141123 Cooperative Sanctification

Philippians 2:12-18 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, ¹³ for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

¹⁴ Do all things without grumbling or disputing, ¹⁵ that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, ¹⁶ holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. ¹⁷ Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. ¹⁸ Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.

 The Apostle continues his counsel to the Philippian church, and to us. He has a goal for them, and for us, that we should be blameless, innocent, children of God without blemish. We need to maintain that condition in the midst of a crooked and twisted world. We shine as lights in the world. Jesus had said that those who dwell in him are the light of the world and we are to let our light shine. Throughout the New Testament we are taught to cooperate with God in His work in our life. His goal for us is that we be like Christ Jesus by becoming more and more free from sin in our actual lives.

First, let me make one thing clear. When Paul writes, “work out your own salvation”, he certainly does not mean that we can somehow earn our salvation. The Scripture is very clear. We are saved by grace, through faith, which is a gift from God. (Ephesians 2:8-9) We are not saved by any works of righteousness that we have done. He saved us according to his own mercy. (Titus 3:5)  Once salvation is ours then we have the responsibility to do good works which God has prepared for us.

Just as a baker kneads the dough so the yeast is spread all through the bread, so we are to spread salvation through our life. That process is called sanctification. Now, let’s get into the sermon.

The new birth gives us power not to continue in sin. Turn with me to Romans 6:11-14. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

¹² Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. ¹³ Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. ¹⁴ For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

The Christian life is absolutely impossible for a son or daughter of Adam and Eve to live out. Just as when Nicodemus came to Jesus, we must be born again! (John 3) Becoming no longer children of Adam but now children of God. That new birth puts a new dynamic in our lives. Yet, at the same time we have a responsibility to accept God’s proclamation and consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God. That condition is absolutely impossible until one is in Christ Jesus. The power of God comes to live in the believer making one able to prevent the rule of sin. We have the ability to NOT let sin reign. We are to give ourselves up to God to become tools for righteousness in the world we live in.

And, so far as I’m concerned, verse fourteen holds one of the greatest promises in all the Bible. “… Sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” Yes, we may fall back into sin again and again. But God’s promise to us is that sin will not be able to rule over us forever. We will be dead to sin and alive to God “in Christ Jesus”.

We have the ability, and responsibility, to cooperate with God in resisting sin in our mortal body. I am not talking about “sinless perfection”. I am saying that God has come into our lives through the Holy Spirit and has given us the power to live a life that honors and glorifies Him.

In Christ Jesus we are dead to sin and for that reason we are baptized by being immersed in water (buried with Him) and raised up out of that water to walk a new life. (Romans 6:3-4) We have died to sin…

Yet, we can never say we are completely free from sin. Turn with me to 1 John 1:7-10.  But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. ⁸ If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰ If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

We believe that when John wrote this little letter he was the last living apostle of Jesus Christ. He may have been nearing one hundred years old. He had walked with Jesus, had seen many miracles and was with Him to the end. John had lived out his life close to the Lord Jesus Christ and was filled with the Holy Spirit.

With all of that going for him, John still has to say, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” “We”, “ourselves”, and “us” are inclusive pronouns! John the apostle admits to the presence of sin in his body. He also states clearly that he has to continue to confess his sin so that God will forgive and cleanse. I submit to you that if John had to do this we certainly must also do it! We can never say that we are completely free from sin but…

We do not, on the other hand, keep on sinning. Let’s look further into John’s little letter and read 1 John 3:6-10. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. ⁷ Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. ⁸ Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. ⁹ No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. ¹⁰ By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.

Remember the promise? “Sin will not rule over us because we are not under law but under grace.” We can never say that we are completely free of sin because inherited Sin lives in our body and, though we are in the process, our sanctification will never be completed in our lifetime. On the other hand we should never say that a particular sin has defeated us and we cannot rise above it.

When a person comes to faith in Christ confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord they are born again to a new kind of life. A process begins then that changes our desires so that we no longer love sin. We were formally slaves to sin but are enslaved no longer. Sanctification begins at salvation and continues throughout our Christian lives. We are no longer to yield our body to unrighteousness and impurity. We are now to yield our body to righteousness, for sanctification. We are in the process of being changed into the likeness of Jesus Christ. So that when He returns we shall be like him. (1 John 3:2) My hope for a long life rests on the fact that I must be changed into the image of Jesus and I am now far from that.

We have a primary responsibility to develop sanctification in our own lives but…

Sanctification is first of all God’s work. Turn with me to 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24. Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. ²⁴ He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.

Though we have a responsibility to live a godly life yet it is God Himself who does the work. These are words of great encouragement. If we are, in our own strength, to somehow “sanctify” our whole spirit and soul and body and remain “blameless” at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ we have no hope! Instead, it is God Himself who will “sanctify” us completely! Our whole spirit and soul and yes even our body will be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Remember, he who calls you is faithful; He will surely do it. You see…

God disciplines us. Turn with me to Hebrews 12:5-11. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?

     “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. ⁶ For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.”

⁷ It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? ⁸ If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. ⁹ Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? ¹⁰ For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. ¹¹ For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

The process of sanctification is not always easy and fun. If we are children of God then He will treat us like children! Just as our earthly father disciplined us when we did wrong, our Heavenly Father will also discipline us. Much of the process of sanctification is God dealing with our old habits and lifestyle. In fact, if you can sin and get away with it you are probably not a child of God. I am not talking about the ability to commit sin I’m talking about a changed attitude towards sin.

One thing that I have noted is that when a person truly comes to faith in Christ he or she begins to notice that their feelings have changed. Things they did and said in the past now suddenly become things that make them uncomfortable. There is definitely a move in the life of the believer away from the past and into the future.

God’s discipline, when it happens, seems painful but later it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness.

Salvation cannot be earned and neither can sanctification…

In Christ Jesus we have sanctification. Sanctification is a gift of God just as faith is. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians 1:30. And because of him (God the Father) you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption,

Because of God’s work in our lives we are “in Christ Jesus” and, as such, Jesus gifts us with the things we do not have. We certainly did not have wisdom before we were saved. Oh, there is a certain amount of wisdom in the world but that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about God’s kind of wisdom. Only after coming to faith in Christ do we begin to realize God’s wisdom is working itself out in us. We have no righteousness of our own, all our righteousness is like filthy rags! (Isaiah 64:5) That being true, He who knew no sin became sin for us so that we could become the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Corinthians 5:21) Being in Christ Jesus gives us God’s righteousness! Along with that God gives us sanctification and redemption. We need to cooperate with God in the process of sanctification but it is God Himself who does the work in our lives and Christ Himself who is our sanctification. Praise God! Father, Son and Holy Spirit work together to sanctify our lives. God chose His people and sent the Son to work our salvation on the cross and…

The Holy Spirit releases fruit in our lives. Turn with me to Galatians 5:22-26. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. ²⁴ And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

²⁵ If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. ²⁶ Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

Once a person is born again through the confession of sin and acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord, the Holy Spirit begins to work in that person’s life changing him, or her, into the image of Jesus. The Holy Spirit produces in us “the fruit of the Spirit ”. That fruit expresses itself in character traits that are part of our growth in sanctification. Part of the process of our salvation is subduing the flesh with its passions and desires and living by the Spirit. On a day-to-day basis we need to learn how to “keep in step with the Spirit”. This is all a part of the process of working out our salvation. Not earning our salvation but working it out into all the parts of our lives.

Recently, someone posted an image on Facebook of a church building with the words, “God wants full custody of His children. Not just weekend visits.” God wants to penetrate all of our lives. Christianity is not just a Sunday morning event it is a day-to-day walk with Jesus Christ.

The Holy Spirit releases fruit in our life and also…

The Holy Spirit allows us to grow in sanctification. Thank God we are not limited to who we are at salvation. As Peter wrote we are to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 3:18) Sanctification is not an event, it is a process. Turn with me to Romans 8:13-17. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. ¹⁴ For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. ¹⁵ For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” ¹⁶ The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷ and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

This passage shows the active part we play in our sanctification. We are told that we are to “put to death the deeds the body”. Granted, we do that by the Spirit, but it is not a passive waiting on the Spirit to do the work in our life. It is an active process that we do in obedience to Him. This is a working out of our own salvation and it is to be done with fear and trembling. We have received the Spirit of adoption as sons. Since we are sons we are subject to our Fathers discipline. Throughout the New Testament we are taught to strive for holiness; abstain from immorality; obey the will of God and purify ourselves. We are to continually build up patterns or new habits of holiness. In order for this process to work well…

We need each other. Real Christianity is a group process. Turn with me to Hebrews 10:24-25. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, ²⁵ not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

“Let us consider” speaks of working out a plan, or thinking through a process. It is not just a private process for me to grow or for you to grow. It is a group process. We are to stir up one another. As Paul said to the Ephesians we are to speak truth in love. (Ephesians 4:15) Here in Hebrews we are to stir up one another to love and good works. We are instructed to meet together — to encourage one another to love and good works.

The Bible teaches us that sanctification will have a positive effect on everything about us. We have put on a new nature that is being renewed in knowledge. Our love for others can grow as we work out our salvation. We will grow in wisdom and knowledge as we cooperate with God. More and more we will be able to abstain from the wrong and grow towards that which is right. We will be able to work out our lives according to God’s will. As we grow in the Lord we will cleanse ourselves from everything that is wrong and we will apply ourselves to being holy in body and spirit. Sanctification will even affect our bodies. As we grasp the truth that sin shall not rule in our bodies we will be able to be healthier in every way. As we cooperate with God we will recognize that our body is a temple of the Holy Spirit and we will glorify God in our spirit and soul and body.

Have you committed your life to the Lord Jesus Christ? Today is the day of salvation.

All scripture quotes are from: The Holy Bible: English standard version. 2001. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.