Your Own, Personal Sanctification- [Philippians 2:12-13]

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Father in heaven, we just are thankful to be here this morning as we look out and just are reminded of the beauty of your creation, how you've sovereignly appointed not just the weather, but just so much beauty and grandeur for us to look out on and just think what a great
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God we have. Father, we thank you for your holiness, that is, that you are not like us,
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Lord, we praise you for the fact that you are, even though you are holy, you are yet condescending, that you love us, that you are near to us, and Father, we praise you for that.
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Lord, as we look to your word this morning, we pray that you would bless us, that you would challenge us, and that you would transform us.
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In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Well, speaking of change,
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I thought last week I really, I only caught half of Linton's message.
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I was probably only half as convicted as you were. How many of you changed something on account of what you heard about time management?
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Okay, I don't see those hands. All right, good. Good. All right, well this morning,
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I thought we would chat about sanctification. I would invite you to open your Bibles to Philippians chapter 2, and there are a few things in particular
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I want to get to, and hopefully we'll do that. One of the ways that you show that your sanctification is in full gear, that you are being conformed to the image of Christ, of course, is by staying in town on Labor Day weekend.
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So thank you for being here, thank you. Philippians 2, and I'm going to read verses 1 to 13.
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It's a long bit of scripture, so I'm going to get a drink of water before I do it.
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Philippians 2, verses 1 to 13. So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the
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Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.
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Do nothing from empty, or I'm sorry, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
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Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
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Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant.
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Being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
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Therefore, God has exalted, highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is
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Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence, but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
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For it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
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Now, again, I want to talk to you about sanctification. We talk about Jesus and his obedience to the point of death on a cross, but I want to talk about your own personal sanctification, my sanctification, our sanctification.
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Sanctification, who wants to define that? No one.
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Growth in Christ likeness, good. Other thoughts? Okay.
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Working on your salvation. Now, because that's the terminology here, and we'll get into that a little bit, we'll dissect that a bit, but yeah.
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When you hear that though, isn't that a little scary? Work on your salvation. What does that mean?
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It almost sounds heretical, but I don't think it is. Okay, sanctification, we can define it this way.
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Well, what does it mean to sanctify something? If you sanctify something, you set it apart from God.
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Exactly right. Okay. But when we talk about sanctification, it is frequently equated with living the
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Christian life. And so we read something like, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
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Let's talk about that. Really, it's technically called progressive sanctification. It means you become more and more sanctified, more and more
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Christ -like, more and more holy. Isn't that the idea? Yes, it is the idea.
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Listen to what John Murray said. He said, indeed, the more sanctified the person is, the more conformed he is to the image of his
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Savior. Now, just keep in mind what we heard in Philippians 2 there where it talked about Jesus, about how he was obedient even to death, death on a cross, and we're to be conformed into that image, into that life.
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The more he is conformed to the image of his Savior, the more he must recoil, pull back against every lack of conformity to the holiness of God.
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What do we call lack of conformity to the holiness of God? Sin. Very good. Sin. The deeper his apprehension of the majesty of God, the greater the intensity of his love to God, the more persistent his yearning for the attainment of the prize of the calling of God in Christ Jesus.
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The more conscious he is, or he will be, of the gravity of the sin that remains, and the more poignant will be his detestation of it.
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In other words, as you grow in Christ -likeness, you will hate sin.
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You'll hate the remaining sin in you. You'll long to be delivered from this body of death.
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Murray concludes, was this not the effect in all the people of God as they came into closer proximity to the revelation of God's holiness?
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I mean, when we think about Isaiah, he wasn't sitting there thinking, just as I am,
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Lord. I mean, that would have been an interesting Isaiah 6 take, right? Just as I am. Just take me now.
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I'm fine. He was undone. He was ashamed, because he recognized the more brightness holiness, or the more brightly holiness burns, the more vividly we see holiness, the more we despair because of our own sin, the more we long to be delivered of it.
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Another Bible teacher, Laman Strauss, said this. He says, if there's a basic error, he says,
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I believe it is the failure to grasp the meaning of the term sanctification. On one occasion,
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I gave to my class in Bible college the assignment to write the definition of sanctification.
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Many of the students stressed the idea of purification from moral evil. Several were more explicit in making sanctification a state of holiness.
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Let's say that again, a state of holiness in which it was not possible for a saved person to sin.
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The Latin term for that is not posse non peccare, not able not to sin, but anyway,
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I'll skip the Latin, but not able to sin. In other words, not that they just had the ability to resist temptation, but that temptation came up against them and it didn't even affect them.
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Now, the students did not learn this from the Bible. The scriptures do not teach that sanctification is the improvement of the unregenerate nature, nor that it is, in other words, not that bad people get better, sinful people just get better, unsaved, well, let's change that, unregenerate nature, just meaning unsaved people don't get sanctified, nor that it is the eradication of that nature thereby rendering it impossible for a child of God to commit sin, perfection.
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And he says, I'm not suggesting that there is no experiential aspect in sanctification in which practical holiness will manifest itself in the
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Christian's life. In other words, we will experience that. He says, most assuredly, does the work of sanctification in the believer involve victory over sin in his daily life.
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In other words, we will see victory over sin as we are sanctified.
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Sanctification is not merely a single act, but a continuous process. Now I want to talk about a couple of views before we go back to Philippians 2, and one in particular,
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I even got a phone call about this this week, not from our church, but from somebody else, about these different things that have become kind of popular.
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One view of sanctification is called the Wesleyan view, named after John Wesley, holds as its two tenets that present sanctification is not guaranteed.
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So what does that mean? It means the fact, well, you can lose your salvation if you fail to live righteously.
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One man writes this, he says, salvation is by grace. However, although the reformation tradition frequently emphasizes justification and adoption, it often neglects regeneration and sanctification.
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A wholly imputed righteousness, that is, righteousness counted to a subjective salvation, is pushed to the fore, but imparted righteousness, subjective salvation, is neglected.
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Wesleyans would maintain that the biblical concept of salvation encompasses both, and that both are found in the
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Pauline concept of being in Christ. And here's the ultimate point.
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Wesley taught that you could become sin free in this life.
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Sin free, and so we would see things like the holiness movement, the idea of striving after biblical perfection in this life.
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Classic dispensationalists, such as John Wolvard, believe that while good works can have a confirming value, works are not indispensable.
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So in other words, let's see, if they're not indispensable, they would be dispensable. For one to have a settled assurance, in addition they believe that eternal life can never be lost, which is right, right?
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I mean, there's varying degrees at Dallas Seminary. Some taught basically it didn't matter what you do, you're saved.
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And really this has kind of become prominent now, what's commonly termed the hyper -grace movement.
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Anybody heard of hyper -grace? A few? Anybody want to talk about hyper -grace?
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Go ahead, right. And that's non -lordship, which I think is akin, a kindred spirit to the kind of hyper -grace thing.
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Other thoughts? Yeah. Yeah, if you say that works have any kind of affirming, or if you want to say that they're evidence of salvation, that ultimately you're a legalist.
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Listen to this, they regard the imperatives in scripture, the commands or the law as being mentioned only for the purpose of explaining to Christians what will passively occur to them throughout their
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Christian life. In other words, these aren't things for you to do. These are things that God will accomplish in your life passively.
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Hyper -grace movement believes that imperatives are mentioned in scripture for the purpose of exhorting believers to actively engage in their own sanctification, albeit always by the power of the
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Holy Spirit. Now there's truth to that, but you could take it too far and they do.
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Hyper -gracers would consider those on the other side of the argument as being legalists, and wrongly claim that those on the other side think that their works have something to do with God saving them.
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In other words, God saves you because of your works, and that's not, of course, correct. And what do some people say about those in the hyper -grace movement?
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If you just listen to what they say, you would say that they are anti -gnomia.
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They are against the law. They think they can do whatever they want. Now, hyper -grace, anybody seen the news here in the last couple of weeks?
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I can't even say his last name, don't ask me to say it. It's an unpronounceable, not Armenian, but Armenian name.
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Can anybody say it? Okay. Whatever.
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His first name was Tolian, and he and his wife have filed for divorce.
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He filed for divorce. There were all kinds of public statements about what was going on there, and that's not really important.
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He is no longer the pastor.
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He was there at Coral Ridge Presbyterian, whatever that became. He succeeded D. James Kennedy.
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And this week, he got a new job at a Willow Creek Church in Florida as a pastor, as a minister.
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And I thought, okay, here's a man who filed for divorce a month ago, and now you're going to hire him as a pastor.
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But this is consistent with hyper -grace. It doesn't matter what he did. It matters what he says.
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It matters what he can actually do. So, I think there's a problem there. In Christianity, talking about sanctification, or sanctify, the term can be used to refer to objects which are set apart for special purposes.
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But again, the most common use is having to do with the change brought about in the life of a believer.
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And when we talk about progressive sanctification, what do we mean exactly? What is it about us that is happening?
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When does it start? When does progressive sanctification start? The moment of salvation.
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And then, the idea is, you've probably heard it said this way, you know, that if, let's just say,
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I don't know why, well maybe because I'm facing the right, that as you go through your
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Christian life, you will, it's the direction, not the perfection. So it will, if you could look at the chart, it would go like this, and then it would go like this, that would be where you stumbled and fell and sinned.
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And then you put off that sin, you repent, and you know, gradually your sins become less a part of your life and your holiness becomes more a part of your life.
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And when is sanctification complete? When you die.
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When Paul says, he struggles all through Romans 7, I, this is my take on Romans 7, that it's the, he's describing the struggles of a believer, there are different opinions about that, but I think it has to do with the struggles of a believer.
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And then he concludes by saying, what, who will deliver me from this body of death?
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And he's not, you know, he's not complaining about his physical body, not, you know, it's not his knees that he's worried about, it's not his shoulder that's killing him that he's worried about, it's not his neck that's,
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I don't know why I'm talking about me. He wants to be delivered from what?
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This struggle that he's been describing in Romans 7. The ups and downs of the
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Christian life, he's tired of sin. And what does he say then?
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Let's look at it, Romans chapter 8. He concludes in chapter 8, this whole exercise here, there is therefore now, there is now at this moment, even in this life, in spite of the way we feel, no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
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What he means is, positionally, as we, as God views us, he does not see us, he sees us as it were, as the
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Presbyterians would say, wrapped in the robes of Christ's righteousness. He sees
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Christ's righteousness, not our sin. He says, therefore, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
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There's condemnation for those who are not, but for those who are in Christ Jesus, there is no condemnation.
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Now the, I wanted to just say a word about the Roman Catholic view.
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My notes got a little mushy. If we think about the
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Roman Catholic view, they would say that some inanimate objects become holy.
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And for example, they would say, the bread and wine become, by the power vested in the priest, allegedly, the body and blood of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. And so they would say that these profane things become holy, which is why they don't just, you know, after the elements are served, or whatever, after people come up and bow to the wafer and take the wine, they don't just throw them in the trash.
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They have to dispose of them rightly, and you know, for the priest, that often means drinking a lot of the leftover wine.
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You don't want to talk to him after one of those services. No telling what he'll say. But Roman Catholics confuse justification and sanctification.
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Here's what they say about justification. Justification is, what? A process of being made holy.
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And when does that process begin for a Roman Catholic? Baptism.
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When original sin is washed away. And then how are you made more sanctified?
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By participating in the sacraments. They have the seven sacraments. So you are being, well, you are actually earning your salvation.
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You are contributing to your salvation by what you do. You are making yourself more holy by participating in these different things.
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Let's look at a few other references here. How about Matthew 5 .48?
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Would somebody turn your attention to Matthew 5 .48? We know that you have to be perfect. We know that nobody is perfect.
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But that's the standard. And what we say in sanctification is we are being conformed to the image of Christ.
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We are being made perfect. We are being formed into Christlikeness.
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Let's look at 1 Corinthians 6 .11. Again, a use of the word sanctified.
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1 Corinthians 6 .11. Would somebody read that please?
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Now that comes at the end of a list of sins that would keep you, would keep anyone out of heaven including homosexuality.
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There is a list of sins there. What does he mean when he says you were sanctified?
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Because those people were not perfectly sanctified. What does he mean? They were set apart for glorification some day and for now they were set apart for God's purposes now.
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They used to be children of Satan. They used to be descriptive or their life used to be described in a term.
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They were drunks. They were homosexuals. They were this or that or the other thing.
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But now they have been sanctified. They are no longer those things. They have become something new.
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They have become, well they were useless. Now they have become useful. They were dirty as indicated by the fact that they are now washed.
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They are unclean but now useful.
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Let's look at 2 Corinthians 7 .1. Would somebody read that please?
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Yes, Will. Let us an exhortation. What is he trying to get across? What is his point here?
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Is he trying to say, it looks like he is trying to say we should be perfect. We are going to be complete.
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Is that what he is saying? Yes, Johnny.
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We are going to put off sin. We are going to walk through this process.
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We are going to gradually put sin off. There is this biblical process called putting off and putting on.
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I think that was the number one thing I took from Linton's message. Put off the things that distract us from what?
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Doing what we should be doing. There are a million things. I was reflecting on it this week for different reasons but I just thought, you know, probably the most sanctified times in your life are what?
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The times when you have no time. When it is a massive time crunch and all you can do are just the things that you absolutely have to do.
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Right? True or not true? Because it is those times when you realize a few things.
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First of all, you realize how much time you waste and secondly, you realize that you are only going to be able to do these things, not on your own strength but by the enablement of God.
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Let's look at, just skipping over a bunch of stuff here.
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Well, let's just go on. Let's go back to Philippians 2 because I want us to discuss this a little bit.
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I want to focus in on verses 12 and 13. I want you to see where it says there that you are to work out, what does it say there?
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Your, does it say own salvation?
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Your own salvation? What do you suppose it says there? Let me give you a hint.
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Why does it say work out someone else's salvation? Because you can't. Nevertheless, how much time do you spend trying to work out somebody else's salvation?
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Stop me when I'm lying. How often do we try to live somebody else's life for them?
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Why is that? Why would you try to correct somebody, you know, worry about somebody else's life, you know, even talk about somebody else's life?
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Why is that? It's super easy, right?
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The easiest thing in the world is to look at somebody else's life and go, dude, that guy is a train wreck.
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Look at him. I don't want to come in late to church.
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He's drinking Dunkin' Donuts instead of Starbucks. He roots for the wrong football team.
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You know, that guy is a mess. It's, go ahead.
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Yeah, you're getting ahead of me. I was there. In fact, I put it this way. I said fault finding can be fun.
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It even makes us feel better about ourselves, right? Because we like to think, you know, in our own minds, we start thinking,
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I'll just say what it is, pagan thoughts. I may not be living the way
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I want to live, but at least I'm not like, I thank God that I'm not like others, not even like that tax collector.
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If we can wind up just being Pharisees. Other thoughts? Yeah, Andrew. That's excellent.
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We want to work out our salvation because we're in fear of the Lord, not because of appearances or anything, but you're really getting ahead of me.
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I wanted to talk more about the other thing first, but it's okay. We'll get back to that in a second. Because I think this is a critical issue for a number of reasons about working on our own salvation.
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What are some easy ways to find fault in others? You know what?
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Such and such a family, they have cable TV. They certainly can't be as holy as I am.
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I listen to the conversations this guy has, and he talks about sports pretty frequently. I don't even watch sports.
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Russ, we are bombarded with ammunition for thinking better of ourselves than we ought to,
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Charlie. Now, there is a passage of scripture that is screaming to come out of Charlie right now.
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In fact, I'm just going to pull it out right now. Cory just gave it to me. Where is that,
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Cory? Matthew chapter 7. I'll give you a hint. Yeah, I live in Matthew 7.
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It starts with the unbeliever's favorite verse as we like to say.
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Oh, yeah. I mean, they don't know anything about the Bible, but they know
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Matthew 7. They probably don't even know where it is. Doesn't the Bible say Matthew chapter 7 verse 1?
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Judge not that you be not judged. There you have it. Don't judge. Well, no, not really.
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Read verse 2. For with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
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So, if you're judging people unrighteously, you're in trouble. Verse 3.
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And this is right where Charlie was talking here. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but you do not notice the log that is in your own eye?
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Or how can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye when there is the log in your own eye?
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And Jesus just drives the stake through the heart here.
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You hypocrites. First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.
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And what happens when you take the log out of your own eye? What does that even mean to take the log out of your own eye?
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Take the tweezers and what? Work on your own problems.
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Well, you know, let's get more specific. Your own sins first. How do you do that?
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Let me just ask you this. How's your self -esteem? I'll tell you who had great self -esteem.
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I just talked about them a minute ago. The Pharisee when
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Jesus gave that little parable and he said, you know, I thank thee Lord that I'm not like other men.
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He had great self -esteem. He knew how good he was. He was quite confident that he was better than just about anybody else, especially better than that poor schlub over there beating his breast and saying, be merciful to me, the sinner.
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One of the ways that you remove the log from your own eye is by viewing yourself rightly, and it's by really ultimately by preaching the gospel to yourself, by thinking about the gospel, by reminding yourself why it is that God had to save you, not why he would save you because you're a great guy and or girl.
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And so therefore God should be pleased to have you in his kingdom. But it's more like God be merciful to me, the sinner.
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I don't deserve it. Like I said, it's easy to pick on other people.
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Hey, I know I'm more spiritual than that guy because he listens to country music. You're laughing too hard,
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Charlie. Working on your spiritual life, removing the logs from your eyes is hard.
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It requires an I word. How about this word? Introspection.
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I've known people where I think, well, this person hasn't had an introspective moment in their entire lives.
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What does that mean to be introspective? Examine yourselves.
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Yeah. Honestly, self -examine yourself. People, listen, looking at other people is easy.
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Looking at your own life is hard. Take some time. Think over your own life, areas that need to change.
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There's a word for, there's a biblical word for change. What's that called? Repentance.
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To change your mind about something. I mean, we think repentance is, you know, sometimes
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I think we are functioning Catholics because what is repentance? I'm so sorry for, you know, and we're going to confess our 10 sins or whatever.
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That's not repentance. Repentance is to have a change of mind about, change our actions.
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This whole process of sanctification, biblical counselors will say it's putting off and putting on.
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A lot of times that's what it takes. We put off one activity and we do something else. We get rid of one time waster and we take up an activity that's going to sanctify us, that's going to make us more
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Christ -like. What are some of those sanctifying activities we can be involved in? Read your
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Bible, prayer, service.
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There's one that often gets overlooked. Why do I like, why is it important to think about service in terms of sanctification?
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I like Becky's answer. Take your eyes off yourself. Charlie. We lift ourselves up, we feel terrible when we push ourselves down, when we lower ourselves, when we allow ourselves to really cause ourselves to serve others.
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We feel better about ourselves and it's because we understand that we are actually doing what?
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We're doing that Philippians 2 mindset. We are considering others more important than ourselves. We're actually obeying scripture.
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I was reading something this week about a presidential candidate and they said that this particular individual, and I won't name any names, has absolutely no humility.
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I thought, well actually I don't think it narrows it down that far.
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I think that's probably most of them, but there has to be a certain arrogance that attends to wanting to be the most powerful person in the world.
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But, yeah, I mean, yeah, this was specific. But I just thought, you know, somebody who can claim to be a
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Christian and have no humility, there's an interesting concept right there.
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Because just to get to the raw root of it, if you're a Christian, you have to be humble because you understand what?
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What do you understand? You understand grace and the necessity of grace, the fact that you are a sinner, that there's nothing good in you.
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And as soon as you come to that point right there, you've got some humility. And in order for the
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Lord to refine you, to process you, to sanctify you, process,
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I don't know what that means. It's running through the blender. In order for you to be sanctified, that humility has to be present.
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I need to move a little faster here, but the therefore at the beginning of verse 12, which just shows how far along we're getting, shows the connection to all that has preceded this exhortation, right?
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It's a summary. He's saying in light of all that has been said before, one man summarizes it this way.
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He says, since Christ Jesus, by means of his unrestricted voluntary obedience, gave you an example, and since the reward which he received shows that there are great things in store for those who follow this example, and since this highly exalted divine and human mediator imparts strength from heaven to all who trust in him and yearn so to live as he would have them live, therefore, because all those things are true,
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Christ gives you the strength to live as he would have you live or at least long to live in that way.
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I mean, again, as we consider Paul's life, Romans 7, what does he say?
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He says, I do the things I don't want to do, and I don't do the things that I want to do.
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And I have to tell you the truth, that should be the way we all think. I mean, at the beginning of the day,
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I should think this way. Lord, help me to do the things that I know I ought to do today.
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By your grace and by your mercy, I want to do those things. And then at the end of the day, what do we think? Lord, forgive me for not doing the things that I ought to have done today, and thank you for aiding me to do the things that I did do that were right in your sight, because I know it's by your grace and your grace alone that I did these things.
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O 'Brien says this demand to make that salvation fruitful, and that's what we're talking about. You're saved, now act on that truth.
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He says that this demand to make that salvation fruitful in the here and now, as the graces of Christ or the fruit of the
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Spirit are produced in their lives, will involve a continuous sustained effort that they should pursue with godly fear and all the more zealously now that they have been deprived of Paul's personal presence.
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This is in context here. He says the outworking of the gospel in their day -to -day living has been in view of the approaching day of Christ when their salvation will be complete.
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When the Lord returns or when we go to heaven, our salvation will be complete in the sense that we will be perfected.
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We will be like him. But now,
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I think it's great how he says the outworking of the gospel in their day -to -day living. Now, I really have a problem, in fact
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I was thinking about tweeting this out. When people, maybe I have said something like this on Twitter before, but when people say live the gospel, what are they really saying?
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Okay? I think that's probably true of some people, but when I hear somebody say
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I'm going to or my goal is to live out the gospel, you know what I think? Because I am a picky theologian.
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What do you think? Okay, let me put it this way.
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Can you live out the gospel? Raise your hand if you can live the gospel.
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If the gospel is good news, and the gospel is that Christ died for us and was raised on the third day, died for our sins and was raised on the third day, if that's the gospel as Paul says in 1
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Corinthians 15, then how are you going to live out the gospel? You can't.
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But what he says here is the outworking of the gospel in their day -to -day living, in your day -to -day living.
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What does that mean? It means you wake up in the morning and you think, I am an object of grace, not of wrath.
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And in light of all that I've been forgiven, how should I live today? How should
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I think today? How should I speak to other people? How should I think about other people?
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As people to ridicule, as people to fault find with, as people to stay away from, as people who need to hear the gospel, as people who need to be edified by my words.
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I mean, when you think about all the commands in scripture, they all get filtered through one thing, through the gospel.
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And it's that filter that makes us think, okay, in light of what the Lord has done for me, how should
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I live? How should I think? That is sanctification.
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How should I live? How should I think in light of the gospel?
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Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for all that you through your son, the
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Lord Jesus Christ, have done for us.
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We're in awe of it. Lord, would you grant us the grace again every morning to think in light of what you have done for us?
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How should we think? How should we speak? How should we act?
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What sort of things ought we to be involved in? Not to be legalists, not to look for your approval, but to live in joyful obedience and in thankfulness for all that you've done for us.