If you have been with us in the past weeks, you’ll know that we have been doing a series on the Holy Spirit. Today we will continue that series with the topic of sanctification. 

Our word sanctification comes from the latin “sanctus”, which means holy. In other words, today we will talk about becoming holy, and the role the Holy Spirit plays in that. Holy can mean blameless or pure, and often we define it by what is not: to be holy means to be separated from sin. If you think it about this way, than sanctification means to become more pure, become more blameless, to become more separated from sin. 

SERMON MANUSCRIPT 

Good morning! If you have been with us in the past weeks, you’ll know that we have been doing a series on the Holy Spirit. Today we will continue that series with the topic of sanctification. Our word sanctification comes from the latin “sanctus”, which means holy. In other words, today we will talk about becoming holy, and the role the Holy Spirit plays in that. Holy can mean blameless or pure, and often we define it by what is not: to be holy means to be separated from sin. If you think it about this way, than sanctification means to become more pure, become more blameless, to become more separated from sin. 

Now, let’s be honest here: most of us instinctively do not like to hear about sin or judgment, and so a sermon about sanctification runs the risk of being very unappealing. And if you feel that, you need to hear this, because that is exactly is going on: as much as sinners outside do not like to be told that they are sinning, believers inside do not like to dwell on sin either. Something is stirring up in our flesh that fights anything that has to do with holiness, and even as a believer that struggle is real. I think, deep down, we try to separate God’s love from God’s holiness. We like to think about God’s love, but shy away from thinking about God’s holiness. And you may have your flashbacks about legalistic churches, or harsh parents, where holiness meant mainly outward behavior: don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t have sex – ever. My goal for this morning is to show you how holiness and sanctification are essential in the believer’s life, not optional, how the Holy Spirit is involved in that process and that you walk out of this door saying “God loves me very much, and I very much want to become holy”. 

The Good News

First some very good news. Question for you: if you are saved, can you be more saved than you are right now? Of course not, and there is nothing that you can do about your salvation other than to receive it: it is God’s work altogether. Now there may be times that you are more aware of it, but your salvation does not depend on your awareness. You can forget everything and everyone, and be saved. In a very similar way we are sanctified.

[SLIDE PLEASE] Look at these verses:

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those (…) who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.

1 Peter 1:1-2

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

1 Thessalonians 2:13

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor those habitually drunk, nor verbal abusers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

1 Corinthians 6:11

In the same way that your salvation was predestined by God the Father, so the sanctifying work of the Spirit started way before you were born. In the same sense that believers’ salvation is secure, so is their sanctification. We are set apart in the family of God, we are saints and there is nothing that we can add to that, or diminish that. So here is the good news: you cannot be more sanctified than you already are. You cannot earn your salvation by good works, and you don’t become a better saint in God’s eyes. When in 1 Thessalonians Paul writes about the Lord Jesus coming for His saints, there will not be A-grade, B-grade and C-minus-grade saints. All the saints will be with the Lord that day. 

This should give us peace of mind, and raise us to thanksgiving: just as our salvation does not depend on me or my works, neither does my sanctification. When I believe in the Lord Jesus I am in Christ and He is in me. So if you worry whether you are holy enough, you can stop – if you believe in the Lord Jesus, that is. 

Does that mean that everything goes on this earth? The answer is no, of course not: sin is still sin, and after somebody comes to faith, two things happen, at the same time: 

1. On the one hand we learn more about the standard of holiness that God requires. Not with the goal to meet that standard, that is impossible, but because it is God. Just as we learn more about God’s love, we learn more about His holiness. God’s love and holiness are two attributes of God, God is love, and God is holy and when we love that God, we learn more about these attributes. That is one place where the Holy Spirit enters this process, by His word and by His spirit we learn more about God. 

• Second, the longer we walk with the Lord, the more we realize how sinful our flesh is: we are capable of any sin. And though the Spirit points that out and makes us aware of sin in our lives, there is no condemnation: instead, there is assurance. 

The Call to Holiness

Now this is a good place to ask the following question: if we are saved and sanctified already, what is God’s will for our lives? If you want to please God, show your love for Him, want to live for Him and a child wants to please their father, what should you do? Have you ever asked that question, what is God’s will for my life? Here is the answer:

[SLIDE PLEASE] 

For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; (…) For God has not called us for impurity, but in sanctification. Therefore, the one who rejects this is not rejecting man, but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.

1 Thessalonians 4:3, 7-8

Pursue peace with all people, and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

Hebrews 12:14

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written: “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

1 Peter 1:14-16

God wants us to be holy! Why? Because He is holy! What does that mean? That means that though we are saved and sanctified, we still have a body on this earth that can sin, and in some cases, sin a lot. And the instructions given here are NOT “become as holy as you can, so that maybe you can be with God”. That is impossible – there was only one man who perfectly submitted to God’s will and God’s standard for holiness – our Lord Jesus Christ. No, there should be a stronger desire to become holy in us, because that is God’s calling, that’s the standard for being able to see God and to obey God. 

Now to be clear: this desire to please God is foreign to most people – for people to ask for God’s will is a strange thing, most people would like God to ask for their will, not God’s. And so this desire for holiness needs to grow in us, and we can seek it, pray for it, desire it. I am convinced that if you pray now for more holiness in your life, God will answer that prayer. You may not like the answer, but know that your prayer is in accordance with God’s will – He desires us to be holy. And through His Spirit and His word you will see areas in your life that need to be brought under the influence of God. 

Practical Considerations

Here is a tension and a danger. The tension is that my mind finds it hard to grasp that I am both completely sanctified, and need to pursue sanctification at the same time. The danger is that we specify what sanctification means: is there a set of rules that you can download that tell you what to do and what not to do? Just follow the rules? Some of you may have been in churches where rule-following was very important: a good believer goes every Sunday to church in a suit with a tie or a dress, goes through the motions of baptism or confirmation and as long as outwardly everything looks fine, that can become a standard of holiness: looks good on the outside, but that is not holiness is it?

And if you look again on the verses from 1 Peter 1:14-16, the call for holiness is made to “obedient children”, that supposes that you are a child of God. Holiness for us is never just the outward behavior, it follows from the change within. There is an order: God loved us first, therefore we love God, we become children of God and He calls us to holiness, the standard of conduct in the family of God: this sanctification is a family affair, of God’s family.

There are two extreme dangers for the believer in regards to sanctification. The first one is to continue living in what the Bible calls the “old self”, or the flesh. An example of this extreme is the thought that believers should sin more, so that there is more grace, and that is a lie of course. But less extreme positions are definitely possible, especially if you abuse the verses about Christian liberty as a license to do whatever you think is okay. Scripture is very clear about this; we are free, but not to abuse this for our own pleasure. 

The other extreme is legalism, the idea in addition to the gospel there are rules and regulations, if not the Mosaic Law to be observed and followed. In other words, you can work out your salvation, and hence your own sanctification. And in the letter to the Galatians Paul addresses that issue and states clearly that if you expect salvation from the law, you are on your own. 

In Galatians 5:16-18 Paul addresses both extreme positions: 

[SLIDE PLEASE] Read with me: 

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the desire of the flesh is against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, in order to keep you from doing whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law. 

Galatians 5:16-18

Paul presents two domains with different actions: either you walk by the Spirit, or you carry out the desires of the flesh. Basically, every morning when you get out of bed, you have a choice: walk with the Spirit, or do the desires of the flesh. And this battle within the believer is real, as Paul points out, which is because the flesh and the spirit are opposed to each other, and we struggle to do what we want. Do you recognize that? That you don’t do what you want, and do what you don’t want to do? It is exhausting is it? 

Now, take a step back: who is telling you want you want to do? Who is telling you what you should not do? If you walk with the spirit, that is God’s spirit; and if you read God’s word, that is God’s word, because God’s word and God’s spirit will never contradict one another. 

In Romans 8 Paul concludes this struggle between spirit and flesh by saying that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Though the struggle is real and painful, you are in Christ Jesus.

[SLIDE PLEASE] Now, just to be clear in Galatians, Paul follows up on these two domains of spirit and flesh, where the domain of the flesh have deeds, and the domain of the spirit has one fruit:

Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: sexual immorality, impurity, indecent behavior, idolatry, witchcraft, hostilities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let’s follow the Spirit as well.

Galatians 5:19-25

What is the idea here? Is Paul saying that if you stop doing the works of the flesh, you will be saved? Sanctified? No, Paul is pointing two routes you can take, or better said, if you stick to the flesh, you are going nowhere, or you can walk with the spirit. Either choice has consequences. If you stick to living in the flesh, even as a believer, you will struggle with the deeds of the flesh. And if you belong to Christ Jesus, you ought to have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires – if we are crucified with Christ, we still live, but our old flesh is died. Now we live by faith in the Son of God who loved me, and gave Himself up for me. I am alive, and I walk with the spirit. What will happen then? If you walk by the Spirit, the fruit of the spirit will become manifest in your life, and fruit is the right word: just as a gardener can cultivate fruit by creating the right circumstances, then cannot grow fruit, it is a work from God. So will it be with you, when you walk with the Spirit, He will grow fruit in your life, and all these fruit are an expression of love, God’s love.

If you find this complicated, there is another example, one that Paul writes in Ephesians, and that is the metaphor of clothing. Just as a bride puts of her old clothes and put on a bride’s dress for this life-changing event, so it is with believers:

So I say this, and affirm in the Lord, that you are to no longer walk just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their minds, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; (…) 

that, in reference to your former way of life, you are to rid yourselves of the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you are to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.

Ephesians 4:17-24

Just as there is a bride’s dress waiting for a bride, there is a set of God-designed clothes waiting for you to put on. This new self is created in the likeness of God.

Conclusion

To conclude: there is a lie among mainly evangelicals, that God will accept you as you are. And I can be sympathetic to where that comes from, you can come to church in whatever clothing you like. And is true that God takes the sinner as they come, as they repent and adopts that sinner as child of God. What is not true however is that this is the end. Once a child of God, you cannot stay as you are, God’s Spirit will transform you into the likeness of God’s Son, and you will become more aware of your little sins, of your speech, how you treat brothers and sisters in the church, and both God’s Spirit and God’s word will guide you: so walk in the Spirit, read God’s word, and pursue holiness, until the day that we will be in heaven, saved, sanctified, glorified and with Jesus. 

In the words of 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24: Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will do it.

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