All right. These were quite a mouthful. I told this story, I guess, privately this morning. It's not a private story. But I was using it for the sake of introducing our topic of sanctification. And it happened to be with, so I'm not going to use any names, but of recent time, another a kind of well-known minister, has been subjected to the now typical term, inappropriate relationship with a woman, and has been removed from ministry. Well, from there, you get this ongoing warning from ministers, there but for the grace of God go I. And there's been a lot of that, warning after warning from fellow ministers, be careful, lest you fall. And warnings that are rightly made and rightly taken. But I actually appreciated more than anything else a take that was the opposite. And this take was by a guy that I was in seminary with. And his take was this. If our ministers are three steps away from falling at any moment, it may be that our ministers are not any good. His point was not that we're not susceptible to fall, but that Paul's, well, for that matter, Ezekiel's injunction in admonition is that all of us as God's people are to be growing and maturing, and to use Paul's language, not presenting our instruments, our bodies, as instruments for sin. In other words, the take that was the pushback take was saying, folks, are you not being sanctified? Is it the case that all of us are simply one woman walking into the church away from falling into sin? Or are we more mature than that? Not that warnings are not proper, but wow. What kind of ministry do we have? And it was a warning that I actually appreciated, a take that I appreciated, because it fits in line more with how we understand sanctification than this idea that we simply are always and only never assured that we are holy people. But if you read through the scriptures there, Ezekiel and Romans and everywhere else for that matter, You should be assured that if you are God's child, that in fact, He is making you holy. And in making you holy, He is cleansing you from your sin, taking you away from your idols. And He is also making it such that you are empowered not to present your body as instruments to sin. This has been something that I've mentioned in Sunday School and a few other places. that, I mentioned it this morning, that we seem to live this life in which we all seem to want to just dance as close to the edge of sin as possible without actually sinning, and then kind of ask the question, how much can I get away with before it's sin? And that's not all of you, but we seem to do that, as opposed to considering yourself, as Paul says, dead to sin, so that you can live to righteousness. Because this is the work of sanctification that God is doing in you, that He is cleansing you in such a way that you can live to righteousness. And so while I'm happy to always deal with folks and counsel them in terms of what is sin and what is not sin, I think it's also appropriate that we consider ourselves dead to sin. Not because I said it, but because a couple thousand years ago, Paul said that you shouldn't keep on sinning just because you can. That you should consider yourself dead to sin because Christ died for sin. That's the context in which I want to just kind of launch into this as we think about these three things. That God himself is sanctifying you. That's how our answer is phrased, right? That it's the work of God's free grace. And then that we are renewed in the whole man, after the image of God, and we are enabled more and more to die into sin and live unto righteousness. So there's three parts. That God Himself, to keep with our monergistic view of salvation, that God Himself renews you by His Spirit. And so you hear echoes of that in Ezekiel and in Romans. That God will send His Spirit, He will wash you, He will cleanse you, He will break those idols, and then He will Put His law in your heart so that you can obey. That's what we have there. God's free grace. It's Him pouring out His Spirit. But in that, He gives you new life that is renewed towards the image of God. In fact, one of the reasons I wanted to read Hebrews 1 today, we could have read Colossians, Ephesians, 424, Colossians 3.10, in which we're told in those cases that we are renewed after the image of Christ But Hebrews tells us that he is the exact imprint of his father. It is him, the image of God, into whom is the true and real image. That you and I, as God's people, are being renewed into that image. So I shouldn't do this during sermons, but as a plug, that's the basis of the conference that we're going to have. Christ has a character and you are united to him and you are being conformed into that that character. So that's the idea, and in fact that's what I want to say here. That we understand, our understanding of salvation comes mainly from Calvin in this way, that he calls it the double blessing of sanctification, that united to Christ we then possess justification and sanctification. They're not the same two things, but we possess them both because we possess Christ, and Christ did both for us, and this is what Calvin calls the the double grace. And he writes, from this also we infer that we cannot be justified freely through faith alone without at the same time living holily. There has to be a better way to translate that. But that those who are declared not guilty, forgiven their sins, are also the ones who are to live a holy life. That you don't get one without the other. And if you have one, you have the other. as well. We're called effectually to justification, adoption, and sanctification. And so we're going to think about sanctification today. Sanctification and justification differ. I think that you know that. Justification is a one-time declaration. Sanctification is an ongoing work. We recognize that. Both of them are from God's free grace. One's an act, one's ongoing. Sanctification is recreative and justification is legal, declarative. This is why from regeneration we understand that the process, if you will, is then the renewing of the whole man. So you have new life. That's why all these passages give us this idea that there is new life in this regenerative process towards the renewal of you as a person. So that it doesn't become something that you do, it becomes something that is worked out in you by the Spirit that not only gives you life, but then works to clean you and renew you after Christ. And He enables you to then do what He has called you to do. And so we say it like this, that in this renewal process, that you are delivered from sin's pollution. So this is also a distinction between justification and sanctification. The legal declaration of the penalty of being paid for the guilt of sin, but in sanctification the pollution, the corruption. You heard that word a couple of times in Ezekiel, that he cleans your uncleannesses, he washes you from your uncleannesses. We recognize that to be that which is the works of the flesh today. So these things that are polluting to you, he cleans you of them. This is why Paul can tell us in those passages to put off and to put on. It's because now that sin has broken over us, and now that the Spirit is cleaning us, and he's cleansed us in regeneration, and he cleans us regularly, that we can put these things off. But the pollution and the corruption of sin is cleaned. And so Paul calls this the flesh. The sanctification is the process of removing this pollution of corruption from the believer. in his lifetime, or throughout his lifetime, I should say. Sanctification affects a renewal of your nature. So in sanctification, then, God enables you to use your gifts and he empowers you through the Holy Spirit for renewal. We use the fancy term of the noetic effects of the fall. That fancy term just simply means that the effects of sin are in our thinking, in our willing, in our loving, in our affections, Those kinds of things. So all the parts of us, in the whole of us as humans, that sanctification is taking place. But that you are being renewed fully and completely in your whole man. That it's not just simply a part of you, but it's the whole of you. So that willing and thinking and affecting, so the affections, the loving aspects of it, are such that then we now live out differently from where we were not in Christ. So that then you are enabled to live a God-pleasing life. You were created to do good works. Now you're enabled to do good works. But the good works, the godliness, that's the fruit and effects of the sanctifying work in you. So to be clear, sanctification is God's work. He regenerates, then sanctifies you, washes, renews you. The effects of that are what we call godliness. The godliness that exudes by loving and putting away. And the godliness that exudes by the doing of good works, which are the fruit of that holiness that is in you. That's the movement that we have. That's what Ezekiel tells us. That's what Paul tells us in Romans. And that our whole lives are spent now as the Spirit renews us, cleanses us, and enables us. That's our life. And that's why maybe from a positive way of thinking about sanctification, that it is not simply just walking to the edge and saying, how close can I get? But it's actually saying, how do I walk to please my Father, who has cleansed me, who has not only cleaned me up, but renewed me? He has changed all of my whole being. including that he promises to give me a new body at the resurrection. So how is it then, considering myself dead to sin, that I would live unto righteousness? You notice that Paul does that in Romans. He says that Christ not only died for sin, period, moves on, he says, no, he died for sin so that he can be alive to God. So that you can die to sin so that you can live for him. He gives you this beautiful double part, that it's not only death, but it's death and resurrection. It's death and life. That we're not just simply not doing. We're not just simply only obsessing about sin. But that we are putting this away so that we can live the godly life that He calls us to live. We live out of that sanctification. Holiness is a word that both in the Old Testament and the New Testament gives you the idea of both separation and moral purity. It can mean either of those two things more often than not. I would say that it means moral purity, particularly when it's dealing with holiness in relation to sinful things. But it can mean separation as well. We see instruments in the temple being holy, not because they're morally impure, but they're separated for God's use. The high priest had the template on his head, the nameplate that said, Holy to the Lord, on his hat, on his turban that he wore. holy to the Lord, that he was separate unto the service of the Lord himself. And so when we think about this, as we think about the way that the priest operated in the Old Testament, both in his dress, his robe of righteousness that he wore, the special clothing that he wore, the holy aspect that he was marked with, and then the special service that he did. When we move that into the New Testament and see that you and I are part of the priesthood of believers, we see there that we are actually separated out as God's people. We are separate from the world in the sense that we have been marked as God's people towards the service of holiness, which would mean in this case bringing the sacrifice of praise, bringing the sacrifice of prayer. The idea of doing this priestly intercessory work, not in offering animal sacrifices or something like that, but that in serving the Lord in those worshipful ways, of prayer and praise and those kinds of other ways, speaking God's Word. Think about how Paul puts that into the mouth of all believers, that as priests who are separated unto God, in the priesthood of believers, that yes, we have offices, but yet as all believers who are separate and holy, that we serve the Lord. in and through at least the two means of grace, the word and the prayer. And that this is what we bring and offer, not just simply to God in worship, but to one another, for one another, that we might edify and build up one another. And so you get this whole idea of real service in serving the Lord by doing what he commands. Service is never that which I offer to God. Again, this should be something that is, I think, a no-brainer for us, but I think sometimes we struggle with it. Not you, necessarily, but maybe other people. But the idea here is that we just want to say, like, I'm going to do this, God accept this. It's like what Abraham tried to do with Ishmael. Take this. And God said, no, no, no, that's not your service. I'll tell you what your service is going to be. I'll tell you what your works are going to be. It's not just what I want to give you. And so as a priest unto God, He requires and calls us to pray to Him and to speak His Word to one another. This is what we do in acts of service as the ones who are separated and cleaned in our robes of righteousness that we would serve Him in the larger temple. That is the people of God. That's the act of service. Not what I want to do, but what He calls me to do. Because as His servant, I serve Him. I don't tell the Master what I'm going to do and hope that He accepts it, or even demand that He accepts it. I do what He calls me to do. And you hear that flow when you're reading Ezekiel particularly, that I will put my Spirit in you so that you can. In fact, that's the way that the answer is even written, that you are enabled to do. It's not that I come and tell God, here's what I'd like to do for you. I've got a deal for you today, God. No, no, no, no. He says, here's what I require of you. But not only do I require this of you, but I'm going to make it so that you can do it. I'm going to cleanse you so that you're clean and holy. I'm going to empower you so that you can obey. Now live unto righteousness as my holy servant before me. because I'm the one who is at work cleaning you. And then maybe the last thing here that I'll say is that the manner of our sanctification is such that it begins with the union that, as a believer, that you are united to Christ branches to a vine in which you draw life. And as you draw life, then you live out that life as God has called you. So looking at Romans 6 then, you're sanctified in your union with Christ. We see that in verses 3 and 4. You died with him. You resurrect with him. Baptism there is a sign and a seal of this thing so that we understand that which is signified to us in baptism is then made real to us in our regeneration and in our sanctification. Dying to sin because Christ put it to death. Mortification is the old style language that we call this. Vivification, living unto. is then living out that holy life, because you were raised with new life. And so Paul there speaks of this union, like he does in Colossians 3, with sanctification of putting off and putting on. So Christ did something to us by filling us with his spirit, and now we live out this life of sanctification by putting off the dead, the old, the fleshly, and putting on the new, that which is alive, vivification. So mortification, vivification, if you want two good old English style words that understand our sanctification, mortification, vivification, if those two words are hardened and stumble over, you die to sin, you live to righteousness. Death and resurrection. Sanctification, according to Paul in Ephesians 4.15, is also a corporate matter, that we all together grow up into our head, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so yes, individually, we are all being sanctified. Together, as God's people, we are also being sanctified as we come together. And we do this, as we say, mainly, but not exclusively, through the means of grace, the word of God, prayer, and the sacraments. We say with the psalmist in Psalm 119, verse 11, I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. And then finally, we recognize that sanctification is by faith. Acts 26, 18, to open their eyes, Luke writes, to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me." Faith enables you to grasp the Lord Jesus Christ, to receive and rest upon Him, to be united to Him. By faith, you accept no longer that sin has mastery over you. Your faith grasps power of the Spirit, who not only cleanses you, but enables you to overcome sin. That, brother, sister, that is sanctification. I urge you to live unto righteousness, considering yourselves dead to sin. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we rejoice and give you thanks for this work that you've done in us, that you are doing in us even now. We are thankful that we are being cleansed from our pollution, that we are washed, that we are regenerated, that you see us as those who are holy, separate unto you. Bless us now in our living, living unto righteousness for your glory. We pray through Christ. Amen.