Charles Stanley offers a profound exploration of sanctification, shedding light on this vital aspect of spiritual life. In his insightful dialogue, he breaks down the terminology, providing a clearer understanding of positional, process, and ultimate sanctification. With personal stories and Biblical insights, listeners are challenged to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in their walk of faith. This episode is an invitation to embrace the continuous work of sanctification and deepen one’s commitment to living in Christ.
Welcome to the InTouch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Friday, September 12th. Sanctification may sound like a big church word, but it’s essential to every believer’s growth in Christ. Today, we wrap up our series on the power of the Holy Spirit by exploring His vital role in sanctifying the believer.
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Well, we’re in a series entitled The Power of the Holy Spirit, and we’ve covered many aspects of the work of the Holy Spirit in our life. But in this message, I want to talk about the Holy Spirit sanctifying the believer. And that’s one of those words that maybe you’ve heard and wondered, what in the world does that mean? Or maybe you’re very familiar with it. Or maybe you have heard different views and different aspects of the idea about being sanctified. No matter what you’ve heard, I want you to listen carefully because it is a very, very vital part of the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of every single believer. And I want you to turn, if you will, to 2 Thessalonians. And I want us to read just one verse. And then I want us to look at the work of the Holy Spirit in sanctifying those of us who are his children. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, here’s what he says. Now, one of the first things we want to do is to define what we mean by sanctification. Well, there are several words in the New Testament from which we get this word, sanctification, holiness, and sanctify. All these words, holy, sanctification, to sanctify. These words come from the same root word because they all mean holy. Approximately the same thing. If something is holy, is set apart by God or for God. To sanctify something or someone is to set them apart to God. And so we talk about sanctify and holy. Also, there’s the word saint. And the word saint also comes from the same root word, so that a saint is a person not who has wings floating around in the air, or one of these days will float in the air, not someone who has been lifted up for all of us to bow down to, but a saint is a person who has been saved by the grace of God and by the work of the Holy Spirit set apart by God, so that all of us who are believers are saints. So I want us to look at this whole idea of sanctification of the Spirit and understand that there are three aspects of it. First of all, we talk about sanctification. This is the thing that’s sometimes confusing, and that is that sanctification is a position in which God sees us. Now, what does that mean? It means simply this, that when you and I were saved by the grace of God, that is the moment you placed your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, the Bible says that you were sanctified, that is the Holy Spirit, placed you in a position of being separated by God, that is, by the Holy Spirit. You were separated unto God for God, so that all of us are to live as the servants of God who have been sanctified. That is, we have been declared holy in His sight. Now, how long is that declaration? That is, how long does that last? Are we sent again? No. Because, listen, positional sanctification is something that god does apart from any experience that we have to be positionally sanctified which is the work of his grace at salvation is something that god does totally apart from us it isn’t something we feel it isn’t something we experience it isn’t something that we can identify and say well there i was i was sanctified and placed in that position only when you and i were saved can we look back and say that So those people who are looking at this whole idea of sanctification saying, but let me tell you what happened to me. Well, let me just begin by saying in the very beginning, yes, every single believer is sanctified. It is not limited to a denomination. It is not limited to a group of people who’ve had a particular experience. Positional sanctification talks about my relationship to God. Now, But sanctification is more than that. Well, let’s, for example, relate that to salvation. All of us who have trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, likewise, have been saved. It is a finished, completed action. But on the other hand… We are continually being saved from ourselves and from the power of sin on a day-to-day basis. So it is with the idea of sanctification. The Holy Spirit at salvation not only positionally sanctified us as a child of God, But likewise, it is not only a position, it is a process that goes on in a believer’s life. Look in Colossians chapter 3 for a moment. And this is just typical of many passages of Scripture where Paul is reminding us of something that you and I are to be involved in. The process of sanctification, the work of the Holy Spirit in keeping us apart from sin. Listen, if you will, in chapter 3 of Colossians. Now, this is something we have to do. He says, therefore… on the basis of who we are in Christ, consider or reckon yourself the members of your earthly body. He says, put them to death. That is, put them to death to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, greed, which amounts to idolatry. It’s on account of these things that the wrath of God will come. In them you also once walked. when you were living in them, but now you also put them all aside. Here is the command that you and I are to put out of our life those things that do not fit who we are. That is sanctification. In the process of sanctification, you and I must cooperate with the Holy Spirit. In positional sanctification, He does that to us. in the process of sanctification we rely upon the Holy Spirit we yield ourselves to him we surrender our life to him and we walk in obedience to him so he says in the area of immorality we are to be sanctified from it he says in the whole process of these things that creep into a person’s life we are to keep ourselves clean from these things that will destroy our life When you and I are willing for the Holy Spirit to sanctify us, that is, we are willing to rely upon Him. We are willing to look to Him, obey Him, to keep us clean and pure before Him. That is a purifying process that we go through. And it isn’t something that happens one time. It is something that goes on and on and on. And sometimes it is a painful process because sometimes the Holy Spirit will say, you must sever your relationship with that person. You must sever your relationship with those people. That’s a pulling away. That is a setting apart. And is it not the appeal of the world that the world says, oh, come on. Be a part. Have one with us. Let’s go have a good time. Let’s go party. And the Spirit of God says within you, don’t go with them. Don’t participate. Have nothing to do with that. And they say, oh, come on. You don’t want to be one of those narrow-minded Christians. The Spirit of God says, don’t go with them. And I wonder how many times God’s people have gotten in trouble, gotten into sin, gotten into all kinds of habits that have absolutely ruined their lives because they absolutely refuse to yield to the Holy Spirit who is in the process of sanctifying them in that moment, in that given situation. That’s the work of the Spirit. That’s why Jesus said, I’m not going to leave you comfortless. You’ll never make it without Him. He said, I’m coming to you. He’ll be in you, with you, and upon you because that’s part of His work to keep us from sin. Now, is Jesus Christ the Lord of your life? If Jesus Christ is the Lord of your life, it’s because you have chosen to cooperate with the Holy Spirit, listen, in an experience. And that experience is, yes, I choose Jesus Christ as the Lord of my life. If He’s not Lord of your life, then you’re living in disobedience. If He’s not Lord of your life, then you’re living in unsanctified life. That is, now positionally you’re sanctified and you’re going to heaven. But in the process, that is in the experience of sanctification, in the position of sanctification, you don’t experience that. That’s something God does in our life. But in the process, you and I experience confession. We experience repentance. We experience kneeling before His Lordship. We experience turning our back upon sin. We experience seeking the will of God and abiding by His will. We experience relying upon the Holy Spirit. And so the question comes, are we willing to walk in the Spirit, to abide by the Spirit, to live by the Spirit? Now, let’s come to this whole matter of a crisis. Let’s say that you’ve been saved in your life, and maybe I’ll just give you an experience in my own heart. I’ve told you many times I was saved when I was 12 years of age, and I wanted to do what God wanted me to do, and it wasn’t very long after that until I knew the Lord had called me to preach the gospel, and so… I went to school. I did all the things that you’re supposed to do. But deep down inside of me, there was a deep abiding hunger for God that I could not identify. I couldn’t put my finger on it. I just knew that I wanted more than I had. And I knew that before I became a pastor and before I began to pastor a church and teach in a Bible institute, I knew that I needed something that I didn’t have. I knew that I needed more than I had experienced. And so in the process of seeking to be filled with the Holy Spirit, in that moment of my life, that was a crisis experience. It was a crisis experience whereby, though I had been saved a number of years, The Spirit of God sanctified me completely and totally of everything that God would bring to my mind so that I could say to Him, Lord, everything, all things, anything, fill me with Your Spirit. I want to be whatever You want me to be. I want to do whatever You want me to do, whatever it takes. Well, that was a dramatic experience in my life that was separate from salvation. Surely it was a second blessing. My, did I get blessed today. Now, and so I began to pray and to cry out to God. God, show me what’s going on in my heart. I fasted. I prayed. I did everything imaginable. Asking the Lord for a deeper walk and a deeper experience with Him. So… One night, I was heading, Saturday night, I was heading out to my study, which is in the backyard where I lived. And my wife had brought a book home and she laid it right there on the table. But that night, for some reason, I just picked it up and walked out in the study in the backyard. So I sat down and I opened it up and I began to read the first chapter. I thought, hmm. I began to read and I thought, this man sounds like I feel. Hmm. And it was a book written by Dr. V. Raymond Edmond, They Found the Secret. And it was about different spiritual giants who’d had all kinds of spiritual experiences in their life. But the first one was Hudson Taylor. And I began to read about Hudson Taylor’s spiritual journey and all the frustrations that he was going through and the things that were going on in his life at the time he had that experience. And I thought, oh God, that’s exactly the way I feel. Well, I got to a certain page and and read what happened to him. And I can remember, had a concrete floor, had no rug in that study. I didn’t want anything in there, but just a table and a chair. That’s all I wanted, a place to pray. I finished reading that one short chapter. I got on my face before God and God did the most wonderful work in my heart that I shall never, never, never forget. It was the work of the Holy Spirit sanctifying me. It was the work of the Holy Spirit cleansing me. It was the work of the Holy Spirit giving me a deeper insight into how I am to relate to the Lord Jesus Christ to live victoriously day by day. Now remember this. We are as committed as we can be at that moment in time in our life. But my friend, the work of the Holy Spirit in sanctification is to keep on bringing us to deeper levels of commitment. You say, well now wait a minute. Once you’re fully committed and that’s as committed as you can be, it’s as committed as you can be at that time. But as you get older and as you grow in your Christian experience and as God begins to work in your life and He expands whatever you’re doing and whatever His will for your life is, you begin to learn, your hunger and thirst for God begins to grow and God brings us to deeper levels of understanding and deeper intimacy in our relationship to Him. That was one of the toughest two weeks of my life. It’s like God worked on me day and night. It was his process of sanctifying me. And I remember I started through from one bedroom to the other. And I remember when I hit that door, God showed me something that I had been trying to find out for years probably that I didn’t quite understand. I remember dropping on my knees and calling in and say, let’s pray. I want to tell you what God’s showing me. It was a wonderful, dramatic experience in my own heart. And so when people say, well, do you believe in the second blessing? Amen. First, second, third, fourth, fifth, all the blessings that I can get. And I don’t want to ever stop getting blessed. Brother, I want all God has to give. And at no point in your life or mine do we ever have it all in experience. Now, when you receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, and the Holy Spirit comes in to dwell and to seal you, you’ve got it all. But… You don’t experience it all. There are many things that you and I have potentially we don’t have an experience yet. So when we talk about the process of sanctification, it is the work of the Holy Spirit in our life. And so there are going to be those times when our understanding… is broadened you see there have been times in your life as well as mine where we really thought we were committed to Jesus Christ but then in some crisis moment something happens that God brings us to our knees and flattens us out before him and we see ourselves how sin has crept in and how little moments of disobedience and attitudes of disobedience and attitudes of criticism whatever it might be have crept into our life and we think God how could I have been so blind for so long That is the process of sanctification. That is experiencing the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit in our life. So it is a position at salvation set apart. It is a process in the Christian life continuously being set apart and continuously being separated from sin. And thirdly, there is an ultimate sanctification. That means when we say ultimate sanctification, we’re talking about what our Lord’s going to do in your life and mine one of these days. Turn to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and look in verse 23, if you will. He says, Paul says, now may the God of peace himself sanctify you how? entirely holy, and may your spirit and your soul and your body be preserved complete without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Turn to 1 John chapter 3 for a moment. Look at this verse. 1 John chapter 3. Notice what he says. He says… Verse 1. See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called children of God? And such we are. For this reason the world does not know us because it did not know Him. Now look at this verse. Beloved… Now we are children of God and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We know that when he appears, we shall be like him because we shall see him just as he is. One of these days, we’re going to be like Jesus. Now, how’s that? That means absolutely and completely, totally, pure and sanctified ultimately. That is, there’s going to come a time when not only have we been sanctified at salvation, being sanctified in the believer’s walk, but the moment He calls us, The moment he calls us and we leave this old body behind with all of its propensities towards sin, in that moment, we will be completely and entirely sanctified as the children of God. Now, I don’t have to worry about it. You don’t have to worry about that first phase of sanctification. If you’re a believer, that is positionally. He set you apart. There’s nothing you and I need to worry about, about the third, the ultimate sanctification, because that again is something He’s going to do. when he calls us home. It’s that middle ground that you and I have to deal with. The moment by moment, daily process of walking in the Spirit, cooperating with Him, relying upon Him as He sanctifies us, keeps us from sin, warns us about it, sharpens our discernment, and does what? repeatedly brings us to those crises where you make a choice about your relationship to Jesus Christ that is a deeper sense of commitment than ever before, deeper understanding, and that is a sanctifying moment in your life. And I wonder, does it need to happen right now? If you’ve never trusted Jesus as your Savior, that’s step number one. And then once you’ve trusted Him as your Savior, the Holy Spirit comes into your life and He will enable you to live a godly life. That’s His responsibility. That’s His ministry. And I want to encourage you, if you’ve never trusted Him, to do it right now by asking Him to forgive you of your sins based on the death of the Lord Jesus Christ at Calvary. and His willingness to forgive you. Just ask Him to forgive you of your sins. Tell Him you believe that He died for you, and that you’re willing to accept His forgiveness, not based on your performance, but based on His unconditional love and acceptance of you. And then, if the Holy Spirit has pointed out something to you in your life, and He says it must go, if you say yes to Him, the sanctifying process takes place. If you say no to him, you quench the spirit and you grieve the spirit. Listen, what does God want for you and me? The very best. When? All the time, every time. And in order for that to happen, I must live yielded to the Holy Spirit, who is our lifetime companion and helper, who is always there for our good and God’s glory.
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Thank you for listening to the Holy Spirit sanctifying the believer. For more inspirational messages like this one, visit our 24-7 online station. And if you’d like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
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