Common Errors Regarding Sanctification (Part 2)

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry.

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Mike Haferhorf here at the helm. Engage. You can write me,

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Mike at NoCompromiseRadio .com. Got some good letters these days. I've got some Pete's Coffee in the mail, sent to the church address.

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They taste it first. They wait a week to see if they get ill, and they pass it over to me.

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You can also go to NoCompromiseRadio .com, download a bunch of shows, all kinds of shows.

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Bob Andrzejczyk told me that he was listening to a Friday rerun, because that's how we've kind of morphed over the years, a

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Friday rerun, Monday's a sermon, Tuesday with Tuesday Guy, obviously. And then he said,

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I said something positive about Richard Baxter. I repent in dust and ashes.

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While Richard Baxter obviously has said some things that were right, when you have justification by faith of wrong,

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I don't really care what you say. It does affect pastoral ministry.

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I actually was reading an old journal, not just five minutes ago, and it talked about wrong views of justification by faith alone have pastoral ministry consequences.

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It's true, and maybe I'll talk about that at a show. Here's what we're doing today.

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We're continuing our little series on sanctification and common errors, errors, in sanctification.

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We looked at the first common error, and that was the wrong definition, right?

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Way too much focus on the human responsibility to the extent that there's an eclipsing of a talk about a

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God who sanctifies, the sanctifying work of God, God who sanctifies.

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And then the second one was, I wanted to make sure you didn't think I was a lawless, lay back and let

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God type of person. There is a response to sanctification, and while we're not as passive in sanctification as we are in regeneration, there is work to be done, right?

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And so you can listen to that show. You should listen to these in order. Louis Burkhoff says,

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So you can tell that's the divine side. It's a work of God.

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But is there any kind of, lest I say, cooperation? Burkhoff, There you go.

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God works, there's a response. Burkhoff again, God has the right to demand of us holiness of life, but because we cannot work out this holiness for ourselves, he freely works it within us through the

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Holy Spirit on the basis of the righteousness of Christ. Can you merit anything in sanctification?

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Can you boast of anything that you do in sanctification? Well, of course not.

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Michael Horton, We are justified by grace through a faith that simply rests in Christ, and we are sanctified by grace through a faith that resting in Christ is working through love.

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There you go, Michael Horton with the score there. I like that.

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Since we live in the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit, Galatians 5. Do not quench the

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Spirit. You'll see all kinds of commands like that, and it's not a command to God to do something, but it's a work through love, sanctified by grace, resting in Christ, working through love.

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Luther, Faith is a busy thing. It's in other words, running around hither and thither, pell -mell, looking for stuff to do.

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Why? Does God need your sanctification? No, but your neighbor does. That's the old punch line, no, but your neighbor does.

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Diligent means, right? Whether it comes to trying to have unity in the church, whether you want to press on to the upward call, there's all kinds of things that, you know, labor, sweat, and strive.

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What else could I say? Here's another quote. It is better simply to say that we are working out that salvation that Christ has already won for us and given to us by His Spirit through the gospel.

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That's good. John Owen, quote, The doctrine of justification is the directive of Christian practice, and in no other evangelical truth is the whole of our obedience more concerned.

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For the foundation reasons and motives are all duties toward God are contained therein.

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I don't know what that means. Should you run with endurance looking to Jesus?

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Absolutely. And so we want to promote holy lives, don't we?

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That's exactly right. All right. So those are two down. How many more to go on No Compromise Radio?

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I just had to breathe like that because otherwise I'm going to yawn. So I'm preventing yawning because if I'm yawning as the host, what does that mean for you?

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Related to the last one, sanctification error number three, ignore

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God's means of grace. Have you ever heard of means of grace? What's a means of grace?

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What's a mean grace? That would be my daughter if she was crabby. Hey, grace, don't be mean.

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What do I have here in front of me? It's time to drink liquids on No Compromise Radio. Premier protein, no artificial growth hormones, 30 grams of protein.

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What's happening here? Today's 50 grams of carbs or less.

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Makes you tired. I used to say to Haley, are you tired?

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I'm not tired. I'm not tired. You know, falling asleep.

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Oh, man. Means of grace. All right.

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Think about this. What are the means of grace? The Reformation would talk about ordinary means.

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Not supercalifragilisticexpialidocious means, but ordinary. What do you think ordinary means of grace?

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Word. Okay, good. And they would focus more on preaching, the preached word.

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But if you read it, that's good too. And then sacraments, right? Baptism and the

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Lord's Supper, just two sacraments for Protestants.

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English Reformed, I think also

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Dutch, which is Continental Reformed, had prayer along with the means of grace.

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And I don't know if I want to look that up or not. Westminster Larger Catechism 154.

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Means of grace, though, whether it's the word and the Lord's Supper, baptism, or the word

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Lord's Supper, baptism, and prayer, these are the means, these are the channels, let's use that, the channels that God has ordained.

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Bible reading, Lord's Supper, baptism. And let's make sure we remember

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Lord's Day worship, preached word. Your sanctification is going to suffer if you don't attend to the means of grace.

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I think one of the reasons why we watch all this COVID stuff, completely wrecking not only restaurants and establishments, retails places, it's wrecking a lot of Christians because they're not at church, they're not at Lord's Day worship.

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You think, well, how am I sanctified? Well, I'm sanctified by the Bible reading and prayer and sacraments.

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All right, so let's just think about that. Where are you going to get preaching? It's not the same on the internet.

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I don't care what you say, I can't quantify it, but that's just not the way it works. You can't get the

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Lord's Supper, you're like, well, I do it on my own with Cheetos and Mountain Dew.

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That's so wrong, it's not even funny. I'm making light of it in one sense, but not on the other.

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And baptism, well, I baptize my kids in the tub. No wonder people are freaking out.

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Sanctification, ordinary means. Look at our website. In His grace and in His wisdom,

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God has provided ways by which we can regularly have our faith in His promises fortified.

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Historically, we have referred to these ways of strengthening our faith as the ordinary means of grace. Prayer, the preaching of the

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Word, and the sacraments are not elaborate or fancy methods of giving us what we need to confirm our trust in Christ.

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To an outside observer, they do not seem special at all. After all, they make use of rather common things such as human speech, bread, wine, and water.

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But by faith and the work of the Spirit, these common elements are used to do an uncommon thing.

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The confirmation of our trust in Jesus and the strengthening of our wills to flee from sin and rest in Christ.

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I think

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I'm on to something here. Not that I'm on to what are the ordinary means of grace, but this whole

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COVID thing. Also, think about what goes on in the local church. What things are highlighted?

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Drama, music. You say, well, music's important to me.

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But if you get the others wrong, what good does rock and roll music, excuse me, praise music do?

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I'm not against praise music. Ligonier said to downplay their important, that is the ordinary means of grace, is to de -supernaturalize our holy religion.

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So let us have a high view of the sacraments as confirming signs of God's word. That's true.

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Heidelberg Catechism. Since then, we are made partakers of Christ and all his benefits by faith only. From where comes this faith?

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The Holy Spirit works faith in our hearts by the preaching of the holy gospel and confirms it by the use of the holy sacraments.

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Number 67, both word and sacrament are designed to direct our faith to the sacrifice of Christ on the cross as the only ground of our salvation.

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You think that's important to look at on a regular basis and remember? Yes, truly, for the

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Holy Spirit teaches in the gospel and assures us by the holy sacraments that our whole salvation stands in the one sacrifice of Christ made for us on the cross.

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Very, very important. If you look at 1

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Corinthians 11, for instance, you'll see very, very clearly, do this in remembrance of me.

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That's what we're supposed to be doing. All right. No Compromise Radio, Mike Abendroth. Error number four when it comes to sanctification.

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This is 11 ounces of chocolate, 160 calories. How many carbs?

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Five carbs. It's pretty hard to go carbless. And so I think if I'm 50 carbs or less today, that'd be pretty good, don't you think?

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How many days can I do that in a row? Well, that just depends how much weight

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I'll lose. It's been hard with this neck thing for three weeks.

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Three long weeks, no bicycling. What does that do? That does a lot.

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All right. Number four, sanctification error, taking your eyes off of Jesus.

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Taking your eyes off of Jesus. St. Clair Buchanan Ferguson said, the ability to focus our gaze, fill our minds and devote our hearts to Jesus Christ is a basic element in real

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Christian growth. Inability to do so is a sign of immaturity. Some Christians never appear to make such spiritual progress.

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Spiritual focus and concentration are beyond them. They seem to be dominated by feelings rather than the gospel.

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Their powers of concentration on spiritual realities are underdeveloped. They find it difficult to devote their attention to Christ in private or in public in prayer and singing

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God's praise or reading God's word. So the focus needs to be on who the

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Lord is, object of the faith, object of the faith.

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If you have a Bible, you can turn to Galatians 2 .20, I've been crucified with Christ.

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It is no longer I who live, Paul said, but Christ who lives in me.

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And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by what? Present tense. I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

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What do you think of that? What do you think? Do you think

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Paul is talking about sanctification here, justification? What do you think he's talking about?

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Justification, of course, is you're declared righteous, correct? Based on the righteousness of Christ.

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But there's an ongoing present day reality to that, isn't it? Isn't there? Isn't there a focus on who

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Jesus is? A focus on that Jesus lived for me, died for me, and was raised for me, right?

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That even our best, our best deeds are only acceptable through that person, the

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Lord Jesus. Paul, looking to his own performance, looking to Jesus' performance.

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Jerry Bridges, quote, so I learned that Christians need to hear the gospel all their lives because it is the gospel that continues to remind us that our day -to -day acceptance with the

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Father is not based on what we do for God, but upon what Christ did for us in his sinless life and sin bearing death.

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I began to see that we stand before God today as righteous as we ever will be, even in heaven, because he has clothed us with the righteousness of his

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Son. Therefore, I don't have to perform to be accepted by God. Now I am free to obey him and serve him because I'm already accepted in Christ.

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My driving motivation is now not guilt, but gratitude. So therefore, one of the things, you know, when you hear this,

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I've got to preach the gospel to myself every day, or if you think, you know, my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness, it's still a focus on who

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Jesus is. And even in sanctification, to remember your justification, right, sanc -re -mem -ber just.

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Now it's not only that. Some people are like, well, the only thing we talk about for our sanctification is justification.

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Well, usually people that talk like that, they don't even look to that. They're like, well, let's get past Jesus. We already got him for what we need in terms of initial sanctification, initial justification.

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Let's see, let's put it this way. What if I were to give you a no -compromise radio, the secret to sanctification?

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Well, I would listen, if I wasn't listening to myself already. I all too often listen to my sinful self.

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Mike, be lazy, Mike. Don't do that. Mike, serve self, not your wife.

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Mike. I often listen to myself. In this particular case, it'd be good to listen to myself, because I'm actually quoting

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Bible and or Bible truths. Horatious Bonar, you can get a lot of his free stuff on Chapel Library.

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Go to Chapel Library, type it in your web browser, or your favorite search thing, and you're going to find a lot of great stuff for Chapel Library.

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Just say, send me a bunch of tracts by Horatious Bonar, they will, or you can get them all online for free. The secret of a believer's walk, his holy walk, ready, ready, ready, ready, ready, ready, ready, is his continual recurrence to the blood of the surety, capital

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S, and his daily communion with the crucified and risen Lord. All divine life and all precious fruits of it, pardon, peace, holiness, spring from the cross.

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All fancied sanctification which does not wholly arise from the blood of the cross is nothing better than Pharisaism.

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If we would be holy, we must get to the cross and dwell there, else, notwithstanding all our labor, diligence, fasting, praying, and good works, we shall be yet void of real sanctification, destitute of those humble, gracious tempers which accompany a clear view of the cross.

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That's why, it's not every day, I don't want to lie, that's why every day

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I try to read the Gospels. I don't read all 89 chapters, but I read some of the

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Gospels. And after my Bible reading, if I don't read something from the

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Gospels that day, I put on the Gospels on my reading app, Bible reading app, and it reads to me while I'm even getting dressed because I need to make sure

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I just keep thinking about who Jesus is. No sanctification outside of Christ, right?

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Crucified with Him, Romans 6, those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires,

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Galatians chapter 5. Far be it for me to boast except in the cross of the

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Lord Jesus Christ by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world, Galatians 6, 14.

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This is the double benefit of Jesus, right?

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For pardon and for power, forgiveness, that is justification, and power in sanctification.

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Pardon and power to overcome indwelling sin. Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death?

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And we know it is the Lord Jesus. Pardon for sin, power to overcome it.

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That's the key when it comes to sanctification. Now if we'd like to look at a few verses to flesh that out, those would be found in Romans chapter 6 in the sanctification section.

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What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means. How can we who died it to sin still live in it?

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Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

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We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the

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Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

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We know that our old self 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.

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For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.

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We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over him.

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For the death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God so that you must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive in Christ Jesus.

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Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies to make you obey its passions. Do not present yourselves, members to sin, as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and your members to God as instruments for righteousness, for sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under law but under grace."

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In other words, we have Jesus' double benefit for salvation and sanctification, for pardon and for power.

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Does that make sense? Of course it makes sense. My name is Mike Ebendroth.

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I almost couldn't pronounce my name. My name is Michael E. Ebendroth and I am here talking to you about sanctification, common errors, common error number part three, next time on No Compromise Radio.

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No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Ebendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's Word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 10 .15 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston.

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You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.