We want to look at verses 12 and
13 tonight.
Very popular verses, very well known perhaps, and
yet I'm convinced not really appreciated, and probably
more convinced not truly understood as much as
they ought to be.
Philippians 2, 12 and 13, Therefore, my beloved,
as you have always obeyed, not as in
my presence only, but now much more in
my absence, work out your own salvation with
fear and trembling.
For it is God who works in you,
both to will and to do for or
of His good pleasure.
Paul is certainly the theologian of sanctification.
And when you stop and think about it,
is that not what all of his epistles
in the New Testament are for to begin
with?
Either to correct error that was attacking Christ's
church, or to teach truth.
But either one of those, the ultimate goal
was sanctification.
The building up of the people of God
into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Wesley's hymn that we just sang, speaks the
reality of that.
That one verse, Long my imprisoned spirit lay
fast bound in sin and nature's night.
That's spiritual death and depravity.
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray, I woke
the dungeon flame with light.
That's regeneration.
My chains fell off.
My heart was free.
I rose, went forth and followed Thee.
That's conversion.
And within that very hymn, Wesley speaks of
the reality, as does Paul here in this
text, of the great process that begins in
the heart.
Sanctification.
The great reality of Christian experience and growth.
The fact that God, for every single Christian,
God has made every believer holy through their
union with the Lord Jesus Christ.
And, as a result of that, that we
are in the process of increasing in holiness
of heart and life.
Now the first half of this message tonight,
I don't know if it will be the
half of it, but will be introduction on
the theme of sanctification.
This afternoon I was in Harcrui's office and
I looked down there on Brother Darren's desk.
I hope it's not his daily devotional.
It was his most recent copy of Bohan
America.
And it was laid open and there was
a quote by Daniel Webster there.
And I read that and I said, Mercy,
I do believe in evolution.
I said, you know, evolution is true.
I'm glad I've got your attention now.
Because Webster defined evolution as this, the process
of continual change from a lower or worse
condition to a higher, better state or condition.
So at least in the area of sanctification,
evolution is completely true.
The great reality of our growth.
What is sanctification?
Well, definitions are good.
I'll give you one that I think is
true and to the point.
Sanctification is the work of the Holy Spirit,
whereby we are renewed and changed in the
whole man, mind, will, affections, emotions, desires, choices,
mentality, outlook.
We're changed in the whole man into the
image of Christ.
And we are enabled more and more to
die into sin and live unto righteousness.
Let me repeat that.
Sanctification is the work of the Holy Spirit,
whereby we are renewed and changed in the
whole man after the image of Christ and
enabled more and more to die unto sin
and live unto righteousness.
Simply put, it's increasing in holiness of life.
And this is true of every Christian.
Sanctification doesn't happen in deeper life Christianity or
reformed Christianity or whatever kind of Christianity.
Sanctification happens in normal, real Christianity.
Biblical Christianity, the only kind that there is.
It happens in the life of every Christian.
The process of sanctification.
And in this text in Philippians, that's clearly
what Paul must have in mind.
The reality of our working out our salvation.
That is, the process of sanctification.
That's the only way his words can properly
be understood.
He tells the Philippians, this salvation you possess,
your own salvation, you have a responsibility in
this thing.
You are to work it out.
You are to bring it to its proper
final conclusion.
You are to bring it to its final
goal and destination of maturity.
Sanctification.
This is the will of God, Paul tells
the Thessalonians.
Even our sanctification.
He says in Romans 6, that having been
set free from sin and having become slaves
to God, you have your fruit unto holiness
and the end, eternal life.
Paul said to the Colossians that it was
his goal and desire to what?
To present every man, that is every believer,
perfect or mature in Christ Jesus.
He told the Ephesians that it was God's
great purpose for the church, that He might
sanctify and cleanse her.
As A.W. Pink said one time, Christ
comes with a blessing in each hand, forgiveness
in one and holiness in the other.
Always together.
So this great process of holiness and growth
it's amazing to think about it, how important
it is.
When you think about the fact that it
is the entire Christian life.
Think about it.
From the moment of your regeneration and conversion,
until you close your eyes in death, you
know what is happening in you?
The work of sanctification.
So it's a vast reality how important is
it for us to be clear on it
and to have it in our hearts, as
Peter said, to grow in the grace and
knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We're speaking about holiness.
Now, holy and holiness are terms that have
borne the brunt of many false views.
Heaven think.
Everything from those who completely deny that holiness
is necessary to those who go to extremes
on what it means.
The word holy seems archaic, outdated and backward.
To some, it's legalism at its worst.
Supposing holiness is a lengthy list of rigid
rules.
For others, when they hear the word holiness,
they think of unattainable perfection.
But it's none of those things.
Holiness of life is holistic.
That is, it includes our entire life.
Every sphere of our existence.
I think one of the holiest things, perhaps
this week I did, was stop for two
days in Arkansas with my 11-year-old
twins and spend time with them and take
the boy fishing.
My daughter wasn't interested in the fishing, but
we went out to a pretty lake there,
outside of Hot Springs, and he fished.
And I thought, this is pleasing to God.
Holiness of life.
Holiness is not a list, but rather a
life that is Godward.
Holiness of life.
Now, as we begin to talk about this
tonight and more tomorrow, I want to begin
by mentioning just a foundational truth.
It's probably not important among this bunch to
labor it very much, but it's simply this
fact, that our sanctification is rooted in the
reality that God Himself is holy.
Exodus 15-11, Moses said, Who is likened
to be, O Lord, glorious in holiness?
1 Samuel 2-2, Samuel said, There is
none holy as the Lord, for there is
none beside Thee.
And you remember there in 1 Samuel 6,
when they were bringing the Ark of the
Covenant, and the men of Beth-shemesh, 50
,000 of them, died under God's judgment when
they looked into the Ark of God.
And after that happened, the living then cried
out, Who is able to stand before this
holy Lord God?
All the way to the book of Revelation,
John cried out, Who shall not fear Thee,
O Lord, and glorify Thy name?
For Thou only art holy, for all nations
shall come and worship before Thee.
This is needless to labor the truth of
this tonight, perhaps, in our midst.
Not only is God holy, but what else
has He said to us about holiness?
He's commanded us to be holy because He's
holy.
Leviticus 11-45, that great Exodus reality of
redemption.
God said, I am the Lord your God
who brought you out of the land of
Egypt to be your God.
Be ye therefore holy because I am holy.
And you know that Peter quotes that very
text in 1 Peter, when he talks about
what manner of conversation or lifestyle ought all
believers to have.
And he quotes that.
The fact is, when God calls a people
out of Egyptian darkness into His marvelous light,
they are radically separated unto Him forever.
The names and numbers of God's elect are
a secret thing.
Don't even worry about it.
But if there's one thing plainly laid down
about election, it is that elect men and
women will be known by their holy lives.
Forty times in the Old Testament, God is
referred to as the Holy One of Israel.
The word holy is found over 900 times
in Scripture.
Think of it.
Now, while the Old Covenant that Charles is
contrasting and talking about in relation to the
New Covenant in these sessions that he'll be
teaching us, while the Old Covenant demanded external
ceremonial holiness and morality, the New Covenant gives
freely internal transforming holiness of heart.
The Old Covenant demanded external ceremonial morality, but
the New Covenant, by grace, gives to us
internal transforming heart holiness.
But the Old Testament word and the New
Testament word have the same meaning.
The word holiness or holy.
Both convey two ideas.
One idea is the idea of separate, indicating
position.
Separate position.
The other idea conveys the idea of brightness
that sends forth light, indicating a condition.
A condition of brightness that sends forth light.
Both of these things are true about God.
Jonathan Edwards said, Holiness is more than just
an attribute of God.
It is the outshining of all that God
is.
Holiness.
And yet, both realities, the position of being
separate, and a condition that sends forth light
and brightness, both of those things are true
of every Christian.
And if you're a believer tonight, they're true
of you.
You have been perfectly separated unto God forever
as His unique possession, and you currently possess
a condition about you that always emanates moral
light and reality.
Whether you know it or feel it or
see it or think it or not has
nothing to do with it.
That's talking about positional sanctification.
The completed fact that every Christian is sanctified.
Already in their regeneration and conversion.
This was accomplished by the redemptive act of
the Lord Jesus Christ.
Separating us unto God forever through redemption.
Holiness about the Christian is an internal reality.
And it's a fact for all who are
in Christ.
The Bible calls all believers those who are
sanctifying.
Now there are a number of scriptures that
make this abundantly clear that all Christians are
called sanctified.
For instance, Acts chapter 20 verse 28.
When Paul is saying goodbye to the Ephesian
elders, he commends them to God and to
the word of His grace.
He says that He is able to build
them up and give them an inheritance among
who?
All those who are sanctified.
That is all believers.
In 1 Corinthians chapter 1, Paul uses it
twice in that one chapter in this way.
He starts out speaking to the Corinthians now,
remember.
And by the way, we often view the
Corinthian church based on the first epistle.
Why don't we get our view of them
based on 2 Corinthians?
Just think about that a little while.
But Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 1,
he says it twice.
To those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus,
called to be holy, and verse 30, Christ
Jesus has been made unto us wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification and redemption.
In 1 Corinthians 6, he reminds them of
what they once were, but he says, but
you are washed, you are sanctified, you are
justified in the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ.
Hebrews especially uses this word about all believers
in this sense.
Hebrews chapter 10 verse 10, And by His
will, we have been sanctified by the offering
of the body of Jesus Christ once and
for all.
Hebrews 10 verse 13, four by one offering.
He has perfected for all time those who
are being sanctified.
Now just think of that.
He has perfected forever who?
All those who evidence in their life that
the process of sanctification is happening.
And Hebrews 13 verse 12, or maybe it's
12-13, Jesus that He might sanctify the
people suffered outside the camp.
Now, this is not ongoing progressive sanctification, but
rather our complete separation to God forever.
Colossians 1 says, You, has He now reconciled
through death to present you holy, unblameable, and
unapprovable in His sight?
Now, if you're a believer, do you see
yourself that way before God?
You might say, well, no, I just see
myself as a sinner.
That would be arrogant.
It's downright unbelief for you to call unclean
what God has called clean.
He has said every believer, Christ has reconciled
us through death to present us holy and
unblameable and unapprovable in His sight.
His death set every Christian apart forever unto
the Lord.
The New Testament does not say that Christians
must lead holy lives in order to become
saints, but rather that Christians, because they're already
saints, they do lead holy lives.
Christians are sanctified ones.
Every Christian.
Not preachers, not theologians, not missionaries, not Christians
that have been Christians 70 years, not strong
ones, not perfect ones, but the person that
repented and believed on Christ five seconds ago,
the five-year-old who is a new
believer and doesn't know much.
Every single Christian is a saint, has been
sanctified by God.
Now, holiness is what we have in Christ
already.
But at the same time, we know the
New Testament tells us that we grow in
it and we strive for it.
And every true Christian does.
No believer has arrived.
Some of the brethren here, and I know
a preacher, a campus preacher, who has traveled
the campuses of the United States, I guess
for 25 years at least, and he will
stand on campus and he will say, I
have not sinned in 20 years.
Well, I don't know why I said that
except to say that what an absurdity, what
foolishness for someone to think that they have
arrived.
No believer has arrived.
That's why progressive sanctification is just as biblically
true as our positional sanctification.
Every Christian is holy before God, and yet
is growing in holiness of life, growing in
grace.
Or to use that good old word that
isn't used much anymore, godliness.
Growing in godliness to become like God.
That I, a child of hell, should in
His image shine.
What a thing that you are growing right
now tonight to be more like God.
More like Christ, more like the Holy Spirit,
more beautiful in nature and in character and
in desires, being changed.
All of us are prone to have a
low view of the significance of sanctification.
We have a tendency to confuse evangelical holiness
with morality, failing to see that gospel holiness
is the work of the triune God in
planning and sustaining spiritual life within us.
It's an important question to ask.
Is this work of sanctification God's work or
is it the believer's work?
And the answer is yes.
But as we see Paul here speak to
the Philippians, in the first verse we read,
he places the responsibility on their shoulders, doesn't
he?
And then in the second verse, he tells
them the basis and the reason why they
can with confidence work out their salvation.
Because it is God who is at work
within them.
We're going to take the second verse tonight
and the first verse tomorrow, is that alright?
Because properly understood, we have to view sanctification
as first the work of God.
It's the work of God in our souls
that begins when our dungeon flamed with light.
When the blessed Spirit of God brought us
from death to life.
And we awoke and the chains began to
fall off.
And we realized God's real.
Christ is real.
I'm clean.
I'm different.
The grass is really greener.
Everything is new.
Something is happening in me that's a work
of God.
It's a work of God in our souls,
this reality of sanctification, that begins the moment
we believe in our conversion.
Thank God that it's not up to us
to keep ourselves.
But we're kept by the very power of
God through faith.
And we work at our salvation because it
is God who works within us.
This is central to New Testament teaching concerning
the Christian life.
If our sanctification is truly a work of
God that must be performed in us, then
there are some basic truths here we see
in verse 13.
So let's turn back to Paul's words and
let's just look at verse 13.
He says, it is God who works in
you, both to will and to do of
His good pleasure.
Now the first thing we see, the first
truth there, just stands out in those first
three words.
It is God.
Paul here is telling us, first of all,
that our sanctification is supernatural.
It's supernatural.
It is God who is at work.
The God who at creation spoke the universe
into existence.
The God who pulled back the Red Sea
and they went across, not on muddy land
or damp ground, but on dry land.
This God is the God who is at
work in every believer.
Sanctification is supernatural in nature.
1 Thessalonians 3, Paul says, The Lord is
faithful who will establish you and keep you
from evil.
Leonard Ravenhill used to say, The greatest miracle
God can do is to take an unholy
man out of an unholy world, make him
holy, put him back in an unholy world,
and keep him holy.
That is you if you're a Christian.
Every Christian is a miracle of vast proportions.
Because the very power of God Himself has
wrought a change that nobody can explain away.
1 Thessalonians 5, Paul says, May God Himself
sanctify you through and through.
Now earlier in that epistle, Paul said something
to the Thessalonians that we often skip over.
It's one of those verses that we miss
and yet there's a great gem there.
In 1 Thessalonians 2, verse 13, Paul speaks
of the Word of God performing its work
within you who believe.
Do you realize every time you open your
Bible and you read it with an open
heart, maybe a dry heart, maybe a needy
heart, maybe a struggling heart, but when you
come to the Word of God and you
read it, or you come to sit under
the preaching and teaching of it, every time
you do, a miracle takes place.
There's a divine transforming reality that occurs because
the Word of God by the Spirit of
God performs its work in your heart and
you go away changed.
But the God of all grace, Peter said
in 1 Peter 5, who has called us
to His eternal glory, make you perfect, establish,
strengthen, and settle you.
Brethren, our growth, our increase is supernatural because
it's nothing less than the work of the
Spirit of God within us.
God at work within us.
J.C. Ross said what God requires of
us, He Himself works in us, or it
is not done at all.
Think about it.
The godly farmer that goes out and plows
his field in the summer.
We were driving from Texas and I saw
all through there in Arkansas and on into
Missouri and southern Illinois, I saw farmers on
their tractors and they were tilling soil.
The farmer who plows his field and then
later sows the seed and then fertilizes and
cultivates, and he does all he knows to
do with the best effort and the best
seed, he's ultimately aware that he's utterly dependent
on forces outside of himself to make that
crop be fruitful.
He can't send the sunshine.
He can't send the rain.
He can't germinate the seed.
God must cause the growth.
And it's true of us spiritually as well.
God Himself causes our growth.
David said in Psalm 116, he said, He
it is who delivers our soul from death,
our eyes from tears, and our feet from
falling, in order that we might walk before
Him in the land of the living.
It is God that causes our growth in
grace.
Paul plants, Paulus waters, but God gives the
increase.
Dear brethren, none of us, not a one
of us, can go higher or deeper in
the Christian life than the supernatural grace of
God works in us to take us there.
That's why John Owen said, To be truly
holy is a greater matter than most are
aware of.
So greater work, it can only be accomplished
by God Himself.
It is God who delivers you and I
from ongoing sin.
It is He that sets us free, that
empowers our will, that renews our mind, who
pours out His Spirit upon us when we
most need Him, that strengthens and encourages our
needy hearts just in time.
He ever lives to rule over us and
defend us.
He restrains and conquers all of our enemies.
And He keeps us and He supplies wonderful
grace in time of need as we call
upon Him.
David said in Psalm 94, When I said
my foot was slipping, Thy mercy, Lord, held
me up.
Beloved, every one of us in here would
have given up a long time ago had
God not kept us.
That's why the hymn writer said, and that's
why we sing, Lord, lift me up and
let me stand, By faith on heaven's table
in a higher plane than I have found.
Lord, plant my feet, please, on higher ground.
He must take us there.
He must get us there.
If sanctification is a work of God in
us that's supernatural, then we ought to be
much crying out to Him to sanctify us,
to increase His work in us, to pray
more for His Spirit upon us, to pour
out our hearts in dependence upon Him daily.
Oh, the great, radical, extravagant grace that's readily
available to us, if we would but through
prayer avail ourselves of it.
Lord, work in me.
Change me.
Turn my heart and I'll be turned.
Heal me and I'll be healed.
Increase my faith.
Teach me to pray.
Enlarge my heart to fear Your name.
Isn't it true that all the prayers in
the Bible evidence the fact that we cry
out for God to do what we can't
do?
Spurgeon said this, God loves to see the
hearts of His people glowing toward Himself.
Let us seek His grace that the fire
may never be quenched.
If the unseen hand behind the wall pours
on the sacred oil, it will blaze higher
and higher.
Oh brethren, cry out for that unseen hand
to always be pouring on the oil.
Our sanctification is always supernatural.
We persevere only because of the perseverance of
God within us and upon us, in and
through and despite our own sins and failures
and unbelief.
Just think of the amazing reality that here
Peter, in the presence of a teenage girl,
three times cowardly denies the Lord.
And in a few days after, he's the
one standing at Pentecost courageously preaching the gospel
to thousands.
You talk about supernatural.
It's God that works.
It's nothing less than supernatural.
Well, that's a little bit that's just in
that first phrase.
It is God.
Our sanctification is supernatural.
But then, secondly, Paul tells us that it
is God who is at work.
It is God who is working.
It is God who works.
This tells us that our sanctification is not
only supernatural, it's continual.
Think of that.
It is God in you who is always
at work.
Sanctification, your growth in grace as a Christian,
is always continually happening.
It's always, always occurring.
When you're awake, when you're asleep, on a
good day, on a bad day, it's always,
always occurring.
Leviticus 6, verse 13, The fire shall ever
be burning on the altar, it shall never
go out day or night.
And the work of the blessed Spirit of
God in relation to the redemptive work of
Christ, our altar, the work of that fire
never goes out.
That fire is ever burning on the altar.
It is ever at work within us.
From the moment of your regeneration until you
close your eyes in death, the Spirit of
God will be doing His divine remodeling project
in your soul, changing you into the image
of God's dear Son.
Now, the fact that sanctification is continual, it's
always occurring, destroys the carnal Christian doctrine completely.
The idea that there are different classes of
Christians, or that some Christians are growing and
some are not, that is a lie.
By the way, liberalism didn't foster that lie.
Dead 20th century fundamentalism produced that one.
But the Philippians 1, 6, isn't this just
wonderful?
He who has begun a good work in
you will perfect it until the very day
of Jesus Christ.
If he's begun a real work, it will
be perfected.
Note the words carefully.
He will perfect it.
What's the next word?
Until.
That's continuation.
That's continual.
He will bring our salvation to full completion.
Here it means that God has progressed so
far with His work in us that what
He is doing now is simply putting on
the finishing touches of our salvation.
A great artist having painted a masterpiece, and
it's basically done.
To the untrained novice eye, it would look
completed.
But not to the eye of the master.
He wants to dip his brush here and
put some grey here and some lighter shades
here.
He comes to put on finishing touches, to
bring it to perfect completion.
That is what God is doing in our
sanctification.
Christ left the glories of heaven for us.
He endured the wickedness and the opposition of
sinners against Himself daily as a man for
us.
He perfectly obeyed His Father every moment of
this earthly life, securing for us actual righteousness.
He went to the cross bearing His Father's
holy wrath, and He took on Himself all
of our guilt and all of our sin.
And He finished the work, and He rose
victoriously.
And He ascended to heaven in our behalf,
and now He sits in session.
The King tonight is in session.
A man sits on the throne of the
universe, the God-man Christ Jesus.
He fully accomplished our redemption.
And the Spirit of God, when He drew
you with cords of love, and He awokened
you, and He turned you, and He saved
you, began to apply that redemption, and He's
still applying it.
So now, since all that has happened, is
it any great thing in the light of
God giving His Son for sinners to die,
is it any great thing that God will
therefore certainly now change you and sanctify you
and help you and deliver you from those
besetting sins, or those idols that still try
to hang around?
He who spared not His own Son, but
delivered Him up for us all, how will
He not with Him freely give us all
things?
What a thing!
The most important part of our salvation is
already done.
And the majority of our salvation is already
completed.
Now God is putting on finishing touches.
He who began this good work in us
shall bring it to completion.
It's continual.
In every situation you face, God is sanctifying
and changing you.
Through every trial, through any circumstance, any setback,
any experience you go through, God is at
work within you.
Our worst days and our worst moments, through
the darkest times and difficulties, there's never a
moment that God is not at work within
us to perfect that which concerns us, whether
we feel it or not.
Every second, saving and sanctifying grace is at
work in the heart of every Christian.
Just think about Peter again.
When Peter denied the Lord, think of this.
Jesus says to him, Simon, Satan has desired
to have you, that he may sift you
as wheat.
Grace was continually working before his denial, in
and through it, and afterward.
Paul and Barnabas, their split, was under the
furtherance of the gospel and the growth of
both of them.
If you're a Christian, you every day are
being changed more and more into the image
of Christ, because His work in you is
supernatural and it's continual.
Well, let me hasten on to the third
part of that verse.
Paul tells us, not only is our sanctification
supernatural, it's God, and it's not only continual,
it's God who is at work in us,
but it is God at work within us
to somehow figure out how He's going to
make us holy.
Is that what it says?
Well, if you brought a living Bible, maybe
that's what yours says, but it says God
is at work in you to will and
to do.
God never wills within us anything He doesn't
bring about.
He wills and He does.
This is a great mystery, and I can't
explain it.
Whatever questions you have, just go ask Charles
Leiter, because he's the one who taught me
all this anyway, so ask him all your
questions.
Paul's prayer for ongoing sanctification in 1 Thessalonians
5 when he prays, I pray your whole
spirit, soul, and body will be preserved blameless
unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
What's the next thing he said, the next
verse?
Faithful is He who called you who also
will do it.
Our sanctification is not only supernatural and continual,
it is certain.
It is God who is at work in
you to will and to do.
Faithful is He who called you who also
will do it.
Jude 24, unto Him who is able to
keep you from falling and present you blameless
before Him.
God in Christ in love has predestined that
every child of God will be conformed in
an image of His beloved Son.
I've got good news for us tonight.
God is not wringing His hands in frustration,
wondering how He's going to get a carnal
church holy.
Rather, He is with perfect wisdom, consistently perfecting
a redeemed people who love Him because His
Son died to make them holy.
2 Corinthians 3, verse 18, But we all,
with open face beholding as in a glass
the glory of the Lord, are changed into
the same image as by the Spirit of
the Lord.
Every Christian before very long will be in
His presence and will perfectly be like the
Lord Jesus Christ because their sanctification is of
God and it is certain.
Why is it certain?
Because our sanctification is an essential part of
the new covenant.
For instance, Jeremiah 31, verse 33.
Jeremiah states that covenant.
He says, Behold the days come, I'll make
a new covenant with the house of Israel.
This will be the covenant I'll make.
I'll put my laws in their inward parts
and write them in their hearts.
The only reason some of you drove me
miles to be here was because the law
of God's been written in your innards, in
your inmost heart, and you love Him and
you long to be more changed.
And that's proof that you're part of this
new covenant.
He writes His laws in our hearts.
Jeremiah 32, verse 40.
I'll make an everlasting covenant with them and
I will not turn away from them ever
to do them good.
I will put the fear of me in
their hearts so that they will not turn
away from me.
Ezekiel's statement of this covenant, chapter 36.
He says this, I'll sprinkle clean water on
you and you'll be clean.
There's regeneration.
From all your filthiness and all your idols,
you know what's been happening since the day
you were saved?
God has progressively been washing you and cleansing
you continually from filthiness, sins of the flesh,
sins of the mind, sins of the spirit.
He's been delivering you from all your filthiness,
from all your sins and from all your
idols.
It's a process that started, it's happening now,
and it's going to continue to happen because
your sanctification is a part of the new
covenant promise.
And it happens in every single Christian.
Every Christian will be delivered progressively from all
their idols and will never turn back from
following Him forever.
That's a promise of the new covenant about
everyone in the covenant.
John 10, my sheep hear my voice and
I know them and they follow me.
It is certain because it's part of the
new covenant.
It's also certain because Christ Himself specifically prayed
for your sanctification.
John 17, verse 17.
Did you know in the days of His
flesh when He was here on earth that
He prayed specifically for you?
He said, Father, I pray not only for
these that have believed, but I pray for
all those who will believe.
Father, sanctify them through Thy truth.
Thy Word is truth.
Now, whether He was praying for perfect, positional,
redemptive sanctification that His people that He was
soon to go to the cross to die
for would be separated or progressive sanctification, I
don't know that it matters.
Regardless of how you slice the pie, it
tastes awful good.
Is it possible the Lord Jesus Christ could
have a prayer that could go unanswered?
He prayed, beloved.
He prayed for your sanctification.
If you're His, what a thing.
What a certainty.
What an assurance.
He prayed for you and me to be
made His in holiness.
Well, it's also certain because our God who
cannot lie, who is even faithful when we
believe not, and He continues to be faithful
because He can't deny Himself.
He has promised all through Scripture that the
work in His children, in every one of
them, will be completed.
For instance, Proverbs 4.18, the path of
the just, that is of every Christian, every
believer, is as the shining light that grows
brighter and brighter all the way to the
perfect day.
Are there any dark spots on that path
at times?
Yes.
But then He lifts you up.
The righteous fall seven times, and they rise
again.
He lifts you up, and He keeps you
on that path, and the path grows brighter.
And it's going to grow brighter and brighter
until the perfect day for you, regardless of
what your experience is if you're His.
Psalm 138, verse 8, He shall perfect that
which concerns me.
That's one of my favorites.
When I feel so needy, when there are
difficult circumstances, when I struggle with sin, I'll
go there and I'll say, Lord, all the
promises of God are yes and amen in
Christ Jesus.
You have promised to perfect that which concerns
me.
So here I am.
I'm just checking in, Lord, for You to
do it.
Do it afresh in me.
Perfect that which concerns me.
It's a promise, beloved.
Promises are not exhortations.
They're declarations of a loving Father who has
said, I will do all of this for
you.
Believe Me for this.
This is why Paul prays with confidence for
the Thessalonians.
I pray your whole spirit and soul and
body be preserved blameless.
Is that your heart's cry tonight?
Lord, there's nothing in this life that really
matters except my being made like the Lord
Jesus Christ, ultimately.
There's nothing that matters.
I pray, God, your whole spirit and soul
and body be preserved blameless to the coming
of our Lord.
Faithful is He who called you who also
will do it.
Or as the hymn that we sing says,
Changed from glory into glory, Till in heaven
we take our place, Till we cast our
crowns before Him, Lost in wonder, love, and
praise.
Beloved, if you're a Christian tonight, take heart.
Because your sanctification is a work of God.
It will not be thwarted by demons, by
anything in this earth, by sin, by evil
men.
Nothing shall be able to stop God's work
in the soul of every Christian.
Amen.