So, I want to just do a little bit of review, partly because the doctrine of sanctification is so important and sometimes we just take it for granted. We just think in terms of, you know, I'm saved and I'm trying to live for the Lord and that's really what is involved, but it's quite a bit more. And I put in the notes something about the importance of maintaining a distinction between justification and sanctification. And there is quite a number of things. I think I have a chart that I made up some years ago with the contrasting differences between justification and sanctification. But the main difference is that justification is a change of our legal status, whereas sanctification is a change of heart and life. So justification is something that God does in total. We don't do anything. In sanctification, ultimately Christ is the one who sanctifies us, but we cooperate. Maybe cooperate's not the best word. We have responsible participation involved in sanctification where we're yielding ourselves unto the Lord. We're thinking about this. We're praying for this. and we're striving in a number of areas of which we have mentioned several of those. It's interesting when you think about Roman Numeral I, the subjects of sanctification basically are saved people, but they put it this way. Those who are sanctified are those who are united with Christ, those who not only are in union with Christ but are effectually called, which is regeneration, the new birth, and those who have received a new heart and a new spirit. So that's who is being sanctified. Not just anybody in the world is being sanctified. People are improving maybe their moral lives or they're improving themselves in some way, but that's not the biblical doctrine of sanctification. The description that we are given, Roman Numeral 2, of sanctification is really interesting. There are three assertions, and I think the first one is as equally important as the second and third. Sanctification is something real. It's actual. It's personal. It's something that is being carried on within us. And this sanctifying work that is real and actual within us is being carried on by the Lord Jesus Christ through His atoning death and sacrifice and resurrection and by His Spirit. And the Spirit uses the Word of God. So this is really like a doctrinal description of how we're sanctified. This is happening to us. And so we should see and feel the effects of the sanctifying work of the Word and Spirit by Christ in our individual lives. And then thirdly, the activities of sanctification were actually four. Four activities associated with sanctification. The first one is an action that God performs. The last three are those that we participate in. That's where we really get to the participation aspect. Really from paragraph 1 through to this point, almost to the end of paragraph 1, everything is about what God is doing to sanctify us. And then, so the first activity is the dominion of the whole body is destroyed. So we have a sin nature and we have the domination of sin over us. And so Romans 6 of 14 is one of the verses that fit under this concept. Romans 6.14 says, "...for sin shall not have dominion over you." That is, sin is not going to have dominion over you any longer. It previously had dominion over us, but once we were saved, it doesn't have dominion over us, for we're not under the covenant of works anymore. We're not under the law, but we are under grace. We're in the covenant of grace. And so that's a change of kingdoms. So we were in the kingdom of darkness, and now we're in the kingdom of light. But then the last three activities are very practical. the various lusts are more and more weakened and mortified. So all of us are facing temptations, lusts, and so forth, and we are to mortify these, which means to put them to death. And they are being weakened, and they are being mortified. through God's grace. And third, there is saving graces that are more and more quickened and strengthened within us. And I like to put these two side by side. One's negative, one's positive. One is we're getting rid of that which is dishonoring to God. And one is God has given us graces, and these graces are to be strengthened and quickened, given life more and more. The more I grow in love and kindness and patience, the more I'm going to be like Christ. And the more I say no to various temptations and sins, the more I'm going to be made after His image and likeness. And then, of course, the last activity we concluded with the practice of all true holiness without which no one shall see the Lord." And the practice of true holiness... different people might come up with different explanations as to what they mean by that because Hebrews 12 and verse 14 where that phrase is drawn from is not definitive necessarily with one thing or the other. But at some point I picked up from somebody that the best understanding of this has to do with with the means of grace that God has given to us. We must avail ourselves of the means of grace that God has given us. And I gave you a list of those. We won't recount those, but those are very, very important. So this evening, We come, fourthly, to the struggle for sanctification. The struggle for sanctification, Romans 4. And that is found in paragraph 2, which says, This sanctification is throughout in the whole man, yet imperfect in this life. There abides still some remnants of corruption in every part. Hence arises a continual and irreconcilable war. the flesh lusting against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh." Now a great deal can be said about the struggle for sanctification. And they could have put various phrases from the Scripture. They're going to give us a little bit more as we go to the third paragraph. But what they've given us, I believe, is two truths that prove the struggle. Now the reason I think that that they put it like this. And the reason that I'm convinced that these two truths prove the struggle is because everything that we have in the first paragraph on sanctification basically is You know, this is the work of God, even in the areas where we have responsible participation. The positive presentation of those things encourages us that, boy, we get saved, and it's like a race car. We're just mowing through and past the opponents to the finish line of holiness and sanctification. It's all, you know, as it were, easy and quick, and we're successful with it. as we've read our Bibles, whether we're reading in 1 Samuel or the book of Romans, we know experientially and intellectually that there's a struggle in sanctification. So it's not that it has to be proven to us, but scripturally we want to see that that's the case. Because if you think just simply that this, you know, I'm saved, I'm delivered from sin, and I'm a child of God, and then a few months into your Christian experience, you begin to feel, you know, temptation, and you begin to wrestle with certain things, then you're going to be attacked of Satan, and you're going to struggle with, well, maybe I'm not really saved, or maybe there's something seriously wrong with me, maybe I haven't gotten A, B, or C exactly right in some way in my life, And so I need to have some improvements made. So the confession is communicating to us there is a struggle and all true believers are going to have a struggle that they're going to deal with in their lives. So the two truths that prove this struggle that's given to us here, the first one is that this sanctification concerns the whole person for his whole life. I didn't word that too well, but I've smoothed it out just a little bit. This sanctification concerns the whole person and for the whole of his life. So, when we're saved until we die, there is Our whole man, our thoughts, our eyes, our ears, where we go, what we think, all the members as Paul speaks of them in Romans 6, 1 Corinthians 12, and other passages, Galatians 5. Every part needs to come more and more into conformity to Christ. and to His glory. And it's a process that's going to take the whole of our lives. We're never going to, you know, reach 60 and, oh, boy, everything's hunky-dory, or maybe 70. No. The sins that we struggle with in our 20s are going to be different than our 40s, and then those in the 60s are going to be different than that. And even as people come near to their deathbeds, there are still some struggles that saints of God face in every avenue and season of life. The second truth proving this struggle is that this sanctification is never completed, and I've bled over into that. And so, let's just read a few verses here in Romans 7, beginning with verse 15. For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice. But what I hate, that I do. If then I do what I will not do, I agree with the law that it is good. But now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that in me that is in my flesh, nothing good dwells. For to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do I do not do, but the evil I will not do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, It is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good." And then verse 23 adds, "...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." So here's just a few verses. I'm looking forward to us getting to those in our Sunday afternoon services. But what these verses are saying, this is Paul's experience as a genuine, true, saved person. He's planted churches. He's evangelized various places. He suffered greatly for the Lord. And he says, the things that I know that I should be doing and I will to do them, I find myself slipping up on those. Things that I know I shouldn't be doing and I don't want to do them, I find myself succumbing to those things. So his experience, our experience, certainly bears they are both the same. We recognize this struggle that we're having here. And what we see when we think about the fact that sanctification will never be completed in this life is that there will always be some corruptions, some remnants of corruption left within us. And some things that we think we have gotten rid of a certain area of temptation or a certain area of weakness in our spiritual lives, we will find that it will revisit us again at a later point in time. So there will always be some remnants of corruption in us and there will be a continual and irreconcilable war between the flesh and the spirit. Between the spirit and the flesh. These two will never be reconciled. There is no way to reconcile them because they are diametrically opposed to one another. The flesh is our sin nature. The Spirit has to do with the indwelling presence of the Spirit bringing us into godliness. Galatians 5.17 says, For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit lusts against the flesh. And these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. That's Galatians 5.17. Very similar to what we've read there in Romans. chapter 7. That brings us to our fifth and final Roman numeral and a part of this teaching, the success of sanctification. So there's a struggle in sanctification, but there's also success in sanctification. If all you ever know in your Christian life is struggle and you don't have any sense of success in that, there may be something wrong and something that needs to be investigated. If all you have in your own heart and mind is success and there never is any struggle, then there may be some reason for concern also. The wisdom here of our confession is very, very helpful in the living of the Christian life. So the third paragraph on the success of sanctification says, in which war, the war that was just mentioned at the end of paragraph two, the irresistible and continual war, although the remaining corruption for a time may much prevail." Yet through the continual supply of strength from the sanctifying Spirit of Christ, the regenerate part does overcome. And so the saints grow in grace, perfecting holiness in the fear of God, pressing after a heavenly life in evangelical obedience to all the commands which Christ as Head and King in His Word has prescribed them." So what we're seeing here is that even while being at war, the flesh against the Spirit, the two are contrary, they're going one against the other, there's going to be no cessation of the battle there. the saints will nevertheless prevail," is what the Confession tells us. Because the graces of the Christian life have been given to the believers by Christ with the intent that while we may falter and fail at points along the continuum, in the final analysis we will be victorious over sin and the flesh by the work of Christ and through His Word and Spirit. So if you look with me at chapter 7 and verse 24, I want you to see this. So we've read a good section, verses 15-23, and now we begin with Romans 7.24. Listen to what it says. Oh, wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 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. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son In the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit." This is one of those great, glorious, and wonderful passages of Holy Scripture in which we see after Kind of a discouraging passage about we will to do it, but we fail. And we say we're not going to do it, but we do it in disobedience to God. That there is a statement that, well, what in the world are we going to do with this sinful creature and body that we have? And he says, I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord. So here what you're seeing is the reinforcement of what we had seen earlier under the description of sanctification where we saw that our sanctification is through the virtue of Jesus Christ. And we could have elaborated on that. His sinless life and His substitutionary atonement, it is the virtue that Christ has that saves us. It is His righteousness put to our account, but it's also, that's imputation, but there's also in sanctification the impartation of righteousness progressively and bit by bit by the Spirit of God working through the Word that makes us more and more holy and more and more sanctified. Now, the particulars that we have here, we're actually, I think, told that the success of our sanctification is attributable to six norms. These are the norms. And I gave Scripture references for each of these. And you can look these up. But we're going to just... I'm just going to note each one and maybe say just a few things about these six norms. The first one is, The saints receive a continual supply of strength from the sanctifying Spirit." There's a verse that's come to mean more to me in the last 10 years than it did earlier in my Christian experience, but it's the verse where Jesus says in Luke 11 and verse 13 where He says, Fathers don't give their children a snake if they ask for bread. They won't give them a stone instead of giving them what they genuinely need. No, a human father won't do that. Neither will your father if you ask for the Spirit that he will give it to you. He will give the Spirit to us. We need the Spirit in sanctification. We need the Spirit in service for Christ. We need the Spirit to suffer in the way that God would have us to suffer in this world. We need the Spirit for pleasing and honoring and glorifying God. And we need the Spirit for sanctifying grace. And so we will be given a continual supply of the sanctifying work of the Spirit. And if we feel in some point in time that we lack something that is needed, then cry out to God and ask for the Spirit to come and give assistance unto you and to me. The second norm is that the saints are regenerate and shall overcome. What does he mean when it says we are regenerate? It means that previously we were dead in trespasses and sins, but we're no longer dead, we've been brought to life. We have spiritual life. The heart of stone has been ripped out and a heart of flesh has been placed in us. We are now the children of God. And the Lord does not start anything that He doesn't finish, just as Philippians 2, 12, and 13 clearly tell us and many other places. We are alive in Jesus Christ and we have been given spiritual life and shall overcome. I mean, there are so many other doctrines and so many other passages of Scripture that relate to this. And sometimes we don't think about this matter of, let's say, if you want to use eternal security, preservation and perseverance of the saints. It relates also to sanctification. We've been given new life and we're going to continue until we have reached the goal. Third norm, the saints will grow in grace. And grow means when we were born again, we were just infants. We just were born again. And then later, we're toddlers. And then before long, we're children. And then we're adolescents. And before long, we're young adults. And then we become middle-aged and hopefully mature saints of God. the saints will grow and mature. Something is wrong. If you ever have the sad experience of meeting a person that is 20 years of age that is still, because of some abnormality, is still like they're six years of age or three years of age, it is one of the saddest things to observe and see in all of the world. And in the spiritual life, there appears to be many, far more than there should be, of people that have not grown up in the Lord. Obviously, in the physical realm, it's not the fault of the person who has the physical or mental defect. But in the spiritual realm, if a person is truly born again, application of themselves As we mentioned earlier, involving our responsible participation of reading and taking in the Word and praying, just to mention two of the many means of grace, there will be spiritual growth in our lives. Fourthly, the saints will perfect holiness in the fear of God, which is not that different from growing in the grace and knowledge of the Lord. And then the fifth is, the saints are pressing after a heavenly city. I put as the leading scripture reference there, or the second one, Hebrews 12, 13 through 16, where we're told that Abraham, he didn't look at the promise of the Abrahamic covenant. as though the land itself was the fulfillment of it. And we read about this in our study in the book that we're reading for our cell groups in the second chapter. What he looked for was a heavenly city. And the fact of the matter is each of us who are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, there's some wonderful blessings and gifts and responsibilities for our sojourn here on this earth. But it is a sojourn. It is not our home. Our home is in the eternal presence of the Lord of glory. And we're striving toward that. We're living for that in the fear of God. And then the last of the norms is that the saints are living in evangelical obedience to all the commands of Christ. So I'll start at the end and say we have commands from God to obey. The commands of Christ are the same as the commands of God. There is no differentiating between them. We'll look at that concept when we get to the chapter more on the law of God. It is all of the commands. It's not left to us to pick and choose which of the commands we would like to adhere to or follow. Obviously, there's some commands that are not that difficult for us. And we, you know, we're proud of ourselves for obeying those. And the ones that we don't seem to like very much, we can grumble about or we can kind of excuse ourselves because they go against the grain for us too much. But we don't have that choice. In sanctification, we need to be obeying all of the commandments of God. And I want you to notice that this obedience is described and defined as evangelical obedience. You may not have seen a phrase like this before and you may not know exactly what he's talking about. But there's two concepts related to this I want you to know and then we'll conclude. The first one is that it is not legalistic obedience. In other words, this is not an obedience in which that has to do with man-made rules or with ecclesiastical authority. Our confession came out not just a generation or two after the Reformation, and the Roman Catholic Church, of course, the number of rules and regulations that they have, and then other Christian groups, even Protestant groups, have all kinds of other rules and regulations that are not scriptural. Those are kind of a legalistic thing. There's something to be gained by X, Y, and Z rules. But an evangelical obedience is an obedience that is based upon the gospel. the evangel, the message of the good news, the message of Jesus Christ and Him crucified and buried and raised again. This evangelical obedience is an obedience that we render unto God, not to earn any merit, but in order to please and honor the One who has saved us by His grace and mercy. But I think also associated with this evangelical obedience is that it is It is certainly not included in justification, as we saw previously, but nor is obedience in a sense the means by which we are sanctified either. Obedience is part of our living for God and serving Him, but it's an evangelical obedience in which we are trusting Christ to sanctify us and we are participating with Him in all the means of grace that He has given to us so that that work is brought to pass. And actually here two reasons are given for why the saints obey the commands of Christ. Why don't we obey God? because Jesus Christ is our Head and King. Two different ways of saying the same thing. And He has prescribed these commands for us in His Word. These are not commands that I might make up or that some other preacher somewhere might make up for people or ecclesiastical body, but these are the commands which Christ in His Word Wisdom and goodness has given to us. And so, trust that these things will be spiritually profitable and beneficial to us.