Go back in your Bibles to 1 Thessalonians
chapter 5. I want to go back and read one
verse. That is 1 Thessalonians chapter
5 and verse 23. This is part of Paul's closing
in this letter. He's making short, brief statements. And then in verse 23 he says,
And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly. And I pray, God,
your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto
the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. I was thinking about
how often that we hear of new diseases, new viruses, new problems
health-wise, and I thought how amazing it is, in light of all
the advancements of medicine and science, how this could ever
be true. And then I realized that these
various diseases and viruses and things like that, the scientists
tell us that they're able to mutate. They meet with the opposition
of this drug or that drug and they change. They change the
way they attack. They change the way they seek
to undermine the body and one's health. And I thought about that
because That's the same way it is with error. That's the same
way it is that Satan uses, alters slightly, disguises in a new
way the same old lies, the same old errors. And I thought How
is it that men and women, after so long a time, can still fall
victim to these very things? How could men and women, after
the gospel has been preached so long in this world, How could
they still be duped, blinded, deceived by works salvation? Call it what you want to, but
it always boils down to being works salvation rather than salvation
all by the grace of God. Works salvation accomplished
at least in part by man and not that salvation which is accomplished
by the Lord Jesus Christ alone. But the trouble is, we're self-righteous
by nature. And Satan, in his deception,
he knows that. He knows that we fall victim
were most easily deceived, always, by something that has to do with
our self-righteousness, rather than the righteousness of God
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, he rears the ugly head
of doctrine, false doctrine, again and again, puts a little
new makeup on the face, But it's the same old thing. And there
are in our day, just like there have been in many previous days,
that men take a doctrine so clearly stated in the Bible, so clearly
given of God, to show us how everything is of grace and everything
in His beloved Son and try to turn it in some way to glorify
man and to make it in part His work. rather than Christ alone. And one such doctrine as that
is this Bible doctrine of sanctification. Sanctification. And I say it
is a doctrine that is manipulated and twisted so that in our day
there are many who teach that sanctification is a progressive
work in which We get more holy, we grow better and better, and
the goal is we get better and better until we're fit for heaven,
and therefore enter heaven. It's not always called progressive. sanctification. It may go under
the name of something like Lordship Salvation and a whole lot more. And it will be offered to men
and women, set before them, preached to them under the guise of making
them better But all who live under such teachings, all who
hear a steady diet of such things, they will invariably wind up
in one of two conditions. They will either become absolutely,
openly, publicly self-righteous Pharisee. Somebody said we're
all recovering Pharisees. That may be true. But a steady
diet of such as this will lead men and women either to become
total Pharisees, so good that they cannot hardly stand themselves
and certainly nobody else can stand, or If they're honest,
they'll be driven to despair. They'll be driven to utter despair
and disappointment when what they were told that they would
become just doesn't happen. It just doesn't happen. And the
reason it doesn't happen is because Christ himself told us, that
which is born of the flesh is flesh. always going to be flesh. You cannot improve the flesh. That which is born of the flesh
is flesh. And Paul confessed that in his
own experience. Here is the apostle of God the
aging apostle of God, the mature believer, and yet here he is
in Romans 7, he's having to confess this, O wretched man that I am. Not that I was, but that I am. What I would do, that I don't
do. What I wouldn't do, that's what
I do. And then he says this, speaking
of the true Israel of God, the true circumcision. He said, all
who are in the true circumcision, the true Israel of God, believers,
They have no confidence in the flesh. They don't have just a
little confidence, and most of their confidence is in God. No, they have no confidence in
the flesh. And when we stop and think about
it, there can be no degrees of holiness. In other words, the
Bible says that God is holy. What would it take for God to
not be holy? Well, the least imperfection,
the least sin or fault or failure, whatever it might be, all that
would be necessary for Him to become not holy is for there
to be one least little imperfection. Because if something or rather
someone is holy, they're holy. And if they're not totally, absolutely,
biblically holy, they're unholy. Holiness admits of no degrees. And many come to this verse here
in I Thessalonians 5, in verse 23, and they seek to use this as their proof text. Paul says,
and the very God of peace sanctify you wholly, and I pray God your
whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. They talk about being wholly
sanctified, but a long time ago You know, the Lord does things
for His people at times that really helps them along the way. And a long time ago, many years
ago, I read something that an old preacher said that's helped
me over and over and over again, many times, in seeking to know
what the Scriptures say. He said this. He said, in interpreting
or in studying the scriptures, never let what you don't know
become the enemy of what you do. Never let what you don't
know keep you from the comfort of what you do. Now, every one
of us would have to admit that there is some verse, maybe more
than one verse in the scripture, that when we read them, we have
to confess we don't have a full understanding. There are a multitude
of verses that in the natural reading of them, they seem to
say one thing, when in truth we know what the Scripture says
elsewhere about the same. That's why the Apostle tells
us this. He says, and no Scripture is
of any private interpretation. In other words, whatever any
one verse of Scripture means, it means what it means in the
light of every other verse of Scripture. Somebody said, what
we do is we stand up a verse of Scripture and throw every
other verse of Scripture at it. It means what it means in the
light of everything else that the Bible teaches us on a subject
or whatever it is. And what we find is this, that
the word sanctification, or the word sanctify, or the word sanctify,
those words are used many of the times in And one way of understanding
what is meant by sanctification is by going to these various
verses throughout all the scriptures. The New Testament is interpreted
in the light of the Old Testament scriptures. Go to each one of
them and find out how that word is used in those places. You know what we find out? We
find out that we get a real education as to what the word sanctify
means, how it is used in the scripture, and how it is used
speaking of things rather than persons. What we find is that
the basic meaning of it is to set It means that something or
someone, such as the vessels of the temple in the Old Testament,
or Aaron and his sons and the garments that they wore in the
priesthood, these things were set apart unto God by God for
God. They were sanctified, set apart
under God. And another thing that we have
to do in order to maybe clear away some of the air of error
in our views of sanctification is before we can take it to mean
to make holy or to make holier or better or to improve personally
we have to ask this particular question. Did Or could the Son
of God be made better? Could He have been made more
holy? Could He be improved on in any
way? And yet the Bible says, He Himself
says, if we view such a view of sanctification as progress
or as being progressive, it says in John 10, "...say ye of Him,
whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, thou
blasphemous, because I said, I am the Son of God." That sanctifying
is in reference to Jesus Christ Himself. And when it says, the
Father sanctified Him, does that mean that the Father made Him
better, or improved Him, or He got better and better? How could
that be when he is described as the Holy One in that very
verse? He is identifying himself as
the Son of God, God the Son. John 17. He says, and for their
sake, that is for his people's sake, he said, I sanctified myself. Does that mean he improved himself
or he may better himself by something he did? No. Both of these instances
bear witness to the use of that word in the Old Testament. The
Father set Him apart and He Himself as the Son, the Second Person
of the Godhead, He set Himself apart. He's the Holy One. The
Father didn't make Him more pure. The Father didn't make Him more
clean. Certainly did not or could not
make Him more righteous. He did not become more pleasing
or more acceptable. Absolutely not. But not only is that said in
reference to Christ, but it's said of believers. Turn
over to Jude chapter 1, and that will be the only chapter in Jude.
But look in Jude 1 and the very first verse when Jude begins
to introduce this brief letter that bears his name, it says,
Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to them
that are sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus
Christ and called. You see, Jude did not know every
person he would be writing to, and yet this is the description
of everyone that this epistle is written to, because this is
the state and position of every believer. It is to them that
are sanctified by God the Father. Look back over to I Corinthians. I Corinthians in the first chapter. When Paul writes as he does,
just as Jude did, led of the Spirit of God, first of all to
these people at Corinth, to these believers in the church at Corinth,
look at how he describes them in that second verse. He says,
"...unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are
sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, or called saints
with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ
our Lord, both theirs and ours." In other words, not only to these
that received this letter, first of all, at that place, at that
time, at Corinth, but all who, like them, believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, and they are called saints, which simply means sanctified
ones, these who are set apart by the Father, set apart in the
Lord Jesus. And when Jude is speaking of
those that are sanctified by God the Father, He is saying
the exact same thing that Paul is saying in Ephesians chapter
1 when he attributes this work to the Father and says, Bless
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed
us with all spiritual blessings. Let me ask you this, would you
say sanctification is a spiritual blessing? It absolutely is. And
he says, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings
in heavenly places, in Christ, according as He hath chosen us
in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before Him, set apart by the Father,
set apart in the Lord Jesus Christ. set apart and blessed in Him
with every spiritual blessing, whatever a spiritual blessing
is, and certainly sanctification is given as one in Christ. Not chosen for the improvement
of that old Adam nature, but set apart by God to stand in
the perfection of Jesus Christ, who is described as the Lord
our Righteousness. And I'm going to tell you this,
if you ever think you have a righteousness by anything you've ever done,
you're sadly mistaken. His is the work of righteousness. He is the Lord, our righteousness. We are made the righteousness
of God in Him. And so any and every notion of
being able to do so as to make ourselves become more righteous,
that's absolutely false. And I'll go on to say this. Whenever
men and women think they are getting better and better, they
are really getting worse. Chosen in Christ Jesus. Holy in His holiness. Righteous through His righteousness
being imputed to us. Pure in His purity. So that the scripture says to
all of God's believing people as He is. So are we. And Paul writes, I believe it's
to the Colossians, and he says this, and we are complete in
him. Now you tell me how in the world
you can in any way improve on completion. How in the world
can you and I add to what the scripture set forth as a very
finished work? Plus, how many times in this
book are we said to be sanctified in Christ Jesus? That's just
what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1, to them that are sanctified. Now does that sound like a process
to us? Does that sound like some kind
of a progressive work in us or accomplished by us or through
us or anything? It says to them that are, and
by the way, Corinth, those folks had some. There's two things
that we need to see in looking at these epistles. One of them
is that to these people at Corinth who had such moral failures,
they live in the most wicked society, and yet when Paul writes
to them to correct them of this wickedness, he at no time casts
doubt on the fact that they're true believers. when he writes
to the churches in Galatia, and there's not any moral issues
mentioned? He said, sometimes I stand in
doubt. What was their problem? They were seeking to mix works
with grace. He is most scathing to them,
just like our Lord was most scathing in his comments concerning the
Pharisees, who on the outside thought they were making a lot
of progress, but who he said on the inside Now the idea in
most progressive thought concerning getting better and better and
holier and holier is that we might become saints. No, he said
you are. Let me tell you what we know. Look down here in 1 Corinthians.
1 Corinthians, let me begin with verse 29 of chapter 1. Paul is
speaking, he says that no flesh should glory in his presence. Now I'm telling you this, if
you think you're getting better, you're going to glory in it. I hear it all the time. You get
to telling people about what you used to do, you don't do
that anymore. what you don't do, what you haven't
done, what you are doing. The more you tell about what
you do, the less you rest in what Christ did. Look at what
he says, but of Him. Who's that? But of Him are you
in Christ Jesus." Who put us in Christ Jesus? God did. He
set us apart unto Himself. He set us apart in the Lord Jesus
Christ as our covenant head, as our representative, standing
for us as the last Adam. He set us apart. But of him are
ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness,
sanctification and redemption. The Lord Jesus Christ is of God,
by the grace of God, made unto all his people sanctification. Now we might not agree necessarily
on the definition altogether of sanctification, but I know
this. You can't improve on what's in
Christ Jesus. Now hold on to what I'm saying
to you. You cannot improve on that which is given as a gift
and said to be a blessing in Christ Jesus by God. He's made unto us sanctification. We know that, don't we? I mean,
we could read that statement and that sums it up. He's made
unto us sanctification. And then he goes on and he says,
that according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory
in the Lord. What do you think about sanctification?
My sanctification is in the promise. He is my sanctification with
any doubt. And then there are lots of other
verses, clear verses, statements. This is what we know. Look over
in the book of Hebrews, because in Hebrews chapter 10, First
go to Hebrews chapter 2. Hebrews chapter 2 and listen
to what the apostle writes here in Hebrews chapter 2 and verse
11. He says, that sanctify. And they who are
sanctified are all of one. That's what they are in God's
sight. He's the sanctifier. They're the sanctified. They're
one. He is their sanctification. For which cause He's not ashamed
to call them brethren. They're just one. Let me ask
you how you get in a family. Do you start out at a certain
point and if you do good enough you get in that family? I suppose
there are some families like that. That's not the way it is
with God. He put us in His hands. And He put us in His family when
He put us in Christ and made Him to be all of our sanctification
so that He's not ashamed to call us His brethren. You remember
that thief on the cross? He didn't have much time for
progress. He didn't have much time to grow more fit toward
heaven. He didn't have time to get better
than he was hanging right there on the cross, a thief. And heaven
knows what else. Well, certainly, he'll have to
go to purgatory or somewhere to kind of get improved in order
to enter into God's holy presence, won't he? No. Because hanging
on that center cross was all his sanctification. And you know
what he said to me? He said, today, you will be with
me in what fitted him so as to make him able that day to enter
into the thrice holy presence of God. Christ. He wasn't ashamed
to call him his brother. Oh, I get to thinking how he
ought to be ashamed to call me his brother. But not if he's
our sanctification. Absolutely not. Turn over and
look at verse 10. He's not our sanctification in
some mystical sense. He's our sanctification through
what God made him to be toward us and for us. Hebrews chapter
10 and verse 10. The Messiah is quoted out of
one of the Psalms, I believe it is, as saying here, I come
is written in the volume of the book of me. Lo, I come to do
thy will, O God. Did you know that Christ doing
the will of God is your salvation? If you are saved, that will be
it. Christ doing the will of God is our salvation. I come
to do thy will, O God. Now listen to what he says in
verse 10. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering
of the body of Jesus Christ once or as it is once. Now let me
tell you something. You cannot make sanctification
a progressive thing without taking away from that. Do we understand
that? Somebody said, if Christ is all, then you cannot add anything
to him without it making him less than all. He's all our sanctification. And he says, by God's will, we
are sanctified. Not we are being sanctified,
but we are sanctified or were sanctified through the offering
of the body of Jesus Christ once. I'm telling you this, God is
going to give all the glory and salvation to His Son. You can
try to steal a little bit of it if you want to, but it'll
be at a high price. It'll be at a high price. Look
down, look down also in verse 14. Now this really puts it in
in perspective. If you take sanctification to
be, as we find it in scripture, a setting apart, or if you define
it by making holy, here it is right here, be the one. For by
one offering, just one, he hath perfected forever them that are
sanctified. Now that is just the best news,
that a sinner who knows something about what they are in themselves,
you say, well preacher, I've never been a drunk or a hormonger. I'm glad of that. I'm glad that
you're still a sinner. And your only hope is that he,
by that one, perfected you. Made you perfect in God's eyes.
Count you holy before his throne. You who he them that are sanctified. In Hebrews 13 it says, Therefore
Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood,
suffered without the gain. That's why he suffered. That's
why he suffered outside of the favor of the religious world.
That's why he suffered outside your Jerusalem to show how that
his work was in no way associated with anything that might be gained
by the law. What did he do? He perfected
it. Oh, me. And the Bible speaks of our being
sanctified by the Holy Spirit. That is, the Spirit of God is
the one who brings us, separates us, sets us apart under the knowledge
of our sanctification by the Father in Christ through His
death. Peter said it in this way, he
said, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father
through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling
of the blood of Christ. Our obedience? No. His obedience
unto death, even the death of the cross. When we're born of
God, we give evidence of the Spirit's work in us when we're
enabled to believe the truth, when we're enabled to believe
the gospel, which is the good news that everything from Alpha
to Omega in the salvation of our soul has been accomplished.
by the Lord Jesus. God set us apart in Him, made
us righteous in Him, accepted us entirely in Him. And so the Spirit of God takes
the Word of God, which is called the Word of Truth. And that Word,
in the hands of God's Spirit, sets us apart, not only to the
revelation of this, the acceptance of this, but sets us apart from
all unbelief, all the non-belief. That's the thing that's sanctified.
Christ said, Father, sanctify them through your Word. Your
Word. We're always being set apart by God for himself, for
his mercies, for his people, for his church, for his bride. So what then does 1 Thessalonians
5.23 mean? Well, obviously it is something
that God Paul did not pray that this would be something that
they could accomplish, but he prayed that it's something that
God did. Now, notice how he describes
God. He calls Him the very God of
peace. Let me ask you, how in the very
God, how can He ever be the very God of peace to sinners like
you? There's just one way, and that is in the principle. And
because He made peace by the blood of His cross. Now, I don't
want us to misunderstand anything. When you read all the previous
verses leading up to this verse, when you read them, I'll ask
this question. Are we to do these things? Absolutely. Without a doubt. Will we do them
completely? Absolutely not. Do we grow in
grace? Let me tell you this. What the
Bible means by growing in grace is not what people mean in their
doctrine of progressive sanctification. What does it mean to grow in
grace? Think about what grace is. The old standard definition
is grace is unmerited favor. So what is it to grow in grace?
I believe it's to grow more and more to see you're needed. I
believe it's to grow more and more to see that the only way
you could ever be saved by grace. I believe it is to grow more
and more to see that if anything was left to you as the center
you are to improve any way in order to be saved or even gain
more favor. I believe it's to grow more and
more to see that all grace, all salvation is by grace. All of God's grace is in Christ. And all of God's grace is in
Christ crucified. The flesh never improves, and
Christ doesn't need improvement. That's why he has to warn like
he does. Despise not prophesying. Abstain
from all the appearance of evil. Sounds like to me somebody has
that tendency. You say, what do we do? I pray
for a restraining break. I do. I pray for it all the time.
Lord, keep me from being what I am. Keep me from trusting in
any way, at any time, to something I've done. Keep me from feeling
better about myself before you because of something I've not
done or something I have done. I mean, that's natural. Get up,
you go to church, you know, you've been two or three Sundays in
a row, and you just kind of say, well, I'm good. And you feel
good because of what you've done. You see, that which is not of
faith is sin. Paul said, do all these things. Stop doing these other things,
but look only to Christ for all things. Look to Him. He's sanctified,
holy. That word means completely, entirely,
not progressively. Oh, God, give us grace to walk
in obedience, but to trust only Christ's obedient. Give us strength
that we might deal with this old Adamic nature. Help us to
pray without ceasing. Help us to rejoice every morning.
Don't you want to rejoice every morning? Do you? It takes about
five seconds of something somebody says or something happens in
your life or the life of your family. It's about five seconds
and you're already murmuring and complaining and telling everybody
you trust in the Lord. We never get what Brother Richardson
said one time. One day we surely shall be, but
it will not be until we glorify Him. Paul said, "...who shall
change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his
glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even
to subdue all things unto himself." Then we are going to be changed.
But if you are already there, I know deep down I'll need more
of a change than just a different body. I'll need a whole overhaul
if I'm to be like Him and see Him as He is. But even now, even
now, every one of His people, just like me, are sanctified
in Christ, set apart unto God by God, counted holy and perfect
by Him in Jesus Christ, who is made unto us sanctified. It's
a whole thing. What we really are in ourselves,
we confess, but we don't use it for an excuse to disobedience,
but for a reason to flee. If that doesn't cause us to flee
to Him, we really know nothing about the grace of God. I read
what Paul says here, all these long instructions he gives here.
I pray for grace to obey, but I look to Christ for everything.
I have a perfect identification that He is on the throne of glory.
And by the will of God, by His one offering, He perfected forever
them that are sinful. Father, this day we pray that
Your Word would truly be our only rule of faith and practice. And may this be our guide, our
rule in every case to examine every verse of scripture in the
light of that one verse of scripture that might seem to say otherwise.
from allowing that which we know and understand and which is so
clear. Keep that as our comfort and
our guide and never let what we don't know become the enemy
of what we do. Jesus Christ, you have made unto
us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. We thank you
and we pray in Him. Amen.