Common Errors in Sanctification (Part 2)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth. 10 ,000 acres of lonesome, 500 miles all filled up with pain. Amazing. I don�t know if you know who that is, anybody that can tell me who that artist is.

Without using your little app, maybe I�ll send you a little gift, a little no-ghost gift or something. I think something. Something good. Tell me something good. What is going on here before we get into part two of Common Errors of Sanctification?

I watched Mark Yarborough on Dallas Seminary�s chapel, and it ain�t no joke, he went all woke. I�ve heard Mark Yarborough teach the Bible before. I thought he�s a pretty good Bible teacher, and he�s the new president of Dallas Seminary.

And then he just got up there. I think it was Martin Luther King Chapel. Remember the patron saint of Dallas Seminary, the Evangelical knot, and we�re going to have an MLK. Let me just ask you this. If you�re not liberal and you don�t agree with Martin Luther King Jr.�s theology�we�re not talking about social stuff or race deals or anything like that�but if you�re theologically conservative and Martin Luther King Jr. was theologically liberal�I�m trying to remember the excellent biography I read of him that had his theological background, which I think included some Boston schools�I don�t get it.

I don�t get it where you have to bring in�just like, remember when, you know, Together for the Gospel and T4G and Gospel Coalition or whatever�didn�t they do some Martin Luther King Jr. thing years ago?

Didn�t ever have that thing put on. But anyway, I�m sure Platt spoke at it. I just don�t see what�s the point. Actually, I see S. Louis Johnson rolling over in his grave, if he would know about the Dallas Seminary and is going to have Mark Yarbrough apologize for systemic, personal, and institutional racism.

And then I think he had a black lady get up and do her, you know, preach talk or her talk preach�whatever you call that when a woman gets up in chapel. There�s just no excuse for it. You can be nice and kind and everything else, but when you let that go on, it�s like your first chapel as the new president.

What does that tell you? What does that tell you about Dallas Seminary? And it really�I�m just�it�s just sad. It�s just sad to see what�s going on there. And it�s sad to see when people over the years�well, I guess there�s more I could say about Dallas Seminary, but I probably shouldn�t.

Well, I said I was going to do common errors of sanctification. And the reason why I�m a little discombobulated, my daughter just texted me and said that she is delayed in her trip, and I was going to pick her up tonight.

How long is the delay? So you wouldn�t mind if I did that, would you? I mean, when I�m talking to somebody in my study, in my office, counseling, or whatever meetings, and I see my kid calls, I usually take the call.

You got kids scattered across the�well, just in L .A. I have three kids in Los Angeles, San Diego, Southern California area. Luke�s since moved down to�closer to San Diego than L .A. I have two up in Canyon Country, and then I have a daughter who�s going to get married and move to Los Angeles area.

So they�re all going there. I mean, come on. If you�re going to go to California, you should at least go to Santa Cruz or something. We�re looking at common errors in sanctification. And we�ve seen, if memory serves me, they�ve got the wrong definition.

People normally have the wrong definition. People don�t think there�s a response that is�God is the sanctifier, and should we ever respond? And then�I forgot what the third error was. Oh, it�s kind of a mystery.

This is the worst show ever. You remember when they don�t like it, when, you know, listeners don�t like it when they see a guy just sits in his own room by himself and laughs, like in his basement. But I�m not in the basement.

The Person of Christ in Sanctification

Error four, separating sanctification from the person of Jesus Christ in his work. There is an error in modern evangelicalism that separates sanctification from the person of Jesus and his work. Calvin, by faith we come to enjoy Christ and all his benefits.

Remember Calvin famously talked about the duplex gratia, dual graces, double graces. You have a double grace of what? Justification and sanctification. From union with Christ, of course, you get justification, sanctification.

You get pardon from your sins, and you get power to say no to sin and yes to righteousness as a believer. I think it was Olivianus Casper, the friendly Olivianus, who said it was the duplex beneficium, double benefits.

If you remember Calvin when he said, �By partaking of him, we principally receive a double grace, namely being reconciled to God through Christ�s blamelessness. We may have in heaven instead of a judge a gracious father, and secondly that sanctified by Christ�s Spirit we may cultivate blamelessness and purity of life.

That�s a tie-in. I don�t want to separate sanctification from the benefits received from Jesus applied by the Holy Spirit. You don�t want to say something like, �You know what? Justification is based on Jesus, and sanctification is based on me.

Wouldn�t that be bad? That�s my point. Justification is all about Jesus and what He�s done for me. And what about sanctification? Do we just flip it all around and say, �Now everything is based on what I do and my performance

Jesus for pardon and for power, it�s the double benefit of Jesus. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Galatians 5 .24. �Far be it from me to boast except in the cross for the Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.

You don�t come to Jesus for justification slash pardon and then go somewhere else for sanctification, for holy living. True believers are pardoned and receive power in their holy life. See, I�m almost made a mistake there.

What should we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means. How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?

We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we will certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His.

We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin.

Romans 6, 8. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. We know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death He died, He died to sin once for all.

For the life He lives, He lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions.

Do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.

For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. Has sin's power been broken? Who broke sin's power? Jesus did. How? By His death and resurrection. You could say with others, Christ came not only to cancel sin's debt, pardon, but also He came to break its power.

And therefore, you're going to have to deal with even union with Christ, right? I've said it 150 times, in Christ, in Christ, in Christ, in Jesus Christ, in Jesus Christ, our Lord. You don't come to Jesus for pardon without coming to Jesus for power.

The mortification of the flesh is the effect of the cross of Christ, John Calvin. Calvin, although we may distinguish justification and sanctification, Christ contains both of them inseparably in Himself.

Do you wish then to attain righteousness in Christ? You must first possess Christ, but you cannot possess Him without being made partaker in His sanctification, because He cannot be divided into pieces.

Since therefore it is solely by expending Himself that the Lord gives us these benefits to enjoy, He bestows both of them at the same time, the one never without the other. Thus it is clear how true it is that we are justified, not without works, yet not through works, since in our sharing in Christ which He justifies, a sanctification is just as much included as righteousness.

The last part I didn't read well. How are you going to receive Christ's gifts if you don't receive Christ? That's the point. Receive Christ's gifts without receiving Jesus? That seems weird. What else do we have here?

Justification. Faith rests and receives, right? And faith responds. Faith, what, rests alone for Christ for sanctification? How does that work? I'm looking at my notes here. If you say, what are the parts of sanctification?

Dying to sin and living to righteousness, that's true. How do you do that? How would you die to sin and live to righteousness if it wasn't for Jesus and His work? I don't think you're going to be able to do it.

How do you live to righteousness? How do you live a newness of life? Error number five, error number five on No Compromise Radio Ministry. I'm glad you're sticking with me. I think I've done, I don't know, 3 ,000 to 4 ,000 shows.

This is right there at the bottom. All right, let's redeem it. Error five, ignore God's means of grace. The question really is, how do Christians mature? And maybe you'll say Bible reading, fasting, spiritual disciplines, journaling, Christian coloring books, one another's, every ministry, every member of ministry.

What are the means of grace? Well, if you think historically, it's used in reformed circles. They're typically two, the word preached and the sacraments, that is last rites and marriage, not a baptism in the Lord's Supper.

What are the means of grace? The word preached, sacraments rightly administered. Now, if you go to the Continental Reform, like the Dutch, and along with the English Reformed, prayer is a means of grace.

And you can look up larger catechism, Westminster 154, and you're like, well, what is a means of grace that are what they call channels that God has ordained for growth of a Christian as the Spirit of God works in them?

Actually, Wicke said, for reformed Christians, divine grace is the action of God giving and Christians receiving the promise of eternal life united with Christ. Let's see if this is any good. The means of grace are used by God to confirm or ratify a covenant between himself and Christians.

The words of the gospel and the elements of the sacraments are not merely symbols, they actually bring about the reality of the gospel. Here's what I'm after. I'm after in a day and age like this with COVID, and a lot of people are staying home.

I'm sure there are legit reasons to do it because there's, I mean, let's face it. If I were to say there's no legit reason to stay home for any reason for a Sunday in light of all the COVID stuff, you should say to me, or you could say to me, well, there were people that stayed home before COVID.

The kid was sick. They were sick. They had chemotherapy and didn't want to be around people because they might get the flu or something like that, right? There are a lot of things. You're on some, you know, you have pneumonia and you need to be isolated and the doctor says, don't go anywhere.

That's legit. That would be a legitimate thing, would it not? Now there are illegitimate reasons to not attend on a Sunday, pre-COVID, tired, lazy, convicted, bugged at somebody at church, don't like the pastor, don't like the messages from the, you know, from Hebrews, whatever it might be.

There are legitimate reasons to be home at church and, you know, you've got churches now debating, do you keep live streaming or don't you? Because the positive thing is people outside your church can appreciate the ministry, but people in the church that have sick kids and, you know, maybe you're an older person and you've got issues and you're told not to go outside that they can watch too.

But I think COVID has also unveiled that some people use as an excuse to not go to church. In other words, you know what, this gives me a good excuse. I'm going to be safe. I'm going to love my neighbor.

I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. And they don't go. There are legitimate reasons not to go to church pre-COVID. You've got chemotherapy and your, you know, your system, your immune system is compromised.

And therefore the doctor says, why don't you not go out in public to the grocery store or CVS or whatever for a while? Okay. I get that. But if the true means of grace, if the reformers are right, preaching and sacraments, you can't do sacraments at home.

At least you should not. And it's not going to be the same thing. And you're like, yeah, let's just get a, like a little goldfish cracker and use some red bowl. That'll be my sacraments. And I'll just do that communion in isolation.

We call that isolation. And the preaching of the word isn't preached if you're not going. And therefore you have to be very careful, right? I'm glad you read the Bible. I try to read my Bible every day.

I wake up, get a cup of coffee and go read my Bible. And we have guests in town, like we've had for the last five days. It's, I don't want to be rude, but I wake up, give some greeting, I go to find someplace where I can be alone and read the Bible and think about the Lord and contemplate his word.

It's a good thing to do, but it's not the same as preaching. And therefore, if you, if you say to yourself, I want to be a man or a woman who lives a holy life and I'm not going to go to church anymore, I'm going to do my own home church kind of thing.

We're not talking about persecuted people in China. We're talking about you here in America. And then, then other things slip in there and you're like, well, I think fasting, that's a spiritual discipline, uh, according to Piper and Don Whitney and these other guys.

And all of a sudden, before you know it, you've got all these extra things besides the word sacraments slash prayer. And you, and you're thinking, well, I'm going to just grow with all these things. I think you just better be careful about lone Christianity and live stream only Christianity.

Ligonier said, in his grace and in his wisdom, God has provided ways by which we can regularly have our faith in his promises fortified. Historically, we have referred to these ways of strengthening our faith as the ordinary means of grace, prayer, the preaching of the word and the sacraments are not elaborate or fancy methods of giving us what we need to confirm our trust in Christ to an outside observer.

They do not seem special at all. After all, they make use of rather common things such as human speech, bread, wine, and water. But by faith and the work of the spirit, these common elements are used to do an uncommon work.

The confirmation of our trust in Jesus and the strengthening of our wills to flee from sin and rest in Christ alone. The spirit of God doing a great accompanying work when we're preaching. As you think about prayer, is it just simply words?

You know, you're just talking. Well, if you would think rightly, you think, you know, you are able to talk to the creator of the universe and he is able to receive your discussion and you're talking and he answers your prayers.

And I'm not saying it's a two-way communication in prayer, I'm saying it's one way. But of course, then when we're praying, we think about what he says and what his word says. Sacraments confirm the faith.

You receive them in faith and they strengthen. And if you neglect them, then I think you're neglecting the means of grace and how do you mature? So in sanctification category or holy living category, if you say, you know what?

I'm going to downplay the Lord's Supper or downplay baptism or downplay the preaching of the word, I think it's going to be bad. Heidelberg Catechism 65, since then we are made partakers of Christ and all his benefits by faith only.

From where comes this faith? Answer, the Holy Spirit works faith in our hearts by the preaching of the holy gospel and confirms it by the use of the holy sacraments. You say, well, I like to call them ordinances.

Okay, go ahead. The sacraments are, according to Heidelberg, visible holy signs and seals appointed of God for this end that by the use thereof he may the more fully declare and seal to us the promise of the gospel, namely that of free grace.

He grants us the forgiveness of sins and everlasting life for the sake of the one sacrifice of Christ accomplished on the cross. And we remember, do this in remembrance of me. That's what Jesus said. Error number six.

This is kind of related to number four. I don't know whether to put them together or not. Error four was separating sanctification from the person of Jesus and his work. This is going to be more practical.

That's the more theological one. This is the more practical one. Error six, taking your eyes off of Jesus when it comes to sanctification. Holy living. Sinclair Ferguson. The ability to focus our gaze, fill our minds, and devote our hearts to Jesus Christ is a basic element in real Christian growth.

Inability to do so is a sign of immaturity. Some Christians never appear to make much spiritual progress. Spiritual focus and concentration are beyond them. They seem to be dominated by feelings rather than the gospel.

Their powers of concentration on spiritual realities are underdeveloped. They find it difficult to devote their attention to Christ in private or in public, in prayer, in singing God's praise, or in reading his word.

Sinclair Ferguson. Now, the theological error was you take Jesus for justification and not sanctification. But as we're living our life now on earth, and we're responding to God's sanctifying work, we want to make sure we keep thinking about who Jesus is.

It's not simply law. It's who's giving me the law, and what has the law giver done for me? I've been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I live now in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

The just shall live by faith. Paul is thinking day by day, Jesus lived for me. He died for me. Every day, Paul is thinking, you know what, how am I accepted before God, Jesus' work? Everything I do, even maybe my best deeds, that's not going to do it.

It's not my performance. It's God's performance. And therefore, we need to live by faith in the Son of God. That's why when you hear people say you've got to preach the gospel to yourself every day, this is what he means.

Talk about Jesus and be reminded how you stand before God, the Father, every day. And therefore, when you try to do something, you want to respond in a holy way, it's out of gratitude. It's not out of do this or else.

My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' what? Blood and righteousness. Would that be a good thing to daily know, to daily understand? Yes, that's exactly what we're talking about. Would it be good for you to realize today there's no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus?

Or is that just like, we already know that, we were justified and now that's all we need to know. But it's good to know, even though it happened for you, Christian, because the opposite of condemnation is justification.

Even though it happened, you need to be reminded of this every day. Horatius Bonar, the secret of a believer's holy walk is his continual recurrence to the blood of the surety, Jesus, and his daily communion with a crucified and risen Lord.

All divine life and all precious fruits of it, pardon, peace, and holiness spring from the cross. All fancied sanctification, which does not arise holy from the blood of the cross is nothing better than Phariseeism.

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

Wow. That's excellent. And therefore, we want to keep our eyes on Jesus, even as Christian people, right? My name is Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio Ministry, always biblical, always provocative, always in that order, Israel, February 22nd through March 3rd, 2022, write me, info at nocompromiseradio .com.

Mid-May, we're going to have a little meeting here at church, and you can zoom in if you're outside the church. No Compromise Radio, with Pastor Mike Abendroth, is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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

Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.