TEXARKANA REFORMED BAPTIST CHURCH SERIES: YOU WILL CHANGE SERMON TITLE: SYNERGISTIC SANCTIFICATION DAVE WAGNER

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1 1 TEXARKANA REFORMED BAPTIST CHURCH SERIES: YOU WILL CHANGE SERMON TITLE: SYNERGISTIC SANCTIFICATION DAVE WAGNER Intro For over a month I've been telling you about the certainty of sanctification; today I want to conclude this series by telling you about the synergy of sanctification. Sanctification is certain in that, in the life of a Christian, it is impossible for it not to occur. Every Christian will experience personal change without exception. By the way, sanctification is the process whereby Christians are increasingly purified from sin. But now I have to tie up one loose end I may have created in this series; perhaps in all of my insistence that sanctification is certain, I have left you with the impression that, since it is certain, you need not do anything about it. After all, when a thing is guaranteed, we tend to stop thinking about it altogether. I know the sun will rise, therefore I won't be too concerned about whether it will rise. And we are the kind of church especially vulnerable to such an error; we are Calvinists. And sometimes Calvinists become hyper-calvinists. Now the basic error of hyper-calvinism is to eliminate the role of man in the salvation process. For this reason, with all our emphasis on the role of God, and because of my insistence that sanctification is certain, we are in danger of imbalanced theology. We are in danger of believing that sanctification is monergistic. Now monergism just refers to "one person working." In this case we mean that only God works in some aspect of our salvation; so, we are in danger of believing that in sanctification God is the only one who works, and all the while we are merely passive. This would mean we have no role in our sanctification; or possibly, someone might say that in sanctification we do nothing but have faith. This also would qualify as a sort of monergistic error in our view of sanctification. So let's go ahead and side-step that error. I have told you for a month about the certainty of sanctification; now it's time to tell you about the synergy of sanctification. Synergy just means two or more people are working together; monergism: "One worker," synergism: "working together." Sanctification means being purified from sin. So: In the process of being purified from our sins we work together with God; God doesn't do it by himself. This is

2 2 what I'm telling you today: We cooperate with God in our purification from sin, or: Sanctification is Synergistic. Proof Well, I could list a number of texts to show this; I just want to look at two which show what I'm saying especially clearly. Let's start with Philippians : Philippians 2: So then, my beloved, a just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your b salvation with c fear and trembling; 13 for it is a God who is at work in you, both to will and to work b for His good pleasure. Paul is telling this church he wants them to obey his teaching. He speaks of them "working out their salvation with fear and trembling." Paul is calling them to work, and to do so with respect to their salvation. This is the kind of thing that, when I say it without mentioning chapter and verse, people call me a legalist or an Arminian; then I open to Philippians and my accuser realizes I was quoting the Bible. It sure would help if hyper-calvinists would read the Bible. Anyway, Paul calls the church to work out their salvation; then he says God is working in them. See the Synergy? Do you see the Christian working and God working, and they're doing it together? They don't have the same role but they both have a role. Man has a role in his salvation, and more specifically, in his sanctification. So what is God's role? To work inside the Christian to bring about his purpose. God works inside and man works outside. God causes man to desire to work God's will; then God causes man to work God's will. And then man works God's will. How many workers? Two. Sanctification is Synergistic. God and man cooperate; they are coworkers in sanctification. Let's look at Romans : Romans 8: So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh-- 13 for a if you are living according to the flesh, you 1 must die; but if by the Spirit you are b putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. In this section Paul is talking in part about how faith in Christ empowers us to keep God's law while the law itself could never so empower us. In v13 Paul gives two conditional statements: First, if you live according to the flesh, then you will die. This means that if you conduct your life according to the sinful pattern of the world you will be condemned by God and go to hell.

3 3 Second, if you put to death the deeds of the body, by the Spirit, then you will live. This means that if, by faith in Christ, you repent and refuse your sinful impulses, you will arrive at eternal life in the end. Now, the regular refusal of sinful impulses is one of the basic elements of sanctification. We are progressively purified from sin. And do you notice who it is who kills the deeds of the body? Is it God? Or You? It's not God. Paul calls us to kill our sinful impulses. If we do it we will arrive at eternal life. Not "if God does it." Killing your sin daily is your job; it is your work. Not God's. However, there's something in the text which shows it isn't your work only. Notice that little phrase, "by the Spirit"? As we believe the Gospel Truths, that Christ is our righteousness and we have died and resurrected with him, as we believe these things we are invigorated with power to kill our sin. This is the Holy Spirit working with us in sanctification as we believe in Christ. We work; the Holy Spirit works. We are working together. Sanctification is Synergistic. And we need to go further. In this respect, not only sanctification, but salvation, in part, is synergistic. What happens if by the Spirit we kill our sin? We live. And what happens if we don't? We die. Do you want to escape the wrath of God? Then, by faith in Christ, kill your sin. That's the only way. Everyone who will not obey this verse will die eternally. John Owen, the famous puritan preacher, put it this way: "Do you mortify? Do you make it your daily work? Be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you." There is no question that Sanctification is Synergistic; it requires the attentive effort and work of the Christian, working with God to put sin to death and to submit to the will of God. But maybe this confuses you. Maybe you wonder what need there is for faith if we must work out our salvation with fear and trembling? I think it's pretty simple: Christian faith is the confidence we have in the Gospel Doctrines. I believe Christ paid for my sins; I believe he rose and in rising he raised me to new life. I believe I have a new status, that I am permanently divorced from sin and this world; I believe that my real life is now bound up with Christ in the heavens. I believe God has gifted me with all I need to be right with him; and from within that belief I proceed to work out my salvation.

4 4 Or, to use Paul's language, I don't merely put my sins to death; I put them to death by the Spirit. The Spirit is operative as I rest in Christ who is my righteousness. And the Spirit's operation makes my work of sanctification possible. How does synergy fit with certainty? Well, let's zoom back out now and recall the purpose of our series. Our purpose is to show the certainty of sanctification, that Christians will certainly change. The Bible teaches God doesn't leave it to chance; he sets about ensuring it will happen. But does that really fit with what I'm telling you now? I'm saying now that man must work together with God in his sanctification, that there is a very real synergy involved. First I preached to you certainty, now I preach to you synergy; but can these two really fit together? Does it seem like in order to have certainty nothing can depend on us? Be careful here; it may be we're missing something important. Let me show you what I mean: Acts 27: When they had gone a long time without food, then Paul stood up in their midst and said, " a Men, you ought to have 2 followed my advice and not to have set sail from b Crete and 3 incurred this a damage and loss. 22 "Yet now I urge you to a keep up your courage, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. 23 "For this very night a an angel of the God to whom I belong and b whom I serve c stood before me, 24 saying, 'Do not be afraid, Paul; a you must stand before Caesar; and behold, God has granted you b all those who are sailing with you.' 25 "Therefore, a keep up your courage, men, for I believe God that 1 it will turn out exactly as I have been told. Acts 27: But as the sailors were trying to escape from the ship and had let down a the ship's boat into the sea, on the pretense of intending to lay out anchors from the bow, 31 Paul said to the centurion and to the soldiers, "Unless these men remain in the ship, you yourselves cannot be saved." You just need to notice two things: First, God promised Paul the passengers would all be saved. Second, unless the sailors remained in the ship, the passengers would not be saved. Do you see it? God determined to produce a result, and that result could not come to pass without particular actions of particular people. God chose to save the people, but only through a situation in which the sailors remained in the ship; if the sailors abandon ship, God's chosen situation fails to obtain, and so no one gets saved.

5 5 Here's another way to say it: God not only predestines the end, he also predestines the means. God chose the end, which was people on board being saved; God also chose the means by which they would be saved, and that means was the sailors staying on ship. Now back to our subject: We're looking at the connection between the certainty of sanctification and the synergy of sanctification. And I asked this question: How can our sanctification be certain if it in anyway depends on us? I suggest it works just like Paul in the ship. God not only determines we will certainly be sanctified; he also determines that part of the means of our sanctification is our own work. And that work is energized by the Spirit as we rest in Christ our righteousness. In this way our sanctification is both certain, and synergistic. Beware: Bad Preaching Now with all of that in view, I need to give you a warning. I need to warn against Gospel Preaching which calls for inaction; which denigrates the necessity of obedience; which counsels quietude; which demeans human responsibility; which communicates the idea of divine solipsism; which preaches the indicative but drops the imperative; which nullifies laws and teaches others likewise. Do me a favor. Read a few sermons from Whitefield and Spurgeon, two of the greatest preachers who ever lived. See if you can find them calling for inaction. They were Calvinists; but they were Biblical Calvinists and that means after they proclaimed the realities of the Sovereignty of God, the wickedness of man, and the provision of Christ, they then proceeded to urge men to believe and repent. They called men to come to Christ, often preaching through their freely flowing tears. No counsel of quietude; no call for inaction. They commanded men to act and they did so with vehemence! Beware any preaching which fails in this duty to command men to repent and believe! Application Sanctification is synergistic; it requires that men work together with God to go on being purified from sin. They do this by the power of the Spirit, which power is appropriated as the man goes on believing the Gospel Doctrines. So, how will we make application of this truth? The application is to treat personal holiness as a vocation. Nothing is done well that isn't done with organization and planning. Nothing is done well that isn't given sufficient time and

6 6 attention. Getting baptized is not a perfunctory ritual you perform to belong to a club; it is an announcement of your desire and intention to become a full time student and follower of Christ. It means you intend from now on to do everything you do differently; now all is done according to God's will; now all is done so that God will be honored and pleased. But that requires that you become a student of Jesus; you must study to learn how such a life is lived, all the more in the rebellious and hostile culture we find ourselves in. You must be a Bible reader and a person of prayer. You should be a reader of rich Christian books. You should seek out serious Christians to compare notes with, to discuss the Christian life with and gain wisdom from their experience. In other words, treat your Christian life with at least as much seriousness as you treat your job. Your job requires constant effort, attention, consideration, planning and implementation; why would we think our Christian calling would require anything less? And be sure not to think of your Christian growth as an automatic process, something that will happen without you. It won't. We have to do things if we want to go on in the process God has put us into. Realize that all theologies have their dangers, even good theologies. Our theology has dangers, and one of the most serious is the danger of down-playing the role of man in salvation. If taken far enough, this down-playing will even lead to apostasy. We have a role and we need to understand it.