the end of the chapter. Hebrews 2, verse number 10, For both he that sanctifyeth and they who are sanctified are all of one. For which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren in the midst of the church while I sing praise unto thee. And again, I will put my trust in him. And again, behold I and the children which God hath given me. For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same. that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver him who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For verily he took not on him the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore, in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we are grateful for the blessing of being in your house this evening. We're thankful for your goodness to us and allowing us to enjoy the update tonight from Brother Minot and A lot's going on there, a lot of just busyness right now, just getting people moved and getting housing secured and getting jobs secured. But Father, we are thankful for your leading them there, leading the church in Maine to start this work. We do pray that you would supply for all the needs, Father, that there will be. Lord, not just financially and getting the families there, but with the housing and jobs and contacts. Father, we are grateful for your word. I pray you bless it to our hearts tonight. We ask that you would help us to understand it better. Lord, apply it to our lives in a way that each of us need personally. And Father, we'll thank you for what you do and we pray this in Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. Hebrews, just a little bit of a review. Hebrews is written anonymously. We're not told who wrote the book, but as we go through the book, I believe that it's Paul that wrote the book of Hebrews. And we'll see different areas through why I would think that, but also some reasons why he didn't say who wrote it. We'll see that as we go through the book as well. It's written to Jews, Jewish believers, because of temptations, because of trials are being tempted to turn away, to go back to Judaism. When you think of the whole plan that God had set in motion for bringing salvation into the world, using the Jewish nation to do so and the Jewish, just all the pictures, all the typology, the priesthood, the tabernacle, the temple, everything that went in to the whole Jewish culture, what they grew up with, what they understood to be the truth, what is the truth, what was the truth for them, and the Messiah finally coming, and them having to grasp that so many things that they held on to, so many things culturally that they did, were all fulfilled in Christ. He came and fulfilled those, and now things are different, and yet there was a lot of temptation to go back because the persecution of those that didn't believe in the Messiah, didn't believe He came, still looking for a Messiah, and the persecution that arose about that, a lot of persecution, a very harsh persecution. Paul is being stoned to death. Their enlistment was a result of Jews following him, persecuting him from city to city, and finally stirring up enough trouble that he was stoned. And that was the kind of persecution that they were dealing with throughout the Roman Empire as the Jews spread out in their different places but were being evangelized and were coming to know Christ. There was a lot of temptation to turn back. But he's showing us through this book of Hebrews that Jesus is better than the old system of pictures just like the The real person is better than just a shadow of a person, or just a picture of someone. When your spouse or family member has gone away, it's nice to have a picture of them, but the actual person is better than the picture. And Christ is better than all the pictures of the Old Testament that pointed to Him. He's better than all those, and they're tempted to turn back. In verses 10 and 11, verse number 10 we looked at last time. Again, it's been back in April. And it says that it became him for whom are all things and by whom are all things in bringing many sons unto glory to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. Very important verse that we had focused on last time. It became him, it was congruous to his purpose in sending his son that purpose being bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. That does not mean that Christ was not already perfect, but here we have the realization of an end to that object, to be able to execute fully, to discharge his object of being a Savior, his purpose for coming of being a Savior. He was able to accomplish that work of redemption only through suffering, only through dying in our place. only through dealing with death, as we mentioned this, it mentions it towards the end of this chapter, we were subject to death, we were subject to the bondage of death, to the power of death, and so Christ came in order to take that all away. But it had to be accomplished through death. It wasn't accomplished through just teaching, it wasn't accomplished just through a good set of principles that people can learn. He had to die in order to pay our penalty. He had to die in order to take away our sin and to make reconciliation for our sin. In verse number 11, I just want to focus on one aspect here that comes out in this verse. It says, For both he that sanctifies and they who are sanctified are all of one, for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren. that second phrase there, for which cause he, that he there speaking of Christ, and in the first part of that verse, both he that sanctifies and they who are sanctified are all of one. Sanctification is in Hebrews, throughout this book of Hebrews, we usually connect sanctification with, generally we connect it with the Holy Spirit. We see verses where It speaks of it in relation to God in general, but usually we associate that with the Holy Spirit. But through the book of Hebrews, sanctification is associated with Christ, not the Spirit. And its meaning is more of consecration rather than purification. Our position, not necessarily our condition. When we think about salvation, if you want to look over to 2 Thessalonians 2, And in verse number 13, it speaks about sanctification of the Spirit. This is speaking of salvation. 2 Thessalonians 2 and verse number 13. But we are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth." That work of the Holy Spirit of God as He takes the Word of God, the Gospel, when it was preached to you, and He worked that conviction, worked that in your heart where He brought you to the place of understanding, I'm in need of a Savior. I'm in need of Christ. He brought that convicting work in our heart Paul describes it there as a sanctification work of the Spirit, where he was working in our hearts through the Word of God, through belief of the truth, to bring us to that place of salvation. That same phrase is used by Peter in 1 Peter 1 and verse number 2. When it says that we are elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, grace unto you and peace be multiplied. So sanctification, often as again we see in relation to the Holy Spirit, but salvation, we think about salvation in in the different terms that we see in scripture, the Bible says that we've been saved from the penalty of sin. That's one aspect of sanctification, the sanctification of the spirit. When he saved us, we are no longer under the condemnation of sin. We are free from that. We are not under condemnation. We will not come under condemnation. We don't have to fear, if we're truly God's child, that he'll ever cast us off. Those that come to him, he says, I will know why it's cast off. We are engraven in His hand. We are saved forever from the penalty of sin. That's clearly demonstrated through Scripture. The Bible also says that we are being saved from the power of sin in our life. That's the present work of sanctification in our life, that the Holy Spirit as He takes the Word of God and works in us and helps us overcome our flesh, overcome the world, overcome our own natural tendencies that we've gotten ourselves into, and through the Word of God, He cleanses us. He renews us day by day. Our inner man is renewed day by day, and it's that daily sanctifying work where we're being saved by the power of sin. Sin still has a hold on our life. We're not under its authority anymore. We have victory from that. But if we don't pay attention, if we allow ourselves, we can come under that bondage by our own choosing. but the Holy Spirit is working to cleanse us and cleanse our minds. And what a wonderful thing is that the word of God and the purifying work it does through the Holy Spirit on our minds. Oftentimes we struggle with. jealousy, we struggle with anger, we struggle with impure thoughts, we struggle with maybe covetousness and we just we want those thoughts to go away. They'll go away as we take the Word of God and we memorize God's Word, we meditate on God's Word, we allow the Holy Spirit to do that cleansing work in our in our minds. So we're being saved from that power of sin and we praise the Lord when Paul says that the day of our salvation is nearer than when we believed. When we believe, that was when we think about our salvation, but our full salvation, we will be saved eventually from the total presence of sin and its power over our life. He will come, we'll be given resurrection bodies, and sin will have no cling to us at all. And we look forward to that time of that final sanctification. We are completely set apart from all of that. But we think about sanctification. To sanctify, oftentimes we have maybe a wrong or a skewed view or a limited view of what sanctification is. It's attributed in the Bible to both God and to men. concerning God, the Bible says that he sanctifies himself. God doesn't need to be sanctified. God doesn't need to be purified. He's already pure. He doesn't need to be made holy. He's already infinitely holy. So when it speaks of him sanctifying himself, we see this in Ezekiel 28 and Ezekiel 38, other places as well. But in Ezekiel 28, verse number 22, this is, The Lord speaking, it says, thus saith the Lord God, behold, I am against the Ozeidon and will be glorified in the midst of thee. And they shall know that I am the Lord when I shall have executed judgments in her and shall be sanctified in her. God says, they're going to know that I'm God. I'm not like their gods. I'm not like their false gods. I'm not like the idols that they are worshiping. They're going to know. I'm going to be sanctified in her, in their minds. I'm going to sanctify myself so that I'm set apart. They're going to understand I'm different from their gods. Ezekiel 38, verse 23. He says, God doesn't need to be made holy, but when he sanctifies himself, he is setting apart himself in people's hearts and minds so they understand he's not in the same group as everything else. He's different. He vindicates his righteousness. In Ezekiel 36, in verse number 23, he says, I will sanctify my great name, which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them, and the heathen shall know that I am the Lord, saith the Lord God, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes. God's people had lived such lives in the world that they had the heathen around them. saw the Jewish people, saw what they were doing, and said, well, they served Jehovah, Jehovah must be kind of a worthless God. Their Jehovah must not be any greater than our God's, because they have, look at how they're living, they have no more power over their vain lives than we do, so their God must not be any different from our God. And so the heathen were taking God's name and profaning it, making it common, making him like everyone else. And the reason was, he directs to his children, he says, ye have profaned in the midst of them. Which ye have profaned? You have profaned my name in the midst of them. He says, but they're gonna know that I am the Lord when I shall be sanctified in you. saith, or before their eyes. And that's God speaking, he's gonna sanctify his name, he's gonna sanctify him in the eyes of others through his people. Again, God doesn't need to be made holy, doesn't need to be cleansed, but it's the idea that the basic term of sanctification is something being set apart. I can have a stack of papers here, but if I take one of them and put it here, and the rest of them over here, I've set this one apart. Maybe I have something up here that I want to write notes on. I might take it away from the rest of them, and this is the one I'm going to write my notes on. I've sanctified it. I've set it apart from the rest. I'm not going to write notes on these ones. I'm only going to write notes on this one. I've set it apart. And God says, I'm setting apart my name because it's being profane. I want to make sure everyone understands that I'm different from the rest. In 1 Thessalonians 5, verse number 23, we see God Sanctification means you attach to God that he's sanctifying, but he's not sanctifying himself or sanctifying his name. Now he's sanctifying others. He's sanctifying his children. In 1 Thessalonians 5 and verse number 23, this is the prayer of Paul for the Thessalonians. He said, and the very God of peace sanctify you wholly. This is not just, he's just gonna set us aside. This is cleansing us, this is making us holy. This is making us more and more like him that conferring holiness upon us and the Holy Spirit doing that cleansing work within our hearts. Jude is writing his letter to them that are sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ and called. God sanctifies us. sets us apart, Ephesians 5 verse number 26, speaking of Christ and the church, it says that he, speaking about Christ, might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word. How does he sanctify us as a church? He does it with the washing of water by the word. We wanna change, we wanna become more like him, he's gonna do that through his word. And as we read the word of God, as you meditate on God's word, as we hear it taught, as we hear it preached, as you teach it, the Sunday School teachers in here, as you study the word of God to teach it, the Holy Spirit will sanctify you as you are studying his word, if you allow him. As you go to the word of God, understanding, Lord, I need for you to teach me this lesson. It doesn't matter if you're teaching the toddlers. It doesn't matter if you're teaching the youngest ones in here, the Word of God can still sanctify you as you're preparing for that lesson. As we hear lessons, as we hear the Word of God preached and taught, as we read it and meditate upon it privately, God does that sanctifying work in our hearts. Romans 15 verse 16. says that I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost working, setting apart that work of ministering the gospel to the Gentiles. We see God sanctifying in the sense of setting apart for particular works in John 10, verse 36. Jesus speaking. He says, say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified. See, God set me apart. The Father hath sanctified me. He has set me apart and sent me into the world. Thou blasphemest because I said I am the Son of God. He said the Father sanctified me. Jesus, again, didn't need to be made holy, but he was set apart. He was sanctified and sent into the world. He was sent here for a purpose. The son sanctified himself in John 17, verse 19. He says, for their sakes, I sanctify myself that they also might be sanctified through the truth. Again, Jesus set himself apart. He's been a great example for us. We need to be sanctifying ourselves, setting apart ourselves to God's word, to the work of God, for the Holy Spirit to work in our life. We need to be taking measures to make sure we're separate from the world. But Jesus set apart himself, he sanctified himself. In Jeremiah 1 and verse number five, speaking about Jeremiah, it says, God had separated him. I'm gonna call him, I'm gonna use him as a prophet. Before he was even born, God had set him apart. Was he any different physically, spiritually, from if he had a twin brother born at the same time? No. He wasn't saved. God sanctified him from his, before he came out of his mother's belly. That doesn't mean he was saved, but God had set him apart. He had this work that he was gonna perform in Jeremiah and through Jeremiah's life. In Numbers 8 and verse number 17, It says, for all the firstborn of the children of Israel are mine, both man and beast. On the day that I smote every firstborn in the land of Egypt, I sanctified them for myself. Thinking about the Passover, God set apart all the firstborn for him. Firstborn of beasts, here's the cattle, here's the goats, here's the sheep, the firstborn are his. Set apart for him. That's the idea of sanctification. Material objects, tools, and implements were set apart, sanctified, for his use. Can you imagine Moses not wanting to get up and go to the tabernacle? Aaron not wanting to get up and go to the tabernacle, said, listen, this tent's big enough. Just bring the offerings here. We'll just kill him here. I'll bring him into my tent here, and we'll just perform the offering here in my tent. Well, his tent wasn't set apart for that. They didn't just use whatever instruments they wanted to use for killing the beasts or for taking the ashes off from the altar. for the flesh hooks and those things. They didn't just use a flesh hook from their house, which may have looked the exact same and done, and maybe even worked better. because they did a little tweaking and made a better design, but that flesh hook was set aside for God's temple. But the things that were set aside for God's temple, for the tabernacle, those were what was used. And they didn't take those instruments and use them at home. They didn't take those instruments and use them to do their own personal things. They didn't profane them. They didn't make them common. We've sanctified this auditorium. This is set apart for God's use. We're not gonna use this as a cafeteria because it's set apart for God's work, for the preaching of God's word, for the teaching of God's word. It's been set apart for that work. That's why we don't do certain things in this auditorium. That's why we don't do certain things with our Bibles. because it's a holy Bible, it's been set apart. If I need to prop up a table leg, I don't take a Bible to do that. Maybe I'll grab a dictionary. Maybe I'll grab, you know, if I wrote a biography of myself, I could grab that. That's not the Bible, though. We don't take God's Word, why? Because it's set apart for a particular use. This pulpit's set apart for a particular use, this building. And in the Bible, God set apart material things. for his own use. He sanctified a day as well. Genesis 2 verse number three, the seventh day says that God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it. Was that seventh day any more clean, any more holy in the sense of being cleaner than the Monday or the Friday? No, but it was sanctified. It was set apart for the worship of God. But the Bible also says that we sanctify things. We sanctify God. How do we sanctify God? In the model prayer, when Jesus taught his disciples how to pray, what's the first line of that prayer? Our Father. Hallowed be thy name. What's that? Hallowed means sanctified, set apart. We want To sanctify God, we want to set Him apart in our hearts and in our minds and in our lives. Look over to 1 Peter 3. 1 Peter chapter number 3. 1 Peter 3. And we'll start at verse number 12. For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers. But the face of the Lord is against them that do evil. And who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good? But, and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye, and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled. But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear, having a good conscience, that whereas they speak evil of you as evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ. We are commanded to sanctify the Lord God in our hearts. How can we sanctify the Lord God in our hearts? Here there was the temptation, the fear. Here are others that are being a terror to me. They're threatening me, threatening my life, threatening me with the life of my family. I'm having you suffer because I'm living the Christian life, because I'm living for the Lord. He says, if you suffer for righteousness sake, happy are ye. Be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled. If they're afraid and troubled, what might they do? They might not speak up. They might not say, I'm a Christian, I'm a follower of Christ, I'm a disciple of Christ. They might not, why? Because they have a fear of these men. Peter says you need to sanctify the Lord God in your heart. Understand that God's bigger and stronger than those men. And he's more terrifying than those men. You're willing to go against the creator of the universe, your savior, you're willing to go against him because you're afraid of what men might do to you? If that's your thought process, you have not sanctified the Lord in your heart. You don't understand just what a God He is. We have no right to go against Him. We have no right to shut our mouths when He tells us to open our mouths. We need to speak up. And as we sanctify Him in our hearts, we set Him apart, understanding this is so much, He is so much bigger and greater than any man. I must obey Him because of who He is. That's that sanctification process where we understand that He is We can have an undaunted profession of our faith. Men can't scare us because we already have a fear of God, of who He is. We see men sanctify themselves by preparing themselves for things. In 1 Chronicles 15, verse 14, it speaks about the priests and the Levites sanctifying themselves so they could bring up the Ark of the Covenant. What do they do? Here's a holy task that they had to perform, and so they want to make sure that they were ready for that. They were prepared for that. They weren't going to go there stinky and smelly. That simplification may have been, we're going to go wash up and get some clean clothes on, get some proper clothes on, because we're bringing up the ark and bringing it back to Jerusalem. And they want to be ready for that and be prepared for that and set themselves apart mentally for that, but physically for that and in physical appearance. And we sanctify, we can sanctify ourselves when we know I'm going into God's house, I'm going to go hear God's word. We sanctify ourselves because we're going to do something for the Lord. We're going to worship the Lord. When we're going to sing up here as a choir or or groups sing, they need to sanctify themselves for the work that they're gonna do. We're bringing worship before God. When you're in the congregation and you're singing, you need to sanctify yourself prior to coming to God's house because you're coming before a holy God to worship Him. So sanctify yourself. Don't fill your mind with a bunch of garbage before church. I know of a preacher I was told of a preacher, someone that had gone to this church, he's a popular preacher, preaches around the states, he's older now, he's been a popular preacher for the past probably 40 years, preaching at youth conferences and Bible conferences around the country, around the world. And there was someone that was singing at his church, and he was, before church he was in his office and he had some headphones on and the guest preacher came in, or guest singer came in to the office to talk to him about the schedule of services and he took off his ear things and there was rock music playing. He says, I'd like to listen to this before I go out there because it gets me pumped up for preaching. That is not sanctifying ourselves. We don't fill our minds. Don't get on social media and fill your minds with the garbage on social media before you come to God's house. Get in God's Word. Sing hymns. Open up a hymn book and set yourself apart. Sanctify yourself to prepare yourself to worship God. We see men sanctifying other men in the Bible. We see Moses sanctifying Aaron and his sons, setting them apart for that work. We see the church at Antioch there in Acts 13, setting apart Barnabas and Saul for the work that God had called them. They set those men apart. They sanctified them for that work. We sanctify the Sabbath day. God sanctified it. but he told us to remember the seventh day to keep it holy. So we sanctify a day to worship the Lord. We sanctify a means of doing things for Him. Joel 1 verse 14 is an example of this, when he says, sanctify ye a fast. Sanctify a fast. Many of you in here, a fast maybe on a regular basis, not for spiritual reasons, but for Dietary reasons. Maybe you do the, what do you call it? Intermittent fasting. Maybe you do that and you're fasting for weight loss. Well, that's not necessarily a sanctified fast. You may be in the middle of that and say, you know what? I'm in the middle of fasting, but you know what? That sandwich sure looks good. That bacon sure smells good. I'm gonna go ahead and eat it. But if you sanctified a fast and you said, God, I'm going to set apart this time of fasting for you. And I'm not going to eat until tomorrow at this time. I'm not going to eat lunch today. I'm not going to eat until next week. I'm not going to eat for three weeks, except for I'll eat these particular things. Then since you sanctified that, you better make sure in that time that you do what you told God you're going to do. Is it any different? No, you're not eating food, except it's different because you sanctify it, you've set it apart for Him. So we can take normal, everyday things that we do, such as fasting, and it can be profane, just something that we want to do, or we can set it apart for the Lord, and sanctify it and set it apart for His work, for His service. Coming in here, we vacuum in here, we clean pews, we clean the bathrooms, we mop floors, Do we sanctify that time for the Lord? Or are we just coming in here to just get the job done? Well, how we do it, what our mindset is, will determine how well we do things. So sanctification, in Hebrews we see, in Hebrews 9 verse 13, Talks about the blood of bulls and of goats and the ashes of an heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifyeth to the purifying of the flesh. So we'll have this sanctification throughout the book of Hebrews. And as we go through it, it's gonna be, sanctification has a wide range of meanings. And back in our text in Hebrews chapter two, we'll close with this. Hebrews 2 and verse number 10 and 11, Both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one, for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren. We're gonna, that next phrase, the last phrase of that verse, he says that he that sanctifies, speaking about Christ, they who are sanctified, that's us, his children. He says, for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren. There's so many scriptures that deal with that. What a thing that God would call us brethren. That He would look at us that way, but why does that happen? Because He's sanctified us. He's set us apart for Himself. And we'll look at that next time. We'll close here this evening. He that sanctified this Christ, they who are sanctified, that's the many sons. That's the saved. It's passive. It's a privilege that's conferred on us. We're not sanctified. We're not that many sons. We're not in that position by natural birth. It comes through salvation. And that last part of that chapter brings those things really, I would encourage you to read through that multiple times. Hebrews is a hard book. out of scores of commentaries that there are on Hebrews, there's 15 to 20 different interpretations of it, men's interpretations. There's only one interpretation, the right interpretation. So pray that we get that right interpretation. There's lots of applications for it, but it's a deep book, and it's one that we can read and study and learn much from. Now let's all stand together this evening. Are there any special requests this week? Anything going on that we need to be praying for one another?