Romans Series: Sanctification

Romans Series: Faith & Works

September 3rd, 2023/Casey Middle School

Romans Series: The Gospel through the lens of Romans

1. Saved
2. Sanctified
3. Sent

Story:

Anybody have any tendency that you repeat under certain conditions that you wish you responded differently?

Fun fact: if you ever want to see the worst of me, then you can often find that person immediately after one of my children has been injured. It’s a mixture of rage, fear, concern, shame, compassion, and lots of intensity.

Maybe you have a similar tendency. Maybe for you it’s when you are sitting in traffic. Or right when you get home from work. It could be when you show up to work. It could be around finals week or when you are hungry.

There seems to be times when we turn in to the worst version of ourselves in a moment and we wish it were different. There’s an immediate war going on inside of us that is both wanting to choose a right heart posture and a God honoring response, but then there’s another side that wants to just be unleashed to our own devices.

This hit me as soon as yesterday as one of my children was injured after colliding with a rose bush and some fresh mulch. It resulted in several hours of surgery performed by my wife and I on a curb and over the kitchen sink.

In the Christian life we are living in constant tension. The tension is our flesh and the Spirit at work in our life. Paul addresses this reality many times throughout Scripture, but let’s look at one passage in Romans as our grounding passage as we discuss the spiritual reality of sanctification.

Passage: Romans 7:19-25

For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, I am no longer the one that does it, but it is the sin that lives in me. 21 So I discover this law: When I want to do what is good, evil is present with me. 22 For in my inner self I delight in God’s law,

23 but I see a different law in the parts of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner to the law of sin in the parts of my body. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I myself am serving the law of God, but with my flesh, the law of sin.

Pray:

Background:

Here we have the Apostle Paul, the one that wrote so much of the New Testament, going on record in the Word of God to say that there is a struggle with sin! There is a war waging within him, so much so that he asks the question “Who will rescue me from this body of death?”

The law exposes sin in our lives. The law is not sinful, but it makes clear the sin in our lives.

Title: Faith & Works

Sanctification Definition - The day by day and lifelong process of becoming more like Jesus.

Main Points: Phases of Sanctification for the Believer

1. Positional Sanctification

   1. “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. 19 I sanctify myself for them, so that they also may be sanctified by the truth.” - John 17:17-19

   2. EX: Positional is when we were set apart at salvation. This happens at the same moment as justification. 1 Corinthians 1:2 - to those sanctified in Christ.

      1. Until you know who you are, you won’t know what to do. So until you know, you won’t know what to do!
      2. You must know your position, before you know how it functions.
      3. You are set apart to God, you must see yourself as God sees you.

      4. “It is from him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became wisdom from God for us—our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption— 31 in order that, as it is written: Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” - 1 Corinthians 1:30-31

         3. Illust: As a parent, I want my kids to know first and foremost they are my sons and daughters.

      5. It’s in this reality that I can then lead them toward what it means to live as a Manuel

      6. The same reality is true for us as sons and daughters of God.

      7. In order to have victory in your life, you must first recognize that you have been set apart already by God at the time of salvation.

         4. App:

      8. You no longer live in the bondage of the past or fear in the present, but you have been redeemed, justified by God, and set free to live out all of His purposes in your life!

      9. Justification is immediate, sanctification is a process.
      10. Illust: we don’t like this word process, but it’s necessary. Doctors, pilots, and electricians.
          5. You are saved by faith alone, and this saving faith produces works that honor and glorify God.

2. Progressive Sanctification

   1. Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely. And may your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 He who calls you is faithful; he will do it. - 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
   2. “So then, dear friends, since we have these promises, let us cleanse ourselves from every impurity of the flesh and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.” - 2 Corinthians 7:1

   3. EX: Progressive sanctification is acting out your positional sanctification.

      1. When you act in light of your position, you can affect your progression.
      2. Romans 8:13 - “because if you live according to the flesh, you are going to die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” Romans 8:13 CSB
      3. Question: Who’s putting to death the deeds of the body? It’s you… by the Spirit putting to death the deeds of the body.
      4. I labor for this, striving with his strength that works powerfully in me.

      5. I’ll say it this way, you have work to do, but if you strive in your own effort you will end up tired and defeated, but if you lean into the power of the Holy Spirit then you will be filled with life and victory!

         4. Illust: Progressive sanctification is a PROCESS!

      6. Pic: What we think sanctification will look like, what it actually looks like.

      7. This has been the story of my life. I came to faith at a young age, but it has never been up and to the right. The reality is that it is both a painful journey and it is simultaneously the most life giving and fruitful endeavor of my life.

         5. App: God works in, so that you can work it out!

      8. Philippians 2:12-13 - “Therefore, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, so now, not only in my presence but even more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who is working in you both to will and to work according to his good purpose.” - Philippians 2:12-13 CSB

      9. IT’S GOD WORKING IN… AND YOU WORKING OUT!
      10. “I pray that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power in your inner being through his Spirit, 17 and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” - Ephesians 3:16-17
          6. You were saved from something, but you have also been saved to something!
      11. “What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? 2 Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Or are you unaware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life.” - Romans 6:1-4
      12. You have been redeemed into a brand new future!
      13. Testimony - it’s not just what you have been saved from, the better part of the testimony is what you have been saved to!

3. Perfect Sanctification

   1. “Now to him who is able to protect you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of his glory, without blemish and with great joy, 25 to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority before all time, now and forever. Amen.” Jude 1:24-25

   2. EX: This is also called ultimate or complete sanctification. This is what’s known as glorification.

      1. When God comes back or when we are called home, you will be perfected in Christ.
      2. You are sanctified, you are becoming sanctified, and you will one day be sanctified.

“24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” - Romans 7:24-25

Sanctification Definition - The day by day and lifelong continual process of becoming more like Jesus.

You might say “I’m a work in progress.” And that would be true. Sanctification is work, and you are progressing! Not in your own strength, but by the strength and the power that the Holy Spirit is working in you!

Sanctification is not moral modification, but heart transformation. I’m not who I ought to be, but praise God I’m not who I used to be! I’m a work in progress! God’s working in my life to both will and work for His good pleasure!

“Though a righteous person falls seven times, he will get up, but the wicked will stumble into ruin.” - Proverbs 24:16

I may be down, but I’m not out! Seven is significant, because I fall on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, but by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, I’m going to keep growing, keep moving, keep setting apart my life for God’s good work!

Closing:

“We must be careful to let the Holy Spirit do this searching. If we try to search our own hearts, we are apt to fall into one or both of two traps. The first is the trap of morbid introspection. Introspection can easily become the tool of Satan, who is called the "accuser" (Revelation 12:10). One of his chief weapons is discouragement. He knows that if he can make us discouraged and dispirited, we will not fight the battle for holiness. The second trap is that of missing the real issues in our lives.” - Jerry Bridges (Pursuit Of Holiness)

Walking Point:

Walk with the Spirit “according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient and to be sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ. May grace and peace be multiplied to you.” - 1 Peter 1:2 CSB

The Spirit: (A) exposes our sin so that we may confess and turn away from it, (B) illuminates Scripture so that we may understand its meaning and respond with obedience, and (C) points us back to the life of Jesus Christ as our source and foundation.

The Spirit stands ready and willing to do this for you, which is why we must never “resist” (Acts 7:51) or “quench” (1 Thess. 5:19) the Spirit.

Galatians 2:20 - “I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” - Galatians 2:20 CSB

Communion is recognizing the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

On the night when He was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and said, “This is My body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.”

In the same way, after supper He also took the cup and said, “This cup is the new covenant established by My blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.