The Gift of Sanctification
The Gift • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 5 viewsThe Holy Spirit sanctifies us as we yield to His presence, persuasion, and power
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Are you ready for the fire of God’s presence, person, and power to consume your sin? To fall upon The Altar of Your Life?
John the Baptist said that the Lamb of God, the Messiah of the world, the One He pointed to, Jesus, will baptize YOU with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Now technically speaking, that fire is a fire of judgement. With one sweeping motion and breathe, John speaks of Jesus’ sending the Holy Spirit upon His believers AFTER His earthly ministry, and the ministry of the cross, AND Jesus’ return - His Second coming and eternal judgment for those who do not believe!
Jesus, The Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, is also the divider, separator, and judge, of Old Testament and New Testament, the World and those He calls out from it, the believer and the non-believer, those who will spend eternity in communion with Him and the Father and the Holy Spirit and with one another from those who will spend eternity in the fires of judgment.
I. The Spirit comes to a Prepared Place
A. The Fire fell on the altar in the Tent of Meeting - the Tabernacle prepared for that purpose
Nadab and Abihu brought religious, fake, fire - their own works
B. The Fire fell on the altar at the dedication of Solomon’s Temple
C. The Fire fell on the 120 believers gathered at the day of Pentecost
D. Each of these were Prepared at great length with complete dedication! Consecration and cleansing, or sanctification, was a key part of the process!
II. What’s on your altar? Have you prepared an altar?
In 1904, God sent a great revival throughout Whales. People would get out of work early and go to services every evening that would last late into the night and the wee hours of the following morning. It was so great that taverns and pubs had to close for lack of clients. Mining companies had to buy new ponies because the ponies they had took their commands by swear words, but God had so moved and so purified the miners that they would not swear, not even to drive their ponies for work. New ponies had to be brought in and trained. One particular man who was mightily used by God for this revival had declared one evening, while waiting on the Holy Spirit:
‘I have only to wait for the fire. I have built the altar, and laid the wood in order, and have prepared the offering; I have only to wait for the fire.’ -Evan Roberts
The next day morning at 9:30am the fire fell.
Later that day, all he could pray was, “Oh Lord, bend us!”
Is your all on the altar of sacrifice laid?
Ananias and Saphira said they brought their all - but they were holding back.
III. “But, how will He come?” you ask.
Fire, wind, a river, oil, a dove, these are all pictures or metaphors.
He will come how He comes. I am convinced more and more that when we worry less about when and how the Holy Spirit will move on us, He will be free to move on us, because we will be free to receive Him. You will know and those around you will know that the Holy Spirit has moved on you.
My 3rd year at Bible College, I had a roommate named Jason, a dairy farmer from upstate New York who came from a small Methodist Church. He had some reservations about speaking in tongues being the initial physical evidence of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. But you know what his Pentecostal pastor taught him, “Lord, whatever you have for me, I want it!”
When you are the one on the altar, you don’t care how or when the fire falls - you’re dead. It will fall!
I challenge you to reread the New Testament, especially the Gospels, with this thought in mind, see if it checks out:
Jesus’ teaching and intention for all believers in Him is to be continually filled with and full of His Holy Spirit, to be with us and in us, that we may be in Him.
For example, Jesus said:
1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.
2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.
3 Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.
4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.
5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
Doesn’t it make sense that to abide - be present -living - active- finding ourselves - in Him means less of what we brought to the table and more of what He puts in us?
We cannot abide in Him if He does not abide in us?
We can not be full of the Holy Spirit, the Son, and yes, the Father, when we are full of ourselves!
Hundreds of years prior to Jesus walking this earth as a man (all God, all man), God prophesied through Ezekiel:
25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.
26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
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.
As we yield ourselves to His presence, person, persuasion, and obey His leading, we walk in His ways. His ways become our ways.
His desires become our desires.
We walk differently.
We talk differently.
Our ears, hearts, hands, mouths, and minds perceive and think and feel and speak differently.
We become more like Him.
The Holy Spirit is the True Gift that keeps on giving!
He convicts of sin, righteousness, and judgment.
He cleanses for use.
He empowers for service.
7. ENTIRE SANCTIFICATION, THE GOAL FOR ALL BELIEVERS.
The Scriptures teach a life of holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. By the power of the Holy Ghost we are able to obey the command, "be ye holy for I am holy." Entire sanctification is the will of God for all believers, and should be earnestly pursued by walking in obedience to God's Word.
14 Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.
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.”
6 whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
23 Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
24 He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.
9 And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
Ask, seek, knock...
When did you stop seeking? When did your fire die?
When did your love grow cold? Was there a moment? Was it a slow fade?
When did you stop trying? When did you stop resisting sin, temptation, the devil?
You don’t need cigarettes. You don’t need alcohol.
Pornography isn’t as strong as it keeps telling you it is.
Your lips don’t need to swear or tell crude jokes.
Your anger doesn’t have to rule you like a tyrant.
Fear is not greater than faith.
Jesus prayed for us:
15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.
17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.
18 As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.
19 And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.
