There is really no mystery as to what's
wrong with the human race.
It's a three-letter word and the middle
word is, the middle letter in that word
is I.
Sin is really the problem, isn't it?
You see this marriage over there and it's
broken up.
Why is it broken up?
It's broken up because of sin.
You see a personal relationship that's fractured.
Why has it fractured?
It's because of sin.
I'll say this, you see a business that's
going under and I won't say in every
case, but oftentimes it's because of sin.
It's because someone has failed to obey biblical
principles and to honor God in that business.
And of course, I could go on and
on and on.
Sin is really the root problem of the
human race.
Well, God has a threefold solution for the
problem of sin.
And the threefold solution we could categorize in
these three words, number one, justification, number two,
sanctification, and number three, glorification.
Now, I know that those might sound like
big words to you, and they're typically not
words that we use in everyday speaking.
So I want to take a little bit
of time and explain them.
By the way, I am not personally of
the opinion that we should throw out good
theological words.
I mean, stop using them just because people
are unfamiliar with them.
I think that we should continue to use
them, but explain them.
I think justification is an important word.
It's a biblical word.
And so I'm not going to stop using
it just because people are unfamiliar with it.
I want to explain it to you.
Now, the whole principle of justification is simply
this justification delivers the believer, the one who
puts their faith in Jesus Christ.
It delivers them from the guilt of sin.
We know very plainly that the Bible tells
us that we are guilty sinners before God.
It's as if we're before the courtroom of
God.
And there we stand before God as the
majestic judge.
And our charges, our crimes are read out
before God.
And we're guilty, guilty, guilty.
I touched on that in this morning's message,
but, you know, it's true.
No matter what your harshest critic says about
you, you know, in your heart that you're
really worse than what they even say, right?
That's no mystery.
You know it very well.
There's darkness and sin and secret sin and
hidden sin and sin of the mind and
sin of the heart that's within your life.
That's worse than probably whatever your harshest critic
says of you.
Well, God sees it all.
We're guilty, guilty, guilty before God.
And God loves us so much that he
arranged a way to deliver the believer from
the guilt of sin.
And we call that justification when the believer
puts their faith in Jesus Christ and is
born again.
They're justified.
They are set in a place not just
of not guilty.
But they are pronounced righteous.
You know, if you think of it in
the terms of a ledger of bookkeeping, we
are in debt to God.
We're in the debit column, correct?
Now, justification doesn't just bring us up to
zero.
Doesn't just clear our debts before God.
Justification clears our debts before God.
And then it puts, if you will, credit
into our account.
We're justified by the great work of God.
This delivers the believer from the guilt of
sin.
Now, the third step in the process.
Don't worry, I didn't forget the second.
I'm saving it for last.
The first step is justification.
The third step is glorification.
Glorification is when we are resurrected and completely
transformed.
The Bible tells us that these bodies will
be transformed and will be resurrected and brought
to new life before God in heaven.
And we know that the great thing about
heaven is that glorification delivers the believer from
the presence of sin.
Now, sometimes we long for that deliverance right
now.
God, can't you make it to where I
just don't sin anymore and there's no more
sin and I'm not.
But God, that's in God's plan for you.
Just not now in heaven.
That's down the road.
There will come that day when you will
no longer be tempted.
Isn't that glorious to think about that?
No more temptation in heaven, no more solicitation
to sin or to evil, no more world,
no more flesh, no more devil.
All of those classic enemies, they're gone.
Everything is poured into the glory and the
radiance and the wonder of Jesus Christ.
That's glorification.
You know, this principle of sin that's within
my flesh that that I have to battle,
it's gone utterly redeemed.
So we have justification.
Number three, we have glorification.
And in between the two, we're safe from
the guilt of sin, from the presence of
sin in between the two is sanctification, where
we are delivered from the power of sin.
You see, sin has a power, has a
grip that it wants to hold over us.
You're familiar with this in your own life,
right?
Sin has a spiritual power that wants this
whole wants to hold us in slavery unto
itself.
So we're not we're not free.
And God wants to deliver us from the
power of sin.
And that process is called sanctification.
The idea behind sanctification is being set apart.
Justified is being set right in God's court
of law.
Glorification is being glorified.
Sanctification has the idea of being set apart.
You know, once you lived under the power
of sin, now you're set apart and you
live unto the glory of Jesus Christ and
under his power.
Now, what's interesting about this is that for
the most part, and I'm oversimplifying greatly, but
for the most part, justification and glorification are
largely agreed upon by Christians.
There's common ground.
You know, well, justification, we all understand glorification.
OK, we're in a common ground, but you
should know that there is a great difference
of opinion surrounding the matter of sanctification about
the believer being set apart to God.
Now, we use many terms for this idea
of sanctification, the idea of holiness.
Holiness is just another way of saying set
apart.
You know, have you ever heard?
Christians should be holy.
It's another way of saying Christians should be
sanctified, should be set apart to God.
Have you ever heard the idea that Christians
should be consecrated?
I love that word.
That's a good word.
That means set apart and anointed for special
service.
Christians should be sanctified.
They should be holy.
They should be consecrated.
And essentially, you're saying the same thing when
you use those three terms.
So I want you to understand that this
idea of sanctification is pretty broad.
It covers Christian growth and maturity and holiness
and consecration unto the Lord.
Now, this is where the difference of opinion
is.
Some people think that we are sanctified, that
is made holy as soon as we are
saved.
Their idea is when you're born again, you're
set apart to God.
You know, he calls you a saint.
He makes you holy.
You're sanctified when you're saved.
Other people say that we are sanctified, that
is made holy at a point of decision
after salvation.
In other words, there's a point where you
come and say, I need to surrender it
all to God.
I need to come to a place of
real sanctification and surrender to God.
And that's how sanctification comes from a point
of decision.
And then other people say that we are
sanctified, that is made holy in a process
that begins when we are saved, but continues
gradually until the rest of our Christian life.
Well, when you talk about these three things,
you say, well, are we sanctified when we're
saved?
Are we sanctified at a point of decision?
Are we sanctified in a process?
The answer to that question is yes, the
Bible speaks of all three.
And that's why I want to speak to
you tonight about sanctification three times over.
Now, you may know that I've been reading
a lot of the books and works of
a gentleman named J.
Edwin Orr, and I heard very fondly read
in a book about an incident in his
life in 1949.
He had graduated from Oxford University.
He got his Ph.D. there.
He wrote a great thesis on the Second
Great Awakening, the Second Evangelical Awakening in Britain.
And he had come back to the United
States and he was doing ministry, especially campus
ministry at that time.
God had really opened up doors for him
to preach among students, college students.
Well, he went to Minneapolis in 1949 and
was being really used of God in a
wonderful way.
And during his time in that study, he
was asked by a gentleman named Dr. Paul
Rees, who was a prominent pastor in Minneapolis,
the pastor of the First Covenant Church of
Minneapolis.
And Dr. Rees organized a series of meetings
that would invite the whole Christian community in
Minneapolis.
He didn't just want it to be for
his own church, and he worked very hard
to get participation from many different churches.
So the people who came to this series
of meeting that J.
Edwin Orr taught at were Christians of all
different backgrounds, from all different theological opinions.
Well, one evening, just as Dr. Orr was
about to leave the pastor's study, Pastor Rees
asked him, what are you going to speak
on this evening?
It's always good to know what your guest
speaker wants to speak on.
And J.
Edwin Orr responded, I am going to speak
on sanctification.
And it's the first time that I've ever
spoken on this topic.
Well, Dr. Rees was a bit concerned, I
wouldn't say alarmed, but he was a bit
concerned because he warned J.
Edwin Orr that you're speaking to a very
mixed group here.
And generally speaking, Baptists don't have the same
idea of sanctification as Lutherans, as do Methodists,
as do Presbyterians.
And you're looking at a church that has
all of them here tonight, and we're just
trying to get the Christian community together here
for a nice series of meetings, and it's
all going to blow up on our face
because you want to talk about sanctification.
He was absolutely convinced that it would be
impossible for Edwin Orr to speak on this
topic without offending somebody or most everybody.
Now, his biographer says that because J.
Edwin Orr was Irish, maybe he means he
had a bit of a stubborn streak in
him and a combative streak.
He insisted on going forth and he spoke
that evening for an hour and a half
on the subject of sanctification.
Afterwards, after the meeting was over, the first
guy to come up to him was a
Methodist minister in town.
And he said to J.
Edwin Orr, praise the Lord.
You are the first Baptist preacher because J.
Edwin Orr, he was really a man spanning
denominations, but he was an ordained Baptist minister.
He said, praise the Lord.
You're the first Baptist preacher I ever heard
who seemed to grasp the truth of sanctification.
Not long after him, a Presbyterian minister came
up and shook J.
Edwin Orr's hand and he said, congratulations, that
was a sane, balanced exposition of the real
truth.
I wonder how your Methodist friend took it,
though.
Then a Lutheran pastor came up to him
and he said, well, you surprised me.
That was sanctification according to the teaching of
the Lutheran saints.
And then finally, a Baptist preacher evangelist waited
in line to say this to J.
Edwin Orr.
That's right, brother.
Never be afraid to give the good old
Baptist doctrine to the mixed multitude.
Isn't that remarkable that when you understand that
it's really not so much that the different
approaches to sanctification, none of them are really
wrong, but they don't exclude one another.
Most encouraging of all to J.
Edwin Orr that evening was that there was
a large number of people, especially young people
who stayed behind to seek prayer and counsel
about surrendering their lives fully and decisively to
God.
J.
Edwin Orr later that year in 1949 gave
a series of messages at the Forest Home
Conference Center, and he gave this same series
of talks at the conference and his messages
on sanctification and full surrender had a dramatic
and lasting impact on the people there at
that conference, especially on one of his fellow
speakers at the conference.
And the fellow speaker was Billy Graham.
This is what Billy Graham said about Orr's
teaching on this.
He said the messages Dr. Orr gave as
one of the other speakers were of tremendous
blessing in my own life.
His logical development of the whole subject of
full surrender and the outpouring of the spirit
stirred the entire conference evening by evening.
Well, I want to speak to a little
bit about this idea of sanctification and organize
it around these three points about sanctification of
being in three aspects.
The first idea is that sanctification is positional.
We are sanctified as a position in Jesus
Christ.
The second aspect is that sanctification is something
that is decisive.
It's made as a decision.
And the third aspect is that sanctification is
something that is progressive, that it happens progressively
in the Christian life.
Let me speak to you first about positional
sanctification.
And I'd like you to turn to First
Corinthians, chapter one, verse two.
That's First Corinthians, chapter one, verse two.
To the church of God, which is at
Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ
Jesus called saints.
With all who in every place call on
the name of the Lord, Jesus of Jesus
Christ, our Lord, both theirs and ours.
Now, you probably know something from previous Bible
studies.
You probably know something about the character of
the Corinthian church.
This was a church that had a lot
of problems.
This was a church that was divided on
its members.
They like to make groups or, you know,
camps, so to speak, within the church who
rallied around different individuals.
You know, some would say, well, you know,
I'm really a follower of the Apostle Paul.
And another would say, well, you know, I'm
a follower of the of the Apostle Peter.
Another would say, well, I'm a follower of
Apollos.
And then there was another group who really
thought that they were really better than everybody.
Well, I'm a follower of Jesus.
And, you know, you had this kind of
battling back and forth.
You had such shameful conduct when they would
get together to celebrate the Lord's supper that
the people who got there first would drink
alcohol excessively and get drunk and eat all
the food.
So the latecomers, not only did they have
to deal with the obnoxious behavior of their
drunk brothers and sisters, there wasn't anything for
them to eat.
They had people shouting out and saying crazy
things in church services.
The church at Corinth had a problem with
really uppity women in their midst.
They were very confused about the matters of
marriage and sexuality.
They thought that it was more holy to
abstain from sexual relations, even if you were
married.
And of course, they had the problem with
sexual immorality in their midst, where there was
a man who appeared to be a living
with his stepmother in the church there and
nobody had the guts to say anything about
it, to say, this is sin and it
should be stopped.
Instead, they sort of dislocated their elbows, patting
themselves on the back for how loving they
were.
It was a church full of problems.
Yet, Paul says in verse 2 of 1
Corinthians 1, he says, the church of God,
which is at Corinth to those who are
sanctified in Christ Jesus.
Now, this shows us that in one respect,
sanctification is positional.
We are sanctified as soon as we put
our trust in Jesus Christ and are converted
because we are now found in Christ.
And is Jesus sanctified?
Is Jesus holy?
You better believe it.
So if Jesus is holy and Jesus is
sanctified, if I am in him, there's definitely
a sense where positionally I am sanctified.
In this sense, sanctification and holiness is the
property of every believer.
Now, one of the things that I like
about this topic, when J.N. Winore would
teach on it, was he talked about each
one of these positions being identified with one
of three great Johns in church history.
I don't mean restrooms.
I mean people with the first name of
John.
And the first one is a gentleman that
you may not have heard of.
His name was John Darby.
He was a very famous and influential preacher
in the 19th century.
He was a great Plymouth brethren leader, and
he really championed this view of positional sanctification.
Listen, you are sanctified if you're a believer,
you are a set apart believer, and that's
it.
That's your sanctification.
Now, the potential problem with the idea of
overemphasizing positional sanctification is that if we overemphasize
it, it leads to the thinking, listen, it
doesn't matter how I live because I'm already
holy and sanctified.
You know, I guess there's just going to
be sin in my life to the end
anyway.
So I'll just be satisfied with being in
a position of sanctification.
Well, look how bad the Corinthians were and
they were still saying, well, I'm sanctified.
No biggie.
Now, that isn't what Darby taught at all,
but that is the danger of an exaggeration
of the position along the lines that John
Darby taught.
If you overemphasize positional sanctification to the neglect
of the other aspects of it, you can
end up in a lot of trouble.
So the second phase or dimension, we should
say, perhaps, to sanctification is what we might
call decisive sanctification.
Look at Romans chapter 12, verse 1.
I hope this is familiar ground to you
because this is one of the most wonderful
passages in the entire Bible.
Romans chapter 12, verse 1.
And look at what Paul says.
He says, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by
the mercies of God, that you present your
bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God,
which is your reasonable service.
Now, there's a couple of important phrases here.
First of all, Paul implores us to do
this in light of the mercies that we've
already received.
In other words, we don't do this to
gain mercies from God.
You don't sanctify or surrender yourself to God
so that he'll love you more.
You do it out of surrender unto him,
out of gratitude and joy for mercies already
received.
The other thing I want you to see
is that Paul begs them to do it.
I beseech you as I'm begging you present
your bodies.
Now, again, that phrase there is very important
that you present your bodies a living sacrifice.
The verb tense of this phrase present your
bodies, the verb for present there is peristae
in the ancient Greek language.
The verb tense of that word speaks very
plainly, plainly, and I'm quoting a great commentator
in this, Leon Morris.
He says the aorist infinitive points to a
decisive action.
In other words, Paul is saying by the
mercies of God, that with a decisive action,
you present your bodies a living sacrifice.
I hope I don't burst any bubbles when
I say this.
But Romans 12 one really doesn't have the
idea of waking up every morning and dedicating
yourself to God.
I'm not trying to say that that's a
bad thing.
I'm just trying to say that's not what
Paul is communicating here.
What Paul is communicating here is a decisive
action, a point of decision.
Where you say, I am going to dedicate
myself to God fully and I will surrender
to him completely.
And he says, present your bodies.
It doesn't mean that God is interested in
our bodies and not in our souls or
not in our spirits.
The idea is that your soul or your
spirit, it's living in here.
So when you present your body, you're presenting
the whole package.
It's the complete self.
And it means that we present our bodies
as a living sacrifice, as a decisive dedication
of the entire personality.
It isn't really speaking in this verse of
a gradual or of a daily thing.
Now, if you make a decisive dedication, you
only need to do it again.
If you move from that place of decision.
You know, I have decided to wholly and
completely give my life to Jesus Christ, to
surrender to him fully.
It's whatever you want, Lord, everything.
Now, if you've made that kind of surrender,
you don't need to make that surrender again
unless you move from that place of decision.
And let me make this very plain to
you.
The kind of dedication, the kind of sanctification
that's spoken about in Romans 12.
One is complete to say, I'll surrender this,
but I'll keep that is not decisive dedication.
I want to understand there are many Christians,
many, many Christians who have never come to
a place of decisive dedication in their Christian
life.
To me, there's a great illustration of this
in the pages of the Old Testament.
You remember when Jacob was going back to
the promised land after his years living with
Laban and Jacob decided that he would come
and come back to the promised land and
he knew he was going to meet his
brother Esau.
The last words that he ever heard from
his brother Esau were the next time I
see you, I will kill you.
And Jacob had heard nothing from Esau for
many, many years.
Now, Jacob is bringing a huge tribe of
people back to the promised land and he
gets report from advanced scouts that he sent
ahead and the advanced scouts bring back the
report.
Esau is coming to meet you and he
has a large army with him.
Well, that frightened Jacob to no end.
And Jacob decided that he would send some
gifts before Esau.
And so first he sends a bunch of
camels.
I may have the order mixed up here,
but you get the idea.
Then he sends a bunch of sheep.
Then he sends a bunch of oxen and
then he sends a bunch of, I don't
know, cattle, whatever it would be.
And I think what's interesting about this is
that's very a very accurate illustration of the
way that we often surrender to God.
God, I'm in some kind of problem.
Lord, I just I just want to get
right with you.
I surrender, Lord.
I surrender all the camels.
And if that's not enough, well, then I'll
surrender all the lambs.
OK, Lord, if that's not enough, then I'll
surrender all the you get the idea, right?
You don't wholeheartedly surrender to God.
You surrender just kind of whatever you think
you need to to get out of the
jam that you're in.
And let me tell you, this business of
complete surrender to God is radical.
We can't dance around this.
Complete surrender to God means if God calls
you to sell everything and go to the
mission field, you do it because you've surrendered
all right.
That's a nonissue.
If God calls you to, you know, get
rid of everything and go and live in
poverty so that you can go through ministry
training and then, you know, go forth in
ministry, you'll do it because that's what God
has told you to do.
If God tells you to empty out your
IRA and give it to somebody else, you
do it because you've surrendered it all to
God.
If God tells you to give up this
habit, you know, whatever habits you see in
your life, you just live and say, look,
if it's not of God, I have to
get rid of it, period.
That's all there is to it.
You've got to admit, this is a place
of decisive surrender that, honestly speaking, and I
hope I'm not sounding judgmental, I'm just trying
to be factual here, that, honestly speaking, many
Christians have not come to.
They're just not there, honestly.
You know, it's just kind of in the
mentality, and I know this sounds harsh, and
I don't want it to come off as
harsh.
I'm really just striving for accuracy more than
harshness.
But since this is such a heavy topic,
it tends to come off as harsh.
But the idea is pretty much, OK, well,
how little can I give God and make
him happy?
How little can I surrender unto him and,
you know, and he'll love me and bless
me?
Instead of just saying, Lord, it's all, everything,
everything I have, everything I am, it's yours.
Now, how much do you have to surrender
to God to be completely surrendered?
Because this is the fact.
You could say that in an absolutely objective
sense, there's not a single completely surrendered life
to God, right?
And this troubles many.
Well, how can I completely surrender?
I've been, I guess if I can't completely
surrender, then what's the deal?
Everybody has their sin.
What's it?
No, no, this is the thing.
How much do you surrender to God?
Everything that you know.
The degree of surrender is determined by the
degree of light that you have.
Now, let me put it to you this
way, the 10-year-old boy who comes
to Christ, he doesn't even like girls yet.
He doesn't have to surrender his sexual impulse
unto Jesus Christ.
It's a non-issue for him at that
age.
But later on in his teens, he has
that experience in his life and, you know,
begins to grow with it and he has
to surrender that.
And then the man, you know, listen, greed,
materialism, the guy doesn't have two nickels to
rub together.
This isn't something he really has to surrender
to God, but he begins to become successful
in his career and starts to amass some
things.
And now this is an issue.
Then he has to deal with that issue
of surrender.
So do you get what I'm saying?
Is that it's a matter of you surrender
all that you know.
And when God shines more light, then you
carry out that previous decisive decision and you
surrender more.
You just surrender according to the light that
you have.
Now, I want to suggest to you, according
to Romans 12, one, that this is something
that Paul already experienced.
Paul was not shy about saying we in
referring to things of the Christian life.
Right.
But look at what he says in chapter
12, verse one, that you present that you
present your body's a living sacrifice.
He didn't say that we present our bodies
as a living sacrifice.
Paul is writing from the perspective of saying,
I'm not perfected.
Paul would never say that he's perfected.
They said, I've done this.
I come to this place where everything that
I am and everything I have has been
surrendered to God.
And I'm just living this kind of life.
And I want you to live it as
well.
Now, if John Darby was the great champion
of positional sanctification, then John Wesley was the
great champion of decisive sanctification.
He was a very well-known advocate of
this view.
And the idea was that it's important to
come to a place in your Christian life,
a point of decision where you surrender all
and yield all to God.
Now, people might say, can't that happen at
conversion?
Can't that happen when you're born again?
I would say that it's certainly possible, but
just in the way that it works out
in the Christian experience of most people, it
just doesn't happen that way.
It's too new.
It's too wonderful.
Everything's too.
I mean, you see a common pattern in
Christian life where a person first comes to
Jesus Christ and they're just their their their
initial experience with the Lord is so wonderful.
And then this glorious, just the flush of
first love.
And it's great.
But over time, you know, that sort of
backs down a little bit.
And maybe there's even a little bit of
backing off and downgrading.
And then they sort of come to a
place of greater perspective and perhaps even maturity
in their Christian life where they have to
say, all right, am I really going to
do this or not?
You know, I mean, I've lived this great,
glorious flush of Christian experience.
I know what it's like to not live
for Jesus.
Now it's kind of before me.
Which way am I going to go?
I can't live in this half land anymore.
I've either got to go full on for
Jesus Christ and fully surrender or I need
to give up on this and turn my
back on it.
That's just practically the way that it works
out for almost every Christian I know.
I know it worked out that way for
me in my life.
Now, there's a potential problem with the idea
of decisive sanctification, and the potential problem is
that if you overemphasize the idea of decisive
sanctification, it can lead to the thinking of,
hey, I'm sinlessly perfect.
I've arrived.
I'm fully surrendered.
I don't sin anymore.
Do you know, there's people who actually have
said that in church history, that they've had
this second blessing, this great experience, this great
experience of sanctification or surrender, and they just
don't sin anymore.
And that's exactly what some of the theological
followers of John Wesley have taught, that you
can come to this place, really a virtually
sinless perfection.
And and that's, you know, that's obviously wrong.
That's obviously unscriptural, but it's a potential problem
with an overemphasis of the view of decisive
sanctification.
Now, the third aspect that we want to
bring up is what we might call progressive
sanctification.
We talk about positional sanctification, decisive sanctification and
then progressive sanctification.
Progressive sanctification, I think, is described very well
in Romans chapter 12, verse two.
Look at it right there.
He says, and do not be conformed.
In other words, after you've come to this
place of decision, how do you go on
from there?
Do not be conformed to this world, but
be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
And the idea there is of a continual
process that you may prove what is that
good and perfect and acceptable will of God.
This continual transformation by the renewing of your
mind is what we might call progressive sanctification.
It doesn't happen in a once for all
experience, but it starts and continues on through
the Christian life.
The idea is simply this, that real sanctification,
that holiness, consecration, full surrender, you might say.
It's a decision with view to a development.
Yes, it must have a critical decision that
comes to the place where with eyes wide
open, you say, I surrender all, but then
it moves into a process, a development.
It's decision that moves into development.
This was the approach emphasized by John Calvin,
that sanctification is a process that continues on
through the Christian life.
Now, there's a potential problem with this.
If you overemphasize this particular aspect of sanctification
and the potential problem is simply this, if
it's overemphasized, it leads to the thinking I
don't need ever to make a point of
decision.
I'm just rolling along since I was saved
and I'll continue to roll along in some
way or another.
It's just kind of automatic.
I'm saved.
I'm Christian.
I'm still a Christian.
I must be getting more and more sanctified.
No, no, no.
It doesn't necessarily work like that.
And that's why in Romans 12, 1, Paul
plainly and boldly calls believers to a point
of decision.
And then he describes the continual development of
it in Romans 12, 2.
So, friends, you get the picture here.
Three ideas of sanctification.
Positional sanctification, decisive sanctification, progressive sanctification.
Or let me put other words to it.
I just want you to hear these words.
Positional holiness, decisive holiness and progressive holiness.
I'll throw the other term in there again,
just so you can hear it with your
own ears.
Positional consecration, decisive consecration and progressive consecration.
Let me read you a quote from Jade
Lenore.
He says, The lives of saintly people seem
to show that there was indeed a first
time when they consciously yielded their all to
God.
And that yieldedness was renewed from time to
time.
Obviously, they experienced both crisis or decision and
process.
I have to say that in my life,
that's been a critical time.
I remember as a young man within the
first year or so of my Christian life,
a radical, you might call it an I
surrender all experience with God.
And God built upon that.
And there's been times when God has very
much had to radically bring me back to
that place.
Not as if it never happened.
But, you know, I think that I had
just sort of drifted from that place of
real decision and dedication.
And you need to come back to it,
but then to progress upon that.
Now, let me make a few points here
just to conclude with.
Number one, all three phases of sanctification are
essential, especially for Christian service.
Do you want to serve the Lord?
You will only find your greatest effectiveness by
understanding, implying all three aspects of sanctification.
Of course, understanding your positional sanctification, but then
coming to a place of decisive sanctification where
you say, I just surrender it all.
Everything.
It's all yours.
Everything I have, every habit, every thought.
I just want to give it all to
you, God, with no reserve.
Whatever you tell me to do, I'll do
it.
There's nothing you can't tell me to do
that I won't do because you you're in
charge of my life.
Again, from Jay Edmonor, he says the tragedy
today is that Christians insist on attempting to
serve God in their own way instead of
in the appointed way.
The experience of the writer was bitter failure
time and time again through trying to work
for God in his own strength.
You see, that's the real glory of sanctification.
The glory of sanctification, of holiness, of consecration
is seen in what we are separated unto.
Now, take a person who feels that God
has called them to go work in the
slums of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which I
don't know is one community, probably among many
in South America that I've had some pretty
bad slums, just the slums of any vast
inner city.
That person feels called, they feel separated unto
this work.
Well, let me ask you a question.
There doesn't sound to be anything glorious in
that, right?
I am consecrated, I am separated unto the
slums.
Well, good for you.
It sounds like a big loser to me.
But listen, there's an entirely different flavor when
you understand that, no, I am separated.
I am set apart unto Jesus Christ.
That's glorious.
That's the prize.
And Jesus wants me to go to the
slums.
OK, you see, there's an entirely different perspective.
And when you realize and when you fully
grab a hold of what you're consecrated unto,
what you're separated unto, what you're called out
unto, it's the Lord God himself.
And might I say, that's what's going to
be fulfilled in heaven.
In heaven, you are going to be totally
separated unto God.
All the distractions, all the things in this
world that keep you from God are all
going to be done away with in heaven.
Now, what's funny is that there's a lot
of Christians who anticipate going to heaven and
fully plan on being there, but they don't
seem to live like they would like heaven
very much right now.
Because they fill their lives with all these
things that are going to have no place
in heaven whatsoever.
None.
You know, and you would look at their
life and if you looked objectively, you'd go,
man, I can't see that you want to
go to heaven at all.
You know, it's funny, if you really wanted
to go live in another country, if I
wanted to go live in Sweden and really
felt a passion to go do that.
Well, you know, I would be really busy
right now learning Swedish.
I'd be busy on the Internet, you know,
looking up the news from Sweden.
I'd be, you know, just developing an interest
and developing character and all those things.
And and whatever personal habits I might have
that wouldn't really be, you know, Swedes have
a certain way that they eat at the
table, which is common to many Europeans.
And it's kind of different than than Americans.
You know, Americans kind of tend to shovel
their food in.
Europeans, they kind of tend to eat a
little bit differently.
It's a little more dignified and proper and
all that.
So, you know, you say, well, I want
to develop those habits because this is where
I'm going.
I want to do it.
Well, isn't it funny that oftentimes we want
to go to heaven, but we don't develop
any of the habits, any of the thinking,
any of the mindset, any of the language
that's compatible with heaven.
How much do you really want to be
there?
You see, that's the glory of sanctification, understanding
what you're separated unto.
Sanctification of holiness often gets a really bad
rap as if it's a negative thing.
Think of an angry man with a craggy
face, shaking a bony finger in your face.
You better be holy, young man.
No, no, no, no, no.
It's a very positive thing because we are
separated unto the glorious love and grace and
mercy and goodness of our God.
And that's worth it.
That's what makes it worth it to say,
oh, I surrender everything.
I give up everything for the glory of
this.
So here's the challenge.
First of all, are you saved?
Are you in a position of sanctification?
If you're not, then I implore you, I
would dare command you in the name of
Jesus Christ to come to faith in Jesus
Christ tonight.
To not leave here without believing on Jesus
and getting forgiveness for your sins and yielding
your life to him for conversion, to be
converted and transformed by him.
I want you to know that you are
commanded to believe.
And if you will not decide for Jesus,
then realize you are making another decision.
Then right now, why don't you come out,
out and out for it?
I think some evening we'll do this or
some Sunday morning.
We'll have an altar call, not for people
to come forward to receive Christ, but you
come forward if you want to reject Jesus
Christ.
Come on, you're making a decision.
Let's just be upfront about it.
Be a man about it.
Be a woman about it.
Show some integrity here.
Why don't you just come forward right now
and stand before everybody and say, I've heard
the appeal.
I've heard the gracious offer of God's love.
I've heard about what Jesus Christ did for
me on the cross.
I've heard it all.
I don't want it.
I will go my own way.
Well, then we could respect you.
It's a very honorable, but yet very stupid
man or woman.
But you're coming to a great place of
decision, aren't you?
Secondly, the first question is, are you saved?
Are you in a position of sanctification?
Secondly, are you fully surrendered?
Have you made a decision of sanctification?
And might I say, when we consider all
that is involved in this idea of a
full decision of sanctification, it's a heavy thing.
I think we generally tend to think that
it's much lighter than it is.
We realize, look, I belong to Jesus.
Everything I have, everything I am is his.
You know, when Paul wrote those great words
in Philippians to live is Christ to die
is a game that's full surrender, right?
What can you do to a man like
that?
Take away all his possessions, take away his
computers, his books, his surfboards, all the rest
of it.
So what?
Because he doesn't say to live, his computers,
to live, his surfboards, to live his books,
to live as Christ.
You can't take that away from me.
He says, that's where my life is.
And I think it's something that the church
as a whole needs to be awakened to.
And then third, to ask yourself, are you
growing in holiness?
Are you in the process of sanctification?
It's a position, it's a decision, it's a
process.
God wants all three of these things to
be alive in our life tonight.
Father, our prayer is that you would make
this real to us.
Lord, we don't want it to be just
ink on a page or words in a
church.
It has to pierce through to our heart.
And Lord, some of us, honestly, we have
a vague desire to be fully surrendered to
you.
We seem to have very little grasp to
know how or why or what to do
with that, how to go about it.
Lord, I just pray that you would speak
to our hearts about what we have to
do, what we have to yield, what dream
we have to yield before you, what hope,
what fear, what possession.
Show us what's involved in each individual life
to come to you in full surrender, in
a decisive act of sanctification.
And then, Lord, help us to progress along
the way.
I pray this, Lord, in Jesus' name, amen.