Open your Bibles with me to the
50th Psalm. Psalm 50. This is where I'm going to start
today, but we're going to be looking at a few other scriptures. I've entitled this message, One
Step to Sainthood. And let me give you a little
background on where I got that title from and why the Lord has
led me to preach on this subject. You've heard me before preach
on what a saint is, and I'm gonna repeat a lot of that, too, because
we need to be reminded of it, and we need to be encouraged
by the grace of God to live our lives as saints. We'll see. I heard a false preacher, and
nobody famous, I just, a brother sent this to me. A man, he's
a preacher, he was talking about the call to sainthood. He said,
becoming a saint. And he said this, he said, what
a lofty idea to be called to sainthood and to become a saint. What a lofty idea. And I agree
with that, it's a lofty idea, it's a high idea. But he went
on to say this, but how do we get there? How do we get to sainthood? How do we take a lofty ideal,
this is his words, of becoming a saint and make it a practical
reality in our everyday lives? This is what got me. He said,
I want to offer you seven simple strategies to put you on the
path to sainthood. Now, what's wrong with that? Seven simple strategies to put
me, a sinner, on the path to sainthood. And I'm not going
to go over the seven simple strategies, but it works. It works. So I thought, but wait a minute.
If you read the Bible, which is what we're supposed to be
reading and studying and preaching, there's only one step to sainthood.
And that's why I entitled this message this way. Look at Psalm
50. I want to read the first six
verses of this psalm. Psalm 50. The mighty God, even
the Lord, hath spoken and called the earth from the rising of
the sun and to the going down thereof out of Zion." Now you
know Zion is a name for the spiritual church of God. Out of Zion, the
perfection of beauty God hath shined. Now what is the perfection
of beauty in Zion? It's Christ. Christ. born of the church in this sense,
come forth in his humanity by the Holy Spirit in the womb of
the Virgin. And he has shined in his face the light of the
glory of God. Verse three, our God shall come
and shall not keep silence. A fire shall devour before him. And it shall be very tempestuous
round about him. He shall call to the heavens,
from above, to the earth, that he may judge his people." God
judging his people. Now, for the most part, when
you think about religion, they portray that as a fearful thing.
In other words, it's something to be afraid of, to shake in
your boots. God's gonna come and judge his
people. But what we need to understand is that God has already judged
his people in Christ. And look at what his judgment
says. Look at verse five. Now this is my text. Gather my
saints together unto me. Now who are his saints? What is a saint? Look at the next line. Those
that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice. You see that? And then he says
in verse six, and the heaven shall declare his righteousness
for God is judge himself. And that phrase Selah is a musical
term, but it means pause and think about what was just said. Well, what is it to make a covenant
with God by sacrifice? Well, whose sacrifice saves us
from our sins? Christ. Now technically speaking,
God is the one who makes that covenant, the covenant of grace
made before the world began. That was a reality in existence
between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit before He
ever said, let there be light. It was there. choosing his people,
giving them to Christ, conditioning all of our salvation upon him.
But let me make good with this. Let's say, what is a saint? A
saint is a sinner saved by grace. That's what a saint is. If you're
a sinner saved by grace, you're a saint. And what that means
is you've made a covenant with God, one which he made and brought
you to, by pleading the blood and the righteousness of the
Lord Jesus Christ, believing the gospel, and that by the power
of the Spirit in the new birth. Left to yourself, you would not
do this. The Bible says the natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he
know them, they're spiritually discerned. Man by nature is anything
but a saint. And I've heard people all my
life, you know, talk about, they say, well, I'm a Christian, but
I'm no saint. Well, there's no such thing.
There's no such animal. If you really are a Christian,
a true Christian, you're a saint. So let's look at that. Let's
divide that up. Let's unpack that statement.
The word saints refers to a group of people set apart for the Lord
and his kingdom. That's who the saints are. The
word saint, as you know, the word saint is a derivative of
the word sanctified. That word sanctified, sanctified,
and sanctification is sometimes in the scripture, many times
in the scripture, translated holy. Are you holy? What does that
mean, I'm perfect in myself? No, because I'm anything but
perfect in myself. I'm a sinner. But a holy person
is one who's been set apart, sanctified by God. And in the Bible, there are three
aspects of sanctification, only one that has to do with us personally
and experientially. And let me show you that. The
first one is found in the book of Jude, verse one. And it's sanctification by God
the Father. Listen to this passage. 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. Now, how are we sanctified, set
apart, by God the Father? And the Bible teaches us that
it's in God's election of grace before the world began. He set
his people apart to save them by his grace, through what Christ
would come in time and accomplish on the cross. He literally gave
us to Christ. You remember Christ says in John
6, 37, all that the Father giveth me shall come to me and him that
cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. And he goes on to say
this is the will of him that sent me that of all which he
hath given me I should lose nothing but raise it up again at the
last day. What's he talking about? He's talking about those who
were set apart, sanctified, declared holy by the Father before the
world began. And he prayed that in his high
priestly prayer in John 17. If you wanna look at that, in
John 17, and this is so, it's so comforting to the people of
God who know Christ, who rest in Him. He says here, in John
17, he says, Verse two, as thou hast given him power over all
flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast
given him. That's his authority, that's
his lordship right there. So there's sanctification by
God the Father, set it apart. Secondly, there's sanctification
by God the Son incarnate, Jesus Christ. We read about that in
1 Corinthians 1.1. Paul called to be an apostle
of Jesus Christ through the will of God and sostenes our brother
unto the church of God, which is at Corinth, to them that are
sanctified in Christ Jesus. called saints and called to be
saints, we'll talk about that, with all that in every place,
call upon the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, both theirs and ours.
What he's telling us there is everyone who calls upon the name
of Christ, that's the product of being born again, hearing
the gospel and believing it with the gift of faith. They are those
who were sanctified in Christ Jesus. Now, what does that refer
to? That means our redemption by Christ on the cross. The Bible
says in Hebrews 10 and verse 14, for by one offering, and
what is that offering? The offering of himself as our
surety, our substitute, our redeemer. By one offering, Christ hath
perfected, completed forever them that are sanctified. It
was then we were set apart on the cross as Christ was our representative,
our surety, our substitute. You know, if you believe the
Bible and believer's baptism, that's what you're confessing
when you go down into the water and come up out of the water.
You're saying that when Christ died, he died for me, he was
buried for me, he arose for me. Now you weren't there personally.
I wasn't there personally, but I was in the person of Christ.
I was set apart. My name was written on His heart.
Just like before the foundation of the world being set apart,
sanctified by God the Father, my name was written in the Lamb's
book of life. Revelation 13 speaks of that.
Now that doesn't mean God had a piece of paper and a pen up
there, right? It's in His eternal mind. That
never changes. When the same way, when Christ
obeyed unto death and gave up Himself on that cross, my name
was written on his heart. If you're a believer, if you're
a child of God, your name was written on his heart. You remember
in the Old Testament the high priest had a breastplate and
the names of the children of Israel were written on that breastplate.
That's who he went into the presence of God for with the blood of
the Lamb. And he had amulets on his shoulders
and six names over here, six names over here. Again, the children
of Israel. What that signifies is this.
Christ, in his obedience unto death, sanctified us, set us
apart, as he bore us on his shoulders. Our sins were charged, imputed,
accounted to him. And he bore us on his shoulders,
but not only on his shoulders to do the work that only he could
do that we could not do, he bore us on his heart. He loved his
people. So we're sanctified that way.
But now listen to this. When we're born into this world,
naturally, having fallen in Adam, you believe that, don't you?
When Adam fell, we fell. That's what the Bible teaches.
Romans 5 and verse 12, as in Adam, all sin. So when we're
born into this world, having fallen in Adam, We're anything
but saints, are we? We're enemies of God. The scripture
says we're born spiritually dead. Read Ephesians 2 and verse 1,
and you hath he quickened who were what? Dead in trespasses. Let me tell you this, I'll put
it to you this way. If anybody wants to argue with
that, of course you're not arguing with me, you're arguing with
the word of God. But if you're not born spiritually dead and
depraved, you don't need to be born again. Do you understand
that? That's why we must be born again.
Because our first birth is in sin. That's why the natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. As we're born
naturally, 1 Corinthians 2, 14, neither can he know them, they're
spiritually discerned. That's why there's none good,
no not one, there's none that seeketh after God. That's man
by nature. And we have to be born again.
So when our first birth, we're born spiritually dead, depraved
in darkness, and we're anything but saints. We're enemies of
God, we're unbelievers. And so this third aspect of sanctification
is the work of the Spirit on us personally and experientially
to bring us into sainthood, and there's only one step, and that's
the new birth. The one step to sainthood for
us personally and experientially is to be born again by the Spirit.
And that new birth doesn't come about by our natural birth. Let me show you that. Turn to
John chapter one. And again, I've got a lot of
scripture for this, but we don't have time to go into it all,
but you can study it. Look at verse 11 of John chapter
one. He says, Christ, that's who the
he is there in John 111. Okay, I hope you're there now. It says, he came unto his own.
That's Christ came unto his own. And his own received him not. Now most commentators will say
he's talking about the Jewish people there. He came to his
own. He was, in his humanity, a Jew. But I think it's talking
about all of us by nature. He came in his own, his own received
him not. But, look at verse 12, but as many as received him,
now there's some who did receive him. Now why did they receive
him and others didn't? Were they better than the ones
who didn't? Is that what the Bible teaches?
That those who received him are better people than the ones who
don't receive him. The ones who believe in him are
better people than the ones who don't believe. Is that what the
Bible teaches? Absolutely not, you know better, don't you? So
it says, but as many as received him, to them gave he power. Now
that word power there does not mean ability. That word power
there means the right, the privilege. Do you claim to be a child of
God? The question is, what right do you have to make that claim?
That's what this is talking about. To them gave he the right to
become or to be called the sons of God, even to them that believe
on his name. Now look at verse 13, this is
important. Which were born, they were born, not of blood. That means it wasn't their natural
birth. As I said, in our natural birth, we're anything but saints.
We're dead, spiritually speaking, depraved. So our natural birth
didn't make us sons of God, children of God. Saints. Nor the will
of the flesh, that's the works of the flesh. It wasn't by the
works of the flesh, but look at the next line. Nor of the
will of man. It wasn't because of some free
will choice that we made that we're born again. Y'all may have
seen that book, How to Be Born Again. Well, what they believe
is you make your decision and then you're born again. Oh, no,
you won't make the right decision until you're born again by the
Spirit. He says, which were born but of God. Born of God. That's the one step to sainthood. Let me read you this scripture.
This is 1 Peter 1. This is talking about sanctification
by the Holy Spirit, the new birth, where the Holy Spirit, under
the preaching of the true gospel, of God's salvation, sovereign
grace, righteousness of Christ, imputed and received by God-given
faith, that gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation
to everyone that believeth, the Jew first, the Greek also, for
therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to
faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith. And
that's what a saint is, a justified person who lives by faith. Means
that justified person, that means his sins are all forgiven on
a just ground. It unites what it is to be justified.
Your sins are all forgiven. All your sins, not some of them,
not just past sins, but all of them are forgiven by God on a
just ground, a right ground. What is the just ground? The
blood of Jesus Christ. Now, somebody told me one time
they don't believe that. I said, well, don't sing that hymn number.
I think it's 212 anymore. What does that mean? What can
wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
I believe that. And to be justified is to be
declared righteous in God's sight, not by what we do or even what
we are, not even based upon us being a saint. It's the righteousness
of Christ charged to our account, imputed to our account. His merits
given to my, reckoned to my account. That's why Paul wrote in Romans
4, 6, the blessedness of the man to whom the Lord imputed
righteousness without works. So here's Peter, he's saying,
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to the strangers scattered throughout
Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia, elect according
to the foreknowledge of the Father, and that word foreknowledge is
foreordained, through sanctification of the Spirit. Unto obedience
and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, grace unto you
and peace be multiplied. Unto obedience, faith in Christ,
repentance of good work, of dead works rather, and idolatry, and
perseverance in the faith. Looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of our faith. And so let me read you another
passage on that one. 2 Thessalonians 2.13. where Paul writes there, but
we're 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. My friend, when a sovereign
God in his providence brings one of the sheep, Christ's sheep,
under the preaching of the gospel, gives them life from the dead,
faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, and brings
them with the gift of faith, for by grace are you saved through
faith, that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. He's bringing that sinner into
the one step to sainthood. And the moment he brings you
to believe in Christ and embrace Christ, you're a saint. Now does
that mean you always do what's right? No. I preached a sermon
years ago called Saints, Sinners, Both. Do we always act like saints? No. Was David, King David, was
he acting like a saint when he had sex with Bathsheba? No. Did
he do wrong? Yes. All of that. That's why in that
first Corinthians passage, when it says called saints, that's
what we are. But if you want to add the to
be there, called to be saints, we're saints. By the grace of
God, through the blood of Christ, his righteousness imputed, we've
been born again by the Spirit. We look to him as the author
and finisher of our faith. Now let's act like it. That's
what he's saying there. You're a saint to be called.
Act like it. Well, you say, preacher, that's
easier said than done. Don't I know it? Remember what
I've always said about the Christian life can be summed up in three
words, standing. A true Christian is one who has
an eternal, unchanging standing before God in Christ. I stand before God, chosen in
Christ, washed in his blood, clothed in his righteousness.
And the second word is state. Now my state has changed. I was
born into this world as an enemy of God, an unbeliever, sinful
and depraved. But the Holy Spirit gave me life
from Christ and brought me to faith in Him and repentance of
dead works. And now my state before God is a sinner saved
by grace. I'm a saint. And I didn't contribute
anything to being a saint or becoming a saint, and you didn't
either. Now you can look at me and say,
well, you don't act like a saint all the time. I can look at you
and say the same thing. I mean, we can beat each other up if
you want. I don't want to do that. But we're saints. That's our
state. And then the third word of the Christian life, standing,
state, struggle. From then on, there's a spiritual
warfare within our brains and our hearts. fighting the flesh,
seeking to obey God, trying to be more like Christ, trying to
do what's right. Well, this is the case. Spiritually and scripturally
speaking, the saints are the body of Christ. Christians, the
church, the true church. And all Christians are considered
saints. There's no seven-step program.
That's only one step, and God's the one who does it. God's the
one who makes us so. We don't make ourselves saints.
He made us so. And all Christians are saints,
and at the same time, they're called to be saints, to act like
saints. Motivated to obedience by grace and gratitude and love,
not by law, legal threats of punishment, and mercenary promises
of earned reward. That's not a saint. That's legalist. Believers are saints by virtue
of our connection with Jesus Christ. And we're called to be
so. To increasingly allow our daily
life to be more closely matched with our position in Christ.
And that's the biblical description and calling of the saints. Again,
there's no seven step program. You can add a hundred more steps
to it and you won't make it. You're not going to. You can
have the Pope call you whatever he wants to call you. He's a
false preacher anyway. They don't know. You can't be
canonized. Oh, you've done three miracles.
I haven't done any miracles, but God did one. He made me a
saint. And that's it. I hope that's
helpful to you. Let's get our hymn. We'll close
with this hymn. Hymn number 452, My Savior's Love.