Great Doctrines of Salvation, Sanctification

I'll share something that was kind of deep this week. I'm laying in bed at 3 o'clock in the morning and I can't sleep thinking about all the craziness going on in life and how I can solve this and solve that. So I started thinking through this list we've been going through, all these terms. I was thinking about them and bang, you know, about 30 minutes I drop off my piece. That's cool. I was going to say it made you so bored you couldn't Isn't that interesting? I mean, I think there's a lot to be said for that.

You know, there's a fella in Arkansas that I talk to once a week who's my age. retired Vietnam vet, worked for the same company for 30 years and then they fired him right when the pension was about to come due. And he's a dear brother in the Lord and is involved in a church and stuff. And he's having, he shared with me this week, he has anxiety attacks in the middle of the night. I said, you know, you live in a little dinky town in Arkansas.

No stress. What are you anxious about? And he starts listing them. It depends on whose ox is getting gored. How's he going to make it from here to there with the money he has or doesn't have? How about the guys in the jail that he's ministering to? Are they going to pay attention and learn something? He's so concerned about them. That kind of stuff.

One of those 25 cent Christian words that in the back of your mind I'm sure you think means something other than what it really means. I kind of liked how the author went through and started with the synonyms. And so I ask you to list seven words that have the same root meaning as sanctification. Alright, give me one. What's that? Saint. Saint? Give me another one. Holy. Give me another one. According to the author, if you didn't study, which is okay with me, you can turn to the second paragraph of the page and they'll list them there for you.

But consecrate, dedicate, holiness, All of those are synonyms or similar words to the word sanctification. So what do you think sanctification means? What does it mean? It means to be set apart. To God. For what purpose? so that you can become sinlessly perfect. Why? If it just means to be set apart, so what did God do? He picked you up and moved you over to this chair and said, I'm setting you apart. Why would he do such a thing?

So sanctification is, and the author goes through quite a few sentences and viewpoints because what are some of the things that sanctification isn't? What it isn't is probably as instructive as to what it is. What isn't it? The first thing he says. Sinless perfection. Now don't you have in your mind, well maybe not you guys, you're too smart. Don't you have it in your mind that sanctification is some sort of process where you're going to become perfect and sin less? Or you're becoming more perfect.

I don't know, but that's definitely what I've always thought of. I think we just naturally think that way, you know, or there was a guy in our Tuesday group He laughs every time he says that. He said, I've learned since I've come to this group not to think of myself as getting better. Because we criticize him every time he says that. But don't we think like that?

I mean, why do you go and get yourself educated so you might be better, smarter? You know, why do you exercise? do the things that you do to improve yourself, right? And so we have this viewpoint that comes with the old sin nature, that what sanctification really is, is improving something about me that needs it. You know? What can be associated with the growth? The growth by the Holy Spirit? But it isn't that. Yeah, it's not the self-improvement society. It's not as sinless perfection.

And the verses that he quotes is John 17, 19. Which, by the way, for those of you who don't know, John 17 is the real Lord's Prayer. He says, sanctify them by or through your truth. Your word is truth. So being set apart is done by the Word of Truth.

In 1 Peter 2.22, 2 Corinthians 5.21, He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. When you are set apart, does that mean that He just took you and put you over here? When you get set apart, really what happens? In Christ. That's right. You get set apart in Christ. So that identification truths are actually involved with sanctification. You see that? How about moral improvement? You guys are all into that, aren't you? You used to go to X-rated movies, now you go to R-13s or whatever they are. Now you drink light beer.

John 10.36 says, Do you say of him whom the Father sanctified, and sent into the world you are blaspheming because I said I am the Son of God." The point being there that the Lord Jesus says that He was sanctified by the Father. He was set apart by the Father and sent into the world. So Christ Himself has been and was sanctified, in other words set apart, in this case for a task. Is sanctification salvation?

First Corinthians 7.14 For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife.

What in the heck does that mean? How could an unbelieving husband or an unbelieving wife be sanctified by their believing spouse? And consequently their children too. How could that be? Does that mean that the non-believing spouse is saved just because the husband is or wife is? The answer is no. But what does that actually mean? I'm looking around here and I don't see anybody that's married to or in a relationship with somebody who isn't a believer. But trust me, there's a lot of people that are in that circumstance. Their non-believing spouse has been sanctified.

What does that mean? You don't know? Come on, guess. They've been set apart. What have they been set apart? If the believing spouse has been set apart, by the way, does it not go to how valuable God thinks of marriage? Even to the point where if you're a non-believing spouse that God sets you apart because your believing spouse is? So what has he done?

I think that they have extra grace to know him. I think they're given extra grace to be a part of this family because the believing person belongs to him. There's one other aspect too, and that's right. The other aspect is this, is that if you look at the rest of that verse, otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy." So, what's the purpose of setting apart a believer, non-believer in marriage? Is it for them? It can be. According to the verse, what's the primary focus here? On the kids. On the children.

I don't think it's any accident that, like my son, was born into my family, a family of believers. He was certainly chosen of God before the foundations of eternity to be our son, just like Matt, just like your children. I didn't grow up in a Christian family.

But God had all of that in play. Obviously, that particular person that's in your family is there and set apart because of the work of God. He did it all. And so if he's going to set apart the children, it's interesting he sets apart the parents even though one of them may not be a believer. sets him apart for his own purposes and what he wants to carry out. It's amazing that God would be that gracious.

It's interesting, I heard this theory that people in the periphery of believers, even relatives, You know, the verse goes to just family, so I don't know. I come from a pretty large family, lots of brothers and sisters and stuff. I used to think that, but as time goes on, I think it's restricted to your family. Maybe your parents, but I'm not sure it extends to your siblings. I'm starting to talk about a little too much grace. No, I don't. I don't mean that. Yeah, I know. No, no, I understand what you're saying. Right away you get into this discussion about grace and more grace, extra grace.

Well, you can't talk about grace without understanding that it is totally unlimited. You can't measure it. The only way it's measured in the Word of God is that where sin did abound, grace did much more abound. Grace is the thing that is overwhelming all the time, never stops.

So sanctification is, if you come out of Catholicism, trust me, boy they got grace categorized. And they have a certain thing called sanctifying grace. that there's a special sort of commodity called sanctifying grace that sets, of course they think like the Methodists do, that sanctification is perfection. They don't think of it as being set apart. But they have grace, if you pull into the gas station of grace, they have different brands, different octane levels for different things. Let's say that's the way they think of it.

Depending on how much you give, it depends. They're going to get to move up to premium or not. So I want you to I want you guys to to chat. I'm challenging you to respond to these questions. I said explain in each case why those meanings aren't correct. And the first one was. And John 17, 19. And why isn't sinless perfection what sanctification is? Why isn't it that? I thought we were not with it this morning. Sinless perfection.

We have that in our position in Christ. But in this world, we still have that as sin nature and it's never going to happen even though we are set apart to God and Christ. That's good. However, what's the argument the author makes about this that I think is convincing? If Christ was sanctified, If sinless perfection is the definition, then you have to say, well there was a time that Christ was sinful and that he became perfect and sinless as he was sanctified. That's a very convincing argument because we've been sanctified by him and in him and we've quoted you know, John 17, 19, that the Lord Jesus was sanctified, right? So if you took that argument, you would have to say that the Lord Jesus was improvable.

Do you see that? And there's the one-time thing, sanctification, right? In association with Christ, it's a placement, it's not a process. Well, and we'll get to that, because there's issues of position and condition. Everybody understand the question? Actually, we can address it now. The author talks about we've been sanctified, we're being sanctified, and we will be. So, you know, the best, let's hold that until we, a couple of questions down the road, because actually that makes for a really good discussion. Sin was not the question in terms of sanctification.

That's right. So, is every true believer in Christ sanctified? Or are there some who, though saved, have never been sanctified? If you look at 1 Corinthians chapter 1, it says, Paul called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God and Sothenes, our brother, to the church of God as in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus. That's the key. The sanctification is in the setting apart as in Christ Jesus. You see that? Only Him. before or after salvation? Yeah, that's the answer. That's the answer. Yeah.

Because, I mean, obviously God in His infinite wisdom already has set us apart to a certain degree. I'm just wondering how it works. I mean, do we work to become sanctified? We don't, right? It's just completely with our position. It's just God sanctifies us the moment we are saved, but they're not... You know, it's interesting because if the author begins to talk about at the end of the chapter that you were sanctified before you even existed. I mean, God had it in his mind, you know, and when we, especially, you know, next week we're going to talk about election. You start moving election into the issue of sanctification, then when were you sanctified?

From God's perspective. What's interesting, and probably difficult for us to get a handle on, I think, is that to look at things from God's perspective. He's an eternal being, so there's no beginning or end. He doesn't think sequentially like we think. We think 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. God doesn't think like that. He thinks all thought, all truth, all knowledge, all in play, right now. So when He knows somebody in Christ, that's right now.

In our frame of reference, we've got to plug in the timeline. But there is no timeline with God. There is no timeline in eternity. I like how your dad says it, we think, well gee, eternity is stretching out. He says it's a compaction of everything to now. That makes more sense to me than stretching it out.

So in terms of sanctification, we'll find out next week, when it comes to election, guess when you got sanctified? That's right. And when we get to foreknowledge we'll talk a lot about that. So every single believer has been sanctified at the very moment, in this context, at the very moment that they believe because they were placed in Christ and they are called saints.

One of the cool things that Vern instituted a few years ago, when he first came around, he started writing, when he would write you emails, he would address you as St. Mike, or St. Steve, or St. Craig. And the environment I come from, being a saint is a big deal. You've got to go through this process. You know, the Catholics are, boy. To become a saint. Well, if the definition of saint and sanctification are the same, then the moment you believe, guess what? I'll put all those cool robes on you, paint pictures of you, stick you up there. You're a saint.

How long did it take you to figure out he was directing the email to you? Right after the word saint was my name, I figured he was talking to me. So we've already concluded in the answer to question six is what? Now this is the hardest question of the day, yes or no is the answer. No. Sanctification does not automatically mean salvation because spouse and that kind of thing. So are we sanctified because of anything we've accomplished or anything we are? We're sanctified only because we're in Christ.

And the verses that he uses, which I think are verses that we should spend some time on. 1 Corinthians 1.30.

And then we'll go to 1 Jude and then Hebrews 3.1.

Anyway, 1 Corinthians 1.30. Somebody read it.

But of him are ye in Christ Jesus? who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Isn't that interesting? So it's of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, not of you, right? And because you are in Him, because you are positioned in Him and sanctified in Him, there's these other cool things that Corinthians says that are true of you. wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.

Now, we've been through all of those, haven't we? Haven't we studied every one of those terms? So, let's just see. Steve was up thinking about this the other night. We'll just see if he got it right. So, of Him, you're in Christ Jesus, and so therefore, you are righteous. What does that mean? You have a right standing before God because you're sanctified. What does redemption mean? It means to be bought back. Bought back out of bondage. So, by being in Christ, all of these things are true of the believer instantly, the minute that they are placed in Christ.

Jude 1, Jude a bondservant of Jesus Christ, and a brother of James, to those who are called, sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ." Has there ever been a verse in the Bible that talks about, settles you down on security like that one does? How can you argue with that verse when it comes to you are called You're sanctified or set apart by God, the Father, and not only that, you're preserved in Christ Jesus. So if you had nothing to do with getting into your sanctification, what can you do to screw it up? Probably I should have used a better term on the tape. What can you do to mess it up? Nothing. Okay.

Hebrews 3.1. I really like this verse.

Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest of your confession, Christ Jesus. Listen to what the writer of Hebrews says to believers who come out of Judaism and think about how they would think of this. Therefore, holy brethren.

Do you think a Jew would ever think of himself as being holy? Never happened. I mean, he was, you know, scraping up enough money to buy the next bull, you know, because of his sinfulness. And he's a brethren. And then, he's a partaker of the heavenly calling. You think a Jew would say, oh yeah, no problem. That's how I think. No. As a matter of fact, they think totally the other way. And then he says this, consider The apostle and high priest of our salvation. What do you think that word consider means? Think on? Ponder?

It's not the same word. Let me give you the example. that when we studied this on Thursday night, in the Thursday night class that night was Katie and Laban and Penelope. And Penelope at that point was how old? Three months? Something like that. So I said, how keenly aware are you two of every single move that Penelope makes?

Every sound that she utters, every bodily function, every time she moves her eyebrows, her hands, smiles, doesn't smile, and the answer is obvious. They have logged into their minds every single move of this little creature since the day she shows up on the planet, right?

That's what consider means. And the point here, the exhortation to the Jews is that your focus on the Lord Jesus Christ should be total and complete all the time. Consider. That's what that word means. Consider Jesus Christ. He's the Apostle and High Priest of your confession.

What I really liked about that verse is that it takes, especially if you're writing to people who are the most religious people on the planet, the Jews, who have become Christians, and you want to wean them away from their religion to the person of Christ, how would you do it? you would say, why don't you pay attention, keenly attention to this one who is your High Priest and who is the one that you believe in, Him personally. Well, I could say the same thing in 2006. We are so religious that it takes a while for us to realize that, wait a minute, what God has done is brought us into this position of sanctification and nearness to Christ so that we can do what?

We can consider Him I mean, what a privilege we have, being set apart. To do what? To consider him. You see that? That's why he set us apart, so we could consider his son. We could say, like Katie and Laban can say, oh, I know every move. I know every nuance about this person. I can anticipate. I know them so well, because that's how I watch and learn and pay attention. Isn't that cool? So, now we'll get to Craig's issue. Are there three tenses? There are three tenses to sanctification in the Word. What are they? And I gave you some verses to look up. The first one, there's a past tense.

Which Hebrews 10.10, we have been eternally set apart to God when we believe by the work of Christ on the cross.

Hebrews 10.10, by His will. Somebody else read it.

Hebrews 10.10. By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. So it's a past tense thing. It's already been done. Right? According to that verse. Verse 14 says, For by one offering he has perfected forever those who are being sanctified.

Now it's interesting. What principle has got to come into play in order to understand these three tenses? What principle? position and condition, right? You've got to understand position and condition in order for these things to make sense. So positionally, every believer was perfected and set apart by God at the very moment that they believed. Now, the next tense is the present sense. There's a constant and daily, we are called to a holy life or to a set apart life.

The verse I gave you was, or a couple of them, is 1 Thessalonians 4.3. Somebody else read that one. So that's in the present tense that your will of God right now is to be set apart and abstain from these things.

1 Peter 1.15. Somebody in the back row. One Peter, one fifteen.

Do you have that book in your Bible? No. But like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior. Okay, now that doesn't sound like position set-apartness positionally past tense, does it? It's an exhortation to do it now. Okay. Then the $64 question is, how does it happen? You've been exhorted to be set-apart. We found out that positionally it was something that God did. But here's the exhortation for you. How do you do it? Be ye holy, for I am holy.

Oh boy. Now you're thinking, well I can be set apart, maybe, not a big problem, I can abstain from sexual immorality, no big deal. But then comes the bar. And what's the bar? Be holy as I am holy. Whoops. How do that happen? How does that happen? If there's the exhortation to you to be holy, based on your position, then what's your involvement in it? This isn't a recommendation, by the way. Before rest. Reckon. Tell me what reckon is. Count the facts. You count them and what do you do? You believe them to be true. Your whole job Your whole responsibility is to believe, right? Does that mean if you believe, God owes you something?

Why not? He said, if I believed Him, I would stop believing. Come on. I've fulfilled my end of the bargain. Why isn't faith the fulfilling of your end of the bargain? What do you think? Romans 4, I think it's 15. It's a one-sided deal, right? Why wouldn't commit be the exhortation? Romans chapter 4, I'll get there in a minute. I'm on a torn page, I should know. Verse 16. Just the first part of it.

And what he's talking about is a justification apart from the works of the law. And so here's what he says. Therefore, it is of faith that it might be by grace. There is nothing from your calling to your glorification that isn't by grace. Everything is by grace. So grace being God's unlimited and unmerited favor towards you.

And not only is it not a commodity, because that's how we think of it, right? We think it's, oh, you know, 45 gallons of grace. What is grace trading on the board of options today? How much is it? Grace is an environment or operating principle or system that we live in. Grace means that God is coming at us with himself and with his grace, unlimitedly, totally unmerited by you.

Steve, you could wake up this morning and think about that one for the rest of the day because it's one of those things like, wow. So God says, here's what I want you to do. I want you to believe me. So faith is the only operation that a man can do that fits under this principle of grace. It's your whole involvement. And another word for your response to grace in faith is thank you. What else can you say? When God says I've set you apart and you say thank you, in that phrase thank you, you believe him, don't you?

So to live in that kind of an environment, so is that the modus operandi with which this conditional sanctification goes on? Is that the bubble we live in? Is that how it works? What do you think? Is that the principle under which and in which we live as Christians? Is everything done based on the principle of grace and faith? Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Now, it's very easy for us to look around and see if God has given us some instructions, some other things He wants us to do, that we somehow can think that we're responsible.

Do you understand what I mean by that? When you get a handle on the fact that you live totally in this gracious stream Any of you guys trout fishermen? You are? Now I've got to explain trout fishing. What you find in a river, the river flows this way. Guess what way the fish are facing? This way. Why? Because the food comes down the river from this way.

And the trout are smart. They don't need to chase anything. They just need to sit there and wait for it to come to them. And they open up their mouth and eat it, right? Is that grace? Yeah, that's how grace is. So we live in this environment where everything comes at us and we're not chasing anything. What do we do? We believe God. As the grace comes down the river, we believe.

And so therefore, you are conditionally or presently being sanctified or set apart. So what does that look like? If you were conditionally more set apart today than you were six months ago, what does that look like? You could say, well, I'm more holy than I was then.

Can you say that? No, so what's the process? What's going on? Well, I probably didn't ask that clear enough. In the present tense of being sanctified, what makes you presently more sanctified than you were six months ago? What is it about you that's different? There you go. Do you see that? You're more conformed to the sanctified one than you were six months ago.

So it's him. God's business is to conform you to the image of Christ. Conditionally, day by day. Right? What he's up to. Romans 8.28 and 29. And so if that's what he's up to, and you know that that's what he's doing, then you know what the goal is and what the work on his part is all about. You know what he's doing and why he's doing it.

And that everything in your life is coming at you graciously from that perspective. There's never any thought of punishing you. There's never any thought of, well, we've got to exercise him a little more so he's got stronger spiritual muscles. There's none of that. It's to conform you to the image of Christ. You alright with that? Okay. So, sanctification is also in the future tense.

And Ephesians 5.25, 26 and 27. Yeah. Somebody read that. These are tremendous verses. Somebody who hasn't read. Erlene, you're so easy. She knows all these verses by heart. She doesn't have to look them up. She really is.

Ephesians 5, 25, 6, and 7. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her, so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing with water of the word, that he might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing. but she would be holy and blameless. Okay, again, that goes to what he's doing, but isn't it interesting that at a point in time you're going to be presented to Christ by Christ, holy and without blemish. Okay, now, having that in place, how do I say this? When you graduate out of this planet. Where do you go? Purgatory, right? Where do you go? Face to face, to be absent from the body, to be at home with the Lord.

Now, if you plug in here, 2 Corinthians 3.18, which is my favorite verse in the Bible, it says that beholding as in a mirror, The glory of the Lord.

This is the mirror. What happens? I am being transformed or conformed into the very image of Christ. And the Spirit of God is doing that. So if I leave this planet and the next person that I come face to face with is the Lord Jesus Christ with no sin nature, guess what happens to me? I'm just like Him. I'm just like him. So, the cool thing that God has done in past, present, and future in terms of sanctification, it's all aimed at and all concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. So consider Him. Who is your sanctification? You see that? So, sanctification isn't a bunch of spiritual push-ups, isn't trying to act like a good Christian or whatever, doing a bunch of good deeds. It's none of those things. It's being conformed to the image of Christ. And that process is going on every single day in your life because, positionally, you already have been placed in Him. And God only looks at you that way now. He only sees you in Christ.

So, in the verses that we just quoted, what I asked was, is which of the above are positional and which are conditional? And the reason I ask that is because I think it's really important as you study the three aspects or the three tenses of sanctification, to realize what's positional and what isn't.

What's conditional? In past, present, and future, which one of those would be positional? How about present? How about future? I may think it's position. I may think it's condition. I may think it's both. It is both. What's that? Yeah, your condition will be, you know, we put those terms on it which makes it sound academic, but think of it in this term.

I'm going to be exactly like Christ in every respect. There will be nothing about me that isn't like Him. So therefore, how do you think the Father will approach me? I'm going to approach Him. If you realize in your heart that the Lord Jesus Christ is the most valuable thing in all of ever to the Father, then if you're exactly like Him, how valuable are you?

So now you're a son. Think about what God has done through Christ and by placing us in Him. It's overwhelming. It just is overwhelming. Let's see. So how does our everyday practical progressive sanctification work? Now, the reason I'm doing this is because I have a conversation with the author. What does the author say is the key? What does he say is the key? The last, I think it's the second to last paragraph.

He places the entire thing on yielding. So if you don't yield, nothing happens. By the way, what does the word yield mean? So if you don't present, you don't get any of this. Would you say that yielding or presenting is a synonym of believing? What do you think? If I had gone like that, would you have said yes? What do you think? Do you think one is incorporated into the other? Yes. You can't do the latter without the former. What's the motive? This goes to motive. The author says yielding is what you do. I say it's believing. But what's the motive? What would motivate you to just present yourself to Christ?

You know, Romans 12.1, present yourself a living sacrifice unto God, holy and acceptable, which is your reasonable service. Why would you do such a thing as that? What's that?

It's exactly right. You do that kind of thing, you respond to that exhortation because of the grace, not because of the order. Not because you're commanded to do it, but the motivator in your heart is grace. You see that? And it isn't so that you can gain, it's because you already have gained. Do you see that? So if your Christian life or your growth process is, well, gee, I've read this stuff and here's something for me to gain conditionally, and I'm going to respond, no, no, no, you've just made a lot of it. Do you see that?

But if your response is based on the fact that, wow, look what I already have, it's overwhelming, and God says, you know, present yourself to me, as those that are alive from the dead, your reasonable response to my grace is to do this. Well, you don't have any trouble doing that. Do you see what I mean?

It's a response to the grace of God. If you've been set apart and you understand that graciously, and you begin to get a handle on the overwhelming unmerited grace that God is sending towards you, do you have any problems As Vern says, a gracious moral imperative or logical imperative is a problem. Because the grace is the motivator. You're laughing. She knows the answer. What is it? What does keep... even if you got the knowledge. What keeps you back?

Unbelief. Even if you're presented with the facts. If you don't believe them, you're not going anywhere. Donna? Well, I might even say it further than that. Unbelief is for you. You have to believe it for you. It's just believing it. I mean, you can do that for a long time and never know the Lord. Did everybody hear what Donna said? She says it's you believe it for you.

It's true of you. The great thing about Christianity is it's not corporate, it's personal. You see, when the Lord comes and says, present yourself to me, he doesn't mean Holly Hills Bible Church, although he would. He means you. You individual. You're my son.

Dear Father, how we thank you for your grace and the fact that you've set us apart permanently for all eternity for your good use, which is so magnificent, Father, so that we might grow in the knowledge and grace of your Son and be able to manifest what you've already done. We pray in your Son's precious name. Amen.