It is a privilege again to be
here with you. Preach the gospel of Christ to
you again. I pray that God will bless you with a message. My
intent is that God would comfort you, strengthen you, encourage
you through the preaching of his word. That's what we're here
for. Those songs about our weakness,
those were rhetorical questions, weren't they? Is anybody weak?
Anybody have need? We're all weak and we all have
need and I pray to not God would give our hearts a breath of fresh
air. That's what I need. I know that's
what you need and we can only breathe that air through hearing
of what Christ has accomplished for us. What Christ my savior
has done for me. Why can he love me? How can he love me when I fall
constantly? I hope you'll be able to see
that. You'll be able to see why. Not because of you. Because of
Christ. And this is sure. If you take
your Bibles and turn with me to 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians
chapter one. The Lord willing, I want to look
at the first 10 verses of this chapter and go over them with
you this evening. I've entitled this message, The
Sanctification confirmation and preservation of the church. Sanctification, confirmation,
and preservation of the church. Paul says in chapter 1 and verse
1, Paul called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will
of God and Sosnes, our brother, unto the church of God, which
is at Corinth. Listen, to them that are sanctified
in Christ Jesus, called, what? Saints, sanctified ones. with all in every place called
upon the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, both theirs and ours,
grace unto you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord
Jesus Christ. Writing to this church of Corinth,
which God had established by him in Acts chapter 18. In Acts
chapter 18, you can read this, where this church was established
and the Lord told the apostle, he said, don't be afraid. Don't
be afraid to preach the gospel in this place, for in this place
I have much people." The church of Corinth was a very large church. It was a prosperous church. He
preached the gospel to them for 18 months, and after that, he
departed, and as soon as he left, division rose up in the church
among the saints concerning preachers. They were misusing the Lord's
Supper. They were getting drunk. False teachers had crept in,
preaching that the resurrection had already passed and many other
false doctrines and troubles plagued this church. Therefore,
Paul, being moved by the Spirit, by this letter, longs to heal
this church. He longs for this church to be
restored as he left it. How then does the Apostle Paul
go about restoring divisions, stopping false doctrine? How
is it that he goes about and heals and unifies this church
that had fallen so far so fast? Well, he did it the same way
he established it, by preaching the gospel. That's how he did
it. He preached the gospel unto them. And so then, are there any divisions
among the saints? Are there any churches having
trouble with false doctrine? Listen, we are all prone to such
things. Your pastor preached this gospel
faithfully more than any man, I think, in our generation. And yet I want you to understand,
we are all prone to go after false doctrine. We are all prone
to division. We are all prone to sin. We ought
to be very careful concerning these things. These people were
duped. They were easily duped. We are. But here, in this letter, the
Holy Spirit lets us see the remedy for this, and that is simply
preaching the gospel, constantly, consistently, and fervently preaching
Christ and Him crucified. That is the remedy for all such
false doctrine, all such divisions and strife and contention. Doesn't
the love of God through Christ, doesn't that melt the heart of
God's people who are proud and arrogant? It should. It's the word of Christ. Paul,
he established this church, and this is the purpose of the church. The purpose of those that God
sends is we have one purpose, one calling, one desire, and
that is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. We're not here
to straighten men out. That's not our purpose. I'm not
here to straighten you out. Look at what he said in verse
17 of chapter 1. He said, For Christ sent me not to baptize.
Now baptism is important, isn't it? I would love to see more. I would love to see more people
come to Christ and believe on Him, and that we would have a
line, and people would love to follow Christ, confess Christ
in baptism. Important, it's important. But
Paul said, that's not my purpose. But to preach the gospel. How,
Paul? Not with wisdom of words, lest
the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. If we bend
the word of God to man's wisdom, or we try to appeal to men, listen,
our preaching is without effect. Now it may make people emotional,
it may even get a large crowd in here, but it has no real effect
on the souls of men. Paul said, lest the cross of
Christ should be made of what? None effect. Look at verse 22, the Jews require
a sign. Do you want to see a miracle? Do you want to have feelings? Most people just want feelings.
They just want to feel good when they come to church. What are
they seeking? They're seeking a sign. They want a sign that
this is God's church. And that's how they measure it,
is if they feel good. As if they're entertained enough.
That's how they, they're seeking a sign. Greeks, they seek after
wisdom. Are you academic enough? A lot
of people seeking an academic church. Paul said, that's not us. We
preach Christ and crucify. To the Jews, a stumbling block.
To Greeks, foolishness. But to us who are called Jews
and Greeks, Christ is the sign. Christ is the power of God. And
Christ is the wisdom of God. So what do we preach? We preach
Christ. We point men to Christ because
He is the only hope for our souls. He is the only hope for sinners.
There is no other hope. There is no other way to God.
Christ is all. Christ is all. Therefore, in
chapter 2 and verse 2, He said, I determine, because of this,
I determine on purpose not to know anything among you, save
Jesus Christ and him crucified. See, now the apostle sets down
the whole remedy. He sets down at the beginning
of this letter the remedy for all of their troubles, Christ
and him crucified. And so he continues to preach
that. It is by this message where our hearts are humbled, our conduct
is corrected, our doctrine is established in our minds and
hearts through the preaching of the gospel. Now this evening
I want to look at these first 10 verses and I do pray that
God, through the preaching of this gospel, should establish
you. That you can walk out of here
confident, not in yourself, but in Christ. I want you to be able
to walk out of here knowing this is true. You who are in Christ
are sanctified by God. All who are in Christ are sanctified.
All who are in Christ have this gospel confirmed to them in their
hearts by the Spirit, and everyone who is in Christ shall be preserved. That's what I want you to learn.
That's what I want to do. I hope the Spirit of God will
show these things. First of all, sanctification
of the church. Now look at Paul begins this
letter. He states his authority. He's
an apostle by the will of God. Paul was a man saved by the Lord
Jesus Christ on that road to Damascus. He heard the gospel
of Christ. by the power of the Holy Spirit,
just like every other sinner. Just like every other sinner
saved by grace. I don't have the same experience he had, but
I have the same salvation he had. That's good, isn't it? Same salvation he had, you had.
His calling was by the will of God. Now, I don't have that same
office, but I have the same Savior. This man, Paul, appointed by
the will of God to be an apostle, chosen to this office, He heard
his gospel directly from Christ, and as was the other apostles,
his word was the foundation for the church. Christ himself being
the cornerstone of their word. All their word pointed to Christ. All of their word glorified Christ. And their word is what we built
the church on. Now, he says, unto the church
of Corinth, listen, to them that are sanctified, Where are they
sanctified? They are sanctified in Christ,
in Christ Jesus. Let me remind, let's be reminded
that the church of God includes all of the elect, all of the
elect, all of those redeemed by Christ. But the church of
God is only manifest by what? Faith. You only know if you're
a part of the Church of God by faith. Faith is the evidence
that we are truly in Christ. The Church is made up of sinners
saved by grace. They are all who believe on Christ
as all their salvation. John wrote this, as many as received
him To them gave He the right to be what? The sons of God,
be called the sons of God, which were born. You were born how? Not by the blood, not by the
will of the flesh, nor by the will of man. You were born by
the will of God. And the evidence was you received
Him. You received Him. So this church
of Corinth, we're a group of believers that met together to
worship through the preaching of gospel, the singing of songs
and prayers, and that's what we're doing tonight. We're meeting
together desiring to hear His voice. Do you want to hear Him? I want you to hear Him. When I'm telling you that you
are sanctified in Christ, I really don't want you to hear it from
me. I want you to hear Him. I want you to hear His voice
tell you you're sanctified in Christ. Sanctified in Christ. This Church of Corinth, meaning
those who believe in Christ, they were the Church of God even
because of their sanctification by God in Christ. Now what is sanctification? It's a word these days that people
don't have one clue what this word sanctification means. First
of all, it means set apart. Set apart. Sanctified is something
that is set apart by God for himself. You that are believers
in Christ, you were set apart by God for himself. For His own glory He set you
aside, not based on any merit in you, any goodness in you. He set you apart for His own
glory. Now, Paul was a man, I'm sorry,
there's sanctification. Most people believe that sanctification
is some moral, excuse me, Many in our day believe sanctification
has something to do with morality or outward piety. But sanctification
is something that the believer, that they believe is something
that the believer must perform in order to become holy. But
let us be clear, sanctification has two meanings in scripture,
and it means, first of all, to be set apart for the worship
of God. And secondly, it means to be
holy. It means to be holy. set apart, like that furniture.
God told him to make that furniture in the tabernacle, and he sanctified
that furniture. That furniture was decreed to
be holy, set aside only for the service of God. Now, you wouldn't
say a piece of furniture is holy, righteous. It's a piece of furniture. but it's wholly set aside for
the service of God. It was sanctified for that purpose. That just means that these things
were set aside for His service and they were considered for
that one purpose only. These things could not be used
for anything else but for the worship of God. So then, whatever
is sanctified for the service of God, for the glory of God,
is said to be sanctified wholly. Now, believer, consider this,
that we too were set apart for the glory and the worship of
God. You were sanctified. You were sanctified by God the
Father before the foundation of the world, that you should
be wholly set apart for His glory, for the worship of... What are
we going to do in heaven? When we get there, what are we
going to be doing? Forever worshiping God, we are
going to be fulfilling exactly what God set us apart to do. Tonight we are set apart because
we are worshiping Him in spirit and in truth. Now the second
meaning is this, that sanctification also means holiness. All the
church collectively that were set apart, we were set apart
from the rest of Adam's race, we were chosen for the worship
and service of God, yet none of the elect, we would have ever
worshipped God in our nature. None of our worship would have
been acceptable. Why? We are by nature sinners. We are unholy by nature. But God, determining to set us
apart for his worship, also purposed that you and I should be without
sin, holy. That's what sanctified is. When
you are sanctified, you are holy. That's what Paul's telling the
church for their comfort. for their assurance that God
sanctified you. God made you this. He made you
holy. We believe on Christ do so because
we were set apart. We were chosen and God made Christ
our surety, our high priest, the father willing to save us
and make us holy. How should he do that? Only by
union with his son. only by union with his son. So
God purposed that his church should not be saved by our offerings. He purposed that none of his
church should have any merit or part in the making of themselves
holy. But look at this in your text
again, therefore the church was sanctified, where? How were you
made holy? in Christ Jesus. By your union, by God putting
you in Christ, that is how. It is an act of God's divine
sovereign will and love. Jude said to the church, said
that the church was sanctified by the Father, preserved in Christ
Jesus, and cold, cold. That is our experience of sanctification. Now behold this. Go to Ephesians.
You know this very well. But Ephesians lays this out so
plainly it's hard to get away from it. Ephesians 1. It lays
it out plainly. This is God sanctifying us in
Ephesians 1. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with all spiritual
blessing in heavenly places. Where? Where are all these blessings
found? In Christ. according as He had
chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world. There
you are, you're set apart. You're put in Christ before the
foundation of the world. For what purpose? That we should
be, what? Holy. You see why He set you
apart? He set you apart that you should
be holy. Now, how in the world should
you be holy and without blame before Him? Here's His motivation
in love, having predestined us under the adoption of children.
Listen, here's how. By Jesus Christ alone are you
holy. Are you made holy by Christ alone? or you made children to bring
you to himself according to the good pleasure of his will, to
the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted
in the beloved. Therefore, all who were sanctified
by the Father in election were sanctified then by the work of
Jesus Christ. Look at verse seven, in whom
we have redemption. through his blood, the forgiveness
of sins according to the riches of his grace. Everyone set apart
by God, sanctified and set in Christ, purposed of God to be
holy. Listen, Christ came into the
world to accomplish just that, to make you holy, to sanctify
you, to sanctify you. Behold, all the church of God
was in Christ when He was made flesh. When our Savior came into
this world, I was in Christ. When Christ obeyed the law in
perfect obedience, I was in Christ. You were in Christ. When Christ
died on Calvary's tree, He died as our substitute, and I was
in Christ. He suffered in our stead as our
surety, and by His blood He redeemed us from all our sin. It was Christ
who sanctified us by His work, by His obedience. so that all
he did for the glory of God was for our salvation. And by his
own merits, he obtained everlasting righteousness. By his own blood,
he justified us forever. Go to Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews
chapter 10. Look at verse 9. This is Christ
speaking. He said, Then said He, Lo, I
come to do Thy will, O God. The will of God was what? We
just read in Ephesians, to make you holy. That was the will of
God. He came to accomplish that will
of God. He taketh away the first and
established the second. By the which will we are what? What are we? What are you? By
the will of God, you're what? Sanctified. Sanctified by the
will of God. How? Through the offering of
the body of Jesus Christ. What? Once for all. Don't you
see this? You were sanctified once for
all. You realize that there's never
been a time you've not been sanctified? in the mind and purpose and through
the work of Jesus Christ, you were sanctified before you committed
your first transgression. You were already made holy by
the Son of God, by his offering once for all. Every priest standeth
ministering, offering oftentimes the same sacrifice he'd never
take away sin, but this man, But this man, after he had offered
one sacrifice for sins, what did he do? He sat down. He sat
down. He finished it. It's accomplished. Your sanctification is accomplished. It's accomplished. Christ accomplished
it. He sat down. at the right hand
of God from henceforth expect until his enemies be made his
footstool. For by one offering he hath perfected forever them
that are what? Sanctified. He perfected us forever. Who? Sanctified ones. Sanctified by the will of God.
Sanctified by the offering of Jesus Christ once for all. Made
holy forever. Who will unsanctify you? Who can do that? Who can make
you unsanctified? See, He made me sanctified before
I ever did anything evil. I never committed one transgression.
I was already sanctified. Who can unsanctify me? Matter
of fact, He considered all of my transgressions even before
they were committed and put them in Christ. so that I might be holy and without
blame before Him. And all this in love, love. You think of sanctification,
don't think of something you gotta do. Think of something
that's done, something accomplished, something finished, something
according to the will of God that can't be undone. You're sanctified, it's what
Paul's telling them. You're sanctified in Christ Jesus.
This holiness is by the will of God, accomplished by the offering
of Christ, by His one offering, all the sins. All the sins. Now this is what we would consider
ourselves unholy creatures. We are by nature truly unholy
creatures, by nature. But God had before taken all
of those sins, Every one of those sins He hath removed from us
and imputed to His Son. You know, that picture of the
scapegoat is just the best picture for that, isn't it? The Lord
intended it to be one of the best pictures for that. You remember,
they offered that sacrifice, that atonement was made, but
where are the sins gonna go? They gotta go somewhere. We can't
kill an innocent. Somebody's gotta be guilty. So
he takes the sins and he confesses on that goat and he takes that
strong man and that strong man puts that goat on his shoulders
and takes off. And I can always just imagine
him getting smaller and smaller and smaller until I can't see
him anymore. That's exactly what happened
with our sin. God took your sin so far away. Now you pay attention. God cannot find it. In that day shall the sins of
Israel be sought for, and there shall be how many? None. Why? How? How? Because God said. Christ Jesus himself sanctified
me. He did this for all of his church. Think of this. I'm amazed he
did it for me, but consider this. He did it for his whole church.
All of his church are sanctified because he satisfied the justice
of God. He shall see of the travail of
his soul, and God's gonna be what? What is God when He saw
Christ suffer? What is God? He is satisfied. Now what do you got to offer? How are you going to contribute
anything to this sanctification? Yet men just run around thinking
they're just sanctifying themselves. Well, Christ redeemed me. You
know, God chose me, Christ redeemed me, but sanctification's a cooperative
process. I want a curse. That's what I
want. That's just bulldung. Not my sanctification. I don't
want any sanctification like that if I've got to have any
part in it. No, I'm sanctified by the will of God. I'm sanctified
by the blood of Jesus Christ who removed my sin, purged our
sin by himself. I like that, by himself. He was
by himself. That's the reason he had to be
alone. That's the reason everyone had to forsake him. God had to
show you he had to do it by himself. You can't have any part in it.
I'm so thankful I don't have any part in it. I mess up everything
I touch. I'm glad I don't touch this.
You are sanctified. by the will of God, by the blood
of Jesus Christ. Yet none of us knew this. None of us knew this when we
were born in this world. None of us knew of our election.
None of us knew or felt of our redemption that Christ accomplished.
None of us of the church were born holy. In fact, we were born
unholy. We were born dead in sins. We,
by nature, could never satisfy the justice of God. None of us,
by nature, could ever merit the righteousness of the law. None
of us could ever even believe on Christ. Think faith is simple. Faith is not. Faith is simple
to understand, impossible for men to do. No man can come unto
me, except what? The Father in power draw him. You know those false preachers,
they like to view lost men as a drowning man. You ever heard
that? A man is drowning in a river and the gospel's like a rope
tied to the shoreline. We throw out the rope and we
say, grab ahold of the gospel and pull yourself in. What a silly illustration. It's
not even close. We're not drowning, we're drowned. We're not dying, we're dead.
We're not floating on the top, we're buried in the bottom of
the sea of God's justice. So what we need then is one to
fetch us from the depths. We need one to plumb and fathom
the holiness of God that killed us. to satisfy the justice of
God for us. That's what Christ did on the
cross. He parted the sea of God's holy justice, reached down and
rescued us, pulled us from the sea of our sins, breathed in
us the breath of life. He pulled us to the, we pulled
ourselves to the shore. He did. He saved us. You know, he saved us before
we knew what happened. Well, you didn't know what happened.
It's all of a sudden you're saved. You believe. How'd that happen?
God did it. God did it. So at the appointed
time of His love, He purposed all that He sanctified in eternity,
all that Christ's blood sanctified. We have this promise that every
one of them, the Spirit of God, will effectually call and reveal
the sanctification in them. The Holy Spirit will set us apart and he will make us experimentally
holy by giving us a holy nature. Again, what did you do to get
that sanctified nature? What did you contribute to have
a holy nature? Nothing. to you. He put it in you. He sanctified you. And so those
who are sanctified in Christ were sanctified before the world
began, sanctified by the offering, and this is the evidence of our
sanctification, even this faith in Christ. How do you know you're alive? Are you alive? Is anybody dead
out there? Oh, you know you're alive. You're
breathing. You're breathing. You can understand what I'm saying. You're alive. Well, faith is the breath of
spiritual life. Do you believe on the Son of
God? Well, see, you believe because
you're sanctified. Your faith didn't sanctify. You
were sanctified, therefore what? You believed. I think he said
this in Galatians. He says, because you are sons,
you believe. Because you're sons. You're not
sons because you believe. You're sons first. And then the
evidence of that sonship is faith. The evidence of my sanctification
is what? Faith in Christ. Once we loved our sin, we loved
the world. We had no need of Christ. We
were unholy, unrighteous, ungodly, depraved, dead in our sins, but
God has set that appointed time, and he purposed us to be holy
in Christ, and now he has called us. Look back at your text real
fast. Go back over here. He said he sanctified in Christ
Jesus. How? According to the will of
God, according to the blood offering of Christ, and what did he do
to those that are sanctified? What's that next word? He called. They're called. Saints, called
saints. Before we were unholy, but now,
since we are sanctified, we are made holy, and the evidence of
that is faith in Christ being called. You know what John says
about us? He said this. He said, we know
that whosoever is born of God sinneth not. You born of God? Anybody misunderstand
that? Is that text not plain enough
for you? I know a bunch of people think they run around and they're
all holy and they don't ever sin anymore. He's talking about
your nature, that which is born of God. That which is born of
God is what? The new nature. And that new
nature, what is it? It doesn't sin. Why? It's sanctified. It's sanctified. You're sanctified
by God and the election is evidence of this is that we are called.
Look at called saints with all and in every place who call upon
the name of Jesus, our Jesus Christ, our Lord, both theirs
and ours. So whosoever calls on the name
of the Lord or what? They're sanctified. When we were without God, without
Christ, we had no need of God and no need of Christ until when?
He exposed our need. Do you have a need? You know who had a need? That
woman with the issue of blood. She had a need, didn't she? She spent everything she had,
she had nothing left, and she only knew this, Christ could
heal me. That's faith. Do you know your
need? Do you know Christ alone can
heal? Call on him. Whosoever shall call upon the
name of the Lord, what? shall be saved. I'm not talking
about with just your lips. People do that all the time.
Make professions all the time. No, this is a heart need. I need
a new nature. I need something I can't provide
for myself that only Christ can. Therefore, the calling and grace
and power of God, the calling of grace is by the power of God,
we are made to cry out to God for absolute free mercy. Who
needs free mercy? That's the only kind of mercy
there is, isn't it? Is free mercy. And so in grace, God sent a pastor
to us, a preacher, didn't he? He sent a preacher of the gospel
and told us of Christ's accomplished work. And by an act of God's
power in a new creation, we called on the name of Christ, the authority
of Christ. We called to God and sought only
to be found in Christ. And we gladly by faith cast off
all self-righteousness and by faith don the robe of his righteousness. Have you called on his name? Do you believe? Then you listen. You are sanctified. You are holy. Well, preacher, I don't feel
holy. What in the world does that have
to do with your sanctification? Isn't that amazing? I don't feel
holy any time. I have never felt holy. And if
you're waiting to feel holy, you'll die that way. You won't
ever feel holy. Because your nature is not holy. God didn't do anything to that
old man. It's still just as vile and corrupt
as it ever was. And the more I grow in grace,
the more I know of its vileness. Does it get better? What a lie
religion has tried to put on God's people. Binding the law
on them. Telling them they're saved by
grace and then trying to put them back under the law to sanctify
themselves. No, you sanctified. You're already
sanctified. sanctified by the will of God,
sanctified by the blood of Christ, and you know you're sanctified.
How? Because the Spirit of God has
called you to embrace the Son of God by faith. You are sanctified. You are sanctified. And notice this, I'm not gonna
get through those two, just not gonna do it. I wanted to, but
I'm just not able. But I want you to see this, the
result of this is found in verse three. Result of your sanctification,
listen to this, grace be unto you. Because God has sanctified you,
The only thing you're ever going to receive is grace. It was grace
that sanctified you, wasn't it? It was grace that called you,
it was grace that redeemed you. And you listen to this, it is
grace that will keep you sanctified. It will keep you sanctified.
And notice this, you have peace with God. You ain't got peace with yourself,
do you? Aside of glory, you'll never
have peace with yourself. Stop thinking one day yourself
is going to stop fighting. Stop believing that you're somehow
going to be delivered from all your troubles and everything
is just going to be well in this world. It's just not. We have
a warfare that we fight constantly because we are sanctified. What
else can a holy nature do but fight against a sinful nature? We do. We war within ourselves. There's no peace in ourselves.
No peace with the world. There's no peace with this world.
They won't believe a thing I said tonight. I hope I was plain. I hope it
was clear. I hope nobody could misconstrue
what I said. And yet, they don't want to hear
that. They want to rob God of His glory. They want to have some part in
their salvation, and sanctification is their ticket. Not me. Not me. Because I'm sanctified,
I have peace with God. I may not have peace with the
world or with myself, but I'll tell you this, we have peace
with God. Grace and peace be unto you from God our Father
and from the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank God always on your behalf
for the grace of God which is given you by Christ Jesus. By grace, none dare lay claim
to merit. Our works and conduct have no
worth. God in his love sent our Redeemer,
Christ Jesus, to this sinful earth. His death did for our
sins atone, and we are saved by grace alone. By grace, O mark
this word of promise, when thou art by thy sins oppressed, when
Satan plagues thy troubled conscience, and when thy heart is seeking
rest. What reason cannot comprehend God by his grace, to thee doth
send. Peace, peace with God by the
blood of Jesus Christ. So what's the message? Paul said
that the church of Corinth was sanctified, where? In Christ. in Christ. God put them in Christ, Christ
sanctified them by His death, satisfied the justice of God,
made them righteous, and then the Spirit, what? Called saints. Sanctified one. That's what saint
means, isn't it? Sanctified one. And so we know
this. Our sanctification is not progressive. It's done. It's perfect. I pray God comforts you with
this and you go out in peace knowing God sanctified you. Our gracious Father,