Sanctification and the Church

I want to start out this morning by talking about fish.

Now, since this is church, you might well expect me to talk about the miracle of the loaves and fishes. Or about how Jesus pointed His disciples to a great catch after their night of catching nothing. Or maybe about being fishers of men.

Actually, though, we’re not going to talk about any of those things today. Today, we’re going to talk about the gold-saddle goatfish.

Anybody here ever seen a gold-saddle goatfish? Well, me neither, at least not in real life. I saw some photos of them while I was preparing this sermon.

It seems that part of their name comes from the fact that they have a golden, saddle-shaped splotch behind their dorsal fin.

Where the “goat” part of their name comes from I cannot say. But I think they’d probably be pretty upset if they knew we called them goatfish. Surely if they had better PR managers, they’d be known by some name that had a bit more nobility to it.

Be that as it may, they’re gold-saddle goatfish to us and the rest of the world.

“The gold-saddle goatfish is a small fish native to Hawaiian reefs with a distinctive coloring. [As juveniles, these fish are completely golden in color, but as they get older, blue begins to replace most of the yellow. They’re really quite pretty, as are many fish that populate the reefs.]

“In the past few years, divers in Hawaii have come across a fascinating phenomenon. During their regular dives, they’ve begun to notice a large fish with the same brilliant colors as the gold-saddle goatfish.

“Upon closer inspection, the divers realized this wasn’t one large fish, but in fact a school of gold saddle fish swimming together in such impressive unity and in such a perfect fish-shaped pattern as to appear like one imposingly large fish, not to be trifled with.

“It turns out, when the gold-saddle fish feels threatened, they join together, unified in fish formation to appear much larger.” [https://thepastorsworkshop.com/sermon-illustrations-on-community/]

What I want to suggest to you this morning is that there is something for us as the church to learn from the gold-saddle goatfish, even if it DOES have such an unfortunate name.

We in the West — and perhaps especially in America — have been trained almost to idolize individuality. We revere those people who have singlehandedly built business and financial empires.

Even the corporate names that are part of our everyday language — Amazon and Microsoft and SpaceX and the like — are associated not with the many people who have made them what they are, but with the people who founded them — Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Elon Musk.

We might love certain sports teams, but our greatest praise is usually for individuals who have been part of those great teams. Think of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Wayne Gretzky, or Tom Brady.

And then there’s golf and tennis, which take this concept of individual achievement and celebrate it without reservation.

We even do this in the church, when we celebrate names like Warren Wiersbe or Charles Stanley or Chuck Swindoll.

All of these are men whom God has used in mighty ways, and we are right to celebrate their obedience to their calling. And we do well to think of that obedience as being a beautiful thing, much like the beauty of one of those gold-saddle goatfish.

But the truth — and I think it’s a truth that each of those great pastors would affirm — the truth is that the church is better compared to that group of gold-saddle goatfish schooling together in dangerous waters in the form of one big golden fish.

We are so much stronger together than apart that I frankly cannot fathom why Christians would ever think they can follow Christ on their own, much less want to try to do so.

Now, you’ve heard me talk about this topic several times during this series on the church. But mostly the idea I’ve conveyed is that Christians have received spiritual gifts that were given for building up this body of believers.

And that’s absolutely true. And in that respect, as I have said before, the church needs you, and you need the church.

But today, I want to talk about your sanctification, the process of followers of Jesus being conformed into His image, of their becoming more and more like Him — more and more holy.

As it turns out, the process of sanctification was never meant to be undertaken apart from the Church. Indeed, I will argue today that individual sanctification CANNOT be achieved to any real extent apart from the Church.

Do you want to be more like Jesus? If you have truly followed Jesus in faith, then the answer should certainly be, yes!

If you really want to be more like Jesus, it can hardly happen if you are not an active, participating part of His body, the church. It is largely THROUGH this body that you will be sanctified, that you will be made to be more like Him.

And to the extent that you allow yourself to be separated from the body, you likely will find yourself losing ground on sanctification, becoming LESS like Jesus and more like the lost world.

Let me take you through my logic.

First, we need to understand that each of us who has followed Jesus in faith is being sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

Now, this is a cooperative process. In other words, we can choose to cooperate with the Spirit, putting off the sinful deeds of the flesh to become more and more like Jesus. Or we can choose not to cooperate, continuing in those sinful deeds.

But in the end, it is the Holy Spirit who convicts each of us of our sins and empowers us to turn from them.

The Apostle Paul thanked God for this work of the Spirit in 2 Thessalonians 2:13.

2 Thessalonians 2:13 NASB95

But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth.

Do you see that? He thanks God for the Thessalonians, and the REASON he is thankful for them is because they have been saved by faith in the truth, in Jesus, and because their salvation continues to be effected through sanctification of the Spirit.

There is a sense in which Christians have BEEN saved by grace through faith. But there is also a sense in which we are BEING saved by grace through the Spirit’s work in us.

And there is a sense in which we also WILL BE saved in glory — when all temptation, all sin, and all capacity to sin is removed from us.

The truth is that too many of us who have followed Jesus in faith look at it as a transactional thing. We put our faith in Him and in His sacrifice on our behalf at the cross, and so we are now bound for heaven.

And, while that’s true, it’s only part of the gift of salvation.

When we repent from the sins that every one of us have committed, we receive the gift of eternal life. In Scripture, the emphasis isn’t on the eternal, but on the LIFE. And this isn’t just the continuation of our bodies and souls for eternity.

The fact is that everyone — whether they’ve placed their faith in Jesus or not — will one day be raised from the dead and reunited with their eternal souls to live forever. The question is WHERE they will live.

For those who have rejected Jesus, for those who have rejected the gift of eternal life through faith, what awaits them in eternity is judgment and the just penalty for their sin. The Apostle John writes about his vision of that terrible day in the Book of Revelation.

Revelation 20:12–15 NASB95

And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

For many of us, this is what drove us to the cross in the first place. One of my professors called it “fire insurance.” He said he turned to Jesus to ensure he wouldn’t go to hell.

And that’s pretty common among believers. Much as the fear of going to prison keeps some people from robbing convenience stores, many of us first turned to Jesus because we feared going to hell.

Indeed, that’s part of what we get in salvation.

For those who have turned from their sins and put their faith in Jesus, eternal life will be spent first in heaven and then within the new heavens and new earth that Jesus will create.

But as I said, Scripture puts the emphasis on the “life” part of eternal life. And what’s behind that word “life” has much more to do with its quality than its location.

“Life” is about being who you were created to be. “Life” is life lived abundantly, in the presence of and in fellowship with the God who created you for those things.

And here’s the thing: If you have truly placed your faith in Jesus, your eternal life has already begun. Your body may die, but your spirit — your soul — is already in the presence of God through His Holy Spirit, who dwells within you.

And there will never be a moment for you — not even at the moment of your death — when you will be separated from Him.

Paul talked about this at the end of that wonderful chapter 8 of the Book of Romans.

Romans 8:38–39 NASB95

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Whether in death or life, believers are always in the presence of God our Savior. For me, these are two of the most encouraging verses in all of the Bible.

But when we consider the implications of always being in the presence of a perfectly holy and righteous God, I think these verses present a great challenge to us, as well.

How, then, should we live?

Jesus said He came to give life and to give it abundantly. And He wasn’t speaking only of our lives in glory.

He came so that we who follow Him in faith can have the PRESENT experience of becoming who we were created to be, of being in continual fellowship with God, even in the midst of the brokenness of this lost world.

And THAT happens as we cooperate with the Holy Spirit’s work of sanctification in our lives.

But how does the Spirit sanctify us? Well, He convicts us of sin and He chastens us when we grieve Him by continuing in sin. We see this in Hebrews, chapter 12.

Hebrews 12:7–11 NASB95

It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

Do you see that? If you are a Christian, and you’re not experiencing the Spirit’s chastening for your sin, then something’s wrong.

Because the discipline He gives us is for our good, so that we may share in God’s holiness — so that we may be made more like Jesus.

And so, there is, we might say, a negative aspect to the Spirit’s work of sanctification in Christians. He disciplines us.

But there’s a positive aspect to it, as well, and this, especially, is where the church comes in.

Though he often talks about the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit within the lives of individual believers, Paul also says the Church is sanctified by the Spirit.

We see this in Romans, chapter 15.

Romans 15:15–16 NASB95

But I have written very boldly to you on some points so as to remind you again, because of the grace that was given me from God, to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, ministering as a priest the gospel of God, so that my offering of the Gentiles may become acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

Here, Paul talks about the Gentiles as a group. Indeed the Gentiles are the group Paul was sent to evangelize, and many of them came to know Jesus as their savior.

And when they did, they became part of the church, the body of Christ. And we see here that he describes this GROUP as being sanctified by the Spirit.

So, how is this group, the church, sanctified? Much the same way as its individual members are sanctified. There are the negative aspects of conviction of sin and discipline because of it.

But there is also the positive aspect I mentioned a moment ago, and we can see how Paul describes it in Romans, chapter 5.

Romans 5:1–5 NASB95

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

Now, he’s been talking about the Christian’s justification before God — in other words, God’s gracious judicial declaration that we who were guilty of rebelling against Him in our sins are now righteous through faith in Jesus.

And, as Paul says in verse 2, we exult — we have great joy — in the confident assurance that we who have been justified by God in Christ will experience the fullness of God’s glory.

But then Paul says something surprising. Not only do we exult in hope of the glory of God, we also exult in our tribulations.

Let me ask you something. When’s the last time you exulted in your hard times? When’s the last time everything seemed to be going wrong, and you said, “Thank you, God! This brings me such joy!”

Probably hasn’t happened in a while, if ever. But that’s just what Paul says we should do. We should exult in our tribulations.

“Our English word ‘tribulation’ comes from a Latin word tribulum. In Paul’s day, a tribulum was a heavy piece of timber with spikes in it, used for threshing the grain. The tribulum was drawn over the grain and it separated the wheat from the chaff.” [Tom Constable, Tom Constable’s Expository Notes on the Bible (Galaxie Software, 2003), Ro 5:3 (quoting Wiersbe).]

In the life of a believer, this can be a painful process. But it’s a process with a purpose. Bearing up under hard times produces perseverance. We learn to keep on keeping on — and not by our own strength, but in the strength and power of the Holy Spirit.

And as we learn to lean on the Spirit, He builds Christian character within us. He makes us more like the Christ who suffered in love throughout His earthly ministry and never lost the joy of His fellowship with God.

And as our character is conformed to that of Jesus, we find ourselves more and more hopeful in the presence of tribulation.

Hard times just make us more joyful in the confidence that when we stand in the presence of God’s glory, we will see all this as momentary, light affliction.

And we are not disappointed in this hope, Paul says in verse 5, because God has given each follower of Jesus the indwelling Holy Spirit to enable us to withstand whatever trials we face.

Now, remember that this letter was written not to an individual believer, but to a CHURCH — to a group of believers in whom the Spirit dwelt both individually AND corporately.

You might recall that when we first started this series, I talked about all the “one-anothers” of the New Testament. All the times the Bible talks about teaching one another, greeting one another, praying for one another and so on.

One of the best-known of those “one anothers” is this: “Bear one another’s burdens.” And what are tribulations, if not burdens?

Just like those gold-saddle goatfish, the most dangerous place for a Christian facing trials is alone.

Just like those fish, the place for a Christian facing trials — and who among us isn’t facing some trial or another? — the place for us is right in the midst of the school, right here among others in the body of Christ who are being sanctified through tribulations of our own.

As individual members of the body of Christ — bearing with one another, forgiving one another, and loving one another — we demonstrate love, which in the Book of Colossians Paul calls “the perfect bond of unity.”

And then he says this:

Colossians 3:16 NASB95

Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Teaching and warning one another. Singing together with thankfulness. Those are hard things to do if you’re off swimming along the reef by yourself.

But those are the Holy Spirit’s tools for building perseverance and character and hope. And it is no coincidence that they are tools most readily found right here in the church.

He uses them to sanctify the church. He uses them to make the body of Christ holy.

If you are a hand or a foot in this body, you can only function as a hand or a foot to the extent that you are connected to the body.

When you sever yourself from the body, you are no longer functional in the way God intended.

And there is a real sense in which, having severed yourself from the sanctified body, you are hindering your own sanctification. There is a real sense in which your PERSONAL holiness is a consequence of the church’s holiness and not simply a part of it. [https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2018/september-web-only/church-community-holiness-corporate-sanctification.html]

As I was researching and studying for this message, I came across a blog post from an unexpected source, a monk from a Russian Orthodox Church monk at a monastery in Washington state. Let me read it for you, because I think he really gets what I’m saying here today:

“The Church is holy because her founder is holy, and because Christ has never abandoned His Church. The Church is holy because she is guided by the Holy Spirit. She is holy because she is always being purified and transformed anew, by the Holy Spirit. The Church is not holy because of anything we have done, but because God has made her holy. If the holiness of the Church was dependent upon her people, most of us would have to be banned from membership. Yet … it is within the … Church that even the weakest of sinners can become holy.... Every Christian is called to holiness because our weakness is overcome by the strength of God’s mercy. It is not about living extraordinary lives, but about being transformed by an extraordinary God.” [https://www.thegoodshepherd.org.au/heretics-and-holiness]

Friends, the church has been ordained as God’s agent of sanctification through the Holy Spirit.

THIS is where you become more like Jesus. THIS is where your trials become full of hope. THIS is where you can find safety and strength and love and forgiveness.

The gold-saddle goatfish gives us an important lesson as we face danger and trials. Will you turn to yourself for the support and strength you need?

Or will you join the rest of the school and let us all face it together, growing together, as we do, to be ever more like our blessed Savior?

Will you commit yourself to this transformation? Will you take hold NOW of this abundant life that Jesus promised?

In this lifetime, you’ll never experience its fullness on your own. If you want to experience it today, THIS is where you’ll find it.