only sustainable um when it's a source of income yeah we cannot I mean as as much it sounds more noble to donate um it's not sustainable yeah so we need to find a way to do this on the other hand yeah when looking at where we historically come from yeah you're not alone yeah I mean you know in the the world didn't have computer tomography and MRI scanners 40 years ago so this there was an effort to build the infrastructure so that this is replacing explorative surgery yeah which was standard of care back then but it also didn't fall from the sky so there was also some ecosystem building and now some maybe overly trivial examples when you look at and I'm I don't know rural India as good as as you do but when you look at how much access to coke Coca Cola Coca Cola is in the world so I don't I don't know the data yeah but when you compare access to coke with access to care it shows that Coca Cola did a good job in you know they are not donating the soft drink yeah so it's possible yeah to to to build the chain yeah it's a trivial example I mean you look at cell phone coverage in LMICs it's pretty amazing so in what is now more important yeah healthcare the cell phone or Coca Cola yeah so I think we have the we have some role models yeah to be careful yeah but I would add to that is that you have to price it right for the people so they can afford it right and so if you and many pharma companies don't don't do that and that then that become but there are also some partnerships that can help in that regard when you guarantee volumes correct exactly that's the public partner public private partnerships or philanthropy can come in and see hey how can we catalyze this market right vaccines Gavi this is a really good example of how we have made vaccines available to children everywhere around the world and the vaccines are made by pharma companies but we've been able to you know make a market for vaccines in developing countries so that everybody can get the vaccine by bringing the prices down and that opportunity is there for women's health right that opportunity is there for taking for all of us to act Anita also from your work I mean we're talking about heavy interventions big inventions capital intensive technology are there sometimes small solutions to big problems absolutely so just like we have vaccines like very powerful public health tools there are so many things that we can do which are very simple tools that can save millions of lives so one example is is is postpartum hemorrhage that per was talking about the most common cause of dying during childbirth is a bleeding after delivery and until very recently the standard of care was that you would do if a woman started bleeding after the baby was born that you would do one thing and then another thing and then another thing gates from the Gates Foundation we funded a very large study to show that if you actually instead of doing one thing and then another thing and another another thing and wasting time if you put it all together as a bundle and you deliver it together you save so many women from developing severe postpartum hemorrhage but there is an added benefit that came out of this study which is just mind blowing which is that so far there was not a good way of measuring how much blood women were actually losing right you just eyeball it and say oh this looks like too much blood to me and so I should I should maybe I should do something so the investigators the people who did this study had the brilliant idea that we should develop a standardized tool which is basically a plastic drape that they put under a woman who's delivering and it has a pocket at the end which captures the blood that as it is coming out and there's measurement like you have on a cylinder or something or a how many ml so they they realize that when they were measuring it they were detecting much more women bleeding more than they thought by which were looking right they yeah so they could see oh oh I should do something now because I can see the that there's 300 ml or there's 500 ml and when they started acting you know the number of postpartum hemorrhage cases that they were diagnosing went up from like three percent four percent to sixteen percent twenty percent right that type of number such a simple tool and say when they acted on that number huge impact on the number of women developing severe postpartum hemorrhage so what's the intervention here it's a plastic sheet with measurement on it right sense not even a dollar that we could get out to every woman out there yeah I have a HPV vaccine can I just say because that's an amazing amazing uh vaccine prevents cervical cancer cervical cancer 600,000 cases every year 340,000 deaths everywhere it takes women in the prime of their lives mothers with young children right we the world had that you need two or three doses to prevent HPV infection which is what leads to cervical cancer now we know through actually data from India that if girls can get one dose of HPV vaccine it protects them from cervical cancer how much did we save so yeah so you save you save so much money you save giving them three doses of vaccine so now you can immunize so many more girls you don't just have to immunize the 9 to 11 year old girls you can go up to AJT in age 20 and save so many girls from getting a disease which is lethal right so I mean and so the cost saving is huge right and the opportunity to have this simple tool like it's a one and done one and done for cervical cancer that's where we are today we can do this I was going to go back to your excellency with the HPV example actually based on the the Indian data uh what can you tell us about all these studies all these findings the the McKenzie report findings today and how they can help health officials in pushing for more strategizing of preventive health care for women I think that on the onset of the response I would like to tell gentlemen to my right that care is available everywhere not Coca-Cola what the Alliance can help do actually is reflect on such reports over the past let's say decade and a half see what are the goals and the proposals that haven't been met thus far if they can put and ascribe a geography to it I think that'll be helpful for thought leaders pharmaceutical companies those who are manufacturing medical devices and also possibly give the Alliance the global expanse which is its ambition targeted benefits that will come to gender and health so that's one I also believe that there is much data which is not available only with policymakers let's say Siemens and the medical instrumentation which is available at their end they have data from the entire globe and the health systems there which without I think usurping any property rights at least that data also can speak to such an alliance which will help inform policy better and I believe lastly that many alliances and the pessimists will say are pronounced but never are implemented in an accelerated fashion so can we have at least 10 such agendas especially on deliverables not only in terms of research because research is a very poignant journey takes time takes effort and takes dollars but they have been known to have we've had frameworks where if you can pinpoint certain diseases or certain medical challenges which within the available medical ecosystem today governed by policymakers and private sectors if such medical challenges from the gender perspective can be as a red flag made available to every country public and private partner I think that this amalgam of some of the best minds can help I really like that idea because it's like what she's what I'm Mr Rani say it's like what are the best buys that exist today that countries can implement right we can do that yeah for instance and I'll take from what Mr Edi said about the plastic sheet yes we all know data exists today where most of the deaths are happening at childbirth due to excessive bleeding yeah we are a country when there was pandemic global supply chains had shut down when there was no movement of goods services machines we built the Indian PPE suit industry in March when the pandemic hit we had zero companies by May we had 1100 companies by June we became the second largest exporters of PPE suits in the world 80 percent of those who are manufacturing were women your excellency I want to move to burn here because we're on TV we have to stick to time what role do you see a company like yours playing in bridging this data gap and AI is coming into the equation now so I think the big opportunity of AI in this context is that when we again switch from the topic of the let's say the established health care systems to the two to emerging healthcare systems the discussion in the established healthcare systems is AI is a productivity tool yeah how can I make the physician more efficient and so on how can I solve the step shortage problem in this challenge AI it's about AI first yeah so like instead of digitalization there was digital first approaches and instead of AI effication of existing topics it's about using AI to bring access to care yeah so and this is you have one example yeah where we bring together with the global fund AI based screening of tuberculosis to Indonesia yeah so this is about bringing diagnosis where it wouldn't have been without it let's continue the discussion outside we run out of time your excellency smirty uh zubin irani minister of woman and child development in india thank you very much annita's id president gender equality at the bilan melinda gates foundation thank you so much bern muntak the chief executive officer at simons ethanes purfa the president of faring pharmaceuticals thank you very much thank you ladies and gentlemen thank you


The title of our sermon this morning is Working Out Our Salvation, Working Out Our Salvation. In Philippians chapter two, the text read in your hearing, Paul is addressing the Philippian church and he's exhorting them. He's commanding them, right? He's commanding them from the example of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul, if you look at verse five, Paul commands the church in verse five, let the same mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.  It's not a suggestion. Doesn't mean that you must allow this to take place. This indicates a command. Let indicates a command. Paul is saying, listen, be of one accord, be of one love, one purpose, one mind, one intention with the Lord Jesus Christ. Have the very same mind that he does. Well, what was the mind of the Lord Jesus Christ in Philippians chapter two? The Lord Christ humbled himself. He made himself of no reputation. He took the form of a slave and he became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. So Paul is saying then to the church and to us by implication, Paul is saying, listen, so then you also, you also my beloved, verse 12, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, now much more in my absence. Listen, obey the Lord in this, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Why?  In other words, we are to conduct ourselves in the Christian life, working out our own salvation with the same humility and with the same attention to obedience that we see in the example of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, the text doesn't say, work for your own salvation, does it? That work has been done. Praise God. The text doesn't say to work at or to work toward your own salvation, but to work out because you are already saved now, Paul says, work out your own salvation in fear and trembling. No one can work out a salvation that God hadn't already worked in. Amen. And the notice in the text, work out that verb is a command as well. We are commanded to work out our own salvation. It's an imperative. It's a command. Why is that? Because what God intends for you in your Christian life requires work.  We know that Paul has in mind here a continuous, ongoing, sustained, strenuous effort, strenuous exertion. Paul elsewhere refers to this as a pursuit, something we must actively pursue. It requires labor and labor, frankly, to the point of exhaustion. It's referred to elsewhere in Scripture as a fight. It's referred to as a battle, a spiritual warfare. It's a race. It's the labor of a hardworking farmer, the exertion of an athlete. All of these pictures that the New Testament gives us of this labor, this work. What God intends for you in the Christian life requires this kind of diligent work, this labor. In other words, you and I can't take our ease. We cannot take our ease in the Christian life. Most people today seem to believe that we are saved from our sin, saved from the wrath of God. And then that one-time, past tense work is then the end of the matter of our redemption. Most professing Christians live like that's exactly what they believe. You know, now that I've made a decision, now that I've prayed the prayer, now that I did that hard work of getting down the aisle, I've checked that box.  They'll even tell you, don't doubt, never doubt, just go back and look at the date. And later, later, when the only good work that they can muster to give any evidence of a living, healthy, vibrant, thriving faith is showing up to church on a Sunday morning, someone comes along and labels them a carnal Christian. They're not concerned with the reality of their sin. There's no hunger, there's no thirst for righteousness. There's no compelling affection for the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no driving obedience, driving faithfulness, or driving growth in the Christian life. They sit back on their laurels, right? They continue to sow to the flesh. There is no lasting fruit of the Spirit. There's no evidence of a work of the Spirit in their life. And they say to themselves, I sure am glad that I'm saved. I sure am glad that I made it. You know, all the while they're walking the broad road that leads to destruction.  It is an absurd waste of time when you consider that our souls hang in the balance. This is a matter of life and death, heaven and hell. It's the profession of faith without the possession of faith. Broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. That is a wicked and deceitful broad road, and there are many crowding packed onto that broad highway. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, we'll enter the kingdom of heaven, but what? He who does the will of my Father in heaven. Having been genuinely redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, we have a responsibility then to do the will of the Father. What the Lord intends for you and I in the Christian life requires work. It requires labor. It requires effort. We cannot let up in the effort. We cannot give into laziness, sluggardliness. We cannot give into apathy. We cannot give it into indifference. Whether Paul is there, as he says, to look over their shoulder or not, follow Christ's example of obedience and work out your own salvation. And then notice with me in the text, what is the manner then in which we are to go about that work? We are to work out our own salvation with fear and with trembling. Now wherever that phrase is used in the New Testament, it has to do with a God word fear that comes through a knowledge of him, particularly a knowledge of God as holy. It's not the slavish terror that unbelievers face in their condemnation, the picture of those who are fleeing from God, wanting the rocks of the mountains to fall on their heads. It's not a slavish terror, the terror of unbelievers, but it is a reverential fear. It's a trepidation that is the appropriate response of believers who know the living God and know that he is holy. It's the proper response for those who would contemplate the high cost of their redemption. This work should be carried out with all diligence in fear and trembling. Why? Because the text says, it is God Almighty who is at work in us, both to will and to do for his good pleasure. 1 Corinthians 6 expresses it this way, listen, do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? You were bought at a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are gods. He might say, work with diligent fear, no cavalier attitude. We can't have a cavalier attitude in the Christian life. We can't rest on our laurels. We cannot take our ease. There's no such thing in the Bible, no room given for theology that says just let go and let God. No theology of that in the Bible. There's nothing in the Bible that gives us any room to fall asleep on our duty, so to speak, in the Christian life, to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. Why is that? Why is that? Because it is God who is at work in you to will and to do according to his good pleasure for his ends. That is an awesome thought. I think with me for just a moment. We have the living God through his spirit working in you believer to accomplish his ends that he has determined before the foundation of the world for you, that you should be holy and without blame before him in love. God Almighty, the creator of the universe, the one who knit you in your mother's womb, you are fearfully, wonderfully made by him. It is that God at work in you to willing to do according to his good pleasure. He's working in you. So then you, what should you do? Just lay back. God, you can do that work while I watch TV for the fifth straight hour today or whatever it is. No, it's an awesome reality. God is at work in you. So then you work. I work and we work with a diligent fear and trepidation at the weightiness of it all, the glory of it all, the magnificence of it all that God Almighty is at work in us. If you're a genuine Christian, if you have turned from your sin to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, then God has already begun that work in you. God began that work in you. You were dead in your trespasses and sins running in the course of this world according to the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience. And God by his spirit then called you with a holy calling, not according to your works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began. He caused you to be born again by his spirit and you became a new creation in Christ. When you became a new creation, testify if it isn't so. Your heart disposition changed. There was a radical change in your heart disposition towards sin. The Bible says you will loathe yourself in your own sight for your own iniquity. There was a hatred now for sin, a sin that you once formerly loved and cherished. There was a change in your disposition toward holiness. It was something that you hungered and thirsted for, something that you wanted. There was a change in your heart disposition toward the Lord Jesus Christ, the one whom you took no interest in before now is exceedingly precious. All I want to do is please him. All I want to do is worship him and be in heaven with him forever, whom having not seen you love. You have a new heart. You have new affections. After having turned to the Savior in faith, you recognize a new disposition. You become a new creation. Upon turning to Christ in faith, the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ was then credited to you, and God declared you in Christ to be righteous. His righteousness became your righteousness by a free gift of God's grace. You were justified, justified. Praise God. Reconciled to God through Jesus Christ.  You were declared not guilty and not just declared not guilty. You were declared righteous because of the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the glorious work that God began in you on the day that you were converted. And though He justified you, declaring you to be positionally, legally or forensically righteous, that work of regeneration and that work of justification did not make you practically righteous. That work by which we are made practically righteous in the Christian life and that work intended by God for our Christian lives that we should pursue with all diligence and godly fear is called the work of our sanctification. It's called sanctification. You can be confident of this very thing that if God began a good work in you, He will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. He'll complete that work. Therefore, my beloved, verse 12, therefore, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation now with fear and with trembling. Why?  I want you to notice something with me from the text. There's a relationship here, verse 12 and verse 13. There's a relationship here between the indicative and the imperative. We've talked about that in the past. The indicative and indicative is a statement of fact. It's an assertion of truth. The imperative is a command. There's a relationship here between verse 12 and verse 13, a relationship between the indicative and the imperative. The imperative, given, is to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, right? Work it out. That's the command. And the reason for the imperative is given through the assertion of truth, the indicative, because it is God who works in you both the will and to do for His good pleasure. In other words, there's a foundation given, a foundation upon which the command then is established. We see this all over the New Testament, don't we? This is a good explanation, if you will, or a good description of the relationship between God's work, God's sovereignty in our salvation, and our responsibility as Christians. 1 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 7, for example. Purge out the old leaven. That's the command. Purge it out. Purge out the old leaven. Why? Because you are truly unleavened. It's an imperative based upon an indicative, a statement of fact. Colossians chapter 3, verse 3. Think with me. You've died with Christ. Your life is hidden with Christ in God. Paul says, therefore put to death your members, which are on the earth. Well, Paul, I thought I died in Christ. My life is hidden with Christ. Yes, therefore put to death. Do you see? It's an imperative based upon the foundation of an assertion of truth, based upon the indicative. And notice, the fact that we have died doesn't make our effort meaningless in putting to death the deeds of the flesh. The fact that we have died in Christ, that our life is hidden in Him, does not make meaningless our effort, our diligence, our work in putting to death the deeds of the flesh. We are to put to death our members, Paul says, fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, so on and so forth, precisely because we have died with Christ and our life is hidden with Him. The truth gives the foundation then for our obedience. The truth gives a glorious, a magnificent reason why? To our effort, to our labor. In other words, what Paul is saying is this. Become what you are. Become what you already are in the Lord Jesus Christ. You have been given tremendous, glorious status in Him. Now become in the strength of the Spirit what you already are in Him. That makes sense? The imperative, work out your own salvation. The indicative because God is at work in you. Notice it doesn't say work out your own salvation and God will be at work in you. There's no evenness on either side of that equation. We work because God works. Do you see? God's work in you, brother, sister. God's work in you doesn't make meaningless or insignificant or unnecessary your work. It makes your work that much more important, that much more necessary, that much more wondrous and necessary, okay? It's precisely because God is at work in us that we should expend every effort if we were working on a project together and the Lord Jesus Christ stood next to you laboring at your side. Wouldn't that the joy of that right? Imagine maybe as a child you worked on the car one day with your dad, right?  That much more joyfully, rejoicing in the work, right? It knits you together with Him. The Lord Jesus Christ, imagine if He was next to us as we worked. He is by His Spirit, not just next to us. In us, it should compel us to work that much more diligently, to expend every effort, to strive, to press, to run, to labor, to toil, giving all diligence with fear and trembling. Now notice further with me, there's no division of labor in the text. It's not you do your part and God will do His part. It doesn't speak to that. A division of labor is not in the text. In other words, this is not speaking of synergism. It's not speaking of an equal cooperation between man and God in the work of our sanctification, where each one does His part. God is at work in us, right? And because God is at work in us, we then go to work. Do you see? Our working is not the effectual cause of our sanctification. Whose work is the effectual cause of our sanctification? God's work. It's God's work, right? We don't make ourselves holy. Who makes us holy? God makes us holy, but God makes us holy through the means of a living, working, thriving faith. Do you see? God uses means. All of salvation, from start to finish, is monogistic. It is God alone, grace alone, through faith alone. All of our salvation, including our sanctification, is by grace alone, a free gift of His grace, through a working faith. Finally, look in verse 13 with me, verse 13. This work of God, the work of our sanctification, brings to fulfillment His good pleasure concerning you and I. That's an awesome thought to me. Right? He is holy, and it's His good pleasure. He delights that we should be holy. God takes joy in making His people holy. It's His good pleasure. Now, the time remaining this morning for this very brief introduction to this subject, this could be a sermon series, couldn't it? I want us to consider three points together. Three points. One, the nature of sanctification. Two, the means of sanctification. And three, the marks of sanctification. The nature of sanctification, the means of sanctification and the marks of sanctification. First, consider with me the nature of our sanctification. The word sanctify means to make holy. Means to separate as holy. The word holiness or holy in the Bible refers to being sanctified, refers to being set apart. Now, God's people are set apart, they are sanctified or made holy in two ways. One, God's people are set apart from the sinful practices of the flesh and of this fallen world. They're set apart from sin. Secondly, God's people are set apart to the service of our God who made us. We are set apart or consecrated to God. Set apart from sin, set apart to God. They are to be separated from that which is common or profane or unholy. And they are to be separated to God, consecrated to him and to his service alone. Now, there's a sense in which believers are set apart in this way or sanctified at conversion. John Murray refers to this as definitive sanctification. Definitive sanctification. It's not just positional, it's not just declarative, but it is definitive. The Christian is born again by the Spirit of God and having been born again, his natural love for sin in this world is broken. Right? The pattern of sin is broken. Our love for the world is broken. Our love for sin is broken. He has a new nature, a new heart, new desires, new affections. It's more, you see, than a simple declaration. So our definitive sanctification is not a legal or a forensic declaration. It's an actual work of God's Spirit in you at conversion, whereby he separates you from a love for sin and a love for this world. Your life radically changes, right? New disposition, new heart, mind renewed. It's a radical break with sin. It's a work in you by the Spirit. Having been definitively sanctified then, the believer is then further or progressively sanctified by the Spirit. They embark upon a process whereby the believer is then conformed into the image of the one who is holy, the Lord Jesus Christ, God, right? They embark upon a process of progressive sanctification. Our confession of faith, the London Baptist Confession of Faith, 1689, in the chapter on sanctification, chapter 13, Article 1, it reads this way. They who are united to Christ, union with Christ, effectually called and regenerated, born again, having then a new heart and a new spirit created in them through the virtue of Christ's death and resurrection, that's definitive sanctification, right? They've been set apart at conversion. They are also further sanctified, further set apart really and personally, individually, through the same virtue, the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, by His Word and His Spirit dwelling in them. That is sanctification, okay? Now what's the nature of that sanctification then? Our confession goes forward. The dominion of the whole body of sin is destroyed. Sin no longer has rain over you. Sin no longer has dominion over you. The choke chain of sin around your throat has been broken. The several lusts thereof are more and more weakened and mortified. What does that point to? It points to a progress, doesn't a process. And they, the believer, are more and more quickened and strengthened in all saving graces to the practice of all true holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. Now notice here the work of the Spirit. Notice the work. Lusts are more and more weakened. Believers are more and more strengthened to the end of a practice of all true holiness, right? Our flesh is subdued. We are empowered, strengthened by the Spirit to the end that we should be holy. That's the process, the progress of our sanctification. We are called to be holy. Now a text that explains this really well is Romans chapter 6. Turn with me to Romans chapter 6. Let's look at sanctification, both definitive and progressive. Romans chapter 6. As you turn there, Paul is arguing, and has begun that argument in Romans chapter 5, Romans chapter 4, that we are saved by grace and not by works of the law, right? We're saved by grace, not by works. Where the law then is brought to bear on the heart of a sinner, we see sin under the steering spotlight of the law. We see sin as exceedingly sinful. Sin in that sense abounds. It becomes exceedingly sinful. But where sin abounds under the law, Paul says, grace rises to meet the challenge, and grace abounds all the more, raining through the righteousness of Jesus Christ to eternal life. Grace rains through Jesus Christ to eternal life. Now someone might object when they hear that, right? That logic would just lead to more and more sin. I mean, if grace is going to abound, because sin is abounding, well then let's sin it up, right? Because the more we sin, the more grace abounds. Paul says, absolutely not, no way. Salvation by grace alone through faith alone, far from encouraging a life of sin, actually guarantees a life of holiness. And here's why, verse 1, Romans chapter 6 verse 1. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Do you see the logic? Some people today actually hold to that devilish theology, right?   Don't be concerned with that at all, okay?  Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly, absolutely, unequivocably not, verse 2. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? You see the logic? We've died to sin. How can we who've died to sin live any longer in it? It's a rhetorical question. The expected answer is we cannot because of definitive sanctification. We've been set apart at conversion, new heart, new disposition, new affections, new desires, new love for Jesus Christ, a new hatred for your sin. We've been set apart from sin. It's definitive sanctification. Now Paul then goes and defines what that definitive sanctification looks like. Look at verse 3. Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newness of life. You see the relationship between the indicative and the imperative, right? That relationship helps us understand our work in sanctification. We have the indicative and we're given the imperative based upon the assertion of truth. We live and obey the command, okay? We were baptized into his death spiritually speaking. We were buried with him through baptism into death and just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father we then imperative should walk in newness of life. Do you see? 4 verse 5. If we have been united together in the likeness of his death certainly we also shall be in the likeness of his resurrection. There is no such thing as an unsanctified Christian. No such thing. That is like a unicorn, a bigfoot, yet whatever. It's no such thing as an unsanctified Christian. Sanctification is distinct from justification, distinct from regeneration, but sanctification is married to them, right? There is no separation. The day that you were converted is the day that your sanctification began. It is married. That is a blessing given by the grace of God that is a part of our redemption is our sanctification. There is no such thing as a non-sanctified and unsanctified Christian. If you are not being sanctified you are not a Christian. Do you see? If the spirit dwells in you, the spirit will bear out evidence of that work of grace in your heart. You'll be sanctified. You will bear fruits of the spirit. So many today who claim to be saved because they made some decision. They did some thing, right? Their little evangelical sacrament, whatever it was, and now they believe themselves to be saved, but they deny the power of the gospel to transform a life. They believe themselves to be saved and there's no evidence in life for the fact that they are. There's plenty of evidence given for why they're not. If we have been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of his resurrection. Verse 6, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him. Old man dead, died in Christ, right? So that the body of sin might be done away with. That's the process of sanctification. We're a new man in Christ. Paul says, didn't he? I have been crucified with Christ. No longer me who live but Christ who lives in me in the life that I now live in the flesh. I live by faith in the Son of God who gave himself for me. Okay? This is speaking of again the process of sanctification. That the body of sin might be done away with. That we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Notice the indicative. If you've died to sin himself in Christ, you have been freed from the power, from the dominion of sin. Indicative. Verse 8, now then. If we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Christ. Knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death that he died, he died to sin once for all. But the life that he lives, he lives to God. Indicative and glorious. Indicative. Amen? Imperative. Verse 11, likewise you also, right? Then do this fact on the foundation of this assertion. Reckon yourselves then to be dead indeed to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. You've got to think that way. Act upon that assertion in faith. I am dead to sin in Christ. It is not going to have dominion. It does not have dominion over me. I died in him. I am dead indeed to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Notice again the relationship, right? Between indicative and imperative. He died to sin. He lives to God. You also then reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin. When you battle sin in your Christian life, that battle, that fight has to be done in faith. Faith in the promises. If you sit back and you think to yourself, listen. You know, I'm struggling in sin. I'm not even sure if I'm a Christian. I don't even know if these promises pertain to me. That's not faith. That's faithlessness. The battle will not be won on the foundation of faithlessness. Faith is apprehending, embracing Christ for the promises. Fighting sin must be done in faith. You also then reckon yourselves in the battle with sin. Reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin. Sin does not have dominion over me. I can in faith conquer. Do you see? Therefore, verse 12, imperative, do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey it in its lusts. How many times to your shame? How many times to my shame have I said I have no control over this? I can't win defeatist attitude. I'm not going to overcome. I'm a victim of my sin, so to speak. No, listen. You're right. You're not going to overcome. You're not going to overcome in your own strength in your own power. You're right in that sense. But you're not fighting in your own strength and in your own power. You're fighting in the power of the Spirit of God. And you are dead indeed to sin. Do not let it reign in your mortal body. Go to work. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Strive, labor, toil, give all diligence with fear and trembling, and don't let it reign in your mortal body that you should obey it in its lusts. This is a present ongoing work of putting off sin, putting off the old man with its lusts and putting on the new man. The imperative continues, verse 13, and do not present. Do not make an ongoing, active work of presenting your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but in an ongoing, active, present way, present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. This is the work of sanctification. Do you see? Four indicative, verse 14, assertion of truth. Sin shall not have dominion over you. That's a promise. That's a promise. I used to think about that when I'm early in my Christian life. When I'm battling sin, you're fighting, right, embattled over your own flesh, embattled over your own sin. And I read verse 14, I would think to myself, verse 14 says, sin shall not have dominion over you. And I would think in my own Christian life, man, it really feels like sin has dominion over me. I must not be a Christian. How can I be a Christian if this sin has this kind of dominion? It's a promise, brother. It's a promise, sister. Lay hold, apprehend that promise in faith, by faith in Jesus Christ. Sin will not have dominion over me. Lay hold of that promise and present your members as instruments of righteousness. Sin shall not have dominion over you. The choke chain of sin around your throat has been broken. Now go forward and conquer in faith, in the power of the Spirit, faith in Jesus Christ. Why? Because you are not under law, but under grace. No longer under law as a means through which you would have to attain to righteousness in your own effort, you are now under the grace of God in the Lord Jesus Christ. And we have Romans chapter five, we have access to that grace, that justifying grace in which we stand. We have access to that through faith. This is progressive sanctification. Progressive sanctification is the inseparable consequence or fruit of definitive sanctification. Do you see? Progressive sanctification doesn't happen apart from the new birth, apart from regeneration, apart from justification. It is a justifying grace in which we stand. When someone dies to sin in Christ and is then born again, or is born again by his Spirit, he's made a new creation, he's given a new nature and will from that new nature always live, will live a new life. There's simply no such thing as a Christian who has died to sin in Christ and yet has not been raised to newness of life in him, such that sin will not have dominion over him. Where there is no progressive sanctification, there has been no definitive sanctification, no regeneration, no justification, no salvation. And where there is no regeneration, no justification, no salvation, there is no progressive sanctification. John explains it this way in first John chapter three, verse nine. Listen, whoever has been born of God does not sin. Now from the grammar, we know what that means is does not make a practice, an ongoing pattern or practice of sin. Whoever has been born of God does not make a practice of sin because his God's seed remains in him and he cannot sin because he has been born of God. Those two circumstances are mutually exclusive. I'm a Christian, but you're living in your center. Remember witnessing to a guy standing in his driveway and he confessed to me that he was having an adulterous affair. He was committing adultery on his wife, professing to be a Christian and committing adultery and that they were about to get a divorce. And I said, you can't be a Christian living like that, unrepentant sin. And his response to me was, it's not, I can't control it. It's not, these are impulses, fleshly impulses. I can't control them. It doesn't make it better. It makes it worse. Whoever has been born of God does not sin. Sin no longer has dominion over you. The power of sin has been broken. His seed, God's seed remains in him and he cannot sin because he has been born of God. Referring again to a relationship between the indicatives of our faith and the imperatives. Peter says it this way in 1 Peter chapter one, listen. Peter says that God the Father has begotten us again to a living hope, a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Therefore, indicative assertion of truth, now imperative. Therefore, gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. And as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts as in your ignorance, but as he who has called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct because it is written, be holy for I am holy. And we have strength in God's spirit, by God's spirit to obey that text. Amen. So the nature, the nature of our sanctification could be defined as our progressively increasing conformity to Christ's likeness. Be holy. As he was called you as holy, you also be holy in all your conduct. Paul explained it in Romans chapter eight verse 29. Those whom God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. That process of conformity into the image of the sun is called sanctification. The goal of our election, Paul says in Romans eight, the goal of our election is to be made like Christ. And that is a sovereign work of God by his spirit. Do we conform ourselves into the image of Christ? No. God by his spirit conforms us, but we work diligently. Why? Because God is at work in us to will and to do according to his good pleasure. It's a sovereign work of God, free grace of God by his spirit and the responsibility of his people through faith and the strength that the spirit supplies. We understand the nature of our sanctification. Consider with me quickly the means of our sanctification, the means of our sanctification. There are many and we could spend time in Scripture going through texts to talk about this very thing. Let's summarize them in just a few ways here. One of the means of our sanctification is union with Christ. Union with the Lord Jesus Christ. Sanctification will not happen apart from union with the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul says beautifully, 1 Corinthians chapter one verse 30. It is because of him, the Father, that you are in union with the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember the text, right? It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus. And that Christ through that union Paul says has become for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Christ in other words, he is our sanctification. By virtue of our union with him, you are being sanctified, right? Because we're in union with him. If we are in union with him, we are being sanctified. One means of our sanctification, union with Christ. Another means the entire Godhead, the Trinity. We think of sanctification as being most predominantly a work of the Spirit, the indwelling Spirit in the life of a believer. We find that in 2 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 18, for example. We all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory just as by the Spirit of the Lord. The Spirit of God in the life of the believer transforming him from glory to glory into the image of the Lord. But listen to this from John chapter 17 verse 17, the high priestly prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus prays to the Father, sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth. And he's ascribing sanctification to the work of the Father. The Father disciplines his own, Hebrews chapter 12. And that's so that we may share in his holiness. So the Father sanctifies us through discipline, through adversity, through trial, through difficulty, through persecution. In Ephesians chapter 5, sanctification is said to be a work of the Son. Speaks of the Son as working for our sanctification. Paul says, husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for her. So that he might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that he might present her to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. It's the work of the Son also in sanctification. And a glorious thought that we will be without blemish, without spot, not having any wrinkle, any such thing will be perfect, like perfect awesome thought. One of the means of our sanctification is faith, faith of believers. Not only are we justified through the means of faith, but we're also sanctified through the means of faith. In Acts chapter 26, verse 18, the Lord sent Paul to the Gentiles in order to open their eyes, in order to turn to them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in me. We are sanctified by the means of faith. Through faith, we reckon ourselves dead to sin. Through faith, we access the grace, the justifying grace in which we stand. Through faith, we rely upon the power of the Spirit to put to death the deeds of the flesh. And faith is the victory that has overcome the world. We are sanctified through the means of faith. We're also sanctified through the means of our own working. We saw that in Philippians chapter 2, didn't we? Work of God and the responsibility of God's people. We don't make ourselves holy. God is the one who makes us holy. But God works to make us holy through the means of our own obedience, our own work. Second Corinthians chapter 7 verse 1. Therefore, beloved, having these promises, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Paul tells us there to cleanse ourselves. Do we cleanse ourselves? God is the one who cleanses us. But we work to put off the old man cleansing ourselves, so to speak, from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. We labor in that work and the Lord works through the means of our working to bring that cleansing about. Romans chapter 12 verse 1. Paul says, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice. This is what we're to do. We're to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is our reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed. This is a command for the believer. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is good, that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. The nature of our sanctification, the means of our sanctification, what are some of the marks of our sanctification? The very presence of the new nature, very presence of a new heart in the life of the believer. The power, the presence of the indwelling spirit means that there will most certainly be a process of change. We're going to see change in our lives by virtue of the spirit now dwelling in us, by virtue of a new heart, a new nature that may be small at times, may it sometimes be almost imperceptible, but there will be change, steady growth over time. Not a off the rocket pad, launch pad straight up, right? It's more like the stock chart. There's a gradual inclination over time, sometimes like this, sometimes like this, right? But there's going to be steady progress made. That line is not going to be smooth. There's going to be peaks and valleys, peaks and valleys, but there will be upward growth, upward maturity. There will be a process of change. Often illustrated that by thinking of a baby, a newborn baby, right? A newborn baby, baby comes, what do you do? You count fingers and toes, yep, 10 fingers, 10 toes. We've got all the parts are there, two arms, two legs, two ears, nose, I've got a mouth, you certainly hear that, right? Baby does all the things that a baby does. Baby has all the parts there, and then what does that baby do? The baby grows, right? And all the parts grow with the baby. It's sort of like the process of a Christian, right? The Christian is born again by God's Spirit. The necessary parts are there, and then what begins to happen to the Christian, the Christian grows. The Christian matures. Their faith is cultivated. Their knowledge of him through his word is cultivated and grown and matured. During that process, it's also true that believers will and do sin. We see that we don't have time to go there today, but a good illustration of this is Paul in Romans chapter 7, where Paul speaks in Romans chapter 7 of his life as a believer and his struggle as a believer with remaining sin, remaining corruption. Some genuine Christians can even fall into grievous sins, maybe sins such that they would be under the discipline of the church, but then if they are genuine believers, it may be that discipline that brings them back to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Our confession of faith says this in article 2 of chapter 13. It says, this sanctification is throughout the whole man, throughout all his parts and members, so to speak, yet imperfect in this life. They're abideth still on this side of eternity. They're abideth still some remnants of corruption in every part, in our affections, in our desires, in our thinking, even in our faith, even in our repentance, in our imagination. There remains some remnants of corruption in every part. Whence arises a continual and irreconcilable war? The flesh lusting against the spirit and the spirit lusting against the flesh. It's the presence of that war, that battle that may be very good evidence that you are, in fact, a Christian fighting, laboring in the power of the spirit. There is an irreconcilable war that begins our sanctification. Article 3 says this, in which war, although the remaining corruption for a time may much prevail, yet through the continual supply of strength from the sanctifying spirit of Christ, the regenerate part doth overcome, and so the saints grow in grace, perfecting holiness and the fear of God, pressing after a heavenly life in evangelical obedience to all the commands which Christ as head and king in his word hath prescribed them. It's a work, brother, sister. It's a work that requires our great diligent effort in fear and in trembling. Shaped and fashioned by God, the Holy Spirit over our entire lives requires an enormous amount of labor. It is work. We must be active. Paul says in 1 Thessalonians, chapter 4, in verse 3, this is the will of God, your sanctification. You refine yourself for others wondering, what's the will of God for my life? I wonder what the will of God is. This is the will of God, your sanctification. What's the will of God for you? Your sanctification. Get to work. That you should, Paul continues, that you should abstain from sexual immorality, that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust like the Gentiles who don't know God, so that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this manner because the Lord is the Avenger of all such as we also forewarned you and testified. For God did not call us to uncleanness. God called us to holiness. Therefore, he who rejects this does not reject man, but rejects God who has also given us his Holy Spirit. As we mature in the Christian life, those peaks and valleys tend to even out, right? They tend to smooth out.  It can be rocky. We just must in faith continue to labor. Well, what is the goal of all this? What's the goal of our sanctification? It's not only to be conformed into the image of the sun, but that conformity into his image has a purpose or an intention. And we find that goal of our sanctification in multiple places in the New Testament, particularly Ephesians chapter one. Listen, beginning at verse three. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestined us to adoption his sons by Jesus Christ to himself. According to the good pleasure of his will to, and here's the goal, the praise of the glory of his grace by which he made us accepted in the beloved to the praise of his glory, to the praise of his glory, to the praise of his glory. Brother and sister, listen, work out your salvation, work out your own salvation, do it with all diligence, give it all effort, strive, labor, toil, work out your own salvation. Why? Because it is God who works in you to will and to do according to his good pleasure, and it is all to the praise of his glory. We have such wondrous indicatives, such wondrous promises, such wondrous and glorious assertions of truth on which we should base our own diligent effort to live for him. Amen. All praise, honor, glory and blessing be to him who is to us wisdom from God, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Let's take a few moments and pray. Go before the Lord now and pray silently asking for the Lord by his spirit to bless your labor to his glory. We'll pray together and then we'll be dismissed. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we acknowledge that we cannot do this work on our own and our own strength. Apart from you, we can do nothing. We are branches that must be vitally connected to the vine. And I pray, Lord, that you would strengthen us by your spirit to bring glory and honor to you through this good work of our sanctification. Strengthen us to labor with all diligence. Help us, Lord, to understand or to apprehend the knowledge of you from your word that gives us the proper sober-minded spirit of fear and trepidation in the work. Help us to be solemn in that work, sober in that work, joyful in that work at the very same time knowing that it is you that works in us to will and to do according to your good pleasure. Strengthen us by your spirit to live worthy of the calling with which you've called us. Help us, Lord, to labor and may it bear fruit, Lord. Encourage your people with fruits of their faith. Encourage your people through that work in their own lives. Help us, Lord, to grow and mature in you. Looking forward to the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, where we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. We look forward with great anticipation to our glorification, the consummation of all things, and our worship of you in to forever. Thank you, Lord, for this time together. In Jesus' name, amen.


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How do traditions connect us to the greater Mount Holyoke community? Well, I think that like Kind of like we were talking about earlier like whenever I'm away from Mount Holyoke I talk about it all the time and like traditions is one of those things that like you start telling people who Don't go to a college like this and they're like, that's like so cool That's so fun And like sometimes you get to do things like you share a tradition with someone off campus But then like when I'm talking about it off campus sometimes you like run into alums and you like meet people I'm remoring a Mount Holyoke shared at my job last summer and somebody was like, do you want a Mount Holyoke? I was like, I do but she was like, I want a Mount Holyoke. I went there. I'm an alum And so you're like already making those connections Yeah, I sort of ended up at Mount Holyoke because I'm an alum actually I wasn't able to come tour Mount Holyoke but and admissions representative came down to Miami and interviewed me and connected me to a local alum Who was a dance major when she was here who then connected me to somebody else who was another academic Who was in another academic field as interested in and I ended up playing like alumni telephone with four or five people And I got like five voices about what Mount Holyoke is like through decades And it was a really fantastic way to sort of get a feel of the community without being here And because of that I worked reunions every year, which is how I've met both of you It is a really fun time where graduation happens and Alums all come together on campus and it's just a really lively energetic weekend where you get to connect with People who have been here in different times than you and you get to know them you get to meet them And it's so much fun. Yeah, speaking of alums and community during reunions. There's this tradition called the Laurel parade Which is like a big All the seniors dress in white and like marching carrying a laurel, but alums participate in that too So like they start by marching with all their class years and like they still dress in their class colors after all these years and like everybody Like they do marching and then all the alums split off so the seniors can march through them So you kind of like get to see this like bigger community you're joining and it's just like It's so special to see alums and to meet alums. They just like every alum I have ever met has like Loved Mount Holyoke students and like loved that like you were excited about being here Like wants to see Mount Holyoke students in the world Yeah, as a first-generation college student I didn't know a lot of colleges and I actually found out about Mount Holyoke through an alum And I just heard amazing things about right like I had to apply here and being here Like I've been able to see all the things that she told me at the time and I'm grateful to have this experience And even when you're not on campus like the alumni network is there for you if you're broad for mountain day Um, uh, you don't like just have to miss out on at the alumni network and wherever you are Like all over the world considering how international our alumni network is We'll invite you at uh 18 37 military time since 37 p.m To eat ice cream with um, which I just think is like a beautiful experience of like having Mount Holyoke wherever you go Yeah