Next level Christianity: My Sanctification — David Zuidema

Next Level Christianity: My Sanctification

So, if this is your first meeting here, or you've been here all weekend, what I've been trying to do with the messages that were given to me have been to go through the Upper Room teaching. And we started in John 14, and we looked at union with Christ.

And because Christ lives, we live. And he states there that he and the Father, and us in him, and he in us, is the great truth of union with Christ. In John 15, we saw that now it just wasn't his life, but it was his joy, that he wanted to be in us, and that by his joy being in us, that our joy would be complete.

Last night at the hymn sing, we touched on John 16, the most used phrase, I believe, in the Gospel of John, I go to the Father. We talked about, we actually didn't stay there, we went to the prodigal son, the only other time you get that phrase.

Talked about all the good things that come when we return to the Father. And so, we've come through it now to really what is one of the most famous chapters in our New Testament, John 17. And I would like to take up here in the last message what I've termed my sanctification.

Sanctification as Holiness and Union with Christ

And if I said that and asked you what I was going to speak about, you would say, my, looking inward, sanctification, my holiness. But this is one of the unique verses in Scripture, maybe one of the only times where we have the Lord Jesus referencing his sanctifying himself.

And it has caused people maybe some perplexities over the years, but hopefully we'll go through it and try to draw out from it how this is so crucial to understanding next level Christianity. Our sanctification and our holiness when we look at it as we see it here in John's Gospel and using some other references as well.

Let's read the verses here together. John 17, and we're going to read verses 16 through 21. John 17 and verse 16. John 17 and verse 16. The Lord first gives them a definition, a great definition of what it means to be sanctified, to be holy.

He says, they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through your truth, thy truth, thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.

And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word, that they all may be one as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, and they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

You can see how we've almost come full circle here, back to where we began. So just that verse, those verses that I'd like to speak on here, sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth. And verse 19, and for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.

1 Corinthians 1 and verse 30 tells us something about God's plan, and it says that because of God, we have been placed in Christ Jesus. And Christ Jesus has been made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.

Sanctification in Christ, in him. And for all the times that we hear this term about being holy, when we speak of holy, sometimes we get this idea, we get a lot of ideas. I'm sure going through your head, if I said, you know, what does it mean to be holy?

I'm sure you'd eventually come to the truth, but then there's all these little speed bumps along the way. I was at a conference once, I should just say where it was, I was in Sarnia, Ontario, and I remember a man got up and he said, I think it's hard for attractive people to be holy.

And so I went home, and my wife's always on me about my unibrow, and you know what I did? I just stopped plucking it, right? You know, whatever I could do. If I was going to get, you know, some of the old suits out, I realized yesterday I wore the wrong pant bottoms with the wrong top, but no one said anything yesterday.

But I thought, hey, if something about the aesthetic is going to help my holiness, I'm all in, right? Whatever I can do. Stop bathing, right? Wear disgusting looking colors. If that's what it takes, and we get this notion that somehow holiness is an aesthetic thing, something to do with something on the outside, and then we get a little farther and we say, well, it must have something to do with the way I behave.

You know, people would look at me and they go, you jumping around on the platform and the jokes, you're not getting closer to holiness anytime soon. And I, that's, you might be right in saying that, I wouldn't disagree.

But you know, in the Bible, holiness has this idea, you know, in the Old Testament, you get holy pots and pans, so I'm not sure how we apply that to that. We got a holy shovel in the Old Testament, and a holy table, and all these things that then kind of throw our definition into a whirlwind as to how do I come up with a definition of holiness that works when I look across the span of Scripture from beginning to end.

We have to really think, what is it that God's getting at when He speaks about things being holy? He's talking about things that are completely and utterly devoted to Him. They are things that are set apart for His use.

We read about that in 2 Timothy, about those who are going to meet those who Himself, He says, if anyone cleanses himself from that which is unholy or that which could defile, he will be a ready instrument for the Master's use.

And they are something that's set apart, devoted, devoted to God fully, to be set apart. I like that definition, but I want to go through and talk about some other things that I think will help us as well.

To be holy, really, if you look at the word itself, it's the word whole. The etymology of it, to be whole is just to be healthy. A healthy believer is a holy believer. We're not looking one day. No one goes around going, yes, of course, you know I'm holy.

One day I'll be holy. No, God intends that now. Be holy because I am holy, says the Lord. A holy believer is a healthy believer. That's why the word sound doctrine, that word sound is the word hygiene.

It's a Greek word. It's so that good hygiene and doctrine produces healthy Christians. It shouldn't be that we look at holiness and go, well, that guy's not balanced. No, it's someone who's whole. Actually, if you look at the word in the, I think it's in the Greek language, it's the word hagias.

It almost sounds like a Scottish dish. Hagias, although it might be something else. But that word there, the etymology of that comes back to the idea of this. It's coming back to my health. It's looking at me in my, actually, the health, just the idea of healing.

There are wounds and there are bruises in the Christian life. We all take a certain amount of beatings, and conferences are great for beatings, to be given and to be taken. But, you know, holiness has a way of healing ourselves and those around us.

Because God only intended there to be one man in eternity with wounds. He only intended there to be one man there. And that one man is responsible for your holiness. We read that here in this section, that the Lord Jesus takes it upon himself that he will be responsible for holiness of others.

So, when we look at this, just from the get-go, what I hope to accomplish in my message, in the time that I have, let's figure out what time the meeting even ends, what I hope to accomplish is this. As we look at these things, and I want to talk about the fact that there, I'm going to use my first term, will be sanctified synonyms.

And I'll go into that. All the things that truth tells us about being holy. I want to talk about the sanctified script. The script that God has given us to live this drama of redemption. The Word of God.

And I want to talk lastly on a sanctified sacrifice. That is the Lord Jesus. Because here, as we leave this conference, of all the things that you need, maybe you're a husband here. What does your wife need?

Maybe you're a father here. Or a mother. What do your kids need? Maybe you're an overseer. What does the assembly need? What do the overseers around you need from you? Maybe you're just a 16-year-old kid here.

What do your friends need from you? Maybe you're a 14-year-old and you've got younger siblings. What do they need from you? I can say from the authority of the Word of God, that what we need from one another is one another's holiness.

That's what we need. When I go through my week, and the weak moments in my week, when all of a sudden temptation arises, that has been a balm that has helped me through and through. That as soon as temptation crouches and shows its ugly head in my life, in any form or in any way, the first thing I think of is, yes, I can go down that road, but think how many people I will be betraying.

My wife, my children, my assembly, the other overseers in Midland Park, those individuals that are my siblings, family members. Think of the disappointment that would come, because what do they need from me?

The same thing that your spouse, and your assembly, and your children, and your friends need from you. Your holiness. This is par none. This is the high-water mark. This is the whole meaning of salvation.

Christ is both the foundation and the goal of salvation. And He is the impetus for sanctification, and He is the goal of it. From beginning to end, through and through, that we might be made like His Son.

That we might be made holy like He is holy. That we would set apart our lives for His use. Because why are we here? Why else are we here? We're not here for the hobbies and the activities. We're not here for all the other addendums that we add to the key chain.

We're here to be holy. We're here to show what Christ is. What He can do in a redeemed life. What He can do with damaged goods. He can make them holy, fit for the Master's use. And so as we look at this, just think of how the Scripture goes through it.

And you think about holiness chronologically. We were told there in Ephesians 1, He chose us in Him before the foundations of the world. Why? That we might be made holy. Not only chronologically, but collectively.

Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her. That He might make her holy. Think of the chasm that has been gulfed. The chasm that has been bridged. The gulf that has been drawn near. That we have been reconciled to God through the death of His Son.

Reconciled. Why? Why this bringing together? Because we've been reconciled through the body of death that He might present us holy. Not only just collectively and chronologically and dealing with the chasm, but just think of the comprehensiveness of it.

In 1 Thessalonians 5, that the God of peace would sanctify you holy and completely. Through and through. There's no portion of your life that can be left untouched by sanctification, by holiness. We read in 2 Peter 3 and 11, seeing that these things then must be dissolved.

That's everything around us. If it's all going to be dissolved, what manner of persons ought we to be in holiness? And so you can see, this is not a minor thing in the Bible. This is the major thing as we look at sanctification.

Freedom from Sin Through the Truth

Sanctified synonyms. What I've done here is, the Lord Jesus says here in verse 17, sanctify them through your truth. He says, your word is truth. I just took that word truth and I said, sometimes there are difficulties in just being able to grasp exactly what sanctification does.

But I thought if truth sanctifies us, I was looking for other synonyms. Maybe picture synonyms in the gospel of John where truth is used. And where truth is then telling us something about sanctification.

I come up with four in my study. Just talking about them briefly. The idea of freedom and beauty and light and what is real. Freedom. Beauty. Light. And what is real. The Lord Jesus said in John 8, the Son shall make you free.

He said, you shall be free and you shall be free indeed. But how do we get this freedom? The Lord said, you shall know the truth. The truth will set you free. To have freedom. We talk about that as Americans all the time.

As those in the western world. The love of freedom. And yet, it pales in comparison to this. You no longer have to serve sin. Let me remind you of what the Bible says about redemption. You now have the choice not to sin.

You have that choice. That every time this week when something arises, when you get that temptation, it could be anything. From YouTube shorts. It could be that time where all of a sudden anger is going to rise up in you to hit back at someone verbally.

That idea of lust and deceit and lying. Every time, you have a choice. If you don't have a choice, you're not redeemed. You have freedom now that you no longer had because of being in Christ. So when sin confronts us, remember this, we no longer had the freedom before.

We now do. We will never be sinless. But we now have the freedom to sin less. We don't have to say yes anymore. We have to remind ourselves of that. Sometimes we get caught in these whirlwinds where we just go through the same habitual sins day after day, week after week, year after year.

They become so normal. We become callous to them. And we're not really even sure how bad they are anymore until we get pulled out of that vortex. Until we get pulled out of that and then we see it for what it is.

My friend, I'm here to tell you that based on truth, as a synonym, we learn this about God's holiness. That we have been freed from being servants of sin. We can now serve righteousness. We have the freedom to do that.

We are freed not to do what we want. We are freed now to do what we should do. And to be glad about it. This freedom that is now ours. Another synonym that we see in John's Gospel is the idea of beauty or glory.

We read there in John 1 that they beheld His glory. The glory of the only begotten of the Father. Full. Full of truth. Full of truth. I ask my audience here today, of all the things that make your heart jump, make sure that you're not wiring your heart to respond to this world, but instead you're letting Christ sanctify you through and through so that your heart responds to what is truly beautiful.

What is holy. To respond to the beauties that come in Christ. It is my problem as well as yours that when a man gets up and remarks on the beauties of Christ, it's hard sometimes to even feel the heart move at all.

And yet to have our heart retuned to appreciate the beauty that's in the Holy One of Christ because this is where all the beauty of holiness lies. It's in the Son. And to see that all He's done, not only this, but in light.

The Gospel of John is replete with the notions of light. He that doeth the truth comes to the light. That his deeds be made manifest and that they are wrought in God. To be sanctified is to live in the light because the light shined in the darkness and the darkness could not overcome it.

It could not. There was victory in light. Sometimes when people go through a point in life where they've had some help from the Lord in defeating sin, I hear this said sometimes. They say, I've been victorious over sin.

Or I've had victory. I've had victory over sin. I would encourage you. I read a great book. You can get it too. It's probably one of the greatest books on holiness. It was written by a man named Jerry Bridges.

It was written in 78. So if you don't have it, you're really behind the ball here. But he wrote a great book on the pursuit of holiness. And he said this. I always remember what Jerry Bridges said in the book.

He said, We say we've had victory over sin. He goes, But you know what it does? It just makes us the focal point again. Oh yes. Yeah, I went seven weeks without getting mad at so and so. And I've gone a whole month without my browser having to be deleted.

And I've gone two weeks now and I've been faithful at work and everything that's been asked of me. And I've had victory over sin. No, my friend. If truth be told, if you've really had victory over sin, it hasn't been you.

You've had Christ over sin. You've had God over sin. Because in this life, there is no I over sin. There is either I've chosen to side with Him, or I've chosen to side with what He's freed me from. But the victory in light is just this.

We come into the light that our deeds would be made manifest because we believe that Jesus Christ has suffered for our sins. That we have been cleared. We have been justified. And the opposite side of the coin of justification is to be sanctified.

If all my sins have been forgiven, and I stand, I stand confident in the work of Christ, that if Christ died for me, then I died with Him. And that if He died for my sin, then I've died to sin. That He has died in order to take away the penalty of sin.

He's freed me from the power of sin. One day He will deliver me from the presence of sin. And I live in this world as a great witness to that. That I want Christ over sin. I don't want myself. So the next time you have victory, recognize this.

What you got in return was the victorious one. You didn't get more of you, you got more of Him. Christ over sin. In light. The last one of these synonyms that we read. Freedom and beauty and light. Thinking back too on just the idea of looking at holiness in its reality.

Reality, the Holy Spirit, and the Beauty of Christ

In what is real. I think of things in real... Sometimes it's hard to describe some things because they get beyond the grasp of reality. Sometimes they're more than the mind can comprehend. But yet in John's Gospel, we read about the spirit of truth.

And He's to guide us. He's to guide us to what is real. He's to show us the things that the eyes of the flesh can't see that are temporal. He's to show us reality. What's the phrase people always say?

You fake it until you make it. Right? That doesn't work in the Christian realm. If you fake it, you won't be here in a couple years. There's no need to fake it. God has put His Spirit within you. He has freed you from the power of sin.

You can leave faking to something else. Because when it comes to holiness, God doesn't ask for you to fake anything. He asks for you to be obedient. He asks for you, in this obedience, to seek what His Spirit directs towards us.

And He always directs us to the things of Christ. Because in John, we read there in 16 that He directs us to the Son because He reveals Him. He speaks of His glory. And He tells us about the things to come.

But my friend, He tells us about things that are real. He doesn't bring us to the fakeness of this world. To the aesthetic. To the things that are all a guise and a mirage. He brings us to eternal things.

Things that we will enjoy for all eternity. And if they're worth enjoying in Emmanuel's land, they're worth enjoying in Iowa. Real things. Holy things. Sanctified things. So these synonyms that tell us all about this that we see in John's Gospel.

I was thinking, just the idea of holiness should tell us something about how marvelous it is in the Gospel. Because there are things in the Bible that are hard to describe. And when they're hard to describe, sometimes what the Bible does is it just multiplies a word.

Things that are just, you say, oh, just the reality is so difficult for the mind to actually, the mental to sense. So there are things that get doubled. That's what the Hebrews would do. If it was really good and really hard to describe, they just doubled the word.

So if it was a really good conference, they would say, it was a conference conference. Right? And if it was a good hymn sing, they would say, it was a sing song. It was a sing sing. Right? And if the food was great, they would say, it was a spaghetti squared.

You've heard that. The holy of holiest. The servants of servants. The Hebrews loved to double words in order to show how remarkable something was. The reality that eclipsed the earth. You know, there's only one thing that I've ever read in the Bible that isn't just doubled, it's tripled.

Because it's reality is so far above us. It transcends everything that we know. And there in Isaiah 6, what do the angels say? It's only repeated then in Revelation 4. Holy once. Holy twice. Holy three times.

It has to be so incredible that just doubling it wouldn't do. Wouldn't do justice to the notion. And so in these synonyms, liberty, light, beauty, all these things that we have come to appreciate in this life, and yet sanctification reveals them.

The Word of God as the Sanctified Script

Next, we read about the script. Because he says, not only that they might be sanctified through truth, but he says, your word is truth. It's just not to be sanctified, but the means by which we will be sanctified.

I just had to check what time the meeting ends. 2 .50. Sanctified through truth. The Bible says here, we are told over and over again that his word is not only true, but it is truth. His word is what makes men free.

It liberates them. And then it is synonymous with sanctification. All scripture is breathed out. It's breathed out by God, profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training. For training in righteousness.

Training in holiness. Following the script. Following what the scriptures have said. The word of God as we feed upon it. As we take it in, the scriptures should be something that we desire. Something that we have an appetite for.

And I mentioned yesterday, and I would mention it again today, whatever you have to do in your life to make sacrifices so that you can start to appreciate and have an appetite for the word of God again, you would know right now if you have a strong appetite for it or not.

You could tell me, when you come to the breaking of bread this morning, that is a feast. And every week, we actually get to readjust our motives and where we stand before the Lord because we recognize right away when we get here, do I have an appetite for this feast or not?

Well, every day when we arise, we get an idea whether or not we have an appetite for the word of God. As we rise each day and decide whether we're going to live for heaven or we're going to live for earth, the appetite that is provided in the word of God is just this bread and honey, milk and meat and water, all metaphors of the scripture, but they're there in order to sustain us.

I have a friend at work and he's in shape. He's ripped. And I say, what's the key? What's the key to being, is it creatine, protein? What is it, you know? He's not like, when a guy's too chiseled, don't do that.

That's not, any guys who are looking for a wife, try to remain with the dad body, right? That's a good, you don't want to be too, you don't want to be too ripped. That's intimidating for the rest of us, right?

Try to keep the average equal. I said, what do you do? He goes, you just got to give your body something it knows what to do with. He's like, like for instance, he goes, your body doesn't know what to do with Dunkin' Donuts.

He goes, that's why it puts it all in one area. You know, your body doesn't know what to do with Dairy Queen. It's been trying to figure it out for the past 60 years, but it has yet to know. It gets that, it gets the blizzard and it gets it and it goes, uh-oh, like where do we put this one?

Oh, you know where it goes. Back corner. Oh, and it throws it back there. Stop feeding your body, your spiritual body, things it knows nothing what to do with. You can't live off little snippets from devotionals that you're reading online.

You can't. You won't be sustained, and that's the best of it. You won't be sustained by watching short videos on men who are annihilating the enemy in public spaces and arguments and apologetics. You can't be sustained on that.

And actually, to be honest, you can't be just sustained on conference attendance. You can't be sustained on, I show up to the Bible reading and I pick my points and I've, you can be sustained on a steady, healthy diet of the Word of God because the sum of His Word is truth.

And I am convinced that when we get to heaven, there is nothing else God will add to the 66 books of the Holy Scriptures. There is nothing more to be revealed. People tell me, I've read the Bible. I'm waiting for the next thing we're going to get in heaven.

I leave you to your own thoughts, but I'll tell you what I believe from the Word of God. This is it. We will feast on this for the endless ages of eternity. If we're having trouble feasting on it for 30 minutes here, we have to address some problem in our lives.

We have to address what is causing my attention span to go from 30 minutes to 5. I've told you what I think it is yesterday. I leave it to you to address whether that is an issue in your own life. It is in mine.

When I sit down at night and I'm preparing for a conference, as soon as I get into a YouTube short fix, and there I am, going, right? I'm looking for some smiles because I know I can't be the only person with this problem, right?

And there you go, one after another, after another, after another. Next thing you look up, it's one in the morning and you think, what was I doing? Garnavillo's next weekend. I've got nothing done tonight.

If you've got to delete it, delete it. You've got to get rid of it. We're remapping our brains so that the only thing we can do is live off two-minute snippets. If your family life is going to be two-minute snippets with your son every day, you're going to be a terrible father.

If your married life is going to be based on two-minute snippets, talking to your wife at the end of the day, your marriage is not going to be healthy. If you're showing up for two minutes at work, even if you're working remotely, you're not a good employee.

And if what you have to offer God on a daily basis is two minutes for Him to feed you, then you would know as well as I would know that I'm not desiring holiness. I'm not pursuing it. I don't have an appetite for it.

I don't have an appetite for the Word of God. If I'm going to be sanctified through truth, it's going to be through His Word, through His revelation given to me, that I might take it in, that I might do so joyfully.

Your words were spoken unto me. They filled my heart. I had joy and gladness at them. We hear that sometimes. We say, that is the words of heaven. No, that is the words of earth. That should be the sentiment of every redeemed heart, that as we grow in holiness, we grow in a desire for the Word of God.

To not only have it teach us, to practice it, but to memorize it. Think how wonderful it would be if tomorrow, you got to that point in the day where the frustrations were mounting, where the difficulties were there, and you had in your mind the memorization from either Leviticus 19 or 1 Peter 1 to be holy.

For I am holy, says the Lord. Or even better, even better, they said, don't ignore the young people. If you're a young person, you know, we always memorize the powerful verses and we don't do the context.

We don't do the verse after it. You memorize Leviticus 19 and 2. I the Lord am holy, so you be holy. And you say, well we should memorize a little farther. What's the next verse? How do I be holy? Sons, obey your mothers.

You say, whoa, no, that's not holiness. That's something else. No, that's holiness. If you can't do that, don't have an appetite for anything else. This isn't something that's esoteric. It's not something you gotta wait until the Bible reading to show holiness for.

You show it tomorrow morning. If you have the Word of God memorized, that's what's strong and living, powerful, sharper than any weapon that we know of. Able to divide things that are indivisible and able to sanctify you.

That's what Christ uses to sanctify us through His Word. So the script that we follow to memorize it, to meditate on it, to magnify it, to do all these things, and lastly, the sanctified sacrifice. How do we have this happen?

Christ’s Sanctified Sacrifice at Calvary

What is the basis for all of this? What is the sanctified, and I use that term, sacrifice? Because if we go to the book of Hebrews in 10, there we read, it is by the one offering of Jesus that we are sanctified completely.

That word offering. It's a word that goes back to the Old Testament. And we're looking for a way in which we could say, what is it, Dave? What will ignite my holiness? We were hearing about the burning bush and Moses approaching that bush that was not consumed.

And so often in Scripture, we get this idea of igniting holiness. Holiness that is combustible. That it's ready. It's ready to spark. It's ready to flame. If only we can find the two things that will ignite holiness.

You say, what are those two things? Well, they're right here in John 17. I was helped by this by a great Bible commentator. Maybe some of you have heard of him. His name is Donald Carson. D .A. Carson.

I've already done the taboo thing by mentioning non-assembly guys from the platform here two times over. So you'll forgive me for that. But I'm sure we're all helped by his commentaries. And he brought this out, and I thought it was remarkable.

When the Lord Jesus says here, He says, I sanctify myself. I set myself apart. Why was He set apart? What did He need to be set apart from or to? We've looked at this and maybe it's confusing as we say, well, we need to be sanctified because there are things in our life that are drawing us.

And what did the Savior need to be sanctified for? Clearly here in John 17, we know that the Lord Jesus is set apart for the cross. He set His whole life apart. Everything. Everything. Everything from Bethlehem to Bethany.

From the cradle to Golgotha. It all was set apart for six hours. When the Son of God, who loved me, gave Himself for me. For those hours on Calvary when Christ died for the ungodly. There, by one offering, Christ has sanctified us wholly.

We are set apart just by being saved. He has set us apart. He's now looking for us to become what we are. And He's going to be the way that we have that happen. He set Himself apart for Calvary and yet He looks at Himself as a sacrifice.

If you go back to Genesis 15, Genesis 15 there, Abraham, those famous words about having His obedience be counted unto Him as righteousness. His faith being counted as righteousness. And finding out that God was His reward.

God says to him, He says, take a heifer, three years old. Take a female goat, three years old. Take turtle doves and pigeons and take a three year old ram. And He goes, and this is where the city boys get a little disgusted.

Slice it open. He goes and put them on opposite sides, He said to Abraham, and lay them out. Just slice the animals, not the birds. And when men made contracts back then, they walked through, they walked through things that were cut.

Because actually the word for holiness in the Old Testament is the word kadush. It means to cut, to separate. And they would walk right through those animals that had been flayed. And what they were saying was that the agreement that we've made, let this happen to me.

I am willing to go to this extent that even I would be cut apart in order to make this agreement secure. I'm willing to go this far. One brother would say it to another in a land agreement. Or maybe in an agreement that was business.

They would make a contract. They would make a covenant. They would take these animals, they would walk through them, and they would say, I'm willing to go to this extent in order to make this guaranteed contract secure.