Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / October 17, 2021 | Church Words - Sanctification

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October 17, 2021 | Church Words - Sanctification · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Hope you guys are doing great.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: We are in week four on our church word series.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: And as we've been going through this series, we've been looking at different church words that we've probably heard quite a bit if we have grown up in the church, or maybe we've just read our Bible and had no idea what it was talking about.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so as we've looked at these different words, we've said a couple things about them.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: One is that we want to know what they mean because God uses specific language in his Bible.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: And as he's given us his word and his word is truth, we want to understand what that truth means.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because, like our word this morning, there's not a great synonym for it.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Replacing it with something else would lose some of the punch of our word.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: But before we do that, I just want to say, you know, that there are a couple situations in our life, events where we like to dress up for the occasion, right?
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: We're sort of um setting aside certain clothes so that whether we look like a crumpled ball of cellophane or they are in a uh Winnie the Pooh ensemble here, and uh I I think you can tell which one of these two people which idea it was that they should dress up like Winnie the Pooh.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: But whether it's like a wedding, prom, graduation, sometimes even um uh a sad occasion like a funeral, there's we sort of set those events apart and make sure that we dress up for them.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's probably not a great idea to wear camo crocs to your cousin's wedding, generally.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes that's the attire that's required, but most of the time we're dressing up for the occasion.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, our word this morning is sanctification.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Sanctification is this idea of something being set apart and devoted to a higher purpose.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you have, you know, you wear your stained shirt around the house when you're just lounging around, it's probably not a great idea to wear it to a first date.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Sanctification is taking some things, um, in particular things that God says He wants to use and setting them apart for a holy purpose.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: And those things which have been consecrated are then sanctified, and they are dedicated then to, in this case, worship of the one true God.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, there are there are quite a few things that we can look at in the Bible that God says have been sanctified.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: You can think of um Moses before the burning bush when he has to take off his sandals because he is standing on consecrated ground.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: It was frankly normal ground just a couple minutes before the bush started burning, but now that God's presence is there, it is now holy and set apart.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: You can think of Mount Sinai, you can think of the tabernacle and later the temple.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: You can think of even the priests who were designated to serve inside that temple, or some of the instruments like the bronze labor and the candlesticks and things like this.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: God had set them apart to serve his purposes.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: And when it comes to Christians, the Bible tells us that we have also been sanctified.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Hebrews 10 10 says, By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all time.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: All Christians, those who have trusted in Christ as their Lord and Savior, are described as being sanctified in the past tense, that it is something that is now attributed to us.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: That idea should hopefully be familiar as, for instance, last week we talked about the fact that we are now justified in God's sight.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: We are seen as righteous in his eyes.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's something that was given to us through the cross and is applied to us now.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: And sanctification says the same thing.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: We have been set apart and called to a higher purpose.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: But then there are these other verses in the New Testament that seem to imply and talk very candidly about the fact that our sanctification is something that's not done yet.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: 1 Thessalonians 4 3 says, For this is God's will, your sanctification.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the Paul is writing here to the church in Thessalonica and saying that this is God's will, that they would be sanctified, and maybe some of them are saying, Wait a second, I thought that was sort of part of the deal here.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what we're gonna see this morning is that there are sort of a couple levels that we're talking about.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: In the one sense, as Christians, we have been sanctified by God.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: We have been set apart, but then there's also this reality where we recognize that we are not living up to the standard that God has called us to.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: We have been called his children, sons and daughters of the king, but we are not acting like sons and daughters of the king.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so there is this continual process that we are going through, sort of in the foreground, where we are acting more like and trying to act more like Jesus.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Both of these things are happening at the same time, and both of them have significant meaning.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: So let's start here.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: When Jesus was on the cross, there were, uh and he was crucified and then resurrected, there were a number of things that happened there.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: We've I won't go into all of them because we have been talking about them the last couple weeks, but for instance, right, the sins of the world were covered by his blood.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: He was a substitutionary atonement for humanity.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, through that atonement, we are now justified and seen as righteous by God, and we can have freedom from death and from the punishment of sin by trusting in Jesus.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: All of those things are happening concurrently when he's on the cross.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: But there was something else that was happening, and it's sort of a beautiful distinction that we need to make, because just like justification is a legal term and was different than righteousness and things like that, we need to understand what it means to be sanctified.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians 6 11 says, and some of you used to be like this.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Paul is talking about, sort of he just gave a list of sin that should not be signifying sons and daughters of the kings.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: We shouldn't be acting like this.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Some of you used to be like this, but you were washed, sort of a symbolic way of saying we've been cleansed of our sins.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: You were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Paul here is very clearly talking in the past tense.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: He's saying to the church Christians at the church in Corinth, you have been sanctified.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: You have been set apart for a holy cause.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: But later on we're going to see that even though he says that they are sanctified in 1 Corinthians 6, a couple chapters earlier, he had called them infants in the faith.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: We'll get to that in a second.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: But what does it mean to be sanctified right now?
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Something that applies to every single one of us who have trusted in Jesus as our Savior.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to be set apart for a holy cause?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we can look back at some of the other things that God has sanctified.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: One, you can think of, here's a representation of the tabernacle, and then this one is the loc, some people think it's the location of Mount Sinai.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: But let's talk about those for a second, because there was nothing inherently special about these things, these locations.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was the fact that God called them to a higher purpose, is what made them special.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: You look at Mount Sinai, where Moses received the Ten Commandments, and there was a whole lot of things that happened at Mount Sinai.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right at the foot of the mountain is where Aaron made the golden calf.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: But Moses is communing with God.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is basically the first big stop that the Israelites have made after they have been set free from Egypt.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so, up until that point, Mount Sinai, it was a significant location, but it was not holy.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then Moses goes to walk to the top of it to commune with God, and God's presence rests over Mount Sinai.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: There's a thunderstorm that is raging for 40 days and forty nights, and the Israelites are scared as they look up at Mount Sinai.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: And the Bible says that the mountain itself, the entire mountain, was consecrated and set apart for God, that not even wild animals could walk on it.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Later on, when the Israelites moved to a different location, they moved the tabernacle.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Mount Sinai was still a significant location because of what had happened, but it was no longer sanctified and set apart for the Lord.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: It had served its purpose.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: God had, there was nothing special about it.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: God had called it up and given it this purpose.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: When you think about the tabernacle, the same thing applies.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of being set in one location, each time it was moved, it was new, sanctified, consecrated ground.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: And though it was made of canvas and wood and fabric and things like that, what was special about it was that it was designated as useful by God for his purposes.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: So if we look at these things, what does it mean for us to be sanctified?
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it means that we have been given a holy title that we don't deserve, and we've been given a holy mission that, frankly, we rarely want.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: In our own sin natures, we rebel against it.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: We've been given a holy title in the sense that even though we are rebels in his kingdom, once we have accepted Christ, we are now sons and daughters of the king.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: We have been adopted into that holy family.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot that comes with that.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Being a part of the royal family, being, as the Bible says, co-heirs with Christ, we are seen as righteous by God.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so we have been given this title that we have done nothing to deserve.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: We did not work so hard that we got grace.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: We did not try so hard that we were justified.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: It was through God by his mercy.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: We did not deserve our holy status.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: But then we've also been given a holy mission.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because here's the thing that you see when we're talking about sanctification is every single one of those items or location, they had a purpose.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: They were set apart to serve God.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: And we have also been given this holy mission.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: You can summarize it into the Great Commission, right?
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: That we're supposed to go out into all the nations and share the gospel and baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and disciple people in the faith.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's the that's sort of the condensed version.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: But on a grand, sort of larger scale, we would just say that we are supposed to act like sons and daughters of the king.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: We're supposed to be fulfilling God's will that was revealed in Eden and then was, you know, almost instantly they were like, no, we're gonna do our own thing.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so we are supposed to be fulfilling the plan that God has given to us.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: We just don't really like to do it very often.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where the other part of sanctification comes in.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: We've been given these things, but we rebel against them.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so why can Paul speak to the church at Corinth who is sanctified and say you are infants in the faith?
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: And he's not saying that as a compliment.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: He says, You are infants in the faith, and you must grow up and you must become more mature, and you must be like adults in the faith who can handle these things because you are not where you should be.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: God has called you into this great thing, but you must go and sort of run that race that He has called you to.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: This, what we're referring to here, is something we call progressive sanctification.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Progressive sanctification is simply this idea that, like, from the moment that you've trusted in Christ until the day that Jesus returns or God calls you home, you look more like Jesus then than when you started.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's for some, you know, for us, it kind of looks like the stock market a little bit in good years, hopefully, that we're we're kind of moving up and down.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: But as the trend line goes, so are we, hopefully looking more and more like Jesus.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is what we've been called to.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: And this is part of our holy purpose in God.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: The last couple weeks, we've just been talking about all the things that came to us because of the cross and because of Jesus' sacrifice.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: And this morning, we're sort of hitting on um like the plane has touched down, and now it's time for us to sort of pick up a part of the um our piece of this and run with it as well.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: But before we dig into this more deeply, I just want to set some boundaries here.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because when we talk about holiness, when we talk about acting more like Jesus, uh, this conversation can be fraught with peril because there have been some uh weird ways that myself and others at different points in time, in our own walk with Christ, that we have taken this journey of obedience to mean.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: What do I mean?
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, first of all, what's our motivation for acting more like Jesus?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: As Jesus says at the end of the Sermon in the Mount, be perfect like your heavenly Father is perfect.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: What's our motivation there?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's not so that we can look cool to other Christians.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's not so that we can feel superior towards other people because we aren't struggling with things that they're struggling with.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's also uh not so that we can make God like us more.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you knew this, but God loves you as much as he possibly can, which is more than you can imagine, and that's not going to decrease if you stumble and fall.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: So we don't um gain his love by being obedient to him.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: We don't get to lord it over other Christians, and we're not superior to other people when we act more like Jesus.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, what is our motivation?
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, our motivation is drawn from love for God.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it's this love that says when we, if you want to say meditate or reflect or whatever, upon the cross and everything that God has done for us, and you say, all I want is for my life to reflect Jesus just a little bit into this world.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I want my life to be a testament to him, not because it's what I've been told to do, but because I want to do it for his glory.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: For those who know what I'm talking about, or maybe have felt it in a fleeting sense, you know that there is just this inward pull that Christians have at times because we have been created by God to serve God and to glorify God.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: And when we're running in that track, like when we are when we're on that path, it feels right.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: It feels like something that is familiar even if we've never walked that path before.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: But the other problem here is that we can sometimes go into a territory that a lot of people would call legalism.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now, legalism is much different than progressive sanctification.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: It is much different than saying we want to be like Jesus.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Legalism has its own sort of uh little pieces that come with it that are harmful and have sort of been tacked on to sanctification over the centuries.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, just really quick, I wanted to compare these two because it's important that we don't view becoming more like Jesus as legalism.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: Becoming more like Jesus makes sense.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Legalism can hurt Christians and can harm people who want to come to the faith.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, first of all, what is the motivation, like I said, for why we're doing this?
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, for those who want to become more like Christ, it is that we would do it out of love.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: We do it not because we have been told to, but because we say, I just want, I love God and I want to know him more, and I want to carry out his will to the best of my ability.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: When it comes to legalism, though sometimes it is phrased in this sense of wanting to honor God, it is really about following rules.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it is really about making sure that we are doing everything according to both the spoken, written, and unwritten and unspoken rules.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is a conflict that Jesus got into a lot with the Pharisees, who would be great examples of legalists, where they had a heart, they were saying, many of them, to follow Jesus, but Jesus was also saying, You have made this weight so burdensome upon your people, because you've added all of these things to it.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: When we look at um the focus here between the two, Jesus was saying, I mean, he is God, he wrote the Bible, and so he's like, I kind of know what it says.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: But in Luke 6, there's this uh account where Jesus is walking through a field with his disciples, and they're uh picking heads of grain to eat, just like small amounts.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: And the Pharisees are like, What are you doing?
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: How could you be doing this on the Sabbath?
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know you're not supposed to do that.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know the Shabbat says that you are not supposed to pick grain, you're not allowed to kindle a fire, you can't salt a deer hide, you can't make two loops, you can't erase a letter, you can't transport one object from one room to the other.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, I didn't say any of those things.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: Sabbath, as he declares in Luke 6, that he is the Lord of the Sabbath.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, What I was doing is fine, and I was honoring God, I was honoring the Father.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: The focus between sanctification and legalism, one is based out of Scripture, and that is what is defining sort of the walls of our castle.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then there are some who go far beyond that into just human tradition, and Jesus does eventually condemn that.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: And here I want to take one little quick trail to address this, because there are some people in my life that I dearly care for who have held themselves to certain convictions that I don't feel personally convicted to hold to.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: So if you grew up in a family or have friends who, for instance, said that, you know, you you couldn't dance, you couldn't play cards, you weren't allowed to drink alcohol at all, you know, once you were legally allowed.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if that is where sort of your family drew those lines, there's one just something I want to say here.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: There is there is a healthy way that we do draw greater convictions from the Bible.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: There are things.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: Paul talks about this in Corinthians.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: He says, there are the lines that have been established.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: He says this with regard to eating food that had been sacrificed to idols.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: There are lines that have been established, but then there are some people who feel like they need to take a further step back and draw another line in the sand that they're not going to cross.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: It is not imperative that every Christian matches that same line in the sand, but for those who feel convicted by it, they are held to it, but they should not impose it upon other believers because there is freedom in Christ, sort of up to these castle walls, if you will.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: So there is room for that.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not condemning people who might still hold to those things and are glorifying God in their lives because of it.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: But it is important, though, that the attitude there is one of grace rather than judgment.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is the last part of it, which is the sanctification that God has provided.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: He says that you're supposed to be coming more like Jesus, but you're also supposed to keep in mind the fact that you have been saved by grace.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so, just like in the Lord's Prayer, where it says that forgive us of our sins as we forgive others who have trespassed against us, we don't look at people around us and say, Why aren't you doing what I'm doing?
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: But we're sort of running our race.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: We're encouraging people on towards it, and when they fall behind, we pick them back up.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, think of any of the times that Jesus speaks to somebody who, in the New Testament, in the Gospels, where it's obvious that they're being presented as somebody who is living a life of pretty, you know, consistent sin, like the woman at the well.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Think about the way that Jesus speaks to her.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: It is not one of condemnation and judgment, though he is about to die for all of her sins, but it is one of grace.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: So as we move forward, I just want to establish that.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to say that there is good and there is right to say that we can walk forward and we should honor God with our lives, but also not do it in a way that is so focused on the law and human tradition and judgment.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: We should be doing it out of love, based on the word, and through grace.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: But we come to a point though where we say, okay, how?
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: How do we do this?
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: Do I just recite scripture over myself?
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: Do I just think really hard about these topics?
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Paul gives some really great advice, as he is wont to do in his letters, and he actually has a pretty consistent theme.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna look at Ephesians 4, which is his probably greatest explanation of it, the most expansive.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: But this idea of the old self and the new self is something he hits on in multiple letters.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Take off your former way of life, the old self that is corrupted by deceitful desires, to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, the one created according to God's likeness and righteousness and purity of the truth.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Paul says there's two people here raging within us.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's symbolic because we are the same person that has been conformed and are trying to be conformed into the image of Jesus.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: But he says you can think of it like the old self.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: The old self is the one that wants to be a rebel in God's kingdom.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's the one that doesn't want to be a part of God's will.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's the one, as he goes on to give many lists in the New Testament of sins that are signifying of people who don't desire God's will.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: He says, don't be like that.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: Set those things aside.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: Focus your minds on that which is good and pure and holy.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, set that person aside and put on the ideas of this new self, the one that is made in the likeness of and God's likeness and righteousness and purity of the truth.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: What is God's likeness?
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's Jesus.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Jesus is your example.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: Put on the attitudes and behaviors and thoughts of Jesus.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is what we're supposed to be doing.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: And neither one of them can be abdicated to focus on the other.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: You can't just focus on getting rid of the old self, and you can't just focus on the new self.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: You have to do both at the same time.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: They are like stilts that we're standing on, and if one of them becomes taller, shorter than the other, then we've got a problem.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is sanctification.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: And you might ask the question though all right, Jesus says we're supposed to be perfect.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's a high standard.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: Can we ever do it?
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there's a guy named uh John Wesley that came along, and um but well, just real quick, which of these two do you think he preferred?
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: These two photos.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: One of them says, I am the grandfather of the Wesleyan faith and Methodism, and the other one says, I've got eleven shins, you know.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh same guy, you wouldn't know maybe by the pictures, but John Wesley uh was born in 1703, and like I said, he was the father of uh many of the thoughts and ideas that we have today in uh Protestant faith, but in particular in the Wesleyan and Methodist faith.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: And he held to something called Christian perfectionism.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: Christian perfectionism was simply the idea.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: If I was like, what do you think that means?
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: You would probably guess it right.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: He said that if we essentially try hard enough by the power of the Spirit, and if we are filled with enough of God's love, Christians can come to a point where they no longer sin.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: Before death, before going to be with God in heaven, they can get to a state where they no longer, as he says, willfully sin.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: But this is a dangerous thought, frankly.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's captivating because we can see where he's coming from.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like God calls us to be perfect.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't that mean we should be perfect at some point?
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: But you can think of it like uh any any trip that the TBC youth group has ever taken, right?
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, technically, it should be possible that we can drive three hours without somebody going to the bathroom.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: Technically, right?
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: We should be able to do this.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: We've done all the stuff, we've prepared.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then every single time it doesn't happen.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: Technically, it could, but it never has.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: And sort of in this man, kind of balanced state is where we have to land because we we understand that we have the the Holy Spirit within us that has given us every uh ability to be free from the sin in our lives.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so technically, we should be able to walk like Jesus walked, but then the other side comes along and says, Man, we've got a sin nature.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: We are depraved, and even in our best moments, we do not measure up to God's standards.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so, even though, like Jesus is the only one who has ever done it and walked that path that we wish we could walk, we say that we have all fallen short of God's glory, and that is what continually brings us back into the presence of Christ, thanking him for what he has done, because none of us have ever been able to walk that path.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: You can think of it this way: you can picture that there was an old, dilapidated house that was devoted to destruction, and uh it was condemned, and a wealthy benefactor came along, bought the house for far more than it was worth, and then hired you to renovate it.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when you accepted this job, you had no idea.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: It was sight unseen, you had no idea the condition that this house was actually in.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: It looked bad, and you understood that it was bad, but you did not understand actually all the things that were wrong with it.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so once you get in, you've accepted the job, um, the owner is walking with you through the house and you know, not wanting to overwhelm you, pointing out the different things about the house that need to be fixed.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: And the owner reminds you that the things that are most important to be fixed are the most important, like the foundation of the house.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: The foundation's cracked right now, he says.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: And if the foundation doesn't get fixed, then it's not really gonna matter what else we do on top of this.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: You say, Well, there are a lot of problems here in the house.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how I'm gonna be able to fix it.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: And the owner says, Well, you've gotten unlimited resources, as much money as you could ever want to fix all of these problems in the house, and I've got all the blueprints for you, every single plan that you could ever need to see what it should look like.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's all here anytime you want.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: And you say, Well, I don't know that I have the skill to be able to do some of these projects.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: I've never done them before.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: And the owner says, Well, there are a lot of people that have been working on houses for a long time, and they can come in and you two can do it together.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: They'll help you, they'll teach you how to fix this part of your house, and then you will be able to go and help other people with it as well.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: And you say, Okay, well, that sounds nice.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, but on the other hand, you have to understand that those who come into your house, even if they help you, ultimately you're gonna be the one who is held to account for the renovation of the house.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: Those who help you are just helping you along.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: So you get into this house, you you obviously have taken the job and you're working diligently hard.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: But it's also hard work.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: And some of the projects take a lot longer than you thought they were going to take, and some of them don't go as easy as you thought they were going to go.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so you begin to get a little sidetracked.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: And you start working on, you look outside the windows of the house, and you start seeing that there are other houses around you in this neighborhood that are also in the same state of disrepair, but maybe some of them are further along.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so you just start fixing up the facade of the house.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: You do the shutters and the windows and paint the door nice and you know, reseed the lawn because you want everything to look great.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: But on the inside, we've left some of the projects that still need to be completed, some of the more important projects.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so you've you've gotten a little discouraged, and then the owner comes along and says, Well, here's the thing, I know this is hard, um, but there'll be a I can't help you right now in person, um, but there'll be come a time where um my projects are gonna be done that I'm working on, and I'm gonna come and I'm gonna help you, and we're gonna renovate this house together.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: And when we're done, it's gonna be perfect, and there isn't gonna be any more problems with it ever again.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: And until that time, I just want you to know that this is what I've called you to do because your house, I didn't tell you this beforehand, needs to be open to the community.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the further along you get in renovating your house, you're just going to want to stay inside these walls because they're very nice and they're painted and it's comfortable.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, but that's sort of the part of this deal that not everybody understands at the beginning is though I've given you this house, you need to invite others in and then help them fix up their own.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: This process of sanctification that we're walking through, it's not easy.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's not simple, it's not quick, but we have been set aside for a specific purpose to serve God.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: And in order to carry out his will to the best of our ability, it takes our effort.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it is totally okay to say that by the power of the Holy Spirit, we should be putting forth effort into looking more like Jesus.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so this morning, what I want to leave you with is I've got four kind of quick truths that I think summarize what we've been talking about this morning and hopefully can set you on towards this path.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, whether you haven't been on it and you want to set yourself on this path, or you've been on that path, but like the homeowner, you've sort of started to focus on the things on the outside rather than the inside, this is what we want to do.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: So, first of all, God wants us to be holy.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: I know that, right?
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: That follows, that makes sense.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: But we act in many ways like this is not the case.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: We love to think of all of the ways, particularly in our just culture in general, of how we can rail against the idea that the God who created us might ever have standards for our living.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: God created you to be holy.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: God saved you so that you could walk this process of sanctification, knowing that it might never fully be complete, right, until Jesus returns or he calls us home and we get to be with him.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: But it is absolutely true that God wants you to live a holy life that is glorifying and honoring to him.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: Second, that Jesus is our model for this living.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: These aren't some abstract thoughts and statements that are scattered.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: It is in our Bible, and most importantly, they were lived out by Christ.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: We can look to him as our example.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, we see that part of the reason that Jesus came to earth, that God took on flesh in the incarnation, was so that he could relate to us, or moreover, we could relate to him when we say that we're struggling with things.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Hebrews 4 says this for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find that grace to help in time of need.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is sitting at the right hand of the Father right now, ministering the new covenant to all believers all over the world throughout time.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: And he's saying, I have gone through what you've gone through.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: There is no temptation which afflicts you, that is not common to mankind.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yet, follow me, because I was able to overcome it.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so we understand that Jesus has been set as this perfect example, but that when we struggle, God says that we should not shrink away, but that we should draw near to that throne of grace, that we so that we can receive what?
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: Mercy and grace.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: Not condemnation.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: That is so often how we think of it.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, No, when you mess up, come back.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: Come back into the fold.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: Continue to hop back on this path and act like me.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: Third is that we have Holy Spirit power.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: There is a floor that has been set for us.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: An answer has been struck out of the multiple choice, which is that we cannot say that we don't have the ability to live a holy life.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: We can't say that we haven't been given everything we need from God to walk in freedom from sin.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: We can't say it.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: I know we want to.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: I know there's some sins in our life that have been there for decades, and we want to say I can't overcome it, but we can.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: We can't say that there's something in our life, sin, that is too powerful for the Holy Spirit to overcome.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth and finally, the Bible is our guide.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: John 17, 17 says, Sanctify them in the truth.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: Your word is truth.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: We are foolish if we think if we think that following God does not involve doing the things that He has called us to do.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I've thought I just want to give you one last kind of thought here this morning because I've really been thinking deeply about how to express this as we've been, you know, I've been working on this this week.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: And here's what I want to say is that there are some who I believe are genuinely saved by the blood of Christ, but who have made their houses into this beautiful, shining example of what a Christian life should look like on the outside and are broken and ruined on the inside.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: And they know it, um, and and God knows it, but it is not expressed to the outside world because they have been confused that the reason why we're supposed to act like Jesus is so that we can maybe feel superior, or maybe lord it over others who are struggling more than we are, or maybe to have God like us more.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I've just got to tell you that that is not why we're doing this.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that is ultimately not what God has called you to.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you think of God more as a genie than your savior, that is going to be what your house looks like.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: And rather, God says, no, let's like get into the deepest part of this.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get into the house, let's work on this stuff together, let's be a community of believers that walk with each other through these problems and don't condemn them, but rather pick them up by grace and say, come on, let's keep doing it together.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: That is what he's envisioning for his church that has been sanctified but is also walking towards sanctification together, so that we can impact the world, we can fulfill the mission that he has given to us, and we can honor God with our lives.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: And in those moments where we fall short, keep this in mind that there's coming a time, we don't exactly know when, when either Jesus will return or God is going to call you home to be with him.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: And in that moment, your sin is no longer going to be a temptation to you.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: That living a holy life will be the default, not the goal.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that being in God's full presence, that we will no longer be held to the chains of this world and our desires, but we will be fully and completely sanctified.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: What God has called us to and what we will be will match.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas they don't right now exactly.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: So we're heading towards that, and we do it because we love Jesus.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: And in those moments that we struggle, we can remind ourselves, right, that God loves us, that he wants us to draw near to him in grace, and we can encourage people along the way.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you for today.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you, God, for your Holy Spirit.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you that it is resting within those who trust in Christ now, so that we can live a life that is holy and honoring to you.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: And God, when we mess up, and boy, do we mess up.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: Please help us to remember that in those moments that we're supposed to get closer to you, not farther away.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: That we're supposed to continue to work on the sort of house that you've given to us, and to open it up for those around us to come inside and look and see at the work that you've done, God, so that we can help them on their journey too.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: Father, we love you.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you for Jesus and all the things that his death and resurrection stands for, namely that we get to be with you forever.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's in his name that we pray.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: Have a great week.