The Christian Path: Walking with God
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“Sanctification”
“Sanctification”
Definition: “Set apart” from sin
“Become holy”
Became Christians, we were in a sense “babes in Christ”
Became Christians, we were in a sense “babes in Christ”
Just as babies are to grow into mature adulthood
So also we are to grow spiritually into spiritual maturity
What does spiritual growth look like?
What does spiritual growth look like?
More and more we look like Jesus, and less and less like the sinful world
Our attitudes/behavior start to reflect the attitudes/behavior of Jesus
Lives start to show the fruits of the Spirit
This is God’s will for your life: “Sanctification”
This is God’s will for your life: “Sanctification”
For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality;
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
— sanctification
Practical question of sanctification:
Practical question of sanctification:
Have you started the process of growth into spiritual maturity?
Has your life started to change?
Do you look more like Jesus and less like the world?
To help us grow, God will allow difficult circumstances into your life
To help us grow, God will allow difficult circumstances into your life
Accidents, sickness, unemployment — persecution for your new faith
Will most likely begin with your friends not understanding why you changed
Suffer at work — passed over for promotion
Neighbors and perhaps even family might ostracize you
Did I do something wrong?
Did I do something wrong?
No, you did something right
Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,
If world hates master — Jesus says — will hate his disciples
God wants to do something right — grow in our sanctification/holiness
God wants to do something right — grow in our sanctification/holiness
When times are good, we rarely grow in our faith
We grow best during times of stress and hurt and challenge
Genuineness of my faith is being tested and refined
In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Can produce a Christ-like character
Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
When difficult times come, how will you respond?
When difficult times come, how will you respond?
The temptation will be to compartmentalize
Okay to live with some sin in some areas of our lives if it helps us avoids pain
Life is a patchwork quilt
1. Compartmentalize your time
1. Compartmentalize your time
This square represents Sunday morning — God, you should be happy
Sunday afternoon, and all other days, belong to me to do whatever
2. Compartmentalize money
2. Compartmentalize money
Throw our loose change at God — not enough to change our lifestyle
Keep bulk of “my” money for my entertainment/wants — stewards — account
3. Compartmentalize our affections
3. Compartmentalize our affections
I will love God in this and this situation
But I am going to keep visiting porn sites and molesting little girls/boys
Many others areas
Many others areas
Compartmentalize our tongue — swear, but critical/judgmental
I wish this were not true
I wish this were not true
But it is — all Christians, sooner or later, will be met with this challenge
Keep parts of themselves back from God — shut doors to certain rooms in heart
Refuse to fully grow into holiness/sanctification
Not the deal we made with Jesus — Savior and Lord
Not the deal we made with Jesus — Savior and Lord
Jesus wants all of us — “followers; disciples” — no part-time disciples
And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
makes no allowance
What will happen if we compartmentalize our lives?
What will happen if we compartmentalize our lives?
Consequences of refusing to open the doors to all the rooms in our life?
1. Harm your relationship with God — something between God and you
1. Harm your relationship with God — something between God and you
Guilt, depression — remove his peace/blessing — eventually disciplined
Stop downward spiral whenever you want it to: repent — confess and turn
Sufficiency of the cross — joy and freedom
2. If continues, eventually will lose the assurance of salvation — confidence, child
2. If continues, eventually will lose the assurance of salvation — confidence, child
Saved by grace through faith — we are changed — live in a changed way
If your life does not change (continue), eventually you must question whether your conversion real
Assurance does not come from a single event — raised hand or saying a prayer
Assurance is tied up with the work of the HS — our changed life
Without change there is no assurance —
And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
Laodiceans
“ ‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.
Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.
— compartmentalize (lukewarm)
3. For those who give up: “warning passages”
3. For those who give up: “warning passages”
Made profession — “Get out of hell free” card — live any way they want
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples,
But the one who endures to the end will be saved.
if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.
For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.
Jesus is Savior and Lord
Jesus is Savior and Lord
Calls us to grow up into sanctification — look less like world and more like his Son
Calls us to grow up into sanctification — look less like world and more like his Son
Process — one step at a time
When we fail — repentance and forgiveness
Through the HS, gives strength to obey
Calls us to present our bodies … — this is the will of God for your life
Question of sanctification
Question of sanctification
Is you life changing? Is it beginning/continuing to change?
Fully-devoted disciple of Jesus Christ