Sanctification (part 2)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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Father in Heaven, we thank you so much for your great kindness towards us as we consider and look back even upon every day this past week.

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We understood full well and we can see that like in the Old Testament time, the book of Samuel where it said that they were to raise an

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Ebenezer, a stone of memorial, because hitherto hath the Lord helped us. Lord, you have helped us to come to this very place, to this very time.

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You've not only preserved our lives physically and you've sustained us, you've given us food and breath and all the things that we need physically to be maintained and sustained in life, but spiritually you've given us every rich blessing in Christ.

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You have graced us and you've continued to do so all the days of our lives since that first day when you revealed to us your

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Son, since the day you saved us, since the day that you made us your children and you worked a great work in us.

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And we are confident with the Apostle Paul that he which hath begun a good work in us will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ.

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Lord, you'll complete the work. You don't start a work and leave it undone as we do. You will completely do the work that you've purposed to do in us to conform us to the image of Christ and one day to bring us home to glory.

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Thank you. We worship you. We adore you. We lift up our hearts and souls this morning to you and give you the praise that is due your name and we ask that you'd please teach us now and help us to learn more of what it means concerning this doctrine of sanctification.

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In Jesus' name, amen. Last week, if you remember, I began the study of sanctification and for those of you that are here,

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I apologize because we handed out the sheet that's on the chair over there if you don't have one. We handed out the sheet and we didn't look at the sheet.

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I don't think very much. I think I touched on it at the very end and I think we'll turn that around today, of course, because we'll take a look at the sheet.

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We will use the handout today. We introduced last week the subject of sanctification, of this idea of being set apart for God.

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That's what the word means, to be set apart, to be made holy, to be separated.

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That's the meaning of this word from the Bible and we look back at the Old Testament. You remember, we look back on things that were made holy, things that were set apart.

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It was people, it was places, it was things. It was prophets set apart in the womb of God for God's purposes.

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It was Mount Sinai set apart. The people could not touch the mount. It's the place where God was visiting and speaking to Moses and delivering the commandments.

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The Levites, that whole tribe set apart for God. The vessels in the temple, in the tabernacle first and then later in the temple set apart for service to be used for God.

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And then we looked at what God was doing when it came to the children of Israel. God was, when they were in Egypt captive, they were prisoners, slaves.

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They were not able to have the freedom to be able to serve God as God intended for them and desired for them.

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And so God sends Moses to Pharaoh, let my people go so that they can come out and worship God. And so as it says at the end of Leviticus chapter 11, that they could be a what kind of people?

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A holy people, right? To be a holy people set apart for God. And we then went to the

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New Testament and we see that there is doctrinal teaching that the Apostle Paul and Peter lay down.

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Also John does the same thing. And particularly there are commands like in 1 Peter chapter 1 and in verse 15 and 16 where it says, just like Leviticus in chapter 11, that we are to be a holy people.

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And we'll go back and review some of those verses. I think what we'll do to start this morning is if you take your sheets and you'll turn,

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I believe if it's, I can't remember how they're stapled, but I think it's the last page, there's a diagram that looks like this.

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And I want to just do a quick overview of this diagram. I gave this to you so that you can see that there are, this diagram has to do with the order of salvation.

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It is not all inclusive. It doesn't have everything, every single aspect. You won't see forgiveness on here, adoption, the word deliverance.

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There's just some things that you don't see. But it has the main things that you would want to see when it comes to looking at salvation and what

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God does. Now, salvation is all of the Lord. Salvation is something that God does for us and we don't do for ourselves.

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But yet there are certain things, certain parts of these components that we will see that it isn't that God does them for us,

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God enables us to do some of these things. And that's very important. So there are different components when it comes to salvation.

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There is an order. And for the sake of those who are listening to this recording, if you were to take a piece of paper and go from the left side of a piece of paper, take a piece of 8 1⁄2 by 11 and flip it landscape and go from left to right, and you could write the word election, atonement, calling, regeneration, conversion, which is two pieces, faith and repentance, then justification, sanctification and glorification.

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That's what we're looking at in the class here this morning to begin. You see on here, there is an order.

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It isn't that, let's say, once God gives us faith and repentance, we are not immediately, look way over to the right, we are not immediately ushered into heaven.

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We're not glorified. Now, many of you in the room here this morning would like for it to be that way, that as soon as we believe, woo, the chariot comes and up we go like the prophet and we're in glory.

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That is not the way that God intended it for all of us. There were some that in their lifetime, they did go that way.

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Enoch was a man who walked with God and he was not. God took him up into his presence.

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But for us, by the time when we're converted, before glorification, there is this subject that we're looking at, which comprises the majority of our

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Christian life, sanctification. I mean, it's not that we're called before we are elected.

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There's an order here. Before we are chosen of God, it begins back on the left -hand side of the page where we are chosen by God.

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So we see that there is a certain order. Now, some people might get hung up on the fact that when it comes to regeneration, in the middle there, regeneration, conversion, and justification, which you'll hear different things of which comes first.

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Is it faith comes first or regeneration comes first? I believe this diagram is proper in that we are born from above, we are regenerated, and then because of that regeneration, that new life that we've been given, the work of the

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Holy Spirit upon us, we are then enabled by God to exercise faith and repentance, the gifts that God gives us.

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Some people you'll see in their teaching, they'll say, because we believe, we are born again.

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I think it's kind of out of order, but if you've biblically studied, but that's not today's class. That would be one on regeneration and faith.

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But there's an order. And another important thing about this is that every peace along that line must take place in the life of a person in order for them to be saved.

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Was that plain enough? Every peace along that line must take place. And this is very important because there are some people who teach that when it comes to sanctification or the life of the believer, a sinner can be regenerated, born from above, be given a new heart, be indwelt by the

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Spirit of God, exercise faith in Christ, repent of their sins, and yet no change in their life.

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Some people teach that because what they teach, of course, is it's an easy believism.

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They don't want any lordship or any submission to Christ or anything of that to come into place.

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And it's basically, you believe on Christ, it doesn't matter how you live, you can still be saved.

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And that's contrary to the Bible. J .C. Ryle in his book on holiness says that's monstrous.

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That type of doctrine is monstrous, and it really is. It goes against, and as we're going to see as we look at some scripture, it goes against the mind, the purpose, and the will of God when it comes to saving anybody.

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I mean, just think about what we studied last week. When God called the people out of Israel, out of the slavery of Egypt, when

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God was calling them and delivering them out of Egypt, you remember that I said that the book of Exodus was

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God getting his children out of Egypt, right? And then we went and looked at the book of Leviticus, and we said what about that book?

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That that is God getting what? Egypt out of his children. And for what purpose?

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Because God wants a holy people. He wants a chosen nation, a kingdom of priests, a holy people.

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It's always been God's intention for those whom he saves that they are going to be holy. And we'll be looking at those verses, some of those verses shortly.

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But every peace must take place. If you look at, if you take any one of them, and you look at, let's say, justification, in order for a person to be justified, they would have to have believed.

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In order for them to have believed, they would have to have been regenerated or born from above or been given life by the spirit of God.

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In order for that to take place, they would have had to have been elected of God or chosen of God. Those are the ones that God purposed to do this work in, and so on.

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And for a person to be able to believe, they're believing on who? On Christ. And what did

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Jesus Christ do? He died for their sins, the atonement. He made that perfect payment for their sins.

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So across the line, all of these must take place. Or any one of these, they're all linked together.

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You can't have one without the other. And that's where you'll get some aberrant teaching today, some false doctrine, some false practices.

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Like I was talking earlier, you'll have some folks who will teach that it's, you can believe upon Jesus Christ, but that does not necessarily have to affect a change in your life.

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And it's kind of like, it would almost kind of like be like a caterpillar who is in a, is it a cocoon that they are in?

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Do they go in cocoons, caterpillars or butterflies? They're a chrysalis. They're in those things, those little thing, little wrapped up like mummies.

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And then all of a sudden there's a change. This thing splits open and what went in didn't come out.

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This caterpillar crawling along the ground, and that was essentially its nature, then goes into this chrysalis or cocoon and comes out with wings.

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And can you imagine the butterfly just going right back down on the ground and crawling around and eating the things that it was doing, going on the leaves and never flying, never experiencing the benefits of its new nature.

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And it would be the same for a Christian, a supposed Christian who is, now when

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I was first saved, here's how it was termed. You may have heard this before. I don't think it's really on the scene much today, but back in the 70s and in the 80s, it was pretty big.

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You have a person who can come to Christ, who can believe that Jesus died for them, and then there's not,

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I mean, they have the spirit of God dwelling within them, they've been forgiven, they're a child of God, and yet they don't have to change.

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And as a matter of fact, if they live with sinful tendencies, and if they live like the world lives, what we'll do is we have to have an explanation for this, so we'll just call them, you know what

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I'm going to say, right, carnal Christians. They get a lot, they misuse 1 Corinthians chapter 3, where Paul was saying that you are living like carnal people.

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But he wasn't saying that that was the norm for the Christian life. But some folks, if they get this sanctification wrong, what they'll do is, if a person is not living the way they ought to be living, in purity, in holiness, striving to mortify sin in their life, desiring to know the mind and the will of God through the word of God, and live differently, and think differently, behave differently, if they don't do that, we'll just call them carnal

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Christians. To me, the explanation for it is, is that the person isn't even a Christian at all, because they have not experienced the work that God does.

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When God saves, what kind of a God is God? In the light of this study of sanctification, if we were to describe

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God, what is one of the attributes of God that stands out so much in the scriptures? Holiness.

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As he which has called you is holy, Peter wrote, as he which has called you is holy, a holy

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God calling out people, God does not call people out to be unholy.

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As he which hath called you is holy, so you be holy in all your manner of conversation or in your behavior.

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That's what Peter wrote. That's the command for us there. So we see that, that for one of these, if one of these has taken place, and God has done the work, they're all going to take place.

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They're all linked together. They're inseparable. It's a golden chain here. You can't have one piece without the other.

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You know what else was interesting as I was looking at this too, is that as you move from left to right,

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I don't know how to totally put this together, but it's just something I was thinking about this. As you move from left to right, the work becomes more visible, doesn't it?

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I mean, how many people have seen, have actually seen or saw when God elected you? We didn't see it.

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I mean, we see the fruit of it in our lives, the results of it, but election and atonement, we didn't see it.

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Of course, we only see it with an eye of faith. Now we start seeing calling, God calling us, the effectual call, okay, we experience that.

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We have more of an understanding or a comprehension as we move from left to right and it becomes more visible in our life.

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Conversion, faith and repentance, we see that. We understood that. Justification, well, it's kind of something we know forensically

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God has done in our lives, but sanctification for sure. I mean, sanctification,

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God conforming us to the image of Christ, us being a separated people being set apart for God and striving to be more holy, certainly we see that, don't we?

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Eventually, glorification, we get to heaven. I mean, all the blinders are off. We look through a glass darkly right now.

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I mean, it's cloudy, what we can see, but when we get to heaven and all the filters are off and our eyesight is perfect and we're in a glorified body, what a wonder of wonders and we'll be able to see it all come to fruition.

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Dan, you have a question? Yeah, the idea is people say they're good, but there's a difference between being good because a person can adhere to biblical principles on the outside and think that they are good, they are moral, they're just, they're civil people, they're kind.

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They do outward things, but an inward change has not taken place.

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And I think what Dan was saying, as you're talking to people, maybe evangelizing, sharing the gospel with people, rather than asking if people get hung up on, you know,

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I'm good, I haven't robbed the banks, I don't sin like other people do, but we can bring to bear upon them that the standard is holiness.

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When God saves somebody, what he works in their life is holiness.

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And let's go to Ephesians chapter one. Here's a verse that probably you've read many, many times, because I want to just lay another foundation this week that what we're talking about in the subject, the doctrine of sanctification, being holy or being separated or being set apart for God, this is something that God intends to do, he purposes to do.

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It comes with the salvation package. You know, sometimes if you ever bought something in the store and it requires self -assembly and you open up that little bag, and undoubtedly there's something missing in that bag, and then you got to scramble to try to either make it go together differently or go to the hardware store and get the pieces that you need.

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When it comes to salvation, God is the author and finisher of our faith, the alpha and the omega.

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He does the whole complete job. And one of the things that God does when it comes to salvation, something closely linked and connected to salvation, is the aspect that the life of the person who believes upon the

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Lord Jesus Christ, the person who is saved, will be holy. Look at Ephesians one, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ Jesus, grace be to you and peace from God our

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Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse three, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.

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And here we go. Here it is. It's in verse four, according as He, as God has chosen us in Him, in Christ, before the foundation of the world.

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So God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world that for this purpose, for this end result, that we should be holy.

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Does it say there that God has chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we might be holy?

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That we have the possibility to be holy? That we ought to be holy? That we optionally should be holy?

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No, it says there that God has chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame, or blameless, before Him.

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I mean, this is something that is nailed in Scripture. You can't get around this fact that the

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God, the holy God, who has called sinful people is not going to save people and leave them in their sin.

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God delivers us from our sin. He not only delivers us from the penalty of sin, the penalty that was due, us.

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But He also delivers us from the passion and the pleasure and the love of sin.

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And that's part of this sanctification, this part of this work. I think it's very interesting, and let me just, before we go on, most of the books that you read on this subject will deal with three aspects of sanctification, and it has to do with past, present, and future.

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And it might be good just to do a very quick overview. If you would, turn with me to Hebrews chapter 10.

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The first type of sanctification that they speak about is a positional sanctification.

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In Hebrews chapter 10, notice verse 10,

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Hebrews 10, and in verse 10, it says,

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By the witch will, we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all.

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So it says, Through Christ's sacrifice, we are sanctified. This positional sanctification is not the one that we're talking about when it comes to the present life and the one that we live in day by day.

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This is through the sacrifice of Christ, through the death of God's Son. This verse speaks this of us being in the past tense.

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This is something that God does. God sanctifies those for whom Christ died.

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They are set apart for God's purposes, and it's positionally in Christ, we are set apart for God.

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Notice verse 14, For by one offering, he has perfected forever them that are sanctified.

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We are made holy by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, is in the mind of God forever.

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As far as God is concerned, we are set apart. We are holy ones.

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That's why you can have Paul writing to the church at Corinth, which as Pastor Mike has been preaching, do they have some problems in that church?

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Are they perfect? Are they sinless? No, they got all kinds of problems. But how does

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Paul address that church in 1 Corinthians 1, the first two verses? He says he's writing to the saints.

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He's writing to the set apart ones. And that word also means he's writing to holy ones.

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In the mind of God, we are, we don't have to become like in many churches, particularly the

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Roman Catholic Church. How does somebody become a saint? Does anybody have any idea? How do you become a saint?

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Well, you die. It's very rare for you to become a saint while you're alive. I think it has happened maybe, but it's very rare.

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But it is good works. And it's usually some type of miraculous thing that you're known for.

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You have gone, you have been a super Christian, Christian in quotes, and you have gone over above and because of that, you become a holy one.

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But when it comes to God in the scripture, through the sacrifice of Christ, we're in that position, positionally.

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Steve? Wow. Yeah.

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And see where the error comes? It's extra biblical, outside the Bibles, whatever.

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That's why it's important to study this. How is a person sanctified? How is a person made holy?

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Is it because of our effort? You remember on the chart that we looked at very first? We didn't cover this, but underneath each one of those words in parentheses, it either has

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God or God and man, meaning who's the source of this? And when it comes to sanctification,

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God is the source of it. It doesn't have to do with us as far as us in our own efforts.

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It's not something that flows from us. This is something that flows from God and we respond. And we go on in this life of living and desiring to be a holy people.

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So there's a positional sanctification. For those of you taking notes, you can look at like Acts 20, verse 32, where it talks about the...it's

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past tense. We have been sanctified, set apart for the purposes and for the will of God.

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God looks at us and when God looks at us, because we have received the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ, we can't be more perfect.

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We can't be more set apart for God in Christ Jesus. But the study that we're looking at is, well, but Brother Dave, we have sin in our lives.

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I mean, I'm struggling as a believer. I feel like I'm living in Romans chapter 7, the things that I want to do,

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I don't do, and the things I don't want to do, I'm doing. What is that all about? That's why it's important for us to understand that there's another type of sanctification called progressive sanctification in the present.

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But before I go there, because that's where we're going to spend most of our time, we looked at the sheet way over to the right of the sheet, and that's heaven, that's eternity way over to the right, and that's ultimate sanctification.

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That means that is at the time when God actually makes believers sinless in their body and spirit forever in heaven.

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And when you think about that, that can, as a good friend of mine used to say when he would study something in the

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Bible and it was really, really awesome, he would say, that just blows my mind when

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I read that, to think that we, because we can't think outside that realm right now because we're in a body and we've got all this baggage.

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We've got the old man that we deal with every day until we're in glory.

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At that time, 1 Corinthians 15, this mortal shall put on immortality. We are going to be changed and we're going to have a resurrected body like as unto the

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Lord, glorified body, and a body that will be sinless and we will never sin in heaven.

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Amazing. I mean, that's true and that's going to take place and those are things that we meditate upon, we hope in and we trust in God and we persevere in our faith and one day we know that that is where he's going to bring us.

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But you know, for the majority of our days, the majority of our life, we're living in a third type of sanctification, the one that's most prevalent for us in the present time, which is a progressive sanctification.

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It is, in some books you'll read, experiential. It's something that we experience day in and day out and it concerns our current

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Christian life and it is, if you look on your sheet, there's a definition. This comes from Gruden's systematic theology,

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Wayne Grudem. Up the top, about maybe an inch down from the chapter of 38 title, it says, sanctification is a progressive work and by progressive, we mean a work that continues throughout the life of the believer.

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It's ongoing. It doesn't cease as some would teach and we'll see that later on.

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Some say that Christians can get to the point where they do not sin. It stops.

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They arrive. But I haven't met one. I remember studying

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John Wesley's writings about it and he himself never claimed that he reached sinless perfection because I think maybe if you get to the point, and I just sinless,

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I think you've sinned and it just doesn't hold water and we'll see that as we go on in the study.

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But sanctification is a progressive work of God and man that makes us more and more free from sin and like Christ in our actual lives.

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You remember the line, the sanctification going across left to right and sanctification was the one that was being focused on in that study on that sheet that we handed out.

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It's part of the process. Turn with me if you would to 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 and in this verse, we're going to see the word sanctification and I want you to tell me what this means in this verse.

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Why is it being used, the word sanctification being used and what is it being used in relation to? 2

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Thessalonians chapter 2 and in verse 13, Paul is thanking

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God for them and thanking God for something that's take place in their life, 2

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Thessalonians 2 .13, but we are bound to give thanks always to God for you brethren beloved of the

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Lord because this is why he's thankful because God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation or for salvation through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth.

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God has chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth.

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What is being said here about sanctification when it comes to another word that he puts it?

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What is he putting it in reference to? What other word there? Alright, well that's what it means, but what other word in that verse is kind of being coupled with the word sanctification?

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Salvation, right? God, what he's saying here is God has chosen us to salvation and that salvation, you don't get that salvation, that salvation doesn't come about in the person's life outside of a person going through sanctification.

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Sanctification is something that must take place in the life of a person. It's not optional. It's not something that you can take it or leave it.

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A person who is saved is a person who is sanctified. The process must take place in their life.

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Do you see how important that is? Do you see how it's coupled there? Do you see how? Here's another example. Turn to Luke chapter 1,

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Luke chapter 1 so we can see it and I'll kind of hit on the word that Dan just brought up.

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In Luke chapter 1, this is

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Zechariah, John the Baptist's father being filled with the spirit of God and he prophesies at the end of chapter 1 and he speaks about what

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God is doing in raising up Jesus Christ as the horn of salvation for his people and he talks about what will take place in the life of a person who is saved and notice what it says in verse, well, let's begin reading in verse 69, and he has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant

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David as he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets which have been since the world began that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all that hate us to perform the mercy promised to our fathers and remember his holy covenant.

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He's recalling what God was doing in the life and promised the promises that God made concerning saving his people.

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The oath, verse 63, which he swore to our father Abraham. Notice in verse 74 that he would grant unto us that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear.

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The same idea what we're talking about, God delivering his people so they could serve him, but how were they going to serve him?

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How were they going to live? What is the result? What is the character? What are the attributes of that person's life?

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Notice to serve him without fear, verse 75, in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life.

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It is just so clear that when God is delivering someone out of Egypt, when

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God saves someone out of their sin, it is like from the bondage, from the prison.

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He's doing that and when God does that work, he calls them out of the muck, out of the mire, out of the soiled mud of sin, not to place them in a different mud, muck of sin, but he calls them out of darkness to place them into the kingdom of his son, his son

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Jesus Christ, who they are to walk and follow in his steps. And as Jesus walked, we are to walk, the scriptures speak to us.

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And it even permeates some of the hymns that we sing.

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Think about O Four Thousand Tongues to Sing. He breaks the power of canceled sin.

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He sets the prisoner free. His blood can make the foulest clean. His blood availed for me.

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God doesn't save people out of the dirt of sin and leave them dirty.

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He makes them and conforms them to the image of his son. How about, and can it be,

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God's eye diffused a quickening ray. I woke, the dungeon flamed with light.

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My chains fell off, my heart was free. I rose, went forth and followed thee. There is this unshackling from sin.

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There is this deliverance from sin, a being set free from sin. And that is part of sanctification.

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That's what God's doing in our lives. And if you speak to somebody, and I have done this, if you are speaking to people who profess to be

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Christians, and yet their life has not changed, then you must bring them back to scriptures like Luke chapter 1, like Ephesians chapter 1, where it says that God has chosen us in Christ that we should be holy.

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Look in 2 Corinthians chapter 7, if you would. 2 Corinthians, just to give you another example of this.

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2 Corinthians chapter 7, Paul begins the chapter by saying, having therefore these promises, dearly beloved.

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And when you see the therefore, you want to know what it's there for, you look back to the end of chapter 6.

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And it says, you remember those verses, God does not want us to be unequally yoked. He says, for what fellowship has light with darkness?

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I mean, it just doesn't make sense for someone who says that they're a believer to be yoked with unbelievers.

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You don't have fellowship. What harmony does Christ have with the wicked one?

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Or what part does a believer have with an unbeliever? Verse 16 at the end of the chapter, what agreement has the temple of God with idols?

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For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said, I will dwell in them and walk in them and will be their

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God. They will be my people, verse 16, verse 17. Wherefore, come out from among them and be separate.

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That's the idea there, to be holy, to be set apart, to be separated for God, says the

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Lord. And touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you and be a father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the

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Lord Almighty. God has called us out of the world, saved us from our sins, cut the dominion of sin, broken its power over us.

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And therefore, God saying that he would do this, having these promises, dearly beloved, chapter 7, verse 1, let us play in the pigpen, right?

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That's what it says there, right? Let us play with sin. Let us coddle ourselves and entertain sin.

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And when we're tempted, let's not worry about it because you've heard this, we're under grace.

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Jesus has died for us. We don't need to change. We can be as we are. God will accept us.

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He loves us so much. He will accept our lives no matter who we are and what we've done.

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It doesn't matter what we do. I mean, if we did, it works, right? We're not supposed to work when it comes to our salvation.

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It's by grace. So, and Paul, I mean, doesn't Paul slay that when he says, you know, should grace abound basically so that we can sin?

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You know, God forbid, may it never be so. What does he say here? What's the exhortation for us here?

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Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement or filthiness of the flesh and spirit.

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And here it says, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. This is an ongoing thing.

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This is a progressive thing that takes place in our lives called progressive sanctification, perfecting holiness or fulfilling or completing or to finish.

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Jerry Bridges, one of his books, I don't know the exact title of it, but it has to do with a pursuit of holiness, right?

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It is a desire to be more like Christ, to desire to have less frequency of sin in our lives.

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It is mortifying sin. We're going to look at Romans chapter 6 eventually. This idea that we could just stay the same is foreign to biblical salvation.

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And I hope you get it because it will enter into your life personally because you'll get to the point sometimes where you will say, well, people say,

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I mean, I've had people, many, many in the past who you thought were believers, but you're talking to them and there is no effective change.

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There's no radical change in their lives. And you begin to think, well, I know what the

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Bible says about being saved. And I know what's taking place in my life. I'm a new creature created in Christ Jesus.

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All things are passed away. All things have been made new. I know that I have a new heart and a new desire.

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And I used to love things and I don't love them anymore. And I used to hate the things that were religious or godly or the

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Bible, but now I love those things. God has done that in me. But this person says, and you're going to be talking to people like this and trying to help them.

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What better yet than to be equipped, right? To know what sanctification is so that you can help as counseling people or when you're evangelizing.

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You don't want to muddle up what sanctification is as compared to justification. And that's what on your sheets, if you'll look there, there's a difference between the two, justification and sanctification, because many times people will mess them up.

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Justification on the left side of the column is our legal standing before God.

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We have been justified. We have been declared righteous. But on the right side, sanctification, mainly it's an internal condition.

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Bottom line, when it comes to sanctification, it deals with our hearts. It deals with our mind.

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It deals with our will. It's an inside change that affects an outside change.

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As we think more with the mind of Christ, as the Spirit of God takes the Word of God and applies it to us, and we learn, and then we think differently, because we're thinking differently and thinking more godly, our life and behavior will be changed.

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We had the conversation earlier in the class. There are some who focus on the outside, and they say because the outside behavior has changed, and that's all that they've concentrated on, then this person must be a believer.

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Well, we need to also see what's going on in the inside of that person. Do they have a heart for God? Do they love...

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I mean, I've known people and sat in church with people who say, I'm a believer, and they come to church, they read their

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Bible, they memorize Scripture, and yet, out of the next breath of their mouth, I remember hearing one gentleman say that he basically...

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he didn't come right out and say it, but basically he was saying, I hate that person sitting right over there in the chair, right over there.

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And name the person. That's not a demonstration of someone who's been born again.

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That fails the test of the book of 1 John. That person is not holy because on the inside, they don't have the love that God works in the life of the believer.

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We don't have to teach anybody to love the brethren, right? God does that. He's shed that love in our hearts for one another.

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We have that. But there are some people who get messed up here, and they kind of blur the lines here. What else is... what about this next line?

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Justification. How many times can you be justified? Once, right? Once for all time.

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God declaring you righteous. The perfect righteousness of Jesus. It's a forensic courtroom type thing that takes place.

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But in sanctification, progressive sanctification, it's continuous through the life. Now, let me ask you this question.

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If we're to be conformed more and more to be like Christ and to be holy, does that mean then that we come to the place that we'll never sin?

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Does anybody ever run into that with anybody who's claimed that they don't sin? I mean, I know I've talked to people who are not saved who said they've never sinned because they don't want to feel guilty that they've ever sinned.

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Anybody ever run across this? You have? Yeah, and really,

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I mean, you fail the test of 1 John again because if you go to 1 John 1 and 2, the person who says they have not sinned, they deceive themselves, and they call

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God a liar. I mean, it's just not possible. The way that they do it, I mean, if you've never heard this before, the way that they do it is they really just redefine sin.

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Some of them say because the person, they kind of split sin, and they say deliberate sin, willful sin, and unintentional or undeliberate sin.

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And they say that a person never rebels. A person who is a Christian never does these sins that are outright rebellion and deliberate, but they can commit these other sins.

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So really, they're not saying that the person is sinless. It's kind of some hoops that they have to jump through to make it work, but it's not biblical for a person because we do.

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We do have that struggle. And I have folks that come, and you maybe have them come to you, and you say, oh, this week was terrible.

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I mean, the temptations came and the enticements to sin, and you wouldn't believe what was going through my mind.

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I wouldn't want anybody to know what's going through my mind. And at times, I will say it to them just so they really understand what's going on.

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I'll say, that is very, very good. Why would I say that? Why would

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I say that? That is very, very good, vita. Right, right.

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He's given evidence that he hates the sin and that it's still sin if it's in your head and it's not an outward action.

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But let me ask this question. Do unbelievers struggle with sin? Well, they don't like the consequences.

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That's different. They don't like the consequences, but they don't struggle with it as being an offense with God. It has to do with their own life.

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They don't like their life being messed up. They don't like being arrested. They don't like being stopped from doing it.

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But they don't internally struggle with sin when it comes to the fact, I hate this sin.

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I don't want to do this anymore. I want to live for God. I want to be passionate about the things of God and be holy.

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So that's why I say to the believer, I say, that's good that you've got the struggle, because if you didn't have the struggle,

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I'd be more concerned. If you were just going on in the sin and you weren't striving and perfecting holiness and the fear of the

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Lord, if you weren't doing, as Peter said, as he which hath called you is holy, be ye holy in all manner of conversation.

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It would not be good for a person who claims to be a Christian not to be struggling with sin because that's a lifelong struggle.

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Now, do we stay the same, though? I mean, is it Pilgrim's Regress, when you think and you read that book, or Pilgrim's Plateau, or Pilgrim's Decline?

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Is that the name of the book? No, it's Pilgrim's what? Progress. He's going to the Celestial City.

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And you saw, if you ever read that book, all the struggles that he had, and yet God enabled him to overcome those things.

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And the Spirit of God enables us, as we read the Word of God, to be able to be given grace, to be able to overcome, to be able to mortify, to be able to put off sin and to put on Christ.

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And I have to show you this one last verse in Hebrews 12. So there's a difference as we've been looking at justification and sanctification.

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Justification is entirely the work of God. Grudem uses the word up in the chart there, we cooperate.

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I'm not as crazy about that word. We respond. As God is working in us, we respond to that work.

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We are enabled by God to be able to carry out the work of sanctification in our lives.

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In justification, it's perfect in this life. But sanctification, it's not perfect. It's continually becoming more and more conformed to the image of Christ.

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In justification, it's the same for all Christians. Brother Steve or Brother Dave or Carol or anybody in this room, nobody is more justified than the other.

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But when it comes to sanctification, there are different degrees of that because it is something that we have a part of and we are to strive.

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We are, as it says in 2 Timothy 2 .19, nevertheless the foundation of God stands sure, having this seal, the

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Lord knows them that are his. And notice the last phrase of that verse. And let everyone that names the name of Christ depart from iniquity.

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Paul wrote Timothy, flee youthful lust. Well, some people are going to do that to a different degree than others based upon how

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God is working in their lives, where they are in their maturity as a Christian, and in their devotion and their commitment.

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Paul said, I labor more than all of them. He said, I'm striving, I'm pressing, I'm desiring to do these types of things.

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So there's degrees when it comes to sanctification, but there's not degrees when it comes to justification.

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But even though there are degrees in sanctification, here's the key. There must be sanctification.

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There must be holiness in the life of a person who claims to be a believer, or they're not going to go to heaven.

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They're not going to see glory. And here's where we end, in Hebrews 12 for this morning.

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In Hebrews 12, in verse 14, notice what the Bible says. Follow peace with all men and holiness.

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Your translation might say, follow peace with all men and sanctification. It means the same, set apart, being holy.

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Follow peace with all men and holiness, without which no man shall see the

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Lord. Now that tells us, very plainly, that if a person would desire to go to heaven, claiming to be a

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Christian, they can't do it if holiness and sanctification in their life, progressively, not perfection, but direction.

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If that holiness, if that sanctification is not there, they're not going to end up in heaven. And that's what we can tell people.

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That's what we do when we examine our own lives, don't we? We're desiring to see God work His salvation in our lives, and we're desiring to see that we're going from glory to glory.

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We're going from faith to faith. We're growing in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're going from babes to young men to the aged and the mature,

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Christian. And as we progress through, our sin becomes more and more distasteful.

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As we see and learn more of Christ, we see more and more of our sin, don't we? And we despise it, and we hate it.

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But yet, it's part of the life, it's part of the struggle, and God gives us the victory through Christ, which we're going to see that we are no longer under the dominion of sin, that we are being conformed to the image of Christ.

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And it is just a wonderful thing to think that this is something that God does for people who don't deserve it.

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This is something that God does for people who, as we even look at our lives and we consider what God's doing in our lives, do you ever just think how amazing it is that God would take us, as it says in the

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Psalm, that God has taken us out of the miry clay and out of the pit, and He set our feet upon a rock and established our goings.

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And we're a different people now, with a changed heart, with a changed disposition, with a new nature.

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And part of that is that we desire to be holy. We desire to be like Christ and to walk as He walked.

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And don't kid yourself, and don't kid or think that other people who are speaking to you, don't let them try to pull something on you.

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Go to a scripture like Hebrews 12 and say, look, the scripture is very plain. If a person wants to see the

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Lord, that is just another way of saying if a person would desire to be with God forever, they must have had holiness in their life.

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There must be this sanctification. It has taken place. If it hasn't, they're not a believer. Thank God that it has in the lives of many of you.

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As I look into your faces this morning, and some of you are smiling because of that, and I smile with you,

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I rejoice with you, because this is a work that God's begun in our lives, and we are confident that He will finish it.

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Do you realize that one day the gap is going to be closed between where we are as far as being conformed to the image of Christ?

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We're going to be ultimately there. We're going to be, as John said, we're going to see Him as He is, and we are going to be made like Him.

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1 John 3, the first couple of verses. We're not there yet. The process of sanctification is closing the gap.

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And one day, ultimately, we're going to be completely sanctified in a glorified body where we never sin again.

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Think on that one this afternoon. And that was probably worth the trip in to the

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Sunday school class this morning. Any questions? I know I've gone a little bit longer. I apologize. Dan?

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Yeah, it was difficult when he put the scroll down and he lost it and he had to backtrack.

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It will cost us if we go off the path, if we play with sin, if we cherish things that we ought not to.

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That's why it's very important for us to stay the course. I have fought the fight. I have finished my course.

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I've kept the faith, the Apostle Paul said, and it's best for us to do it that way. Let's pray.

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Father, thank you for the study which we are undergoing here to understand what it is that you have done when it comes to your great salvation, your wonderful gift to us in Christ.

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We thank you that when you did save us, you did not leave us as we were, but you're working in us.

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You're working in us both to will and to do, to work out this progressive sanctification to desire to put off sin and to put on Christ and to be more holy and to have a pursuit of holiness in our lives.

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Thank you that you're working in us, and even when we fail, we can confess our sins and you forgive us, you cleanse us.

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And, Lord, we can't be more justified. We can't be more forgiven. We can't be more elected of God.

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We can't be more of your children in relationship with you, but we can be more holy.

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And we do desire that you work that continually in our lives so that Jesus Christ would be glorified, and we would let other people know what you're doing in our lives and how so much we appreciate and adore and worship you for that.

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And thank you for your great work in our hearts. Be with us the remainder of this morning into the service to be able to worship, bring those that are coming safely, give them journey mercies, and we'll give you all the praise in Jesus' name.