Major Bible Themes
Mike Doyle · Aug 21, 2011
Major Bible Themes (2011), No. 34
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926244215291

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, this is the question every week. Who read the chapter? So if you read the chapter, what does sanctification mean? It means to set apart. Okay. Now, if it means to set apart, awesome. What does it mean? It means to set apart. What would you say biblical sanctification means? To set apart from the old person? To? Set apart to what? To the new person, in Christ. To Christ, to God.

So, I remember when with the kids in Sunday school class we were talking about sanctification and they were sort of looking at me so I asked one of them to stand up. I said, come here with me. And I took her all the way over to the other side of the room. way over here and I said now she's been sanctified. She's been set apart from all of you over here with me. That's what it means.

The problem with sanctification is that if you grew up in any kind of a Protestant Methodist mentality, what did you think sanctification was? Oh, you guys are all Catholics, right? What it was, was to work as hard as you could to get better. That's what sanctification meant. It doesn't mean that at all. It doesn't mean that at all.

Now, in the study of the Word of God, are you sanctified? Is everybody in this room sanctified? Yes, I am. You are? Good. Why were you sanctified? We'll answer that question. What are the aspects of sanctification and points on sanctification now? I like this, this is cool. Yeah, it's Apple for you. The word sanctify and the word saint and the word holy all come from the same... Did they bring me that little pointer thing? They didn't, did they? Yeah, I think they did. Maybe they took it back. Do you see this word hagiadzo? See that word right there? Now notice what the word for saint is. Hagias and the word for holy is hagiasmos. The same root word for all of those.

So I can say to set apart for a special purpose. Now that's a really important part of the definition, to be set apart for a special purpose. Okay? Now, the next principle is that you always are, if you're going to be set apart, or you're going to set something apart, you set it apart from, to. If I'm going to set Russ apart from this side of the room, and put him over here, he's from that part of the room to this part of the room. In a physical sense, If we've been sanctified or set apart, we've been set apart from what? Where did you get set apart from? The old man. One thing, okay. What else? The world. Sin. What's that? Sin. Sin nature. Sin nature, sin, the world. Satan. Satan. Death. Death. One last really important one. law.

You can look through the Word of God and you don't have to write down any of these, but these are references to things like holy angels, holy prophets, holy spirit, holy covenant, holy father, holy and beloved elect, the holy church. All that means is that whatever the reference is, that they have been set apart. And it doesn't necessarily have to be a person. It can be a thing, like the Holy Bible. Anything that's set apart from one thing to another for a specific purpose is called holy. And I'm sure most of you have gotten an email from Vern at some point when he called you a saint, right? Dear Saint whoever. And what did that mean? It flipped me out the first time I saw it. Sure, because you think, oh I'm not worthy.

Well nobody said you were. but you've been set apart so you are a saint. If you come out of Catholicism like Bruce and I did, in order to become a saint you have to do all this really cool stuff in your life and then you have to fool a whole bunch of people after you die and then they have this ceremony called canonization and then they make you a saint. Well they make saint be something that it isn't.

Every one of us is a saint. You know, what is it, even a clock is right twice a day? So, what are the aspects of sanctification? Past, present and future. Every one of you in this room has already been sanctified, right? In other words, you have a position in Christ.

Now let's talk a little bit about position and condition. I was reading Some of you may or may not have a copy of Complete Greenbergs, do you? There's a section there called The Principle of Position, and in there is, if you've ever read Myles Stanford's stuff, you recognize that it's fairly precise in the way that he states things. But he talks about I'll just read a little of this to you.

There need be no difficulty with the subject of sanctification once the meaning of the term is understood, which we talked about. It's all important to keep in mind the clear scriptural distinction between our fully sanctified position and our being sanctified condition. Everybody with that? Condition.

So if I said to you, what's position from our perspective? What is our position? It's where you are. What else is it? It's who you are. In Christ. That's right. And it's what you have. And it never changes. It's where you are. It's who you are. And it's what you have in Christ. That position is reality. Anything other than that may or may not be. It doesn't change. It's totally complete. There's nothing to be added to it or subtracted from it. You can't sin yourself out of it. You can't change your mind. You can't do anything about it.

Now, the other side of that coin is your condition. And as he said, our being sanctified condition. Right here, present right now, or our practice. So your condition can fluctuate all over the place, right? You may be positionally secure. I shouldn't use the word may. You are positionally secure. in who you are, what you are and what you have, but your functioning everyday existence may not reflect what your position is or may.

So, if our present condition or our practice, if you look down here, we are sanctified during the process of your life from the time that you are saved to the time you get to go home to be with the Lord, you are conditionally being sanctified. You are being conditionally set apart for the purpose of God's use. Now that's the interesting part because most of us are so self-centered like me that we think sanctification is all about me.

But it's not. If I'm going to be set apart for God's use, that means that my focus and my activity are going to be about something other than me. the focus is going to be on the body of Christ. It's going to be on serving him. And it isn't going to be because somebody gave me a bunch of rules. It's going to be because I'm beginning to understand what God has already done.

See that? So, spiritual growth or being sanctified is, yeah, there's a sense in which my being set apart or being conformed to Christ is important to me, but what happens as you go along, it stops being about you, and it starts being more about, well Lord, whatever you want to do with me is okay, because you've already set me apart for your service, whatever you want to do is alright, conditionally. I think one other aspect of it that makes it not selfish is the fact that your sanctification glorifies God. Everybody hear that? That's a really good point. And your attitude, your frame of reference as you're being sanctified, glorifying God gets to be important to you.

Where it may not be in the beginning. I talked a few weeks ago when I was doing the main service about the cross of Christ and how we spend so much time looking at it from what we get out of it and seldom do we think about, well what did God get out of the deal? What did He get? And so you start to look at things from God's perspective and His side of the equation and His glory is really important because He does everything to glorify Himself, not selfishly but so that he can manifest his wonderful personhood and all of his power and grace on those who are the object of his grace.

And you, as we are set apart conditionally, we begin to have that same mindset. So he wins over another soul. So isn't that... That's really good, Monique. Not only does he win a soul over to save them, But during this process of sanctification, he's wooing us all the time to himself. And he has made us positionally with the ability to be conformed. You know? That person, Colossians...

His main goal, right? What's that? That's his main goal. His main goal is to really set us apart conditionally just like he's already done it positionally, so that our condition lines up with our position. And notice how careful and how gentle he is, and he woos us, he doesn't do this, you know, we don't have a choke chain, he's wooing us all the time, to himself. And that's that set apart on that.

The verses that are here, abiding in Christ, walking in the Spirit, beholding Christ, presenting our bodies, glorifying God, let's talk a little bit about Somebody give me in 25 words or less what it means to abide in Christ. What does that mean? To be with. To be with. Okay. If I called you up and said, how's the abiding going today, what would you say to me? Okay, is it to live?

Maybe if I did this, If I move this one up here, that might help. The third one down says, Beholding Christ. So let's work on that one. 2 Corinthians 3.18 says, Beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord with unveiled face. That's what I'm doing. How do I do that? Where do I behold Christ? By your position in heaven. But what's the tool God uses?

So, and beholding is this word that means that you are totally taken up with the object that you're looking at. As an example, I'm out walking my dog this morning. When I pull the ball out of my pocket, I can get him to do anything because he fixates on this ball. and he's jumping around in front of me, another dog, nothing will distract him from the ball. He's beholding the ball.

So, as you spend time in the Word of God, you should recognize that you're there primarily to behold the glory of the Lord. And if you know that that's what you're there to do, you know that that's what's going to happen and you'll begin to see His glory. Now His glory is going to have an effect on you. What's the effect? It transforms you. In other words, it woos you to Him. It woos you to Him. Now, that scenario is abiding. That's what it is.

If you, the Galatians verse that says walk in the Spirit, And I love this question. If you're walking in the Spirit, what's going on right behind your eyeballs in your mind? What are you looking at, thinking about, focusing on? What are you doing? Christ. Yeah. Beholding Christ. Say that again? You're beholding Christ. You're beholding Him. Now, you may be doing it because you have the Word in front of you, or you may be doing it because the Spirit of God is just laying them out there. And so the believer has this incredible privilege to behold the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ here. And I think that's the process of sanctification.

It's not memorization. It's not spiritual push-ups. So you're consumed. You're consumed. I can become consumed with him. And he wants me to be. Right. It doesn't mean you don't care about your family. But it's a different thing. You're consumed. God, I don't know the word, but you know what I mean. I do know. I remember one time when this man and woman I knew, they weren't married yet, and this guy was really beginning to get it with the Lord, and it was starting to take him over, which was kind of cool to see.

And this woman really loved him and wanted to marry him. and said to my other buddy, he said, I'm really worried about so-and-so because he seems to be too occupied with Christ. How's he ever going to love me? And the answer was, that's the only time he will love you. And you should promote that and be involved in that as much as you can. It's a different love. Totally. Totally. And they did get married. It's kind of cool.

Now, you get to this point here Or you're beholding, you're abiding, and you're walking in the spirit. And then there's this presenting business. You know, presenting your body a living sacrifice or presenting your members as instruments of righteousness. What would cause you to do that? Has somebody told you to? Because you're beholding Christ. That's right. It's a normal response. Yeah, that's exactly right. So, sanctification or spiritual growth is a normal thing. It's not abnormal.

We try to make it abnormal by putting all kinds of regulations and, oh, I ought to be doing this. I call them the tyranny of the aughts. I ought to do this, I ought to do that, I ought not to do this, and I ought not to do that, rather than beholding the glory of the Lord. Because he's wound me to do it. That process, all should be under the heading of grace because that's where it operates. It doesn't operate under a principle of law.

So during your whole Christian life the Spirit of God is wooing you to Christ more and more and that's what I think is the being sanctified part or being set apart part. Because all of you know that today in your Christian life you are more set apart to the Lord than you were ten years ago. that things ten years ago that seemed really important to you aren't so much now. And other things of the Lord are really important to you now that were kind of fuzzy back then.

And so that's the way it goes. Now, the last one is future. Our being, I like it, perfecto. Our perfection. 1 John 3.2 says, When he shall appear, We shall be like him for we shall see him as he is. Now think about that.

If your conditional sanctification, your being sanctified is based on the fact of beholding the glory of the Lord and being transformed from one state of glory to the other. Imagine if you got rid of the sin nature, got rid of this body that weighs you down. and you were standing in front of the glorified Christ and you saw him for all that he was. And guess what? You're just like him. And you can take in full on what he is. Would you say that that's perfection in terms of being sanctified? Yeah.

So, you have faith in what's going on now and hope in what's going to happen when you leave the planet. I mean, if the conditional sanctification goes on during your life, as you approach leaving the planet, it will be in one sense probably a little scary, but in another sense you know what's going to happen next. You know exactly what's happening next. And there's an anticipation.

See? Like with hell. Yeah, he's a good example. Mike, when you were saying that we can become all that He is, we won't be like deity of His. That's the only part. That we won't have deity. But we'll be everything else that Christ is. And we will be glorified because Christ asked for that in John 17. Father, that the glory you've given me, I've given them. That they may be one as we are one. And that the world may know that you sent me.

Now what's cool about that is God's overall purpose for everything he did in creation was to glorify himself. Now think about this. If he had two, four, six, seven creatures like us that he could do this process with in two and that when we went to see him we beheld him and we were just like him and his glory is manifested out and through us, would he have accomplished his purpose? Sure he would. And guess what, for all eternity that's what's going to happen, even in the millennial kingdom. We are going to be functioning here and ruling and reigning with him, but the most important thing we're going to be doing is manifesting his glory to the people that are here now, to the angels, to anybody that's sentient that can understand.

That's really neat. Now, traditionally every believer is already sanctified in Christ because you're in Him. You can't change in Him. We're being set apart and how and when were you sanctified? You were sanctified, God the Holy Spirit sanctified you, in other words it was the Spirit of God that set you apart. How did He do it? What did He do?

I mean the verses here, He's got 1 Corinthians 6.11 which is fine. But I have another verse that I like even better. And it's Romans 6, 2.

Don't you realize that when you were baptized into Christ, you were baptized into His death? You see that? It's like the Spirit of God got ahold of Russ and the scruff of his neck, put him in Christ at the cross at the time that he died, and when Christ died, so did Russ. He got separated from all of that stuff. and when he was buried and the Spirit of God raised him to newness of life, here he was, sanctified positionally. See that?

I think that's when it happened. That's the mechanics of it. A really important aspect of our Christian life is to understand that we did die. And what does death mean? Separation. That's half of the definition of sanctification. To be separated from something. You did not nor could you sanctify yourself. So stop trying.

You were acted upon by God. passive voice, 1 Corinthians 6.11, you were sanctified through the body, the death of Christ, Hebrews 10.10, and you were sanctified when you trusted Christ. Practical sanctification, you are commanded to be holy, set apart from the lesser desires to God's desires. When God says to you, as a positionally sanctified person, I command you to be set apart, what is he saying? You better do it. It's up to you. When God gives you that kind of a command, what does he assume that's already in place?

That you're beholding him. Say that again? That you are beholding him. More than that. Recognizing your citizenship. Okay, you're tracking right. He would ask you to do something conditionally that he's already done positionally. You see that? But if he knows where your position is, why would he then ask you? Good question. Anybody want to take a shot at the answer to that? Because you've got one foot in each world. Well, if he knows your position, right? Yeah. Why would he ask you? Why would he want you involved? Why didn't he just put the choke chain on and drag you across.

It's where your free will exists. Yeah, you're a creature with a will. And he's wooing you, not forcing you. The command is the command of love. And it's a command to demonstrate something that's already true of you. Did you see that? You're exhorted to be holy. Maybe I'll put it this way. Let's say you're studying the Book of Romans and we studied it on Tuesday for two years.

When we got to 12.1, Paul says, I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your body a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to Him. Now, if the believer has been schooled by the Holy Spirit all the way up to 12.1 and here comes the command. But notice how the command comes at you. I beseech you by the mercies of God to present your body.

So are you going to have a real struggle right there? If you understand Romans 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 and 7 and 8. You understand all of that wonderful information, lots of its position, lots of it has to do with who you are in Christ, how you got there, and he says, okay, give me your body.

That's what I want. You have no resistance by then. You're not going to fight that. It's almost like, well, you're asking the question before he's asked you. I've got this body that's a problem. What do I do with it? He says, give it to me. It's acceptable. I've set it apart. I'll take care of it. See that?

Now, if you don't understand and believe all the wonderful truths up to that point, then it's a struggle. Then there's tension. But if you're not there yet, conditionally, don't worry about it. The Spirit of God is taking you there. He'll get you to the point where it will be a knockdown. There will be no resistance.

Now, let's turn to Colossians 3.12. I like these verses. And this maybe will amplify what I'm talking about.

Colossians 3.12 says, Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, Wow, is that who we are? Absolutely. Put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, long-suffering.

How are we doing with that? If you know and understand positionally that you are the elect of God, you are holy and you are beloved. You are already set apart and you are beloved of God. You are a new creature in Christ, you have been resurrected and seated in Christ in the heaven.

He says, from a conditional standpoint, put on tender mercy's kindness, humility, meekness, and long-suffering. What's he asking you to do? Memorize what those things are and try to imitate them? That's right. Those are personality characteristics of Christ. So he's not saying adopt these principles. He's saying by faith put on what is already yours. In other words, abide in Christ and those are the principles that will be lived out through you because that's the life you have.

How are you going to implement these exhortations to be holy, you can't do it, only Christ can do it through you. Are you responsible to walk by faith as a believer? Are you? Well if you're a believer you're not forced to do anything, it just comes natural. Are you responsible to walk by faith as a believer? Are you? What do you think? Yes. I think so. You think so? What do you think? Yes.

No. You're resting in it. Three to one. The three is one. Yeah, you're responsible to walk by faith. You're responsible to believe God when he tells you and shows you and your position and as you understand what he's doing. Just take him at his word. You're responsible.

That doesn't mean if you don't you're going to be punished, does it? No. What happens if you don't? You just don't quit. You don't get to conditionally enter into what's already yours positionally. And guess what the Spirit of God will do? Okay, Russ, we're going to have to do this again, come on. And he'll bring you right back to the same place.

Because he doesn't quit, even though you might. God sanctifies you through the truth. So how do you find out about all these wonderful things? The Word. And that's the tool that he uses. He uses that tool, the Spirit of God uses that tool to conditionally set you apart. Because nowhere else are you ever going to find out any of this information. It isn't in any other book. Okay? He sets you apart through his Word. Your response will be what?

Philippians 3.10. Here's the response. That I may know him, in the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death."

Where do you think this desire in the heart of a believer to know him comes from? Don't you find it interesting that he doesn't put this desire in that, oh God that I would be able to keep all your laws and be righteous and all that Old Testament stuff. When what he puts in Paul's heart after 35 years of serving him, Paul says, that I may know him. Well, did he already know him? Sure he did, but what was he asking? What was he saying? It's a conditional prayer. He's saying, I want to know you more, that I may know you, and here's the criteria under which I want to know you.

The power of your resurrection, the fellowship of your suffering, being made conformable unto your death. Now what do those three things apply to? Would they not apply to conditional sanctification? That I may know him in the power of his resurrection set apart to the fellowship of his sufferings. Once I am set apart to I'm going to be in fellowship with the exact same kind of sufferings that he had while he was here. being made conformable unto his death. That's the separation from the old.

Do you see that? So Paul understood that the primary principle in conditional sanctification is to know Christ, that I may know him. Was that clear? Did you understand what I'm saying there? Say it again. When Paul prays that I may know him in the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death. He understood that those were the elements of conditional sanctification, the conditional setting apart. To know him in the power of his resurrection is what I have been set apart to, to him. And he lives by resurrection power.

The fellowship of his sufferings is what? It isn't, oh, my neighbor doesn't like me. The Lord Jesus Christ, because he lived in an environment that hated him, there was suffering involved in that. I mean, you and I suffer because not everybody belongs to Christ. Just that alone is suffering.

Everybody should know who Christ is. Everybody should come to him. being made conformable unto his death. Part of the conditional sanctification process is the work of the Holy Spirit to conditionally conform you to the death of Christ. Why is that important? Because the death of Christ is a separator. What does it separate you from? Sin, sin nature, flesh, world, law, Satan. So there's this ongoing process of conformity to the death of Christ, to being separated from all the stuff in the world, including my own sin nature.

And it's knowing him and being conformed to his death and the power of his resurrection all fit together as a game plan, maybe, is the way to say it. Is that okay? You all right, Monique? Let's see, so we've talked about your position is perfect, your practice can be up, down, sideways, all over the place, but it does not affect your condition at all, your position at all.

Now, the doctrine of sanctification, can it be interpreted by your experience? up there, I say no. Do you understand what he's saying? The doctrine of sanctification can only be interpreted by what the Word of God says. You cannot base it on what you've experienced. It has to be on what the Word of God says or interpreted by the Word of God only.

I'll give you an example. My sister Janet has this brain tumor and all of it led up to it, the operation itself and now her recovery. Would you say that that's under the heading of her conditional sanctification? Or is that just something that, what's that? She could be conformed due to it. Yeah. Now if God works all things together for good, Did he leave this thing out? This brain tumor? Do you think that that whole scenario is part of the sanctification of those that are around her? Maybe her husband and her children?

Sure. So, I think you have to look at everything that goes on in a believer's life as contributing to the process of sanctification. And if you have not interpreted sanctification from a biblical viewpoint, then your viewpoint is worldly and you've missed it. or as noted is, somewhat different. Or you've relied on the world's philosophy about a certain circumstance? Yeah.

But you know what? I was very sick at one time and I always wanted to go to Israel and when I got better Bruce said, well, where do you want to go? And I said, I'd like to go to Israel. And so we did go there and it transformed Bruce because he became a believer and so I had mentioned that to Carol the one that talks a lot and I couldn't I don't remember the last name Volker okay so she said okay there must have been a reason why you got so sick sure so yeah so that's true absolutely absolutely you have to look at circumstances from a biblical perspective, not from the circumstances themselves.

Lord, what are you doing here? Because he's doing them all. It must be rightly related to every other biblical doctrine. In other words, you can't take a snippet out of some verse that sort of fits you. One of the hungry hearts this week had to do with suffering. Somebody called up and asked Donna, do you think that God has appointed certain people to suffer? Do they have the gift of suffering? And this woman wanted Donna to say, oh yeah, because that's this woman who's got the woman he's going for, right? So Donna said, no, we're all appointed to suffer, all of us, the fellowship of Christ's sufferings. That's in context with the Word of God.

It can't be over-emphasized or under-emphasized, in other words, The doctrine of sanctification is always going on. You can't under-emphasize what's happening, but you can't make it a big deal that it's the biggest deal of all deals, because it's not. Personal sanctification is as complete for the immature saint as it is for the mature saint.

You realize that those little kids in the nursery back there that know Christ are just as sanctified as you are? As Vern Peterman is? as any of us from a positional standpoint. The day you're saved you get it all, all of it. And from then on you're treated like an adult son. Wow, that's kind of cool.

Because it's dependent on your identification with Christ. I don't quickly When you believe in the person and work of Christ, what happens to you positionally? You're baptized into Christ's death, you're buried, you're resurrected, you're seated in the heavenlies in Christ, you're positionally perfect.

Sanctified. And that's what it depends on. And it doesn't matter how old you are, how smart you are. Sainthood isn't subject to progression, it's a state of being. You're not sanctified because of anything you are or anything you have done, it's because you're in Christ. I like that. You know why? I'm a realtor. Location is everything to me.

And you may not believe you are a saint because you're not knowing that you are, but it doesn't change the fact that you are. I would say 80-90% of all believers in this country have no idea that they're already saints and what it means. Does it change what they are?

Nope. Not at all. Because you're a sanctified physician, you may not be sanctified in practice. No kidding. Sanctification never implies sinless perfection. Get that straight. That's what the Methodist program is, is that sanctification is to get you to be sinlessly perfect. That's not what it means. It means to be set apart. One's quality of daily life never implies that you're going to be perfect in everything you do. It's not going to happen while you're here. And we're not trying to morally improve you or make you better. This isn't behavior modification.

And the church has totally let go of her responsibility of counseling believers to be conditionally sanctified by turning people over who are struggling to worldly counselors. Because they don't know anything about this. It's not a matter of feeling or emotion, but a matter of walking in holiness or walking in a set of partners of who you are in Christ. And the Lord Jesus sanctified himself that he might be sanctified through the truth. In other words, he set himself apart to us so that we might grow spiritually. He set himself apart to us that we might know him. Isn't that interesting?

Do you realize that if you take Christ out of the equation as a man, then you don't get to know God at all. You get to know his power by his creation, but that's it, you're done. You have no idea who he really is, what his character is, the fact that he loves you, and what his personality is. You have no idea if Christ isn't a man.

Romans 6.18, being made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness. It's very important to understand, as we started out in the beginning, that when God sets you apart conditionally or positionally to himself, then he sets you apart to be a servant of righteousness of who he is.

You understand that? You're not set apart so that you can do what you want. I take that back. You are set apart so you can do what you want. But what you want to do is be a servant of righteousness. Back to Breckenridge. Any questions? Beautiful picture. Are you okay? Beautiful message. You got what sanctification is? Okay. There'll be a quiz next week. No. Dear Father, how thankful we are that you have already set us apart to your Son and to yourself and that you are about the process every minute of every day. of allowing us and wounding us, that we might live a set-apart life to You, Father, and that we might continue to grow in the knowledge and grace of Your dear Son, the Lord Jesus. And we pray in His name, Amen.