Well, it really is a delight for me to be here with you at this conference. I enjoy greatly coming to the Greenville Spring Conference, and one of the delights is meeting up with dear friends that I haven't seen for a year or so, and picking up where we left off a year or so, as if we had been seeing each other the day before. It's a great joy to share fellowship with you. I'm grateful for your patience with an accent that isn't quite from here. I've told some of you this before. One of my early trips to the States, I was preaching near Seattle, and a little boy turned to his mother and said, Mommy, is that man from China? which I thought was a little harsh on my mellifluous, educated Glasgow accent. Mind you, it actually got worse in Cambridge when someone asked me which part of England I was from. But the nadir of my humiliation was when someone asked me was I from Edinburgh. And being a Glaswegian, that just about was the pits. That would be like calling Robert E. Lee a northerner. Only worse. Well, it's a privilege for me in so many ways to be here, to be associated with the work of the seminary. and to be invited to minister God's word to you. I want to assure you that before I speak to your hearts, and I trust I do speak by God's grace to your hearts, I seek first to speak to my own. I tend to live as a minister with the conviction that most people are just like me and that if I need to hear this, then by and large, most of you need to hear it also. The topic I've been assigned for this evening is the subject of sanctification. And there are at least two pressing reasons why we should attend very carefully to the subject of sanctification. The first is because sanctification is priority number two on God's heavenly agenda. As we saw last night, priority number one is the exaltation and honor of His Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. It is God's great purpose to make Him the firstborn among many brothers. And to that end, our Father has predestined us to be conformed to the likeness of His Son in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. So, if the exaltation and honor of the Lord Jesus Christ is the Father's number one priority in his heavenly agenda, then the sanctification of the brothers of Jesus Christ is priority number two on his heavenly agenda. And if this is God's great priority, we need to be asking ourselves right at the outset, is this my priority? Is my sanctification, which as we shall see essentially is conformity to the likeness of Jesus Christ, the prototypical sanctified man. Is this my priority? Is this the passion of my being that my life and lifestyle might be conformed to the great priority of my Father in Heaven, which is to conform me to the likeness of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. The sanctification of the people of God is not an end in itself. It is within the triune being and glory of God, a means to a greater end, and that greater end is the eternal glorious exaltation of Jesus Christ. And we need then to ask ourselves at the outset, as we begin to reflect on this subject, is my sanctification a priority that aligns with the priority of my Father in heaven? There is a second pressing reason why we should give careful and thoughtful attention to this subject, and it's this, of course. without holiness, no one will see the Lord. Holiness of life, likeness to the Lord Jesus Christ, isn't an option for us to consider. It is in Holy Scripture both a command for us to obey, be holy, for I am holy, says the Lord. It is a command for us to obey, and it is a passion that we are summoned to pursue. Likeness to Jesus Christ is to be the pulse beat that drives and shapes and defines and contours all that we are as men and women and boys and girls who have come to believe into Jesus Christ. And we need to face up to this stark biblical truth. Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord, for you cannot be savingly united to Jesus Christ and not thereby become conformed in some manner to Jesus Christ. And that's why Greenville Seminary exists, not simply to develop an educated ministry. Thank God it exists for that. But alongside that, undergirding that, surrounding that, animating that, it exists to produce for the church a godly or a godlike ministry. Now, of course, an educated ministry and a godlike ministry are not mutually exclusive things. Indeed, they interpenetrate one another. Learning true godly scholasticism It's not inimical to likeness to Jesus Christ. But we need to realize that we can be furnished with all the intellectual attainments that this seminary or any seminary could give to us. But if there be no manifest likeness to Jesus Christ, our ministries will have Ichabod written over them. And so, as we come to reflect on this subject, we need to be asking, is my sanctification, my likeness to my Savior Jesus Christ, the passion of my heart and the priority of my life? For it is the passion of the Father's heart, and it is the priority of the Father's purposes in this world concerning His church. Now, if there is one text in the New Covenant Scriptures that defines for us the New Covenant ministry of the Holy Spirit, it is that verse that has already been highlighted throughout the conference, John 16, verse 14, where our Lord Jesus Christ says, He, meaning the Holy Spirit, the alter Christus, as Luther so beautifully calls the other comforter. He, when he comes, will glorify me. The great preeminent note of the new covenant ministry of the Holy Spirit is to glorify the Redeemer. I think it was Bill Shisco earlier who said that This is often referred to as the spirit spotlight ministry. I live in the city of Cambridge, as most of you will know, and Cambridge proliferates with beautiful old buildings, and perhaps the jewel in the crown is King's College Chapel. It's a magnificent 15th century building. It took about 100 years to build. It must have been an astonishing sight. in medieval Cambridge to see this magnificent chapel being built. But if you were to come to Cambridge on a dark evening, you would see it illuminated by a myriad of floodlights. But you don't see anyone looking at the floodlights. You don't see anyone saying, my, what amazing wattage and voltage is being produced here. They are captivated. by the grandeur of the lineaments that the spotlights are defining for you, the soaring edifice of King's College Chapel. And the great ministry of the Spirit is to lift up Jesus Christ and to say, see how great He is. And I thank my brothers and sisters in Christ that Perhaps the great note of the sanctified man and of the sanctified woman is this. They will be people who are always saying into their own hearts and out to the world, see how great he is. And so this evening, I want to spend a little time reflecting on this subject. Billy didn't know, almost to the last moment, quite what to do. I thought initially I would look at one passage, one Peter in particular, but I thought it might be more helpful if I highlighted a number of features of sanctification that the New Testament, in particular, sets before us to define for us or to contour for us the shape and the style of the sanctified life. And the first thing I would say is this, that sanctification is the agreed purpose of God, the Holy Trinity. Sanctification is the agreed purpose of God, the Holy Trinity. It is, number one, the specific purpose of God the Father, who, says Paul to the Ephesians, chose us in Christ from before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. It is the grand design of our Father in heaven to make a people holy. to the praise of the glory of His Son, Jesus Christ. And in times eternal with His Son and the Holy Spirit, in that great covenant of redemption, the Father initiated this grand design that there might be a people holy unto the Lord, a people who will be creaturely analogues of the holy man, Jesus Christ. It is the specific purpose of God the Father. But secondly, it is the purchase goal of Christ's redemption. Remember how Paul puts it so beautifully in Ephesians 5, speaking to husbands, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her in order that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word. He gave himself up for her that he might sanctify her. Sanctification is the purchased goal of the redemption accomplished by our Lord Jesus Christ. I don't think we sufficiently reflect on the significance of the cross of Christ for our sanctification as we do with the cross of Christ for our salvation. Let me try an instance. this in one particular area. Think of the area of redemption. Christ redeemed us by his precious blood. He set us free from the power of sin and from the dominion of darkness. And it's that freedom that Christ has purchased for us by his ransoming, redeeming blood. It is within that freedom that we live out the sanctified life. We could not live sanctified lives but for the blood-bought freedom purchased for us by our Savior, Jesus Christ. Our salvation is steeped and sprinkled in the bloody redemption of our Savior, Jesus Christ. And the cross, the cross stands at the heart of our sanctification because Jesus Christ himself is our sanctification. Not only the wisdom from God, our righteousness, but also our sanctification and redemption. Which is why Jesus in that great chapter in the 15th of John would say to his disciples, I am the vine and you are the branches. It's as you abide in me. It's as you abide in me that you will bear much fruit. It is I, the sanctified one, who produces sanctification in my people. Your sanctification and mine is the purchase goal of Christ's redemption. He gave himself up for his bride that he might sanctify her, that he might present her spotless before his Father. And then thirdly, Sanctification is the all-absorbing focus of the Spirit's present ministry. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of holiness. And if I could condense in a sentence what the New Testament's teaching on sanctification is, it would be that the Spirit comes to replicate in us what He first produced in Christ. This is the Spirit's ministry of replication. The sanctified life that He first accomplished in the human life of our Savior, Jesus Christ, He comes to replicate analogically in the lives of all the people of Jesus Christ. He comes to take the life of the prototypical sanctified man, Jesus Christ, And within the creaturely analogs of our own lives, He comes to impress that image upon us. He comes to replicate Christ. That He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And in that regard, He is the Spirit of Christ. And I want to pause for a moment and make this critical observation, that the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the believer's sanctification is his ministry as not the Holy Spirit per se, but as the Spirit of Christ in particular. He comes to us as the Spirit of the risen, ascended, glorified, regnant, reigning Jesus Christ. And it is as the Spirit of Christ that he comes himself as the seal of the Father to impress on our renewed souls the impress of the man of heaven, the sanctified man, Jesus Christ. It's as the Spirit of Christ that He is the seal that we were hearing about so wonderfully and so richly this morning. Remember those enigmatic words, which are so much starker in Greek than they are in our English translations in John 7, 39. Up till that time, says John parenthetically, the Spirit was not yet. He didn't mean that. There wasn't a Holy Spirit. The Spirit was there from the beginning, from times eternal. The Spirit was there regenerating, renewing, and sanctifying the people of God in all the ages of history. What did John mean when he wrote, the Spirit was not yet, because Christ was not yet glorified? He meant the Spirit had not yet come as the Spirit of Christ, the exalted, regnant, reigning, gospel fulfilling, son of God, servant of the Lord. He comes as the spirit of Christ to replicate in us what he first perfectly accomplished in Jesus Christ. And my brothers and sisters, this he will certainly do. It was great to hear Ryan speak earlier of the concerted harmony in the Holy Trinity. and what the Father has purposed and what the Son has purchased, the Spirit certainly will accomplish and apply. Because He is Himself the present divine down payment, the Arabon, of a guaranteed future glory. And if you're a Christian tonight, this is true for you. He who began a good work in you will bring that work to completion. He will not leave it half done, half baked, half complete. He will certainly bring it to purpose and to pass. He will let nothing frustrate him. The triune God did not initiate a work of sanctification to have that work ultimately or in any wise frustrated. And maybe you're thinking, well, Ian, that sounds very wonderful, but is that not an excuse for personal indifference to holiness? If you think that, you've never understood grace. When Paul writes in Romans 6, Shall we then continue in sin that grace may abound? He says, Meganoital, by no means, God forbid, let it never even cross the threshold of your mind. We died to sin. When grace enters your heart, you thirst after holiness. Your greatest shame and sorrow with every passing day is that your thirst for holiness is so little and so lacking. Your great shame is that you have made such little advance in holiness. You don't sit back and say, well, now he who began a good work in me will bring that work to completion. I'll simply sit back and cruise to glory. Grace changes everything about us. It changes how we feel. It changes how we think. It changes how we behave. It touches the affectional wellspring of our inmost being. And the Spirit comes, and as the Spirit of Christ, He comes then to replicate the sanctification of the prototypical man of God, Jesus Christ, in our sinful, yet sinful, humanities. And He does it as the Spirit of Christ in every conceivable area of life. He does it, for example, in mortification. If by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, Romans 8, 13, you will live. If by the Spirit of Christ, he is saying, you put to death, because he comes as the Spirit of Christ to bring the power and grace of the death of Christ to attack the root of sin yet remaining within us. Paul later in Romans 8, you will know, Is it 826? It is 826, isn't it? He says, the spirit helps us in our weakness. And he uses a beautiful double compound Greek word. It's got 17 letters, and we translate it by helps. I'm not as bashful as Ryan. Sunantilambanatai. I remember when my boys were small, I had this idea that I would teach them most days, interesting words I'd come across. And one day I said, boys, I come across a great word. What's that, daddy? Sunanti lambanitai. Well, it went in Jonathan's ear there and out there. But David, David's different. David, I told him what it was. It means the spirit stands together with us. but over against us to help us. Oh, David was seven, Jonathan was five. Well, later that week, on the Sunday, friends came unexpectedly to church in Scotland, and we invited them back for dinner, delightful couple, and we're sitting, having our chicken, and David, who's seven, turns to Uncle Bob and says, Uncle Bob, do you know the Greek word for help? Bob looks at him and says, no, and David says, Sunantilambanatai. And I think there and then Bob McIntyre thought I fed my children double Greek compounds for breakfast. But you know, it's a magnificent word. The spirit helps us in our weakness. Don't you feel every day that you rise? Don't you feel how poorly, how pathetically you give yourself to the life of holiness. You hear the Lord saying every day as you rise, be ye holy for I am holy. And you say, Lord, Lord, have mercy on me the sinner. And then you remember the spirit helps us in our weakness. The gospel is wonderful, you know. God, mustn't get sidetracked here, but God sees us in all the frailty and fragility of our weakness and need, and he remembers that we are dust. You know why? Because there's dust on the throne of glory. There is glorified dust at the right hand of the majesty on high, and God knows the frailty of our frame, not by the omniscience, that is native to Him, but by the incarnate glory that He embraced in His Son, Jesus Christ. The Spirit helps us in our weakness, and so we see that sanctification is the agreed purpose of God, the Trinity. Everything flows out from the triune God. And everything ultimately goes back to the triune God, for from him, through him, and to him are all things. To him be the glory. Isn't that the confession of the believer who is growing or longing after sanctification? The second thing I'd say is this. that sanctification is an act of God's grace before it is a work of God's grace. Now, sanctification is a work of God's grace. It is a progressive work of God's grace that will not be completed and perfected until we are brought through death into the nearer presence of Jesus Christ and we're conformed perfectly to his likeness. But prior to sanctification being a work of God's grace, it is biblically an act of God's grace. That's why we read those verses in 1 Peter, chapter 1, verse 2, where he speaks of the sanctification of the Spirit. And I'm sure he's speaking there of that same reality that he speaks of elsewhere in the New Testament, to the sanctified in Christ Jesus in Corinth. and in many other places. To the people later in Corinth, do you not know that the immoral will not inherit the kingdom of God? And he gives that catalog of sins that this world thinks good and God calls evil. And Paul then says, in such were some of you, but you were washed. you were sanctified. You see, in union with Jesus Christ, Christian believers have experienced a definitive, absolute, irreversible separation from sin, its prevailing power, as well as its guilt. In union with Jesus Christ, we have died to sin. And that's true of the youngest, weakest, frailest Christian believer as it is of the most seasoned saint. The youngest, weakest child of God has died to sin no less than the Apostle Paul himself. Shall we then continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means. We died to sin. Sin is the great contradiction of our union with Christ. But progressive sanctification is rooted in what John Murray calls definitive sanctification. And it is that definitive, once for all, ineradicable, irreversible separation from sin that our progressive sanctification flows from. It's a great thing, you know. It's a wonderful thing. And at times it almost feels an utterly unbelievable thing that we have died to sin. Satan comes and says, you, you've died to sin. You have died to sin. And our answer must ever be in union with my blessed savior, Jesus Christ. I died to sin. And more than that, I'd been raised to newness of life by the power of God's spirit. uniting us to Jesus Christ, there has been an irreversible breach. We no longer are under the dominion of sin. We still sin. Sin yet remains in us, but as an unwelcome, unholy intruder, because we've been united to the one who died to sin and who rose again to newness of life. So sanctification is the agreed purpose of God, the Trinity. Sanctification is an act of God's grace before it's a work of God's grace. And thirdly, there's sanctification. Now, notice that this is vital. Sanctification is rooted in the grammar of the gospel. Now, sadly, in Britain, we live in days when grammar is almost a bad word. I have students in my congregation at Cambridge University who don't know what a split infinitive is. And then I discovered that Webster's Dictionary now homologates split infinitives. It's a bad sign, a bad sign. The gospel has a grammar, and that grammar is very simple. That the imperatives of God flow out of the indicatives of His grace. And what that means is that when God commands us to be holy, That command for us to be holy is a command that flows out of His grace to us in Jesus Christ and the giving to us of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Paul puts it dramatically, doesn't he? In Romans 12, he's been proclaiming the gospel, expounding the gospel, and then he says, my brothers, I beseech you by the mercies of God to present your bodies as living sacrifices. By the mercies of God, here is the wellspring out of which you will present yourself to God as living sacrifices. As the mercies of God capture your soul and engage your mind, you will be drawn sweetly to give yourself to the Lord. It's the same with the Ten Commandments. I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before you. I am the Redeemer God, the rescuing God, the Savior God, who has carried you on eagle's wings. I've delivered you from the house of bondage. Therefore, you shall have no other gods before me." Now, this grammar of the gospel is so absolutely vital for this reason. Well, there's a twin reason, really. In the first place, it will preserve us from legal obedience and produce within us true evangelical obedience. But secondly, it will keep our Christianity from becoming metallic and clinical. Have people ever asked you what the Reformed faith is? And if they have, how have you responded? See, we give out a questionnaire, what is the Reformed faith? I wonder what you would say You know what the heart of the Reformed faith is? Glad-hearted, loving, all-round obedience to the God of my salvation. You say, well, is that not just the Bible? Absolutely, that's the Bible. The compelling power of the Bible's exhortations lie in God's grace to us in Jesus Christ. That's why pastorally, my brother pastors, that's why pastorally, if someone comes to you or you go to them because they're struggling with obedience, the last thing you talk to them about is obedience. If someone's struggling with obedience, their problem isn't obedience, their problem is the gospel. Now, I don't mean that you say nothing about obedience, but you need to go to the root of the problem. They've lost sight of the glory of the gospel, the wonder of the gospel, the sweetness of the gospel, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. When someone comes and says, oh pastor, I'm struggling with this aspect of obedience. It's always, always the case. that they're struggling because they've drifted from the grace of God and Jesus Christ. And that's why you need to preach grace to them so that they might understand what obedience is. Love will make obedience sweet. So sanctification is rooted in the grammar of the gospel. Fourthly, and I say this hopefully for your encouragement and mine, sanctification is horticultural and not mechanical. Now this is language that Ryan will know well from John Owen. The Christian grows in holiness in a variable manner. Sometimes, most times, the growth is erratic. and irregular. It's not even and predictable. The growth is horticultural, not mechanical. Listen to John Owen. Just as the growth of plants is not by a constant insensible progress, but by sudden gusts and motions, so the growth of believers consists principally in some intense, vigorous actings of grace on great occasions." Why is it pleased the Lord not to give us steady uninterrupted growth in holiness. Surely that we might cry to him, wait on him, seek his face. And often it's in the midst of trials and crisis that he is pleased in his wise, inscrutable providence to bring into our lives that He grants us to grow the more into the likeness of His Son. Just as our Lord Jesus Christ learned obedience by the things He suffered, and just as there were climactic moments in our Savior's earthly pilgrimage, so sanctification is not a steady, uninterrupted climb to Christ. It is an erratic climb. It is a climb opposed by the world, the flesh, and the devil. It's a climb that battles with the indwelling sin that yet remains within us. And in all of that, the Lord is seeking to humble us, that we might recognize that it is He alone who gives the increase. It's as you abide in me, says Jesus, and my words abide in you. It's as you draw out from me as by faith you live your life out of me. For that's what it means to be a Christian, to live your life out of Jesus Christ. Galatians 2 20. That you will grow in grace. And that's why the Lord often is pleased to bring us into crisis and difficulties and trials and troubles. That he might rid us of all our pride. How easily pride How, oh, in my own heart, God forgive me. Pride is such, such a contradiction to everything that God has given to us in his son, Jesus Christ. And yet how stubbornly pride will cling. God brings us into trials and troubles and difficulties and disappointments. not because he is cruel or cold, but because he knows that it's only in such occasions we will cast ourselves unreservedly upon him and draw out from him the grace that we need. Now in that quote from Owen, he talks about The growth of believers consists principally in some intense vigorous actings of grace on great occasions. What do you think those great occasions are? Well, it seems to me that those great occasions that Owen is thinking about are principally occasions that occur within the fellowship. of the worship of the people of God. David Clarkson, John Owen's assistant and then successor, wrote a wonderful brief, relatively brief treatise entitled Public Worship, Always to be Preferred Above Private Worship. And that's why in the Westminster Directory, beautifully I think, we have the council that If we come late to worship and the people of God are singing God's praises, we don't just sit down and engage in little private devotions, but we join in with the people of God where they are. Because God most delights to be in the midst of his people. It is together with all the saints that we learn how high and wide and deep and long is the love of God. Of course, we need to cultivate private devotions. Of course, we need to be in the secret place. Of course, we need quiet times, family worship. Please, God, yes. But brothers and sisters in Christ, let me plead with you, there is nothing under heaven like gathering on the Lord's day with the Lord's people. There is nothing like it. It is the antipast of heavenly bliss. It's the kingdom fixed within. It is the foretaste of the glory. And we need to learn to prize the more, the public assemblings of the people of God. And so in that regard, the Spirit delights to bless to us the diligent use of God's ordained means of grace, which come to their fruition and to their fullest expression. in the public assemblies of the people of God. We're told at the end of Luke chapter two of our Lord Jesus Christ that he grew in wisdom, in stature, in favor with God and with man. How did that happen, do you think? Well, as we heard so excellently earlier today by the ministry of the Holy Spirit on his human nature. But how did the Spirit do that? He was in the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. We're told almost nothing about the life of our Lord Jesus Christ prior to his baptism and the public inauguration of his ministry, but we're told two significant things. He went to worship on the day set apart by God, and he was obedient to his parents, boys and girls. Let me tell you two of the marks of a saving work of God in your hearts and souls. I hope you're listening. You will be gladly obedient to your parents. Not because they're always right, because they're not. They sometimes get it wrong. And I hope when they do, they'll come and say, sorry. We get it wrong. But God loves little children to obey their parents. Obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. And when the Lord Jesus Christ is in your heart, his obedience to his parents will in some measure be transmitted to you. And secondly, there will be a delight in going with your mum and dad to the house of God on the day of God to worship God. I rejoiced when they said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord. God delights to bless the diligent use of the ordinary means of grace. There are no shortcuts to sanctification. And it's within the soil of the fellowship of the saints that God is most pleased to meet with us. And by the power of his spirit, to bring the life of Christ near to us, and actually to bring that life by the power of the Spirit of Christ into us. And the last thing I would say as time hurries on is this. I haven't actually said in so many words what sanctification actually is. So let me close by telling you this, that sanctification is essentially likeness to Jesus Christ. God's priority number one is to conform his believing people to the likeness of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. Sanctification which means at heart being set apart by the Lord to be the Lord's, is patterned after the one who was prototypically set apart by the Lord to be the Lord's, Jesus Christ. Where there is no likeness to Jesus. There is no holiness, and where there's no holiness, there's no heaven. And for those of us who are preachers and pastors, we need to take this very much to heart. We might be reformed in our theology and in our epistemology from the top of our heads to the soles of our feet. But my brothers, if we are not like Jesus, we're not holy and we're certainly not reformed. And so the question is, do you, do I remind people of Jesus? Paul tells the Corinthians that beholding the glory of the Lord, we're being transformed into His image from one degree of glory to another. This comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. God's grand design is to make us like His Son, who was full of grace and full of truth, who was gentle, who wouldn't break a bruised reed, who was fierce to the enemies of God. But oh, how tender and gentle and patient and long-suffering to the people of God. Some time ago, I had these words from Calvin's Institutes, printed and pasted into the front flyleaf of my Bible. They sum up, for me at least, everything there is to say about being a Christian. If you're interested, they're from 2.16.19, Christ alone in all the clauses of the Creed. Now, when you're in a homiletics class, You'll be told, and rightly in the main, don't weary your people with long quotes, especially from John Owen. Like Ryan, I've seen people glaze over. You live with the quote, and it's part of you, and you're just excited to tell people. But Calvin's different. Listen to this. This is theology. Calvin writes, we see that our whole salvation and all its parts are comprehended in Christ, Acts 4.12. We should therefore take care not to derive the least portion of it from anywhere else. If we seek salvation, we are taught by the very name of Jesus that it is of him. If we seek any other gifts of the Spirit, they are found in His anointing. If we seek strength, it lies in His dominion. If purity, in His conception. If gentleness, it appears in His birth. For by His birth, He was made like us in all respects, that He might learn to feel our pain. If we seek redemption, it lies in His passion. if acquittal in His condemnation, if remission from the curse in His cross, if satisfaction in His sacrifice, if purification in His blood, if reconciliation in His descent into hell, if mortification of the flesh in His tomb, if newness of life in His resurrection, if immortality in the same, if inheritance of the heavenly kingdom in his entrance into heaven, if protection, if security, if abundant supply of all blessings in his kingdom, if untroubled expectation of judgment in the power given him to judge, in short, since rich store of every kind of good abounds in him. Let us drink our fill from this fountain and from no other. Christ is our wisdom from God, our righteousness, our sanctification, and our redemption. Jesus Christ is the salvation of God. All things are in Him and He is yours, says Paul. And it is out of Jesus Christ that we live the sanctified life. The life I live, says Paul, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and who gave Himself for me. I live out of the sanctified man, Jesus Christ. So what does sanctification look like? It looks like Jesus Christ. And so we pray, gracious Spirit of Christ, make me like my Savior. And you know what the Spirit says, that will be my pleasure. Let us pray. Our great and our glorious and ever-blessed God, we bow to bless you for our savior, Jesus Christ. We thank you for him, that he loved us and gave himself for us. We thank you, Lord, that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you have united us to your son and that we are one with him. And we come to you again this night, Father, with a simple prayer. To be like Jesus. To be like Jesus, all I ask. To be like him all through life's journey from earth to glory. All I ask. To be like him. Lord, your grand design is to conform us to the likeness of your son. Be pleased to do that, Father. that he might see of the travel of his soul in us and be satisfied, and that you will surely, having begun such a good work in us, bring that work to completion. Make us like him, we pray. And we ask it, Lord, not for our sanctification, but for his glory. Amen.