We rest in the fact that our
God is sovereign and we are in his hands and we can look beyond
the things of this world and we can look to our glorious Savior. I wanted to spend a little bit
of time this morning, our remaining time, looking at what it is to
be sanctified. Back to our verse in Acts 26,
18, the people who had their eyes opened, the people who had
been turned from darkness to light, the people who had been
removed and taken by one stronger out of the palace where Satan
keeps his goods from the power of Satan. And what's his power? His power is to lie to you. To
lie to you about God. To lie to you about yourself. You should be his gods. God is
not good. God is not holy. God is not just. And lie to you about God's salvation. That's what Satan does. And Satan's
greatest activity in this world is not in the brothels and the
bars and the horrible iniquities we see in this world. Satan's
greatest activity in this world is in the pulpits. In the pulpits
of this world, in the Bible colleges and in all the other places where
the glory of our God is removed. And the glory of man is there
in extraordinarily subtle ways held up before people. Turned from darkness to light
and from the power of Satan. Those who are turned from those
things by the power of God, that they may receive the forgiveness
of sins. It's not a possibility, they
actually receive the forgiveness of sins. And the inheritance
among them, they receive the inheritance among them which
are sanctified by faith that is in me. And one of the things
that I'll probably have more time to speak about next week
and beyond is the fact that it's extraordinary, isn't it? The
three gifts that God gives in this verse are the three places
where the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is most tarnished
by the workings of Satan amongst all the religious people of this
world. You see, they make forgiveness of sins a cooperative activity
between man And God, don't they? The Lord Jesus Christ has done
the best he can on Calvary's tree. And now you can receive
the forgiveness of sins by your activities of faith. They'll
baptize it by saying, well, this happens because the Holy Spirit
does it. But at the end of the day, when you go digging down
into their theology and what they tell people, the forgiveness
of sins is offered. They have that phrase, don't
they? The free offer of the gospel. The gospel's not an offer. The
gospel is a declaration of something that's done. If it's an offer,
there will be no one saved at all. Dead people don't accept offers.
People captive to Satan don't accept offers. People who are
in the deep darkness of the blindness of Satan's activities don't get
to see what the offer is. And then the inheritance. We came back from India and the
number of people that told us we were going to have extra crowns
in heaven. We're going to have more polished
crowns. You've heard of people, haven't you? People have stupidly
said that someone is going to be so exalted in heaven that
they'll be so close to the throne that we mere mortals won't see
them at the back. We won't see them because they're
so special. That is salvation by works, and that is completely
and utterly, utterly dishonoring the Lord Jesus Christ. It's a
denial of who he is. The inheritance is not enhanced
by activities, because the inheritance is him, it's complete. Just like
the forgiveness of sins is complete. And sanctification these days
is a cooperative activity, isn't it? It's a cooperative activity
where you and God get together and do a deal, and you become
more and more holy. you become more and more law
abiding. You become more and more able
to do things that, is that the phrase? That please God now,
isn't it Norm? You get rid of the things that
displease God and you do the things now that please God. And
eventually after your work of sanctification, with God helping
a little bit along the way, prodding and poking and doing a few things,
eventually you get to the stage where you're so holy and pure
that you're taken into heaven. And all the praise and glory
goes to you Our God's character is attacked
in these things. So I wanted us to have a look at this issue of sanctification.
The word itself means to be holy. It's one of the most descriptive
words in all of the New Testament of what it is to be a believer.
They're saints. Saints are sanctified ones. Saints
are holy ones. The sanctification of the children
of God, as the Lord Jesus Christ tells Paul here and relays it
to us, is sanctified by the faith that's in him. We're sanctified
by a work of God completely outside of ourselves. We're sanctified
by a finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And sanctification
is to the glory of the triune God. We read, we sing the end
of Jude, but we ought to read sometimes the beginning of Jude.
Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and the brother of James, to
them that are sanctified by God the Father. We're sanctified
by God the Father. We're sanctified by God the Father
in eternity. We are sanctified by God the
Son. It's a Trinitarian work, this
work of sanctification. they that are sanctified. Hebrews
2.11 we read it last week. But he that sanctify and they
who are sanctified are all of one. Not just close, but all
of one. For this cause is not a shame
to call them brethren. And we are sanctified. by the Blessed Holy Spirit. You
see, all of the works of God are the works that reflect in
glorious ways upon the covenant of grace, and it's a covenant,
an eternal covenant, in the triune God. It's the work of God the
Father, it's the work of God the Son. If you turn with me
to 2 Thessalonians 3, Paul, having spoken of the deceptiveness of
this world, and the extraordinary judgment of God upon those who
refuse, they refuse, they receive not, verse 10 of 2 Thessalonians,
they receive not the love of the truth, they receive not the
love of He who is the truth, they receive not the love of
the descriptions of the character of our God according to the Scriptures.
They perish having received not the love of the truth that they
might be sired, and for this cause As a result of this in-judgment,
God sends them a strong delusion that they should believe a lie,
they should believe the lie, that they all might be damned
who believed not truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
All unrighteousness is the righteousness of man, is all unrighteousness.
It's all filthy rags, according to God. 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. 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. Therefore you stand fast. Set
your feet here on concrete, stand fast, stand fast and hold to
what has been taught you. So sanctification is a triune
activity, isn't it? It's promised in eternity. It's
fulfilled manifestly in time in the Lord Jesus Christ, and
it's given and received in us. It's our sanctification. It's
our personal possession. Our verse in Acts 26-18 speaks
of receiving it. God gives it, and it becomes
a possession of his people. Sanctification equals holiness. Holiness. As the Lord said and taught his
people to pray, hallowed be thy name. It's the same word. Hallowed
be thy name. The Lord Jesus Christ is described
before his coming as that holy thing. The one that was to overshadow
Mary in Luke 1.35. Peter declared him as the holy
one and just. See, holiness is an absolute.
There are no degrees of holiness. There are no degrees of salvation. There are no degrees. Everything
ultimately becomes an issue of absolute black and absolute white,
isn't it? You're either a child of God or you're a child of the
devil. I pray that you children of God who are here will find
the descriptions of our God and what he does to be the delight
of your souls, because he is the delight. We receive that
glory from the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, who was set apart
by God. He dies, that holy one dies,
that sinners might be declared holy. unapprovable in his sight. The Lord Jesus Christ sanctified
himself in John 17. He says, for thy sakes I sanctify
myself, that I, that they also, might be sanctified through the
truth. Paul is sent to preach the gospel,
to turn people out of the kingdom of darkness. where men's sanctification
is an activity of themselves. And only the new creation. What's
that new creation, Ephesians 4? It's created in righteousness
and true holiness. Only a holy God can create that
which is holy. It's Christ in you. Only the
new creation sees the old creation as it is. So what is it to be
sanctified? What is it to be holy? Holiness means to be other, to be utterly
unique. There is nothing in this creation
that can compare to God. What is most God-like? The most
exalted, esteemed angel you can possibly imagine, or a worm in
the dust. Which is the most God? Neither
of them are. God is unique. God is holy. Who is like unto God? His accusation
against men, against religious men, is you think that I'm altogether
like you. You think that God is to be trod
with and played with. God is holy. God is jealous. God whose eyes are too pure to
behold iniquity. When his son was dying on Calvary's
tree, he wasn't asking a question so much as making a statement
in Psalm 22. He cried out from Calvary's tree
when God had made sin and the infinite wrath of the Holy God
was being poured out on him. And he says, my God, my God,
why, why hast thou forsaken me? You could well understand him
forsaking everyone else that ever lived on this earth, couldn't
you? Why? Why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping
me from the words of my roaring? Verse three tells us why he was
forsaken. But thou art holy. Thou art holy. God is holy. And every attribute you can think
of regarding God, you can attach the adjective holy to. We saw on Calvary's tree that
his justice is holy justice. God is sovereign. All that he
does, all that he does is right. His wrath poured out on his son,
his holy wrath. His love, his holy love. His
grace, his holy grace. God is holy. The angels declared it to Isaiah,
didn't they? Holy, holy, holy is the Lord
God Almighty. Holiness and sanctification is
a description and a declaration of God's sovereignty. It's a
description and a declaration of his absolute authority over
all things. In Genesis 2, 13, God sanctified
the seventh day. He made it holy, didn't he? On
that seventh day, the sun came up, just like any other day. And it went down just as any
other day. The moon came up and it went down just as any other
day. The stars twinkled in the sky
and the planets shone. God says it was holy. It's holy because God declares
it to be holy. It's set apart for Him. That's
what holiness is in this world, isn't it? It's set apart unto
God. Holiness. Holiness. If we understand something of
God's holiness, we'll understand something of the glory of the
gift that the Lord Jesus Christ has won for his people when he
declares that they are sanctified. Sanctified by his faith. He's holy, and his people are
to regard him as holy. He will cause his people to regard
him as holy. One of the most graphic examples
of it in the Old Testament is in Leviticus chapter 10, if you
just turn there briefly with me, you might think of a similar
incident in the New Testament in Acts chapter 5. Adonai and
Sapphira just lied to the Holy Spirit. They came before God
with a pretense. They came before God with a pretense
of their righteousness, didn't they? And what happened? In the presence of God, he just
slew them. There wasn't a debate about it. There wasn't a court
case. He just slew them. If you read the chapter out of
the Will of Priethood, you'll see that Nadab and Abihu had
the most extraordinary privilege. Not only were they rescued out
of Egypt, not only were they the child of Levi, but they went
through all of the remarkable ceremonies of being washed and
being clothed to be priests to serve before God. And they saw They saw, in verse 24
of Leviticus 9, they saw a fire come out of heaven before the
Lord and consumed upon the altar the burnt offering. You think
of that fire that came out down from heaven and consumed our
Lord Jesus Christ. No, it didn't. He consumed the
fire, brothers and sisters, on his altar. They'd seen all that. They shouted and they fell on
their faces. And offered strange fire before
the Lord, which he commanded them not. And they went out far from the
Lord and devoured them. And they died before the Lord. They died before the Lord. Then Moses said unto Aaron, This
is it that the Lord spake, saying, I will be sanctified in them
that come nigh me. Any who come near to God are
going to be made aware of the absolute holiness of our God. Nodab and Abihu took it upon
themselves, didn't they? They said our fire will be as
good as Aaron's fire. Our fire that we kindle and our
fire that we make against the commandments of God will do.
You can think of numerous examples in the rest of the Old Testament
where people presumed to approach God on the basis of their activities,
and God destroyed them. And he's doing exactly the same
today. So what were they saying? You
can worship any way you like. Any fire will do. My fire is
as good as your fire. And a fire came from the Lord.
You come near to God. You come near to God. And you
will come to know that he is holy, or you won't know him at
all. God mightn't consume you in this
world, but he'll consume you in the next. He destroyed them. You see, what they were saying,
by their activities, is that God is not holy, and that his
word, his word is not true. All of sin, all of unbelief,
all of the poison of Satan is for human beings to have a high
estimation of themselves. And every single time you have
a high view of yourself, you have a very low view of God.
He is holy. He is holy. I'll just go through some of
these other passages and look them up at your leisure. But
in 1 Samuel 6, the Ark of the Covenant had been stolen by the
Philistines. And the Philistines had been
ravaged by God with hemorrhoids and a plague of mice and others. You might recall that as the
Philistines took the Ark of the Covenant to the temple of Dagon,
they woke up the next morning and Dagon's hands had fallen
off and they put him back and they nailed him down really secure.
You can imagine how much work they went to to make sure that
Dagon was secure. The next day they come in and
what's happened, Dagon's lost his head as well. But the Philistines were cursed to God for their
holding that ark. And then they put the ark onto
a brand new car and they sent it back to the people of Israel. And the people of Beshamesh,
the people of Beshamesh just presumed to look into the ark. And what happened? 1 Samuel 6,
19 and following, 50,070 of them died instantly before God. Who is able to stand before this
holy God? Was he right? Was he holy? Was he just? You might think that Uzzah might
have learnt the lesson. You might recall that when David
wanted to bring the Ark back, he thought, well, this makes
this a great ceremony. This makes this a great religious ceremony.
So he gathered a huge crowd of people, 30,000 people, and he
put the Ark on a special new cart that he'd made, and he was
going to have a religious ceremony, wasn't he? And the Ark The car
was carrying the Ark, 2 Samuel 6 and 1 Chronicles 15. It was disturbed, wasn't it?
It just went over a bump. Uzzah reached out his hand and
touched the Ark. What happened? Dead. God is holy. He needs no assistance. He needs no assistance. I can help God out," he said. David was very, very upset. You
might recall that he realized that he hadn't worshipped God
according to the due order. The next time David comes to
meet the Ark, there's no fancy ceremony. He just has the Levites
carry the Ark, and David is enabled to dance before it. Isaiah was
probably the greatest king that Israel ever had in terms of the
way he managed his country in 2 Chronicles 18. Isaiah, nearing
the end of his reign, well it was the end of his reign, Isaiah
said, well I can go into the temple of God and I can bring
life over. The priests can do it, but I
can do it as well. I can come into God's presence
on my own. I can burn incense. There's nothing
particularly different between you priests and me. He had standing before
him the priests of God pleading with him, 80 of them pleading
with him, don't do it, don't do it, don't come in here, don't.
This is not your work to do. We've been set aside for this
and immediately, Immediately, Isaiah was struck with leprosy. He hadn't set apart God as holy,
and he spent the rest of his days set apart from the people
of God in his own dwelling. Isaiah saw the Lord. In the year
the king Uzziah died, Isaiah saw the Lord. He saw him sitting
upon his throne. High and lifted up. If you ever
see God, you'll see him sitting. You'll see him having finished
his work and resting. And you'll see him high and lifted
up. And you'll see and you'll know.
Holy, holy, holy. is the lord god almighty and
you'll declare like i said i'm a man of uncleanness and i live
in a people most of people are uncleanness and the only thing
that's going to sanctify me is if something comes from the altar
someone comes to that altar and takes a life card that touches
me king Saul offered up the sacrifice without delayed in coming and
he lost the kingdom. David numbered the people and
70,000 people died. He numbered the children of Israel
without the atonement. God is holy. God is holy. And for those who approach him,
those who come near to him, as he said in Leviticus chapter
10 he'll reveal himself as holy he's going to be glorified in
them I'm going to be sanctified I'm going to be set apart as
holy Moses was told to go and speak to the rock and he smoked
the rock twice he didn't regard he didn't regard God as holy
you failed You've failed to believe me, God said of Moses, and you've
failed to sanctify me in the eyes of the people. You're not
going to enter the promised land. God is holy. And I remind you, so many people
want to say that the God of the Old Testament is different from
the God of the New Testament. Ananias and Sapphira say that
all of these activities are the activities of the Lord Jesus
Christ. It was he who killed Ananias and Sapphira. You come
near to God. You come near to God and you'll
find that he is holy. Herod was acclaimed a god, wasn't
he? In Acts chapter 10. And God smote
him and he died with worms. The accounts are almost too disgusting
to read all of these years later. from the time, the religion of
fallen man in its darkness and in its satanic captivity. The one thing that is missing,
isn't it? There is a lack of reverence for God. There's a
lack of reverence. There's a lack of setting him
apart for his holiness. And as I said earlier, they've
changed the meaning of sanctification. They've changed the meaning of
what it is for you to be sanctified by God. No wonder this world
treats the Christianity that's presented towards them as an
object of contempt, because it is contemptuous. It is contemptuous. Sanctification To be sanctified
is to be holy. To be sanctified is to be declared
to be holy by God himself, entirely on the basis of the work of the
Lord Jesus Christ, applied to the hearts of God's people in
the new creation by the blessed Holy Spirit. It's not a cooperative
activity, brothers and sisters. It is. Now sanctification, like
all the other glorious aspects of true salvation, is a way of
God revealing the glory of his character. As he says in Ephesians
over and over again, to the praise of the glory of his grace. If you're going to be sanctified,
he will get all the glory. He will get all the praise. Modern
sanctification, it's a cooperative activity. Listen to Vines. Vines
Greek Dictionary. It's famous, isn't it? The Holy
Character, this is what he says, is not vicarious. That means
it's not done on one person's behalf, on the behalf of others. And it cannot be transferred
or imputed. It is an individual possession
built up little by little as a result of obedience to the
Word of God and following the example of Christ. How are you
going? as one modern profession of faith
says the Holy Spirit helps us to grow in our holiness if your
holiness can grow brothers and sisters get rid of it as quickly
as you possibly can and chuck it in the nearest garbage bin
listen to the new bible dictionary there is a progression in moral
accomplishment a progression The action is attributable by
both the spirit and the believer in the paradox of grace. Isn't
it lovely how they talk about nuances and paradoxes and these
things are so complicated. Paradox. The net result is spiritual
maturity expressing in fulfilling the law of love to one's neighbour. How are you going? The consummation
of sanctification to the believer who by gracious faith in the
work of Christ and led by the Spirit purifies himself. What
does the scripture say? God has purified your hearts
by faith. Purify yourself is indicated
by the assurance that when we know that when he appears, we
should be like him. We should be, we'll see him as
he is. And that's our activities. The
New Bible Dictionary of Theology. Directed by a double commandment
of love of God and love of neighbor is the fullest description of
human dedication. It works by the instruction and
drive of the Holy Spirit in which we fulfill the requirements of
God's law. How are you going? It is a one-time act, valid for
all time, imputing imparting holiness, and also an ongoing
progressive work, a human work, a moral and spiritual cleansing
and dedication of soul and body. Harnessing and deploying all
human faculties in the service of God for the upbuilding of
Christian fellowship and the implementation of God's will
in the world. Sanctification is a life of prayer,
a life of prayer. Spiritual warfare and discipline
acts of asceticism, where you set yourself apart from this
wicked world so you can be more pure, It is the restoration of
the image of God in man, the gradual assimilation of the believer
to Christ and the mind of Christ. When God gave that law, the very,
very next thing he says, doesn't he? When you make an order, when
you come and worship me, Exodus 20, 24, and shall sacrifice
thereon their offerings and my peace offerings, my sheep and
my oxen, and all places where I write my name, I will come
unto thee, and I will bless me. And if thou wilt make me an altar
of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone, for thou shalt
not lift up thy tool upon it. Thou hast polluted it. Neither
shall you thou go up by steps. See, progressive sanctification
is you going up by steps until finally you are right. You'll
not go up by steps. Upon unto mine altar, that thy
nakedness might be discovered thereon. You go up to God by
steps and all that will be revealed is the nakedness and the shame. The holiness, to remind you brothers
and sisters, holiness is an absolute. You can't be a little bit holy. You can't be progressively sanctified. Those that are sanctified The
sanctifier and them is all of one. It's a glorious description
of the union of God with his people. That covenant that we
spoke of earlier in which the Lord's people are one with the
Lord Jesus Christ and they are seen by God as he gave them to
his son and the son accepted them and became surety for them
and the son took absolute responsibility before God for all their sins
and for all their holiness. And his job according to Colossians
chapter 1 is to present them wholly unblameable and unapprovable
in the sight of God. That's how God sees things. Holiness
is an absolute. One of the best descriptions
of sanctification in all the scriptures is the possessive
pronoun, mine. God says they're mine. God says
they're mine. They're mine. Exodus 13. They're mine, to be one with
Christ. The first sermon I heard when
I came back from India horrified me in its self-righteous legalism
and in the deception that was laid out before people and it
was on that verse in 1 Peter that might trouble many people.
It says, But as he which hath told you is holy, so be ye holy
in all manner of conversation. Be ye holy. You can only be holy, brothers
and sisters, if you are holy. You can only be holy if you are
holy. It's not Not for one moment are
we wanting to encourage anyone to live in any sort of licentiousness
whatsoever. We want to live in this world,
all of God's children want to live in this world in such a
way that there is nothing in their outward behaviour that
dishonours the Lord Jesus Christ and causes those who may be coming
to him to be stumbled over the wickedness and the self-righteousness
of our flesh. But that's not what sanctification
is. That's why in the New Testament, 61 times, 61 times they're called
saints. The most common description of
believers in all of the New Testament is in Christ, in Him. The second most common description
is linked to it, isn't it? Because how can you be in Him
who is holy? You can only be in Him who is
holy because you are holy. Peter's saying, saints, saints,
sanctified. No wonder that he calls them
holy brethren, holy brethren. As I said earlier, sanctification
is a glorious activity of the covenant of grace. It's the inheritance
of the saints of God, isn't it? It's that covenant of grace in
the Lord Jesus Christ. I love Hebrews 13. He says in verse 10, we have
an altar. We have an altar. Here's our
altar. Verse 10, whereof they have no right to each which serves
the tabernacle. Anyone who serves on the basis
of anything that you do to make yourself right with God, you
don't have this altar. Our altar is one in which God
serves us. He is the giver and we are the
receiver. He says, now the God of peace that brought again from
the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, the great shepherd of the sheep,
through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect, make
you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you
that which is well-pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ,
to whom be glory for ever and ever. If you can add anything
to your sanctification, if you can add to it, enhance it in
any way at all, in what you do here, before your conversion,
after your conversion, or what happens when you get to heaven,
then the glory goes to you. And a holy God will not share
his glory with another. Then the Lord Jesus Christ be
glory forever and ever. Again and again and again in
the Old Testament Scriptures it says in Exodus 31, 13 to 101,
he says, he describes himself, I am the Lord that doth sanctify
thee. It's repeated on numerous occasions. Jeremiah was set aside from his
mother's womb, wasn't he? As was Paul. Jeremiah 1 verse 5, he says, You have an eternal existence,
brothers and sisters. You have an existence before
the foundation of the world. Before I formed thee in the belly,
I knew thee. Before thou camest forth out
of the womb, I sanctified thee. Sanctification is God's activity. It's an eternal activity. It's
an activity of the triune God. I sanctify thee and ordain thee
a prophet unto the nation. Paul has printed on the front
of our Bible that verse in 1 Corinthians 1. Verse 30. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus,
who of God is made unto us. Made unto us by God himself. Wisdom and righteousness and
sanctification and redemption. Almost everywhere the word sanctified
is used in reference to believers in the New Testament. It's always
I don't like talking much about Greek, but it's really simple.
It's always in the perfect, passive tense. If something is perfect,
you can't add to it without damaging it, and you can't take away from
it without damaging it. It's perfect, perfect, complete. And passive means that all of
the activity is an activity of our God. God the Father sanctifies
his people. He set them apart and called
them mine in eternal election. God the Son sanctified his people. I love reading Hebrews chapter
10 to you. I love us reading it together.
It says, by the witch will we are sanctified. Perfect passive
tense. We are sanctified through the
offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. If the Catholics actually believed
that, they would have stopped this stupid nonsense 1,500 years
ago, wouldn't they, where they're offering, they're re-offering
the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. The religion of man in this world
is a religion that has no regard for the holiness of God, and
therefore it has no understanding of sanctification. Once for all. Every priest started daily ministering
and offering off times, the same sacrifices, which can never take
away sins. There was no seat in the temple. There's a seat in heaven where
our Savior has sat. Finished his words. But this
man, after he'd offered one sacrifice to sins forever, sat down on
the right hand of God, henceforth, from henceforth expecting to
these enemies be made his footfall. For by one offering, Hebrews
10 14 4 by 1 offering He hath perfect completed activity perfected
forever them that are sanctified where do you get the notion of
progressive sanctification in any of these brothers and sisters
it's just not there in the Bible it's a religious construct produced
by men who have a religion and they go about to establish their
own righteousness and they haven't submitted to the righteousness
of God. They think that somehow holiness is something they can
do. Whereof the Holy Ghost is also a witness to us. For after he had said before,
this is the covenant I will make with them after those days saved
the Lord. I will put their laws into their hearts and in their
minds that I write them. And their sins and iniquities
I will remember no more. Why can he remember them no more? because they don't exist. Such
is the completeness of the sanctifying work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Such is the nature of his forgiveness. Such is the glory of the inheritance. Now where there is remission
of these, there is no more offering for sin. No more offering for sin. The Lord Jesus Christ has taken
all of his bride together with him into heaven and he presents
them wholly spotless, unblameable, unapprovable in God's sight. And let me remind you brothers
and sisters that God sees with absolute clarity and what God
sees is right always, always, always. The Holy Spirit sanctifies
his people as he brings them to repentance as the Lord Jesus
Christ is revealed in the glory of his finished work as we are
birthed in that new creation in us is Christ in us the hope
of glory not my hope of me getting better my hope of me getting
to the stage where I can fulfil the law of God or my obedience
it's a new creation created in righteousness and true holiness We do. We do as God enables us. We sanctify the Lord Jesus Christ
in our hearts. We sanctify the Lord God in our
hearts. We set him aside. We regard him
as holy. We regard him as holy. We regard the work of his son
as holy and precious and complete. sanctified by the faith that
is in him. God says, Sydney to those children
of Israel, They no doubt in their houses
that evening had fear and trembling about what might happen if they'd
seen the activities of the Holy God bringing judgment, bringing
darkness upon the Egyptians, destroying that superpower. And
they sat there in their houses that night with a promise from
God. The blood's on the outside, and
God says, when I see the blood, I'll pass out. God sees the blood
of his Son. God sees the blood of his Son.
And he sees us in him. And he passes over us. And carries
us into glory. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we do praise you for who you are. As you are revealed in your
word and revealed in your dear and precious Son. and revealed
Heavenly Father in what you did to him on Calvary's tree. And Heavenly Father, we pray
as we take these elements that remind us of his shed blood and
his broken body. May you cause us to sanctify
him. Sanctify yourself in our hearts,
Heavenly Father. May you protect us from eating
and drinking unworthily and not recognizing the body and blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Bless us, Heavenly Father, with
a reverence for your name, a reverence for your character, and by that,
to see the glorious preciousness of your dear and precious Son,
our Lord Jesus Christ. We praise you, Heavenly Father,
that we are sanctified by the faith that is in him, and it's
not of ourselves. Bless your word to the hearts
of your people, Heavenly Father, and may we go away singing his
praises and rejoicing in our hearts for who he is and what
he has done. We pray these things to you,
our Father, in the name of your dear and precious Son, our Lord
Jesus Christ.