Transcript

Well, of all things I want you to go to the book of Hebrews this morning. No, I’m not gonna do an exposition there but I do want to use a verse as a foundation. In last Sunday’s message, I gave you something of a systematic overview of the doctrine of salvation in the broadest sense and today I want to look at sanctification in a quite broad sense and this one verse summarizes that in a very powerful way. Hebrews 10, um, verse 14. Hebrews 10:14,

14 For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.

Now you can amplify the last part of that out, the Greek scholars tell us because it’s a present tense verb and a present tense verb always means continuing action. So it means those who are being sanctified. For so it reads this way, “For by one offering He has,” past tense, “perfect for all time those who are being sanctified.”

So when we talk about sanctification from the power of sin which is the title of what we’re looking at today, there are two things that ought to come to our mind and perhaps many of you already know where we’re going with that. There is, first of all, what we call positional sanctification. That was settled, sealed and done when you first came to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. This ties in or weds in strongly with the doctrine of justification. That means you are set apart and secured as God’s or unto God.

Um, as we were preaching through Hebrews, Ephesians rather a few years ago, we found in Ephesians 1 that we were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world and that’s, I think, Ephesians 1:4. Then Ephesians 1:5 he says we were predestined to be holy and blameless. So before you were born, you were chosen to be in Christ. Now I can’t grasp all of that but I do glory in all of that. Then you get to Ephesians 2 and you go four or five verses down and he says and you have been seated with Christ in the heavenly places. So both of those speak of our position. Before we were born, we were positioned in Christ as his chosen and predestined one, before we die we’re already seated in Christ in the heavenly places. Did you hear that? Chosen before I’m born in Christ and I’m already seated in heaven before I die in Christ.

These are, this is another one of those areas where you must let mysteries be mysteries. Hold to the truth, don’t try to resolve it in the finite gray matter between your ears because it can’t handle it, and glory in the truth that God gives us and this is positionally that we are sanctified. We are in Christ, set apart for him, settled forever but then there’s what is called progressive sanctification and we see both of those in Hebrews 10:14, one, by one offering he has perfected us for all time, that’s done, settled positionally, but we are being sanctified, that’s progressively. Matter of fact, there is no true assurance of salvation if you are not one God is progressively sanctifying. I even have a message that I’ve preached to you before entitled “Sanctification is the Assurance of Salvation.” If you don’t see evidence that God’s working on you and working with you, drawing you back to himself, then there’s not good evidence you have ever been justified by God. So this is nothing new. I’m not bringing you some new revelation I’ve got, I’ve never gotten a revelation from God all, all I have is a Bible and I found that that’s quite sufficient, but these are old Bible truths that Baptists and other great theologians have held to for years. Positionally we are sanctified, progressively we are being sanctified.

Now let’s look at this aspect of progressive sanctification. I. The workers of our sanctification. Who are the workers that are involved? Well, mainly speaking, you could amplify it further but mainly speaking, first of all, we talk about God is the first worker of our sanctification. He begins this work. Philippians 1:6, “He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” Matter of fact, Paul says, “I’m confident of this thing.” Now you may slip and you may slide and you may fail and you may falter but if God began it, God will continue it. That’s the security that we have. That’s an assurance that gives us hope.

That, that word in verse, ah, Philippians 1:6 you see on the screen, “He will perfect it,” that word literally means you can amplify that out to mean “be fully perfect.” Now if you look at your life today, you would have to say as that little, uh, uh, Gospel song says, “He’s still working on me,” but he has promised, “I started something and I’m gonna believe it, bring it to full perfection one day.”

So God’s a worker in your sanctification. Another cross reference here, 1 Thessalonians 5:23, “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved completely, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul’s writing to the, to the church at Thessalonica and he says to these Christians, “I’m asking God to continue your sanctification until you become entirely complete, set apart, God’s only.”

Ephesians 2:10, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus,” and by the way, that word “created” is the same Greek word you would use to talk of God speaking the universe into creation from nothingness, and this is a miraculous thing he does. We become Christians, we are a creation of God but then he goes on, you’re created “for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” God is the active initiating agent in your growth, your progression in sanctification. Um, God just doesn’t leave his own alone. He messes with you in a good way. He draws you back in a good way. He sometimes let’s you go ways and make some decisions that you’re totally confident are his will just to let you find out, “You don’t know how to discern My will well yet, do you?” He does these things over and over in many different ways in our lives in his masterful wisdom because he’s using all of these things to sanctify us.

One of the good things I tell preachers sometimes about being in the same pulpit for 30 years is that you get to see the fruit of a lot of your decisions. Now you can move around, travel around, hop around and not see very much but when you gotta stay one place and you raise a couple of generation of people under your ministry, God can show you things you were so certain were right but they weren’t right. God can show you so many things you were confident this is pleasing to God and you miss God. Now they weren’t malicious or intentional but I’m just saying he grows you, he teaches you. Fathers, have you experienced any progressive sanctification as you’ve raised your children? You knew it all when they were 1, 2, and 3 and 4. Then they got 14, 15 and 16 and you said, “O God, if it’s not grace I’ll never get them raised.” And there’s a lot of truth to that sometimes. Yes, we should be active diligent fathers but you know what we found out? There’s not enough principles or not enough books to read, there are not enough guidelines to follow, there, there are not enough i’s to dot and t’s to cross to assure the regeneration of your children’s soul. That’s God’s work. And I’ve seen some parents who were not really good parents if you want to look at them textbook-wise but they believed God for their kids and their kids turned out better than some parents who dotted every i and crossed every t but they put too much emphasis on their effort and not on God, what he’s gonna do. Parents, are you listening to me? I’m not advocating sloppy parenting today but I’m just saying this work in our lives and this work through us as parents, and this work of raising children and this work of becoming godly is chiefly God’s work. He gets all the credit, all the honor and all the glory and maybe he’ll leave you long enough as a father or long enough as a mother or long enough as a pastor in one place to where you’ll have to look back and say, “I blundered and failed and messed up a lot but the Lord, the Lord has got us through.”

Well, the Lord is a worker. The, um, primary worker, if you will, in our sanctification but, secondly, us. We are workers in our sanctification and that’s what we see again. The balance of Hebrews 10:14, we, he has perfected us for all time and we are being sanctified and we must get in on that. We must have a diligence about that. There needs to be a commitment of the will in that.

In 1 Peter 3:15, “but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence.” Now that is something of a command there. You sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts. Let me challenge you this morning do you regularly, daily, many times a day hopefully say, “Christ, I set You apart and my heart apart unto You rather that You are Lord of my life.” Now listen to me, that means my notions, my feelings, my notion, my understandings and my desires will be yielded to your perfect Lordship as it’s revealed sufficiently through your inerrant word.

How many times have I counseled with people and they are so very very certain that they know what God wants and I’ll say, “What does the Scripture say?” And it’s, it’s amazing how many times they haven’t really thought about looking at the Bible carefully and thoroughly to see what the Scripture says. That’s sanctifying Christ as Lord. It is a disciplined and diligent commitment that we are to have. We are a team player in God’s work of sanctifying us unto the Lord Jesus Christ.

Galatians 5:17 adds a little light here, “For the flesh,” and you still got some of that no matter how holy you think you’ve become. It’s still there. I could ask your wife, she’d tell me. “For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, that you may not do the things that you please.” I have a brand new man living in me if I’m a Christian. I’m a new creation in Christ Jesus but there’s a part of me, the unregenerate part of me, the flesh is what this verse calls it, this unredeemed package, if you will, that’s kinda connected to this physical body that’s not yet glorified and it brings up desires so that if I am progressing in sanctification, I am learning to refuse myself often things I would like to have and do. That’s part of our sanctification. You may not want to be faithful to church all the time but you can no longer do what you please. You have a new Lord. His name is Jesus. And that’s what conversion is.

Philippians 2:12 and 13, “So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence,” here’s the phrase, “work out your salvation with fear and trembling,” here’s the balance, “for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” God’s working in you, child of God. He’s working out your salvation but he says you work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

In 1 Peter 2:11, Peter writing to, um, uh, his epistle to the churches says, “I want you to urge your to abstain from fleshly lust.” Here’s what I, I have found some people are shocked with. They’ll get converted and they know they’re a new man and, and they know there are new desires but all of a sudden some vile, wicked, self-serving, self-exalting, worldly desires rise up within them and they think, “I must not be saved.” No, you need to learn to wage war like that verse says. This wasn’t just fleshly lusts somewhere else, these fleshly lusts are still hanging around the new regenerate man and there is a work, there is a toil, there is a commitment, there is a dedication necessary to progress in sanctification. Waging war with the flesh.

Well, the Bible tells us, gives us three images of how we ought to be advancing beyond what we were. First of all, in Romans 6 the Bible talks about how we are dead to trespasses and sins, and there is a sense in which once for all our status and our sphere is no longer in sin. We are in Christ. But as we live out this life before glorification, we have to continue to render ourselves dead and act to in the new true us unto our true new head, the Lord Jesus Christ. Sin and Satan is no longer your head. You are to have died to that. Now sin is dead as to your absolute eternal punishment but sin is not yet fully dead as to power in your present life and we’re commanded to render ourselves as dead and go forward.

In Romans 6 he talks about slavery and the fact that at one time you were completely enslaved by Satan and bound by sin. Sin and Satan was your cruel taskmaster and that’s all you had and all you could do. People say today, “Well, do you believe in free will?” I say, “I believe in free will within your nature, and you’re a child of wrath, you’re of your household or your father is Satan, you’re of the satanic household and you’re bound by sin and you’ll be free within the realms of your bondage to sin and Satan before you’re saved, but once you’re converted, there’s a new man that’s created in you and you have a new capacity to begin honoring the Lord and you are to render now, I’m no longer in that slavery, I have been purchased by the blood of the Christ, of the blood of Christ, the redemption price has been paid and I am now enslaved to another.” And like Paul Tripp taught us so wonderfully, the Christian can fall back in his mind and function as if he’s still enslaved in the flesh and you’re not at all. You may yield to the flesh some, you may sin again but that’s not who owns you any longer. Walk in the true new you, not in the old man, Paul’s terminology.

And then marriage, Romans 7, he says you are once married or bound to law, the condemnation of the law, the confinement of the law, the sin enslavement that law religion always brings but now you have been married to another, the Lord Jesus Christ. If you’ve, uh, done very much pastoral counseling, you will know that there are those who have been through terrible marriages and that marriage is gone, maybe that spouse has passed on, maybe they committed adultery or whatever, that’s behind them and they’re in a second marriage and this new man is nothing like the old man or this new wife is nothing like the old wife, but they keep having memories, they keep having emotions the way their former spouse treated them and the way their former spouse was untrustworthy and the way their former spouse was abusive, and often they will cast that on to the new spouse and it brings obviously terrible trouble in the marriage. Well, that’s the same way in the spiritual realm. You’re no longer in the old slavery. You’re no longer married to the law and to sin. You’re now married to Jesus Christ. That’s the true new you and you have to commit as an act of the will and I think there is something to mentally visualizing that reality but you must commit yourself to work out, strive toward, war against, all Bible phrases, these forces, these false concepts and walk in the liberty and the freedom, the fact that you’re dead to sin and alive to Christ, you’re no longer enslaved to sin, your the slave of Christ, and you’re no longer married to the law in sin, you’re married to Jesus Christ.

We have our part to do. I at one time owned a little, uh, plot of land next to my house with another man in our church and he was good at accounting and stuff and he kept up with things and every year it seems like I remember about October he’d send me a letter and say, “Pastor, here’s your part of the taxes.” Why do they always come at the worst possible times? But understand, there’s more coming. If you’re rich folks, we’re coming after yours. We’re gonna get your taxes first, help the rest of us out. You didn’t laugh very…that’s not very funny, is it? But my point is I had my part to do. I had my part to pay. Are you understanding that though God is sovereign and providential and involved in it all, he has in his providence commanded you to strive toward your own sanctification?

II. The evidences and exercises of sanctification. Evidences and exercises and these are both true about these. As you see these things in your life you say, “Now that’s an evidence that I’m God’s, that’s an evidence that I belong to Him and that’s evidence He’s sanctifying me.” But also as you function in these areas I’m going to point out, you are working to help in your sanctification.

Well, they’re very obvious. First of all, the word of God. The word of God. You know this. We talk about it over and over. Listen to what Jesus said in his high priestly prayer before he went to the cross. He’s praying to his heavenly Father for his own and he says in John 17:17, “Sanctify them in the truth. Thy word is truth.” What saith the Scriptures? I remember James Montgomery Boice, the pastor of the famed Tenth Street Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, PA, Philip Ryken is the pastor there and actually our man who spoke for us this past week at Reality Check, Paul Tripp, is the Sunday night preacher there. They have a preacher on Sunday night and a different preacher on Sunday morning but Philip Ryken is the lead pastor, preaches on Sunday morning and James Montgomery Boice was his predecessor and was such a powerful preacher and wrote so many good commentaries. Matter of fact, I would say to you if you’re a Bible expositor, get everything you can that James Montgomery Boice wrote. Now he’s a Presbyterian, he’s not right on baptism but everything else he’s right. I mean, he’s just a wonderful expositor of Scripture and James Montgomery Boice said, “Some years ago I was listening to, I used to listen to preachers while I walked and,” he said, “what happened to chapter and verse?” What happened to chapter and verse and I thought that’s a good question. He said, “When I was a boy, when I was young in the ministry, all the environs that I was in when you would say, ‘You know, I’m seeking the Lord’s will. I, I don’t know what the Lord has for me. I, I don’t know if I need to marry this girl. I don’t know if I want to start that business or not.’ Somebody’d say, ‘Chapter and verse.’ Or maybe they would reprove you or rebuke you and correct you on something and they’d say, ‘Chapter and verse.'” Now God does guide us and God does impress us with things but those guidings and impressions can be faulty but the word of God never fails. We must discipline ourselves to stay under the authority of the word of God, following the word of God.

We’ve had some challenging marital counseling in recent days here at Grace Life and it’s heartbreaking that some people can feel so strong in their emotions that when you show them the word of God they can just kinda move around it because they feel so strongly and listen to me, you will never violate the Scripture except to your own ruin. When you sneak by the clear teachings of Scripture no matter how strong you think you’re impressed to do something, it will lead to your ruin. I have stood in this pulpit, I have preached these truths for 30 years and I’ve watched people come and go and come and go and often they went because they didn’t like our commitment to biblical authority. They never said it that way but that’s what it was and I’ve watched their lives unravel. Brothers and sisters, the word of God is sweeter than honey. The word of God is your protector. The word of God is your salvation. The word of God is your sustainer. The word of God is your help. Yield to, submit to, honor, hold high the inerrancy and absolute sufficiency for the word of God. Now I don’t mean to personally attack anybody but I don’t need what the word says plus what Benny Hinn, God told Benny Hinn last week. I don’t need what the word of God says plus what God told Kenneth Copeland last week. I need the word of God.

Well, we’re to be conformed to the truth which is in the word of God and which is revealed by the word of God. 2 Thessalonians 2:13, “But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation,” here’s our word, “through sanctification.” Well, how does this happen, Paul? “By the Spirit and faith in the truth.” There it is. The Spirit of God comes. He energizes you and illumines you. He convicts you and he blesses you and he does it as you look to the truth, the Scriptures, the word of God. God sanctifies us through the Spirit and the faith that is a gift of grace and as the Spirit and faith works with the teachings of Scripture.

In Luke 24:45 the Bible says, “Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.” The Scriptures. You need to hear it preached. You need to read it. You need to study it. You need to memorize and meditate on the word of God. Now here’s an interesting thing: are you drawn to the word of God? I don’t mean every day of your life but would you say as a pattern, “You know, if I get out of the Bible very long, if I don’t have my quiet times very long, something stirs in me and I’m drawn back to the word of God.” I can, I can miss church a Sunday or two and, and you know, there’s a time to miss church. Some of you are making too much of a habit of it but there’s a time. You’re away on vacation, everybody understands that but I mean when it’s really your choice and it’s your option and you miss church, is there something that draws you back and says, “I need to get under the preaching of the word of God”? That’s an evidence you’re God’s child. Even when it makes you uncomfortable, even when you disagree with my conclusions, that’s not an issue. I can be very wrong.

We had a Methodist preacher here, a retired Methodist preacher here for many years, at least every other Sunday he caught something. Usually it was a little bitty thing that didn’t have to do with doctrine or error but he caught something. He would come up. He was very kind and he would correct me and you know what I’d say? “Thank you, I needed that,” because I can’t remember a time when he wasn’t right. We’re gonna have that, that’s not what I’m talking about but I’m talking about are you drawn to the word of God? Is there a new hunger in you that you just gotta read it when you’ve been away for a while or if you miss your quiet time. It’s not this legalistic guilt like you didn’t do your spiritual exercise but it’s the word. You want in the word. Matter of fact, some of us can get in these little ruts and patterns and disciplines because we read somebody else or somebody discipled us and we think we gotta be like them and so we take what God did in their life and try to impose it on ours and we get in these kind of a legalistic structures that we put on ourselves and pretty soon we’re perfect at exercising the discipline but we’re missing God. A lady one time told me I had missed my quiet time. I forgot what she said, “I haven’t missed a devotional time in 10 years,” I think she said. Something, it was incredible. And I said, “Yeah, but I bet you’ve missed God a few times. You just went through the motions.”

So I’m not talking about a legalistic binding, I’m saying in your heart are you drawn to the word of God? That’s an evidence that you’re God’s child and as you get in the word of God, the exercise of getting in the word of God will help sanctify you unto the Lord. So I’ve often said to you many times, I hope you get just a fraction of what God gives me in preparing to preach to you. I need it so badly and I cannot tell you when I take my study break and I go places to hear people preach, I can’t tell you what it does to me to sit down, shut my mouth and get preached to. It is so helpful so I want to thank you for letting me do that. Most of the pastors and this no exaggeration at all, there are preachers in this room that will tell you this, most of the pastors I know that move from one church to another just are trying to get a break. Just a little breather. Where a lot of churches could have good men who could have grown with them through the years and expanded the vision and the impact of the church but they were so narrow and so shallow in their restrictions on their pastor just to get a breather a lot of times pastors move from church to church. That is a shame.

Well, the second thing. Not only the word is a, one of the agents and instruments in our sanctification but, of course, prayer. Prayer. Let me say something to you. This has just been my own personal pilgrimage. There have been seasons in my past where I prayed a lot but in reality didn’t pray much and then there have been seasons with genuineness and brokenness and dependence and faith, I prayed little but I prayed a lot. Do you understand that difference? You remember how Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for their many words of prayer? Their public shows of prayer? You’re not in this work thing in your quiet time or in your devotional time to show God how long you can pray. Sometimes the Lord might just want you to stay there a little bit but believe what you ask and walk in faith on what you just prayed. There was a, a time when, uh, Joshua was sitting there after the, the defeat of Ai and was, was sitting on the ground crying and lamenting and crying out to God in prayer and God in effect said, “Shut up! This is not time for prayer. Go fix the problem.” And he did. He found Achan and killed him and all of his family.

So there’s times to labor in prayer certainly but do you believe God in prayer? And that’s a powerful part of your sanctification. There was a turning point in my ministry wherein I stopped pleading with God and groveling around and almost like some sort of superstitious agreement thing I would have with God, and now instead of doing that I come to my preaching ministry believing God’s gonna honor his word. It just changed my ministry. I mean, why should you have to plead and plead about that? God wants to honor his word. He, he, whatever else he wants to do, he wants to use his word. All I’m saying is God’s growing me in prayer. Are you growing in prayer? Is God challenging you in prayer? Here’s something else you’ll find, if you’ll just pray, I find this over and over, you’ll start cold but as you keep praying you’ll end warm. You’ll start kind of hopeless and you’ll end with new hope and new vitality and new energy about your Lord. That’s an evidence you’re God’s child and also an exercise that draws you closer in sanctification.

Here’s a reminder, Psalm 119:18, “Open my eyes, that I may behold Wonderful things from thy law.” Wow, is that not a wonderful prayer? Breathe that to the Lord before you have your Bible study. Luke 17:5 and the apostle said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.” That’s another great prayer to pray. “God, teach me to trust and to stand.”

I was at Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary in chapel one day as a young seminary student and I forgot the name of the evangelist, he was a senior adult man who had been faithfully ministering for many many many years, and at that time, especially in my life, but in, in the churches or in Christendom in general there was a lot of emphasis on discipleship groups, and that’s a good thing but in those discipleship groups there was a lot of emphasis on highly structured prayer times and devotional times, and that’s not bad, by the way, but you can get quite caught as I was saying earlier in just doing the structure and missing God. And it helped me to hear, um, Brother Daniels was his name. The kids, the kids, us young guys were asking him questions and someone asked him the question, they said, “Tell us about your devotional time. How do you do your quiet time?” I was sitting on the edge of my seat and I thought this man’s been serving God a long time, he’ll help me. He said, “I don’t have one.” He said, “I’m not boasting but I commune with my Lord from the time I get up to the time I go to bed.” And God rebuked me and said with all of your structure and with all of your discipline, with all the organization of the way you seek the Lord in your quiet time which isn’t wrong, there’s a place for that, maybe one day you’ll grow to where you just commune with your God all day long. Does that make sense to you?

th Now my wife and I have had a relationship August the 11 for 25 years and sometimes it’s more fun than others but I don’t have just this structured organized thing I do with her. She’s a person. I want to more commune with her and walk with her in this journey but don’t you think the Lord wants the same thing? Yes, there’s a place for reminders and biblical structures for things. I’m not saying that’s wrong. Matter of fact, I think we could use a little more of that right now because we kinda evolved out of that a few years ago because I thought we were getting too hung up on the structures. But there’s a place, these things cycle, you know that? Pastor awhile and a long time and you’ll see your people need these cycles. They need to be reminded again of some structure and organization, then that gets too big of a deal and becomes idolatry and they need to come out of it for a while, but nevertheless it’s knowing God and communing with God and believing him based on what he says in his word. Prayer is a key element of our sanctification.

The third one. I could preach all night on this one, the church family. If, I can’t tell you how tired I am of this low view of the church. I can’t tell you how disgusting it is to see all of these folks who, and they mean well. I don’t see it as premeditative but it’s almost like, “Oh, we’re gonna do this for God and we’re gonna do this for God, we’re gonna do this for God,” and then, “Oh, yeah I go to church.” What do you mean you go? That is the center of God’s work. That’s it. Period. Everything extends from the church.

Now I understand the problem. I have to say this up over and over and over again. I understand that a lot of churches are terribly terribly weak and they’re quite unbiblical and they’re full of compromise so people have just learned, “If I’m really gonna grow in God, I gotta get in this secondary group over here. I gotta get in this discipleship study on Thursday night. I, I’ve gotta get in this other ministry because my church is not solid.” I understand that dilemma but you’ve got to understand something: God has not changed his plan for the church. Get in it and be a part of the solution. I think it’s interesting that during our Lord’s ministry the Bible records that he would go to the synagogue as was his custom and the synagogue was full of rottenness and dead men’s bones. So I think your job is to find the most sound and solid church you can find and pour you and your family’s life into it for the glory of God.

I wish there was Plan B but there’s not. Listen to me now: you need the church for your sanctification. You need the service ministry of the deacons of the church for your sanctification. You need the authority and oversight of church elders for your sanctification. You need the friction of brothers and sisters in Christ of different viewpoints, different perspectives, and different understandings, different levels of maturity, and different levels of being a knucklehead for your sanctification.

Now personally I’d like to have a group of about 6 or 8 families and we’d be the deer hunters for Jesus. We’d study the Bible. We’d talk about reformed theology. We might even smoke a cigar if nobody saw us. We wouldn’t let nerds in the club. We’d have our own thing and we’d all think alike, be alike and look alike and talk alike and read the same people. But you know what? God knows I need all of you for my sanctification and you need all of you for your sanctification. You need the church. Yes, it ought to be sound, it ought to be striving to be as biblically healthy as it can be but you need the church.

And you know, we’ve experienced people moving all across the country to join this church and hear of others going other places to join churches. I can understand that if you understand how central to your sanctification the church is. That’s not a crazy thing. That would be a wise thing. Proverbs 17:17 says, “Iron sharpens iron and one man sharpens another.” 1 Thessalonians 3:2, “We sent Timothy, our brother and God’s fellow worker in the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you as to your faith.” He went to the church to strengthen and encourage them. 1 Thessalonians 5:11, “Therefore encourage one another and build up one another just as you also are doing.”

That’s your job. How are you, how are you doing in the church? Are you really, now we’re gonna start a new small group here in August, now you tell me something, you open this Bible and find me a better way to organize a thousand people than what we’re doing and I’ll do it, but one thing you’ve gotta understand, we’ve been working hard for 30 years so I’m probably not gonna listen to you if you don’t have a track record. I’m not gonna throw everything away God’s been blessing because you’ve got an idea. But I want to challenge you are you gonna dive in this next August and say, “I am committed to this church. I need to be in that small group and I need to minister there and I need to serve there, and I need the irritations I find there, and I need the disappointments I discover there, and I need the blessings and the encouragements I will get there because I need the sanctifying effect of my church and I want to be a sanctifier for others.” Listen, because you cannot grow, mature, progress, know and love Christ and understand him if you’re not in the church the way he calls you to be. It’s time for some of you to grow up and be a good churchman just like sometimes we counsel people and I have to look at them and say, “Son, you just need to learn to be a husband. Ma’am, you need to learn to be a wife. This isn’t teenage years anymore.” Some of you need to be churchmen and women for the glory of God.

1 John 3:14, “We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brethren.” Now just as I am not to be going all over the town and loving everybody else’s children but neglecting my own, sir, you can’t go all over town, love other women and not love your own. So when you love the brethren, it doesn’t mean you get the freedom to kind of freelance around here and whenever you find you a group you’re happy with, “Well, I’ll just hang out with them and that’ll be the brothers I’ll minister to.” No, you don’t get that option. God adds you to a church and that’s the brethren you’re to love and lay down your life for.

Matthew 18, we have the steps of discipline within the body. Why? It’s a sanctifying effect. If a brother sins, reprove him. If he repents, you’ve won your brother. If he doesn’t repent, take two or three and rebuke him and reprove him again. If he repents, you’ve won your brother. If he won’t listen to them, tell it to the church. If he won’t listen to the church, there’s an excommunication mode. Let them be to you as a tax collector or a Gentile. What is all that about? It’s about sanctification. You know, we’ve had the criticism in the community before, “Hey, you’d better not go down there. They’ll, they’ll throw you out.” No, you remove yourself by refusing to repent. We don’t throw you out. And secondly, it’s healthy to know that if I get in such a long-term, obstinate, willful pattern of unrepented of sin I’ll be dealt with. I need that sanctifying effect in my life.

Now look, we all sin because we’re still in this flesh package, unless you’re John Wesley. Now John Wesley whom I love and admire, began to teach that he was so the new creation and so the old thing was gone, you quit sinning but that’s, I had, hadn’t met any of y’all yet. But it’s the refusal to repent of sin that brings about discipline and we all need that sanctifying effect of the body of Christ. Your fellowship and service in a solid church family is evidence that you are a child of God.

Well, quickly the last part of instrument, you might say, factor in our sanctification I’ll mention is providence. Providence. God’s guidance and care over our lives. The sovereign God dictating the circumstances of life to draw me closer to him and to walk in holiness. David said in Psalm 119:67, “Before I was afflicted I went astray, But now I keep thy word.” David is saying, “In providence God brought a hard season and His perfect sovereignty, this hard season has caused me to draw near to Your word.” God brings providential things into our lives.

I don’t have time to read it but Hebrews 12 talks about how God disciplines all of his children. He scourges every son that he has. How he does this so that we’ll be shown that we endure, that through these disciplines and scourgings instead of it running us away from the church and the Lord, we run closer to God. I was gonna preach something else this morning and one of the points in that something else was the word “shame.” I’ll just mention it briefly. Shame is one of Satan’s major tools because what he tells you is, “That attitude, that foul mouth, that action is so vile and so wicked,” and then you think, “I’ve got to, I can’t go to the Lord now. I’m too ashamed. I can’t run from that.” All that is is the sin of pride, by the way. “I’m too ashamed.” Listen, when you’re deeply ashamed, that’s when you must run to God. Where else are you going to go? Think about it and rejoice again that his grace is sufficient, that where sin abounds, grace that much more abounds.

Don’t in your brokenness and in your shame run from God. Repent and run to him and plead for mercy and forgiveness. You’ll find it every time. Every time he’s faithful. In his providence he brings these things in our life to teach us.

I was, um, in the airport in Orlando, FL several years ago. I had been preaching at a mission’s conference and, um, I was reading a newspaper and the lady sitting beside me at the gate was a senior adult lady and if you ever sought, thought a senior adult lady, let me say that again, if you’ve ever seen a person that ought to have been a retired librarian, this was her, and after I got to know her, she was a retired librarian. Her name was Ruby Jones. I was trying to read my paper but there was also a student choir that was getting on that plane and they were very excited about it, and as teenagers do about every 30 or 40 seconds somebody would, “Ha!” Just like, about like that, and Ruby Jones sitting beside me would jump every time. And I knew she was very very nervous, I knew she probably hadn’t flown before so I put my paper down and I introduced myself and she said, “I’m Ruby Jones.” I said, “I’m Jeff Noblit and I, I’m a pastor.” She said, “I’m for Louisville, Kentucky and I’m a Baptist.” Very emphatic, very clear. “I’m Ruby Jones. I’m from Louisville, Kentucky and I’m a Baptist.” I said, “Yes, ma’am, I am too.” And I said, “Well, you know, I know about the seminary up there in Louisville. I’ve been up there. I’ve spoken there and it’s a wonderful seminary. We thank God for it.” She said, “Yeah, I’m very well accustomed to the seminary. I’m a Baptist.” I said, “Yes, ma’am.” And then she asked me questions. She said, “How do you know what to do?” I said, “What do you mean?” She said, “How do you know what to do about, how do you get on the plane? How do I know where to go?” I said, “Well, let me see your ticket.” And she showed me her ticket and I said, “I’ll tell you what, Miss Ruby, I will take you to your seat. All you gotta do is follow me. I’ll help you.” She said, “Okay.” So we got up and when they called for us and I took her back, her seat was toward the back of the plane, mine was toward the front. I sat her in her seat but before I left I said, “Miss Ruby, I’ve already looked at your ticket. I know you’re going to Atlanta like I’m going to Atlanta. You’re gonna have to go probably to a different concourse. If you go through Atlanta you’ve got to go from concourse A to B or concourse B to A almost all the time.” I said, “When this plane stops in Atlanta, I will wait for you outside the, the tramway or whatever it’s called when you get off the plane. Okay?” She said, “I’ll do that.” So the plane got there, I got off and I waited for her and she got all the way up and she hugged my neck, she said, “I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again.” I said, “Miss Ruby, I’m like the Lord, I’m always here.” And I said, “Well, let me take you to your next gate.” So sure enough, we had to take the tramway and go from concourse A to concourse B and I got her down the hall and we got to her gate and I went up to the gate and I told the man there, I said, “This is Ruby Jones. She’s going back to Louisville, Kentucky and she’s a Baptist. Now I’ve helped her get all the way to you, will you guarantee me you’ll get her in her seat and get her all the way home to Louisville, Kentucky?” He said, “I’ll do that.” And so she hugged my neck and said, “Thank you so very much.” And I said, “You’re welcome.” And I walked away.

I’ve never done that before, I’ve never done that since but I just felt like that was what I was supposed to do at that time. But how like the Lord that is. He shows up when we weren’t looking for him. Maybe you’re hearing the sermon preached or reading your Bible and the Lord speaks to you again and it’s sanctifying grace. Or maybe you’re praying in your prayer time and just that time in a special way the Lord shows up in th sanctifying grace. You come to church and you’re yawning and you had a big 4 of July the night before and you’re not expecting much but some brother puts his arm around you and encourages you or some sister walks up and says, “I’ve been praying for this and this in your life,” and you’re strengthened to walk with the Lord better because they encouraged you and that’s the Lord’s sanctifying help. And sometimes just as we go through life, something happens, somebody disappoints us, some crisis comes our way and in the midst of it all the Lord shows up and we’re strengthened and we’re helped. He’s always there all along the way and one day God the Holy Spirit is gonna take us all the way to the gate. I don’t think he’ll say, “This is Jeff Noblit, he’s from Muscle Shoals and he’s a Baptist.” I do think he’ll say, “I’ve brought another one all the way home.” And I’ll get to rejoice forevermore.

Let’s stand in prayer.