Sanctified

What do I need to know?

Sanctification- The process of becoming more like Jesus.

Sanctified- Set apart, Sacred, Holy

When we put our faith in Christ we die to our old ways and walk in new life

Conviction/ responding to conviction

Justification has to come first

Why do I care?

If you are a follower of Jesus, sanctification is not an optional thing. We are called to live a holy life.

Life with Jesus is the fullest life.

The teachings of the Bible are not just God’s rules that we must live by, It is the author of life telling us how to best live life.

What do I do?

Ask God to show you where you are not living like/for Jesus.

If you are a follower of Jesus, put off the old self and put on the new self

Ephesians 4:22–24 ESV

to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

If you are not a follower of Jesus, here’s my question for you. What would it feel like if you could truly be set free from the guilt and shame that you are carrying? For most of my high school life I was not a follower of Jesus, so I know the way it feels to carry all the shame of the way that I was living, but with Jesus and only with Jesus, there is hope.

John 8:36 ESV

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

Intro 2m

I grew up in Cedar Park

I went to church and I was a Christian

But if you saw my life you wouldn’t know

I was living like everybody else was

Double life

I carried a lot of shame and guilt around about the way I was living

I hated my life and the way I was living

I knew the things I was doing were wrong, but I was addicted and I felt trapped in my sins.

Transition 3.5m

I think if you’re honest with yourself maybe you’ve experienced the same thing

Maybe you’re living the same way that I was in High School

Maybe you come here and you act like a Christian, but you’re doing things with that guy or that girl that you know you shouldn’t

Or you’ve got some habits, some things you watch or things you do with your friends that you know are not right

And I think if thats you then you know the weight of that shame and guilt that I was talking about

And you know how hard living that double life is Maybe you’ve been searching for a way out , but you just don’t know how.

And maybe you’ve even gotten to the point where you feel like there is no hope left.

I was in a similar position after my junior year of high school.

Well, one of the wisest and smartest guys to ever live, Paul, actually writes about this very problem that we face in Romans.

Scripture

He asks

Romans 6:1–2 ESV

What shall 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?

Right before this Paul was saying that people who put their faith in Jesus are justified or are made perfect, which we talked about a few weeks ago.

So right after He establishes that our sins are paid for, Paul asks “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?”

He says “By no means!” or “Absolutely not!”

He asks, “How can we who died to sin still live in it?”

To Paul it is illogical for a Christian to still walk in sin.

Why? Because if you have placed your faith in Jesus you have actually died to sin.

That’s kind of a weird statement, but in the next verses he actually explains what that means.

Romans 6:6–7 ESV

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.

So first he says our old self was crucified with Jesus meaning our old life, the way we used to live, died with Jesus on the cross.

When he says body of sin he means our sinful nature. We died with Jesus so that our sinful nature would be brought to nothing or completely done away with, powerless over us.

Paul says we will no longer be slaves to sin.

Jesus tells us that everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. They don’t just do these things. They are not in control, but they are actually serving their master of sin. This disease that is in their hearts.

But because our old self or our old way of life died on the cross we are free from that slavery and we can live apart from sin.

Going back to our original verse Paul asks, “How can we who died to sin still live in it?”

In other words, If you have been set free from sin and your old self is dead, how could you still walk in the same ways?

If Jesus has set you free from sin why would you return to it?

Well this brings up the question, why is sin so bad?

We know that the Bible tells followers of Jesus that there is a way that they are supposed to live including things they should do and things they shouldn’t do, but why does God care about what we do?

In Genesis 2 God is talking to the first person ever created and here’s what He says

Genesis 2:16–17 ESV

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is obviously sin

So what God is telling Adam and what is still true for us today is that our sin or our disobedience to God’s rules produces death in our life.

This is not a physical death but a spiritual one.

In this amazing analogy and story in John 15, Jesus tells us that He is the Vine or the life source.

And He says humans are the branches.

Maybe you’re not too familiar with vines but if you think about a tree. There is absolutely no way for the branches to live without the trunk.

The branches are going to die because they will not be getting the necessary nutrients that the trunk provides.

And sin is like us separating from the Vine or from the tree.

We walk away from our only life source to chase after other things that we want instead of God.

All of our realities because of this is spiritual death.

The reason that you feel so much shame and the reason you hate the way you live is because you were not created to live that way

God is not some tyrant trying to impose His will on people, but he is a loving God that is laying out the blue print for how to live life

It is the very author and creator of all life telling us the best way to live it.

This idea that we have been talking about is called sanctification.

The Bible tells us that followers of Jesus are sanctified, which literally means set apart or holy.

It means that every aspect of the way we live is different from the common or from the ordinary.

And sanctification is the process of God working within us to make us more like Jesus every day.

And this is actually an amazing gift from God because he is helping us to live our life in the best way possible.

Romans 6:3–4 ESV

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.

John 8:36 ESV

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.