"Sanctification: A Life Pleasing to God" Sermon Transcript for March 25, 2001By Reverend Mike Beck
Scripture Reading: II Peter 1:1-11
I want to talk this morning about "Sanctification: A Life Pleasing To God". I want to give you a one question Bible quiz. Here it goes. Which of God’s attributes is given the greatest priority in Scripture? Think about that for a moment. Got the answer in your mind? Like Regis, here comes the answer--God’s "holiness". Now many of you were thinking God’s love. And God’s love certainly runs a very strong second. But if you go from beginning to end of the Scripture, Scripture has most to say about the holiness of our God. There are a number of Biblical synonyms that are used for holiness. The word "perfect" is often used. The word "pure". The word "sinless". And a phrase that goes back to the Hebrew and Greek root meaning of the word is the little phrase "set apart". To be holy is to be set apart for God’s purposes.
In Exodus 11:44 are these words, "I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves and be holy because I am holy." And we’ve seen in the Old Testament that God raises up a nation, the Israelites. Set apart by God, not because they were better than others, but set apart for a purpose that through them God might reveal His ways and His plan of salvation to all of human kind. And their call to be a holy people was realized in two primary ways. First of all, through the moral law as they were to keep the Ten Commandments that God had given. But also through the parts of the Old Testament that are very foreign to us, the ceremonial law. The ways, the rituals to which they were to grow in order that they might be seen as clean in the eyes of God.
Well, the call of God’s people to be a "holy" people continues in the New Testament. We hear these words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. Very strong words, like much of the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus says to us, "Be perfect as Your Heavenly Father is perfect." Matthew 5:48. And I don’t know about you but when I hear those words I’ll say, "God, there’s no way!" And yet that is the challenge that’s put before us. In Ephesians 1:4 are these words. And this applies to every single one of you if you’ve accepted Christ as your Savior. "God chose you in Christ before the foundation of he world..." for this purpose "...to be holy and blameless before Him..." But notice the last two words, "...in love". We’ll get back to that later on.
The call to holiness, especially as we move to the New Testament, is referred to often as the doctrine of sanctification. And I want us to begin by looking at three theological terms related to the salvation process. They are big words, but they really are not difficult words to understand.
Justification: The first is the word justification. That’s what happened when you by faith received Christ as your Savior. You were justified. It is a legal term. It means you are now, despite your sin, not guilty in the eyes of God. You have been restored to right relationship with God.
Glorification: The salvation process ends, at least in terms of our current life, in what we call glorification. None of you have experienced that yet. The reason I know that is that happens at the moment of death in which we are set free from the power of sin that has had its grip on us as we have journeyed through life. And we are told at the moment of glorification that comes at death we will be given a new, eternal, spiritual body to dwell with God in eternity in that new glorified body.
Sanctification: The big word for what’s happening right now or is to be happening in all of us who are believers in Jesus Christ is the process of sanctification. Sanctification simply means we are becoming more and more like Christ. That the image of God marred by sin is being restored within us. The word for salvation, the word for "to save" in Scripture is used in all three tenses. There is a sense in which we "have been" saved. That’s justification. There is a sense in which we "will be" saved. Part of that is glorification. And there is a sense in which right now I am "being" saved. That’s the process of sanctification.
And within our Wesleyan heritage, going back to John and Charles Wesley, to Jacob Otterbein and others, at the core of Methodism was this central purpose. Our founders believed God raised up this people called Methodist "to spread Scriptural holiness through the land". And it’s unfortunate, but in many ways in all too many of our churches, it’s been years since persons heard a sermon on this wonderful doctrine. So I want us to look briefly at this doctrine of sanctification today asking these three simple questions:
1. Why should I pursue it?
2. What does it consist of?
3. How do I obtain it?
Why Should I Pursue It? Let’s look at the first one. Why should I pursue it? First of all, we should pursue it because the Scripture tells us over and over again it is God’s will for our lives that you be sanctified, that you be a holy people. David Seamands, who was my pastor during the three years we lived in Wilmore, Kentucky, loved to use this phrase that contained so much truth in it. He said, "God accepts you just as you are, but He never intends for you to stay there." God accepts you just as you are, but God never intends for us to stay there. In the verse we read from Ephesians earlier, Chapter 1, Verse 4, "For God chose us in Him before the creation of the world..." Notice now the purpose. "...to be Holy and blameless in His sight." Now, think about that for just a moment. If you are in Christ this morning, if you have placed your faith in Him, this verse says God chose you before the world was ever even created and He wants you to be holy and blameless in His sight.
When we read God’s word we normally respond. "This is the Word of God to us. Thanks be to God." But my Dad brought me back a new one last week that I really liked. He had heard it at a church he went to in Lebanon to do a Mission’s Conference. And here was this response; and I think we’ll use it periodically. The pastor, after finishing the reading of the Word would say, "This is the Word of God to us." And then the people responded like this, "It is to be believed, it is to be obeyed, it is to be shared!" That sounds to me like a pretty good response. It is to be believed, it is to be obeyed, it is to be shared. So why should we pursue sanctification? Because God and His Word tells us we should. I also heard someplace this week the fact that most of us don’t need more knowledge. What we need is more obedience! Not more knowledge, but more obedience.
Secondly, we ought to pursue sanctification as a way of saying thanks to God for all that God has done for us. When I give gifts to my wife or to my children or to my parents or to a special friend, when I give those gifts it’s a way of saying thank you to them for all the ways in which they have enriched my life and for their love for me. When we offer a light of holiness back to God, it is our response our act of love and thanksgiving for what God has done for us.
And then, thirdly, I think we need to pursue sanctification as a part of our witness to others around us. Do you remember Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount? He says that nobody takes a lamp and covers it up. No, you put the light out there in the room so it will bring light to others. And then He said, "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good deeds and they..." What? "...glorify your Father that is in Heaven." So as we pursue a light of holiness and sanctification we give a fragrant witness to others.
What Does It Consist Of? First of all, we need to realize it is not perfection of actions. The reason it can never be that is again because of God’s Word to us in I John, Chapter 1, where beginning with Verse 8 we are told "If we claim to be without sin..." and John here is speaking to believers, "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves of the truth, it’s not in us. If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. But if we claim we have not sinned, we make Him out to be a liar and His Word has no place in us."
So, we scratch our heads a little bit and say, "Well, it’s not perfection of action." Let’s explore a little more deeply. The doctrine of sanctification has been misused in this area. With, for many people, Christianity becoming defined as what we "do" and what we "don’t do". I bet a lot of you in your early years kind of had this definition of a person who was living a sanctified life. They didn’t smoke. They didn’t drink. They didn’t cuss. And there was fidelity within the sexual dimension of their life. If they didn’t do those things, they were a holy people in the eyes of God. Now, please hear me carefully. Our actions are vitally important for a whole lot of different reasons. But we are saved by our faith in Christ, not our good works. And if you’ll remember Jesus’ continual interaction with the Pharisees, he kept telling them, "You guys are doing all of the right things on the outside." He said, "The outside of the dish looks great, but the inside’s full of crude." And if your "heart" isn’t right with God and also with your neighbor, then the outward things we do have little value.
Those who have participated in the Emmaus Walk, which I highly recommend, on the first day in the afternoon one of the late talks is entitled a "Life of Piety". And the first thing the speaker will normally try to get us over is the fact that piety we usually see as a negative word. I don’t want to be pious. Pious has a sense of being holier than thou. And we don’t really want to do that. But in this talk they help us to realize that it’s a very positive term. It’s not a badge of our spiritual superiority. But a life of piety is a fragrant, sweet smelling offering going up to God and to others.
We only have time to touch on the phrases that John Wesley used. He preached on sanctification often. And he often used these two phrases. He said often it is "perfection of intent". In other words, we can so have a heart of God in us but it is our burning desire to live a holy life pleasing to God while at the same time really realizing still under the control of sin that at times we will fall short. We may fall short in action but we have a purity of intent. He also spoke often of a "heart of perfect love". Again, not always perfection in action, but that our heart was being more and more tuned in to God to where from the heart there radiated a life of purity and holiness. That’s a little bit about what it is.
How Do I Obtain It? And then, finally, "How do we obtain it?" It is a life-long process that starts with our acceptance of Jesus as our Savior. But as you’ve heard Reverend Dan and I say often, accepting Christ as Savior is not the end. That’s the beginning. That’s where our walk with God begins and then grows from there. In fact, the term that is often used for sanctification is "growing in grace". And although it is a process, there will be times in which God reaches down and touches our life in a very special and powerful way. The emotion wells up within us and we’re not being saved. That happened years ago. But we are getting a fresh touch of God’s spirit. And in the days of the Methodist camp meetings, they often referred to these experiences with two terms. How many of you have heard this term. They talked about a person "praying through". How many of you heard that? In other words they pray through and experience God’s power in some wonderful way of deliverance in their life. It was a moment in the process of sanctification. Or it was often also referred to as a "second work of grace". They were already Christian, but God in that moment intervened in a sanctifying way and hurried along that process even more rapidly.
Well, our text for today answers the question, I believe, in how we are sanctified by revealing these three basic principles:
Increase our knowledge of God: First of all, they obtain it by increasing our knowledge of God. Hear these words from Verse 2 and 3, "Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. For His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness..." Notice the bold print. "...through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness." And so every time you are obedient to God and take time to be in a group like the Christian Believer or Disciple Bible Study or a Sunday School class or the ALPHA course, you are increasing your knowledge of God moving you on further in the process of sanctification.
Claim the promises of God: Secondly, we obtain it when we claim the promises of God. Hear Verse 4, "Through these He has given us His very great and precious promises so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by your evil desires." Here God leaves us no excuse. He says, "You can obtain this goal because I have promised it to you." Everything you need for light and godliness is found in the precious promises of God’s Word. We move on in the process of sanctification when we claim those promises for ourselves. Promises like, "Great is He that is in you, that He is in the world." For every temptation that is common to man God has provided a means of escape for us. Hundreds of promises in God’s Word.
Spend time with God: And then, thirdly, we obtain sanctification as we spend time with God. You’ve often heard me say when we get a son-tan. S-O-N. How do you turn that white skin brown? Some of you are doing that. You’re getting ready to go to Florida on that spring vacation. Although some of you are coming back. It’s good to see some of you again. And you’ve come back a little browner than the rest of us. Because you’ve been in the sun. How do we obtain the process of sanctification? By spending time with God which is what Verses 5-7 talk about. "Make every effort to add to your faith goodness, and to goodness knowledge, and to knowledge self-control, and to self-control perseverance, and to perseverance godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love." And notice it says, make every effort to add to. That’s our responsibility. Spend time with the Son, S-O-N. And I want you in that verse, as you look at it, notice these two things as we close. Note the relationship of those bold printed words to the "fruits of the Spirit" which are to be evidencing themselves in greater ways in our life. And then notice also where it always ends. It always ends here people. A four-letter word! An awfully good four-letter word. Love. L-O-V-E. Not actions, but love for God and love for our neighbor which is why Wesley often referred to sanctification "a light pleasing to God as a heart of perfect love".
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