New Fruit | The Meaning of Sanctification

About this sermon

Introduction: In this 6th chapter of Romans, Paul has taught us about the new position given to the believer in Jesus Christ. He has also explained how this new position came to be. It’s explained entirely by God, by the grace of God, by the Son of God, and brought to us through the Word of God. And having experienced God’s powerful saving work in our lives, we now have new relationship to grace, to obedience, to righteousness. His point, in this 6th chapter, is to demonstrate what grace really teaches the people of God. Grace doesn’t lead us into sin. Grace delivers us from sin. God’s people are a changed people – To go on in sin, in the way we did before knew Christ, is not just unthinkable, it’s impossible. Salvation did not just change our status. God changed us. But God’s people are not just a changed people. Due to that change we are also a responsible people – Now we are free to choose, and we MUST choose in accordance with our true position. We must now present our members to God as those who are slaves of righteousness, and the outcome of those choices is that they lead to sanctification. So that what follows here, in verses 20-23, has to do with that ongoing choice. It has to do with the choices that we must make as we experience the sanctification that he just mentioned. That’s our focus today, we consider the sanctification that every Christian will experience. THE NEW FRUIT THAT BELONGS TO A NEW LIFE. THE MEANING OF SANCTIFICATION We begin by understanding the meaning of this term. What is sanctification? How are we to think about it? There is more than one way that the Bible refers to sanctification. POSITIONAL SANCTIFICATION As we said last week, sanctification, in ALL of its uses, refers to consecration. It refers to separation and devotion. It speaks of holiness. But there’s more than one way that we have been consecrated or are being consecrated to God. Sometimes when the Bible refers to sanctification, it is referring to something that happened when we were saved. It refers to that which belongs to our conversion. When the Lord saved us, He separated us to Himself. We belong to Him and have been separated from the world unto God. ESV Galatians 6:14 But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Even this has more than one aspect. WE WERE SET APART BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD UNTO CONVERSION NAU 1 Peter 1:1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen 2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood: May grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure. ESV 2 Thessalonians 2:13 But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. WE WERE SET APART BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD THROUGH CONVERSION NAU 1 Corinthians 1:2 To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours: ESV 1 Corinthians 6:11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. ESV Hebrews 10:10 And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. All these verses refer to sanctification in a position sense. In a final and fixed sense. ESV John 15:19 If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

Topics

• Holiness