Well, this morning we’re continuing in our basic lesson series, and we’ll be considering this matter of sanctification.
So let’s have another word of prayer.
Lord, we are so thankful for the sweetness of fellowship that we have been brought into with the Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit. Lord, it’s in that precious fellowship that we come to Your Word, that You would really breathe upon it and cause it to become words of life within us, Lord.
Lord, we come with one desire, and it is to behold You in a very fresh and living way. Lord, as we take up this matter of sanctification, we do say that You alone have those words of eternal life. You alone can impart this into us so that it can become real within our hearts and our lives.
We yield ourselves to You, Lord. We really ask that we would have ears to hear what You are saying, and not just be those who desire to gain knowledge about something, but really allow it to become truth and life within us. In Jesus’ name, amen.
This morning, we’re considering this matter of sanctification. Sometimes, when we have these big words like that, they can even terrify us, and we want to shrink back. But really, if you look at this word sanctification, it has the same root as words like holy, saint, sanctuary, and holiness.
Many of these are our favorite words. We love holiness. We love holy. We love saints. Yet we have a tendency to be afraid of them, and we shrink back. When somebody starts talking about sanctification or holiness, we say, “Whoa, this is too much for me. I want to come back from that.”
But my heart this morning is pretty simple. I would like to demystify these words, maybe desensationalize them, and allow us to see how the Lord wants them to become a very real, living reality within our hearts and lives.
We want to look at it in a foundational way, not really approach it so much in a doctrinal way. Maybe we could say we are going to look at Sanctification 101 as opposed to Sanctification 501. Those interested in 501, there are plenty of books out there for you to consider.
But if we start with the very basic meaning of sanctification, it simply means set apart—being set apart unto something with a purpose. It has the same meaning whether you look in the Old Testament or the New Testament: being set apart.
I was talking with Jim a little bit before the meeting, like with Abraham. The Lord set apart Abraham, and He had a purpose for him. The Lord has called and set each one of us apart. We are coming apart from something and being drawn unto something, and it is with a purpose.
Even if we look at Webster’s dictionary, it means to be made holy or set apart for holy service. So the Lord is taking us from one place, taking us from something common, and setting us in a place that is more sacred or holy. He has done this with a purpose in view.
As we see this more and more, we start to see the very character and nature of our Lord and His desire for us.
As I was thinking about this matter of sanctification, three questions came to my heart that I have considered in my life. I want to use these three questions as our outline.
The first question is: Am I sanctified, or do I need to become sanctified? I look at some Scriptures, and they say I am sanctified. I look at others that say I need to become sanctified. Well, what is it? Have I been sanctified? Do I need to be sanctified?
The second question is: If I need to become sanctified, how can this happen? I have tried it, Lord, and it is impossible. It is overwhelming. It is too hard. I just cannot do it.
The third question is: What is this process of sanctification in daily life? How does it practically impact us? How does the Lord come in and really meet us in this?
Starting with the first question—am I sanctified, or must I become sanctified?—I want to consider two different sets of verses.
First, turn to 1 Corinthians 1:30-31.
But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption;
that, just as it is written, “Let him who boasteth, boast in the Lord.”
Also, Hebrews 10:9-10. This is our Lord Jesus saying, “Behold, I have come to do Thy will.” He has come to do the will of the Father.
Then said He, “Lo, I am come to do Thy will.”
He taketh away the first, that He may establish the second.
By which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
When you look at these verses, they say that we have been sanctified, and it is a settled issue. We have been sanctified.
Now there is another set of verses. Turn to 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24. This is Paul’s prayer for believers in Thessalonica. They are believers; he is not speaking to the world.
And the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly;
and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Faithful is He that calleth you, who will also do it.
Then, in 1 Peter 3:15-16:
But sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord:
being ready always to give answer to every man that asketh you a reason concerning the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and fear:
having a good conscience.
In these verses, it is as though we need to become sanctified. We need to respond. We need to do something. At first glance, these two groups of verses can appear contradictory.
I always love what Ed Miller says. He says the Lord has a wonderful way of revealing precious truths to us. When you read Scripture and there is something that appears contradictory, it is a precious treasure of the Lord, because we know they are not contradictory. The Lord does not contradict Himself. He is trying to show us something.
Have I been sanctified, or do I need to be sanctified? Both are correct.
This reminds me of a phrase we have been studying in the Gospel of John: we are in Christ, and Christ is in us.
In that phrase, we have a picture of what we call objective truth and subjective truth. Objective truth is also sometimes called positional truth. Subjective truth is sometimes called experiential truth. Now, don’t get scared away by the words. They are simply definitions.
Objective truth is what Christ has done for us in spiritual reality. It is a settled issue. It has been done. There is nothing else to be done to it. Once and for all, He has done this, and it is settled.
Subjective, or experiential, truth is what we experience of the Lord in our daily lives upon this earth. We have objective truth that is settled, and as we walk through this world, on the foundation of that objective truth, it becomes real to us through the way we experience the Lord every day.
That is why Philippians 2:12 says:
Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
Well, wait a minute—I am already saved. But there is a working out of the reality of Christ in our daily lives. That is the experience we have.
First, as we talk about objective truth, we are in Christ. When we are saved, we are put in Christ, and praise God for that. As we saw in 1 Corinthians 1:30, it is by His doing that we are in Him. We have been made righteous, sanctified, and redeemed. That is a settled issue.
As we read in Hebrews 10, by His doing and by His will, we have been sanctified once and for all. When we were saved, we were put in Christ, and that is our position. We have been redeemed, justified, sanctified, and made saints. These are settled issues.
I love how Paul writes to those in Corinth: “To the saints in Corinth.” You read that letter, and they are the most unsaintly people you know. But positionally, they are saints. That is a settled issue.
We have also been glorified. Ephesians says we are seated in the heavenlies. Do you feel like you are seated in the heavenlies? But that is settled. That is where we are positionally.
The way we enter into this objective truth is simply by accepting it through faith. By faith, we believe Who He is and what He has done. That is it. It does not matter how we feel. It does not matter what our understanding is. It does not matter how good we are.
If you try to do so much good, it is not going to improve your position in Christ. If you are bad, it is not going to give you a lesser position in Christ. We are talking about being in Christ, and that is settled for all eternity. That is our position.
The problem is that sometimes we confuse faith with understanding. We think, “Well, I do not understand that.” That does not matter one bit. It is true. We just believe.
I may not understand sanctification. I may not understand redemption. I may not understand being seated in heavenlies. I may not feel it. But the objective truth of our position in Christ is totally independent of what we feel, sense, or understand. God said it; I believe it. That is it.
As you are sitting here today, do you really understand why that chair holds you up? When you are flying, do you really understand why the plane flies? Jerry can tell us about it. Do you really understand practically how your cell phone works? Jack can tell us that. But most of us have no clue how these things work.
Their use is not based on our understanding. It is done, it works, and we simply believe it. That is the way it is with our position in Christ.
As we are looking at this today, we are sanctified in Christ. That is the key phrase: in Christ. In Him, we have been justified, sanctified, and even glorified. Praise God for that.
That objective truth is the foundational truth from which the experience of our sanctification comes. If we do not understand that Christ has done all this and that this is our solid foundation, then as we enter into experiential truth, we will just get knocked left and right.
But if we have this foundation—Christ has done this, and in Christ this is what I am regardless of what I see or how I feel—then we can begin walking and entering into the reality of this in daily life.
The Lord wants us to experience Him more and more. As we go through this life and desire to live a godly, holy, sanctified life, it does not take us very long to see and feel that we are not doing a very good job of that.
Praise God for what He has done in our lives. Hopefully, we are in a different place now than we were ten years ago, or even a few years ago. There has been some progress made.
One of the benefits of objective truth is that it shuts the mouth of the enemy. The enemy comes and says, “You say you are a Christian. Look how badly you are living.” Praise God, we simply say, “The blood of the Lamb. The truth I stand on is that I have been sanctified in Christ.”
That shuts down all the accusations, whether the enemy wants to condemn us concerning justification or anything else. It shuts it down when we have that objective truth settled in our hearts.
Experiential truth is a lifelong process. We are all works in progress. None of us has arrived, and while we are upon this earth, none of us will arrive. There is a doctrine that says some will, but I do not quite think so. As long as we have these bodies, we are in progress.
The Lord is always drawing us unto Himself. I think John the Baptist gives us the most wonderful definition of the experiential side of sanctification.
He must increase, but I must decrease.
—John 3:30
That is it. If somebody wants to know what the experiential side of sanctification is, it is Him increasing—Him gaining more control, more mastery, and more influence in our lives—and us letting go, surrendering our rights to Him so that He can have that ascendancy.
We wrestle with that because we love ourselves. We do not want to let go or yield. But this is the process: Him increasing and us decreasing.
If we do not have objective truth settled, the Christian life can be so frustrating. We say, “Every time I take a step forward, I get knocked back a step. Every time I take two steps forward, I get knocked another step back.” But praise God, that is progress. We are working through things.
The only thing the Lord is asking of us is a teachable heart. Are we willing to learn from Him? That is surrendering. As we surrender to Him and let go of ourselves, we say, “Lord, as a disciple, I want to learn of You.”
As we offer ourselves and are willing to learn of Him, He will teach us. It is a process in which only He knows what needs to be touched in our lives at different times. He works within each one of us in a very unique way.
He might touch something in Jim’s life early in his walk with the Lord that He does not touch in Catherine’s life until later. But He is going to touch all these areas of our lives. That is why we keep our eyes on Him and allow Him to do this work of sanctifying us and drawing us unto Himself in a fuller and greater way.
Peter speaks of hope. There is a hope set before us. He is our hope. If we did not have hope, there is no way we could go through this. As we experientially enter into more and more of being sanctified, there is a hope that we have in Christ.
That leads us to our second question: if we are going through this process of being sanctified, how can I do it? I have tried it. It is overwhelming. It is too hard.
Well, praise God, I have a great word for you: it is impossible.
We need to be clear that the Lord is not asking us to sanctify ourselves. He is not asking us to sanctify ourselves.
Even as I mentioned Philippians 2:12 about working out your salvation, what does the very next verse say?
For it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work, for His good pleasure.
—Philippians 2:13
We read, “Work out your salvation,” and it starts to terrify us: “Oh, I have to do this. I have to do that.” No. All we have to do is let God arise, and His enemy of self will be scattered.
Let God come forth. Let Him do His work. Surrender to Him and let Him do it. He will bring about transformation, conforming us to the image of Christ. This is the work He is doing.
The work He does begins as an inner work. It starts in our inner being. The Holy Spirit touches us within, and often that affects things outwardly.
I used to be a sailor. After I met the Lord, my vocabulary changed. I did not have to think about it. All of a sudden, those words did not feel comfortable.
We see how He starts working outwardly, but then He continues more deeply to deal with the inward life—that old bedrock enemy of the self-life. Jessie Penn-Lewis calls it the bedrock enemy.
That is the key: who is in control of our lives? Is He increasing, or is self-life increasing and holding on? This is the process we are going through.
Too often, when we hear something about sanctification or being holy, we start on the outside. We say, “I am not going to do this anymore. I am not going to wear this. I am not going to go there. I am not going to do this or that.” Those things may be good, but that does not make you holy.
Or we do the positive things: “I am going to start doing this. I am going to attend every meeting. I am going to read my Bible. I am going to pray.” Those are good too, and I would encourage you to do them. But doing them in your own self, thinking that they will make you something, does not make us holy either.
It comes from within. There is a life within that says, “I want to be in this Word. I want fellowship with Him in prayer. I want to be with other brethren. I do not want to look like this anymore. I do not want to be identified as being in the world. I do not want to talk like this anymore.”
I want to change some of these habits, but it comes from within, through the Holy Spirit touching us. He has a perfect plan for each one of us as He works it out.
Every spiritual work originates within. What He is dealing with is our soul—our mind, will, and emotions. He wants our minds renewed. He wants our wills no longer to be our strong wills, but to come under the submission of His will.
He wants our emotions transformed as well. Our whole life, our soul was governed by that old self-man, that flesh. The Lord wants to separate that so that our soul comes under the dominion of the Spirit.
Another phrase for this is the salvation of the soul. We are speaking of the Lord working in us in such a way as to bring our minds, wills, and emotions under His dominion. This is the process of sanctification, and it takes a lifetime.
I want to consider 1 Corinthians 6:9-11. It is a good reminder.
Or know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men,
nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
And such were some of you: but ye were washed, but ye were sanctified, but ye were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.
As we look at this list of sins, these are pretty blatant sins. Hopefully, as we have been walking with the Lord, most of us have put these things somewhat aside—or we think we have.
In the South, there was an old saying: “I don’t smoke, drink, cuss, or chew, or run around with women that do.” That was religious life. So we think we have done pretty good.
What happens is that we begin to think we are very religious, and we allow religious life to be substituted for a holy life. We think, “I am not doing this. I am not doing that. I am doing this, and I am doing that.” But we can substitute religious living for a holy life in Him.
One characteristic of this religious life is that we suppress things. We learn that bad thoughts are not good, envy is not good, and we suppress them. But we are only fooling ourselves, because one day they pop out.
Whenever you are speaking up here, one of the things you always do before coming up is make sure your zipper is up. See, you all think we are so spiritual when we come up here and speak. It is a very practical thing.
But sanctification is not suppressing things. Sanctification is surrendering. It is a surrendered life.
So many believers suppress things within instead of allowing the Holy Spirit to deal with them. He wants to deal with these things, but we do not surrender. That is what He is calling us to.
When we live this religious life, an air of moral superiority can arise. “Oh, I am not like that.” Remember the Pharisee in the Gospels: “Thank You, Lord, I am not like that sinner.”
Do we ever have that thought when we see someone? “Thank You, Lord, I am not like that.” We see a drunk and say, “I used to be like that.” Much of this can be unconscious, but it can become a spiritual self-righteousness.
We can compare our experiences, our testimonies, and our knowledge with those of others. It is subtle, but we can fall into these traps. Sadly, we do not know how much of our life is lived under the influence of the old self-life.
Much of this is because we are living in a day of relativity. It used to be that there was a clear-cut distinction between holy and unholy, holy and common, sin and not sin. It was black and white, with a very small gray area.
But in this postmodern era, the gray area is growing. What is black and white is now treated as extreme. Everything is relative. Everything is gray.
The Oxford Dictionary identified “post-truth” as its word of the year. Post-truth means that objective facts and truths are less influential in shaping one’s opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.
Sadly, this has permeated the church today. So much of what people feel and believe is treated as final, rather than being measured by God’s Word.
Why do we have so much confusion today over matters like divorce, homosexuality, and same-sex marriage? It is because the Word of God is not the standard anymore. We have made it relative.
“If you feel good, you deserve to be happy.” There is a thought in Christianity that says if you are not happy, it is acceptable to get a divorce. Where is that in the Scripture? That is the post-truth matter—being based on feelings and personal beliefs.
I was reading a survey comparing sermons from recent years with sermons from ten or fifteen years ago. One word was significantly different: the word sin. They do not use the word sin in sermons anymore.
We do not say someone lies; we say they misspeak. We do not say there is adultery; we say they had an affair. We have watered down so much. Everything is becoming relative, and the word sin has become offensive because people say, “You are judging.”
But Scripture is clear. For those of us desiring to go on in the Lord, the Word of God is vital and essential. Sanctification is deeply interrelated with the Word of God.
The truths of God are absolute. We are either holy or unholy; sanctified or not. There is no middle ground. We are in process; we are not talking about being perfected yet. But we are in process, and we continue to go on.
That brings us to the third question: what is this process of sanctification in daily life? What does it practically mean to us?
Primarily—and I use that word because I do not want to be all-inclusive—the Lord uses the Holy Spirit, His Word, and the cross.
He uses the Holy Spirit Who speaks to us. He uses His Word. In John 17, we read:
Sanctify them in the truth: Thy word is truth.
—John 17:17
He uses the Word of God to sanctify us. Hebrews 4:12 says:
For the word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword,
and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow,
and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart.
That is the inner working. The Word of God comes in, and the Holy Spirit uses that Word. Then the cross is there for us to say, “Not I, but Christ.” We say, “Lord, You increase. I deny myself.”
In 1 John 1:7, we read:
But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light,
we have fellowship one with another,
and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanseth us from all sin.
As we walk in His light—the light of His Word and the light of the Holy Spirit—He points things out to us. Why does the Lord point those things out? Is it to condemn us?
Do we have a concept of God that He is sitting up there looking around, saying, “Oh, look at that in Brian. I am going to point that out. I am going to condemn Brian”? No.
He points these things out because He loves us, and He wants us to be set free from the tyranny of self. He wants us to be set free from the things that entangle us.
As He points out frustration, anger, bitterness, and all these things, it is not to condemn us. It is to set us free so that we can enjoy the glorious liberty of the sons of God and enter into the fullness of joy we read about in John’s writings.
If the Lord touches something in our hearts, we say, “Oh, Lord, I am so sorry I have that.” He already knows it. He is the One Who pointed it out to us. So we say, “Lord, deal with that. I want You.”
The Lord took Jacob and transformed him into Israel through the Word of God and the Holy Spirit. Israel was able to walk in newness of life. This is really the experiential side of sanctification: walking in newness of life, rather than under the control and dominion of the old self-life.
Earlier, we read 1 Corinthians 6 and considered blatant sins such as fornication, drunkenness, stealing, and murder. The question is: have we really put them aside?
Let me be clear: sin is sin. For descriptive purposes, we may speak of certain sins as more blatant and others as more subtle, but sin is sin. There is no middle ground.
We may say, “I am not a murderer,” but what is our attitude toward our brother? We may say, “I do not commit adultery,” but what is our attitude toward another person? It is the heart. It is this inner sanctification that requires the deep work.
We say, “I am not a thief. I do not steal anything.” But perhaps we go into a store, pick up a book, and walk away with it. Or we get home from the grocery store and realize we bought three items but were charged for only two. Or we should have received five dollars in change, but we received ten.
Do we thank the Lord for the extra five dollars? No. That is our conscience being trained to be sensitive to these things.
One of the main things we steal from the Lord is our time. Time is a gift from the Lord. How are we using it? Are we really using the time He gives us for Him, or do we say, “Okay, enough time for Him today. Now I can do this”?
I recently read a book called Respectable Sins. The title caught my eye. It focused on sins that we tolerate as believers. We are quick to speak against adultery, abortion, and same-sex marriage—those obvious sins—but what about the things within our own hearts and minds?
What about pride, gossip, independence from God, selfishness, lack of self-control, impatience, and judgmentalism? We think we do not do them, but are we really conscious that we do these things?
That is why we need the Holy Spirit. We cannot adequately examine ourselves. But as we daily give ourselves to the Lord, we allow Him, through His Word and Spirit, to touch us and bring these things to light.
Consider frustration. I know nobody in this room ever gets frustrated. But do we see frustration as sin?
We get frustrated because someone or something does not do what we think they should. They inconvenience us. They take something away from us.
We can get frustrated even in meetings. “Mac is speaking too long. These speakers get up there and go on and on and on.” Or during prayer time: “That sister prays the same prayer.” Or, “That person shares the same testimony every time.”
We are all good enough Christians not to let it show on our faces. We sit there, smile, and perhaps even say, “Amen.” But inside we are saying, “Why do they not stop? Okay, Mac, you have eight minutes left. Come on.”
Frustration can lead to anger and losing our temper. How do we get out of it? We blame the other person. “If Mac had not spoken so long, I would not have gotten frustrated. If that person had done this right, I would not have gotten frustrated.”
We say, “I am right, and they are wrong,” while the Holy Spirit is trying to convict us concerning issues in our own hearts.
Make it a red flag: if you find yourself blaming someone else for something, stop right there. Even if the person was wrong, even if they should not have done what they did, do not allow that person to rob you of the peace and rest that you have in the Lord.
We blame others because we are not accepting responsibility for ourselves. We justify our actions. At first the Holy Spirit pricks us and says, “You should not have gotten frustrated.”
Then pride and self-life say, “Oh no, it is not your fault. You normally would not be frustrated. You would not act like that. But because that person did that, because of this circumstance, because of that event, because of what else you have going on in your life, you got frustrated. It is okay. We understand.”
So we justify ourselves and let it go, leaving an unsettled issue in our lives. Frustration is a fruit; it is not the root problem. There is something else the Lord is trying to touch in our hearts and lives.
Sadly, we blame other people and the enemy for the problems in our lives. But probably eighty or ninety percent of the time, the issue is our own self. The enemy does not have to spend much time on us because we self-destruct.
Our own self-life is so strong. The Lord may use another person to touch something in you and something in me so that we can come back to Him and allow Him to show us what is in our hearts.
We have little things like envy and jealousy. Someone else gets the attention. Someone else gets something that I want. Another person receives praise for a prayer or testimony, while I share and nobody says anything.
Perhaps you make a good dish for the meal, but everybody likes the other salad. Then jealousy begins to rise: “I could have given a much better testimony than that person.”
Jealousy and envy are really self crying out for attention. Do we recognize it and say, “Lord, thank You for exposing that in my heart and life. I need to be for that person. You are using that person, and I want You to divide soul and spirit in my life so that You can increase”?
Consider pride. Pride can be so obvious that we know we should not have it. So what does the proud person do? They try to prove to us that they do not have pride. They put themselves down and become self-deprecating.
We put ourselves down because we think there is something to be put down. A humble person does not think of himself. There is nothing to self-deprecate because they are nothing.
Sometimes we think we are so good that we do not want the brethren to know it, so we try to show how unproud we are. We see this even in sports.
After a sporting event, the most valuable player says, “It was the team. It was my blockers. It was great fielding. The wind was right. The weather was good.” Inside, there can be something wanting to burst out and say, “Yes, I am great. Look what I did.”
We do that in Christianity too. Someone says, “That was a great prayer,” or, “That was a good message,” or, “I loved your food.” We say, “Oh no, no, it was the Lord.” It is the Lord, but inside we may be saying, “I am glad they noticed. That felt good.”
Come on, be honest with the Lord. Otherwise, we are kidding ourselves, robbing Him of glory, and robbing ourselves of the place of His life within us.
We always have this question: how do we spend our time? Do we ever stop and ask the Lord, “Lord, how am I spending my time?”
For younger ones, there is social media, video games, and recreation. The only reason us old guys pick on social media and video games is that we did not have them when we were young.
At the end of a day, it is good to take inventory and say, “Lord, how did I spend my time today? Is there something You want to show me by the Spirit about how I could have done something a little differently?”
Those of us who are older are not exempt. We love to pick on young people for how they waste time, but we do it too—with jobs, family, hobbies, and the sacred ground that nobody is supposed to touch: grandkids.
We are thankful for grandkids. But after all our activities and the things we have been involved in, do we stop and say, “Lord, is there anything You want to say to me about how I spent my time today?”
That is all I am talking about: being open, honest, and teachable with the Lord so that He can continue to work in our hearts and lives. It is He Who has begun a good work, and praise God, He is going to finish it.
We can go on and on about these so-called respectable sins, but we need to see the seriousness of it. Sin is sin. Even though we might call some sins egregious and others small, sin is still defiling.
In the Old Testament, with the anointing oil, it only takes one little fly. A fly in the oil desecrates the whole oil. So we want the Lord to work in us, purify us, increase His control in our lives, and bring us into decreasing.
We can establish what we might call holy habits. As we read the Word in the morning and have time with Him, a verse may touch us. Something may touch us. Just stop a moment and say, “Lord, what are You trying to say to me through that verse?”
It does not have to be a huge exercise. It is simply pausing for a moment, then listening and waiting for the answer.
I love George Müller. He was noted for his prayer life and the thousands of prayers that he had answered. One of his sayings was that the most critical time in prayer is the thirty seconds afterward—listening to what the Lord is going to say.
As He speaks something to us, do we listen afterward? Do we allow the Lord to deal with that?
If the Lord could open our eyes to see how much our self-life is robbing us from entering into the fullness of all that He has for us, from really enjoying the goodness of the Lord—it is not only robbing us; it is robbing Him of His rightful place in our lives and among us.
Hopefully, as we have looked at sanctification today, we have demystified it and taken away some apprehension, even some of the bondage that comes with thinking, “Oh, this is heavy, bondage, legalism.”
No. Sanctification is actually setting us free from the bondage and tyranny of self. We are in bondage, and at times we do not even realize it.
But as we give ourselves to the Lord, and His Spirit and His Word touch us, He sets us free. All of a sudden, we get free from something that perhaps a day or two before we did not even know we were in bondage to.
He sets us free so that we can enjoy the glorious liberty of the sons of God.
It is precious that the Lord uses each one of us. He uses people as we cross one another’s paths to point out things in our hearts and lives. Let us not shrink back from that.
As we press on together, one of the beautiful evidences of people being built together and walking closely together in the Lord is that one thing increases: a spirit of repentance.
We begin to say, “Oh, I am sorry, brother. I did this to you.” There is a sensitivity to ask forgiveness of one another. That is part of the sanctifying process.
What is the main reason we do not like to go to a brother or sister and ask forgiveness? It is pride. It is pure self-love.
But as we give ourselves to the Lord and ask for Him to increase and for us to decrease, He can deal with these things. He brings us into the testimony He is calling us to be.
Those are the ones who hasten His return. That is what we are really after in all this: that the Lord would have a people who are a testimony of His life.
As people come in, they would know that we are in Christ. We have a great position. But as we walk along, they would also see Christ in us.
That life wants to break out. It wants to be seen. We hinder it, but as we give ourselves to Him and allow that work to be done—Him setting us apart from these things and unto Himself—we enter into that precious life and testimony: “Yes, Christ is in them.”
They see Christ, and that is our desire.
Let us pray.
Lord, we are thankful for the work that You have done. We are thankful, too, Lord, for what You are doing in us.
We simply desire to be those who are open, willing, available, and teachable to Your Holy Spirit. Lord, we know that You have begun that good work, and You will complete it.
We want to be those who are found cooperating with You. In Jesus’ name.
I was wondering, as we close, if we could sing that hymn again, Hymn 208. Catch everybody off guard, and sing it as a prayer this time—for the Lord to really show us what is in our hearts.