The Doctrine Of Sanctification

0:04 There's nothing like having a baby. I've been there before. So have many of you. Some of you are preparing for it, but when the baby is born, young parents say words like amazing,

0:24 incredible, surreal, and then naive husbands say things like I did. I could never do that. That song from Creed is about having a baby. And interestingly enough, the Bible talks about spiritual development and physical development. It compares spiritual development to physical development. The goal is, once we become believers, is for us to become disciples. That means incurable learners. How do we go from diapership to discipleship? That's the question.

1:17 Today we're talking about a theological subject. Theology is the study of God. And this topic is called sanctification. Say that with me. Sanctification. What is sanctification? Sanctification is the initial development of a believer into a mature follower of Christ. I love what Dr. Wayne Grudem says about it. He says, it's a progressive work of God and man that makes us more and more free from sin and like Christ in our actual lives. Sanctification. The word sanctification comes from the word saint. It basically means to be set apart.

2:13 There's God's role and then man's role. We work together. Justification happens on the inside. Sanctification happens on the outside. You've got salvation, justification, and sanctification. And to follow it up, glorification. Well, how do I break that down so we can understand it?

2:39 Salvation is a process followed by a decision, then a decision followed by a process. The process of salvation is fourfold. The first part is the calling of salvation. Right now, over the next several moments, I'm going to give a salvation call, a request. I'm going to talk about the fact that Jesus lived a perfect life. He died a sacrificial death. He rose again on the third day. That's the gospel. I'm going to give you an opportunity to receive the gospel. It's a decision I can't make for you. That's the gospel request. The second thing in this fourfold process is regeneration.

3:37 Before someone is, you might say, saved, or as Jesus said in John 3, verse 3, born again. You have the gospel call, the request. Then you have the person of the Holy Spirit regenerating the soils of your soul so you can receive the gospel. It's all about God. Third thing is we have to have repentance and faith. Repentance and faith. Repentance is you were going one way and then you turn and go the opposite. You put your trust, your faith in what Jesus did for you on the cross. The final step, it's your response.

4:26 It's God's will for every single person to respond to the gospel, but every single person doesn't. When I have the gospel call, when I throw out the gospel call, here's what gives me confidence, I know some people will respond. I know that. Also, I know some people will not. And the sovereignty of God is the fact that God knows if you will respond or not before you do so. However, within that context, you have a freedom of choice. No one can figure it out. You'll fry a circuit. Yet we have a freedom of choice. Once we are born again, I have a physical birthday. I also have a spiritual birthday. When I was like eight years old, I understood to the best of my eight-year-old mind what it meant to know Christ, and I made that decision. I was born again into the family of God. And once you're born again into the family of God, you can't be disowned. I was eight years old, became a follower of Christ, and from that moment on, I have been in this process of sanctification. However, once someone's born again, in a nanosecond, they're justified. The word justified, justification, Think about it this way.

5:58 Just as if I never sinned. How awesome is that? The gospel, please understand this, is not just a forgiveness of sins. Oh, I'm a believer. My sins have been forgiven. That's just part of it. If that was the whole deal, Jesus could have died on the cross for our sins when he was three. Don't you think with me? He lived a righteous life, a perfect life. So the gospel is the righteousness of Christ, it's the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, and it's a situation where we put our trust in him. That's the gospel. It's totally and completely from God.

6:52 we can do nothing to merit it. I don't care if you've been baptized, homogenized, or pastorized. You can still bust hell wide open if you think it's a works-based situation. Oh, I can work my way and somehow earn it if I go through the sacraments or if I go through this particular class or if I help others. I mean, that's good, but it's by grace, unmerited favor through faith. The fun part is this thing, well, obviously the fun part's being saved, but this thing called sanctification. Sanctification is a lifelong process once you become a believer. Does that make sense to everybody? Okay, so now I've set the table for this fun study on the doctrine of sanctification. During this series, some people have kind of done the pushback, like, whoa, I had no idea.

7:54 Other people have facepalmed. What? My family believed that, and they were sincere, but I've discovered they were sincerely wrong. Or some people have kind of gotten a little bit angry. So anytime you teach and preach theology, you're going to have some controversy because it gets up in our grill, so to speak. And tragically, so many churches and so many pastors want to just fly at 40,000 feet and never get down to where the D9 dozer works, works where you have to get specific and talk about theology and why theology matters. It matters what we're talking about here. It matters that we understand the doctrine of salvation. It matters that we understand the doctrine of justification. It matters today that we understand sanctification. Because sometimes things sound good or sound sexy, but they're in theological la-la land. We have to be grounded in our theology. Theology is what the entire Bible says about a topic. So when I talk about sanctification, I'm not just plucking a few verses out of the New Testament and a few from the Old. This is what the entire Bible says about this process. First Thessalonians chapter four, verse three says, for this is the will of God, your sanctification.

9:36 So as I go through this, it's going to be fun. I'm telling you, I want you to evaluate where you are on this continuum. Where are you in your spiritual development or do you have arrested development? You might not even be a believer, but you need to pinpoint where you are on this continuum. You could have been a believer like I have since I've been eight years old. You could have gone to seminary and done doctrinal work. I still have to pinpoint myself on this continuum. Sanctification is a lifelong process that culminates in heaven.

10:18 So in heaven, it's like, bam, sanctification is done. In sanctification, obviously we still mess up. You still sin, I still sin. I don't, though, sin like I used to. And that's just the power of the Holy Spirit of God. So there are three different, really, aspects of sanctification. You'll see it on your message map. I can tell you're following. Wave it to me, wave it to me. I want to feel, I want to feel the air. Whoa. Number one, positional sanctification. I just explained that to you. Positionally, we're sanctified. 1 Corinthians 6.11 says, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God.

11:15 You might be saying, okay, Ed, I've been born again. I'm justified. I'm sanctified. Why? I mean, is this like some kind of a point system? God, I did this, two points. I did that, 17 points. No, no, it's not that. The motivation of my sanctification should be gratitude. I'm so grateful to God. God, you're so gracious. You did everything. I just want to reflect back who you are and discover my purpose. So sanctification is literally discovering your purpose and your uniqueness. So you'll never discover it away from sanctification. We also have progressive sanctification. Philippians chapter 1 verse 6, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion.

12:17 I love that. Until the day of Christ. The Trinity is involved in this process. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, three in one, one in three, one in essence, three in persons. The Father, his role in sanctification is discipline. Parents, I don't like to discipline my kids. Well, I don't anymore, but I'm saying back in the day. And discipline is hard, isn't it? Am I too tough or am I too light or should I sit down and talk to them or raise my voice? I mean, discipline, God is the perfect heavenly parent. And part of sanctification, the Father disciplines those he loves.

13:07 That's not a popular topic. You won't see it on any Christian merch in the source. God, though, disciplines you and me for our best. The Son of God, I'm talking about the Trinity, earned all of this on the cross. His atoning, redemptive work. The Holy Spirit energizes us with power to live the life. God is doing it, yet we have to cooperate with this. Justification is God's work. Drop the mic. Sanctification is God and man working together. Part of it is living a holy life. It's being set apart by what we say, by what we think, by what we do.

14:04 1 Peter 1, verse 15 says, but just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all that you do. I love Philippians 2. It says, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling for it's God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good. Say it with me. Purposes, not porpoises, purposes, purposes. So we trust, we pray, we act and take a wild guess at one of the venues where our sanctification could be and should be worked out?

14:48 The church in community. And the ultimate sanctification, I've already given this away, is the glorification when we're in heaven. You see that. Now let's talk about some stages because I promised you that I was gonna go through some specific stages where you could go, okay, I'm there in sanctification, and I should be there. Or man, look at me. Chronologically, I'm only 18, but I'm a mature believer. Three stages of spiritual development. The first stage is infancy.

15:25 We all love babies, don't we? But we don't want our kids to remain babies their entire lives. I've never met a parent who said, wow, little Frankie, that's a cool name, Frankie is three months old, and I want Frankie to be like this 35 years from now. No. No. And double no. Some of you are saying, oh, man. Anyway, so we're born again, and a baby comes into the world, and the baby learned some things, basically how to feed. And it's a glorious day when the kids learn how to feed themselves. Look, honey.

16:20 I'm sorry, today it's babe. Babe, used to be honey. Babe, babe. Hey, babe, look, babe. Babe, she's feeding herself. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. You know what I'm saying? whenever people tell me this i'm not getting fed man you're still a baby i'm sorry man you've been a part of fellowship church for seven years you're not getting fed feed me

16:56 you know that statement stupid i hope you know that i mean don't call someone stupid to their face but i'm just kind of telling you what pastors say behind your backs they're like this guy's an idiot anyway Everyone says it in their job, I know. Don't act like, oh, really? Okay.

17:19 So we want to move from milk to meat, right? Protein, right? From pacifier to protein. So we eat, and we need to learn how to feed on the Word of God. That's why it's so important to learn theology. Then we walk. I wanna brag on one of our kids. Do you mind?

17:47 Laurie, when she was born, you know, she was like four months old. And one day, she just got up and started running. No practice. No stumbling, fumbling. No bumps and bruises. At four months old, she began to walk and to run. If you believe that, lift your hand. I just lied to you. That didn't happen. Oh, it was an arduous process of tripping and falling and all of the stuff you go through. Look, babe, she took a step, babe, and wow! The Christian life is about a walk. We're gonna get skinned up.

18:41 We're gonna fall flat on our face. we're gonna have a hard time keeping our balance. That's part of it. We love babies at Fellowship Church. We love feeding and we love walking and we love talking. Talking, talking to God in prayer, listening to the Holy Spirit. Talking, talking. We formulate sentences and we teach you how to talk to the Lord in prayer. It's powerful, isn't it? A baby, a baby. And it's something that we go through. Our perfect heavenly parents are like, okay, you're a baby.

19:25 I have an opportunity to talk to a lot of leaders and I have for the last 30 years. And now and then they'll say, hey, Ed, I got a question for you. Okay, okay. Ed, have you ever had someone say about Fellowship Church, because they say it about my church, they say, have you ever had someone say, Fellowship Church is just full of baby Christians? I go, yes, they've said that. They go, well, how do you respond to them? Awesome! I'm so glad we have so many baby Christians here because when God wants to birth a bunch of babies, he looks for the best hospital possible. Are you kidding me? We should have a bunch of baby believers.

20:21 If we don't, we're not a church that's being sanctified. One day someone said, yeah, I went to this church, and everybody in the church were lifting their hands. Everybody knew all the words. And I thought to myself, I didn't say it. Well, that's not a biblically functioning community. because a lot of people, if they're in these different stages of development, they don't know all the songs. They don't know all the Christian moves, you know? so it's not my goal for example to have everyone here to lift their hands it's great when you lift your hands i'm not saying that it's great to know our phenomenal worship songs but i want a lot of people like i've never been to this place what i mean scott staff was that him from creed or was that derrick bono well i think derrick bono is better than him anyway so you now we're getting ready for the cowboys game so we have the infancy stage we go through it then oh you know what you want the infancy stage is i've got it i've got it i've got to say this the infancy stage because i wrote this down it's kind of a rap. You want to hear this? It's a stroller crying, playpen whining, nap timing baby.

21:52 maybe you're a spiritual teenager you're a hip-hopping pimple-popping tick-tocking teenager somebody help me preach teenagers man how many teenagers do we have lift your hand proud hey we love teenagers we love babies we love teenagers but we don't want you to remain a baby your whole life spiritually and we definitely don't want you to be a teenager your whole life teenagers what do we do i remember when i was a teenager i would say things i look back ed you were so dumb but that's part of being a teenager i had some problems sometimes with authority issues You're just a teenager. It's okay. We go through that.

22:44 It's part of moving from boy to man. Man, man. It's part of moving from girl to woman, going through that, this autonomy. But what do teenagers want to do? It's not fair. You're so straight. I want to, I'm leaving home. I want to go live with them. They have no rules. They understand their kids. Really? Okay. Usually, people who leave churches are spiritual teenagers. They're kind of tweeners. And here's a survey, an informal survey I've done.

23:30 Usually, people, and listen to me very carefully, who leave churches never flourish again spiritually. Thank you. you're born again at a certain house, and all of a sudden your feelings are hurt, or you met someone that you don't like, or maybe, oh, I don't know why Ed said that. I'm just going to another church. You're a teenager, my friend. Stay with the program. Teenagers have no idea what your parents do. They have no idea the cash money the parents spend. Clueless. And that's part of it. Teenagers walk in here. My hand lifted up. Teenagers walk in here. Oh, man, this sure is nice.

24:23 Wow. Look at those screens. I guess that just happened. that camp on 1100 acres it just appeared out of nowhere the source you know we just redid the whole thing I don't know how it just happened one day I pulled up No, it didn't just happen. Your house, teenager, didn't just happen. Your mom and dad have worked their butts off to make it happen. And that's okay. I'm not hating on anybody, but I'm getting you to think, okay, how can I go to that next stage? usually a spiritual teenager I'll just give you some hints about them they're going to say things like the church is too big which is hilarious because you go to the Dallas Cowboys games in Jerry world and we say man you know I'm glad to be here the church just wants my money have you ever told Jerry Jones that?

25:44 You were told to act that? Why do you think he's doing it? I just love the game. we're not that dumb are we it's funny isn't it if you think a church is too big then you're not going to like heaven because heaven's going to be a big honking place and the early church grew from zero to three thousand in the first five minutes so sometimes spiritual teenagers will say the church is full of hypocrites. And it is. I'm one.

26:23 I am. Hypocrite is somebody that says one thing and does another. I do that all the time. I'm hypocrite. So are you. There's always room for another hypocrite here at Fellowship Church. This is one of my favorites. My feelings are hurt. They just seem to be so insensitive. what you said about Jesus being the only way to God. How about my Muslim friends and my Hindu friends and my Mormon friends? I'm just telling you what the Bible says. So you can have your feelings hurt. My feelings get hurt all the time when I walk with God in sanctification. So we need to progress through this. We don't need to have arrested development.

27:17 So here's what teenagers do. Teenagers stand on the planes of puberty. and they're like, man, I don't mind just staying here. I can come to church like, I don't know, once a month. I'll just remain on the plains of puberty because they look at the mountain of maturity. Oh, my gosh. And Jesus said, count the cost, and the teenagers are like, oh, my gosh. There is a relational cost to sanctification. your best friends have to be followers of Christ. I have a lot of friends who are hell-raising, dope-smoking, cocaine-snorting, skirt-chasing, hellions. I have a lot of friends that way.

28:11 They're not my best friends. My best friends are people that are believers. And the tough thing about this, man, if I'm a single, if you're a student, the Bible says that we should only date and ultimately mate with people who are followers of Christ. That's a tall order, man. But you see the brilliance of God because God wants us to be yoked together, it's a farming term, with someone who shares that which is most intimate, a relationship with Christ. Because Lisa and I have said this all over the place. If it weren't for Christ, we wouldn't be married. Why get married? there's also a time cost involved.

29:08 I mean, I like the planes of puberty. There's a time cost because two hours a day, well, no, two hours a week, I would say maybe 15 to 30 minutes, even more, a day, you have to allocate that time with God and then corporately we're commanded to get together. All the way back in the Old Testament, God commanded it. He commands it here. And if you don't come to Fellowship Church, I'll just throw a number on it, three out of four weekends, you're stagnant. Just, you're stagnant. how do I develop? I think about the relational cost. I think about that time cost. And here's what God does. God blesses our relationships like never.

30:03 He multiplies our time like never. And here's the last one that'll mess people up. The financial cost. I can look at your bank statement and see if you're mature or not. You can look at mine. It's that easy. You're not being generous, nor am I, when I tithe. I hope you know that. It's just part of my worship. It's a minimal worship requirement, and we don't force anyone to do that. We're not looking at your W-2s or anything. It's between you and God. the reason I tithe though is because I have to I mean everything's by grace I don't deserve any of this nor do you also too it moves along the greatest entity in the world the local church and on top of that it breaks the back greed and materialism not perfectly in my life but it really, really, really helps.

31:13 So you see the beauty of the tithe. And here's what people don't realize. We let go, God will turn around and bless us in ways we cannot fathom. But oftentimes people choke on that check. Man, the guys are starting to shift around. But see the hypocrisy? Oh, DAC, $60 million a year. Tickets to the Cowboys game just in the nosebleed section. I'm going to drop $500 on that and something to eat at the concession stand. And we come to church, and I guess this just happens. Wow. All of a sudden, there was nothing here.

31:59 I think a UFO dropped it. We have this beautiful building. So maturity, here we go. A Winnebago driving, golf thriving, coupon saving, grandbaby raving mentality. I like to call for the applause because the Bible says encourage yourself in the Lord and if you're not encouraging me, I'll just encourage myself.

32:35 Oh, well, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay. I'm not doing it for that, just a little joke, you know, a little joke, a little joke, a little joke. That's the other thing about the Cowboys, you know, they don't really have to get the people going. Well, a lot of people have liquid encouragement and that really gets people going, but we're not gonna do that. The Bible says in Hebrews 5, 14, solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. What does it mean to mature? Three things. I'm serving, I'm getting outside of myself, I'm serving, that's maturity, isn't it? You have kids, all of a sudden, you don't think about yourself anymore. Sharing, I'm sharing the good news of Jesus, and I'm sowing the resources and talents that God's given me.

33:31 So, to wrap it all up, what am I saying? I'll tell you what I'm saying. No more arrested development. I understand you're an infant. I understand that you're a teenager. I understand that you're mature. take the next step and you'll not believe what God will do let's pray Father thank you for this message thank you for our great church thank you for this process of sanctification and God we give this time to you and I pray that you would move as only you can