Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening. And
now for today's program. Welcome to our program today.
I'm glad you could join us. If you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, I'll be preaching once again from the book of John,
the gospel of John chapter 17, which as I've said, going through
this chapter, this chapter is the Lord's prayer. Matthew chapter
six, our Father which art in heaven, that's the model prayer
where Christ taught his disciples to pray. But here we have an
instance where the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God incarnate,
the mediator between God and man, is praying to his Father,
directly to his Father. And he's praying for his disciples,
not just the 11 now. A lot of people, when they go
into this chapter, they say, well, he's just praying for those
11 disciples. Well, he is praying for them.
But he's also praying for all of his disciples over all time,
especially those who are coming in the future, in the new covenant,
you know, after he does his work of redemption. So keep that in
mind. Now, today's message is entitled
Sanctified with Truth. Sanctified with Truth. And I
took that title from verse 17, where we'll pick up, where the
Lord prays for his disciples, Again, all of his disciples,
he says, sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth. So think about that, sanctified. You've heard the word sanctified,
sanctification, that word. In the original Greek, it's the
same word as holy or holiness. or made holy in that sense. And a lot of people have a lot
of trouble understanding the doctrine, the gospel doctrine
of sanctification. And I've dealt with this on this
program, and I don't mind repeating this. You know, I'm the kind
of preacher, you know, I agree with the prophet Isaiah. He said,
preaching the word of God is preaching line upon line, precept
upon precept. We've got to hear it more than
once. Because we're so ignorant, and
I don't mean that as an insult, because that's the state of the
whole human race, even the geniuses. When it comes to spiritual truth,
we all fell in Adam into sin and depravity and spiritual death.
We're born that way, naturally. The natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God, because he's born spiritually
dead. He has eyes physically and he has a conscience, he has
a soul, but he doesn't have the spiritual capacity to see and
to know and to desire the things of God. And that's why when we
hear the gospel at first, it's very repulsive to us. A natural
man will not receive it. The world hates it. And that's
what the Bible teaches now. There's none good, there's none
righteous, there's none that seeketh after God, no, not one.
That's describing mankind by nature. And when I say by nature,
I mean as we are naturally born. We're not born saved. And when
a baby is born and these false churches, such as the Catholic
Church, takes them in and sprinkles them and dedicates them, my friend,
that does not remove sin. That does not save them. That
does not remove even original sin, as they say. That's a false
gospel. That's a false religion. And I'm not telling you that
to be mean or just to raise a ruckus. I'm telling you that because
it's truth. Being sprinkled is not baptism. And baptism, even
of an adult, does not save that person. Baptism is a confession
that that person has already been saved, and baptism is the
confession of that. It's an identification publicly
with Christ. Read the Bible. That's what we
need to do. That's our authority, the Bible,
not the traditions of men and religion. Well, anyway, we're
born spiritually dead in trespasses and sin. And this is why Christ
taught in John chapter three, you must be born again. This is why the word of God taught
back in the Old Testament through the prophet Jeremiah, the prophet
Ezekiel, that in order to be saved, God has to give us a new
heart. Because the natural heart, as
Jeremiah said in Jeremiah 17, is desperately wicked. Who can
know it? Even, even, and when the Bible
says desperately wicked, don't relegate that to just the openly
immoral. That refers to all of us, even
in our religious thoughts, even in our morality, which is by
nature dead works, aimed at giving us some glory. So he gives us
a new heart. That's what the new birth is
about. Sometimes in the Bible that's called circumcision of
the heart, but cutting away the filth of the flesh spiritually
and mentally, where God brings us to faith in Christ. He's my
hope. He's my salvation. Not me, not
my works, His works, and repentance from dead works, my works. I
repent of ever thinking that I could save myself or contribute
to my salvation by my works. Salvation is by grace. and that's God's righteousness
at Christ's expense. Salvation is all conditioned
on Christ and on Him alone and He by Himself as the representative,
as the surety, as the substitute, as the redeemer of His people
fulfilled every condition to secure their eternal salvation
under glory. And that's what the gospel teaches.
It's the revelation of the righteousness of God, which is the merit, the
value, the worth of the obedience unto death of Christ and all
that he accomplished to redeem his people from their sins. By
one offering, Hebrews 10, 14 tells us. For by one offering,
he hath perfected, finished, completed, perfected forever. them that are sanctified. There's
that word sanctified again that we're going to get into. Now
here he speaks of sanctified by the truth. He talked about
his disciples. He said they're not of the world,
they're in the world. He said they're not of the world,
they're citizens of a heavenly kingdom. They're citizens of
a spiritual, they're members of a spiritual family. They're
children of God. They're in the world, and God's
leaving them in the world for a purpose until he takes them
out. And there'll be believers in the world, though few, up
until the time that Christ comes back again. But they're not citizens
of the world. They're separate from the world.
And that's where we get into the sanctification. To be sanctified,
to be holy, is to be separate. Separate. And so, for example,
we get the word saint. A sanctified person is a saint. But now a saint is not some kind
of super Christian who's been chosen and canonized or whatever
they call it by a pope or a church or a denomination. You know what
a saint is? A person who's been set apart
And he or she is identified by being a sinner saved by grace. So every true believer is a saint. Paul wrote to the saints at Rome. He wasn't just writing to a specific
membership of the church who had gone above and beyond the
call of duty. He was writing to all believers
in Rome. and essentially all believers
who read the book of Romans, like us. So here's what Christ
prays in verse 17 of John 17. He says, sanctify them through
thy truth. Thy word is truth. And he says
in verse 18, as thou has sent me into the world, now God the
Father sent the Son in the fullness of the time, Galatians 4.4. In
the fullness of the time, God sent forth his son, that's the
deity of Christ, the son of God, the second person of the Trinity,
co-equal with the Father and the Spirit in every attribute
of deity, God sent him forth, made of a woman, that is his
sinless humanity. His humanity was created conceived
in the womb of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit, not because
she was a sinless person now. She wasn't. You know, Catholicism
talks about the immaculate conception and they're talking about Mary.
A perfect conception only can refer to the Lord Jesus Christ.
who was conceived in her womb. She was a sinner saved by grace. She called Christ, her son, being
the mother of his humanity, she called him her savior. Now, why
does a person need a savior? Because they're a sinner. His
name shall be called Jesus, for he shall save his people from
their sins. So if she wasn't a sinner who
needed salvation, why would she call him her Savior. Now Mary is a special person
and she had a special task. She was blessed among women but
she was still a sinner saved by grace. But Christ was conceived
in the womb by the Holy Spirit and He was made of a woman. That
was His sinless humanity and I emphasize the word sinless.
He is the perfect God-man. who could not sin, who did not
sin, who knew no sin. He was impeccable. He is impeccable. That means he wasn't even capable
of sinning. He took the sins of his people,
his sheep upon himself legally by imputation. The debt was put
to his account, but he was never contaminated with that sin. He
was never corrupted by that sin. He remained the perfect Godman,
even unto the time that God poured his wrath down upon him on the
cross. And he did it justly, not because Christ was made or
became a sinner, but because Christ was made sin, as the scripture
says, that he owed a debt. And it was the debt of my sins. That's what the scripture says.
It behooved him. That means he was indebted to
be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a faithful high
priest in things pertaining to God, Hebrews 2.17. So Christ,
he was sent by the Father, made of a woman, made under the law,
Galatians 4 and verses four through six, made under the law, that
is all the law keeping and law satisfying that God required
for the salvation of his people, was put upon the shoulders of
Christ. You see, as I said, salvation
is not conditioned on us, it's conditioned on Christ. He was
made under the law for what purpose? To redeem them that were under
the law. And he bought them back with
the price of his blood. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth
us from all sin. Not the waters of baptism, not
our tears of remorse, not faith and repentance, not our decisions,
but the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin. So go
back to John 17 and verse 18 now. He says, as thou hast sent
me into the world to do all that was required to establish the
only righteousness whereby God could be just to justify the
ungodly, even so have I also sent them into the world into
the world what do you mean send them into the world they're already
there well he sent them with the great commission go ye all
into all the world and preach the gospel and you tell them
he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved now that phrase
in mark 16 i believe it's verse 15 or verse 16 right around there
That doesn't mean that you have to be baptized to be saved, as
one false denomination teaches. What it's simply saying is that
believing the gospel, salvation by grace, which excludes the
works of man, even baptism, as a ground of salvation, and then
you confess that in believer's baptism, because confession is
required, not in order to be saved, as some say, but because you
are saved. And so does God require baptism
in the new covenant? He didn't require it in the old
covenant now. Believers in the old covenant
were not required to be baptized. But in the new covenant, there
are two ordinances given to the church. These ordinances are
the commandments of Christ for His people to identify with Him
publicly. And these ordinances are not
given in order to be saved. One ordinance is the ordinance
of Believer's Baptism. And it's required not as a ground
or cause or source of salvation and forgiveness, it's required
as the fruit, the effect, the confession of salvation. You
understand that. Now, you say, well, that's so
complicated. How do you know that? The gospel tells us that. Because the gospel not only drives
us to Christ and his work for all salvation, It excludes all
of our works from being any part of the ground of salvation, or
the cause, or the source. God is the source of salvation.
God is the cause. Christ's righteousness is the
ground, His blood. And so, believing the gospel,
the first ordinance is believer's baptism, confessing Christ before
men. He said, if you don't confess
me before men, I'll not confess you before the Father. And that
includes baptism as a confession, but it also includes our testimony
of the gospel. Preaching, witnessing the gospel,
how God saves sinners. The second ordinance is the Lord's
Supper, communion. Now neither baptism nor the Lord's
Supper have any saving value. But the
Lord's Supper is a continual ordinances taken by the church
as a remembrance and a confession and an identification with Christ
and the people of God. And there's no salvation power
in any of these ordinances. You understand that. Now, he
says, I've sent them into the world and he says in verse 19,
He says, John 17, he says, and for their sakes, I sanctify myself,
that they also may be sanctified through the truth. Now, do you
see that? Sanctified by the truth, sanctified
in the truth or through the truth. That's the gospel. Now, as I
said, the word sanctify or sanctified or one who is sanctified is a
saint And that's every sinner saved by the grace of God. What
does the word sanctified, sanctification, holy, holiness, what does it
mean? It means to be set apart. Set apart from what? Set apart
from the world. Go back to what he said here.
He says, verse 16, they are not of the world. They're separate
from the world. Even as I'm not of the world, even as Christ
is separate from the world, Christ came from heaven. He's the God-man. There's no one like Him. He's
separate from everybody. The Bible says that He's holy,
harmless, separate from sinners. Separated. Now, the first thing
we need to understand is who is it that separates or sanctifies
or makes God's people holy? Well, it's not the people who
are sanctified. You don't sanctify yourself. Sanctification, like justification,
is a work of God by His grace through the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's all of grace. Think about it. To be justified,
now that refers to the legal aspect of salvation. Think about
it as God being the supreme judge and you being the sinner accused
of sin and deserving of hell. And that's what we are by nature.
You come before God's bar of justice and you have no plea
as far as defending yourself. I'm a sinner. The old publican
said, God be merciful to me, the sinner. So here you stand. There's a beautiful picture of
this back in Zechariah chapter three, Joshua the high priest
standing before the bar of justice and he's wearing filthy rags. And those filthy rags represent,
symbolize his works. His so-called human righteousness. The Bible says our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags before God. And what does that say? It says
we're sinners. And everything we do, even our best, falls short
of the perfection of righteousness that can only be found in Christ.
So here you are, now, in justification, the legal aspect, and this is
the ground of salvation, God standing there as the Supreme
Judge, you're standing there as the guilty sinner, and you
shut your mouth, that's what Romans 3, 19 and 20 says, because
you have nothing to plead for your defense, nothing to give,
But somebody steps in on your behalf. And you know who it is? It's the Son of God incarnate,
the Lord Jesus Christ. And he has two points of defense.
You can read about this in Zechariah chapter 3. He says, first of
all, is not this one whom God chose? Chose him unto salvation. That's election of grace. And
is not this a bran plucked out of the fire? He's been saved,
he's been redeemed. And Christ pleads the merits
of his blood, his righteousness on your behalf and God does not
charge you with your sins. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? They've been charged to Christ
and he died for them. He drank damnation dry. and God
declares you righteous in His sight. Now, that's justification.
Well, sanctification is being set apart. Those whom God chose,
those whom God justified, those whom Christ redeemed on the cross
will be set apart from the world. Now, how are they set apart?
Now, this is the next question. It's God who sets us apart by
virtue of His grace in Christ. What is our distinction as believers? What is our separation? Well,
people go crazy on this one. Some think, well, it's what you
wear. The Amish, for example, they've deified a culture. Go
back to the 1800s, and you don't drive cars, you hit buggies,
ride buggies, and you wear beers. My friend, that doesn't, what
you wear. Now, believers should dress modestly. There's no doubt
about that. But other religions teach the
same thing. The Muslims won't even let their
women show their face. They cover their heads, a lot
of them. So it's not what you wear that sets you apart from
the world. And listen to me very carefully.
Christians should be moral people. Christians should be models of
society. in family, in work, in whatever
capacity you're dealing. You ought to be the best. There's
no excuse for a Christian to promote sin. But it's not our
morality that sanctifies us or sets us apart. It's not abstinence. The fact that you won't drink
a glass of liquor or a beer. The fact that you won't eat certain
foods. Some people say, well, we won't
eat pork. That was a Jewish law under the
old covenant, but that's been gone. That's gone. All of that. You ought to be careful what
you eat. You ought to try to be healthy. All of that. But
that's not what sets a believer apart. What sets us apart? He
says it right here. Sanctify them, verse 17, through
thy truth. Verse 19, sanctified through
the truth. It's our gospel. It's our message. Over in 2 Thessalonians 2, listen
to this in verse 13. 2 Thessalonians 2. The Apostle writes, But we are
bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved
of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you
to salvation. God chose you before the foundation
of the world, and then Christ redeemed you, and then he sends
his spirit, look here, through sanctification of the spirit
and belief of the truth, whereunto he called you by our gospel to
the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's
what sets God's people apart from the world. It's not all
of these other things, taste not, touch not, handle not. riding
buggies or whatever, wearing robes. That does not set anybody
apart. What sets the true believer,
the child of God apart, the true disciple, is the gospel we believe
and preach and witness. That gospel, which is the power
of God unto salvation to everyone that believe it, to the Jew first,
the Greek also, Jew and Gentile, That gospel wherein the righteousness
of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written, the
just shall live by faith. What is the righteousness of
God? It's the righteousness of Christ that he worked out on
the cross to save his people from their sins. We are preachers
of righteousness and to be a preacher of righteousness is not just
to be a preacher of morality. I can tell you, do the best you
can, but I also tell you the best you can do is not good enough
to save you or get you into heaven. For all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. The best works of the best sinners
does not equal the righteousness that God requires. which can
only be found in Christ Jesus by the grace of God. As sin hath
reigned unto death, Romans 5 21, even so might grace reign through
righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. That's
why Christ told the people in Matthew 5 in verse 20, 20 or
21, I think it's 20. He said, accept your righteousness,
exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you
shall in no case or no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. That's
what sets a believer apart. My righteousness is the righteousness
of Christ imputed to me. And God set me apart before the
foundation of the world in electing grace, set me apart at the cross
in redeeming grace, and now he sets me apart in the world by
the Spirit through sanctification of the Spirit, bringing me to
faith in Christ and repentance of dead works. That's what it
means to be sanctified, set apart by the truth. And understand
that. And I'll talk a little bit later
about what people call progressive sanctification, which is really
a bad term. But I'll talk about that. But
sanctification, is God's work through Christ and it's applied
by the Spirit when He brings a sinner under the gospel and
gives that sinner a heart, a mind, eyes to see, ears to hear, new
life. I hope you'll join us next week
for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
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today and may the Lord be with you.