Living So As to Please God (3)

First Baptist Church Leominster

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Let's turn in our

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Bibles, once again, to 1 Thessalonians 4, as we're working through this addresses the matter of our sanctification.

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And today is the third Lord's Day, in which we've given attention to this paragraph, 1

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Thessalonians 4, 1 through 8. We've already set forth the definition of the teaching of the

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Bible regarding practical sanctification. Sanctification is the work of God's free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness.

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Let's again read these first eight verses, finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the

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Lord Jesus, that as you receive from us how you ought to walk and to please

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God just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the

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Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the

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Gentiles who do not know God, that no one transgresses in wrong his brother in this matter, because the

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Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness, and therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man, but God who gives his

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Holy Spirit to you. Now, we've already considered in some detail the first verses of this paragraph, particularly verses three and four, which again we read, this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor.

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And we pointed out last week that this reveals our sanctification has two aspects to it. One is that we abstain from sin, but sanctification is not just abstaining from sin, but it involves also something that is positive, and that is living righteously.

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Now today I would like to become a little bit more detailed and to look a little bit more carefully at this verse, verse four, and then proceed to examine the few verses that follow it.

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And so again verse four reads that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor.

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And that of course is the ESV, the English Standard Version which we have been using in this study.

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First recognized sanctification involves a Christian controlling his own body in holiness and honor.

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Notice first that this is what the Christian is to do, control your own body. Notice how he seems to distinguish the identity of the person from his body.

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You control your body. You see how he seems to separate the you from the body?

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It's you that have to control your body in which you dwell. You see what's being suggested there?

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It's subtle, but it's there. That each one of you know how to control his own body.

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And so the body is indwelt, as it were, by the true person, that being your soul.

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And you are to know how your true self, your soul, is to control your body, your body in which your soul dwells.

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And so really what we have reflected here is a biblical psychology, how we are to view ourselves as human beings.

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And certainly the Holy Scripture is set forth. A human being is comprised of both a soul and a body.

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We've talked about this in the past. We've rehearsed it. We read in Genesis 2 .7,

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the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground. There's the body. He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.

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There was the life that God gave, and man became a living being. And so in this world, every human being has a physical body, but the true self is his soul.

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And that soul, of course, is eternal, is it not? The soul will never come to an end.

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As much as those who want to teach annihilation would advocate, we know that that is not the case.

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That God created the soul, and it is going to exist for eternity. And so a person, a true self, is his soul, and that soul animates or makes alive the physical body.

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God created man and gave him the responsibility, therefore, to use or employ his body in order to accomplish in the world the will of God that God has set before him.

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So our body is like a tool. It is that which

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God has given us, our bodies, through which we are to accomplish the will of God within the world in which he's placed us.

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In other words, man as God had originally constituted him was a living soul that dwelt within his body.

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His true self, his soul, was to control his body, was to direct his body in doing the will of God.

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And so the idea of the body being a dwelling place for the true self is suggested here in our text.

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You need to know how to possess or to control your body. It's not really as much or as straightforward or overt in the

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English Standard Version which we read. It's more so in the

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New King James Version we would advocate, which I think better translates the Greek text. Here are the two translations of verse 4.

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First the ESV, the English Standard Version, which is a good translation. That each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor.

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New King James Version translates it this way, however. That each one of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor.

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The idea of vessel carries more the idea that it's something in which you are dwelling, something you are possessing, something you're to employ on behalf of God.

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And actually the Greek word skavos is translated as body in the

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ESV, but the same Greek word is translated as vessel in the New King James Version. Paul used this same

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Greek word only one other time that I could find, and that's in Romans 9, 21 and 22, where Paul reasoned, does not the potter, and he's referring to God, does not the potter have power over the clay from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?

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And so a potter makes a vessel. A potter doesn't make a body, right? And he uses the same word.

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And so the King James Version and the New King James Version translates it as vessel in 1

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Thessalonians 4, verse 4, but the ESV translated it as body. And so here in Romans 9, 21 and following we have skavos, clearly a vessel such as a clay pot.

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And there's mention of the potter making of the same lump, one vessel for honor, another vessel for dishonor.

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A vessel of honor would be a pot or container designed to hold food or olive oil or some other valuable commodity.

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And what Paul is speaking about is the elect there, out of humanity, God has noble, honorable purposes for his elect.

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And then he makes reference to a vessel made for dishonor, that would be a pot or container to hold less than desirable things, such as a chamber pot.

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I think that's what's being suggested. And a potter, he makes pots for different purposes.

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And God, Paul is arguing for the sovereignty of God. God is the potter, he's the creator.

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And he has the freedom, he has the right to do with that which he's created.

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And so he's arguing if God wants to save a people that deserve damnation, well he's perfectly right in doing so.

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And if he leaves others to their just condemnation, he's free to do so as well. And so I think rather than translating skevos in 1

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Thessalonians 4 .4 as body, it should be translated as vessel. I think that better carries the idea that it's within this vessel our true self resides.

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It conveys better the biblical teaching that the soul is a true self that dwells within or animates, it is makes alive the physical body.

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And there are other places in the scriptures where the same idea is presented, particularly by the Apostle Paul.

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Clearly this is what he said in 2 Corinthians 3. We know that if our earthly house, this tent is destroyed, and he's talking about the physical human body.

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If our earthly house, this tent is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens.

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He's talking about the physical body which is temporary, it's just a tent, not designed to be permanent, is not capable of dwelling for eternity.

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And if this tent is destroyed, and it will be unless the Lord Jesus comes first. Thankfully we're not going to be left unclothed however because God has a resurrection body prepared for his people, and a building from God, a house, notice the permanency there.

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And so there's a glorified body, a resurrection body that awaits us, we who are

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Christians. Paul went on to say, for in this we groan, earnestly desire to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven.

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See he didn't want to just be unclothed with his physical earthly body, he didn't want to be found naked, that is a soul without a body, he wanted to be clothed with a body, he wanted to dwell in a true house, a true habitation which is from heaven.

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If indeed have you been clothed we shall not be found naked. He did not think that just the soul existing in heaven was sufficient, he was anticipating the future resurrection and glorification of the body.

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For we who are in this tent, there it is again, a temporary dwelling place, groan, we can enter into that tent, we will groan in a little bit, aren't we?

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More so than maybe in earlier years. Being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, there it is, it's not because we want to just escape these bodies, but further clothed that mortality may be swallowed up by life.

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He who has prepared us for this very thing is God who also has given us the spirit as a guarantee.

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And so we are always confident knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the

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Lord. For we walk by faith not by sight. We are confident, yes well pleased rather, to be absent from the body and to be present with the

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Lord and therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that each one may receive the things done in the body according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

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And notice again the very subtle language, it's not that we will be judged for what our body did, but for what we did in the body.

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You see, again he very subtly separates the true self from the body which is a vessel, is a tool.

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And so here Paul compares and contrasts the present existence of the Christian from his future existence. The Christian, that is the soul of the

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Christian presently dwells or abides in a tent, a temporary structure, his physical body.

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It's a temporary home for the soul, but one day he'll dwell in a house, a permanent body that God will prepare, a reference to the glorified body that we will enjoy on the day of the resurrection.

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Now, he argues that there are really two entities vying for control of your body.

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Our sin is one that wants to control your body, and God wants to control your body.

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And prior to becoming Christians, of course, sin controlled our bodies, or rather we employed our bodies in the committing of sin.

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That's what we were devoted to, ordering our life according to our own desires, our own lusts, and our bodies were used for that purpose.

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But when we became Christians, God gave to each of us the task not to allow sin to control our bodies any longer, but rather each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor.

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And so this is a learned behavior, isn't it, that you may know, that you may understand, acquire knowledge, understanding of how you can control your own body and use it for the purposes that God intended, not for sin.

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It's not a sudden one -time securing of our bodies for this purpose, but we're talking about sanctification here.

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He's talking about sanctification in this paragraph. It's a lifelong endeavor. God's sanctification of believers is such that they are enabled more and more to die unto sin and live unto righteousness.

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And so Christians are to gain control of their bodies so as not to employ them in committing sinful actions, but rather that they might be used to further the purposes of God and the world.

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And that's your task, and that's my task as a Christian, not to allow sin to use our body to manifest itself, but to use our bodies to fulfill the purpose and glory of God.

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Now there is another word in our text of verse 4 that suggests this idea.

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Again, the ESV reads that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor.

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The New King James Version reads that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor.

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So control over against possess. By the way, there's a rather obscure translation of this passage.

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I wasn't even going to touch on it, and I've got it in a footnote. Or no,

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I maybe didn't put it in a footnote, but there's actually a translation. It's the Revised Standard Version that actually says that this verse is saying that each of you should know how to possess his own wife in sanctification and honor.

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Instead of vessel or body, it's used as a wife. And they reason and argue that Jewish rabbis in the first century commonly would use this term, this

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Greek term for vessel, to refer to a wife. And so the RSV has,

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I think, got a rather strange translation. But notice you have the words control in the

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ESV and possess in the New King James Version. And there the translation of the Greek word, kadosta, that's a tough word to pronounce, but kadosta.

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And this word is really used only in one other place in the New Testament. Peter used this

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Greek word when he revealed to Simon the sorcerer that he was a spiritist Christian.

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And so in Acts 8, verse 20, we read in the New King James, But Peter said to him, Your money perish with you, because you thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money.

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And Simon wanted to buy the ability from the apostles to impart the Holy Spirit.

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The ESV reads it this way, But Peter said to him, May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money.

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Well, it's clear that the Greek word should be understood in that text, meaning obtained or purchased, or perhaps acquired.

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And I would suggest a similar idea may be understood by the same Greek word in 1 Thessalonians 4 .4.

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We may translate it in this way, that each of you should know how to obtain or acquire his own vessel in sanctification and honor.

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And this is what we're attempting to do. And so as Christians, we're to secure our bodies to be used for the service of our

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God in holiness and honor. We're to acquire them for the Lord, as it were. Wrestling them from their employment and sinning against God, and rather employ them for the glory of God.

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And that's what we do in the sanctification process. More and more as we grow, as we grow in our sanctification, we use our bodies for the glory of God, rather than use our bodies in order to sin further, and in more ways.

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Now, before we leave this verse, I thought it would be good to address a peripheral matter, one that has been put forth to me recently by several of you.

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And that is the question asked, Is it right for a Christian to arrange for his body to be cremated or buried upon death?

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Interesting question. Now, we've already considered the biblical truth that the physical body of the

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Christian is a vessel for the true self, which is the soul. Many in evangelicalism, however, kind of run with that.

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And they've really gone farther than this assertion by asserting that the body is only a vessel.

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In other words, they depreciate the body. After all, the soul is the true self, and so the body isn't that important.

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And so they regard the body with little value or importance. Whether or not one chooses burial or cremation does not matter in the least, they would argue.

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Now, certainly it's true that cremation will not change anything with regard to the day of judgment.

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The scriptures declare that no one will escape standing before God. And there's a verse in Revelation 20 that addresses this matter.

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John saw the final judgment. Then I saw a great white throne, Him, that would be

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Jesus, who sat on it, from whose face the earth and heaven fled away. There was found no place for them.

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I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, everyone. The books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life.

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The dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. Everyone would be judged according to their works.

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And then here you have verse 13. The sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them.

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And they would judge each one according to his works. So clearly what's set forth here, the sea gave up the dead which were in it, were designed to show that even bodies lost, decomposed, or even consumed, will be raised to stand before God in judgment.

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I know for a fact that some have chosen cremation because they thought that that would bring an end to it, that they wouldn't have to stand before God.

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I've heard people tell me that. They think it seals their fate. They've deluded themselves in thinking this way.

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I had an aunt. Now in California, she was my aunt. But we're in New England, she was my aunt, my favorite aunt.

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And she died about three weeks ago, four weeks ago. She was cremated and had no service whatsoever.

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Everyone will one day stand before the Lord and nothing's going to stop that from happening, is it? And cremation certainly will not.

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For again, we must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ that everyone may receive the things done in the body according to what he's done, whether good or bad.

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And as Christian and non -Christian alike, there will be a judgment according to works. And thankfully, that doesn't cause

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Christians to be fearful, or it shouldn't, because actually on that day our works are going to validate, vindicate us that we were

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Christians, and our lives demonstrated it. Some have opted for cremation due to economic reasons.

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I won't mention him. Most of you know him. He's retired, but he says,

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I'm going to be cremated because it's cheaper. And I think that's a motivation for a lot of people.

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In fact, I was talking to Ernie up at the funeral home some time ago, and I asked him, what's the percentage of cremation nowadays?

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He said 50%. And he indicated that cremation is about 50 % the cost of burial.

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And for a lot of people that's a financial matter, and they make decisions based upon that. However, some

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Christians have gone so far as to depreciate the body as though it were inherently evil, and that's wrong.

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They believe that the hope of the Christian is to escape from this body. It's almost like a

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Greek idea, a Hellenistic idea, an Eastern Hinduism idea, that the great experience of deliverance is when we escape this body, and that this is the release, this is the nirvana.

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But this is not Christian teaching. Well, these people who see this great escape from the body, they see cremation as not an issue.

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For again, they have little regard for the human body. But the scriptures do not allow for this low view of the body.

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Consider the teaching of the Word of God, that our bodies have been redeemed by the precious blood of the

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Lord Jesus. Think about this. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.

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Not only that, but we also have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves, groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.

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We're not looking forward to escape from the body, we're looking for the redemption of the body, the transformation of this body.

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And I think Christians commonly miss this. Their great hope is to look forward to the day when they escape this body and they're present with the

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Lord, and that will be a glorious thing. But that is not our final hope. Our final hope is the resurrection of the dead, when we are inhabiting our glorified body.

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And that is where really we should fix our hope as Christians. That's where the scriptures fix them, on the resurrection, on the day of our glorification, not just being in the presence of the

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Lord, as wonderful as that will be itself. Our bodies have been redeemed by Christ and one day they will be transformed.

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And so Paul wrote in Philippians, our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the

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Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which

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He is able even to subdue all things to Himself. Now our bodies are presently lowly bodies, but they're due to be transformed one day.

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They're not to be discarded as worthless, in fact they are to be regarded as destined for a glorious transformation.

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But with regard to whether or not the Christian should have his body cremated, consider how, in contrast, the followers of our

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Lord Jesus regarded and treated his body. And I think this is what should shape our perception and our value of things.

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Even after our Lord's body underwent severe and abusive treatment, even death upon the cross, we read about Joseph of Arimathea being a disciple of Jesus.

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But secretly, what brought out his courage, he wanted to honor the body of Jesus, didn't he?

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And show some value to it, and regard to it. He was secretly a disciple of Jesus for fear of the

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Jews. He asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus. Pilate gave him permission, so he came and took the body of Jesus.

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And Nicodemus, who at first came to Jesus by night, also came. And all the disciples fled, all the apostles fled, but Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, they came and they took the body of Jesus, securing permission from Pontius Pilate, the

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Roman governor, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about 100 pounds, that's a lot of ointment.

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And they took the body of Jesus, bound it in strips of linen with the spices. It's the custom of the Jews is to bury.

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And now in the place where he was crucified, there was a garden, in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had yet been laid.

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So there they laid Jesus because of the Jews' preparation day, for the tomb was nearby.

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And so Joseph had been a secret disciple. Where our Lord's open disciples abandoned our

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Lord in his death, Joseph became a visible disciple of Jesus Christ in his death, because he felt compelled to care for the physical body of Jesus to such an extent that he was bold to go before the

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Roman authorities to obtain the body. And Joseph took great care and at great expense to treat the body of our

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Lord with respect and dignity, laying him in the tomb that he had prepared for his own death.

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I think we may conclude that the human body is to be highly regarded and treated with respect and dignity.

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If we honor the man or woman in life we are to respect and honor his or her body in death. But further, those societies

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I would argue are cultures that have historically shown a high regard in treatment of bodies of those who died, have tended toward a higher view of the value of human life.

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Over again say those societies that have disposed of bodies through incineration or unmarked mass graves.

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They have little regard for human life, don't they? And so I think treating the bodies of dead human beings with dignity will lead a society to treat human beings with dignity and regard them with value.

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But I don't make this a matter of contention, whether people decide for themselves whether they want to have their body cremated or buried.

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That's their business and it doesn't bother me in the least. I do many funerals with cremation. But I think it's something to think about.

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We shouldn't have a low view of our lowly body. We ought to have a biblical view of our body and show regard and respect for the person that inhabited that body.

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Well secondly, notice sanctification involves Christian controlling his own body, not in the passion of lust like the

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Gentiles. That's an interesting expression. The Gentiles of course are an emblem for lost people who are controlled by sin.

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Again verses three and four, let's read it in context. For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the

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Gentiles who do not know God. This suggests a matter, and again it's subtle, but it suggests a matter that we've addressed in the past.

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God made each of us a living soul, and so the components of every soul of man or woman, I use man generically of course,

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I know that's not politically correct these days, but it saves on a lot of pronouns. He's made each of us to have a mind, an intellect, emotions or affections, and will.

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Our soul includes a capacity for thinking, which is the function of the mind, the capability of feeling, which is the role of our emotions or perhaps better affections, and the ability to act upon what we know or believe we know, which is the function of our will.

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Mind, emotions and will, and that's basically what the soul is essentially.

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When God created Adam and Eve and until their fall into sin, God had created them with their minds as the arbiters of their lives.

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The mind was the prince, the king of the soul. The mind governed and controlled the affections and controlled the will.

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That's how Adam and Eve were created and that's how they lived. Or it's been termed in this way,

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God had created man in his prelapsarian state. Once in a while you come across that word, prelapsarian.

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In other words, pre or before the lapse of Adam into sin. Before the prelapsarian state, he created

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Adam with his mind as the governor of his soul. In other words, man's mind had hegemony. That's a real nice word.

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In other words, control or dominance over the soul. And of course,

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Adam and Eve's mind and thoughts were in harmony with God and his will before the fall.

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And so our first parents ordered their existence governed by their understanding of truth as God had revealed to them.

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Their affections, that is their desires and their delights were in accordance with their holy thoughts. They delighted in doing the will of God.

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Their knowledge of the will of God was preeminent and their affections were in tune with that.

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And so they enjoyed richly doing the will of God and they enjoyed fellowship with God in the garden in the cool of the day.

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But something terrible resulted from sin. The hegemony of the mind over the soul came to an end when

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Adam and Eve sinned. Upon their sin, the minds of Adam and Eve, formally informed by the word of God, no longer governed their faith and practice for their minds had become darkened through sin.

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And in the place of the mind, their sinful lusts, that is their desires or their affections, their emotions or their affections took the presidency of the soul.

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And so people really are not governed by their thinking as sinners. They are governed by their desires.

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That is the problem, their lusts. And thereafter man has insisted on doing what he desires, what he wants to do, not what he knows he ought to do, not what his mind may tell him what

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God told him to do. And this is a pathological problem that is inherent in the fallen human race.

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Paul made reference to it here in verse 5 of 1 Thessalonians 4. He told these

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Christians that each one of you know, that's in the realm of the intellect, the mind, know how to control his own body.

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See the mind, the understanding is to control the body in holiness and honor.

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In other words, that would be according to God's truth in their minds. And then he said not in the passion of the lusts like the

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Gentiles. See, with the unconverted people, they're controlled by their lusts. Not their minds of truth, but their lusts, who do not know

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God. And so here again the Gentiles are a reference to those who do not know Christ.

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They're given over to sin, they're dominated by sin, they govern their actions by the passion of lust. In other words, their sinful desires.

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That is, their affections. But these Christians, Paul tells his church at Thessalonica, were not to live in this manner, but rather according to their knowledge of the will of God, that you would know how to possess or control your body.

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Their minds were to preside over their lives, not their sinful lusts as the

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Gentiles as unbelievers. And so when a person becomes a

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Christian, their whole way of viewing life changes. And so God corrected this problem in sinners through regeneration or the new birth.

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And so when God caused us by his grace to be born again, he imparted spiritual life to us.

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And the result of that spiritual life was that we became responsive to him in our understanding and obedience to the word of God.

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Their renewed mind, that is their new spiritual understanding of who they are, who God is, who

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God's son is, is their Savior Lord, once again begins to govern their affections.

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Or it ought to. And they will to do

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God's will. Because their affections delight in the will of God. Their mind, the mind now is once again supposed to be governing the soul, not your lusts, not your feelings, not your impressions.

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And that's a real problem in professing Christendom. So every fallen human being has this pathological problem, which is the usurpation of the emotions over the mind, our lusts becoming the leading functionary of the soul.

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Scripture says, therefore since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, there's the intellect, for he who has suffered in the flesh has seen from sin that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men.

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There it is. See that should not govern us, our affections, our emotions, our desires, but rather our understanding of the will of God.

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So the Christian who is born from above sees himself and sees the entire way of interaction with the world differently than he formerly did.

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Formerly he was governed by what he wanted to do. He employed his body in the committing of sin, doing his will rather than God's will.

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But when he is born again, that all changed. And he now desires to know

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God because his affections love God and love God's word and the truth of God's word.

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And therefore his will conforms to that, at least when the Christian is seeing things rightly and thinking things rightly.

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And Paul is basically telling these people, you need to carry on with this. You need to know how to possess your body, acquire your body, not to serve sin, but rather to serve

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God. And that's what we do in the work of sanctification. To set aside our desires and rather conform our thinking and our beliefs and our practices to the word of God, our thinking, and then live accordingly.

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And so how does this work of God, of sanctification take place? As our minds are informed by the word of God.

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And because God is placed in our hearts, that is our affections, our emotions, love for his word, then our will, our desire to do, to apply in our lives what we've come to understand.

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And this is the normal way a Christian thinks and lives. He may not even be aware of it, but this is what happened to him, to her.

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And so we are to be active in this process of sanctification, aren't we? And that's important. You're to be active in sanctification.

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You're not active in your justification. You believe Christ who is outside of you, what God has done in Christ.

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You know, he lived a life of righteousness. He died upon the cross for sinners. You put your faith in him. And God outside of you declares you to be righteous and imputes

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Christ's righteousness and no longer imputes sin to you. It's all outside of you. But sanctification is in you.

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And that involves your action, your cooperation. Many evangelicals have been taught a wrong understanding of how sanctification is experienced by the believer.

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Rather than following the biblical instruction to act with all passive in the matter.

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And there's a particular teaching we've talked about in the past, Keswick teaching. I don't have it in your notes, but we've talked about it.

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Keswick, K -E -S -W -I -C -K, is named after a town in England because every year they would have a conference and it came to be known as the

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Keswick Conference. And they still hold it today, annually. And toward the end of the 19th century, they began to promote a new idea of end times.

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It was a dispensational view of end times. Pre -tribulation rapture, Jewish millennium, that kind of thing.

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But in addition to that, they began to teach a new way of sanctification that they claimed that they discovered from the

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Bible. And that no one in church history had ever seen this truth before. And they promised that with this new truth, the church is going to become more holy than it ever has through church history.

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And they basically taught a Keswick view of sanctification that's promoted by many, many evangelicals.

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Campus Crusade promotes it, for example, in their tracts. And it's the idea that the reason you're not sanctified is because you're trying.

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You need to stop trying. And they say, start trusting. That sounds noble, doesn't it?

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They basically say, let go and let God. And so you're to be wholly passive and let the

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Lord do it for you and to you. You're to be wholly passive. And actually,

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J .C. Ryle, the well -known and wonderful teacher and preacher, happened to be

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Church of England toward the end of the 19th century. He had first bought into this, and then he saw it was unbiblical.

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And he wrote the classic book on sanctification. If you want a book, I mentioned Pink's book last week.

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And which other one did I mention? I forget now. On sanctification. But J .C.

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Ryle, entitled Holiness, is the classic book on sanctification. And he wrote that book to counter this

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Keswick teaching, which basically said, if you want to be holy, you need to stop trying and start trusting.

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But there are many Christians that think that, and therefore they are not active and diligent. They think that's actually detrimental to your sanctification.

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You need to let go and let God. And that's not what the scriptures teach. You're to be very active and strive and fight and struggle as you trust the

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Lord and yield to Him and trust Him for power. But sanctification involves the

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Lord's power and all of your effort, because it's God who works in you, both to will and to do of His good pleasure.

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It's how Paul reasoned or argued. I'm getting off, however, when you get back. And so, we are to be very active in our work of sanctification.

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But there are many in evangelicalism who reject this. And they reject the importance of the mind, by the way.

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They advocate that if you want to become holy, the Christian really has to bypass the mind.

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They view the mind as really detrimental to the cause of sanctification. And I had a young lady in our church in Germany.

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She was a symphony violinist. But she had bought into the postmodernism before anybody really knew what postmodernism was.

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And she told me one day that the best Christians were the ignorant Christians, just saved, and that Christians get spoiled because they learn things, was her thought.

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And she thought the best way you can live as a Christian is to be ignorant, and that's somehow innocent or pure.

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And her life bore out the error of that thinking, by the way. But most

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Christians, many Christians believe that they are not most spiritual when they are moved by the mind contemplating the

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Word of God, but rather they are being spiritual when they are moved by the Spirit. And they take that being moved by the

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Spirit as just some kind of subjective, mystic feeling or impression. And they think that that's what being spiritual is.

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And that the mind somehow is fleshly and of the earth. But to really be in tune with God, you've got to, you know, yield to these impressions and look for His leading and listen to voices and look for visions or interpret dreams or what not in order to experience of God.

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And so they think they are closest to God and most pleasing to God when they are caught up in some form of an ecstatic state in which they are filled with a sense of joy and peace.

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And so their affection in reality is what's governing them still. Not their mind, they set aside the mind, but rather it's what they feel, what they experience, how they are stirred by a testimony that moves them, by music that stirs them, by a preacher perhaps that wows them to this rhetoric.

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But in reality they are not being spiritual at all, they are being carnal, but they think they are spiritual.

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Because they believe spirituality has nothing to do with learning or knowing the truth of God's Word. Nothing about being transformed by the mind, but rather you experience

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God directly by hearing His voice, whatever that means, or being, you know, because He led me, because I just felt so impressed.

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And besides, all the circumstances seem to fall into place, it was truly of God. And their mind really basically checks out.

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They do not engage whatever they are doing or thinking with the Scriptures. They think that they are being moved by the

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Spirit, but it's not the Holy Spirit. The Lord teaches us through the hand of Paul that when we live in this manner, we will fail and fall.

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But rather we are to live as the dominating, determining force in our lives.

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And our affections are to be subordinate to our understanding of Scripture. The Word in our mind, our understanding of truth.

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You will know the truth and the truth will set you free, is what the Scriptures say. And the classic passage in Romans 12, this is when we addressed it by the way some time ago, when

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Paul wrote, I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God, you present your bodies a living sacrifice. He is saying the same thing here in 1

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Thessalonians 4, that you learn to control or acquire your own bodies to live for the will of God rather than for sin.

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That you offer your bodies a living sacrifice wholly accessible to God, which is your reasonable service or ministry or worship.

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And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed. And how do you experience transformation?

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How do you become sanctified as a Christian? By the renewing of your mind, is what

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Paul said. This is the mind, the intellect, the understanding of the truth of the

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Word of God is the means by which God sanctifies his people. If you check out in your thinking and you don't meditate upon the

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Word and try to understand the Word, you're going to be tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine.

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And you're going to be susceptible to deceivers who will come to you and tell you they've got a

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Word of God for you. And you're going to be tossed about.

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But the way you prove, that is, validate what is true and good and acceptable as the perfect will of God, it's going to be understood through renewing your mind and conforming it to the truth of God.

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And so the idea being conveyed is that after a process of testing and examining, you discover the will of God as directed by the

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Word of God is the most pleasing, beneficial, and in every way, perfect way to live.

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In fact, oftentimes as Christians we learn, I'm sure this is your experience too, maybe when we were earlier, younger

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Christians, that you encounter some situation in your life and your natural impulse,

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I need to go this way, but the Word of God says you do something just the opposite. And at that time, through your own conception of things and assessment of things, if I go that route, it's not going to turn out well for me.

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But you choose to obey God's Word in spite of what it appears. And then

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He works it all out. And afterward, you're able to look back and see the wisdom of it, and see the folly of what would have happened had you gone your own way.

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And so you're not led by your lust, your impulses, your desires, but you direct yourself by the

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Word of God. And this is how God would have His people live. And frankly,

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I don't see it taking place a great deal. But rather, people tend to be governed by their own lust, that is, their own affections.

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And they use that to determine the will of God, which is not good and acceptable, certainly not perfect. And they're troubled in every way.

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They bring it upon themselves until they learn to apply what Paul sets forth here quite clearly and plainly in 1

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Thessalonians 4 on the way of sanctification. And that is, you need to learn, you need to know how to control your body.

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Not as the Gentiles who are controlled by their desires, their sinful passions and whatnot. Not by your affections, your emotions.

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But you need to know what God's will says about it, and then you do that. And that's how

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God will transform you. I want to read this, and we'll close with this.

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It's an extended portion of J .C. Philpott. I know I had it in my nose before, but I don't know that we read it then because of the time.

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But here, Philpott had quite an ability to look into the experience of a

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Christian and describe it and depict it. And so here he's describing the soul that comes to know

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God through deep experience informed by the scriptures. As the veil is taken off the heart, we begin to see and feel what a power there is in true religion and what a reality in divine teaching and what a sweetness there is in the inward testimonies of God.

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Most men's religion is nothing else but a round of forms. Some have their doings, some their doctrines, others their duties.

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And when the one has performed his doings, the other learnt his doctrines, the third discharged his duties.

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Why, he is as good a Christian, he thinks, as anybody. Whilst all the time the poor deceived creature is thoroughly ignorant of the kingdom of God, which stands not in word but in power.

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In other words, he doesn't experience that. But as the veil of ignorance and unbelief is taken off the heart, we begin to see and feel that there is a power and vital godliness, a reality in the teachings of the

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Spirit that religion is not to be put on and put off as a man puts on and puts off his

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Sunday clothes. But when we come away from chapel, we cannot take off our religion, fold it up and put it away into the drawer and there let it lie safe and quiet all the week.

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Where vital godliness is wrought with divine power in a man's heart, preached by the Holy Ghost into his conscience, it mingles daily and often hourly with his thoughts, entwines itself with his feelings and becomes the very meat and drink of his soul.

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But till that veil is taken away, we can put up our religion on and off at pleasure. We are often glad to take off the tight

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Sunday coat and slip on the easy weekday clothes. As then we begin to see and feel the reality and power of vital godliness, it separates us from those who have only a name to live while they are dead.

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It makes us manifest as one of the peculiar people and our friends and companions.

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Nay, the only persons whose society we really love are those who have felt divine realities by divine teaching.

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We can no more do with a dead profession of truth than with a dead profession of error. We can no more make friends and companions of presumptuous professors than of swearers, adulterers, or drunkards.

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And feeling, or at least desiring to feel, in our hearts light, life, savor, do, and power for ourselves, we look out for those who have experienced these things themselves, and in whom we can read, if we have a discerning eye, the legible lines of God's Spirit written upon their conscience, or towards whom we can feel a sweet knitting of soul, as taught by the same

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Spirit, the same realities which we believe the Holy Ghost has taught us. When a man comes to this spot to see and feel what a reality there is in the things of God made manifest in the conscience by the power of the

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Holy Ghost, it effectually takes him out of dead churches, cuts him off from false ministers, winnows the chaff from the wheat, and brings him in close communion with the brokenhearted family of God.

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But as the veil is removed and the soul also begins to see and feel the workings of inward sin that it was previously ignorant of, the removal of the veil not merely shows us the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, but everything contrary to that glory—the pride of our heart, the power of unbelief, the enmity of our carnal mind, the awful hypocrisy, the daring presumption, the abominable treachery, the fleshly lusts, and all the obscene imaginations of our depraved nature that will work in us in spite of all our groans and cries to the contrary.

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All this as the veil is taken off the soul becomes more and more manifested, and we have, and oh what a sight it is, a sight of ourselves.

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Did ever a man see so filthy a sight as himself? When he looks down into the sewer of his own nature, does he not see everything there creeping and crawling like tadpoles in a ditch to disgust him?

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But even this works together for good, for as a man feels a measure of light and life in his conscience, and sees and feels to more and more the workings of his depraved nature and the breakings forth of the hypocrisy of a treacherous heart, he is brought to look more simply and more singly to the glorious person of the

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Son of God, and casts himself more sincerely and unreservedly upon the blood which cleanses from all sin.

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And thus as the veil is removed from off the heart, he begins to drink more deeply into the spirit of the gospel, into the mind of Christ, into the reality of the things of God, into union and communion with Jesus, into the solemn renunciation of himself, into an abhorrence of evil, separation from the world, and learns to live a life of faith upon the

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Son of God. That fellow knows a biblical

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Christian experience which I trust you and I can resonate with. That's what we've experienced.

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But the bottom line, the apostle instructed these Christians in the nature and manner of their sanctification, each one of you should know how to possess or acquire or control his own vessel in holiness and honor.

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In other words, in the realm of the mind, in his understanding of the will of God, it was to govern how they live, not as the passions of lust, sinful lust, like the

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Gentiles who do not know God, that is in the realm of affections. We'll stop there because of the time.

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I'm going to let you just read the notes and following. This is talking about individuals and their own sin, but he also gives a warning, don't you be a cause of sinning in other people either.

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And that often happens too, doesn't it? Because he emphasizes, and the

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Lord emphasized too, if you lead another person into sin, you're going to have to answer for that on the day of judgment.

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When you defraud somebody, because of your action or whatever, you're tempting them.

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You lead them into sin by what you do, how you dress, how you talk, how you act. You're guilty of the sin they commit as well as they're guilty of their own sin.

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And that's a part of sanctification also, learning to be a force and an influence for holiness and godliness rather than a cause of other people sinning against our

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God. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your work of grace in our lives to teach us these important truths, and we pray that you would help us, our

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God, to truly experience this work of sanctification in our lives, that we would seek to understand and know your word more thoroughly, more completely, and that you would indeed,

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Lord, enable our affections to love your truth, your word, and that that would indeed influence our will, that we would conform our thinking and our ways to your word.

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For we know that this is the way of blessedness, it's the way of peace, it's the way of holiness, and it's the way that you have prescribed for your people on their way to heaven.