1034. The Foundation of Christian Sanctification pt. 1

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina.

The school was founded in 1927 by the evangelist Dr. Bob Jones Sr. His intent was to make a school where the focus would be on Christ, so he established daily chapel services. Today, that tradition continues with fervent biblical preaching from The University Chapel Platform. Today on The Daily Platform, we'll hear a sermon preached at the Bob Jones University Bible Conference. This is a time when classes are dismissed and students concentrate on hearing the Word preached from several visiting pastors and evangelists throughout the week. Today's sermon is from the 2021 Bible Conference where the theme was Sanctify Them. As we'll learn through this short study, sanctification means to be set apart under God.

It's an attitude of treating or regarding something as holy. Today's sermon is the third in this series, preached by Dr. Sam Horn. He'll be teaching us the first part of the foundation of Christian sanctification. I can say a lot of things about Dr. Horn. Many of you know him.

You had him in classes. There are so many things about him that I am so thankful for. He never stops.

No grass grows under his feet. He's the Tasmanian angel, and he is always moving about, always recruiting, always planning, always preparing, but for me personally, he was a great, great friend. He was my pastor in the church that we attended as a family for many years and has been an incredible servant of giving of himself unreservedly to the ministry here at Bob Jones University and now where he is in his leadership role. So we're so thankful to have him this afternoon. I'm sorry I have to slip out because actually the Bob Jones Academy is having their own Bible Conference right now, and I'm scheduled to speak over there 15 minutes ago. And so I'm going to slip out, but I just want to say thank you, Sam, for being with us.

And would you give Dr. Horn a warm welcome as he comes. I'm thankful that we get to be together for these several days. I'm looking forward to fellowship with good friends and concentrated word time as we sit under the word, even as I heard it this morning from Will Galkin and then really the topic that is before us, the topic of Christian sanctification. You know, sanctification for me, and I assume it's true for you, is one of those doctrinal realities that we know should be part of our life. We actually want it to happen in our life, but it's often the most difficult and sometimes the most inconsistent part of our spiritual life. So I know as I came this week and as I began preparing for the message this afternoon and tomorrow and Friday, I am eager to sit under the preaching of God's word and I'm asking God to do that sanctifying work in my own life. And it began even this morning as I heard what you heard, as we heard together. This afternoon, I'm going to direct your attention to a passage of scripture that speaks to the gospel foundation of Christian sanctification. It is built on something.

It is a response to something. And so we're going to look at the foundation of Christian sanctification. And then on Friday, when we come together, we're going to talk about the spiritual formation of sanctification. So how does what God is doing on this foundation actually take place in my life?

And so the foundation today, and then on Friday, we'll talk a little bit about the formation. And then in one of the workshops I've been asked to do, I plan to address the surprising fruit of Christian sanctification for those of you who are interested. So what do we mean when we think about sanctification in terms of its foundation? What do we mean when we talk about the gospel being the foundation of Christian sanctification? Most of us heard the gospel from a trusted source. We heard it quite young. I would venture to say that the vast majority of you in this room today who are truly born again, heard the gospel and many of you grew up in homes where you saw the gospel, not just heard it, you saw it in your home. You heard it from your pastor.

You heard it at a Christian camp or you heard it at a Christian school chapel. You were gospelized at a very young age. And you came to embrace, as God helped you, the realities of that gospel in a very personal way. And so when we think about the gospel in that kind of a context, it's very easy for us to think about the gospel as a ticket that we need in order to get entrance to a certain place or a certain destination.

How in the world am I going to get to heaven? Answer the gospel. If I don't want to end up in hell, if I want to spend eternity with God, if I want forgiveness from sin, if I want you name any sort of gospel reality that comes out of what we did when we embraced the gospel, we tend to reduce the gospel. We're a little reductionistic in our thinking about the gospel.

We tend to reduce it to the entrance requirement to sort of the ticket that gets us in. We believe a certain set of facts. We repent from behaviors that we know are true about us. And we pray and ask the Lord and we place our full faith and confidence in Him and we check off all the boxes and then the gospel is done. And then we move on to the rest of our Christian life. And the apostle Paul is actually going to build the case in the book of Romans that the entire Christian life isn't just entered into because of the gospel. The gospel actually shapes and forms and is the foundation and interwoven into the very DNA of every part of the Christian life from start to finish. And there is no better place to look at this than in the passage that to me is one of the most familiar passages in Romans and yet one of the most essential for understanding the topic that we're talking about this week. So I'm going to ask you to turn in your Bible to Romans chapter 12. The minute I tell you the text, Romans chapter 12, you know exactly which two verses we're going to. So let's just address that at the beginning, you know, and I know that there are great benefits to a familiar text. And one of the great benefits to a familiar text is its familiarity.

It feels very comfortable to us. We know it, it sort of just flows off our lips. How many of you here have memorized Romans 12, one and two?

Can I see your hands? I mean, that's virtually everybody here. You have read it so often that you've memorized it and it just flows off your mouth. It just literally rolls off your tongue.

It's that familiar to you. So the text has this benefit as we, as we come to it this afternoon, we are not coming to some obscure text or some new text that we really haven't given a lot of attention to. This is one of those foundational texts in our Christian life. And it's been rolling around in our life since we became believers.

Now that's the benefit. The difficulty of a familiar text is its familiarity. It's so familiar. It's like, come on, Romans 12, one and two at 154 in the afternoon when we just ate, are you kidding me? How many more sermons can I hear on Romans 12, one and two? What new thing? Come on, you, you could have come up with something better than Romans 12, one and two.

It's that familiar. So here's what I want us to do if you don't mind. And if you can, I want you to check everything that you've known and heard about Romans 12, one and two, and I just want you to put it over to the side. I don't want you to get rid of it because it's all valuable, but just put it over to the side and think for a minute like you would be thinking if you were listening to the book of Romans read for the very first time like these believers in Rome were hearing it when it was being read to them. Hey, a letter came from the apostle Paul. That would have been a buzz.

That was a noteworthy moment. And the church would have gathered together either collectively in one place or maybe in the little homes and the places where they met in their home churches and they would have read this letter and it would have impacted them the very first time they heard it. So as we come to the text that is so familiar to us, I want you to do that.

I want you to try to listen to it like you have never heard it before. What you would hear would lead you to five amazing realities that Paul places in this text that relate to the issue of your Christian sanctification. So let's notice what Paul says. The first thing that he does is he gives this penetrating appeal.

Notice how he says it. I beseech you, brethren. Now, you know, when you think about that word beseech, it's often easy to kind of hear it in our own language and in our own context where we typically don't make really strong statements to each other.

I mean, it's pretty rare in my relationships with people and in your relationships with other people for somebody to sort of get in your face and say, now listen very, very carefully, you must do this. When Paul says I beseech you, sometimes we think of it sort of as a gracious asking. You know, I really want to ask you to think about something here. It's the way we would appeal to somebody. This is not just a good suggestion.

It's not even a passionate request. This is an authoritative exhortation. For 11 chapters, Paul has been laying out some pretty jaw dropping truth. And on the basis of everything he's been talking about, he gets everybody's attention and he says to them, now I'm speaking to you with all of the authority that I mentioned when I introduced myself back in chapter one. I am exhorting you to do something. I expect you to read and heed and receive what I'm saying.

That's the idea behind this appeal. So there is the nature of it. It is a strong exhortation. And then there are the boundaries of it.

There are boundaries to this. I beseech you, brethren. Whatever this exhortation is, whatever Paul is going to get in our grill about and talk to us about, it isn't for unbelievers. It is for people that have actually experienced and personally belong to the community of faith that Paul has been talking about for 11 chapters.

And so that's a really important point to know because it takes a lot of pressure off of you. If you are not a believer, and you know, you know that and I know that, you know, if we really aren't in the family, if we really don't belong to Christ, the Spirit of God has been telling us that and you probably know that and you may have been denying that you may have been putting it aside, but whatever is coming in these two verses is going to be absolutely ludicrous to you. It's not gonna make any sense to you. You're going to listen to this and when we get to the end, you're just going to shake your head and go, what? That makes absolutely zero sense.

Why would I do that? That isn't what I thought the gospel was at all. But if you're a believer, even if you struggle in areas of your life, when you get to the end of what Paul is saying, you're going to go, you know what? That makes total sense.

I get it. And so that takes a lot of pressure. If you're not a believer, then whatever's coming next for Paul doesn't apply to you. There's a whole nother exhortation he would have for you. He would say, examine yourself, like you said to the Corinthians to make sure that you are in the faith.

And that's a whole nother topic and we heard a little bit about that even this morning. So this exhortation is to brethren and then there is a reality behind this appeal. And that reality is this, that that whatever is going on here is possible because of things that have happened to you. And so by the time you get to Romans chapter 12, and Paul is making this appeal to you, you've already learned some things. You've learned, for example, in the first three chapters of Romans, that you were dead in your trespasses and sins. In fact, by the time you get to Romans chapter one, if you really understand what Paul is saying and how he is cataloging you, you have found yourself not just ignorant of God, you have found yourself suppressing truth about God and in outright rebellion, celebrating the things that God sends people to hell for.

And it doesn't just look like a bunch of people out there just throwing off all restraints and doing what they want. In chapter two, you find out that some of the most self-righteous and morally outwardly moral people are in this same category. And by the time you get to the middle of chapter three, you find out there is no one, no one, not even one who is righteous. And that's why Paul says the wrath of God is right now coming down from heaven. But there's something else that is also coming down from heaven along with that wrath. And it is a righteousness that is coming down from God. And it came down through the work, the atoning work, the life, the obedience and the death of Jesus Christ. And that is how a just God takes unjust people and justifies them in a just way. And that's the whole point to the end of Romans chapter three. It's like, well, that happened to me.

And then Paul goes on and he talks about the fact that that isn't all that happened. That, that moment of justification where God declared you righteous on the merits of a righteousness that was not earned by you, brought you into a whole new realm. You were in an old realm that was dominated by sin and death.

You, you, you live for entirely different purposes. You, that realm was like a kingdom of darkness. And by the time you get to Romans chapter five, you are now permanently removed from that realm and you're in a new realm. And not only that, the war between you and God is over.

There is a peace that has been established. And then Paul goes on to explain all of this. And by the time you get to Romans chapter eight, you begin to discover that God has been doing this for a long time, even before you were born. And you get to the end of Romans chapter eight and there's this glorious recognition that nothing, nothing in all of creation, nothing in the universe, no one in the universe can separate you from God.

That's why Paul could say, God is for us who can be against us. And in the midst of all of this, you got something, you got a new mind, you got a new mind when you were delivered from the sentence of sin and removed from the realm of sin and released from the sovereignty of sin and are currently being delivered from the power of sin. You got a new mind and that new mind allows all of this to happen.

We'll talk about that here in just a moment. So that is this penetrating appeal. Paul is saying, look, I'm talking to all genuine believers who have experienced these realities and I am exhorting you to do something.

And that brings us to the second thing we see in the text here. And that is this, what is it that Paul is exhorting us to do? And so let's notice this piercing objective that goes right through the heart of Christian sanctification.

It pierces through everything. It goes right to the very soul of it. What is it that Paul is exhorting believers who have embraced the gospel and have been embraced by the gospel to do?

And it is at the end of verse two. Paul says, here's what you do. Here's what I'm exhorting you to do. I'm exhorting you to test. I'm exhorting you to prove. I'm exhorting you to discern something. I want you to use spiritual discernment to discover something that is good and acceptable and perfect. I want you to discover and do the will of God.

That is of paramount importance. I mean, when you get out of the first 11 chapters and now Paul is going to say to you, all right, now you've got to live this stuff out in your life. When you get up in the morning and you start walking around and you go out in the marketplace and you show up at church and you have relationships with other people, here is how these 11 chapters need to flow out of your life. At the heart of it, Paul says, now you need to discern and do the will of God.

This isn't the only place that Paul talks this way. Listen to what he said to the Ephesians in chapter five, verses eight through 10. He said this, for at one time you were darkness.

Remember that realm we talked about that kingdom? You were that, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. And then he's going to say this.

So what does that mean? For the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true. And then he says, and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. You know this passage that he wrote to the Philippians in chapter two. It is God who works in you both to will and to work or to do for his good pleasure. And then if you want it even more plainly, it's in this incredible prayer in Colossians chapter one, verse nine, Paul says from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and wisdom and understanding that comes from the spirit.

Why? So that you would walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him. Here's what Paul is saying. The mission of your life as a gospel person is to discern and do the will of God. And then he's going to give us a description of that will, and he's going to take us up like 30,000 feet. He's not going to tell us, okay, the will of God for your life right now is that you wear these shoes and that shirt or that you buy this car and not that car.

He's going to literally bring it up to a much higher level and he's going to say, you are looking for the will of God and the will of God is like this. It is spiritually beneficial to you and to others. It is good. It is good. It is morally right and spiritually proper.

It is acceptable. It is spiritually beneficial. It is morally right and spiritually proper. And then it is fully and completely aligned with the, the word of God as he set it forth. So whatever the will of God is like, it is, it is this, it is, it is me consistently doing what is spiritually beneficial and helpful to others. What is morally right and spiritually proper in God's sight and what is fully in line with God's word. So if I take whatever I'm doing and I measure it by those three ideas, I'm going to have a pretty good idea when I'm not walking in a way that's fully pleasing to the Lord. And so, so Paul says, this is what I'm exhorting you to do. I'm exhorting you to look at your life and I'm exhorting you to discern what you're doing in your life.

And it needs to be like this. It needs to be spiritually beneficial and helpful to others. It needs to be morally right and spiritually proper in the sight of God.

And it needs to be fully compliant and needs to be fully in line with whatever God has said in his word. And God has given you two things to help you do this. He's given you a new mind, a regenerated mind.

This is what we were talking about just a few moments ago. Our natural mind when we were born in our sins could never conform or grasp or embrace what Paul is talking about. I mean, this is how he describes what we were like in our mind as unbelievers. He said, now this I say and testify in the Lord, Ephesians 4 17, that you must no longer walk as Gentiles in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of their heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality.

They are greedy to practice every kind of impurity. This is the mind that you have and that I had before we came to the gospel. In fact, in Romans chapter 8 verses 7 through 9, Paul says the mind that was set to the flesh, the unsaved mind, not only didn't want to please God, it couldn't.

And then all of a sudden Ephesians chapter 4, you as a new man got a regenerated mind. And then with that mind came divine enablement, grace. Grace is more than just favor that God has for us, unmerited favor. It's more than God's riches at Christ's expense. Just a wonderful definition as that might be. That isn't the only side of grace. Grace is actually an enablement that comes from the spirit of God. So Paul is saying to you, there is this penetrating appeal and the appeal is that you would go right to this piercing objective that you would in your life discern and do the will of God. Now there's a third thing in the text and that is this.

There is a personal requirement. Whatever discerning and doing God's will entails, Paul states that you are to do it with something that you bring to God. And what he's going to do is he's going to introduce this idea to you that he's been talking about for 11 chapters and it's the idea that when you were washed from your sins, when you were taken out of the kingdom of darkness and you were translated, you were transferred into the kingdom of his son, you came in as a son but you also came in in two other ways. You came in as a ruling king. You are going to rule in that kingdom and that's all through the New Testament.

It's all in Revelation, particularly Revelation 4 and 5. So here you are today and if you are in this kingdom, you aren't just a son or daughter of God, you actually have been given a status in that kingdom and your status is that of king. You are a royal king. But there's another way that you came into that kingdom. You came in as a son, you came in as a king but you came in as a priest. And Peter's going to talk about it this way. You are a royal priesthood.

And you and I sit here at 10 after 2 on Wednesday afternoon and that doesn't really compute but if you lived in Peter's day, that would have been an absolutely stunning statement to you. There was one nation of all the nations of the earth. Now think about, go back into your Old Testament, think about Egypt and Assyria and Babylon and all of the nations and there was one nation that God selected out of all of those nations to rule over those nations. And that was his nation.

The king of kings himself was going to be the king of that nation and every one of the people in that nation that belonged to that king were in themselves kings and they were supposed to rule over all the nations. But that's not all they were. They were also priests. They had a mission with all of those other nations. Old Testament Israelite was supposed to be part of a kingdom that was going to rule all of the other kingdoms and that was going to mediate between that kingdom and God. They were priests. Unfortunately that's all the time we have for today's sermon titled The Foundation of Christian Sanctification. Be sure to listen tomorrow as we'll hear the conclusion of this sermon from Dr. Sam Horn preached from the Bob Jones University Chapel platform.