Temple Baptist Church - 7-31-2024
John 17:17; Colossians 3:1-4
Introduction:
A. Verse 17 is the Lord’s Fourth Petition. The Petition for Sanctification of the Believer.
B. Sanctification is a Landmark in Doctrine and also an essential part of the salvation of the believer. God did not save us to go back into the world or allow the world to get into us! He saved us from our sin, not in our sin. But:
1. In todays version of Christianity, sanctification has become something to be both feared and denied. Sanctification is an act of God, a continuing act of the child of God, and a blessing to be looked forward to in eternity. Here we find the importance of sanctification to our Lord!
2. There are three aspects of sanctification that need to be expressed so that the believer has a good “handle” on what it is and what it is not.
3. God’s people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge and this is a basic foundation of truth that religion hides from its followers.
4. I want to begin this message by saying, “Thank God for sanctification!” It has to do with our position in Christ, our practice in Christ, and our eternal security in Christ.
5. Notice that I mention Christ in all three aspects of sanctification because it is by Christ, through Christ, and to Christ! Sanctification is all about Christ!
C. Sanctification - ἁγιάζω hagiazō hag-ee-ad'-zo defined: to make holy, that is, (ceremonially) purify or consecrate; (mentally) to venerate: - hallow, be holy, sanctify. Simplified - to set apart.
D. Sanctification is a GOOD word, not a BAD word. It perfectly describes the division of the believer from the unbeliever.
E. There are three aspects of Biblical Sanctification and are best explained in **Colossians 3:1-4. Please turn there:
“If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. (2) Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. (3) For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. (4) When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.”
1. Positional Sanctification. Positional Sanctification is something that God does! “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.”
1 Corinthians 1:30 But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: (“Of Him” tells us that salvation is an act of God, not an act of the believer. The believer brings a “bankrupt sinner” to God in repentance and faith and God saves the believer.)
Romans 6:3 Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? (At the moment of salvation, the believer is emersed completely into Christ. Something that God does, not the believer. This is not water baptism! It is the baptism of the Holy Ghost.)
1 Corinthians 12:12-13 For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. (13) For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
At the moment of salvation, the believer is set apart from the world positionally through Jesus Christ. “In Christ” is the believer’s sanctification. We are baptized into Christ who is both perfect and eternal and therefore remain secure!
Nothing or nobody can find us nor touch us. We are His and He is ours!
2. There is Permanent or Perpetual Sanctification. “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.”
John 10:27-30 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: (28) And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. (29) My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. (30) I and my Father are one.
1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: (17) Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. (18) Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
1 John 3:1-2 Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. (2) Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
I am not going to spend a lot of time on the Security of the Believer because I believe that everyone here is biblically settled on the fact that salvation, an act of God, is forever.
Ecclesiastes 3:14 I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him.
3. Practical Sanctification. “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. (2) Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.” This is both an act of God and an act of the believer. This aspect of sanctification is what our Lord asked of God in verse 17 of the Lord’s Prayer.
a. Our Partner against Sin. Our Lord wanted the Father to help us to remain in a state of holiness through sanctification!
John 17:17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.
b. Our Problem with Sin. As long as we live in this wicked flesh with an Adamic nature, the battle rages.
Romans 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
c. Our Propensity to Sin. When you get saved, you are as full of the Holy Ghost as you can get but, as He directs our lives, we often make bad choices that cause us to begin to fill back up with the world and less by the Holy Ghost.
Romans 7:21-25 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. (22) For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: (23) But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. (24) O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? (25) I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
d. Our Protection from Sin. It is the Truth who died for us; it is the Truth of the Word of God that we hold in our hands; it is the Spirit of Truth who indwells us. WE HAVE ALL THAT WE NEED FOR BOTH LIFE AND GODLINESS.
2 Peter 1:3 According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:
John 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
e. Our Prerogative concerning Sin. Choose ye this day whom ye will serve. Free or not to be Free? God has given to us all the tools necessary to life a consistent, not perfect, life for Christ Jesus.
No comments:
Post a Comment