After I accepted Christ, I began to share my experience with others. With my friends at school, with people online, whoever I could share with, I did. Even when I was fulfilling my community service, I would share my experience of coming to know Jesus
But as I did, I found that there was a lot of resistance. From those weren’t Christians, the resistance was understandable, they simply didn’t believe in Jesus. That resistance only spurred me on to deeper reading of the Bible, and how to refute arguments that were presented against me. It deepened my faith rather than shaking it. What was strange to me, however, was the resistance I received from Christians.
As I shared with my Christian teachers, including my Bible teacher of the school I was attending, I found a wall. Looking back, I felt kind of like Paul. Though I hadn’t tried to kill any Christians, I had created enough of a bad image, that an experience didn’t seem to be enough to break people’s perception of me. Not only them, but my fellow classmates, who I thought were Christians, rejected this new me. It was through this experience of speaking to other Christians, especially those that were in my age group, I came to realize that, though they professed to be believers, many of them had not taken Jesus as their personal Savior. It was a social acceptance of the Gospel, not a personal one.
At the end of that school year, I had been basically expelled and asked not to come back to that school, which made perfect sense for the year I had with them. No amount of change could stop that at the point I was at. But I spent the summer in pursuit of knowing God deeper. Things began to change in my life, and how I related to people. This was nowhere more evident than in my relationship with my parents.
A few years later, I was led by God to a deeper life in him. This put me on the path of going to Redding, CA, to attend college. Through that time, I received a calling to full-time ministry, a wife, and an understanding of what had been going on for the last several years. I was now longer the rebellious youth of fifteen, Christ had changed me. I came to understand that God had been sanctifying me, and it’s this concept of sanctification, which will now take a look at, as we first turn to the Gospel of John chapter 15 starting in verse 1. And as we open our Bibles to John 15:1, I want to quickly recap what we talked about last week.
Last week we began to talk about what drives the Alliance at it’s core. And so we talked about how the Alliance is driven by, what the founder of the movement called, the Fourfold Gospel. It was the first message of this Fourfold Gospel that we covered last week, which is Christ our Savior. An aspect that is so important that it drives us to go to the ends of the earth to share with people we’ve never met. It’s not unique to the Alliance, every Christian denomination holds to this truth of sharing the Gospel, but the emphasis on it by the Alliance is something I like. Last week we ended with the understanding that, God wants us to know the depth of sin from which he pulled us from, and the life he intends for us. When we have this understanding, then the next message of the Fourfold Gospel makes sense.
With this first message now back in our minds, let’s dive into John chapter 15 starting in verse 1. Jesus states,
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. (Jn. 15:1-8)”
This passage is essential to the Christian’s walk with God, because it speaks to the very nature of our relationship with God. You and I were never intended to be unconnected with others. That’s why when people try to get away from civilization, civilization follows them. That’s why we get married and have children, and have animals as pets. We were made to be connected, but the greatest connected relationship that we are to have is with God. And without him, we can do nothing. We are simply unfulfilled, and never reaching a full experience of life. We limp along without a cure for our alignment, we are zombies roaming the earth until we finally decay enough to no longer move.
This is because of sin. Sin disconnects us from the life of God, our source of fulfillment, healing, and life. When we do something that’s in rebellion against God’s law, like lie, cheat, steal, or a list of other things, we create a barrier between us and God. We become unconnected to the source of life, and because of that, all of our other connected relationships become brittle to the point where we break them as well.
But through God’s love, God the Son came down to earth to live as one of us, yet in perfect connectedness to God the Father and Holy Spirit. He then willingly allowed himself to be killed and sacrificed on our behalf for our sin. And when we accept that sacrifice, that work of Jesus, we are brought into connectedness with God. That is Christ as Savior which we talked about last week. Too often that’s where we leave it. We got our ticket out of hell, so now it’s time to wait for the uncloudy day, that sweet by-and-by. But that’s not all!
Jesus is not in the ground, he’s risen! And those who put their trust into Jesus as Savior are also risen to new life. That life is a life that begins at the moment of accepting Christ and last into eternity. It’s a life where we are being reoriented into the person we were created to be. This is why Paul tells on us in Romans 12 “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. (v.2)” Jesus says it like this later on in his pray in John 17, “And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. (v.19)” This transformative, deeper connectedness, is the sanctifying life that God has brought us into through Jesus our Savior. This is the second message of the Fourfold Gospel, Christ our Sanctifier.
Now the word sanctification is a big word, but it simply means “to be set apart” or “to be made holy.” I’ve always likened the idea to that of laundry.
Picture this, you worked all day, sweating, getting dirty, there might even have been some blood from a cut, and all you want to do is get out of those clothes. So you do, and they go right in the washing machine, because they’re just too stinky, and dirty to go in the regular wash basket.
That is exactly what being saved by Jesus is, stinky clothes being put in the washer. But you don’t just leave them there, or the whole house would smell. You grab that detergent, and dump it in and turn on the roughest cycle to make sure those clothes get cleaned. That’s sanctification. That detergent is the Word of God and the Holy Spirit. In fact, that’s just what Paul says about the Church in Ephesians 5:25-26. “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word.”
Have you ever listened to a washing machine go? I’m glade I’m not those clothes. They get beat around. Dirty clothes go in, the machine starts moving, and sure enough, out of that washer, comes those stinky dirty clothes, fresh and clean and ready to be dried.
God’s sanctifying work sends us through trials so that we can come out on the other side cleaned of all our sin and ready for him. Through suffering and trials, highs and lows, through failing, and getting back up, God works through every circumstance of the believers’ life to cleanse them of the sin that once held them in bondage. If any of you have ever made a New Years commitment to change a long standing behavior in your life, you know the difficulty of change. The sanctification of God battles against the sin that wants its control in our lives back, and it can truly be a battle sometimes. Several weeks ago, while we were working through the problem of evil, I mentioned the question, why do the saints suffer? One reason is because God is sanctifying us through suffering. This is why, in James 1:2-3, were told, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.”
For the first two years of my Christian life, I didn’t have anyone to tell me that this was part of my relationship with Jesus, and so I floundered. But when we begin to understand that God wants us to go through this process, where he is cleaning us from every stain of sin, the depth that we can go, and the experience we can have with God is endless. Because it doesn’t push off the glory of God to some future date, but rather brings it to the here and now.
Like we did last week, here are some insights to this sanctification process by the Alliance founder, A.B. Simpson. Simpson gives us Six “Nots” of sanctification of what the process isn’t. And Four “Is’s” of what the process is.
The first off the nots of sanctification: Sanctification is not justification. Paul says in Philippians 2:12-13, “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” Justification is the moment we move from death to life in an eternal and spiritual scope. Sanctification, on the other hand, happens in the life you have now, so that the person Jesus sees us as, is the same person that we see ourself as. Here, Paul tells us to work out what has been given to us. We work out Jesus’ saving work, meaning, we are active in the process alongside the Spirit. Justification is the moment when salvation begins, from then on out, we’re in the sanctification process.
Second, sanctification is not merely a moral improvement. Isaiah 64:6 states, “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.” Having a better moral compass is not what’s happening. This idea that sanctification gives me a better morality, has some truth to it, but if we’re just trying to become more moral, more good in the human sense, then we’re just falling into legalism. It’s us trying to just adhere to a code, which the Bible teaches cannot bring us to God. And in our own power, we just make things filthy, because their tainted with our own self-centered desires. This leads into the third “not.”
Sanctification is not our own work. Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Piggy backing on the concept of filthy rags, we can’t do this by just working on it. We didn’t enter into salvation by our own works, we cannot hope to transform ourselves by works. If we do, we’ll fall into legalism, trying to fix ourselves in our own power. We can then project it on to others. That’s the kind of people Jesus doesn’t want. That type of earning the cleansing is what the Pharisees were getting people to do. No it’s God who does the cleansing, we get to be actively a part of it, but we cannot do it solo.
This fourth “not” is a big one, sanctification doesn’t happen at death. In John 10:10, we’re told by Jesus that, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” The sweet by-and-by is a great aspect of God’s work to look forward to, but in the sweet now-and-now, Jesus is actively working in this life. That’s life now, not just later. This life is given to us to be fully experienced with Jesus, and through Jesus, not just in a future time, but now.
Fifth, sanctification is not self-perfection, Colossians 1:27-29 states, “To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.” It’s Jesus’ work in us, not our own. We are to mature in this, but we do so through his powerful work. Am I just repeating myself at this point? We can’t do this on our own, this cleansing from sin is based on the connectedness we have with Jesus.
Finally, sanctification is not based on emotion, First Corinthians 14:15 states, “What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also.” Sanctification is based on our will being purposefully and intelligently given over to God. Does that mean our emotions won’t be apart of it? No, but it’s based on a cognitive and purposeful choice to say, “Not my will by Thine.”
With the “nots” of sanctification understood, we can move on to the“is” side.
The first “is” of sanctification is that Sanctification is being separated from sin, Romans 6:11-14 reads, “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” Sin loses it’s foothold in our lives through Jesus’ saving work on the cross and through the resurrection. Sin doesn’t control us who have been justified by Christ. Though we will always struggle with sin in this life, we are being moved further away from it’s control, and closer towards the control of God.
Second, sanctification is becoming more dedicated to God, First Corinthians 15:56-58 states, “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” In the sanctification process, God’s work becomes more focused in our minds. “The things of this earth grow strangely dim,” because the focus moves away from earthly endeavors and onto heavenly ones. When God’s work becomes alive in us, it becomes more important to share the Gospel, than it is to stay silent about it.
Third, sanctification is being conformed to the Image of the Son. From Romans 8:29 we read, “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” In the Basic Beliefs of Christianity course I teach in our apologetics class we cover the idea of the Image of the Son. In Greek, the idea of image is not a sketch, where the image kind of looks like original but is clearing seen as different. It’s also not a carbon copy of the original, as if it were a photo copy. No, the idea of image in the Greek, is a mirror image, very similar, but slightly different. It’s our uniqueness that God created us to be, melded with the characteristics of God himself. We are an individual, but fully connected to God.
The final “is” of sanctification is, sanctification is love becoming more abound in our life, First Thessalonians 3:12-13 states, “and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.” Jesus said the two greatest commands is love God and love people (Mk. 12:29-31). Paul echoes this idea with his statement that love is never ending (1 Cor. 13:13). God’s love explodes in our life. Not that sappy love kind of love, but a love that endures pain, anguish, and strife. Love that brought a perfect God to earth to die for his creation. But not just love, all of God’s characteristics that Paul talks about being the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23), begin to show through us, because of our deeper connectedness to him.
This is sanctification, God’s cleansing us from all unrighteousness right in front of our eyes. It’s to be a daily process, where we rely more and more on the Holy Spirit, connecting ourselves more and more to the God who loves and saves us. In the Alliance, we call this the filling of the Holy Spirit, because over time, the Spirit’s already indwelling status takes more and more control. Each believer has the indwelling, but not all have an active filling. The sanctification process is the filling of the Spirit in our lives.
Since it’s a daily process, I want us to leave here today with some practical steps to engage this process purposefully. I had a mentor named, Bill Griffen, one time say it like this, “We are cookie dough ready to be transformed, but we need the heat of God to bake us.”
So how can we purposefully put ourselves in the fire? Well first, we need to accept God’s word over ours. We need to trust it even if we do not yet understand it. This is huge, because I no longer come to God’s word trying to get it to say certain things, but rather I allow it to say what God intended it to. That means that I need to dive deeper into it, and wrestle with what he says, and what I believe, and then I have to submit my way of thinking to his. It’s hard, because sometimes I don’t wasn’t to agree with God, but I’ve learned that he is right, and it ends up being more fruitful for my life when I submit to his word.
Next, we need to spend intentional time in prayer. We need times of purposeful prayer, where we set time aside. Time like in the morning, or before we go to bed. But we also need to develop praying throughout the day, in a moment-by-moment long lasting conversation that doesn’t really end until we fall asleep. These types of moments can be in a car, in the shower, in the line at the post office. But we need to develop a strong prayer life, where we’re talking with our Father in heaven consistently throughout our day.
Finally, we’re all going to experience temptation, I want to encourage you to stand firm. Having a submission attitude to God’s word, and a strong prayer life will help us overcome the temptations of this world and grow from the experiences. However, if you fail to rely on God, do not turn away from him. Rather the key to dealing with temptation, whether we overcome or not, is to turn back to God. Remember, sanctification is the process of greater connection to God. Repentance and a continuous trust in the saving work of Christ, is a firm foundation on which to grow in that connection. So whether in the triumph or failure, we must remember that “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” That means he’s already seen us at our worse, and loved us in it, so we have nothing to fear if we mess up, because our Father still loves us.
My challenge for you this week is to take these three purposeful steps in sanctification. Remember, we can’t do it on our own, it is the fire of Spirit of God that does it, so wake up with a prayer asking God to move in you to accomplish his work for that day, and that you will live by the Spirit’s strength instead of you’re own. By doing that, you can place yourself purposefully in the process, so that you may see the work of God in your life today.
Let us be the people of God who strive to have his cleansing work in us, not just in the future when we move into eternity, but today as we walk this mortal plain. Amen.
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