The ABC’s of the Christian Life #14: Following Jesus Christ Rightly #8: Sanctification of a Believer

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Today we continue this series that we began actually I think in July, a few months ago, the

ABCs of the Christian life. We divided this subject up into three sections or divisions.

We first gave two Sundays initially to the critical importance of coming initially to Jesus Christ for salvation.

But after having come to Christ for salvation initially, we then followed up with two

Sundays addressing the importance of following Christ through life onto our full and final salvation.

Coming to Christ just begins a lifelong pilgrimage following the

Lord Jesus and all the saints before us onto our heavenly Zion. But then we began on the fifth

Sunday of this series to address, thirdly, how we might follow

Jesus Christ rightly. And what we intend by this is for us to consider what the most important lessons are that Christians should know in order to receive

God's blessing, richest blessing, in their life. The Lord Jesus came to give us life in that more abundantly.

What must we know and what must we do in order to experience this abundant life that is available to us?

Well, the eighth subject in this third division of our study, the ABCs, is the sanctification of the believer.

And that's what we want to address today. And these are not necessarily, you know, prioritized or else this would be moved up toward the top of the list.

And we've stated several times that in this third division of our series, How to Follow Jesus Christ Rightly, we've emphasized that these matters that we've been discussing are not essential to salvation, thankfully.

They're important but not absolutely essential to understand rightly or fully in order to have salvation.

However, we should not view today's subject in that category because the matter of the sanctification of the believer is essential to salvation.

You cannot have salvation if you're not being sanctified by God. And so it's not a non -essential.

The true believer must and is being sanctified onto his full and final salvation.

We're not saying that you need to understand everything that we're going to be presenting today and believe everything that we are presenting today, necessarily, in order to have salvation, for we'd all be in trouble if that were the case.

But we are saying that the experience of being sanctified is essential to salvation.

The Holy Scriptures declare, Pursue peace with all men and holiness without which no man, no one, will see the law.

Hebrews 12 .14. And so pursuing holiness is this grace of sanctification in the life of the

Christian. Pursue holiness. And so certainly our sanctification is not the basis of our salvation.

That would be wrong, error. It's not the cause of our salvation, but rather our sanctification is the evidence of our possession of salvation.

So it must be there. And moreover, it is the course, or rather the path, that God has prescribed for us who have salvation, a path that we are to take through life.

The end, or the destination, is the inheritance of eternal life, as promised to his people.

And so certainly, sanctification is a part of salvation itself, but not the cause of our salvation.

God does not accept us into heaven because we've earned a place, because we have become a better person than we once were.

We're not made acceptable to God because he makes us people like Christ.

Rather, he accepts us as sinners, thankfully, when we believe on Jesus Christ.

And then he proceeds to make us like Jesus Christ. And this is his grace of sanctification.

And so sanctification is essential to salvation, but it's certainly not the ground of salvation. So very important.

Justification is a ground, or rather Christ, better, is the ground. Our sanctification is not.

However, our sanctification is proof, or evidence, that we are justified in his sight, right in his sight, righteous in his sight.

And this is what the Apostle John wrote in 1st John 3 7. Little children, let no one deceive you. And there's people being deceived about this today.

John said, don't let anybody deceive you about this. He who practices righteousness is righteous, even as he,

God, is righteous. And here, when he says, practices righteousness, that speaks of sanctification.

The second word, is righteous, speaks of justification. And he says, don't let anybody deceive you.

The one who's being sanctified is the one who is justified, is what he's declaring here, very simply.

We must not confuse the two, justification and sanctification. They must be kept distinct from one another in our understanding of their meaning.

But at the same time, they cannot be severed from one another. They must not be confused with one another, but they cannot be severed from one another, because serious problems result when that takes place.

And so justification and sanctification go hand in hand in the experience of every true

Christian. Now, in addressing this matter of our sanctification, it's not our intention at this time to treat the subject in an exhaustive manner.

We've done that in the past. In fact, I was looking over my sermon record of 921 sermons since 1998, and I realize we've addressed this a few times, and sometimes a few times rather extensively.

Way back in July of 2000, some of you were here then, we spoke on two

Sundays of sanctifying grace when we were doing a series on the grace of God. And then a few years later, in the winter of 2003 and 4, we addressed the subject of sanctification in an extended 25 sermon series.

And there were so many there, because we actually worked through Romans 6, 7, and 8, which probably were a dozen of those, because that's where the

Apostle Paul addresses the matter of sanctification so clearly and fully. But we need not go back that far, because we actually addressed the matter of sanctification just last year when we were addressing 1

Thessalonians chapter 4. I believe we gave three Sundays to this matter last year.

And so I hope what you hear today is repetitious. I hope that you recognize these things, and you heard them, and you believe them.

I hope that we're not introducing anything new to you. Now, if you're not informed about these matters,

I hope, you know, that you'll see them as truth and set forth in Scripture. But our intention today is not to introduce new things, but rather to set forth our subject, expressing the most salient points, truths about it.

And so it's not our intention to impart new information to those of us who are Christians. I hope what we say reinforce what you already understand and believe.

And so perhaps enhanced understanding will take place as we speak about these matters.

I hope that that would be the case. But we're dealing with foundational matters, and so in some ways

I'm playing Peter here. As he wrote, for this reason

I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things, though you know and are established in the present truth.

I'm just reminding you, Peter wrote, of things you already know, you already understand. And then he continued, yes,

I think it's right as long as I'm in this tent, that is in this life, in this body, to stir you up by reminding you.

And so that's what we're attempting to do, stir you up by reminding you of things you should already know.

And he went on, knowing that surely I must put off my tent just as our Lord Jesus showed me, and moreover

I will be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things after my decease. And he made a point of that, the

Lord blessed that, that's what we have in 2nd Peter 1 verses 12 through 15. He left a reminder, didn't he, of things they had already been taught, informed, repeatedly reinforced in, and he was calling them once again to always remember.

And so in these matters repetition is good, reinforcement is necessary, because just as we read in 2nd

John, there are many deceivers that have gone out into the world. And we, you know, we rub shoulders with them sometimes, frequently.

I'm talking about professing Christians now in this matter of sanctification. So let's work through this by affirming certain truths.

First of all, that sanctification is the experience of all true Christians. There are those who say that sanctification is a desired aspect of the

Christian life, everybody should be sanctified, but it's not essential. And what we're advocating is the

Bible teaches that every true Christian is experiencing this work of God's grace in sanctification.

And we can see this in Acts chapter 20. Now I'm mindful of the time and the amount of material we're going through, but so we may just dive in to the middle of this text, which is in bold font, italicized font, within that text.

It's a passage out of Romans, or Acts 20, in which Paul, he was traveling back to Jerusalem, but he didn't have time to go to Ephesus.

And so he arranged to meet with the elders of the church at Ephesus in the town of Miletus, which is about 20 miles south of Ephesus.

And he spent some time there with the elders, and Acts 20 records this event.

And so he wrote to them, or we have recorded for us by Luke, what Paul had taught these elders in verse 32.

Now brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

He's promising salvation as an inheritance, glorification, and notice that it belongs only to those who are sanctified.

That verse alone tells us that everyone who is truly a Christian is being sanctified.

The inheritance belongs to them because they are and have been sanctified.

And so he urged these elders to seek to be true to God and to the message of God's grace as found in the

Scriptures. He tells them that their seeking to walk with God and their commitment to the word of grace would be the means that God would cause them to grow and to become sanctified.

They would grow in holiness and maturity and as a result or the outcome of this sanctifying work of grace in their lives would be the realization of their blessed hope, the inheritance of salvation and eternal life.

And so this inheritance belongs to all those who are sanctified.

And so here we see that sanctification is the experience of all true Christians. You will not receive the inheritance of eternal life unless you are sanctified.

In another place in Acts, Paul asserted the same truth. In Acts 26 we read of Paul defending himself before King Agrippa.

Paul had been arrested due to the opposition of Jewish leaders because he was preaching the gospel.

They had rejected Jesus. Paul preached Jesus. And so they leveled a number of charges, false charges, against Paul resulting in him standing in judgment before the regional king in the coastal city of Caesarea there in Palestine.

And in Paul's defense he described his conversion experience when the risen glorified

Jesus appeared to him and spoke to him on the road to Damascus. And so we read of the

Lord's purpose and calling. Paul here is quoting what he heard

Jesus say to him as recorded in Acts 26, 17, and 18. Jesus had told

Paul, I will deliver you from the Jewish people as well as from the Gentiles to whom I now send you, to open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in me.

Again he's setting forth the reality that every true Christian is being sanctified by God.

It's to them final and full salvation is promised. It's an inheritance to be received.

That doesn't put it in doubt. Peter argues in 1st Peter 1, it's a certainty. God's reserving that inheritance for you.

And not only is he reserving that inheritance but he's preserving you as well. And the two of you are going to come together one day.

You and your inheritance. It's a done deal. And so it doesn't, this idea of a future certainty and prospect of receiving a full and final salvation in no way puts it in doubt.

But this inheritance belongs to all those who are sanctified. Sanctification is the experience of all true

Christians. Well given the importance of this subject we should understand therefore the critical importance of distinguishing justification from sanctification.

There's so much confusion and error when this is not properly understood. And so we have to sort through these matters because justification and sanctification are different from one another although they have some similarities.

And so let's answer the question in what ways are our justification and our sanctification alike.

First they are like one another in that they are both the result of the working of God.

They have the same author. It's God who justifies us. It's God who sanctifies us.

With regard to the first, we read in Romans 8 .33, God is the author.

Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies.

It's an act of God. We read in several places that God is also the author of the work of sanctification that he carries on within the soul.

God said to Moses, I am the Lord who's God who sanctifies you. God justifies, he sanctifies.

It's a work of his grace. Secondly, they are like one another in that they originate of the free and sovereign work of God's grace.

Justification is an act of God's free grace but so is sanctification.

Not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the

Holy Ghost or Spirit. They are both of grace, freely and sovereignly bestowed by God.

Thirdly, they are alike in that they are always seen together in every person who is the object of his grace.

There has never been a person who is justified but that he is also sanctified. There never has been the case that a man experienced

God's inward work of sanctification but that he's also justified by God. They go together.

Paul described the Christians at Corinth, such were some of you, and he's talking about flagrant sinners, but you're washed, you are sanctified, you are justified.

See the two together, same statement. And fourth, they are like one another in that both of them are the fruit of the word of God.

God justifies sinners through their belief in the truth. Jesus said to his own, now you are clean through the word that I have spoken to you.

And God also sanctifies his people by the word of truth. He prayed to his father, sanctify them by your truth, your word is truth.

And also we read in Ephesians 5 .6 of Christ's work at his church that he might sanctify and cleanse the church with the washing of the water of his word.

The word is the instrument that God uses to justify people and to sanctify his people.

And then again, they are like one another in that they are both essential or necessary to eternal life.

God has declared that no man will escape God's condemnation on judgment day unless he's justified.

He has also declared that no one will pass the scrutiny of God's judgment unless he is sanctified.

They are of equal necessity to the possession of eternal life, and so they are alike in these respects.

And yet there are ways in which they are to be distinguished from one another. They differ from one another.

Well, in what ways? Well, first, justification is an act of God about the standing of a person before God.

But sanctification is a work of God concerning the nature of a person. Sanctification is a work within us.

Justification is a declaration of God outside of us. Very important to recognize.

You're not justified because you feel like you're forgiven. You're justified because God declares you to be such through faith in Jesus Christ.

It's been said this way, justification is an act of God as a judge toward a delinquent, absolving him from a sentence of death.

But sanctification is the act of God about us as a physician, incurring us of a mortal disease.

Imagine this scenario. You have a criminal that comes before a judge to be tried. He's charged with high treason.

He's found to be guilty. He is worthy of death. But this same guilty man is also a diseased man.

He has a disease from which he will not recover. He will most certainly die. Well, not only does he need to escape from the condemnation of his guilt, but he needs healing of this deadly disease.

Justification is an answer to his guilt. Sanctification is God's answer to his sinful condition from which he must be delivered.

We need more than just forgiveness of sin. We need to be delivered from the power of sinning.

And so God acts toward the sinner in absolving him of his guilt. And God works in that same man to cure him of his sinfulness.

The first is justification. The second is sanctification. Both are necessary. Both are essential.

Justification, therefore, is an act of God as a gracious judge. But sanctification is the work of God as a merciful physician.

It has been pointed out that King David joins them together in Psalm 103, verse 3. God who forgives all your iniquities, there's pardon.

Who heals all your diseases, there's cleansing. Second, justification and sanctification differ from one another in that justification is an act of God's grace on account of the righteousness of another, even

Jesus Christ. But sanctification is a work of God in which he infuses righteousness within us, transforms us.

The first justification speaks of imputation. God imputes righteousness to you.

Suppose I came up to you and I had a thousand dollar check and so I'm giving this gift to you and I'm gonna go down and put it in your bank tomorrow.

It's gonna be reckoned to your account. You don't have anything to do with it. I'm gonna do that for you.

And that's what God does when he declares us to be righteous, justified. He imputes righteousness to us.

And it's the righteousness outside of us. It's the righteousness of Jesus Christ. God imputes or reckons the righteousness of Jesus Christ to that of the believing sinner.

This is God's work for us. The second, sanctification, speaks of God's infusion in which

God works in us to make us holy. Justification is not a work of grace in us, but outside of us.

We're declared to be righteous through faith alone. And then he makes us righteous through his grace working in and through us.

And they must not be confused with one another. Thirdly, justification and sanctification differ from one another in that our justification is complete or perfect, but our sanctification is incomplete.

We haven't arrived yet, have we? Justification occurred when the sinner first truly believed on Jesus Christ as Savior.

Justification is complete and knows of no degrees. Every Christian in this room is equally justified.

It's the same in every believer, new and old alike. You could become a true believer in Jesus this morning and you would be as justified in the sight of God as the oldest

Christian in this room. Justification is alike for every believer.

There's no degree in our justification. You're either justified or you're not.

You're either damned or you're saved. Our justification cannot be diminished or increased.

It does not change. It cannot be interrupted or ceased to be.

On the other hand, sanctification is imperfect, incomplete. It's a changeable thing in every believer.

And so one believer is more sanctified than another. None of us are the same in the level or degree of our sanctification.

Sanctification knows of many degrees between persons, even in the same person. A true believer may not become more justified than he is presently, but certainly he can become more sanctified than he is currently.

A saint who has died and gone to be with the Lord is no more justified then and there as he is now, thankfully.

And that will be the case on Judgment Day, too. We'll be as justified then as we are today.

It knows of no degrees. A saint who's died and gone to be with the Lord is justified as he was here on earth, but then he'll be completely sanctified

He's not that way now, but then he will be. Fourthly, justification and sanctification differ from one another in that our justification involves no work of our own.

In fact, if you think it does, you're not justified, we might argue. If you think that you're going to be saved through circumcision,

Paul wrote in Galatians, and therefore keeping the law, Christ is nothing to you.

You try and mix faith and works and justification, and you're without being justified.

And so justification involves no work of our own, but it's based solely upon the work of Christ on our behalf.

On the other hand, our sanctification involves very much our work, as God commanded through Paul.

Therefore, my beloved, as you've always obeyed as in my presence and also my absence, much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

He's talking about the need to work on your sanctification. Sanctification is a part of salvation, and yet we know and confess this work we do is in no way meritorious, in no way contributes to our justification.

Our justification involves our believing, our trusting, our resting in Jesus Christ alone for our righteousness.

Our sanctification, however, involves our believing, our trusting, our resting, but also it's as we go forth with all of our effort.

We put forth no effort in our justification. We are to put forth all our effort in our sanctification, and that's a major distinction between the two.

We rest in Christ for our justification, but we work with all our might toward our full sanctification, and so the scriptures liken our sanctification to striving, to fighting, to running, to sowing, reaping, seeking, journeying, enduring, overcoming, and even exerting violence in order to enter the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God.

And so there's no salvation for the believer unless you trust Jesus Christ alone for your justification, but on the other hand, there is no salvation for you if you refuse or fail to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

They are different, but they go hand in hand. Herein lies, please understand, this is one of the major points of difference between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, and I believe this is one of the major areas of Roman Catholic teaching, which renders the gospel they preach,

I believe, as another gospel. For it teaches that a sinner becomes justified before God only after and because God has infused righteousness in him.

In other words, we're saying is they confuse justification and sanctification.

We argue that a sinner becomes justified immediately, completely, and then becomes sanctified.

Rome argues, no, you become sanctified over the course of this life and oftentimes through an extended period in purgatory, and when you come out the other side, then you are really holy, then you are justified in the sight of God.

So they reverse the two, the order of them. This is all important, and so this is historic

Protestantism in contrast to what Rome advocates.

And so the Bible, we would argue, states that the sinner becomes justified before God through faith alone, apart from works, because God reckons or credits

Christ's righteousness to the believer. According to Rome, the Christian is not justified until he himself is made righteous.

And so this, we would argue, is a terrible error. Paul wrote,

I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, through what you do, what you achieve, and that's what we're arguing.

When you become justified, you're righteous before God. If righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.

But we would argue, just as vehemently, by the way, where Rome's great error is to see sanctification as the basis of justification, the great error of evangelicalism is this, as long as you have justification, you can have salvation irrespective of sanctification.

In other words, there are many across the world who are taught and believe that I'm justified, and therefore

I have salvation, and therefore sanctification is certainly desirable, but not essential.

And so there are multitude, millions upon millions of so -called Bible believers who believe in justification by grace through faith alone, but they regard sanctification as an option that you can either, you know, incorporate in your life or set aside.

Nevertheless, I'm saved, and this is just not correct. Yes, sanctification is regarded as a good thing, a desirable thing, and there are many consequences for failing to live so as to be sanctified, but as generally taught, it has nothing to do with salvation.

In fact, they would accuse me of being a legalist, of preaching works righteousness. They would accuse me of being a grace killer, as one of them advocates in one of their books, and accuse me of being a legalist, and we're saying that they are antinomian.

They have forsaken the true grace of God in Christ because they have set aside sanctification as essential to salvation.

And so whereas Rome has confused and reversed the order of justification and sanctification, many evangelicals have severed the two, claiming that you can have justification before God without being sanctified by God, and that is great error, and a lot of people are not being challenged about this.

More precisely, what is sanctification? Well, sanctification carries the idea of being consecrated or set apart by God.

God sets apart everything for Himself. You read in the Old Testament, everything was set apart by God.

That which was in common use, set apart and regarded as holy, so God could make use of those things.

And so throughout the Old Testament, we read of things being set apart from God, but God sets apart

His people as well. Now when we're talking about sanctification, we need to understand that really sanctification is set forth in two ways in the

Holy Scriptures. There is a positional sanctification, and then what we're addressing today, of course, is practical sanctification.

What do we mean by positional sanctification? Positional sanctification is that when you become a

Christian, God sanctifies you or sets you apart as a

Christian. You are reclassified and now you are a saint, a holy one, and that's sanctification.

He sets you apart. This positional sanctification really doesn't speak about your holy ways or holy nature, it speaks about your holy position, and that's why

Paul could address some of those errant churches in the New Testament as saints and brethren.

They're positionally set apart and sanctified by God. This was probably done through the work of the cross,

Hebrews 10 .4, for by one offering He is perfected forever them that are sanctified.

He's not talking here about the life change in practical sanctification. He's saying that Christ set apart

His people, and they are God's people, and God has purpose to save them and bless them.

But aside from this positional sanctification, again we're addressing practical sanctification, and here sanctification carries the idea of being purified or being made holy in our lives.

This is practical. This sanctification is the work of God in the life of the Christian, whereby God makes a sinner into a holy person in thought and attitude and behavior.

And so we see this type of sanctification described or expressed. We saw it in 1 Thessalonians 4 and we gave attention to it then about a year ago.

This is the will of God, even your sanctification, that you should abstain from fornication, that every one of you should know how to possess

His vessel in sanctification and honor. And so looking at that verse, you see how this sanctification is practical in nature, affects how you live as a

Christian. It's not positional, but it's practical. It is not a work of sanctification that's done on our behalf as much as it's a work of grace performed in each of us to purify us and to make us holy.

Practical sanctification. Practical, this practical sanctification of the

Holy Spirit begins with the sinner's regeneration. You're going along and all of a sudden

God imparts life to you. New life, spiritual life. You might not have even been aware of what happened, but all of a sudden you have new desires, new interests, new concerns, and you are awakened.

You feel there's movement in your soul and you all of a sudden have an interest in the things of God and a love for the people of God.

You have feelings and thoughts and attitudes that weren't there, but now they're there.

This is a result of God's work of grace, sometimes like a little seed being sown, and yet it grows and it ultimately transforms the person.

And so this is that, it begins, this is that work of sanctification that God begins when he begins to summon someone to true salvation.

It begins with regeneration or the new birth. It's not a mere outward reformation of behavior.

Our righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees. How can that be, we ask?

They were so holy, weren't they? How can my righteousness exceed theirs? Well, it's because their sanctification was only outward, not inward.

But the one who becomes a Christian, they have an inward holiness, don't they? They have a heart that's given them, a heart of flesh, desires, aspirations.

They value righteousness, they love God's work, and they love

God's people. When I was first converted at 19, one of the unusual things, in fact one of the members of the church

I was attending asked me one day, old Charlie, what a gracious old guy, I was up there helping him underneath of the church was filled with water and it was raining and we're trying to get the water up.

Mother, why are you here? You know, because the church was comprised of old people, and here

I was just a kid. And you know, I was a wild man, and yet there was an attraction to these people that the

Lord had infused in me. It wasn't there, you know, just a couple months before, but there was now.

And again, that was a principle of life, isn't it? So much so that law for the brethren is an evidence of the work of grace of sanctification in the soul.

So much so that John could write, if a man says he loves God and loves not his brethren, he's a liar, because they go hand -in -hand.

And so this work of sanctification is a work of God's grace performed in each of us.

And it begins to work in us and transform us. And we might resist it, but it happens.

You can't fight it. Well, you can fight it, but you can't overcome it. God wins the day.

And so the sanctification of the Spirit is evidence in the desires and attitudes of the believer toward God.

It's evidence in the attitudes and opinions of the believer towards sin. And it's evidence also in the believer's attitudes toward other believers, as well as the world in which he lives.

The believer hates sin, and now he loves righteousness. He hates sin in the world, but unbelievers hate sin in the world, because the true believer hates sin most in here.

And that's an evidence, I believe, of the new birth. The Westminster Catechism sets forth the definition of this practical sanctification in a wonderful way.

Question 35. What is sanctification? Answer. Sanctification is the work of God's free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin and live unto righteousness.

It's a process. It's gradual, but it's a work of God's grace. And so sanctification, practical sanctification, speaks of God making a person holy.

The Holy Spirit imparts grace to that individual, giving him or her the desire, as well as the ability, as they look to Christ, to become more and more

Christ -like in life. It is a work in that it is a gradual process that God produces over a lifetime.

It's a work of grace in that God performs His work in the lives of His people solely due to His kindness and His love that He has for them.

And so through the work of sanctification, the believer increasingly hates sin, increasingly ceases from it, even as new forms of it emerge, and increasingly loves and practices righteousness.

Our sanctification, of course, will be complete when we go to be with the Lord. Let's consider quickly several basic principles of our sanctification.

I think we'll just hit the highlighted bold font for the sake of time.

But here are some biblical truths. If we had the time, we could argue and reason from verses that these are true.

First, our sanctification involves personal responsibility to be obedient to God's standards of righteousness.

We are responsible in this matter. We won't become sanctified until we see it's our duty, and we ask

God to help us to become more and more sanctified, more like Christ.

And so sometimes you would have the benediction or the doxology of epistles express this, like Paul did to the church at Thessalonica.

Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely. May your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of Jesus Christ, the

Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful. He will also do it. And so this work of sanctification will take place.

Principle two, our sanctification involves our responsible obedience as we are enabled by the grace of God.

We're responsible and we must obey. Sanctification involves obedience.

God is reconciling the world to Himself through Jesus Christ. And what that means is

He bringing a rebellious world back into willing subjection to Him as King, as Creator.

Jesus Christ is accomplishing that. And so the kingdom of God that Jesus instituted, inaugurated when

He rose and ascended, He's perfecting this in the lives of His people. He's bringing us back into conformity to the law of God where we willingly submit to Him.

This would be completed on the day of Jesus Christ. And even those that stand before King Jesus on that day in rebellion, they will willingly submit and bow the knee, confessing that Jesus is

Lord to the glory of the Father. Jesus Christ will have brought this entire rebellious world back into willing submission to God as Father.

And then Paul tells us in 1st Corinthians 15, the Lord Jesus will take that kingdom, that mediatorial kingdom, that He has brought to fruition and give it back to His Father.

And so He basically accomplishes the work of bringing rebellious mankind back into submission to God, a submission that of course

He deserves. And so, thirdly, principle 3, sanctification is a progressive work that continues throughout the believer's life.

We never arrive in this world, but hopefully we're moving, we're more holy today than we were 10 years ago because of the grace of God.

Principle 4, God has already given us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us.

This is critically important because many voices, maybe even a majority of voices in Christendom, tell you that you're not complete, that you need something else, something more that you haven't yet received in order to live rightly before God.

Commonly they'll call it the baptism of the Holy Spirit or something else, but the Bible tells us that God has given you everything that you need to become sanctified in this life, and that's a quotation from the

Scripture. You already have all that you need. God has provided that for you in Christ.

Now, don't misunderstand, we're not saying that you're not in need of grace day by day, absolutely we need a grace day by day, but as far as all the tools that you need to become holy, you have at your disposal right now as a

Christian. And so, yes, grace needs to be multiplied, as Peter wrote in his epistle, but the point that we're trying to make is this, that even now as a believer in Jesus Christ, you currently have access to that grace of sanctification, thankfully.

Now, what are the means of grace for living? In other words, what are the ways in which the

Lord has given us whereby we might be sanctified in this life?

Well, this is where the different views of practical sanctification emerge, and there are several of them.

I have a book at home, Five Views of Sanctification, where each representative puts forth his position and then the other four interact and rebut as they are trying to argue for their own view.

I've set forth four views here, because these are the major views that you and I would probably encounter.

Different views of sanctification, and we would argue that the first three are errant and not biblical, and that the fourth, the historical reformed

Protestant view of sanctification, is what is biblical. And so how does this work of sanctification take place?

What steps is the believer to take in order to advance his sanctification?

Well, first of all, there is the Wesleyan view of sanctification, which has also been termed perfectionism.

By the title, one can see immediately it was a position popularized largely by John Wesley in the 1700s, but it also found expression by,

I might just say, the heretic Charles Finney in the 19th century. They promoted this

Wesleyan view of sanctification, and Wesley, although he was an Armenian, in many ways he was a great man in preaching the gospel, and God used him during the

Great Awakening in a mighty way, but he had all kinds of problems in this matter of sanctification.

Wesleyan preaching often focused on not only people becoming believers, but that they become consecrated to God, and consecration was viewed as a second step to coming to salvation, a second blessing, a second significant experience that every believer should seek and receive, and until you've received it, you have not arrived.

But once you've received it, you're all of a sudden immediately elevated to a higher plane, and you have a capability now of really living a holy life that you didn't have before.

H .A. Ironsides, I have a number of his books. He was one of the older dispensationalists, but he was a godly man in many respects, but he got his start in the holiness movement, and he believed this view of sanctification, but he was always frustrated because he never arrived, but he knew it had to be true because he had this woman preacher that he would often do conferences with, and he knew that she had arrived.

She was holy, and so he was troubled by this, plagued with this.

He wrote a little book, one of his first books, Holiness, the False and True, and he told the story. One night in his hotel room, there's a knock on his door, and it was this woman preacher.

Can I talk to you? And she came into the room. She fell on her knees. Oh, if only

I could be as holy as you! And so Ironsides realized there's something really defective here, deficient, and it brought him out of that movement and changed his understanding of sanctification.

But this is what the position says about God's grace for living. First, a Christian after conversion may or will live a period of life characterized by defeat and failure until a second blessing is experienced, and this second blessing, this experience is a transformative work, instantaneous experience whereby a

Christian suddenly advances to a new and higher level of spirituality. Secondly, his life from then onward is characterized by a full heart of love for God and love for others, and that thirdly, this gift of holiness is to be sought by prayer and full dedication and surrender, and there really is no way to live a godly life until one has received this blessing from God.

Wesley taught that it was a final cleansing of the heart through the actual uprooting and destroyed of inbred sin, the channeling of all the man's personal energies, intellectual, volitional, emotional, motivational, into the one sustained activity of loving

God and others. In other words, perfectionism. And he thought he had arrived, and even as he had, you know, such difficulty with his friend

George Whitefield, he made this claim. Well, secondly, there is the commonly the

Pentecostal view of sanctification, and this is in some way similar to the Wesleyan view of sanctification.

It began in the middle of the 19th century and continues to be widely held today.

The emphasis of the second blessing is attributed to the baptism of the Holy Spirit that is a separate experience and subsequent to salvation.

This baptism is evidenced oftentimes by the speaking of tongues, they argue. And similar to the

Wesleyan view, it said that a person may be a true Christian but a defeated one, not encountering victory over sin or truly experiencing the fruit of the gifts of the

Spirit until this experience is encountered. They look down on us as not having arrived in the matter of sanctification because we haven't been baptized in the

Holy Spirit as they describe it and define it. But they say upon being baptized in the

Spirit the person encounters a transformation and is thereafter enabled to live a spirit -filled or spirit -empowered life.

Now, it should be recognized that among Pentecostals there are differences. Some are altogether

Wesleyan in their assertion of a second blessing, which is prerequisite to living a holy life.

Other Pentecostals, however, see this as a diminishing of the sufficiency of Christ.

They actually say, no, you shouldn't teach this. And because it is a diminishing of the sufficiency of the work of Christ, and they're right to criticize it in that.

Nevertheless, they argue that every Christian should be baptized in the Holy Spirit. And then thirdly, the

Keswick view of sanctification. This is the view that's held by most so -called

Bible believers. And I held this view for years, decades, until I was taught better.

This is reflected in the Schofield Bible, all in the Campus Crusade literature, and so many of the books on sanctification that's put out by good, well -intentioned evangelicals.

But this Keswick view of sanctification originated as late as the late 19th century, 1885, and emerged in meetings where there's a lot of end -times prophecy being emphasized, but also this new view of sanctification that was being promoted in the

Conference Center in Keswick, England. And that annual conference continues today.

It's a big conference, the Keswick Conference in England. The teaching is also sometimes referred to as victorious life living, or teaching, the deeper life, the higher

Christian life. And it's held by many, popularized by some more than others.

It's a view that is promoted by Campus Crusade, and they probably have more influence in promoting this view than any other.

Its principal argument is as follows. Based on Romans 6, it's argued that a person can be a true

Christian, but an unsurrendered life. Christ is not your Lord. He's your

Savior, but He's not your Lord, they argue. But through a crisis in your life, you come to surrender, and then the victorious

Christian life can be experienced by the defeated Christian. And so this theory of sanctification involves three essential points.

First, a Christian can truly be justified, but still under sin's dominion. In that tract,

I mentioned how to live the Spirit -filled life. It has three circles, and it describes the individual.

You have a circle with a little throne in the middle, and you have a non -Christian with the

S, the self, on the throne, and C for Christ is outside the circle.

And then you have the spiritual Christian with the circle, and the individual with C, Christ, on the little throne in the center, and self is kind of on the outside of the circle.

But in the middle, you have this category, the carnal Christian. And they argue, here's the circle, the throne in the middle, self is still on the throne, but Christ, C, is within the circle.

And so they advocate you can have Jesus as your Savior, but not your Lord. And that's so common teaching among evangelicals.

It's alarming, frankly. And so through certain steps, they say, a

Christian arrives at to experience His Spirit -filled life. The believer must consciously reckon himself to be dead unto sin, they argue from Romans 6.

And what they mean by that is that you need to convince yourself by faith that your sin died within you.

It may seem to be real, but it actually died when Christ died. And you need to come to accept this and believe this by faith, and that when you do, the power of sin will suddenly be broken in your life, and you'll be able to live for Christ.

And so the believer must consciously rely on Christ rather than himself to defeat temptation and sin and prompt righteousness.

He must believe in Christ's resurrection power in order to spiritually receive His power. But the main point that they advocate is this, a

Christian must cease to exert all personal effort. Trust Christ alone to do the work in him.

And so in contrast to what we've been arguing all along, it requires great effort, great striving, great purpose, great intention, a sense of duty, a sense of responsibility.

They say, no, no, no. That's the way to defeat. You need to let go and let God. You need to become completely passive.

You've got to stop trying and start trusting. This is the kind of language they use.

And so they advocate that if you want to be sanctified, you have to be completely passive. The Christian who tries to resist directly the urges to sin, he'll fall, he'll fail.

And so things like commands and practical instruction are counterproductive.

They would view me and what I've said today as terrible legalism. This is their view of things.

They advocate, let go and let God. Rest in Him. Let Him take over. And so they advocate this passivity on the part of Christians.

They take the responsibility off their shoulders and it's terrible. And this view of sanctification was promoted at the end of the 19th century as a new discovery from the

Bible. They advocated it as such. We've discovered this from the Bible and they said that this is going to transform the church.

The church is going to be more holy than it ever has in the last 1 ,900 years of church history.

And this is what they taught. And this is the predominant view of Bible believers and Bible believing churches across the world.

J .C. Ryle, who was a very wonderful godly Church of England bishop, wrote his classic book on sanctification entitled

Holiness and it was largely written to repudiate this wrong teaching of sanctification that was begun at these

Keswick conferences. And today it is the best book available still in my mind on the matter of the sanctification of the believer.

What is the Reformed view of sanctification? We would argue a biblical view. Well, the difference is from above.

There are no shortcuts to holiness. No shortcuts. There's no magic bullet where you're going to be all of a sudden elevated to a new plane.

Yes, there are times when God gives wonderful instantaneous deliverances.

He delivered me from smoking when I was 21 years of age. I never thought that I'd be able to get rid of that one because I liked it so much, frankly, as well.

I had such a strong addiction upon me. But the Lord delivered me and it was wonderful.

I had a bucket mouth and the Lord cleaned it. I wasn't even aware that that cleaned up until somebody told me.

And I realized, yeah, that's right. You know, the Lord does change things and sometimes significantly and immediately, but most often it's a slugfest, isn't it?

Over time and the Lord gives His victory. There is secondly not a single second blessing which you must receive in order to become holy.

He's already given you everything you need to live a holy life. I won't read the verses but they're there.

And then sanctification, according to the Reformed view, involved direct, energetic, full -hearted action and obedience of the believer to the

Word of God. Obey it. Do it. Obviously not in your own strength.

You ask the Lord to give you the Holy Spirit to enable you to do so. And it maintains a connection between justification and sanctification while recognizing the distinction between the two.

It maintains the principle means of sanctification is the grace given to us by Christ through the

Holy Spirit, applying the scriptures to the mind and the life. It's not a mystical experience, but your mind is full of ignorance, or it can't be full of ignorance, it's ignorant and full of error.

But through Scripture your mind is transformed by the renewing of your mind,

Romans 12, to apply the Word of God to the mind and then apply that to your life by the power of the

Holy Spirit. This is what works sanctification. And then the

Reformed view of sanctification also emphasizes that God has given His people the means by which

He imparts grace to them, enabling them to become more sanctified. What are these means?

They are private means and they're public means. If you neglect these means you are not going to be sanctified.

The private means, private prayer, personal scripture reading, personal meditation upon scripture truths, private and personal self -examination that ought to be done with view to the

Lord's Supper, of course. And then there are public means of grace. They're private and they're public.

And these include the gathering of Christians together on the Lord's Day for corporate worship. If the

Word of God had been operative in this last hour that we've had, the work of sanctification is furthered in us, isn't it?

Even as these truths are brought to remembrance, because of our public gathering together, you're better off now than you were if you stayed home in this matter.

It's a public means of grace. And then, of course, the gathering that involves singing and prayer, public reading of the

Word, hearing the Word, proclaiming. And so these are the public means of grace.

The Lord's Supper, where it reinvigorates us and stirs us to fresh faith in Christ crucified and with view to the

Second Coming. These are all means of grace that God has given us. The Reformed view of sanctification involves watchfulness, guarding your heart, watching over your soul.

It involves carefulness with regard to your associations. Do not be deceived.

Corrupt people will corrupt your manners, won't they? If you want to walk with wise men or you want to be wise, walk with wise men.

If you want to be holy, walk with holy men and women. They go hand -in -hand. If you want to depart from the

Lord, follow along with those who are not walking with the Lord and you'll soon be joining them.

There is a connection there. There's an influence. And then, of course, the

Reformed view emphasized the need for regular and habitual communion with the Triune God because we're dependent upon Him.

The Reformed view advocates the act of pursuit to come to truth in order to correct error.

The life of principled obedience is the way of sanctification. And lastly, the

Reformed view of sanctification emphasizes the need for continual prayer to God and reliance on Jesus Christ to bestow the needed grace for every situation and action.

I've said it so many times, I hope you get tired of hearing it. When God caused you to be born again,

He placed a desire in you to live a holy life, but He did not give you the ability.

The ability must come from Christ daily as we look to Him. Without me, you can do nothing.

And one of the frustrations of Christians is they have the desire, and so they go out and they try, and they're going to fall flat on their face.

Why is this? I love you, Lord. Why am I not doing better? It's because you're relying on yourself rather than the grace of Christ.

He's put the desire in you, but the power rests in the risen and enthroned

Lord Jesus, who gives His Holy Spirit to enable His people to walk with Him. Amen?

May the Lord help us to employ these means of grace that we might walk with Him. Let's pray. Thank you, our

Father, for the grace that you've given us that we might live before you, and we pray that you would sanctify us wholly, our

God. May you give us our fresh bestowal of the Holy Spirit to enable us,

Lord, to understand and to go forth from this place living for you. Forgive us our sin and cleanse us, our

God, and help us, our Lord, to represent you faithfully before others, for we ask in Jesus' name.