1114. How Do We Grow In Gospel Grace (part 1)?

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. Today and tomorrow on The Daily Platform, we'll hear a sermon preached at the Bob Jones University Bible Conference where the theme was sanctification. Dr. Sam Horn will teach us about growing in gospel grace from 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5.

We're going to turn in our Bibles together this morning to 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5. Our first session together that I had the privilege of talking and preaching from God's Word had to do with the foundation of Christian sanctification, and we turned to the two most familiar verses in the book of Romans, chapter 12, and we noted that Christian sanctification was a response that a category of people offered when they fully understood what God had done for them. In fact, when they understood what God had done for them, this group of people, it was their natural, it was sort of the almost spontaneous response, spontaneous response. It was, it was the logical outflow in worship of what they had come to understand that God had done for them, the amazing mercies of God that had taken them from where they were in Romans, chapter 1, and had actually made them into a kingdom of priests. And as priests, they had been not just forgiven, but they had been cleansed and they had been brought into this priesthood, and every day they would bring a living sacrifice to God, and that sacrifice was their body. And the whole point of the sacrifice was this, we want to devote our bodies to the exclusive use of God, the one who did all of this for us, and we want to use our bodies to discern and do His good and acceptable and perfect will.

No matter what it costs, no matter where it takes us, no matter what it entails. So that was the foundation of it. This morning, out of this text and a number of other texts, I want to sort of put the back end of that, now that we know the foundation for it, what it's built on, what it is a response to, this immense gospel mercy, how does it actually happen in our life?

How is it actually formed up? How do we grow in gospel grace? You know, when I went out to the West Coast and Beth and I moved out there, we live in a little community that is sort of on the outskirts of Los Angeles. It's an amazing city, and it is a very different culture than anything we have ever experienced at any time in our life. I grew up in South Texas, Beth grew up in Florida and Orlando. We spent a good many years of our life here in Greenville, South Carolina.

Then God called us to serve up in the northern corner of Wisconsin, and for a period of time we lived in Minnesota, and that's pretty much been where we've been. And then all of a sudden we find ourselves out on the other side of the country, and everything is different. You know, everybody looks the same and they talk the same, but it's different.

It's just a different culture. And one of the things that's very interesting about that culture is that it is a car culture. How many of you like cars? I mean you just like cars. You get up in the morning and you see a car and it's like, now that is sweet. And I have never seen the kind of cars driving around on the highway out there that I've seen.

It's stunning what people drive out there. There's a guy named Jay Leno. How many of you have heard of Jay Leno? Not speaking to anything about what he does, but this one thing is very interesting about Jay Leno. He is a car fanatic. He has garages, not just a garage, garages full of cars that, I mean if you took the sum total of all the worth of his vehicles, it is in the millions of dollars worth of vehicles that he has. And he drives around on the highway.

It's not unusual. Now I've never seen it, but it's not unusual to look over and there's Jay Leno just driving next to you. Big old Joss just stuck out there driving around in his cars. I drove up to Walmart, I mean you'll see Ferraris. It's not unusual to see a Ferrari just drive by you.

I mean if you are a Ford Mustang guy, there are Ford Mustangs everywhere. There are Porsches. I mean I can't tell you the number of times I've been driving along in my little Jeep, putzing along on the highway and poom, and look over and you know you just see the after glow of it.

It's sort of like Moses on the mountain when God passed by. You just see the after glow and it's a Porsche and not just like a little Porsche. I mean they have Porsche SUVs, I mean it's a car culture. I was with Beth one day and we were going to the portal of paradise, Walmart, and we pulled into our parking space and we were getting out of the car and a Rolls Royce Bentley pulled in right next to us at Walmart.

I wish I had thought to take a picture of that. You know one day, actually this is about a year ago, I was at a gas station and I pulled in to get some fuel and in next to me, right in the sort of pump just ahead of me, pulls in a guy in a Ferrari. Now I just like Ferraris. I don't own a Ferrari. I will never own a Ferrari. I've never ever ridden in a Ferrari. In fact it's one of my bucket list things to do. I'd love to just ride a Ferrari.

I actually like to drive one but I don't think that'll ever happen. So I'm standing there and just putting gas in my car and this guy comes in in his Ferrari and he gets out and I'm thinking that is a sweet car and he starts walking around and I'm kind of watching him and he's looking around for the gas can, the gas lid on his Ferrari. He didn't know where it was. So he's walking around the car and he finally finds it. It's up on the front of the car above the passenger side wheel, somewhere up there and then he's looking around and he's punching it and then he goes in the front seat of the car and he's looking around and he gets out and he gets on his phone and finally he comes over to me and I'm thinking, he goes, I need some help and I'm like, well, you know, sure. He goes, do you know how to open the fuel cap on this car?

I'm like, oh, yeah, that's easy, you know, do it all the time. I had no clue. He said, you know, I just, I went to the Ferrari dealership and I just picked up the car today and it's a sweet car but I didn't know how to open the fuel lid and there was no manual in the car. He didn't have a manual with it or I don't know how he got this car and he was trying to call the dealer and I don't know how he solved that problem. I just looked at him and I said, sir, in the name of the Lord, the God of heaven and earth, be warmed and filled. I didn't say that, seriously.

But I couldn't help him because I had no clue, apparently, apparently, I actually went online after to try to figure it out, apparently, in some Ferraris, they have these dummy buttons on the console that aren't labeled and some of them work and some of them don't and apparently one of the unmarked ones is the fuel cap release and so until you know which one it is or you find out which one it is, you're going to sit there and poke at that thing all day. You know, I thought to myself, that's a pretty good illustration sometimes of how we approach the idea of Christian sanctification, what we've been talking about all week. I mean, you can have the sweetest Ferrari on the planet with all of the power and all of the force available to you but if you don't know how to put fuel in the tank, you are going to be pushing that car. And sometimes I think we have this idea about Christian sanctification and it's what we talked about last time. We know that it is essential in our Christian life. We know that it is an essential component of being a Christian. We know instinctively that we need it and as a Christian there's a part of us that really wants it. And so as we talk about it, we think about it, we hear about it and then we set out to do it and we're like that guy at the gas station trying to figure out, okay so how do we actually get this going?

How do we do this? So what I'd like to do in this session today is I'd like to answer five questions. I think that will help us understand how the Bible speaks and what the Bible has to say about Christian sanctification and how it is formed up in you. How does God do this in your life and in mine?

And then at the end I want to end with a very, very specific application that I think will sort of wrap up some of the things that we've been hearing about this week. So Paul said it this way as we look at this text together, and the very God of peace, this is 1 Thessalonians chapter five verse 23, and the very God of peace sanctify you wholly, entirely, in every part. In other words, God is going to do something with regard to sanctification and when he is doing it, it is going to involve every part of your Christian life. This isn't just something that you can compartmentalize off into some area so that you know, today I'm going to work on this and tomorrow I'm going to work a little bit on faith and on Wednesday I'm going to work on prayer and on Saturday I'm going to work on Bible reading and then eventually on Mondays that's my sanctification day. That's not how it works.

And I think we all know that. I'm not trying to be reductionistic in how I describe that, but even if we know it in our head like we instinctively know there's a fuel cap on a Ferrari and there's got to be a way of opening it, if we compartmentalize it then we miss the whole point. This is something that God is doing and he's doing it in you and it touches every part of your life. There is a completeness to this process. The very God of peace sanctify you holy and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body so there it is, if you wanted a clarification you can see it there, be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Faithful is he that calleth you who also will do it. So that's the text we want to use sort of as our place to park and then we'll look at some other texts along the way. So let's look at our first question together. Here's the very basic question and we've been answering this question all week in different ways.

You've heard different speakers. Dr. Pettit started with this on Tuesday night and then we've been talking about it in different ways all week long. What exactly is sanctification? Let's make sure that's real clear in our minds so that when we go to fuel up we at least know what we're talking about and what we're thinking about.

So let me do it this way. Let's look at real quickly a working definition and then a biblical description. So here are the ways certain theologians have sort of tried to capture the idea that we're talking about. One theologian put it this way. Sanctification is the gracious operation of the Holy Spirit involving our responsible participation.

That's really important. Sanctification is not this divine zap where you're passive and all of a sudden God does something and you're completely sanctified. It is the gracious operation, the grace enabled, that's the idea there, the gracious grace enabled operation of the Holy Spirit involving our responsible participation by which He delivers justified sinners.

That's really important. Sanctification can't happen before justification and it's different than justification. He delivers justified sinners from the pollution of sin. Remember you're a priest. He delivers justified sinners from the pollution of sin.

He renews our entire nature according to the image of God and He enables us to live lives that are pleasing to God. So what we saw at the end of Romans chapter 12 verse 2. So that's an interesting working definition.

Let me give you another one. Sanctification is God setting us apart exclusively for Himself. That's what Dr. Pettit talked about when he preached the opening session. It is God setting us apart exclusively for Himself and progressively transforming our nature so that our inner man is conformed to His character and our outer man reflects his attributes accurately and attractively. So those two definitions sort of give us a working base to kind of answer this question, what is sanctification? So there's a working definition and that definition leads to a biblical description. When the New Testament writers talk about sanctification and all of them talk about it, when the eight men who wrote the New Testament talk about sanctification, they typically talk about it in one of three ways.

Let me show you how this works. So here's the description of how these eight men talk about it. They talk about it in the sense that it is something positional.

It is something that you already have. There are places in the New Testament where the writers of the New Testament talk about sanctification as though it already has happened because positionally you're already sanctified. You have been set apart totally for God and to God's use. Let me give you an example of a place where this takes place. In the book of 1 Corinthians, Paul says, and such were some of you, talking about their former behaviorist pagans, and such were some of you but ye are washed and ye are sanctified.

This is what has already happened to you. Ye are sanctified, ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God. And then the writer of Hebrews in chapter 10 verse 14 says, for by one offering, the offering of his own life, he, Jesus, hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. So when we talk about sanctification in the New Testament there is a sense in which some of the New Testament writers or the New Testament writers sometimes talk about it as something that's already happened to you. We call that positional sanctification. And then obviously it's something that's happening to you right now. And so we describe that as present or progressive sanctification.

And so let me show you an example of this. In 2 Corinthians chapter 7 verse 1, Paul says to the Corinthians, having therefore these promises dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness, that's something you're doing right now, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. In Romans chapter 6 verse 19, Paul says, present your members as slaves to righteousness, leading to sanctification. So there is a sense in which Paul, and we could cite many other New Testament texts, talk about sanctification, not just as something positional that God's already done for you.

He's already put you in this category. It's something that God is actually doing in you right now and that you have a part in. And that's the progressive present sanctification that's going on right now. And then the writers of the New Testament describe a time in the future where you will be fully and permanently sanctified in the presence of Christ. Listen to Paul again in 1 Thessalonians chapter 3 verse 13, he says, to the end he may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father.

When will this happen? At the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all of His saints. Hebrews chapter 12 verse 23, you are come, the writer of Hebrews says, to, and he's describing this wonderful place that a New Testament Christian has come to the general assembly and church of the firstborn which are written in heaven and to the God, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect. So there is a full and final and permanent sanctification that works out itself in your life in the future. So there is this definition and description, but sanctification in the New Testament is also a spiritual responsibility. It's something that you and I are doing in cooperation with God and particularly the spirit of God. Here's how Paul described it to the Philippians in chapter 2.

This is another major text that you need to at least mark down somewhere in your Bible when you're thinking about how sanctification works. Listen to what Paul told the Philippians in chapter 2 verse 12, wherefore my beloved as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. The idea is not like, oh boy, I gotta, you know, somehow justification didn't work with me, so now I gotta work.

It's the idea of display it. Take the salvation that you have received when you were justified and start working it out in all the parts of your life so that it's evident. Start displaying its effects in every part of your life. And so, how in the world am I gonna do that?

I don't know that I have the ability to do that. And that's why Paul goes on in verse 13 to say this, for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure. So in this amazing text, you have a description of sanctification in which you have a responsibility and God also engages. And then I would say it's also a supernatural work of divine grace. Somebody said it this way, any attempt, any attempt at morally improving oneself apart from the working of God's supernatural grace. In other words, if you try to do this apart from God's supernatural grace through your union with Christ, any, any attempt is a counterfeit form of sanctification.

And here's what will happen. It will find no favor from God. It will enjoy no enabling grace from God. And it will be utterly ineffective to conform you to the image of God's son. So this is a supernatural work of divine grace.

So that's what sanctification is. How does it function? That's our second question. How does it function? How does it actually function in our life? And we could say it this way, it's built on a theological foundation and we've talked about that.

So I'm not belabor that point. It's built on a theological foundation and that foundation is justification. That's why all the texts in the New Testament that speak of sanctification are directed to Christians. We said a little bit about this in Romans chapter 12 verse 1.

I beseech you therefore, brethren. Paul in his immense treatise on Christian sanctification to the Galatians in chapter 3 and then again in chapter 5 is directing that to people who have experienced the new birth who began in the Spirit and by the Spirit. And so sanctification is built on a foundation and the foundation is the work that God did when He declared you righteous in Romans chapters 1 through 3. And when you understand that, you have a question. What shall we say to this? This is in Romans chapter 6 verse 1.

What should we say to all of this? Shall we continue in sin? And Paul's answer to that couldn't be more definitive.

He said no, may it never be. So the theological ground on which your sanctification is built and rests is justification. Its spiritual actualization, in other words how is it actualized, involves spirit energized obedience. We could say it this way, becoming more like Christ and less like the world involves personal effort that is affected by the Spirit, it is energized by grace, and it is directed by the Word. Let me just say that one more time so it lodges in our thinking. It involves personal effort that is affected by the Spirit, it is energized by grace, and it is directed by the world.

I think in pictures, so let me give you a sort of embarrassing illustration about this. My wife and I enjoy the trails that are around our house. There's a lot of walking trails and jogging trails and hiking trails, and then there is this immense paseo, it's a California term for a bike path.

And it's about a 30 mile trail. And so I had a bike, and I started biking that trail, and I really enjoyed it, and I thought Beth might like this, and so I went to Beth and I said would you enjoy this, and she said sure I would enjoy that, and I thought well it's 30 miles, I need to get her the kind of bike that she can navigate this trail on. And so I went down, I had a buddy, I met a buddy that had a bike store, I went down there, and they had an electric pedal assist bike. How many of you have a mom that has an electric pedal assist bike, or you know somebody that has a bike like this.

I had never heard of this. So I talked to Beth about it, and I bought this bike for her, and so she started riding it around our neighborhood, and then we had a day where we were gonna go on this big bike ride, like a 25 mile bike ride. So we got out there, and I clip in, and I have a little bike helmet, and off we go, and I am tooling down this bike path, and I'm just pouring, I mean it's hard, it's difficult, I'm trying to keep about an 18 to 20 mile pace as I'm riding, and I mean it's just, and I'm flying down this path, and I look back, and I can't see Beth anywhere. I thought well, okay, and I just kept riding, you know, just riding along, you know, being the loving husband, she's back there, God will take care of her, I'm just riding along, riding along, riding along, and I mean my legs are burning, and I'm kind of looking back there, and there's no Beth. And so I get ready to sob, I'm like I gotta catch my breath, but this will be a good excuse if she comes up to just say, honey I was waiting for you, I was praying for you while you were riding, I just wanted to make sure you were okay, so I'm having all these thoughts in my head as I'm getting ready to pull over, stop, and get off the bike, and so as I'm looking back like this, I swing around this way, and I look over there, and there's Beth in front of me, just coming behind me like this, I'm like just dying, she's riding up on her little bike, 20 miles an hour, now if you don't bike, that doesn't sound like a lot, but if you bike at that speed, your legs are dying, you're like killing, I would come off those rides, I'm just trying to get into the car without crawling, and here's my bike, you know, standing up, or sitting upright, just looking around, waving, like the queen, and I was like, that's cheating.

It was the pedal assist. You know, she was working, she was pedaling just like I was pedaling, she was doing all the same things, she was keeping her balance, she was keeping on the paseo, she wasn't going off the path, she was all of the things I was doing, but there was something different, there was an immense assist, and you know what, there is an immense assist when it comes to God helping you in Christian sanctification, it isn't just you pedaling the bike, it's not going to happen if you don't get on the bike, it's not going to happen if you don't pedal, it's not going to happen if you don't stay on the path, but if you try to do it like I did it, you are going to exhaust yourself, and it isn't going to happen, because God didn't design sanctification to work that way in your life, God designed sanctification to involve your faithful effort, but your faithful effort is going to be energized by His insurmountable, unmeasurable strength. Unfortunately, that's all the time we have for today's sermon from Dr. Sam Horn titled Growing in Gospel Grace. Be sure to listen tomorrow as we'll hear the conclusion of this sermon preached from the Bob Jones University Chapel Platform.