I turn in your scriptures to
Jude. I'm really just looking at a phrase this evening. But
Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ and the brother of James, for
them that are sanctified by God the Father, preserved in Christ
Jesus and called, mercy unto you and peace and love be multiplied. and he's writing to the Beloved.
And last week we looked at the opening passage of this and we
looked at specifically what it was to be called. But one of
the things that's interesting, if you actually read the opening
of all the letters in the New Testament, you'll see that this
mercy and peace and love and grace are often mentioned, but
Jude is the only one, the only one that mentions that they be
multiplied. And in times of strife and in
times of trouble and in times of the assaults on the church
that we see all around us with the eyes of faith and with the
eyes of scripture we actually see that the church is under
serious assault. that awful spewing vomit of Satan,
free will works religion has pervaded this world and when
we see the troubles that are happening in this world and we
need to attribute them as the scriptures do to the things that
are said about the Lord Jesus Christ and him being caused to
be brought into disrepute and disregarded and treated as light
and irrelevant. and someone who can be judged
of men and dismissed as meaningless. I went to a funeral the other
day. I don't advise you to go to secular funerals. I don't
advise you to go to funerals at all. But it was just the most
appalling blasphemy and lies from one end to the other. And
there was this minister preaching peace to a pagan congregation
of probably at least 200 people. giving them peace, telling them
I think possibly 20 times how much God loved them and how much
Jesus has done for them and how much they are valued. May God preserve us and protect
us in the midst of that small incident among multitudes. No
wonder we need mercy and peace and love to be multiplied. We need it multiplied, brothers
and sisters. If you are in need, you need multiplied mercies.
multiplied mercies. But I want to look at this phrase
that's in there in verse 1. It says, to them that are sanctified
by God the Father. This word sanctified is a word
that means to be set apart, to be set apart for holy use, sanctified,
set apart for the special use, dedicated to God, and the sanctification
that's spoken of in the scriptures has various meanings. In this
particular one, it's actually speaking about the act of eternal
election that God the Father set apart a people for himself
before the foundation of the world. They were taken out of
what is common, which is what it is to be sanctified, set apart.
They were taken out of what is common and they were set apart
for the use and the purpose and the glory of God. Sanctification
is attributed in the Scriptures to the Lord Jesus Christ. We
are, as we so often read in Hebrews 10.10, we are sanctified by the
offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all. And we are
sanctified by the Spirit when chosen for salvation through
sanctification of the Spirit in 2 Thessalonians 2.13 and many
other places. As we mentioned last week, there
is a them. There is a particular people
who are sanctified by God the Father. And I love what it says,
isn't it? To them that are. Not them that
will be on account of them doing something, but them that are.
It's a declaration of their status before God and it's a declaration
by God of their status. Sanctified by God the Father. The word sanctified is used so
many times in the scriptures. In the first mention of it, God
blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because that in it he had
rested from all his work which God had created and made. So there were seven days, but
there was one that was set aside for his particular purposes.
We read in the scriptures of people and places being set aside,
the word sanctified, its root word of course is to be holy.
And the word that's most commonly used of the people of God in
the scriptures is saints. And to be a saint is to be a
holy person. To be holy is to be pure. It
is to be sacred. It is to be set apart. There
was a lot of dirt around Mount Sinai, but there was one particular
patch that Moses was standing on that was holy ground. It was
holy ground because of the presence of the Lord there. You read in
the scriptures, in the dressing of Aaron and his sons and others
for their priestly duties, their holy garments. It wasn't something
that was special about the garment, it was something about what God
set that garment aside. It didn't have special cloth
or anything in it, it was just set apart for God's purposes.
There were a lot of vessels around in those days, but there were
some holy ones that were set apart from all of those. So this
is the act of eternal election, when God the Father, in the covenant
of grace, there was a particular people, there was a them, that
they were set apart and they were foreknown and they were
predestinated and they were chosen by God the Father to be set apart
as His special gift for His Son. a special gift, a special gift
to His Son and a special, special gift and a special demonstration,
a special people to be a demonstration of His love and His grace. There
was to be a time of love when they'd be regenerated by the
Holy Spirit and they'd be called into the reality of the union
with God both here and forever. Jude is calling on these people
He wants to put them in remembrance. He wants them to contend once
for the faith. And so that's why these opening
verses are so important. These are the things that God's
people are called upon to find their mercy and peace and love
multiplied. They are things that are to be
contended for. They are things that bring peace
to the children of God. And that's why the words, all
of the words in these opening verses are so critically important. Our Lord Jesus Christ is said
to be sanctified by the Father. In John 10.36, say ye of him
whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world. He's
sanctified, he was set apart, wasn't he? Every attribute of
a believer. is also an attribute of our Lord
Jesus Christ. He is elect, He is elect, and
they are all elect, aren't they? They are called to be saints,
and He is holy. We're going to look this weekend,
Lord willing, at the fact that the apostles twice in Acts chapter
4 declare the Lord Jesus Christ to be thy holy child, thy set-apart
child, And men are set apart, aren't they? Jeremiah was declared,
Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee. It's more than just
knowing about Jeremiah, it is that foreknowledge, isn't it,
of him, that he was loved. Before I formed thee in the belly,
I knew thee, and before thou camest forth out of the womb,
I sanctified thee. I sanctify thee, and I ordain
thee a prophet unto the nations, sanctified, sanctified by God
the Father, set apart, set apart. They are the elect of God and
they are set apart by an act of sovereign election. God set
them apart by himself, for himself. They are separated from the rest
of the world and they are separated for the use and the service of
God and for His glory. And so in the midst of the trials
that Jude will speak of so much, they are They are set apart as
a distinct and peculiar people. They are made by God in the midst
of all of the apostasy and all of the opposition from outside
and all of the opposition from these ones that creep in, these
creeping ones that creep in, these ones that are with them
in their love feasts, these ones that insinuate themselves into
their company and look for all the world like they're the genuine
article, the false teachers, the false brethren. In the midst
of all that, God has a people that he's set apart. He says
in 1 Corinthians 11 that there must be heresies amongst you.
that those who are approved of God may be seen." So God not
only sets these people apart but He sets them apart in the
midst of the trials of this world that they will be there for the
praise of the glory of His grace. They are sanctified ones, aren't
they? That's the most common description of believers in the
New Testament, is saints. Holy, that word means, isn't
it? They are sanctified ones, they are holy. It is to take
something, as I said earlier, ordinary and common. So God's
people know themselves to be ordinary and common and they
know themselves by an act of divine grace to be set apart
for holy purposes. as we saw in those words, them
that are. It is a declaration of God, isn't
it? It's God's declaration of who
we are. So it's to be regarded as holy,
to be declared as holy by God. You see, in 1 Peter 3.18 it says,
sanctify the Lord God in our hearts. What's it mean when we
sanctify the Lord God in our hearts? It's not as if we make
Him holy. He already is holy, isn't it?
To sanctify the Lord God in our hearts is to regard Him as set
apart from all others, isn't it? It's to regard Him as holy,
to regard Him as perfectly and completely holy and perfectly
and completely holy is to be perfectly and completely like
God himself. Now wonder the Lord Jesus prayed,
didn't he, in that prayer for the disciples. Our Father which
art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, declared to be holy. Holiness, of course. Holiness
is a concept that we know nothing of. and we can speak so little
about because of the scene that's in us. There is... There is only
an understanding of holiness when people meet God. There is only an understanding
of what holiness is when people are confronted with God in the
reality of His being. No wonder the angels declared
to Isaiah, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts. Isaiah
met the Lord Jesus Christ and saw Him in the temple. And Isaiah
knew two things immediately. He knew who God was. He knew something of his holiness
and he knew something of who he was. Peter had a similar experience
in Luke chapter 5. They are fishing, and Simon said
to the Lord, Master, we have toiled all night and have taken
nothing. Nevertheless, at thy word, I'll
let down the net. When they had done this, they
enclosed a great multitude of fishers, and their net broke.
And they beckoned unto their partners which were in the other
ship, that they should come and help them. And they came and
filled barge ships, that they began to sink. When Simon Peter
saw it," see, what did he see? He saw, as he did on the Mount
of Transfiguration, he saw something of the deity of the Lord Jesus
Christ unveiled before his eyes. And what happened when he saw
it? He fell down at Jesus' knees
and said, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. To encounter God is to be made
particularly aware of our sinfulness. So to be holy is to be completely
free from sin altogether, isn't it? No sin whatsoever. A holy nature cannot sin. That's why the Lord Jesus is
described in in Ephesians chapter 4, in those words that are so
comforting to the people of God, isn't it? Blessed be the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with
all spiritual blessings in heaven and places in Christ, according
as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. having predestinated us under
the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according
to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of
his grace, wherein he has made us accepted in the Beloved. It's a declaration of God. It's
a declaration of God about what God does with His people, that
we should be wholly and without blame before Him in love. It is a declaration that He has
set these people apart for Himself. That's why the children of God
are called to be saints. That's why we love in our church
to parade and to think often on those verses in 1 Corinthians,
isn't it? that no flesh should glory in
his presence, but of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God
is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. They are sanctified by God the
Father, and they are set apart, and there is no boasting, all
their glory, that, verse 31, that according as it is written,
he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. Where there is true
sanctification, there will be a glory in the Lord. Where there is true sanctification
and a true work of regeneration, God's children are given a holy
nature. It is remarkable those verses
in 1 John 3. I just need reading and meditating
on. Beloved, now we are the sons
of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be, 1 John 3.2,
but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him. sanctified people shall be like
him, for we shall see him as he is." Sanctified people can
see him as he is. Holy people will see him in his
holiness. And every man that has this hope
in himself, purify him. purifies himself, even as he
is pure. Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth
also the law, for sin is the transgression of the law. And
you know that he was manifested to take away our sins, and in
him is no sin. He took our sins away, and in
him is no sin. Whosoever abideth in him sinneth
not." What a remarkable description of God's children. If you know
anything of yourselves, anything of yourselves, you know that
that is a declaration that God can make about you that you couldn't
possibly make about yourself. Whosoever sinneth hath not seen
him, neither known him. Little children, let no man deceive
you. He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. He that committeth sin is of
the devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning of the world.
For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might
destroy the works of the devil. Listen to what God says about
the sanctified ones. Whosoever is born of God doth
not commit sin. Isn't that a remarkable statement?
Only those who understand something of sovereign grace can understand
that. These religious people who speak
of progressive sanctification of any sort or at all cannot
possibly understand that. It's not a description of us. It's a description of us as we
are joined to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a description of
the regenerated person, isn't it? That we are given a holy
nature. It is Christ in us that is being
described. That's why regeneration is so
important, isn't it? For these things to be manifest
to us, for them to be multiplied, the peace and the love. There
is a need for a new heart. There is a need for that holy
seed to be planted in us, that new man. There is a new creation. It's Christ in you. It is that
hidden man of the heart. It is to live before God. That's a remarkable thing, isn't
it? In Psalm 86, David's praise,
Preserve my soul, for I am holy. O thou, my God, save thy servant
that trusteth in thee. See, because it's a declaration
of God, isn't it? They are sanctified by God the
Father. That's a declaration that every
child of God can say without being arrogant, without self-righteousness. When we look inside our heart,
we don't see that at all. All the believers, all true believers
in this world have two natures. They are aware, they are deeply
aware of the sin that's in them. that's in us, and they're horrified by it.
And God's people hate the sin that's in them. Whenever we talk
about sanctification, there are always two things. that come
to mind that are so important that we hear yet again and again
and again. To anyone who might think that
personal purity and fleeing from sin are not important, let me
tell you that I'm troubled. I'm troubled. I'm troubled about
that because it's not the attitude of the child of God at all. And
conversely, and part of the same issue sometimes, is that to any
who think that they have some righteousness now or some ability
to create some righteousness that is acceptable to God in
the future, or to look to some righteous act in the past, There
is and there should be a cause for equal concern. That's why
Jude in Jude 20 prayed, didn't he? He said, but beloved, building
yourselves up in your most holy faith. Praying in the Holy Spirit,
keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of
our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. Looking away from ourselves,
looking for the mercy, looking for that multiplied mercy, peace
and love that is the believers because they are sanctified in
God the Father. They are set apart. That's why
Hebrews 12.10 talks about the fact that we are partakers of
His holiness. 1 Peter 1.4 says we are partakers
of the divine nature. We may not see the holy nature
that God has put in us all the time, but there are its influences,
aren't there? This is the evidence, isn't it? Faith is the evidence. Faith
is the evidence. The holy nature causes us to
be looking outside of ourselves and looking to the Lord Jesus
Christ. There was a time when it was
impossible for us to believe. And yet God in the new birth
causes us to believe and in such a way that it is impossible for
God's children to not believe. It's impossible for them not
to believe. They want the saints of God,
they want to be holy, they want to be without sin ever. Sin is grievous to the children
of God, it's deeply grievous to us. It's deeply grievous from
so many points of view, isn't it? The sin that indwells us,
the sin that wells up out of us is a sin that hurts our brothers
and sisters. The sin that wells up in us is
the sin that causes us so often to lose companionship and evident
fellowship with God. The one thing that the believer
longs for is fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ, union
and communion with Him. But also the believer is left
with his body of flesh, There is a fighting of the flesh against
the spirit and enmity against each other and there is a warfare
going on. And one of the things that afflicts
the children of God, and no doubt these filthy dreamers, these
ones that corrupt themselves, the ones that have other men's
persons in admiration because of advantage, no doubt, like
many of us, we were caused to encounter people that want to
tell us about how righteous they are and want to parade their
righteousness and their good deeds before men, that we might
esteem them somehow. The idea of progressive sanctification
is something the Lord will cause His people to see is not their
portion at all. In fact, in the Scriptures, there
is a beauty about holiness, isn't it? You are to follow peace with
all men and holiness without which no man will see the Lord.
And you are to worship God in the beauty of holiness. There
is a beauty about holiness. But holiness is a declaration,
as we saw. It's a state of being. It's a
state of being in the eyes of God by the declaration of God
on the basis of what He says and on the basis of who the Lord
Jesus Christ is and what He has done for His people to take away
their sins. If there is no sin, there must
be holiness. So what's this notion, somehow,
that people think they are getting better? that they are growing
in holiness. We were flogged with that in
religion and we flogged others with it, thinking ourselves that
we got better. Let's hear what God says. If
you turn to Isaiah 65, you'll see there is a mention of growing
in holiness. It's only a few times in the
scriptures. The Lord God speaks in verse
2, He said, I have spread out my hands all day unto a rebellious
people which walketh in the way that was not good after their
own thoughts, a people that provoketh me to anger continually to my
face, that sacrifice in gardens, that's in gardens where idols
were worshipped, and burn incense upon altars of brick. which remain
among the graves and lodge in the monuments, with each swine-flesh
and the broth of abominable things in their vessels, and which say,
Stand by thyself, come not near to me, for I am holier than thou."
You've heard that expression, haven't you? Holier than thou.
What's God's declaration about them? These are a smoke in my nose
and a fire that burneth all day long." For someone to declare
themselves holier than someone else is to declare themselves
to be self-righteous and an abomination to God. What about self-sanctification? Just turn over a page in Isaiah
66. There is these people that think somehow they're becoming
more sanctified. Verse 17, they that sanctify
themselves and purify themselves in the garden behind one tree
in the midst, eating swine's flesh and the abomination and
the mouth. So those who think that they
can sanctify themselves, set themselves apart, shall be consumed
together, saith the Lord. to go back to what we see in
our text, for them that are sanctified. Holiness is a state of being,
isn't it? It's a declaration of God, and
God creates reality by speaking. So every child of God is holy,
perfectly holy, aren't they? That's why Hebrews 3.1 talks
about holy brethren, partakers of a holy calling, a sanctification. Sanctification is a work of God. It's a work of God in His own. He sets them apart in eternity.
He puts them in the Lord Jesus Christ and the Lord Jesus Christ
takes away their sin forever and it's gone from them and they
are considered holy by God. And it's totally independent
of the merits of man and it's unconnected with our works of
any kind. It's an act of God, isn't it?
And whenever God acts, whatever He does, He does forever. The
works of God are finished from the foundation of the world,
and so they are necessarily complete, aren't they? And they can't be
added to, and they can't be taken away. When God declares something
to be, that's what it is. What He opens, no man can shut,
and what He shuts, no man can open. When He's declared something,
that is what it is, whether we see it that way or not. So this
idea of progressive sanctification, somehow that there's an ongoing
work that's aided by men to bring completeness to what God has
declared to be already done, is just contrary to scripture,
isn't it? of Christians is a growth in
the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. What is it
to grow in grace? To grow more and more aware of
the depths of your sinfulness, the depths of the fact that you
have absolutely no merit whatsoever, you have absolutely no claim
and can never have any claim upon God. and that he loves his
own because of who he is and what he does. It's grace, it's
grace that saves us, it's grace that causes us to look to the
Lord Jesus Christ. And we grow in knowledge. We
grow in the knowledge of Him as He's declared to be in the
scriptures. And always, always it's a growing. It's growing in a knowledge of
the glory of His character and the wonder of His finished work,
that He is God. And He creates as a sovereign
creator and He declares truth as one who cannot lie. That's
why it says, you are washed. You were amongst those, weren't
you? You were amongst, in 1 Corinthians
6, you were amongst the thieves, the covetous, revilers, extortioners. None of them shall inherit the
Kingdom of God. And such were some of you, but
you are washed, finished and completed activity. You are sanctified,
you are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and
by the Spirit of our God. What role did you play in your
justification? What role did you play in your
being washed? Then what role must we play in
this work of sanctification? So often in the scriptures and
especially in these poor, poor translations which flood the
world these days, again and again and again, the work, the divine,
sovereign, finished work of God is turned around and put as something
that man must do to complete. They take the privileges of the
children of God and they make them common and they make them
a work of man. And somehow, even though the
scriptures declare it's impossible, they somehow put people in a
place where they think they can barter with God. They think that
they can earn rewards. What stupid nonsense about us
getting extra jewels in our crown in heaven. A number of times
we were told that. Came back from India and people
would say, you're going to get some extra crowns when you get
to heaven. Dear oh dear. They only said that because they
knew that they thought they were going to get some. that I might
be part of what they were doing. What a load of nonsense. The
Lord Jesus is the crown of His people. We need no other. We
don't want to share, do we? That's why in 1 Corinthians He's
made unto us sanctification. And let him that boasts, boast
in the Lord. That's why multiplied mercy and
peace and love There is multiplied mercy, peace and love to know
that we are declared, sanctified by God the Father. Set apart. Set apart from this world of
sin and set apart from this religious world. And it's all ours as a
sovereign gift of God. And God's children know, don't
they? God's children are made aware
of the fact that there is a progression in grace and knowledge, but there's
no progression in holiness. And the scriptures continually
remind us that in the new birth there is implanted into the children
of God a divine nature, a perfectly fit nature for heaven. And the
flesh gives birth to flesh. And the new creation from above,
that new creation, that spirit, is purely spiritual. The body
remains subject to sin and death. Romans 8.10 says, If Christ be
in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life
because of righteousness. So somehow people think that
they can get a dead body to perform acts of spiritual life. And the
reality is that God's children will turn and be turned away
from gross sins and they will, through the spirit, mortify the
deeds of the body. But this is not sanctification. It's not progressive sanctification. In every act of a child of God,
as Galatians 5.17 warns us, there is going to be an ongoing warfare. An ongoing warfare, a constant
struggle. The flesh wars constantly against
the life of the Spirit. And these struggles and these
trials and these battering that God's children go through are
not a sign of God not having regenerated them, but in fact
they are the sign that God is at work amongst them. And those
that think that somehow they are progressing into more and
more holiness and they have some acts of righteousness that they
can boast of are revealing the fact that they don't have two
natures, that they aren't regenerated. Those who are born from above
know this conflict and they have it. And the reality is if we
were getting progressively sanctified, the warfare would be diminished
in some areas of our lives. It's like some of the people
that we know in this town. One fellow said some years ago
now that he only had one sin to deal with in his life. The
reality of that sin was that it was a sin of unbelief. He
thought he'd narrowed his sins down like the Puritans had trained
him to do. He'd narrowed his sins down so
he only had one left. One sin is enough to set the
fires of hell forever. The conflict, brothers and sisters,
in my experience is worsening, not getting any better. It's
more real and more troubling. See, Job was declared, wasn't
he, to be a righteous man by God. And yet Job said, that if
I justify myself, mine own mouth shall condemn me. If I say I'm
perfect, it shall prove me perverse. Though I were perfect, yet I
would despise my life. Job 9.20-21 What did Job say
at the end of his time of God's gracious dealings with him? He
says, I am vile, declared righteous by God, set apart by God the
Father, sanctified by God the Father, and yet vile. sanctified by God the Father,
set apart for Him, for His use in this world. I like that fact,
don't you? That God the Father has set us
apart and put us in this world at this particular place and
this particular time, with these particular people and these particular
circumstances around us, that we should be the ones that declare
the praises of His glory in this world. by Him working in us to
live lives of faith. That's why Jude is calling on
those people to contend for the faith, to stand as one for the
faith that was once for all delivered into this world. True sanctification
comes to God's people by our union with the Lord Jesus Christ. We are as holy as He is holy. We are sanctified by the will
of God. We are sanctified by the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ, that he would sanctify a people to
himself with his own blood. We are sanctified by the Spirit
of God. And if we're sanctified by the
Spirit of God, we're going to be sanctified by the truth. John
17, the Lord Jesus prayed, sanctify them through your truth. The
truth and true sanctification can never be separated. The truth
of who God is, the truth of who we are, the truth of who God,
how God saves his people in the Lord Jesus Christ. and we are
sanctified by the faith that is in thee. The Lord Jesus says
in Acts 26, 18, we are sanctified, declared to be sanctified, set
apart from all of this world, all of this creation, all of
what happens around us will always work for the sanctifying of God's
people, and His purposes must and will be fulfilled. May the
Lord use us for His glory. Let's pray.