2020 ITERO Fall 5

Message Title: The Will of God - Our Sanctification

I. The will of God is our sanctification; to be sanctified is to be made holy, which is to be separated unto God and saturated with God as the Holy One, the One who is different, distinct, from everything that is common

"holy" means that we are different, distinct from everything else that is common. God Himself is the One different distinct from "common". we have been positinally sanctified by the blood of the Lamb through His judicial redemption. To be dispositionally sanctified is through God's organic salvation. Judicial redemption + organic salvation = God's complete salvation. sanctification is God's beautification. 

Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her

Ephesians 5:26 That He might sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing of the water in the word,

Ephesians 5:27 That He might present the church to Himself glorious, not having spot or wrinkle or any such things, but that she would be holy and without blemish.

we are sanctified, beautified according to God's holy nature and with God as the Holy One. we are now in the sanctifying process, and also in the washing process, being washed with the washing of the water in the word. This sanctification has a purpose, which is revealed in verse 27, for us to become His bride, holy without blemish. 

the word "saint" in the New Testament comes from the same Greek word for "holy". we are the holy ones. we are the sanctified ones. 

II. Ephesians 1:4-5 and Hebrews 2:10-11 show that sanctification is for sonship; actually, sanctification is for God's "sonizing"

Ephesians 1:4 Even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blemish before Him in love,

Ephesians 1:5 Predestinating us unto sonship through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,

God's sanctifying us is actually God's sonizing us, until the manifestation of us as the many sons of God. 

Hebrews 2:10 For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and through whom are all things, in leading many sons into glory, to make the Author of their salvation perfect through sufferings.

Hebrews 2:11 For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of One, for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brothers,

the way the Lord is leading us, many sons into glory, is to sanctify us. By His sanctifying us, we are being lead into glory. 

III. There are three aspects of sanctification in the Scriptures

1. the Spirit's sanctification in seeking the God-chosen people before they repent and believe. 

1 Peter  1:2 Chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father in the sanctification of the Spirit unto the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace be multiplied. 

before we believe into Christ, the Spirit keeps seeking us. the result of this seeking sanctification is our obedience to believe into Christ. if we look at the record in Genesis chapter 3, after Adam and Eve took the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the first question Jehovah God asked was "where are you?" this is the seeking of the Spirit, seeking sanctification. The Spirit is seeking us out.  

2. positional sanctification by the blood of Christ at the time of the believers' believing. 

Hebrews 13:12 Therefore also Jesus, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside the gate. 

when we repent and believe into Christ, His blood sanctifies positionally, and separates us unto God.

3. the Spirit's dispositional sanctification in the believers' full course of their Christian life. 

1 Thessalonians 5:23 And the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Thessalanians 5:24 Faithful is He who calls you, who also will do it.

for our full life course, the Spirit is continually sanctifying us. we need to claim verse 24 and say to the Lord in a daily way, "Lord, Your word says that You have called us, and You are faithful that You will also do it. " when we pray His word back to Him, He will always answer our prayer, because He is faithful to His own word. 

in Luke chapter 15, the three parables shows us all the three aspects of the sanctification. 

In the parable of the prodigal son, who went away and squandered all the father's inheritance. then the son came to himself and went back to the father's house. the son's coming to himself is the issue of the Spirit's seeking sanctification within him. when the son came back home, the father asked the servant to quickly bring out the best robe, which signifies Christ as our righteousness, resulting positional sanctification. after the best robe, the father killed the fatten calf, which shows dispositional sanctification. by enjoying Christ, we are experiencing organic salvation. 

IV. The divine sanctification for the divine sonship is the center of the divine economy and the central thought of the revelation in the New Testament

 it is by the word that we are sanctified.  sanctification is the holding line because every step of God's work with us is to make us holy.

1. the seeking sanctification, the initial sanctification, is unto repentance to bring us back to God.

Luke 15: 8 Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one silver coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek carefully until she finds it? 

the word "until" here is quite meaningful. the woman did not give up. she kept sweeping and seeking carefully until she found the lost coin. this tells us that we should not give up on anyone, those who seem not interested or open to the gospel today. we should keep praying for them, and trust in the sweeping and seeking of the Spirit, until one day they get saved. 

2. the redeeming sanctification, the positional sanctification, is by the blood of Christ, to transfer us from Adam to Christ.

3. the regenerating sanctification, the beginning of dispositional sanctification, renews us from our spirit to make us sons of God, a new creation with the divine life and nature.

4. the renewing sanctification, the continuation of dispositional sanctification, renews our soul from our mind through all the parts of our soul to make our soul a part of God's new creation.

we need to be renewed everyday, renewed in our mind, our emotion and our will. 

Romans 12: 2 And do not be fashioned according to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and well pleasing and perfect. 

Philippians 2:2 Make my joy full, that you think the same thing, having the same love, joined in soul, thinking the one thing, 

for our mind to be renewed means that we need to allow the Spirit to occupy and control our mind. so that we would think of the "one thing". this "one thing" is that we would subjectively know Christ, and let the mind of Christ be in our mind., let the mind of Christ be duplicated in our mind, so that our mind will become the mind of Christ. 

Ezekiel 36:26 I will also give you a new heart, and a new spirit, I will put within you; and I will take away the heart of stone out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.

Ezekiel 36:27 And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and My ordinances you shall keep and do.

the verse here says "I will... cause you to walk in My statutes". it does not say "you shall walk..." this is quite meaningful. so this means that the Spirit, is actually the law of the Spirit of life, the automatic and spontaneous power of the Spirit, which causes us to walk in His statutes. g

5. the transforming sanctification, the daily sanctification, reconstitutes us with the element of Christ metabolically to make us a new constitution as a part of the organic Body of Christ

6. the conforming sanctification, the shaping sanctification, shapes us in the image of the glorious Christ to make us the expression of Christ.

7. the glorifying sanctification, the consummating sanctification, redeems our body by transfiguring it to make us Christ's expression in full and in glory.

V. In order to live a holy life for the church life, we need the Lord to establish our heart blameless in holiness

1 Thessalonians 3:13 So that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints. 

1 Thessalonians is a book written to the new believers. at the end of every chapter in this book, the coming of the Lord is mentioned. Paul wanted the new believers to be infused with the aspiration, with the view that the Lord is coming again. the "coming" in Greek is "parousia", which literally means the presence. the Lord's coming is the Lord's presence. If we are going to look for the Lord's coming, that is His presence within us. we do not want to lose the Lord's presence, which is His parousia. 

Proverbs 4:23 Keep your heart with all vigilance, For from it are the issues of life.

the heart is the entrance and exit of life, the "switch" of life. if our heart is not right, life in the spirit is hindered, and the law of life cannot work freely to reach every part of our being. 

Matthew 12:34 Offspring of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. 

Matthew 12:35 The good man, out of his good treasure, brings forth good things, and the evil man, out of his evil treasure, brings forth evil things. 

whatever fills our heart will come out from our mouth. we want the Lord to be the good treasure of our heart.