Glad to be back here again. In a few moments, I'm going to have you all stand in reverence of the reading of the Word of God. And frankly, when I was younger, I had no idea what Granddad meant whenever he said that. But recently, that's taken on a new meaning to me as I think about what we do here. And American churches are not especially liturgical or ceremonial. But we have this small little ceremony where we do stand in reverence for the reading of the Word of God. And I think it's so important that we remember in that moment. You know, we're not here to hear the preacher. We're here to worship God and to hear His Word and to hear His teaching. And in a day and age, you know, where Christians are divided into so many little political factions, you know, we get to stand here at the beginning of the week and we stand in the presence of God and remember our primary allegiance to God. So if y'all would find your way to the Gospel of John, chapter 17, verses 17 through 19, we're going to read three verses of this prayer of Jesus's in the Garden of Gethsemane. And if y'all have found your place there, I ask you please stand in reverence for the reading of the Word of God. Beginning in verse 17, sanctify them in truth. As you have sent me into the world, I have also sent them into the world. For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they themselves may also be sanctified in truth. God, we come before you today and I thank you for this passage of scripture and the work that Jesus Christ has done on the cross, the sanctification he has done for himself and the sanctification he has promised for us. Lord, I pray that you take this message. I pray that I don't misrepresent you, Lord, but I pray that you bless it, Lord, that perhaps it would be a blessing to those in the congregation, Lord. And I pray that I honor you in all that I say, do, and think. It's in your word. It's in your son's name I pray. Amen. Y'all can be seated. So, as you can see, From the title in the bulletin, I chose sanctification as a topic. And you know, what is sanctification? Good Christian men have spent years writing books on the topic. And I have, perhaps foolishly, set out to cover the topic in a single sermon. So, you know, here goes nothing. I hope you didn't have any plans this afternoon. And I apologize, Riley, for such an awful way to spend your birthday. But really, this has been a personal struggle of mine over the past couple of months. I've been saved for several years at this point. I've repented, I believe the gospel, I witness, I evangelize. But I've been asking, what's next in my Christian life? What can I do to further myself in the kingdom of God? What can I do to be a better Christian? I was looking for some sort of second baptism, I guess, some second baptism anointing by the Holy Spirit, which there is none. And so this idea of sanctification, this doctrine of sanctification has taken on special importance to me recently. Sanctification is kind of a vague word. It comes from the Latin sanctus, to make holy. It's this idea of making something holy. And I think holy is another one of those vague terms, just like sanctification. You know, we can think of something that's the color red. We can think of, you know, a dog or a cat. We can picture those things in our head. But the word sanctification and the word holy are kind of vague. We can't really picture something holy in your mind. So I came up with a little analogy that's going to kind of explain my perspective on sanctification. So I was imagining walking into a dog pound. These are just common dogs that have been picked up off the street. And that's kind of the idea of Holi. It takes the common and it sets it apart. So I'm in this dog pound and there's a whole bunch of common dogs. They're all mutts. There's no purebreds. There's nothing special about them. They're all common street mutts. But they're giving them away. So I want a pet dog. So I choose one. And I choose him. And I set him apart from the rest. So there's a whole bunch of common dogs. But I choose one. And I set him apart. And at that point, he's still just like all the other dogs. But then I take him home, and I take this dog and I feed him, I give him water, I train him, I make sure he doesn't wet the house, I teach him to use the restroom outside, I teach him tricks, I teach him to roll over, sit, you know, lay down, I teach him all these things. And gradually, this dog becomes more and more different from the dogs that were in the pound. He's no longer one of these common street dogs. He's a trained dog. He knows how to use the restroom outside. He knows how to play games. He can fetch. He's a different kind of dog now. He's uncommon. And since he's holy, I put that in quotes because he's not actually holy, but he's set apart. And that's kind of the idea, the picture of sanctification and holiness. And the most important part of that is what you do Neither sanctifies yourself nor earns your sanctification. You know, that dog didn't sanctify himself. I did it all. I trained him. I picked him out. I chose him. And he didn't earn his sanctification either. He wasn't like so good that I was like, oh, I'm going to choose this dog. I'm going to sanctify him. I'm going to make him different. No, it was my doing. And that's the same thing with your sanctification. It's not your doing. It's ultimately going to be God's doing. But I think it's easiest Christians to fall into one of two traps regarding the doctrine of sanctification. I think I kind of fell into both. The first one is sanctification by works. James chapter 2 says across various verses, so faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. Faith apart from works is useless. A person is justified by works and not by faith alone. So I think we can be tempted upon reading these passages that we are perhaps saved by grace but sanctified by works. However, that's not what this chapter in James is saying. Very literally it's saying, show me, I quote, show me your faith apart from your works and I will show you my faith by my works. For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead. My dad, he's sick at home today, but he likes to talk about how he reads the Bible very literally. And that's what needs to be done in this passage. Here it's saying your faith, your sanctification, your redemption are all shown by your works. Your works won't turn you into a better Christian. They simply put on display the work that Jesus Christ has done in you. Your sanctification is not going to be earned by your works, just like your justification wasn't earned by your works. If you want to say justification was earned by works, it was by the good work of Jesus Christ on the cross. It is not by any work that you did. The second trap we can fall into, and again like I fell into both of these kind of over the past several months, the second trap is sanctification by understanding. I tended to think, if I could know God enough, if I could understand God enough, then I'll be a better Christian. If I read my Bible, if I memorized a couple books, if I had all these chapters memorized, then I would be a better Christian. Then I would be able to act better in the world. My sanctification would be earned, or I would sanctify myself. The only problem is your sanctification and your justification are not dependent on what knowledge you attain of God. Your sanctification is dependent on the work of God. If you look back at our text verse, and I'm going to keep on going back to this later, it says, For their sakes I sanctify myself. These are the words of Jesus Christ. He sanctified himself. so that we also may be sanctified in truth. Our sanctification is dependent on Jesus Christ's sanctification, not by our knowledge and not by our works. So those are the two kind of traps that I fell into and that I think it would be fairly easy for any other Christian to fall into. So now that we kind of know what sanctification is not, I want to begin to get into the idea of sanctification. But this is going to sound like I'm going back on what I said earlier. As I was reading into the doctrine of sanctification, as I was reading passages of scripture and some books and some Greek dictionaries Granddad gave me, I realized there's a prerequisite to sanctification. And that's repentance. And it's just like repentance is the prerequisite for gospel justification. But to clarify what I'm saying, your repentance does not earn your salvation and it doesn't earn your sanctification either. God doesn't look at you when you repent and go, you know, oh, that's so good of you. I better sanctify you. No, no, your repentance itself is even imperfect. You cannot repent perfectly of your sins because you cannot perfectly understand the eternal offense sin is to God. So there is no way your sin can be perfect. It's not so overwhelmingly good that God goes, well, you earned salvation. No, it's incomplete. It's just, it is the prerequisite. It won't earn it, it won't sanctify you no matter how many times you repent. If you're going to be like a monk and whip yourself and step on hot coals in your repentance, that's not going to make God forgive you anymore and it's not going to sanctify you, it's not going to justify you. It's an act of Jesus Christ. Here's a quote by Spurgeon that I think pretty much perfectly captures the idea. He says, we can no more repent perfectly than we can live perfectly. However pure our tears, there will always be some dirt in them. There will always be something to be repented of, even in our best repentance. But listen. To repent is to change your mind about sin and Christ and all the great things of God. There is sorrow implied in this, but the main point is the turning of the heart from sin to Christ. If there be this turning, you have the essence of true repentance, even though no alarm and no despair should ever cast their shadow upon your mind. And again, since we've talked some about what repentance is not, what it doesn't do, let's look into this Spurgeon quote for what repentance is. And I paraphrase this, kind of the last section of this quote. He says, there is sorrow implied, but the main point is the turning of your heart from sin to Christ. If there is turning, you have the essence of true repentance, even if you're not overcome by sorrowful emotion. In the Greek, the word used for repentance, it suggests less of an emotion and more of a decision. That's not to say repentant emotions aren't bad. That's not to say sorrowful emotions aren't bad when you repent. Those are very good things. They're good for the soul, I believe. I only want you to be free from the trap of thinking that your repentance must be overwhelmingly emotional for it to be genuine. That's not the case. The idea in the Greek is kind of of a scientist who makes a hypothesis and then tests it by experiment. And then looking at the experimental data, he decides his hypothesis is wrong. But now he also knows what the truth is. So he had a wrong idea. He saw the data, he saw the truth and decided he was wrong, but now he also knows the truth. That's kind of the idea. This scientist isn't necessarily going to be emotional, but he has found out he's wrong and he has also found out what the right is. He's found the truth. So in this there are kind of two parts to repentance. The first is deciding you are wrong and the second is deciding God is right. This is actually the part of the word that the Greek emphasizes. This is actually the part the Greek word emphasizes. It's not necessarily not just deciding that you are wrong, but actively moving to what is right. The Greek word repentance doesn't stop at going, I'm wrong. It emphasizes the point that you move on to what is right. You move on to a right knowledge. You reject what is wrong and you move to what is right. That is the emphasis in the Greek. The Gospel of Mark chapter 1 verses 14 through 15 says, now after John was arrested Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God. This is the first time Jesus is preaching and he is saying the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the Gospels. So Jesus gives two parts for salvation, kind of, or repentance. He says you've got to repent and then believe the gospel. And I think that's really the heart of true repentance, is you repent, you confess your sins, and that's the other word used in the Bible, right? Confess your sins. You can see that word used throughout the New Testament. But then there's that second part where you have to believe in God. Acknowledging that you're wrong is not good enough. You have to turn from God. And so ultimately, human life is always moving in one of two directions. You're always moving towards God or you're moving towards sin. And for me, this provides a special freedom towards unintentional sins. So there have been points in my life where I've fretted, I've worried over unintentional sins. I'm like, is my fellowship with God ruined over unintentional sins that I don't know, that I can't confess? No, they're not. Those don't rule your life. Because what is emphasized in repentance is a turning towards God. So even though I might not know these unintentional sins that I committed, as long as I am actively pursuing God, then I am not pursuing sin. Then I have turned away from the sin to pursue God. Even if it was unintentional, I am intentionally pursuing God. And so that's kind of the repentance of the unintentional sin. Because when you are actively pursuing God, that is the repentance and God forgives you for your unintentional sins. And the great thing is, our repentance doesn't have to be perfect or complete. We kind of talked about this earlier. You know, it can't be. You can't have perfect and complete repentance. But God's forgiveness is perfect and infinite. And that's the wonderful part of it. Look at this promise in 1 John 1 9. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. This is the promise that we have. It doesn't matter our repentance. It doesn't matter how imperfect our confession. Jesus Christ is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Our repentance isn't determined by how emotional it is. Our forgiveness isn't determined on the quality of our repentance. It's determined by God's actions. And just a tangent here, just for fun. You know, the health, wealth and prosperity gospel is always talking about experiencing God's love and blessing every day. And do you want to know how to really truly experience God's blessings every day? Just repent. There is no greater blessing you can have than God's forgiveness. And guess what? The more you repent, the more God pours his forgiveness out upon you. I know that's not what the health, wealth, prosperity gospel is getting at, but I believe that ultimately as Christians, we can live no more blessed life than when we are dwelling in the forgiveness of Jesus Christ that comes through a state of repentance when we give ourselves over to repentance. And so now that we've cleared the prerequisite for sanctification, we can move on to the topic itself. And I think these verses from Leviticus chapter 20 verses 7 and 8 really ties the topic together neatly. It says, consecrate yourselves therefore and be holy for I am the Lord your God. Keep my statutes and do them. I am the Lord who sanctifies you. 10 times in the Old Testament is this phrase used. I am the Lord who sanctifies you. God identifies himself 10 times in the Old Testament as the Lord who sanctifies you. In the Greek New Testament, sanctification is always passive or it's actively an action of God. So what that means is nowhere in the New Testament does it say sanctify yourself. It might say be sanctified. and you're being sanctified by God. That's the emphasis that the Bible makes. God identifies himself as the Lord who sanctifies you. It's not you sanctifying yourself, it's the Lord who sanctifies you. And that's what I've had to move to in my life, is that it's the Lord who sanctifies me, not my knowledge, not my works, not my repentance. It is the Lord who sanctifies me. In 1 Peter 5.5 it says, God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. And I think this sums up perfectly the work of God in the Christian life. So when we are repentant, it opens the door for God's work in our life. God is always working in our life. But when we're repentant, we can accept that work. I think of, you know, perhaps when I was younger and I did something wrong, my parents would first instruct me and then discipline me. But as long as I'm in a place of pride, that instruction, that discipline falls on deaf ears and I don't apply it. But the moment I'm humble, I can apply that teaching to my life. So God is always working in these two ways. If you're a proud Christian, If you're a sinful Christian, he opposes you and he's going to bring you to repentance. However, once you reach that state of repentance, he's going to give grace to the humble. I think of it, you know, going back to our dog analogy. So I'm training my dog, I'm training my dog. And then one day, he's up in his little kennel inside the house and he won't come out. This dog just will not come out of his kennel no matter what I offer him. I could offer him treats and the dog won't come out. I offer bacon and peanut butter and the dog won't come out. He's just sitting there in his kennel. I can't teach the dog. I can't train him. I can't do anything. He's hiding in his kennel. There's no fellowship between the dog and his master. I think also of Matthew 18-12, it's the parable of the 99 sheep plus the one who went astray. And so God, Jesus Christ, he's a shepherd. He's feeding his sheep. He's watering his sheep. But one of them goes astray. And you know, he can't feed and water that sheep. So he has to go to that proud, sinful sheep and bring him back. And once that sheep is in the presence of God again, then God can feed him, then God can water him, lead him to green pastures and make him lay down beside still waters. But the sheep has to come into the presence of God first. And so that's the work of God in our lives. Is that when we're in sin, God will be constantly working to bring us to repentance. But when we're repentant, God can begin the work of sanctification in our lives. The greatest part of sanctification though, is it is completely based on the work of Jesus Christ. Look back at our text verse again. Our sanctification is based on Christ's self-sanctification and his work on the cross. This to me is the greatest truth of this message. This has been the greatest truth in the period of Christian growth in my life in the last month. Our sanctification, again, is based on Christ's self-sanctification and his work on the cross. What a relief. It's nothing we can do. I'm going to pause here and read a passage from Philippians. This is chapter 3 verses 8 through 10. Paul saying, Indeed, I count everything as loss, because this is the passing worth of knowing Jesus Christ my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and may share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death." So this same power that brought Jesus Christ out of the grave. The same power that resurrected the Son of God is working for sanctification in your life. This righteousness that comes from God that depends on faith is being worked out through the power that brought Jesus Christ up from the grave. The same power that redeemed you and made you a new creature the moment you believe the gospel is still working in your life towards sanctification. think again of Philippians 1 6, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. His power is going to be working in you from the day you're saved to the day you meet Him in heaven. And so our sanctification isn't dependent on us. It's completely based on the work of God. And He might be using your Bible reading. He might be using your prayer time. He might be using trials and tribulations. He might be using your relationships to sanctify you. But the point is, It is the work of God, it is nothing in your life. The only thing he asks of you, he says, repent and believe for the kingdom of God is at hand. So that is our call as Christians, is to repent and to believe the gospel. And finally, that demands love, that results in love. The process of sanctification is not something we do, but the fruit is. 1 John 5.3 says, For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome. So when we repent, we experience God's loving forgiveness. And as 1 John 4.19 says, Not that we first loved God, but that He first loved us. And by the grace of God, we can act back and love. I've been studying physics recently, and so I hope this isn't too corny of an example. But if you have an object that's staying still, and you have another object that's accelerating towards it, when they meet, the moving object exerts a force on the still object. But physics says for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. So the still object is hit by the moving object. and the still object exerts an equal and opposite force on the moving object. So they move apart. So they're both moving now. So when God loves us, he's like the moving object. So he hits us with a force, and because of his force, we're able to respond equally back towards him. It's not because of our good work. It's not because of how good a Christian we are that we get to love God. It's not because of the amount of Bible that we read. It's not our time in prayer. It's not the amount of church services we attend that are going to help us to love God better. It's the love of God that helps us to love God. We have nothing in and of ourselves that can love God. What this has meant for me, and I hope it can apply to you, is I've had to stop working for sanctification. That has been kind of the mode of my Christian life is working for sanctification. How can I grow closer to God? What can I do to grow closer to God? What can I do to make God love me more? But instead, work out of love for God and love for others. I've talked on this in my last sermon, the two greatest commandments. Love God and love others. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love others as yourself. So because we have been redeemed by Jesus Christ, we are being sanctified by Jesus Christ, God has acted in love towards us and we live in repentance we can respond out of love towards others. Because that's what that's meant for me. So I'm no longer working for my sanctification, but I am working purely out of a love for God and a love for others that Jesus Christ has given me. I think of it in terms of a marital relationship, you know, like speaking from experience, right? You can't force your spouse to love you. That's completely their choice whether they love you or not. Nonetheless, you can do nice things for them because you love them. Their love is not dependent on what you do, but you demonstrate your love by what you do. So as Christians, God's love isn't dependent on what we do. But we show, like James said, our works show our faith and our love towards God. We act out of love towards God. We act out of love towards others because Christ first loved us. And ultimately, you know, if you're not a Christian, perhaps this message is falling on deaf ears, but a lot of these truths are the same for sanctification as they are for justification. That's what really started me on this sermon, was I realized I was trying to get away from the gospel in my life. I was like, what's next in my life? I had believed the gospel and I was like, what's next? There is nothing next. It's the gospel. It's Jesus Christ died for your sins on the cross and was risen by the power of God and sits at his right hand with all power to forgive sins. And that's what I've had to come back to in my life. That's what I believe. That's what I live, is this gospel. And so if you're not saved and you've heard this message on sanctification, I pray that you can hear the truth that it is nothing that you can do to save yourself. It's nothing you can do to justify yourself. It's just the work of Jesus Christ. And He demands your repentance. Not because your repentance earns it. Not because your repentance is perfect enough. Not because your repentance is good enough. But He demands your repentance. He demands that you believe Him, that you acknowledge Him as Lord, so that He can work in your life. So, ultimately, that's the end of this message. It goes back to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I thank you all for being able to hear that.