Beliefs: Sanctification

The Great Outdoors

Good morning everyone. I hope everyone is having a great day. This morning i thought i would open with sharing with you a little bit about something i Love. I love the Great outdoors. I remember growing up as a kid we would spend almost every summer up in the Adirondack Mountains in Upstate New York. This is where my dad is from and we would spend time camping and would spend time with extended family in the mountains. It was an amazing time and something i remember fondly and look forward to doing with my kids.

It got me thinking about a movie that i remember watching growing up that i thought was hilarious. The Movie is conveniently named. The Great Outdoors. It stared John Candy and Dan Akroyd. It is a movie that makes me laugh because it is at times very silly and a little outlandish. Yet, there was one scene that stands out to me that i wanted to share with you. The main characters go out to eat and at this local restaurant there is a food challenge. Its the Ole’ 96er steak challenge. If you eat the whole 96 oz steak you and your entire table eats for free. So John Candy’s Character takes on the challenge. It Starts off well. Enjoying a nice steak and before long it becomes a lot of work. After the first pound or two that food starts to settle and i am sure its like what did i get myself into. As he near the final two bites they try to claim victory. The chef at the resteraunt says that he isn’t done yet. Off to the side of the plate is the fat and gristle left to be eaten. That’s when the fear of eating the entire steak sets in. He realizes that he has to eat the Entire steak.

Sanctification: Initial, Progressive, and Entire

Movies like this and scenes like this help me think of images of words and ideas that yes are even relevant to us as Christians. We can use them to maybe better understand what we believe in as Christians. But before we dig into this image lets start talking about the idea of Sanctification.

Sanctification as Wesleyan's is one of the key beliefs that is unique to us as a denomination. Well i should clarify. It is unique to churches who follow Wesleyan doctrine. We are not the only denomination that holds to this. It should be more said that sanctification is unique to what would be seen as the holiness tradition. That is really where we begin. This idea of Holiness.

If we really want to define what Holiness is we are going to have a hard time.

Holiness-A Total Devotion to God

Some would say that this simple basic definition is all we would need to understand holiness. Yet, I have to tell you that Holiness is both understandable and elusive to us on a regular basis.

The truth is that Holiness is what God is and that it is also the plan that he has for his people. It is something that we are chasing after that the mark is changing because we grow in our understanding of God, and yet it is also a fixed understanding because we know that God is Holy. Let’s begin looking at how Holiness and Sanctification are connected.

We believe that sanctification is that work of the Holy Spirit by which the child of God is separated from sin unto God and is enabled to love God with all the heart and to walk in all His holy commandments blameless.

Sanctifcation comes to us in three ways. It comes in the initial justification and regeneration of our hearts. Now I had to say that because it makes me sound like i have some kind of authority because i used some big fancy words. Let me put it more basic. We begin the process of becoming sanctified or being Holy when we ask Jesus to forgive us of our sins. When we have faith and recognize that we need him. We turn the course of our lives in the right direction. Sanctification then becomes a progressive movement or gradual growth in faith that they become more giving of their lives to God and then we encounter the moment of Entire sanctification.

Entire sanctification can be seen as the moment that we offer ourselves as living sacrifices to God.

Romans 12:1–2 NIV

1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Entire Sanctification

Now i have a confession. This is where Holiness traditions have had some problems in the past. We see this moment as the ultimate goal. It is our mountain top. It is our moment of i am Complete. Yet, is it really?

Part of our problem lies in our understanding of the word entire.

Entire—Having no element or part left out

We see this idea of entire as being a completion. Every bit of us must be perfect for us to be Entirely sanctified. Think of the ole 96er. He had to eat the fat and the gristle even though he was completely full. I mean the fat and gristle are part of the steak too.

Yet, is the entire talking about all of what we do or is it talking about all of who we are.

Bounded and Centered Sets

This became clear for me when I watched a video on Bonded and Centered Sets of Data in social sciences. This is the basic idea behind these two ways of looking at data.

A Bounded set is Looking at a group of people and identifying the set of characteristics a group might have in common. So an example if you are a American Christian Female when looking at a large group of people gathered from all over the world that is a specific set of data to look at. It becomes a matter of if you are in or out of the set of data.

A Centered Set. Is that there is a central point or idea and how each person relates to that central point of. An example may be. Tom Brady is the Goat quarter back in football. You can eiter be moving toward or away from that idea based on how you agree or disagree with it.

THis is where we connect back to the idea of entire. We often think of terms like entire sanctification as a list of things that must be done to be on the inside like a bonded set. It is easy to hear things like entire sanctificaiton and think that it means that we have become perfect and sinless. We have finished the race. Yet, this is not what we are really talking about when it comes to entire sanctification.

The Problems with Sanctificaiton

Sanctificaiton or holiness isn’t about following about a perscribed set of rules and patterns its about as the romans 12 passage says offering ourselves as a living sacrifice to God. Let’s ask ourselves a question.

Does God desire us to change who we are and the things we do?

Absolutely

Romans 12:2 NIV

2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Does God also realize that people are all at different points in thier walk (GRACE and Mercy)?

Absolutely.

Romans 12:3 NIV

3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.

We have to remember that God gives us grace and mercy far more than we deserve and we need to do so for others. That is one of the biggest problems we have had with this idea of sanctifcation over the years is we see some who claim it then don’t live it. Yet, it is in the imperfection that we find grace.

Hero’s of Faith

Want proof look at the stories of the Bible. Abraham didn’t follow after God perfectly but his faith was credited to him as Righteousness.

David committed adultery and conspired to commit murder and don’t get us going on his extended family and yet he was a “man after God’s Heart”

Peter denied Jesus. The Messiah three times. God built his church upon him.

Saul hunted down and persecuted and killed early Christians. He became the greatest missionary the church has ever seen.

Think of all of these people and the idea of sanctificaiton. They weren’t perfect. Yet, the commonality amongst all of them was their desire and return to God as the center of who they were.

Think about those Centered Sets with Jesus at the center. We may all be at different points along the path toward Jesus at the Center. Some of us may be moving toward the center faster than others some may be a closer to the center than others and some may be running the other direction.

It was thinking about this that i foudn the best way to think about entire sanctificaiton. Entire sanctificaiton is about being commmiteed each day to walk toward Jesus at the center. Sometimes that walk may go slow and even might feel like we are going backwards because we become convicted of something in our lives that makes us feel like we have been sinning and how can we be a sinner if we have given ourselves to God.

There lies the difference. Entire sanctification is not about how entirely we follow the rules but how entirely we walk toward God. Allowing him to work on us and change us as we walk on that path toward him.

Entire for us then shifts from every aspect of us being perfect to us being perfectly willing to allow God to work on us for the rest of the days of our lives. This is Chrsitian perfection. To trust in God and to rely on him and to turn to him. To see God as the answer for everything in our lives that we are faced with.

The last line of our article of faith on Sanctification is a powerful one because it is a great truth.

The life of Holiness continues thorugh faith in the sanctifying blood of Christ and is evidences itself by loving obedience to God’s revealed will.

It is through Christ that all these things are possible. It is through his death on the cross that we even gain access to this. It is through his work in us that we are able to be sanctified and run the race that is set before us. For me i never want to deviate from that path to God. It is focused it is purposeful. It is part of my entire being to serve God however he asks. I pray everyday that he helps me to achieve that. I will be honest I sometimes might unintentionally fall short. I find new ways that i have to grow as a Christian. The goal remains though to follow after him.

Let us pray.