1154. What is Sanctification All About? Pt. 1

Welcome to The Daily Platform from Bob Jones University in Greenville South Carolina today on The Daily Platform will your 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 to sanctify them as well 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 first in this series preached by Dr. Pettit will be guiding us through the first part of what is sanctification all about.

I want to read tonight. The Scripture from John chapter 17 a not to preach from that.

But I'd like to read the text of Scripture tonight that we chose for this week in John chapter 17 is the words of Jesus as he speaks to his own disciples is as we understand his heart, his passion, his desire what what does he want for them. In John chapter 17 in verse 15 we are going to read and will read all the way down to verse 19. The Scripture says Jesus says I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, thou shouldest keep them from the evil they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth by 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. This was the prayer of Jesus.

And as he prayed for his disciples then we are quite assured that he prays for us tonight of all who are most earnest about our sanctification. Surely it must be Jesus himself and his desire is the that you and I would mature and grow and be sanctified in Christ Christ. So as we pray as we asked the Lord's blessing, which you tonight decide in your heart, Lord, please sanctify me please, Lord, help me please help me to grow because if he's praying for that in your praying for that and assuredly. That's a prayer that he will answer.

Would you please stand with me as we pray tonight. I want you to pray along with me and for those that are around you that God will answer this prayer that Jesus right then and as we are most assured of his pray Lord.

First of all, we come to you tonight. Realizing that we have fallen short, that we have not measured that our hearts are not where they ought to be Lord we have struggled with sin. We have battled with temptation. We have fallen Lord I pray that you will forgive us a Lord that you will cleanse us and that you will sanctify us by your spirit by the work of your word in our life Lord, we pray for a reviving of the spirit of God. We pray that you answer the prayers of the pray by many students in this student body for you to work in our hearts. I pray Lord for that student who is drifted in their heart to become hard, and/or that they are they are worldly and they really have not really embraced your calling of their life that tonight.

Throughout this course of the week that by your power by your spirit you will melt the heart of clay and that you work in our hearts, Lord, I pray for Christians who who want to live for you and they are struggling with a particular sin or an emotional deep struggle in their life.

Lord, please give grace and blessing and sanctify them through thy word and I truth then Lord for many who are mature believers. I pray that even as Paul prayed that he would press so that we will press over to your likeness or do you work tonight in our hearts we pray in Jesus name, amen. As Christians we believe that there is one God and that God has revealed himself in three persons, we describe our God as the Trinity and since there are three and one then there is always a perfect unity within the Trinity. For example, the father the son and the Holy Spirit are perfectly unified in their qualities so that for example the love of Christ is the exact same love of the father and the exact same love of the Holy Spirit.

Likewise, not only are they unified in their qualities but they are united in their actions that each part of the Trinity has a very vital part in the life of bringing a person to salvation or bringing those of us who are saved to sanctification.

It is the work of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit.

Tonight I'd like to do sort of a big picture message and really my goal is for us to understand first of all, what is sanctification all about. What is it mean but specifically to see it in the light of the work of the father and the son and the Holy Spirit in our lives.

So let me give you three verses of Scripture that I'd like to read to you tonight I'll refer back to these Scripture verses over the course of the evening. The first one is found in the book of Jude and the opening verse, verse one. The Scripture reads Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the father and the second verse first Corinthians chapter 1 and verse two where the Scripture says under the church of God which is at Corinth them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, so you note, they are sanctified by God the father. They are sanctified by God the son, and then thirdly in first Peter chapter 1 and verse two where Peter writes these words elect according to the foreknowledge of God the father, through sanctification of the Spirit. So when we read.

We read in these verses that our spiritual growth, our spiritual maturity is the work of all three persons of the Trinity.

I think it should be obvious that if the Trinity is united in this work of sanctification, then sanctification must be incredibly important. Important in our lives important in its value in our life. So much so that the book of Hebrews says that without holiness. No man shall see the Lord if were not being sanctified and will not see the Lord. Let me say it this way, if you're not interested in being sanctified, then, are you really interested in the father and the son and the Holy Spirit, because that's what they are interested in. If you're not interested in the Trinity and what does that say about your relationship to God who has revealed himself in three-person.

So let's then look tonight, but try to grasp what sanctification means, and specifically how it relates to the father and the son and the Holy Spirit. So my desire tonight is to be very simple. I just want to lay the groundwork for all the other speakers that will calm and speak from various tax and various angles and look at sanctification.

I just want to lay the foundation primarily because it's important that we be all all on the same page that we really are aligned in our thinking as we seek to understand what sanctification is all about. So three basic ideas are three basic truths tonight. I will share with you about sanctification. First of all we talk about the word sanctification. What we mean we mean specifically, something which is common, something that is you legitimately use for ordinary stuff, but it is taken, and it is set apart for God's purposes something ordinary something common something every day, but it's taken and is dedicated it's devoted to its set apart to God for his purposes.

For example, it could be something as common or ordinary as a bowl or a fork or a shirt or tent, or a musical instrument or a day in the week or a specific family or even a specific city. In other words, these are things that are very common, very ordinary in daily life. And yet these things are taken and they are specifically set apart for God. That's the idea of the meaning of the word sanctification.

I'm not talking about necessarily purification for sin getting sin out of your life. I just simply say it's something mistaken that is ordinary and is given over to God.

So throughout the Old Testament.

What we see we see God the father setting things apart for himself in Genesis chapter 2 verse three what a God, he set apart one day in the week as a holy day listener Genesis 2, three and God blessed the seventh day, any sanctified, because that in it he had rested from all of his work which God created and made. You know the story of creation six days and on the seventh. He rested six days common days, the seventh day was a special day and it was a day in which mankind is not to work that is to set it apart, so his focus can be on resting and on serving his creator in the book of Exodus chapter 3 God said that when the Israelites leave Egypt. They were to consecrate or they were to set apart the firstborn son, and the firstborn cattle to be the Lord's Exodus 13 to he says sanctified under me all the firstborn so the firstborn child, the firstborn son and my family on the firstborn son, so if I was Jewish I would be set apart and devoted to God from the other children.

For example, the Jewish people worship God in a tent. Have you ever slept in a tent. Well, God had a tent in which he was to be worship. It was called the tabernacle and it was used to be only for the worship of God.

Later only became a building permit.

Call the temple and everything that was used in the temple worship was to be strictly used in that temple. Those would be things like the altar of the instruments, the vessels those we been forces were the knives, as would been bowls out of all the tribes of Israel.

There were 12 tribes of one tribe was set aside and devoted for sacred purposes. What was the name of that truck they would travel what the tribe of Levi the Levites and the Levites did various things.

Some of them were musicians, some of them were guards.

Some of them move the furniture. Some of them. The priest offered sacrifices but everything they did was devoted and set apart under God. From everything else that was going out and you could go through the whole Old Testament and find this out. You could go on a note. For example, in Joshua chapter 20 in verse seven there were six cities in the land of Israel that was set apart there called cities of refuge have you ever heard of those.

What were the cities of refuge for they were for people to run to if they accidentally kill somebody. Let's say you're in a car accident and somebody gets killed. Well the family from that that individual that got killed, they will seek revenge on you and they're gonna come after you to kill you.

So what did you do, you ran to a city of refuge and there you were safe from the what they called the slayer the ones going to take your life. And Joshua tells us that those cities were set apart by God for that specific purpose, so the Old Testament word for sanctified means to set apart by God for holy use is now. This helps us understand why the Bible speaks of Jesus being sanctified. How do we know that in Luke chapter 2 when Jesus was just born what is it say about his parents.

It says and I read and when the days of her. Mary's purification according to the law of Moses was accomplished that they brought Jesus to Jerusalem to present Jesus to the Lord and then they quote the Old Testament as it is written in the law, the Lord, every male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord would Jesus was a little baby. He was devoted set apart by his parents for holy purposes. Now the next time we discover the life of Jesus. How old is he he's 12 years old. What is he doing. He's in the city of Jerusalem is having his bar mitzvah and his parents leave after the feast, and as they're traveling they realize Jesus is not there so they come back into the city of Jerusalem, and they seek from for three days and after three days they find him and what is he doing he is conversing with the with the scholars of the law and of course the worried parents asking, why are you doing this what is going on. What is what is taking place, what, where, why are you this way and he looked at his parents and he said why were you searching for me. Don't you know that I must be about my father's business. When we see that Jesus understood his life was to be devoted to God in tonight we read in John 17. In verse 19 Jesus said he sanctified, he devoted himself that his disciples would also follow him and be devoted to the truth. So, in the New Testament and in the Old Testament the whole idea of sanctification is being set apart under God. Now let's go back to the book of Jude in the first verse and what is it say in Jude chapter 1 or stage in Jude verse one it says that we are sanctified by God the father. What does that you and I are sanctified by God the father. It means this that the father set you apart, you were sanctified by God you didn't think about yourself.

God sanctified, it means that God set you apart for his own eternal purpose in his own will. Now, if God set you apart in God is eternal and when did he set you apart.

It wasn't yesterday. It was in eternity you say preacher. I don't understand that whenever you find something in the Bible that you don't understand the get on your knees and worship you. The Bible teaches us that you and I were set apart, sanctified by God in eternity for his purpose and his will, then what it means is, then God redeemed those people when he sent his son Jesus into the world, that he might set apart a people for himself.

So what did Jesus Christ come to.

He came to redeem those that God and set apart and then what did God do. He sends the Holy Spirit into our hearts that we through salvation might live out that set of apartness. He set us apart. Jesus died for our sins, he shed his blood and then the spirit of God works in our hearts we believe we receive Christ and we are set apart at the moment of our salvation and a devotion to God from the rest of the world. That's what he said in John 17. I don't pray for the world. I pray for them that I've taken out of the world.

So by the work of the father we we stated this way for years. The father planned our salvation. The sun purchased our salvation and the Holy Spirit prepares our heart to receive that salvation. This is all of the work of the father's eternal plan of completely setting us apart under him limit is you? Have you ever been gripped by God's work of sanctification in you as a separate gripped you I believe that one of the greatest motivations for your own sanctification is when you come to the full assurance of your own salvation. Let me explain it this way. I didn't grow up in a Christian home a girl I grew up in a normal Christian, I'll say that way but I did grow up in a home where heard the gospel until I was 17 years old when I came to understand the gospel at 17 years old I idea I wanted to go to heaven but I didn't want to get saved alike to change. So for the next two years.

God began to work in my heart, short story is that my freshman year in college I went to school in Charleston South Carolina at the Citadel. My roommate on the soccer team witness to me and share the gospel with me and I heard a message preached over the radio and Easter Sunday 1975, and during that message. I responded and accepted Jesus and I really believe I got saved. But let me be honest, I would say from the time accepted the Lord until some time in probably October of that year was in the springtime, so this would been five or six months later, I knew that I had accepted Jesus.

I knew that I knew that I'd made a definite decision.

I did want to be saved, but I wasn't fully assured that God it accepted me. I just didn't know it, and I'll never forget, probably on a Tuesday night I went to a Bible study on campus and a fella stood up and from the book from the from the epistle of first John, he tall on the evidences that you're really a child of God and I sat there and I listened to each evidence, and I never heard this in my life and all of a sudden for the first time in my life I knew not so much that I had accepted him but that he had actually saved me because he had literally done in my heart.

What the Bible said and when I walked out of that Bible study that night.

I can't tell you first of all, the joy that I had the desire to live for the Lord that I had in for the first time I really grasped that I am the words that he has set me apart unto himself and that I must live my life so let me dig a little deeper. I often wonder, could it be that many of you who really are not living for the Lord really have never settled in your heart that he has set you apart that you are his, because when you realize you were his that this was what his work is done and what is that motivate me to want to do in my life. No wonder Romans 12 one makes sense. I beseech you therefore, by the mercies of God, that you present yourself on the God a living sacrifice that dedication under God is not some miserable decision, but it is the joyful reality that I am his. So what is the idea of sanctification. It is being set apart under God by God. The second thing I like to say tonight about sex, sanctification is it sanctification has the idea of an attitude and that is sanctification means to treat or to regard something as holy.

Alright, so let me give you an illustration tonight that may help you understand this, so I brought one of my mandolins so I ask honey man was. You have us in only six, so I brought one of them tonight and this is probably probably back when I bought it by by far it was, it was by far the most expensive mandolin I ever to own it was a Highline mandolin and I bought this.

Let's see I think about it like 19. What was it is about 1999. I don't think about it when you are with me will I don't know that about when you were with me. I don't think you probably don't remember but anyway we were we were we were I I have been doing some study up on you know really nice high level and let's and so one of them. I had discovered it was made by the Gibson company and they make very Highline mandolins and this when I really like. I like the way it was. Look at way it looked and it was named after famous. A bluegrass mandolin picker name Sam Bush is called a Bush mandolin so but when I saw the price tag. It was like will be out of my my lead.

I just couldn't get there so we're preaching and I'm in where Nashville Tennessee is great place about mandolin, so I went to music sought shop downtown Nashville called ruins and they they they sell vintage expensive instruments and use it when you're walking one of the stores you walk in and listen to the people that walk off the street and pick up the guitar and start playing it because these guys like really good so you got the guitar section over here and you got the fiddle section over here and you know then there's the mat mandolin section and think they had like a wall full of mandolins and when I turned the corner. I looked up and there was it was love at first sight this beauty was sitting up on the wall. It's got some very unique features about it was sitting there and I thought I can't believe like they actually got one because I like really hard to find, so the guy when the guys in the shop. I said you mind if I play that he said are you interested about it. Is it maybe so I took it and I went back in the room that typically go back in these rooms you said there man. As soon as I strongest this like gorgeous and so the guy comes back in and he says are you interested as well. What's your best price and I know how much it costs.

Retail is what your best price, and so we came back he so I went up and met Mr. I talked to Mr. Gruen and he said here's his best price he gave me the price I said okay and I thought you know if you want to buy just go just go for it. So I said, I'm just going I got a credit card and go for anything so I took my credit card and I pay for right there and then they asked me a question. They said would you would you like to go with you or would you like to have it shipped. Why would I have it shipped. It doesn't make any sense except that I was so excited that I took it home and that night I had to preach when I would start praying for the service. I would have thought this mandolin in my company into the mandolin or something. So I said ship it to the next church and so they did ship the next church he got there.

And of course I told everybody on the team and told my kids and their value.

So when I got it may never buy just huddled around a you know when I opened it up and I pulled out this beautiful thing and then I looked at my children as a children. I just want you to know that that mandolin is more expensive than you, so you been there re-there re-careful or I will send you to heaven as quickly as possible so II played this. I played this for quite some time and then one summer I was up at Northland Camp and we were having a practice one that your member.

This will I was we were having a practice and I and I had this mandolin and think and one of the guys working at camp looked at me and he said hey you monthly man. I sit sure so he took it and it has will strap around and he was holding and I don't know how it happened but this this will peg your popped off and literally this dismantlement and it hit the concrete floor in this little curl right here popped off and I mean I've got is still here. I've got like a deep gash unit and when it hit the floor. Everybody turned and looked at me and you like is to kill the guy.

And so I didn't and I was actually very spirit filled.

I'm very proud of that and I did. I didn't do anything to him and I took it to the shop and they fix it is fun. If you're interested in buying a please see me afterwards tonight and have a facility now it's it's the way you treated anything.

The special some of you guys have gotten engaged in the last two or three months measure question how special did you treat that diamond you bought that Google me some of you were so so freaked out you know like every day went okay. So there it walk away because your whole life is what is it mean to be sanctified. It is, it is the way we treat something. Unfortunately, that's all the time we have for today's sermon entitled what sanctification is all about.

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