John chapter 17 and verse 17. Sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth. As thou hast
sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into
the world. And for their sakes, I sanctify
myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. Amen. Just a short reading again
today, but I trust one that will give us food for thought and
for encouragement in our hearts. It is a fact that the Lord declares
that his people are a people not of this world. The Lord tells
us that his church is comprised of a people not of this world. I just pause for a moment and
think about that. The Lord is telling us if we
are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, if we trust him for our
salvation, We are a people not of this world. Oh, we are born
in the natural way. Our flesh is the same flesh as
other men and women. By outward appearance, we are
identical, or at least similar. We are of the earth, earthy. We are children of the first
man, Adam. Our nature is fallen and we live
by an earthly wisdom which James in his little epistle calls sensual
and devilish. Our souls are corrupt, our passions
are carnal, and they manifest themselves in opposition to God's
truth and holiness. Nevertheless, the Lord Jesus
tells us here that his people are not like this, at least not
anymore, because something transformative has occurred. A change has taken
place so radical and consequential that the Lord is able to say
of these fallen sons of Adam, they are not of the world. They
are not of this world. Something has happened to alter
both our state and our standing in the sight of God. And this change, this something,
is not so much an altered nature as a new nature. When a man or
a woman or a boy or a girl is converted, it is a new creation
that is implanted in the old creation. The Lord does not reform
our nature. He gives us a new one. He does
not repair our heart with its carnal passions and lusts. He renews our heart. He gives
us new desires, desires after the truth, desires after the
gospel and the wisdom of God, wisdom that is divine and spiritual
and from above. In John chapter 8, the Lord Jesus
was speaking to a group of Pharisees who were questioning him and
criticising him for his teaching and for the comments that he
was making. For example, where he said, I
am the light of the world, and they gave him a hard time and
questioned him before all the people as to what he possibly
could mean and defended their religion as having its heritage,
its pedigree from Abraham. And Jesus spoke to these Jewish
protagonists. They had accosted him in the
temple. And he said this, he said, ye are from beneath. I am from above. Ye are of this
world. I am not of this world. Now that's pretty explicit. It's
a fundamental distinction to be sure that the Lord was making
between those Pharisees and himself. And now, here in John 17, in
his high priestly prayer, the Lord again speaks of this distinction. But this time, he includes his
disciples with himself. He says in verse 16, they are
not of the world, even as I am not of the world. And in speaking
thus of his disciples, he is speaking about all of us who
believe in him, not just the 11, not just the little group,
the coterie of individuals that surrounded the Lord at this time,
who perhaps were the immediate hearers of this prayer as he
spoke to his father, but all of us, he includes us all. The
Lord is saying here that we, his people, are not of this world. What is being stressed? is the
transformation of life and conversion by renewal and recreation of
spirit. In John chapter three, verse
six, Jesus told Nicodemus, These two things, the flesh and the
spirit, coexist in men and women who trust the Lord Jesus Christ.
And to be a man or a woman or a boy or a girl, not of this
world, is to be a man or a woman, a
boy or a girl who has been born again from above. It is to be
given spiritual life from heaven, a new nature, a new heart, new
desires, new life in Christ. And if you have been born again
from above, you are not of this world. If you are not born again,
you are still in your sins. And that old nature, that old
man, as Paul speaks about it later in his epistles, that old
man with his unrenewed nature is still dominating you and keeping
you in thrall to the God of this world. But what a beautiful, wonderful
truth to hear from the lips of Christ that we are not of this
world. Now, if we are not of the world,
we must be of somewhere else. And we are. That place is heaven. And even though the disciples
were still in the world, they were not of the world. And so
too, we who believe in Jesus Christ are in the world, but
not of it. Christ told Pilate, my kingdom
is not of this world. Christ's kingdom is his church. It's called his church, it's
called his flock, it's called his body, it's called his kingdom. And he says to Pilate, my kingdom
is not of this world. Believers straddle two realities. We are in this world, but we
are citizens of another. We are tied to this world of
flesh, but we belong to a kingdom that is spiritual and eternal. And we are heirs of a spiritual
inheritance into which we shall soon enter. with a conscious
awareness. Now, we believe these things
by faith. We believe these things by faith
because the Lord has taught us in his word that it is so. We are not of this world. We
believe that because the Lord has told us it is so. and soon
we shall experience it as a present reality when we enter more fully
into the glory that awaits us. that we are this spiritual people,
this heavenly people. It's confirmed when we hear Paul
speaking of us as men and women in this world who are yet even
now presently seated together with Christ in heavenly places. So that for us who believe there
is a thin line between living in this body, in the world, and
being in the presence of the Lord in heaven, which Paul says
is far better anyway. Those of whom the Lord is speaking
here in this prayer are those who have been delivered from
their sins by the death of their substitute, Jesus Christ. delivered
from their sins by his death, redeemed, atoned for, and quickened
in their spirits by the Holy Spirit. And speaking to his father
concerning these men, the Lord says, sanctify them through thy
truth. Now this sanctifying or sanctification
has troubled some of the Lord's people in the past through the
years. And I think it has troubled them
because they have been taught by preachers to believe that
sanctification is in some way or other a work of man. They have been told that while
God has justified them and washed them clean in the blood of Christ,
it is their duty thereafter to sanctify themselves and stay
pure and holy before God by obeying God's law and doing His will. And this puts a terrible burden
on the Lord's little ones, especially those who have particularly sensitive
spirits and who feel the weight and the burden of their sin peculiarly. because it causes them to always
be examining their lives and looking to themselves for evidences
of holiness or evidences of sinfulness when they should be looking to
Christ alone and resting in the sufficiency of his perfect righteousness. Sadly, I fear that this teaching
of sanctification is actively employed by some congregations,
by some legalist church groups. as a tool to manipulate and control
and even blackmail their congregations into acting in certain ways,
fulfilling certain patterns of living, conforming to certain
man-made standards of behavior. Now, I'm not going to spend too
much time on this, but I will say If you believe that as a
child of God, what you do, what you say or think makes you any
more or less acceptable to God, or any more or less loved by
God, or holy in the sight of God, then you have missed the
gospel. All our holiness, all our purity,
All our righteousness is from Jesus Christ alone. It is the
righteousness of God we need. And the righteousness of God
is what we have been given. When God looks upon one of his
people, he sees that individual perfect with the holiness of
Christ. and no amount of sin and no amount
of good works can alter or affect that state, that standing, that
happy condition. Sanctification is not your responsibility. It is God's responsibility. The Lord Jesus Christ says, sanctify
them with thy truth. The work of sanctification is
a blessed and glorious work of God upon the soul and in the
life of a believer. As such, it is a work of the
triune God. The Father sanctifies, the Holy
Spirit sanctifies, and the Lord Jesus Christ sanctifies His people. and those who are so sanctified
are made fit for the presence of God and set apart for the
glory of God. They are made holy and blameless
in his sight and ultimately they will be delivered pure and spotless
into the presence of God in heaven. Sanctification, like justification,
is a free gift and a sovereign blessing from our loving Father,
requested by the Son and effected by the Holy Spirit in the lives
of the redeemed. Now we noticed in yesterday's
little note, and we have done so on a couple of occasions,
that these requests and this request of the Lord Jesus Christ
is a product of the Saviour's successful work of redemption. The Lord is simply asking the
Father to bestow those blessings that he earned on the cross,
to bestow the blessings that he has won upon those for whom they were one. He is asking his father to dispense
those blessings to his people because they are Christ's right
to give us gifts and to dispense and distribute them as it is
suitable under the terms of the covenant. Christ is claiming
his prize as the God-man in this prayer. He is claiming that which
is due to him for his successful work as the victorious mediator
in the great settlement of grace. And having accomplished the work
that his father had given him to do, the Saviour asserts the
rights and privileges of his success. by requesting, we could
say requiring, but of course it is the Father's delight to
do this. So it's not that there is any
variation in the will of the Godhead. But here the Lord Jesus
Christ is asking that that should be distributed, which he has
laboured for and won. These blessings, that the Lord
is seeking for his people in this high priestly prayer. These blessings flow to the church
because of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. That's why
our thoughts always need to go back to the cross, to the death,
to the work, to the redemptive accomplishments of Christ. That's
where our blessings all derive from. They flow to the church
by the work of Christ on the cross. Christ secured our purity
by his cleansing blood. He delivers our justification
by the imputation of his righteousness. He confirms our sanctification
by creating a new heart within us. So we become conscious and
experimentally aware of the transformative work of redemption, regeneration,
and conversion. The Apostle Paul has a lovely
little phrase. He calls this being filled with
the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ. You see, Christ does not leave
the job that he was sent to do half done. Conversion and new
life in Christ isn't a theoretical notion for a believer. It's not a hypothetical idea. It is the living reality of a
born again child of God. We are converted. We have this
new life living in us, dwelling in us. We are a new creation. It's not just theoretical. Grace
in the life of a believer transforms the way that we live. It changes
the values we espouse and it guarantees the fruit that we
bear. And this is our sanctification.
and he that hath begun a good work in you will perform it unto
the day of Jesus Christ. So here in this prayer, on behalf
of his disciples and with them, the whole church and elect body
of Christ, our Lord Jesus petitions his Father to bestow the blessings
of covenant promise that he has earned. and our Saviour, He tells
us that He has sanctified Himself. He set Himself apart on our behalf
as our surety. He dedicated Himself as our substitute,
and in doing so, The Saviour fulfilled all the obligations
incumbent upon Him under the terms of the covenant of peace,
the everlasting covenant. And now having finished the work
of making His people holy, the Lord Jesus wishes us pronounced
so by His Father. and endowed with the blessings
that will enable us to live actively in the power of His Spirit and
in conformity to His will. Now, let me just pause and make
this point. We do not say that believers
do not sin. On the contrary, we do sin. and we are more acutely aware
of our sin as believers than ever we were before. Furthermore,
we shall continue to sin until this body of flesh is laid down
in death for this simple reason, that in the flesh dwelleth no
good thing. That said, sin is not our wish. Holiness is our desire. Christlikeness is our desire. It's what we aspire to. And we delight to know that we
are predestinated to be conformed to the image of God's Son, our
Saviour. Yes, sin remains. Yes, the vestiges
of sin will accompany us to our grave. But the day is coming
when all sin will be gone and every side effect of sin will
be banished. Pain and sorrow and hurt. We shall have new bodies. to
go with our new spirits, and we shall bask in the glory of
our God. But what I think is most important
for us to notice today is that sanctification of a sinner is
God's work alone. And just as no child of God will
ever be punished for their transgressions of the law or their evil disobedience
to the will of God. So no believer will ever glory
before God for their obedience to the law or their supposed
good works. Those who lay the duty of sanctification
on a believer to be worked for and accomplished under legal
obedience or legal observation have missed the central lesson
of grace. It is Christ himself who of God
is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. We are saved by grace, we are
kept by grace, and we shall be glorified by grace. All our good
works are foreordained that we should walk in them. And absolutely
nothing in our justification, our sanctification, or our glorification
is dependent upon us. We bring nothing but our need
and the Lord provides everything needful. Now some will say, Teaching like
this is a blueprint for carelessness and it removes all motivation
for good works and for Christian service. Really? Really, is that what you think?
Believers are motivated by gratitude. Not hope for reward. We're not
mercenaries in the kingdom of Christ. Our desire is to honour
God. That's part of the new creation. Not to indulge the passions of
the old man. We struggle against that. We labour against that. It offends
us in our hearts when we see the weakness that we have. We
know what we want to do. We feel that this body of flesh
is a detriment to us. It is holding us back. It is
a ball and chain. Sanctification should not be
employed as a stick to beat Christ's flock into submission. It is
a gift of grace to enable us to experience and enjoy the fruits
of Christ's labour on our behalf. His transforming work in our
heart and in our soul. The Lord tells his father that
he has commissioned these disciples. He has commissioned them and
he is ready to dispatch these disciples to be about the business
of building up his kingdom and gathering in the lost sheep to
the ends of the earth. We call it the Great Commission.
This is to be their task as Christ's servants. As thou hast sent me
into the world, Christ came as the suffering servant of God. As thou hast sent me into the
world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And all
who live the Christian life are called and commissioned in the
service of the Lord. and it is our delight to follow
our Saviour, because He has given us Himself. We learn from Him that no man,
having put his hand to the plough and looking back, is fit for
the kingdom of God. And that fitness is not our own,
it is our God-given sanctification. We do not obtain our Christian
assurance from our good works. We don't rejoice in our personal
obedience. Nor do we lose our Christian
assurance by our failures and our faults. All our hope and
confidence and trust must be wholly in Christ. If we measure
our ups and downs in life by our perception of personal obedience
or lack thereof, we shall have no joy because of the accusations
of the devil, who will always find ground for fault. despite the fact that Paul tells
us, there is therefore now no condemnation to them who are
in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the
spirit. And we will find no real peace owing to the duties that we have
left undone. Our joy and our peace in our
Christian life is in Christ's complete, full and free salvation,
not in our successes, not in our failures. Brothers and sisters,
our personal sanctification is the free gift of God in Christ. It is received and enjoyed by
faith. It isn't measured by our works,
but it does enable worship and it does equip us for service. By faith, we trust in the Lord,
our righteousness, and we receive his righteousness as members
of Christ's body. We believe that he who sanctified
himself and offered up his own body on the tree sanctified to
himself, a people fit for God's presence. This is a glorious
church, says the Apostle Paul to the Ephesians. This is a,
let me put it like this, you are a glorious church, says Paul
to the Ephesians, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing,
holy and without blemish. Faith lays hold upon these assertions. Faith stands upon the promises,
believes in the success of Christ and rests in his perfections. There's a beautiful little benediction. employed by the Apostle Paul
to the Thessalonians that I think just wonderfully sums up the
Lord's teaching here on sanctification, and I hope accords with what
we have been thinking about together in these things that I've mentioned
today. The verse is 1 Thessalonians
5, verse 23, and in it Paul writes this. Listen carefully. 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. 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. Doesn't that resonate with the
Lord's words to Solomon when he said that his eye and his
heart was upon the temple perpetually? Not the bricks and the mortar
and the wood, but the spiritual body of Christ. The heart of
God, the care of God, the love of God upon his people perpetually. Our sanctification is a divine
work. It is a complete work. It is
a successful work. And it shall, throughout our
Christian experience, serve our needs to the glory of God and
to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Thank you once again for your
attention. And I trust that the Lord will
bless these things to us today.