1034. The Foundation of Christian Sanctification pt. 1

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. The school was founded in 1927 by the evangelist Dr. Bob Jones Senior.

His intent was to make a school where the focus would be on Christ. So he established daily chapel services today. That tradition continues with fervent biblical preaching from the University Chapel platform today on The Daily Platform will hear a sermon preached at the Bob Jones University Bible conference.

This is a time when classes were dismissed and students concentrate on hearing the word preached from several visiting pastors and evangelists throughout the week. Today's sermon is from the 2021 Bible conference where the theme was.

Sanctify them as will learn through this short study.

Sanctification means to be set apart under God. It's an attitude of treating or regarding something as holy. Today's sermon is the third in this series preached by Dr. Sam Horn will be teaching us the first part of the foundation of Christian sanctification. I say a lot of things about Dr. Horn.

Many of you know him you had been classes there are so many things about him that I am so thankful for.

He's a he he never stops, no grass grows under his feet. He's the Tasmanian angel and he is always moving about always recruiting, always planning, always preparing but for me personally.

He was a great, great friend. He was my pastor in the church that we attended as a family for many years and has been an incredible servant of giving of himself unreservedly to the ministry here Bob Jones University now where he is in his leadership roles were so thankful to having this afternoon. I'm sorry I have slipped out because actually the Bob Jones Academy is having their own Bible conference right now and I'm scheduled to speak over there 15 minutes ago and so I'm go slip out, but I just want to say thank you Sam for being with us.

Would you give Dr. Horn a warm welcome is a kind thankful that we get to be together for these several days. I'm looking forward to fellowship with good friends and concentrated word time as we sit under the word even as I heard it this morning from Wilcock and then really the topic that is before us. The topic of Christian sanctification feel sanctification for me and I assume it's true for you is one of those doctrinal realities that we know should be part of our life. We actually want it to happen in our life but it's often the most difficult and sometimes the most inconsistent part of our spiritual life so I know is I came this weekend as I began preparing for the message this afternoon and tomorrow and Friday I am eager to sit under the preaching of God's word and I'm asking God to do that sanctifying work in my own life and it began. Even this morning as I heard what you heard is we heard together this afternoon I'm gonna direct your attention to a passage of Scripture that speaks to the gospel foundation of Christian sanctification. It it is built on something.

It is a response to something and so were going to look at the foundation of Christian sanctification and then on Friday when we come together were going to talk about the spiritual formation of sanctification.

So how does what God is doing on this foundation actually take place in my life.

And so the foundation today and then on Friday we'll talk a little bit about the formation and then in one of the workshops I've been asked to do. I plan to address the surprising fruit of Christian sanctification. For those of you who are interested.

So what do we mean when we think about sanctification. Sanctification in terms of its foundation.

What do we mean when we talk about the gospel being the foundation of Christian sanctification. Most of us heard the gospel from a trusted source. We heard a quiet young. I would venture to say that the vast majority of you in this room today who are truly born again heard the gospel and in many of you grew up in homes where you saw the gospel, not just hurting inside in your home heard it from your pastor, you, you heard it at a Christian camp for heard it at a Christian school chapel, you weren't gospel lies at a very young age and you came to embrace his God help to the realities of that gospel in a very personal way.

And so when we think about the gospel in that kind of a context it's very easy for us to think about the gospel as a ticket that we need in order to get entrance to a certain place or a certain destination. How in the world am I going to get to heaven answer the gospel if I don't want to end and how all if I want to spend eternity with God.

If I want forgiveness from sin. If I want you name any sort of gospel reality that comes out of what we did when we embrace the gospel, we tend to reduce the gospel were little reductionistic in our thinking about the gospel, we tend to reduce it to the entrance requirement disorder.

The ticket that gets us in. We believe a certain set of facts we repent from behaviors that we know are true about us and we pray and ask the Lord and the plate place are our full faith and confidence in him and we check off all the boxes and then the gospel is done and then we move on to the rest of our Christian life and the apostle Paul is actually going to build the case in the book of Romans that the entire Christian life isn't just entered into because of the gospel. The gospel actually shapes and forms, and is the foundation and interwoven into the very DNA of every part of the Christian life from start to finish and there is no better place to look at this than in the passage that to me is one of the most familiar passages in Romans and yet one of the most essential for understanding the topic that were talking about this week's and ask you to turn in your Bible to Romans chapter 12, the minute I tell you the tax Romans chapter 12, you know exactly which two verses were going to. So let's just address that at the beginning you know and I know that there are great benefits to a familiar text and one of the great benefits to a familiar text is its familiarity it. It feels very comfortable desk we know it.

It sorta just flows off our lips.

How many of you here have memorized Romans 12 wanted to can I see your hands.

I mean that's virtually everybody here you have read it so often that you've memorized it and it just flows off your mouth. It just literally rolls off your tongue is that familiarity so the text has this benefit as we as we come to it this afternoon. We are not coming to some obscure text or some new tax that we really haven't given a lot of attention to. This is one of those foundational texts in our Christian life and it's been rolling around in our life since we became believers. Now that's the benefit. The difficulty of a familiar text is its familiarity. It's so familiar. It's like come on Romans 12 wanted to at 154 in the afternoon. We just ate. Are you kidding me how many more sermons. Can I hear on the list I wanted to let you think.

Come on you, you could come up with something better than Rumsfeld wanted to it that familiar so here's what I want us to do if you don't mind. And if you can. I want you to check everything that you've known and heard about Romans 12 wanted to. I just want you to put it over to the side. I don't you get rid of it because it's all valuable, but just put it over to the side and think for a minute like you would be thinking if you were listening to the book of Romans read for the very first time. Like these believers in Rome were hearing it when it was being read to them. Hey, a letter came from the apostle Paul that would have been abides.

That was an noteworthy moment and the church would've gathered together either collectively in one place, or maybe in the little homes in the places where they met in their in their own churches and they would have read this letter and it would have. It would have impacted them the very first time they heard it. So as we come to the tax that is so familiar to us. I want you to do that. I want you to try to listen to it like you have never heard of before. What she would hear would would lead you to five amazing realities that Paul places in this text that relate to the issue of your Christian sanctification. So let's notice what Paul says the first thing that he does is he gives this penetrating appeal. Notice how he says it, I beseech you, brethren, now you know when you think about that word beseech it's often easy to kinda hear it in our own language in our own context where we typically don't make really strong statements to each other.

I mean it's pretty rare and in my relationships of people and in your relationships with other people for somebody to sorta get in your face and say now listen very, very carefully. You must do this when when Paul says, I beseech you sometimes we think of it sort of as a gracious asking you not really want to ask you to think about something here. It's the way we would appeal to somebody. This is not just a good suggestion and it's not even a passionate request.

This is an authoritative expectation for 11 chapters, Paul has been laying out some pretty jaw-dropping truths and on the basis of everything he's been talking about.

He gets everybody's attention and and he says to them.

Now I am speaking to you with all the authority that I mentioned when I introduced myself back in chapter 1, I am exhorting you to do something I expect you to read and heed and receive what I'm saying that's the idea behind this appeal, so there is the nature of it. It is a strong exhortation and then there are the boundaries of it there's there are boundaries to this I beseech you to read the red whatever this exhortation is whatever Paul is going to get in our grill about and talk to us about it isn't for unbelievers is for people that have actually experienced and personally belong to the community of faith that Paul has been talking about for 11 And so that's a really important point to know because it takes a lot of pressure off of. If you are not a believer and you know you know that I know that you know if what we we really aren't in the family. If we really don't belong to Christ, the spirit of God has been telling us that an you probably know that you may have been denying that you made putting it aside. But whatever is coming in these two verses is going to be absolutely ludicrous to you.

It's not to make any sense to you, you're going to listen to this and when we get to the end users can shake your head and go what that that makes absolutely zero cents why would I do that that isn't what I thought the gospel was at all but if you're a believer. Even if you struggle in areas of your life when you get to the end of what Paul is saying you're going to go you know what that makes total sense. I get it.

And so that takes a lot of pressure if if you're not a believer than whatever is coming next for Paul doesn't apply to you. There's a whole another expectation he would have. He would say examine yourself like you said the Corinthians to make sure that you are in and that's a whole another topic and we are little bit about that even this morning so this exhortation is to brethren. And then there is a reality behind this appeal and that reality is this that that whatever is going on here is possible because of things that have happened to you and so by the time you get to Romans chapter 12 and Paul is making his appeal to you. You've already learned some things you learned.

For example, in the first three chapters of Romans that you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in fact, by the time you get the Roma chapter 1. If you really understand what Paul is saying and how he is cataloguing you. You have found yourself not just ignorant of God, you have found yourself suppressing the truth about God and in outright rebellion celebrating the things that God sends people to help and it doesn't just look like a bunch of people out there just throwing off all restraints of doing what they want in chapter 2. You find out that some of the most self-righteous and morally outwardly moral people are in this saying category. By the time you get to the middle of chapter 3. Find out there is no one, no one, not even one who is righteous and that's why Paul says the wrath of God is right now coming down from heaven, but there's something else that is also coming down from heaven.

Along with that wrath is a righteousness that is coming down from God and it came down through the work of the atoning work the that the life and the obedience and the death of Jesus Christ and that is how a just God takes unjust people and justifies them in a just way and that's the whole point to the end of her objective three slick will that happen to me and then Paul goes on and he talks about the fact that that is all that happened that that moment of justification where God declared you righteous on the merits of a righteousness that was not earned by you brought you into a whole new round you were in an old ground that was dominated by Susan and dad give you live for entirely different purposes. You that that one was like a kingdom of darkness and by the time you get to Romans chapter 5.

You are now permanently removed from that realm and you're in a new and not only that the war between you and God is over. There is a peace that has been established in the Paul goes on to explain all of this and by the time you get to Romans chapter 8, you begin to discover that God is been doing this for a long time, even before you work, you get to the end of Romans chapter 8 and there is this glorious recognition that nothing nothing in all creation, nothing in the universe.

No one in the universe can separate you from God.

That's what Paul could say God is for us who can be against, and in the midst of all of this, you got something you got a new mind you got a new mind when you were delivered from a sentence of sin and removed from the realm of sin and release from the sovereignty of sin and are currently being delivered from the power of sin, you got a new mind and that new mind allows all of this to happen will talk about that.

Just a moment so that is this penetrating appeal. Paul is saying, look, I'm talking to all genuine believers who have experience these realities and I am exhorting you to do something and that brings us to the second thing we see the text here and that is this what is it that Paul is exhorting us to do and and and so let's notice this piercing objective that goes right through the heart of Christian sanctification. It pierces through everything goes right to the very soul of what is it that Paul is exhorting believers who have embraced the gospel and have been embraced by the gospel to do and it is at the end of verse two.

Paul says, here's what you do, here's what I'm exhorting you to do. I am exhorting you to test. I'm exhorting you to prove I'm exhorting you to discern something I want you to to use spiritual discernment to discover something that isn't good and acceptable and perfect. I want you to discover and do the will of God that is of paramount importance.

We went when you get out of the first 11 chapters and now Paul is in the Sadie you right now you gotta live this stuff out in your life when you get up in the morning you start walking around and you go out in the marketplace and you show up at church and you have a relationship other people. Here is how these 11 chapters need to flow out of your life. At the heart of it. Paul says now you need to discern and do the will of God. This is the only place that Paul talks as we listen to what he said that the fees in chapter 5 verses eight and 10. He said this or at one time you were darkness member that realm. We talked about that kingdom.

You were that, but now you are lying in the Lord walk as children of light and then you say this so what is at me for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true and then he says and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord, you know, this passage of the road to the flipping to chapter 2 it is God who works in you both to will and to work or to do for his good pleasure. And then if you want even more plainly, it's in this incredible prayer in Colossians chapter 1 verse nine pauses on the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and wisdom and understanding that comes from the spirit. Why so that you would walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him is a policy. The mission of your life as a gospel person is to discern and do the will of God. And then he's going to give us a description of that will and is gonna take us up like 30,000 feet to tell us. Okay the will of God for your life right now is that you where the shoes and that shirt or that you buy this car and not that khakis cannot literally bring it up to a much higher level and easy to say you are looking for the will of God in the will of God is like this. It is spiritually beneficial to you and to other. It is good, it is morally right and spiritually proper. It is acceptable.

It is spiritually beneficial. It is morally right and spiritually proper, and then it is fully and completely aligned with the width of the word of God as he set it forth. So whatever the will of God is like it is. It is this it is it is me consistently doing what is spiritually beneficial and helpful others. What is morally right and spiritually proper in God's sight and what is fully in line with God's word so I take whatever I'm doing and I measure it by those three ideas. I have a pretty good idea when I'm not walking in a way that's fully pleasing to the seltzer pauses.

This is what I'm exhorting you to do.

I'm exhorting you to look at your life and I'm exhorting you to discern what you're doing in your life and it needs to be like this, it needs to be spiritually beneficial and helpful to others. It needs to be morally right and spiritually proper in the sight of God and he needs to be fully compliant needs to be fully in line with what ever God has said in his work, and God is giving you two things to help you do this is given you a new mind a regenerated mind. This is what we're talking about just a few moments ago, our natural mind when we were born in our sins could never conform or or or grasp or embrace what Paul is talking about. I mean this is how he describes what we were like in our mind as unbelievers. He said now this I say testify in the Lord.

Ephesians 417 that you must no longer walk as Gentiles in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of their heart. They have been good become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, they are greedy to practice every kind of impurity. This is this is the mind and that I had before we came to the gospel. In fact, in Romans chapter 8 verse seven through nine pauses the mind that was said to the flesh, the unsaved mind not only didn't want to please God. It couldn't.

And then all of a sudden Ephesians chapter 4, you as a new man got a regenerated mind and then with that. Mine came divine enablement grace. Grace is more than just favor that God has for us unmerited favor. It's more than God's riches at Christ's expense, just a wonderful definition as that might be that isn't the only side of grace. Grace is actually an angle meant that comes from the spirit of God. So Paul is saying to you, there is this penetrating appeal and the appeal is that you would go right to this piercing objective that you would in your life discern and do the will of God.

Now there's 1/3 thing in the text and that is this there is a personal requirement. Whatever discerning and doing God's will entails.

Paul states that you are to do. It was something that you bring to God and what is it to do is to introduce this idea to you that that he's been talking about for 11 chapters in and is the idea that when you were washed from your sins when you were taken out of the kingdom of darkness and you are translated you are transferred into the kingdom of his son. You came in as a son, but you also came in into other ways you came in as a ruling King you are going to rule in that kingdom and that's all the New Testament it's all in Revelation Revelation 4 and five. So here you are today and if you are in this kingdom. You are just a son or daughter of God.

You actually have been given the status and that kingdom and your status is that of King you are a royal King. But there's another way that you came into that kingdom. You came in as the sun came in as a king but you came in as a priest and Peter to talk about it this way, you are a royal priesthood, and you and I sit here at 2:10 Wednesday afternoon and that doesn't really compute but if you lived in Peter's day. That would have been an absolutely stunning statement. There was one nation of all the nations of their nothing about go back in your Old Testament think about Egypt and Syria in Babylon and all of the nations and there was one nation that God selected out of those nations to rule over those nations and that was his nation, the King of Kings himself was good to be the king of that nation and every one of the people in that nation that belong to that king were in themselves. Kings and they were supposed to rule over all the nations, but that's not all they were. They were also priests. They had a mission with all those other nations Old Testament Israelite was supposed to be part of a kingdom that was going to rule all of the other kingdoms, and that was good. I mediate between kingdom of God. They were priests. Unfortunately, that's all the time we have for today's sermon titled foundations of Christian sanctification.

Be sure to listen tomorrow is will hear the conclusion of the sermon from Dr. Sanborn preached from the Bob Jones University Chapel platform