Sanctified - what is the believer's part?

This morning we're going to pick up with a continuation of the topic of sanctification. Last week we looked at the process that God is involved in as far as sanctification, and the week before that we just looked at sanctification in general, what the process is. So, what is God doing was last week, and what is the believer doing, what is the believer's part in sanctification, is this week.

So, yeah, it's just these here. I don't I think this is last week. Yes, ma'am. Yep. So what we're going to do is just start with with reviewing last week a little bit. I'm big on the review factor. And so I think that it'll help us all to kind of get back onto the right page. This is yeah, this is last week. And then last week has four pages. This week actually has five, even though the footnote is incorrect. So let's just go ahead and start there at the top of the notes for this week.

In the previous lesson, Sanctified, What is God Doing?, last week we focused on the positional truths of the believer as God views us from his perspective. Our basis for being sanctified, and we use the term separated, I mentioned that sanctified is a good word.

It's just not a word that we use very common in everyday language. And so I asked last week, how often have you used the word sanctified this week? Unless you're talking about this lesson in particular, or talking to someone who actually understands what you're meaning, the term is not one that we use often. So the idea of separation or being set apart does seem to hit home a little bit better.

But we talked about our basis for being sanctified or separated is grounded in the very nature and the character of God himself. And we learned that the term holy is used interchangeably with this word. So we looked in the scripture and we said if you really want to understand sanctification, you're going to need to study the word holy, sanctify, sanctification, separated, this whole idea of separation. And even the word saints, those words are, depending upon the context, often the same words and just translated differently based on the context. And so we kind of took this idea of sanctification, and where it was a very narrow focus, we broadened out our understanding of it and realized that this idea is all throughout Scripture.

And it starts in the very, very first verse of the Scripture. When we looked at how God is holy, or how He is sanctified, which was the topic of last week, we learned two things. First of all, God is totally separated from all that He created. And we recognized, just through some questions and answers last week, how without the scripture, the very first thing you're going to do is deny that separation of God from the creation, and immediately bring Him down to where?

To your level. That's right. The creature level. So the very first idea is forget sanctification. Forget separation. Forget the idea that God is unique and different and holy and separate. He's just like us. He's just maybe a little bit more capable. We use the analogy of Dr. God and Mr. Man. He's still on a created level. He's just got a little bit more of a capability than we do.

But that's the way the world views God. you know, listened and focused on any of the teachings surrounding God that are outside of the scripture, you'll see it instantly. I mean, the idea of Buddhism, Hinduism, evolutionary humanism, all of these concepts that are any organized or not organized are going to immediately take God from the creator reality and put him into the creature reality. It's limiting. It's what idolatry is made out of.

It's whittling God down to a finer version, a finite version, so that you can understand Him a little better. And we all struggle with this ability to recognize God as the Creator and ourselves as the creature. That's what we call the Creator-creature distinction, and that's where it all started. And so we looked at that last week, and we identified that God sanctifies or separates Himself. It's His very nature to be separate from His creation. But does that mean he's not personally involved? Not at all. He is 100% personally involved with his creation, but he is not a part of his creation. He is separate and unique.

He is holy. We looked at Isaiah, and we said when Isaiah encountered the God, he said what? Three times. Holy, holy, holy. And we said we could say it separated, separated, separated. Isaiah's impression of God was one-of-a-kind, totally different, totally sanctified from all that I've ever known or seen. You are unique. You are one-of-a-kind. Holy, holy, holy. Second of all, we looked at how God is totally separated from all that is sinful. We realized that in the very incident of the fall, God separates himself from sin. He makes a distinction between His holy, righteous character and the character that Adam and Eve now took on by believing a creature.

And notice, what was it that Satan did in the very first opportunity that he had? What did Satan want to do that God put bounds around? What was Satan's desire, ultimately? To be like That's right, to transcend the creature distinction and the creator distinction and become like the creator. He ultimately wanted to be like the creator. And so what did he tempt Adam and Eve with as well? The exact same opportunity. Don't worry about this whole sanctification concept where God is different and separated from us, His character is unique, one of a kind, you can be just like Him. Forget sanctification. Forget separation.

And this is where we don't use the term sanctification, but it's rooted in the same idea. that is set-apart, unique, holy. Now we need to move forward into a New Testament concept of that as believers, but that comes in today's lesson, but we need to get ourselves grounded in the truth of sanctification as it relates to God and His character. So I say, behind all forms of sanctification or separation is the reality that God Himself is separate, set apart, and holy. Having this foundation, we can more easily transition into how God intends us to be separated. And we look at 1 Thessalonians 4, 7.

For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification. So we're called to sanctification. We're called to being separate. While sin separates the believer from God, here we see that God has not called us to impurity, but to separation or holiness. God has literally called us to be separated unto Himself. He has called us to be saints.

And that's that 1 Corinthians 1-2 passage where we see the Corinthians being called saints. Remember the word saint means a holy, set-apart, separated person. So in your mind, one of the things that I didn't want to have happen is that you all of a sudden take this idea of sanctification and you narrow it down to this one single thing that God's doing after the cross. for the believer.

He's been sanctifying himself from the very beginning. He sanctifies days. It says that he sanctifies the Sabbath day. Sets it apart. Calls it holy. Says rest on it. He sanctifies things in the temple. And as we move forward, we see that God's character is just becoming more and more known to us as we see him sanctifying believers in the New Testament period, which is what we're going to get to today. Holly, you had a question? I did, but I think you're going to answer this.

I was just wondering If Adam and Eve, before they sinned, were joined with God, would He still be separated? Separate from His creation, but not separate from sin because sin didn't exist in the human realm. It did exist in the angelic realm, didn't it? Before Adam and Eve, had God separated Himself from the angelic realm who chose sin? Satan and the third, right? So He had made that separation. Where did He cast them down to? They left heaven and their domain became the earth, which is where they still reign. A limited reign, mind you. but yet they have that reign.

So he had already separated himself from sin before Adam and Eve. However, that did not exist for Adam and Eve until they made the choice to partake of the sin nature and acquire that for all of us, unfortunately. So, no, he had not separated himself from Adam and Eve in the term of sin, but he was separate in term of being the creator. So we're all called to be saints, but where does that start? We hardly feel like saints most days.

This is where we learned of being a saint from a positional perspective. That was last week. We discussed in our previous lesson that when a person places their faith in the facts of the gospel message, God separates that believer positionally in heaven. Through Christ, we are once and for all set apart for God. And this is why we are called saints, because that is what we are in God's sight. Because we have the complete and sufficient sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ applied to our sin debt, we are declared righteous, holy.

And I can't overemphasize this reality. The rest of this lesson will not matter if you don't first begin with the truth of who you are in Christ positionally. And remember, we talked about this last week, and I'll just review it really quick, that we all walk around, we're born with a sin debt. And on the debt side, we've got nothing but sin, and sin's consequences are? Eternal death.

And that's what you've got. And that's how God views you positionally. Until you, in the time that God has brought you the gospel, you made a decision to trust the content of the gospel, and at that moment God said, your certificate of debt now receives a full payment, and that payment is not your own, it's not your own works, it's the works of Christ himself. And it's paid in full. And so now on the side of the credit, you no longer have just a huge long sin debt that results in eternal death. You now have eternal life paid in full.

The full righteousness of Christ is on your account. This is how God sees the believer on day one that they believe. On day one. And this is why you're a saint on day one. You're a saint because of the righteousness of Christ. He looks at you and he sees Christ's righteousness on your account. You're a saint.

And we talked about how last week that there's a lot going on in the news about the idea of the Pope becoming a saint and having to do and perform certain things even after his death, going back and verifying certain works of his own in order to make him a saint.

Not so in the Scripture. Not so for us as believers of the Scripture. We are saints because of Christ's work on the cross for us. So now we're saints positionally, what about saints conditionally? And I asked last week, how many of us feel sanctified today? I could ask us today, how many of us feel like saints this morning driving to church? Feelings have their place, but not in our understanding of being a saint, not positionally. But let's move to the conditional understanding of that.

Before we do that, let's read 2 Corinthians 5.21.

This is why we're saints. He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in... Are we righteousness of God? Yes, because we're in Christ. And that is something we can hang our hats on, guys. That's something that we can come and we can sit here with all the stains of frustration and sin that we were partakers of throughout the week. We can still recognize positionally that when we stand before God, we are standing in the righteousness of Christ. And that is what motivates us to live conditionally as we're going to see today.

We have a motivation factor. But positionally speaking, we're not earning sainthood. Like in so many situations and in so many religions, we are actually already given that term, sanctified, 100% set apart for God's holy purpose. You are a saint. You are holy. You have the full righteousness of Christ applied to your account.

So if you don't understand that, the rest of what I'm going to say doesn't matter. Because the motivation is going to be wrong. Let me ask you this. If you don't understand your position in Christ as a saint, and you want to acquire that position, What are you going to do? Work it out. Right. That's right. You're going to leave here today.

You're going to go through those doors and you're going to start asking yourself, what can I do to earn God's favor? What can I do to be separated? I can be holy. I can be a saint so that God looks at me and somehow weighs it all out and I get, you know, the good out of this deal.

That's what you ended up with. You've got some kind of karma working where you've got to do the right thing so that the right thing happens to you. That's not the issue. Let's go over on page 2 there, the believer's calling. I want us to be very, very clear what we are called to do from our perspective. Are we called to have the full righteousness of Christ in our own works? No. We're called to believe so that we have that applied to our account. But what are we called to from the position of our... I said that in a little bit of a confusing way. What are we called to from a conditional perspective? Let's read. Having the positional truth in full view, we need to bring the focus to the believer's responsibility of living a separated life. God's expectation of the believer is that he or she live like saints in this world. He expects us to live like saints.

And the very first thing that goes in your mind is, yeah but. Yeah but. Okay, and everybody's got one. God says, I expect you to live like a saint, the saint that I called you to be. Yeah but. Okay, let's deal with the yeah buts. Let's deal with those challenges in our heart that prevent us from living like the saints that we already are from a positional perspective. I think this is where most believers, including myself, get bogged down.

I've spent a lot of years circling around in this little area. And if you're anything like me, you've got, okay, position. God, I got it. I understand who I'm supposed to be in heaven, and since that can't change, I'm good with that. Thank you so much. I will definitely not forget that until I start to realize how difficult it is to be a saint in the world today, and this thing right now is getting in my way. And all of a sudden, position leaves our mind, and condition overwhelms the position.

And where do we go? Rogue. Boop. There we go. I tell my kids that too. We go rogue. We get our mind set on our own issues instead of what the Lord has said, and then boom, we go. So that's what we're dealing with today. The scripture is very, very clear about our responsibility.

Here's what I don't want you to do, guys. Here's what I don't want myself to do. I don't want us to say, well, it's impossible, so forget the responsibility. I'll just hang my hat on the position. I'm done. I'm just going to hang my hat on the position that I'm fully a saint in heaven, I've got the full righteousness of Christ supplied in my account, and I'm just going to go for that. I'm just going to go ahead and let that be what it is, because the rest of it, the responsibility is just too great.

Listen to Ephesians 4.1, I therefore a prisoner for the Lord, this is Paul speaking, urge you, these believers in Ephesus, to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. I urge you to walk in a manner that's worthy. Paul is saying to these believers, I want you to walk according to your calling. Let's talk about that a little bit. This verse calls our attention to God's calling on the believer's life. Is this a calling that's on your life? Yes, it is. Have you ever wondered what your calling was?

I've heard a lot about this. There's a lot of confusion in the Christian church about what believers can be called to do, and I personally feel that the term is often used too loosely. In an effort to express what a person believes God wants them to do, they will often say, well, I've been called to do this or to do that. Maybe you've used that terminology, I know I have, and I've heard it used a lot. And I don't need to raise the hands or whatever, but how many of you have experienced this whole, I've been called to, or I feel called to, or this person said they were called to something?

Well, I just want to take that issue and say, OK, definitely there are issues, and I'll refer to those in a little bit, of calling in a more specific way. But let's look at this larger picture. And unfortunately, a lot of the misunderstanding is rooted in operating on feelings rather than what the Scripture says. being in a Christian private university in my last year of schooling, and I was sitting in a New Testament history class. And this was my first exposure to the Bible in a real way, was a New Testament history class. But anyway, we were sitting there learning through this, and at the end of the class, the professor asks, and it was a class about this size, he says, how many of you have been called to pastoral ministry or missions?

And everyone raised their hand. This is a I won't mention the denomination. But anyway, everybody raise their hands. And I was just like, what? Where did y'all get that? I didn't get the memo. I mean, I'm sitting in the class just like, yeah, I paid my tuition. I didn't get a calling to these things. What's going on? And so bottom line is I was confused. I didn't know what this whole calling to map pastoral ministry or mission. Funny thing is we went and did missions for five years, and I had no idea that that particular role or that particular job was designed for me for a particular time in history.

But you know, this issue of calling, And as it relates to Ephesians 4.1, it is something that carries the idea of a vocation or an occupation. That word calling, it actually carries the idea of a vocation or an occupation. And from a worldly standpoint, the idea of a person's, and I'm reading here, that third paragraph. From a worldly standpoint, the idea of a person's vocation involves training and is often directed in terms of what an individual is suited to do by way of their personality.

Have you ever told someone, man, you should really, you should look into doing this. You're really good at it. I remember when I first started taking pictures. Oh, you know, you got an eye for photography. You should be a photographer. You must be called to be a photographer. That's your vocation. That's your job. You should go do that. And I'm thinking, well maybe, I just like taking pictures.

I don't know, am I called? What am I called to do here? And all of a sudden this idea of being called into a vocation in a worldly sense got confusing with what God has called me to do. Am I called to do this or do that? I just started juggling all these callings.

And if you get into the church for very long, and thankfully we don't have that experience here in Holly Hills, at least I haven't experienced it. But usually the first time you step into a church and you show a little bit of dedication, in other words, you sit in your place in the pews. I know some people are not in their places this morning.

But if you sit there long enough, you're going to get a calling. What's that? Coerced. Yes, you were. But if you sit in a place long enough in a lot of places, you're going to get called to a certain job, aren't you? Oh, you know, you have this kind of bent and you should be looking at doing this or doing that. But here's the interesting thing. There's a bigger calling for us.

And that's what I want us to focus in on. So in this verse, in Ephesians 4, we see that every believer is actually called to walk in a manner worthy of his calling. If you want to know what your calling is, it's to walk in a manner worthy of the calling that you have been given in Christ. And what is this calling like? And that's what we're going to look at. As believers, we don't get to set this job aside and look for another one that better suits us like we would in the world and looking for a vocation.

Rather, the Lord desires us to walk in such a way that is worthy of being called a saint. You say, yeah, but... Okay, keep that in mind. I know that you're saying that. I know that you're thinking it. I know that you have at some point. Just like I have. Can God call you to a specific vocation in life? Sure.

Don't hear me say anything different, but it will always function within the larger calling of Ephesians 4.1, to walk in a manner worthy of the calling that you have been called, it says. God is faithful. We're looking at the, moving on to the next paragraph here. It says, as believers, we have a great calling. When God saved us, he separated us and called us to himself.

According to 1 Corinthians 1.9, what we have been called, what have we been called unto? And it says, God is faithful. by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord." See, God has called us into fellowship with His Son.

That's a little bit easier to understand, I think. And, given the New Testament letters of Paul's writings, since a lot of it has to do with being in fellowship, how much do we now have information about walking according to our call? A lot! So now we know what we're doing.

We've been called into fellowship with Christ. That's your job, if you want to use it in that way. That's what we start with when it comes to our responsibility. Fellowship with Christ. That's the issue. Are you positionally in Christ? Yes. What's your job here on earth? Fellowship with Christ. Why?

Because everything else follows. Every single thing that we do follows from being in fellowship with Christ. You want to worry about anything at all, you worry about whether or not you're in fellowship with Christ. And when I say worry, I'm not talking about a nail-biting sense of the term. I'm talking about a 1 John 1, 9 sense, where you confess and you become in check with whether or not you're in fellowship or not.

Okay, you're calling it what it is. I've got some sin. I'm not in fellowship. Call it what it is. Be forward and up front about where you stand in relationship to your fellowship with Christ. We move on, it says the scripture additionally describes this wonderful calling in a few noteworthy ways.

As believers in Christ, we have a heavenly, in Philippians 3.14 and Hebrews 3.1, we're told that that calling is a heavenly calling.

We're also told in 2 Timothy 1.9 that it's a holy calling. And we read, Who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace.

What has Verne said time and time again about what sanctification means? Set apart for a holy purpose. What do you see here? Who saved us and called us for the holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace. That's good stuff. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began. So we've got a holy calling, we've got a heavenly calling, and it's not based on our works, it's based on the purpose and the grace of the Lord. Yes?

So your professor, when he asked the question, you know, of who's been called to be here, that's just not a very good question. I used it in a little bit of a tongue-in-cheek sort of sense, but the idea of, we get people saved, you know, we lead them to the gospel message, and all of a sudden we want to know what their calling is. And I think that what we miss out on is the opportunity to teach them that the larger sense of that term, the larger responsibility of our calling is fellowship with Christ.

And we get real caught up in, how many hours are you going to put in in the church pastoral ministry this week? Or when are you going to move to Uganda and start doing missions? Is there anything with being an elder or a teacher in a church? Is there anything wrong with being a missionary? No. Are those things that God has designed specifically for certain people? Yes.

But you remember the chart that we talked about God's will, and we talked about the three different levels? We talk about that outer circle and how God has a will that is designed and available to every single believer. And that's really the area that we're in right now. We're not in the specific will for your life. We're talking about the general will of God, the larger picture, the larger calling that God has for our lives. And you can make it personal. And I think oftentimes we get really caught up in making personal the specific will of God But we miss making personal the general will of God.

When was the last time you thought, it's my job to be in fellowship with Christ? I mean, most times I say, it's my job to get this lesson written up so I can teach on Sunday morning. You know, that's what we're thinking. I got to get ready because I got to go off and present the gospel to this neighbor.

And there's nothing wrong with those callings to ministry and those responsibilities that believers have. But when it's so specific that we miss the more general will and the more general calling of God, we can sometimes get off on the wrong foot and you end up with works. You end up with a cycle. You end up with missionaries that are working their way into a special place before the Lord or pastors or teachers that are in the same kind of mode.

We don't want to go that route. We want to be those that are called to fellowship and we want to encourage one another in the body, as we're going to talk about next week, to that same calling. Does that answer your question? Good. If we don't understand this, we've missed something foundational, because if we are in Christ, He positionally puts us. God, we're positionally in Christ, He is in us. We're basically, this calling is catching up with who we really are, and that's that fellowship. I think so.

I think that once you understand your position in Christ, being sanctified, set apart, having this, paid in full, fully 100%, no debt, your sin is taken care of, when you've got this, then you're going to spend the rest of your life catching up to the reality of what God's enabled you to do in this life and in this place. You're sanctified in heaven, set apart. Now, how do you walk in such a way that you recognize your sanctification in this place?

Vern often mentions that this is a getting ready place. This isn't a, you know, put your roots down and stay a while. We're getting ready here. Getting ready for what? The eternal life with Christ Himself. But while we're here, we're learning things about Him that are very, very important and have effects on that eternal state. What we're doing right here, what we're doing today, what you're going to face today as far as the challenge of sin that you'll come in immediate contact with, is designed specifically to prepare you for the eternal stay with Him. It's perfectly designed for you. And that's what's really cool.

Vern talks about that all the time, how we go out and we leave these places of we're learning, we're here together, we're gathered, we feel like we're in a place of teaching and we're learning. We're not necessarily engaging ourselves in sin, hopefully, at the moment right now, but once we get out there, walk out those doors, instantly we're faced with some kinds of decisions. And that's what I want to move to talk about now. is how we walk through this stuff.

But it's a getting ready place. And sanctification is part of getting ready. So like Craig said, we're catching up to where we already are in heaven. We're catching up to this, guys. We're catching up to being 100% righteous in Christ. And there's a way that you catch up to it.

There's a specific responsibility, and it's your calling. And we're going to talk about it. I want us to walk away having answered the question, OK, I'm called. to walk in a manner worthy, but yeah, but. And I don't want you to have that in your mind after today. I want you to say, I know what it is that the Lord desires of me as my responsibility. So let's get that clear in our minds. Let's move on.

The top of page three, I believe. We are literally called to a separated life in Christ Jesus. Let's dig a little deeper into how this life is to be measured as holy. So in Ephesians 4, we are called to a manner worthy of our calling. What is this idea of worthy? What does this mean?

And it comes from another word which means to weigh. In Bible times, or biblical times, scales were used for weighing. The standard weight was put on one side and the product to be measured, grain or fruit or whatever, was put on the other side. So, if you wanted to buy five pounds of salt, they'd put a five pound weight on there and they'd fill up the salt on the side of the scale until it evened out, right? And that's the word picture that the word worthy means. It's to walk in such a way that you measure out to your calling. Who feels like they measure out to the calling?

I think in Revelations where it talks about Christ being worthy to open the seals of the book, it said that no one was worthy except for Christ to open those seals. That was because Christ did the perfect will of God throughout his entire lifetime. His desire and his achievement was to fulfill the will of God. So his desire was always there. He did it. We can't always do it because we are not Christ, but our desire should be there to do God's will.

What I'm saying is, the Yahweh is kind of the desire. Is it my will or is it God's will that I'm striving for? Am I wrong here? Well, based on... I think the desire is definitely... the first step, but I think that it goes actually a step further, scripturally speaking, and that there is an empowerment as well. So it's cool that we not only have the desire, but we also have the capabilities to walk by faith, as we're about to learn. Right, we wouldn't have that desire unless we had that empowerment.

That's right, that's right. But we're always catching up to that. just like Craig said. So it's not something that day one a believer gets, and it's not something that you get if you don't take in the scripture on these teachings, even if you've been in the church for 30 years. You can still be an immature believer and have been in church for 30 years, or have been a believer for 30 years. So our maturity has to do with our understanding this and applying it in a certain way, and I'm going to talk about that next. But this idea of being balanced and equal with our calling is where we want to be.

I'm called I'm called to sanctification, I'm called to being set apart, and I'm called to be balanced with that calling. In other words, my life needs to be balanced. That's what Paul had in mind. He says, you're called to do this, and I want you to be balanced with the calling. Don't have one over the other. It's balance. I want you balanced out with what you were called to do.

What were we called to do? Fellowship with Christ. How do we stay in balance with fellowship? Some good questions. Let's move on. To walk worthy means that our walk or our life should be balanced and equal with our calling. Remember, our calling is to fellowship with Christ, a heavenly and holy calling. This process for walking worthy is how we know we are in the will of God. For this is the will of God, your sanctification. Remember, Vernon said, sanctification is the will of God. You want to know if you're in the will of God?

Are you being sanctified? Are you being set apart? Are you being separated? Are you walking in a manner that's worthy of the calling? Are you balanced out with God's opportunity to separate you that you've been given? Each of us have an opportunity. We're going to walk out the door with that opportunity. God says, here's your opportunity to be sanctified. I'm giving it to you. And I'm not just giving you the opportunity or the trial or the circumstance or the temptation. I'm also giving you the means to be sanctified.

Let's talk about that. So the number one job, and I'm coming back to this vocation, this calling concept, our number one job as believers is to be sanctified. I really believe that. To be separated, to be set apart under the Lord to be saints. And guess what? That's personal. It's not that we set ourselves apart in our own rogue efforts. It's fellowship. So being set apart is a personal relationship or a personal fellowship with Jesus Christ on a moment-by-moment basis. You find yourself not wanting to talk to the Lord for any given reason? Guess what? You're failing at the job that God's called you to do. Is there anything wrong with failing? Yeah, there is. It means we're missing opportunities.

Does that mean that God's grace doesn't cover that matter and that you're not still positionally sanctified? No. It doesn't mean that. But what it does mean is you're missing opportunities to grow and you're staying a child in the faith rather than growing on to maturity. And that's not a good thing. That's some sort of failure, I'd have to say. But it's not the kind of failure that shackles you up to the pew and gets you working for the rest of your life so that you can earn your salvation. No, those are taken care of. But you're missing an opportunity to grow, as we've talked about in the last lessons that Vern's taught. You're missing the opportunity to be transformed. You're missing the opportunity to be conformed. You're missing the opportunity to be mature.

And so where are you going to be the rest of your life? You keep walking in a way that's worthy of your calling, then you're going to be a product of you. You walk in a manner that's worthy of the calling of God, in fellowship with Christ, a holy and heavenly calling.

Now we're talking about growing. Now we're talking about being sanctified or separated. And for a purpose. It's not just some mystical reason. We're not seeking nirvana here. Oh, finally I got an escape from all that is. We're talking about being separated for a purpose. You're being used by the creator of the universe. That's different. That's purposeful and it's personal. So that's our number one job. Let's talk about the believer walking. Our calling is clear and our mission is separation. to walk worthy of our calling, but how does separation unto the Lord happen?

Let's read Romans 6.19.

For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, everybody know what that feels like? You start down the path a little bit, opens the path a little bit more, and all of a sudden then you're wholly, 100% committed to the sin that you started out with. He's talking about reversing that. Let's see how he says it. So now, So now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification. How do we present our members, ourselves, our faculties, the things that we're doing, our mind, our actions, our body, how do we present these things as slaves to righteousness so that we result in a separation?

Yes, Dan. That's the continuing person. And that's the growth. Right. And the increase in the desire with the empowerment as a continuing person grows in that direction. That's right. Yep, that's right. And I think it's going to come in simple terms as we kind of wrap up the lesson today. I'm glad you asked. That is the continuing person. In your continuing person, present yourselves slaves to righteousness.

Okay? Resulting in what? This tells us very clearly what happens if we present ourselves as slaves to righteousness, right? What happens? A good thing. We get separated. We get set apart for a holy purpose. That's what we want. That's our calling. That's a manner that we walk that is worthy of the calling. That's a good thing.

But how do you present your members as slaves to righteousness? How do you do that? That would be my question. Hopefully you're asking the same thing, because that's what I'm going to answer. Okay, so how do we do this? How do we present our members as slaves to righteousness?

Well, take a deep breath, because I know we all got answers to the question. And relax, because it's all tied to the responsibilities we have already learned in previous lessons. Being separated under the Lord is what happens naturally when we simply trust Him and the very things He has revealed in Scripture.

That gave me a huge weight off the shoulders. The more I started to learn this, the more I started feeling like it's not a complex formula to present myself to slaves of righteousness and therefore be saved. It's not a complex formula here. We're talking about a very difficult issue, but a very simple issue. Let's review it.

Being sanctified positionally means that we trust the Lord to declare us holy and to identify us with His Son's sacrifice for sin. We didn't acquire positional sanctification through any other responsibility than by what? How did you get this? You believed that it was available to you and it was applicable to you. And when you believed, what happened? He got applied. That's a good thing. This is what gets us into heaven. It's the righteousness of Christ. Paid in full. How did you get it? Do you know that most people struggle with that very concept alone? Believers and unbelievers alike. People in the church, when I say, How in the world did I get to be saved?

Oh no! does. But don't you think that the process that we do by trusting takes practice? Okay, you make trust and then you do Okay? And that's an ongoing process. Yeah, let's talk about that. That's a really good question. In fact, you anticipated this very verse in the next content. Good question. And that is, it's a process. So guess what? And that's what I said here. Guess what?

Conditional sanctification, now I'm talking about the here and now, are being set apart here and now, because this is done, and it was done by faith. What about the here and now? Conditional sanctification is acquired incrementally a process, incrementally, in the exact same way, by faith. You want to make it harder. I know you do. I'm hearing your minds go, yeah, but, again. But by faith is where we get that incremental sanctification. Go ahead. Can I just go back to what you were saying about how did we get positional sanctification?

Yeah, when you said, you know, I'm not sure where you're that we are able to become believers is a gift from God? I would say that it is your faith. It is your faith. I don't think that God gives you the faith in order to believe. I believe that you have faith. You have the ability to choose. God created that in the image of God. He created you. And choosing and having a choice is part of that being created in the image of God.

So there are those that believe that faith is a gift of God and take it completely out of the responsibility of the believer, but I'm not one of those people. Faith is having faith in an object. The object is Jesus Christ and what He did on the cross. Our faith didn't save us. Christ saved us.

But faith is what was required and faith is not a work. In scripture, faith is never seen as a work. It is never seen as having a positive value for righteousness. In the same way, our faith in our sanctification in the here and now is not seen as having a positive righteousness towards God.

We're already 100% righteous in Christ. So it's being given the reward for running a future race Because you know God exists and that he is capable of helping you run the race. But you get eternal life before you ever even begin the race. Because God exists and you believe that. And you know that he's capable of carrying you to the end. As far as I understand what you're saying... You're getting the reward of eternal life when you believe. I don't think of eternal life as a reward. It is a consequence, and it's a very good one. But it is not... there is no reward for our faith.

It is simply the gracious offering of God himself. Yeah, that's okay. But, you know, I just wanted to clarify. But there are specific rewards for running the race that are identified. However, eternal life is not contingent on on anything that we do, including faith in the sense that it's a work. Okay? Faith simply triggers what is available to you, and God does not trigger it for you. You are responsible to trigger that truth by believing. Okay? That's as far as I can take it in the scripture. You had a question? I was thinking about one of Holly's things. I don't know if you heard her, but she was talking about the gift of God is not faith. That's right.

Ephesians 2.8, I believe? Yeah.

And there's a lot of confusion in that verse that the gift of God is faith, but it's not. It's actually the gift of God is salvation. When you believe, you are given the gift of salvation. In fact, Stan, I think instead of reward, I think gift is a better word for eternal life. It's a gift. You believe, you get a gift. You don't believe, you don't get the gift. I mean, it's yours to have, but if you don't want it, you don't get it.

But the first thing is, you have to believe that He exists. That's right. Your belief isn't in Joseph Smith or anything else, but you believe in the one true God, and through Jesus, who's going, the only way there, I am the truth, the way, and the life, and it's only through Him. So you believe in God first, and then second of all, you live your life because you know that He's capable I think that you're on the right track.

Let's wrap up what we're saying here, because I think it's going to give us some verbiage to start working with with slightly better, maybe some better questions. But I like where we're thinking. We're starting to try to say, OK, we've got this positional. GIF, we've got this positional righteousness in heaven. We are viewed by God as 100% saint. That's you. That's your name tag. Now we're called to live in the same way that we are viewed by God. So how do we conditionally grow in righteousness? How do we conditionally grow and being a saint. How do we conditionally grow in being set apart? How do we conditionally grow in being sanctified? And that's where I wanted to kind of wrap us up here so that we can then maybe ask some more focused questions. I just had a verse in mind. Sure. 15.5. Okay. I and the vine are the branches.

And it's just kind of, we're just branches and the vine is the life that is the point to us. And I just, I think of faith as It's accepting the work that Christ already did. It's not a work in of itself. It's just accepting what has already been done. That's right.

Yeah, I think that's definitely a case of salvation, and I think it's definitely the case of conditional sanctification as well. Because that's my charges to use as we go into the area of sanctification. But really, as Vern said, transformation, being conformed, maturity, growth, sanctification, they're all just terms that describe a lot of the same process. I just get to focus on sanctification, so I'm obviously saying that a lot and nailing that down, but growth is another way we could put it. Let's talk about this whole idea.

Conditional sanctification is acquired incrementally in the same way by faith. Let's get this nail down our heads. Romans 117. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith. What kind of righteousness is that? Positional. How was it acquired? By faith. From first to last. Notice he's talking about from the beginning to end. What was it by? Your righteousness applies from the beginning to the end. By what? From the beginning to the end.

By faith. And then when he says, just as it is written, here we're talking about living. Here we're talking about condition. The righteous will live by faith. Your position was acquired by faith, and guess what your righteousness on this earth, here and now, conditionally is acquired by? By faith!

This isn't complex mathematics. It's choosing something. It's making a decision to trust, to believe. Those are all synonyms for the exact same action. Faith, trust, believe, all the same thing. That's how you live. Righteousness, on this here and now, is developed in our life by faith. The righteous shall live by faith. The holy, unique, set-apart, sanctified, separated ones shall live by faith. But faith is not blind. Hey, you've got to take that blind leap of faith and just do it.

That's not what we're saying. It requires content. Faith requires content, also known as the biblically revealed facts. What does Verne say about the train on the tracks? That's right. Faith is like the train on the tracks. They come first. Just like a caboose follows behind the faith and the facts, so does feelings. Feelings come after.

So notice that the righteous shall not live by feelings. Then that's hard for me. I think it's probably hard for you too. Which is why we're talking about it and why Vern goes over it so much. Because as believers we have to constantly be reminded that it's not our feelings that rule life. It's our faith. But our faith needs an object. It's never blind. Faith is never blind. You need an object. Where is your object? Where is your faith focused? Okay? Let's talk about that.

And I'm going to work through this content here rather quickly, and hopefully we'll have a complete lesson here. All the believer's part in being sanctified under the Lord takes place in the context of what God has done, is doing, and will do. So as we learn, know, and understand what God has done, is doing, and will do, and place our faith in Him for those things, we grow in conditional sanctification. How is that understood, what God has done, is doing, and will do? Where do we get that information?

So the more you subject your mind to an understanding of the scripture, the more you have the content to believe. Just understanding it won't grow you. You then have to believe it in faith as it applies to the situation that you're being challenged with. Let's talk about that a little bit more.

But first Colossians 2, 6, and 7. Therefore, as you receive Christ and our love is first. This is the verse that we, as a family, have adopted. No verse is special in and of itself, but this really hit us as a family. Therefore, as you received Christ, Jesus, the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him, and established in the faith, just as you were taught abounding in thanksgiving. How did you receive Christ? So therefore, just as you receive Christ, what?

If you're going to receive Him by faith, what do you need to do when you walk? By faith. It's the same thing. The same decision to trust Christ for salvation is the same decision with different content, but the same kind of decision that you're going to be faced with as you leave today and start to be challenged with an opposing view. How did we receive Christ? By faith. So how do we walk in Him and become rooted and established in the faith? You want to be rooted and established in the faith? You've got to trust Him. The interesting thing about faith is that it requires that you understand the difference between your options so that you can trust the Lord.

It means that you begin to understand the way God's Word is sanctified or separated from the claims of the world, the flesh, and the devil. John 7, 17, 1717, sanctify them in the truth, your word is truth. God has separated his word from the voice of other self-proclaimed authorities. If we want to live separated lives we must recognize that separation and come to God trusting him for what he has revealed on any given matter.

Is it just the matters you want to trust him in? It's every matter that he's revealed himself on As you have an opportunity to believe another authority, that's your decision to walk by faith right there. And it comes in a very small way. It's like, drive past this guy and give him a dirty look because he just cut you off. That's another authority. It's called the flesh. And that authority is saying that you have every right to put that guy in his place, but God, does He have another matter? Does he have another voice on the matter? He does.

And so that is the very opportunity that God has designed for you right then and there to walk by faith. And when you walk by faith in that matter, guess what you get? Another opportunity. And when you walk by faith in that matter, guess what you get after that? Another opportunity. And so on and so on and so on.

And every single opportunity is designed to mature you or sanctify you so that you are being conformed to what? Now, if you don't have the scripture in your mind, are you going to have the voice to walk by faith according to? Is that going to be in your mind? So what are you going to do? You're going to do your best. I don't think God wants me to do this, but I'm not for sure. I don't really know.

And that's how you start off as a new believer. You definitely start that you got red flags Holy Spirit's throwing up red flags all the time because you don't have the content of the word really working and Piercing and dividing every you know part of your body But as you grow in a knowledge of the scripture, then you have an opportunity to trust it That's the two different things that are going on growth in the knowledge of what God has done will do and is is doing and and how you trust it in the situation that you're given. You're not required to trust something you're not facing fully. If it hasn't been brought to you as a challenge in your life, then it's not an issue of faith at that point. It's only when the issue comes and kicks you right square in the face that you have an opportunity to walk by faith. You don't create, I'm going to walk by faith. What's someone going to do? That's not how it works. That's called works. You're creating things instead of walking, just like you do every day, saying, boom, there it is. This is the opportunity.

And I know what the Lord said, and I'm going to trust Him on the matter. But there's something that happens after that, though. Go ahead. Could you say that the worldly reward for growing and learning is that there's a decrease in the lack of confusion and I think that one of the consequences of walking by faith is rest. And rest is a synonym for peace. Absolutely.

Is there rest for those who trust the Lord? How many times have we seen that in scripture? I tell my children, when you obey, you're restful, you're peaceful. When you choose to disobey what God has said and disobey your mom and dad because we're the authority in the household, there's sadness.

So walking by faith results in joy and rest and peace. Even if the circumstances got the world looking at you like, how in the world can you deal with this? I can't imagine. I can't believe that you can be at peace and at rest with this. But walking by faith, that's what the result is.

And just to wrap up the final paragraphs, I think that many believers get bogged down in Operation Bootstrap at this point, meaning they take the responsibility of being conditionally sanctified too personally. In some ways, we need to take it personally, but not in the sense that we head out into the world and begin to work our way through the Christian life imitating what we think Christ would do. Rather, we find our call to be holy is practiced through a choice to simply believe that the Lord has said in His word that what he has said in his word and to count it as true. At first the believer wrestles with trusting the basic truths of the gospel, wondering if they are indeed saved eternally and if the Lord has truly paid for all their sins. But as the young believer grows in this trust, they move on to more mature truths of the faith, also known as identification truths.

As we attempt to walk in a manner worthy of our calling, we begin to wrestle more and more with the power of sin in our life. This is where much of Paul's writing in the New Testament is to be understood and believed, where the new believer starts with faith in what God has said regarding the penalty of sin, the conditionally sanctified believer, which we're talking about today, begins to deal with what God has said regarding the power of sin in their life.

Much of this can be seen in Romans 6, and I want to read this. I'm going to try to stretch this in the last few minutes. This is where we start to, when we walk by faith here, That's where our enablement occurs by rejecting sin. When we start to walk by faith in these matters.

These are not salvation matters. These are sanctification matters that Paul is talking about. For if we have been united with him in death, like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified, has no power, guys, none whatsoever, was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.

Do you believe that? Not if you choose to sin, you don't. And that's the reality. It's just a simple choice. But you're not choosing the simple choice to believe that you're dead to this sin and it has no power or no enslavement over you. For one who has died has been set free from sin.

Do you believe that? When you're challenged with the next temptation, do you believe that you've been set free from that sin? Do you believe that your body, the body of flesh is no longer powerful to tell you to operate according to that desire? Do you believe that?

Because that's what His Word says. And if you believe that, then you're going to walk by faith through it. But if you don't believe it, you're going to walk by the flesh. And you're going to get a flesh outcome. And this is what we call identification truths. I'm identified with Christ positionally, and I'm identified conditionally.

I'm dead to this sin. My relationship to this sin is the same relationship that Christ has to it. Does this sin have any power over Christ? No. Then it has no power over me either. That's the truth. Do we believe it every time? No, because we don't walk by faith.

Now, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we also will live with him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died, he died to sin once for all. But the life he lives, he lives to God.

So you also must consider yourselves, reckon it so, count it in faith, consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. That's your conditional challenge. is to count yourself dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. You want to know how you get separated? That's how you do it.

And in Romans 1.17, there's freedom, there's rest, by the one who walks by faith, the righteous shall live by faith.

So that's the rest that we can get, but it all goes back to making a decision of faith when we're given that opportunity. So hopefully I've pulled these things together in a way that you can understand it, you can apply it, appropriate it in your own life when you leave here today. I'm sorry that I rushed us through to the last minutes here. If you've got questions or comments and you want to come grab me afterwards, I'd love to hear what you have to say or whatever. Anyway, we'll go ahead and close in a quick word of prayer and let these guys in.

Father, we thank you so much that we are not only positionally sanctified, set apart in the righteousness of Christ, but that we now know that to live by faith results in a righteousness in the here and now. We can incrementally grow because we've been empowered through the truths of your word. We thank you for that. We thank you for the personal relationship and fellowship we have with you and our calling in that way. We just pray that you would teach our hearts this morning as we continue to learn. It's your name we pray. Amen.