Saved by Grace Sanctification * 2 Corinthians 3:18

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1 Saved by Grace Sanctification * 2 Corinthians 3:18 Good morning. It s great to be back with you today after spending the last two Sundays leading a team from Harmony on a short-term mission trip to Guatemala. Actually, we were only supposed to spend one Sunday in Guatemala but as you may have heard our return flight was cancelled and it took an extra day and a half to get home. What s interesting about all of this is that I had originally planned to preach last Sunday but after considering all of the bad weather we have been having I decided it was probably wiser to have someone else preach, and I guess that s a good thing as I ended up being over 2,000 miles away. What s more, I m not sure I or anyone else could have preached a better message on justification than Pastor Don did, and so this is another reminder that God is sovereign and always works out things according to what will bring him the most glory and us the most good. Amen? And you know, I also want thank Pastor Jeremy for his message two Sundays ago on conversion, a message that God used to bring at least two people to saving faith. I don t know if that s been communicated to you or not, but over the last couple of weeks God has been growing his church through the faithful preaching of his Word, and that is something we can be very thankful for. Defining Sanctification All right, why don t you take your Bibles and turn with me to 2 Corinthians 3. Today in our Saved by Grace series we are going to talk about the critical topic of sanctification. So far in this series we have covered election, regeneration, conversion, and justification, which brings us today to sanctification. And what exactly is sanctification? Well, the word sanctify means to make holy, and so simply put, sanctification is the work of God by which he makes his people holy.

2 So, in last week s message we saw that in justification God declares us holy, and now today we are going to see how in sanctification he makes us be what he has declared us to be. Now, while that sounds all nice and good, I m guessing that for many of us the concept of holiness is pretty abstract and therefore a little hard to get our minds around. Holiness is a term we are familiar with, but I m not so sure we really have a good understanding of what it means. So, let s talk about what it means to be holy. In both the Old and New Testament, the concept of holiness means two equally important things. On the one hand it means to be separated from sin, and on the other hand it means to be dedicated to God s service. So listen, contrary to popular opinion, holiness isn t simply doing good things and avoiding bad things. Rather, it means to be spiritually separate from all that is sinful and totally pleasing to God. So, this being the case, here s how we can define sanctification. Sanctification is a progressive work of God whereby he frees us from the presence of sin and enables us to live lives that are pleasing to him. Let me set this definition in the context of what we have talked about in regards to regeneration and justification. As we have talked about repeatedly, we are all naturally born slaves to sin and therefore incapable of pleasing God in anyway. However, in regeneration, the Holy Spirit comes in and frees us from sin s power and makes it possible for us live in a way that is pleasing to God. That s regeneration. Then, in justification, God goes a step further and takes away the penalty of our sin, which is eternal separation from him. Regeneration frees us from the power of sin, and justification frees us from the penalty of sin. Now, as great as regeneration and justification are, they do not free us from the presence of sin. This is something that every believer in the room knows all to well. Even though we have been saved from sin s power and penalty, we still have to deal with its presence on a day-by-day basis. You do know what I am talking about right? And that s what sanctification is all about; it s about God 2

3 progressively removing the presence of sin in our lives and enabling us to increasingly live in a way that is pleasing to him. Here s another way to understand it. Sanctification is the process by which God makes us more and more like Jesus. Jesus is the only person who has ever lived who was completely separated from sin and completely dedicated to God s service. And therefore one way to understand sanctification is to view it as the process God uses to transform us into people who are completely like Jesus completely free from sin and totally dedicated to him. Now, the conundrum we face today is the fact that a large portion of the New Testament is given to instructing believers about the why s, what s, and how s of sanctification, which means there are innumerable things we could address and untold passages we could look at. However, for the sake of time and simplicity, let me just point out five of them, five essential truths regarding sanctification. Five Essential Truths Regarding Sanctification 1. Sanctification is a process. Number one, sanctification is a process. Look with me now at 2 Corinthians 3:18, which is my favorite verse on sanctification: And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18 ESV) The Greek word behind transformed in this verse is the same word from which we get our word metamorphosis. Just as an ugly caterpillar is transformed into a beautiful butterfly, so too does God transform or sanctify ugly sinners into the beautiful likeness of Jesus Christ. 3

4 It s important to note, however, that this is not a one-time event but rather an ongoing process that results in ever-increasing holiness. The Holy Spirit transforms believers from one degree of glory to another. Now, do you know what this means? It means that the longer you are a Christian, the more holy you should become. It means you should be sinning less and more dedicated to God than you were a year a go, or five years ago or ten years ago. Now, that said, let me offer a word of encouragement here. It s possible that you might not always be able to see how much progress you re making. It s possible you might not recognize how the Holy Spirit is transforming you. Sometimes we get stuck in rut or focused on our weaknesses or our circumstances or even our sin and can t clearly see how God is growing us. But listen, Paul tells us here that if we are a believer, we are in the process of being transformed. Even if we can t see how we are growing, God can. Not only that, but it s likely that others can also. Let me give you a great illustration of this. My oldest son Bryce went on the Guatemala trip with me. Let me just make a note here parents that I would highly recommend this. We had a number of parents take their teenagers with them on the trip and I am quite certain they would all tell you it was a fabulous idea. Anyway, one of the things that Eva noticed when we got home is that Bryce apparently grew a few inches on the trip. We were only gone for nine days but at his age that s not impossible. Especially given how much he eats. The only question he asked me on the trip was when are we going to eat next. Anyway, I have to tell you that I didn t notice that he was growing, even though I was with him every day. And I don t think he even noticed. We were too busy too really notice. But guess what, those who could see the bigger picture did notice. And oftentimes that is the way it is with spiritual growth. We might not be able to see it at any single point, but over the long haul the Holy Spirit is transforming us and making us more like Jesus. 2. Sanctification is incomplete in this lifetime. 4

5 Now, that said, the second essential truth of sanctification is that it is incomplete in this lifetime. In other words, we will never get to the point where we can think that we have arrived. We will never get to the point where we will be completely free of sin and completely dedicated to God. This is an important to recognize because there are some who teach that believers can reach a point of virtual sinless perfection. However, nowhere do the Scriptures give any indication that this is true, and in actuality they do just the opposite. Note what the Apostle Paul says in Philippians 3: Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. (Philippians 3:12 ESV) Think about whose talking here; this is the Apostle Paul, perhaps the mostly godly person other than Jesus who has ever lived. And yet he admits that he still has a long way to go and has a lot of work to do to become fully like Jesus Christ. And let me just tell you if the Apostle Paul never arrived, there is no way on earth any of us is going to either. What s more 1 John 1 tells us this: If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1 John 1:8, 10) That s pretty clear isn t it? To say that we can get to the point where we don t sin is to call God a liar. Now, we could take this as discouraging, right? This means that no matter how long we live and how much we progress in our sanctification, we will never get to the point where we don t struggle with sin. 5

6 However, I find it encouraging, because it tells me that my struggle with sin isn t abnormal and it doesn t mean that I m not saved and that I m not growing in my salvation. In fact, here is what I have found. I have found that the more I grow in my faith, the more sinful I become. Now, this actually isn t the case, because what s really happening is that the more I become like Jesus, the more I recognize just how much I m not like him. Do you know what I m talking about here? Here s how John Murray explains it: Indeed, the more sanctified the person is, the more conformed he is to the image of his Savior, the more he must recoil against every lack of conformity to the holiness of God. The deeper his apprehension of the majesty of God, the greater the intensity of his love to God, the more persistent his yearning for the attainment of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, the more conscious will he be of the gravity of the sin that remains and the more poignant will be his detestation of it.was this not the effect in all the people of God as they came into closer proximity to the revelation of God s holiness? So listen, some of you need this word today, and I hope all of you will need it in the future. The more you become like Jesus, the more your sin will become apparent to you. And one of the challenges when this happens is to not become discouraged as to what might seem like a lack of progress. However, in reality it is a reason for rejoicing because it clearly shows that God is working in your life and you are becoming like Jesus. Listen, one of the primary ways God sanctifies us is by making us aware of our sin so he can help us to deal with it and become more dedicated to him. I ve become convinced by the way that this is one of God s primary purposes in marriage. God takes two single people who generally think there doing pretty good and then puts them together in a one-bedroom apartment and says, Let s figure out how godly you really are. And then sometimes he goes to the next level and adds a bunch of children into the mix really quick. Marriage and children are two of God s best tools for sanctifying his people. 6

7 Anyway, if you find that you are struggling with sin, take courage, it means that God is doing what he has promised to do, and that is making you more like him. 3. Sanctification will be complete when we are in the presence of Jesus. This leads to the third essential truth of sanctification, the fact that there will be a time when our sanctification is complete. Look with me now at 1 John 3:2. I absolutely love this verse: Beloved, we are God s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:2 ESV) Listen friends. There is a day coming where we our struggle with sin will be over and we will be completely and fully like Jesus. One day he is going to break open the sky and take us to be with him, and when he does we will see him for the first time as he really is, and at that very moment our sanctification process will be over and we will be made like him forever. And listen, we don t know what exactly that s going to mean, and what exactly what we are going be like. But what we do know is that there will be something about simply looking at him for the very first time that will complete our sanctification process and make us just like him for all eternity. What a wonderful truth that is. Anybody looking forward to that day? Just think about it for a second; there is coming a day, and the Bible tells us it s coming soon, where we will no longer have to deal with sin and its consequences in any way. A day where will be completely pleasing to him. What a wonderful, marvelous day that will be. 4. Sanctification requires great effort on our part. Okay. The fourth essential truth of sanctification is the fact that it requires great effort on our part. So listen, it s absolutely essential to your own 7

8 personal sanctification that you get this. So far in our Saved by Grace series it s pretty much been all about what God does to us and for us. Election, regeneration, and justification are all completely and fully works of God in which we play no active role. And even in conversion God is the one who gives us the faith we need in order to be converted. However, when it comes to sanctification, we do have a part to play, and a very important part at that. Let s take a look at Philippians 2: Notice what Paul tells us here: Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12-13 ESV) Now, let me be clear that Paul is not saying that we have to work for our salvation, but rather we have to work at our salvation. In other words, we have to work at experiencing and grabbing hold of all the blessings that come with being saved. The term work out here means to exercise. We have to exercise our salvation. So, here is how sanctification works. God works in, and we work out. If you are believer today, you can know that God is working in you to make you holy. He is working in your life to bring about what he wants to bring about. Look again at v. 13 it is God who works in us to will and to work for his good pleasure. Sanctification is something that God does. However, this does not mean that we can sit on our rear ends and as some people say, just kind of let go and let God. No, it means that in response to God s working in our life, we must work out. We must pursue sanctification. We must strive to become like Jesus. As J.C. Ryle once wrote: Sanctification.is a thing for which every believer is responsible..whose fault is it if they [believers] are not holy, but their own? On whom can they throw the blame if they are not sanctified, but themselves? God, who has given them grace and a new heart, and a new nature, has deprived them of all excuse if they do not live for His praise. 8

9 This is why the New Testament repeatedly commands us to pursue holiness. For example: Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God. (2 Corinthians 7:1 ESV) Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. (Hebrews 12:14 ESV) As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, You shall be holy, for I am holy. (1 Peter 1:14-16 ESV) And we could look at many more passages, but instead, let s do this. Let s talk about how we carry out our role in sanctification. Let s talk about how we are to pursue holiness. It includes at least three things. +We must submit to the Holy Spirit. First, pursuing holiness includes submitting to the Holy Spirit. Note what Paul says in Romans 6: Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for 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. (Romans 6:12-13) The word for present here in v. 13 means to yield or submit. If we are going to grow in holiness it will only be as we submit to the Holy Spirit and allow him to sanctify us. The problem with this, of course, is that submission is a dirty word today, 9

10 even in the church. We don t want to submit to anything. We want to do want we want to do, whenever we want to do it. However, I don t know about you, but here is what I ve found. Whenever I try to be in control of my life, it s a complete train wreck. However, when I submit to the Spirit and do things his way, it always, and I mean always, turns out much better than I could have ever imagined. Listen, what some of us need more than anything else is to simply start submitting to what God is already trying to do in our lives. We need to quit fighting him and simply give in. When the Spirit leads us to do something, we need to do it. And when he leads us not to do something, we need not to do it. This is where sanctification starts; as we see God working in our lives, we need to allow him to do so. +We must fight against sin. Second, pursuing holiness includes fighting against sin. Let s go to 1 Peter 2 for a second. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. 1 Peter 2:11 (ESV) So one more time, even though we are free from the penalty and the power of sin, we still have to deal with its presence. We still have to deal with the sinful desires of our flesh, and we will have to do so until we are in the presence of Christ. And you know what, there is only way to deal with sin, and that is to fight it with everything we are. You see, sin wages an unrelenting, unmerciful war against our souls, and therefore as the Puritan John Owen is famous for saying, we must be killing it or it will be killing us. You see, sin is not something to be played with, it s not something to dabble in, it s something to completely and utterly eradicate from our lives. 10

11 While we are here I want to point out a specific type of sin that we need to be killing. I want to do so because it is perhaps the most dangerous and prevalent sin in our culture, one that every single one has to face pretty much every day. In 1 Thessalonians 4, Paul writes this: For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; 4 that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, 5 not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God. 7 For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. 8 Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you. Now, I don t know how much I need to add here, but according to Paul it s obvious that a big part of our sanctification concerns sexual purity. And therefore one of the primary sins we need to abstain from is that of sexual immorality. If you need me to be clear about what that is, its any kind of sexual behavior outside of the bonds of marriage between a man and a woman. Let me just drive this home for a second. There seems to be an incredible lack of concern for sexual purity in the church today, almost as if we think that God doesn t really care about it at all. However, you will note that to disregard this matter is to actually disregard God himself. It s to disregard the Holy Spirit whom he has given us, which is an incredibly serious thing. So get this. I really believe in large part that today living a holy life begins with sexual purity. This is, I think, by far, the number one place the devil attacks us. And so if we are going to strive to be pure, we are going to have to fight back. We are going to have to kill sin. We are going to have take strides, sometimes very big ones, to avoid sexual immorality. +We must keep our eyes on Jesus. 11

12 Ok, enough on that. There s one more thing we must do if we are going to pursue holiness, and this is perhaps the most important of all. If we are going to pursue holiness, we must keep our eyes on Jesus. Hebrews 12:1-2 tells us this: Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1 ESV) Ultimately, if we are going to fight against sin and become totally dedicated to God, we must focus on Jesus. We must strive to learn about him, to imitate him, and to come to know who he is and what he has done in a greater and greater way. You see, in a real sense, he is the goal. He is what we are striving to become like. He is the perfect example of holiness, and the more we follow him, the more holy we will become. This is why we talk about Jesus so much at Harmony Bible Church. This is why we strive to make everything about him. This is why we point you to him over and over again. We do so because we believe that the more we look to Jesus, the more we will become like him, and that is ultimately the purpose for our salvation. Do you remember what we saw a few weeks ago in Romans 8? For those whom [God] foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son. (Romans 8:29 ESV) God chose us to make us like Jesus and this happens as we continually turn our attention to him. 5. Sanctification brings great rewards. 12

13 All right. The fifth and final essential truth about sanctification is that it brings great rewards. I m going to try and keep this one really simple. There s no doubt that the process of sanctification is hard, really, really hard. It s not easy to submit to the Holy Spirit, to fight against sin, and to keep our eyes on Jesus. And yet, even though it s hard, it is completely worth it. Why? Well, it all has to do with what Paul says in Galatians 5: Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:19-23 ESV) And so here s what it comes down to; when we do what our flesh wants to do, and give in to sin, the results are disastrous. On the other hand, when we submit to the Spirit, and fight against sin, and keep our focus on Jesus, we experience incredible blessings. It really is that simple. And so brothers and sisters, what do you want? The fruit of the flesh or the fruit of Spirit? Which one will it be for you? Let s pray. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. 1 Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers by Chris Carr. You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that: (1) you credit the author, (2) any modifications are clearly marked, (3) you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, (4) you include Harmony Bible Church s website address ( on the copied resource. 1 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2001). (Eph 5:25 27). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society. 13