Hebrews 12:14
Well, our topic tonight is sanctification,
and we’re really going to begin a discussion that starts tonight
and will last for four weeks. We’re going to talk about sanctification
tonight, what it is, and how it works, and then understanding
that sanctification is our growing in grace, our struggling with
sin. The next three weeks, we’ll look at enemies of the Christian.
The Confession of Faith says that our three enemies are the
world and all its systems, so like the world against the Word,
The flesh, which we understand as our remnant sin in us, it’s
been pardoned and subdued, but it still remains. But our flesh
in us as an enemy, and then the devil himself who tempts us and
accuses us. So tonight we’ll look at sanctification
and the world, the flesh, and the devil. And wouldn’t it be
easy if obeying the command of God is Hebrews 12 14 says strive
for peace with everyone and for the holiness without which no
one will see the Lord wouldn’t it be great if you could just
pop a pill wouldn’t it be great if perfect soul really did work
and you could grow in grace in that way you could say goodbye
to those pesky sins And some of you would probably like to
give that pill out to others, wouldn’t you? Or slap some patches
on people’s arms. I could give away lots of prescriptions
for sanctification, starting with myself. Well, as we begin
this topic of sanctification, I want to kind of give you a
kind of an intro by speaking of the landscape in which we
are living. As I’ve said before in our study of the Christian
life, it’s good for us to understand the span of God’s order of salvation. It’s good to understand the span
of it is that God in eternity past, God presently is, and God
in eternity future, He is working out your salvation. In eternity
past, He has called you. He’s predestined you, he has
set his affection upon you, and presently he is at work in your
life, sanctification being one of those ways. And in the future,
you have future grace, you have future salvation, you have the
hope of heaven, you have eternity, an eternity of holiness. And
so, understanding the whole of salvation and not just, you know,
Ed and I were joking the other night about some of the old gospel
songs. He was talking about this one gospel song that if you got
good car insurance, you might as well have some good eternity
insurance. And you know, that’s true, but
that’s not all salvation is. We have reduced the gospel to,
don’t you want to go to heaven? Rather than the alternative,
right? And it’s more than that. It’s more about keeping that
bus ticket or that train ticket in your back pocket and live
like you want. And when the chariot swings low,
you get that thing out and you say, I’m ready. I’m prepared,
I’ve got Jesus, so I’ve got heaven. And so tonight, with sanctification,
we’ll understand a whole lot more about how it’s not just
this bus ticket in our back pocket, but we get to live a life of
holiness now. The other thing by way of introduction
is We’re living in a time where people are confused at how to
live the Christian life. Okay, last week, or two weeks
ago, we talked about being justified. We have a righteous standing
before a holy God. He sees us as if we’ve never
sinned. He sees us as if we have always obeyed. Justification
is an act of God’s free grace where he pardons our sin, he
accepts us as righteous in his sight, only for the sake of Christ’s
righteousness, and it’s received It’s imputed to us, credited
to our account, but it’s received by faith. So it’s a judicial
declaration. And some will say, because of
that judicial declaration, you’ve got it made. You don’t have to
obey God’s law anymore. And so there’s this war going
on right now. If you’re reading some of the
blogs and articles that are out in the Christian world, especially
the reform world now, you’re seeing the battle between what
we call the grace boys versus the legalist. And the grace boys
will say to you, it doesn’t matter what you do, make mistakes, sin,
but you’re in the arms of Christ and his grace has you. Now, is
that true? Are you in Christ’s arms? Do you have His grace?
Yes, you do. But does that give you license
to sin? No. Should it ever cross your mind,
I can sin in any way I want because I can ask for forgiveness on
Sunday. I mean, yes, that’s true. You can sin. And you can sin
a whole lot. You can sin infinitely, right?
And the blood of Christ is for you. But we look at what God
calls us to be and how He calls us to live, and that’s not possible.
The other side of that coin is legalism. You may find yourself
in a community of people where Sabbath keeping is firm and fixed. And it’s not only Sabbath keeping,
it’s, well, we only breathe 10 breaths per hour because 11 breaths
per hour is breaking the law. And what did Jesus do to the
Pharisees when they started in on that? He said, your righteousness
is outward, and inwardly, You’re corrupt. He said, you’re whitewashed
tombs. You’re dead inside, but your tomb on the outside is whitewashed
with fresh paint. So we need to be careful that
we don’t fall over here on the too much grace side. Yes, God
gives us all the grace we need, but we also don’t need to follow
in on the legalism side because you will fail at legalism and
you’ll look like a pagan if you live like a grace, a person who’s
overly enthralled with grace. So where do we want to land?
We want to land in the middle. We want to land where the Bible
says to land. We want to be perfectly balanced
as. What’s the, how do you finish
that phrase, Bennett? You want to be perfectly balanced as the Bible is balanced,
right? We don’t want a wobbly wheel over here, be pulling too
far to the right or left. We want to go straight to the
center. And so one of the things we have to understand is that
the use of God’s law, God’s law is useful in three ways, we say.
The first use is it will drive us to Christ. If you read the
Bible and you say, wow, there is a righteous God. And if I
fail in one just little bit of the law, I am dead, I’m gone,
I’m sinful. That’s what happened to Adam
and Eve. Fail, die. Obey, live. And so it drives
us to Christ. It says to us, I cannot keep
God’s law. I need one who keeps the law
for me. and who can help me in this life. And so the law of
God is a tutor, is what Martin Luther says. It’s a hammer. It
drives us to Christ. We see that we cannot fulfill
it, and so we need one who can. The second thing that the law
does is it restrains evil. I mean, how many of you know
somebody who’s not a Christian, but they will not kill? That’s a pretty common belief,
right? You don’t have to be a Christian to know that killing someone
is bad. Okay, Christians kill people and non-Christians kill
people, but we all sort of universally know killing is bad, stealing
is bad. When somebody says to you there’s no, there are no moral absolutes,
just try stealing their wallet. They’ll all of a sudden come
up with at least one. So the law drives us to Christ, we need
a law keeper. It restrains a lot of evil just
because it’s a law that is enforced. But the third use of the law,
and this is related to our sanctification, is we obey God’s commandments
because we are grateful to Christ for all that he has done. So
if somebody says to you, you’re saved, you’re justified, why
should you then keep the law of God? You can break it and
just ask for forgiveness. Yes, I may break it and ask for
forgiveness, right? but we want to keep God’s law
out of gratitude for what he’s done for us in Christ Jesus.
And then also because we’re disciples, we have new hearts, we have a
new disposition, we’ve been regenerated, we’ve left our hearts of stone
and now have hearts of flesh, the law of God is written on
our hearts, we love what God loves, our heart beats for what
he loves. And so there’s a sort of a long
way of introduction, but what is sanctification? If it is not
popping a pill, Okay, and it’s really not, so don’t go tell
everybody your pastor is prescribing Perfexil. No, we’re gonna do
it the hard way. Diet and exercise and strenuous
activity. What is sanctification? Well,
sanctification, according to the shorter catechism, is a work. Now remember, justification was
an act. But sanctification is a work of God’s free grace where
we are renewed in the whole of man. Why do we need renewal in
the whole of man? Because of Adam and Eve’s sin.
and are bent in brokenness. We are renewed in the whole of
man after the image of God. That image was given to us at
creation. It was broken by sin in the fall,
and it is being renewed in us. So you look at Adam and Eve.
They were made in the image of God, but they broke that image
when they sinned. Did any of y’all ever take a
Coke can, an aluminum can, and crush it? And then maybe get
your mouth on it and try to blow it back into place? That’s a
little bit of a way to think of the image of God. It was a
nice pristine can, and then you bent and crumpled it. And what
happens when you do fill it back with air? Do all the wrinkles
come out? Not all. And what’s happened
to the paint? It’s peeled or it’s chipped, right. So it looks
better than it did, but it is not fully yet what it shall be.
And that’s what we need to think of as Christians, is we are bent
and bruised and broken by the fall. And yes, there is some
repair of those ruins in this life, But it is not full and
final till heaven, and for our bodies it’s not full and final.
until the resurrection, but it’s a work of God’s grace where we
are renewed in the whole of man after the image of God. And,
this is by grace, we are enabled more and more to die to sin and
live to righteousness. So what is sanctification? It’s
living for righteousness and less and less for unrighteousness. And how is that possible? Well,
think of sanctification in two ways. The first way to think
of sanctification is this way. When the Bible says, about Margaret
here. Margaret is holy. Well, Glenn’s shaking his head
no, right? He’s not doing anything. He’s just smiling. Yeah, smart
man, smart man. But y’all been married long enough,
you can be honest. But when the Bible says Margaret
is holy, it is speaking of one aspect of sanctification. And
that aspect of sanctification is definite sanctification, we
call it. Margaret was unholy. Right? She was in Adam. She hated
God. She was not looking for God.
She was like Saul on the road to Damascus going to do heinous
things. But God intervened and he made
her holy. And so there is a sense where
we need to understand that positionally or with a badge on us, we are
holy people. but we are also unholy people
in process of being made holy. So we are saints and we are becoming
sanctified. There’s two ways to understand
that, is God made us holy when he saved us and he is continually
making us holy by the work of God’s free grace where he’s renewing
us in the whole of man after the image of God and enabling
us more and more to live under righteousness. to die to sin
and live to righteousness. Okay, our larger catechism expands
on the definition of sanctification. It says, sanctification is a
work of God’s grace, whereby they whom God hath, we gotta
get through all that wherebys and haths and sounds like legal
language, doesn’t it? Whereby they whom God hath before
the foundation of the world chosen to be holy, goes back to our
whole order of salvation, doesn’t it? through the powerful operation
of his spirit, applying the death and resurrection of Christ to
them. He renews them in their whole man after the image of
God, and he’s given them the seeds of repentance unto life.”
So he’s remembering that you have heard the gospel, you have
understood the gospel, and you have embraced the gospel. You’ve
seen your sin, you’ve seen God’s judgment, and you said, I want
to flee to Christ and away from my past. And it says, having
the seeds of repentance and all other saving graces put in their
hearts, and those graces so stirred up and increased and strengthened,
as that they more and more died a sin and rise to a newness of
life. So it’s a putting off the old. That’s how Paul puts it
in Colossians and other places. We continually put off the old
and put on the new. Now, like we said with Margaret,
there is a sense of, I’ve got new clothes. I’ve put away the
filthy rags, and I have new clothes, but guess what? We get those
clothes dirty again, and they need to be cleaned. They need
to be laundered. They need to be washed. And so there is a putting off
of the old and putting on the new. We are no longer old men,
like in Adam, but we are new men. We are in Christ. And so we put on those clothes.
Well, what else does sanctification Well, let’s see, let me find
another good little… We’ll get to that in just a minute.
Okay, so sanctification is a lifelong process. Until you die, you are
going to be sanctified. It’s a work of God’s grace wherein
you’re chosen to be holy, and it’s in real space and time,
and it’s through the powerful operation of the Holy Spirit.
And he’s applying to you the death and resurrection of Christ.
So it’s by virtue of what Christ has done in the past, but it’s
an ongoing work. There’s a wonderful, wonderful,
wonderful video. You can watch the video or the
audio if you’re familiar with Together for the Gospel. It’s
a gathering for ministers. And I think it was back in 2012,
Kevin DeYoung, who’s Pretty young guy in the faith, but he’s really
been used of the Lord. He gives a speech to pastors
on sanctification, and it’s a really good one. And over and against
this idea of you can just pop a pill and be sanctified, his
speech is so powerful. He says, sanctification is spirit-powered. It’s not in your own strength.
It’s gospel-driven, not pharisaical or legalism or whatever else.
It’s spirit-powered, gospel-driven, and it is faith-fueled. As in,
you’ve got to believe that God can and will work in you. Probably
some of you, at some point in your time, all of us for sure,
will go through a period and say, I don’t think I can lick
that sin. I think I am just stuck with this albatross. If I were
to jump in the sea, I would sink to the bottom. This sin so weighs
me down. And so the spirit-powered, gospel-driven, faith-fueled effort
is how we look at sanctification. It’s spirit-powered, gospel-driven,
faith-fueled effort. We have to believe that God can
overcome our sin. We have to believe that he can
speak into our lives. This growth in grace comes from
what we speak of in the difference between justification and sanctification. In our justification, Sin is
pardoned. It’s paid for, it’s done with.
But in sanctification, it’s subdued. And we speak of having remnant
flesh in us as being one of our enemies. The world, the flesh,
that remnant flesh, and the devil, it’s subdued flesh, but it’s
still there. How many of you grew up with
a wood stove or a fireplace in your house? Okay. What did you
do before bed every night? You stoked the fire up, right?
and you added some fuel, you got it going where it would burn
through the night. But in the morning, what would you find
when you open the door of the wood stove? Just coals, maybe gray
ashes. But if you just took back the
top layer of dust, what would you find? Really hot embers. And that is a wonderful way to
look at sanctification and remnant sin. I’m giving away a little
too much for one of the next weeks. But the remnant sin in
you is a real and formidable enemy. If you just push back
those ashes and reveal those hot coals and put a little fuel
on that fire and a little air to it, what’s gonna happen? It’s
gonna rage. And that’s what remnant sin is
to us. But sanctification shows us that
that sin is pardoned in justification, but it’s subdued in sanctification.
And we can have victories in our battles. Now, if you’ve lived
the Christian life long enough, you know there are ups and downs.
You have these victorious weeks and months and periods of time
where you’re living for the Lord. You’re close to God. You’re in
His word. You’re in the worship. You’re under the preached word.
You’re living large. You love the Lord. You can’t
wait to get up and read your Bible and have some coffee or
drink some tea and read your Bible at night. You can’t wait
to be with the Lord and to live His law. You eat it up. You’re
hungry. You thirst. But then there are
periods of time where you’re just lazy. Okay, and church can
wait till next week, or your Bible reading can wait because
favorite TV program’s on, or another soccer game to go to,
or you’re working 12 hours a day because, you know, it’s just
a busy time of year. Whatever it may be, and you feel
distant from the Lord, his word is not dwelling in you richly
like it ought to be. And so there are ups and downs,
but let me encourage you in this way. We always get the victory
at the end. God will have a holy people. But you can drag yourself through
the ghetto if you’re not careful. You can drag yourself through
the slums. You can drag yourself through the sewer. by making
poor choices, by quenching the Holy Spirit, by getting away
from the Word and the fellowship of the saints. You know, you
come in here at night, Sunday night, that’s pretty rich. And you go out Monday morning
and you’re still glowing because you’ve been to church. You’ve
been with God’s people. And there’s just this synergism,
there’s this energy that comes from walking with the Lord. The
Spirit blesses His ordinary means of grace. And so we may be threatened
and we may be pressed down by sin. We may be discouraged because
we’re saying, okay, Lord, here I am. I’m doing the same old
stupid old stuff. You know, kicking the cat and
hollering at the kids, right? And you just say, here I am again.
He’s expecting you to return. But you can say with great faith
and zeal, Lord, help me. Stop me. Stop me dead in my tracks. Put me on a donkey that will
ram me into the wall like Balaam. Do something drastic. But let
me encourage you also in this way, is yes, it is, what did
we say, spirit-powered, it’s the work of the spirit. It is
gospel-driven. The gospel is the only thing
that can save you and sanctify you, and it is a faith-fueled
effort. And let me land on that effort
part. This is not a 50-50 proposition
here. We said God calls us from before
the foundation of the world. We didn’t have anything to do
with it. He predestined us. He effectually calls us. He regenerates us, all that.
We get that. That’s all God, right? The fancy word is monergistic. It’s one God doing that. But we get to sanctification
and we say, well, this is synergistic. This is two of us working. This
is God and me. So it must be 50-50. No, it’s actually 100,
100. It’s all of him and all of you.
And he will do his part. The question is, will you do
your part? And it sounds very Arminian, it sounds very un-Calvinistic
to say you better get to work on your salvation. Work out your
salvation with what? Fear and trembling. Or strive
for the holiness without which no one will see God. It requires your hard work. Are
you gonna read the Bible through in a year? Are you gonna have
a little prayer time? Are you going to come to church, sit
under preaching? Are you going to take the sacraments when they’re
offered? Are you going to prepare for the sacraments before they’re
administered? What are you going to do? What’s
your battle plan? What are you going to do with your computer
when it’s causing you to sin? Are you going to chuck it in
the lake? Are you going to let it sit there and stare at you
and tempt you? What are you going to do? What’s your plan? You
see, it takes effort. It takes hard work to be holy. It’s a
manner of life to be holy and to be obedient and to be religious.
and to have our hearts inclined towards what is good. We have
a will to perform God’s law. It’s a duty, it’s a delight.
We are sons and we are not slaves, but it takes hard work. And some
of you may need reminders. And I have these little prayer
lists that I carry with me on my morning walk. I have one that’s
the Lord’s Prayer. Because if I get out on my walk,
I start looking around and say, whoa, they put new windows in
their house. There’s that dog again. Boy, look at that new
car they got. I’m so ADD. I just will enjoy the things
I see. So I get out the little card and it has the Lord’s Prayer
on it. And it helps me pray. I still look and see that people
got new windows and things like that. But you see, you gotta
figure out what works for you. Some of you can be completely
virtual and do it on your iPhone. Sometimes you listen to the audio.
But figure out what works for you. But work it out. Make a
way, make a time. You know, one of the most important
things you can do in your home is have a sacred space for sacred
time to spend with the Lord. You know, people say they have
a prayer closet or a secret place, but make a time and make a place.
I can look back and remember growing up. Every morning, my
mom was always up early. She was always cooking something.
We’d wake up to, we had eggs and grits and bacon a lot of
days. I don’t know how I’m not 300
pounds, but we did. It’s probably why I have iron overload, because
we ate out of a skillet too. Yeah, I got a fin for myself
now. And we do have bacon. Life’s
good. But I always remember waking up to that smell. But guess what
I found when I went downstairs? Not just eggs and bacon. I can remember her black King
James Bible. And it was there. And I’d look
at it. I would touch her Bible and say, wow, look at those pages.
Mom, how long have you had this Bible? Look at the, she’s highlighted
and written notes and all that. And I remember that. That was
a distinct thing. Her, her practice of holiness was before her children.
Went to church with my parents. I saw them worship. I saw them
tithe. We, we see those things, but, but it ought to be, it ought
to be real and for us in a special way that helps us grow and helps
us remember. Maybe tie a ribbon around your
neck, but make a time, make a place, take a walk, do something to
spend time with the Lord. But God promises to bless it.
The commands of scripture are always rooted in grace. God will
give you the strength to do it, but they’re always also rooted
in the realities of sin and evil and hardship and also the realities
of God and his requirement of holiness. When He says we have
to bear the fruit of the Spirit, that’s not something we can conjure
up. But as we live a godly life and He blesses it, as we strive
to be with Him in His Word, He helps us. But you cannot be passive.
You understand that? You cannot be passive in your
growth and grace. So, a couple things. Holy living
is not an accidental thing, right? Some of y’all are in business
for yourself. Some of you have jobs where you’re dependent upon
and you’re being successful is dependent on your hard work,
your plan, your efforts. The Apostle Paul likens the Christian
to the soldier who fights. The Christian is called to be
like Christ, and so it takes a lot of spirit-powered, gospel-driven,
faith-fueled effort. It’s by faith, and we should
put effort, we should lean into our sanctification. We should
work hard at it. And so here’s, let’s see, one,
two, three, four, here’s five areas I’m going to give you.
And these are not rocket science. We are people of the means of
grace. And so the first way God will
sanctify you is by your exposure to the Word of God, privately
and publicly. Privately, read the Bible to
yourself. Publicly, read it with your family. Read it in church. Hear it preached. Come to Sunday
night. Go to Sunday school. Whatever way. Listen to the radio.
Get your iPod out. Do whatever it takes to expose
yourself to the word often, but primarily to the preached word
of God. I think that’s important. But how life works best comes
from the scripture. As we heard this morning, it’s
how we see reformation in our lives. You will be spiritually
sick and weak and pale without God’s word. You’ll starve yourself.
So God’s word is something we need. We need sound teaching,
received, accepted, and applied. so that we move from being childish
to being mature. The second way we can grow in
grace is through the sacraments. God gives us signs and seals,
baptism, and the Lord’s Supper to grow us in grace. And you
say, well, I’ve already been baptized. But every time we witness a baptism,
it’s a reminder that God saved us. It’s a reminder that we are
his. We are not our own. We’ve been
bought with a price, and his seal is upon us. But every time
the Lord’s Supper is offered, you come hungry. and feed on
him. We say, what do we say? We say,
come by faith, feeding on Christ, our Passover lamb who has died
for us. And so the sacraments help us
remember and observe all that God has done. And it’s a reminder
of future grace as well. And then there’s prayer. I was
really encouraged tonight with our prayers. Just that God is
calling to our minds things that we need to be putting before
him. It’s communion with God. It’s conversation with God. We
pray out loud sometimes. We pray moment by moment. We
pray as we see things. But I encourage you to pray often.
Pray with and for others. We pray the scripture back to
God. If you need a help, I didn’t
bring one, but there’s a wonderful little book called, it’s by Matthew
Henry. I think a 16th century Puritan.
It’s called A Way to Pray, and it has been updated by O. Palmer
Robertson, I believe, and it uses the ESV as its text. But these are scriptural prayers
that we can pray back to God, and it has all these occasions
and certain needs, and it helps us pray the appropriate scripture
for it. So let me encourage you. You
can actually get it sent if you sign up for it. You can get it
sent to your daily email inbox, and it gives you a way a way
to pray as it’s called. So prayer is important. And then
fellowship, we live the Christian life alone. No, I meant together. Fellowship is a means of grace.
We encourage one another, we sharpen one another. Remember
this past summer when we talked about the aspect of community
in our desires for a church. One of the strong aspects of
community is not to get around and talk about how wonderful
it is that Duke beat Virginia Tech in four overtime yesterday,
as wonderful as that was. That’s not sanctifying. I mean,
that’s exciting, but it’s not sanctifying. So what do we do
when we’re together? How is your struggle against the world and
the flesh and the devil? Or how’s it going taking care
of your mom? You know, I know it’s difficult.
Or how’s it going with that child of yours who’s a pain in the
rear end right now? How’s it going with your difficult
work situation? We enter into each other’s lives And we speak
God’s word of encouragement to each other. But also sometimes
we come and we say, Margaret, I’ve seen you. And that’s not
godly. And what does Margaret say? You’re
right. I’m sorry. You know, fellowship is often
for growth and grace. And so we encourage one another,
but we sometimes have to rebuke one another and walk together
in the word. But we are devoted to one another
in special ways of fellowship. that no club, no social activity
in the world can help. Now there’s a fifth aspect or
way that we can grow in grace and that is through suffering.
We don’t like to suffer. We don’t like hardship. We don’t
like to see our bodies ache and the cells do whatever they do
in our bodies. We don’t like to be sick. We
don’t like bad hearts and weak knees and cancer. We don’t like
all that. We don’t like car wrecks. We don’t like Financial ruining.
We don’t like any of that thing, but guess what God is doing in
those things? He’s got his megaphone and he
is yelling and he is calling for your attention. Put your
eyes on me. Not on your 401k. Not on whether
your body is fully functional or not. Not on whether or not
people like you. Put your eyes on me. It doesn’t
matter what’s going on in the world. Put your eyes on me. And
suffering, as James says, can lead us to great grace. The man,
blessed is the man who persecutes, perseveres under trial for when
he has stood the test. And so we stand through the fire. And what does the fire do? It
removes the impurities. And so we welcome suffering. It sounds sort of sick to say
that, doesn’t it? But we welcome suffering because we know God’s
purposes in it. And it is a wonderful thing.
So let me encourage you, think on these things. Get a study
Bible if you need one. But take time with the Lord. Take time to lead yourself to
our great God. We’re gonna end by singing a
song called Take Time to Be Holy. It’s number 442 in your hymnal. And let’s stand together as we
sing that song.