Whose Job is it Anyway?
I. Psychologists say one of the primary causes of conflict in households involves
dispute over what’s generally called division of labor.
A. diapers. You’ve been there . . .
1. We’ve been dealing with now for 3.5 years (some of you much longer)
2. Husbands learn within the first week – play ignorant! (Nose is sort of
stuffed up . . .)
B. Many households have never had a calm, rational discussion about who is
best equipped to take out the garbage or take the kids to school.
1. Bed goes unmade, dishes go unwashed, trash doesn’t go out
2. ever watch a banana peal go black over the course of a few days cause
it doesn’t get thrown?
3. I’ve learned how pathetic I am after watching that happen in our living
room the past few days (if I don’t throw it – it won’t get done)
4. Ever watch how people will step over a piece of trash rather than throw
it? (Have you ever stepped over a piece of trash . . .?)
C. In the end, lots of things don’t get done because each person in the
relationship thinks the other one is really responsible.
II. That’s a lot like spiritual growth
A. This morning I want to talk about the doctrine of Sanctification
B. Holiness
C. The messy, undesirable things are removed from our lives
D. Assembly of God fundamental Truth #10 (AG Online)
1. Sanctification is an act of separation from that which is evil, and of
dedication unto God
2. Sanctification is realized in the believer by recognizing his identification
with Christ in His death and resurrection, and by the faith reckoning
daily upon the fact of that union, and by offering every faculty
continually to the dominion of the Holy Spirit.
III. The Gospel (Good News) isn’t just that I get to go to Heaven
A. The Gospel is also that I can “be transformed by the renewing of my mind.”
B. The Gospel is also that ”We are no longer called servants, but friends” by
Jesus
C. The Gospel is also that we can be “reconciled to God” (as stated in our
bulletin)
D. an offer of life in God’s Kingdom
1. God’s plan is that his image in us, which was marred by the Fall, should
be restored in all of its beauty and glory.
IV. But for many Christians there is confusion about the division of labor as it relates
to spiritual growth or sanctification. They ask, “Is it God’s job, or is it mine?”
A. Some Christians say it’s God’s job, and they say, “I can’t do anything at all.”
(I have “discussion” with members of my family about this one)
1. Romans 7:18 where Paul says, “I know nothing good dwells within me,
that is in my flesh. I can will right, but I can’t do it.”
2. Citing verses like these, they say human action is futile.
3. object to any call for extra effort or costly following by saying that
human effort is opposed to grace.
B. On the other hand, some Christians take a Marine approach to spiritual life,
evaluating spiritual growth as a product of one’s commitment level.
1. Leviticus 11:44: “I am the Lord your God. Sanctify yourselves,
therefore. Be holy for I am holy.”
2. they believe God’s job is to make sure he’s holy; their job is to make
sure they are holy.
3. Throughout history there have been who have “gone the extra” mile . . .
The monks at a remote monastery deep in the woods followed a rigid vow of silence.
Their vow could only be broken once a year——on Valentine’s Day——by one
monk. That monk could speak only one sentence. One Valentine’s Day, Brother
Thomas had his turn to speak and said, "I love the delightful mashed potatoes we
have every year with the Valentine’s Day Roast!" Then he sat down. Silence ensued
for 365 days. The next Valentine’s Day, Brother Michael got his turn and said, "I
think the mashed potatoes are lumpy, and I truly despise them!" Once again, silence
ensued for 365 days. The following Valentine’s Day, Brother Paul rose and said, "I
am fed up with this constant bickering!
4. The church then becomes a place of contest to see who is the most
holy, who has memorized the most Bible verses, who has witnessed to
the most people, who has the most regular quiet time, who has prayed
the most.
5. Unfortunately, people with this checklist mentality believe as long as
they’re doing these things they must be growing spiritually, even if love
and joy aren’t being produced.
V. Whose job is sanctification and spiritual growth?
A. If it take steps to become holy and Christlike, will the Lord distance himself?
B. If I take a “hands off” approach, will God step in and purify?
C. READ Philippians 2:1-13
VI. Sanctification is a joint project between us and God.
A. First, Paul puts the responsibility in our lap and says “work out your own
salvation”
B. He goes on to say, “For it is God who is at work in you.”
1. You’re not doing this project on your own.
2. Sanctification is empowered by God; it’s impossible without him.
C. Paul doesn’t just say to work out our salvation, but to do it with “fear and
trembling”
1. he does not mean you should work out your salvation with a sense of
anxiety, not knowing whether it’s going to be good enough for God.
2. Instead Paul uses the phrase to refer to a humble attitude of
dependence. He’s suggesting we have a role to play, but we don’t
control it.
a. Some things we can control. We can make phone calls, drive a car,
run an errand.
b. But some things we can do nothing about. Like the weather – only
God can change the weather.
c. But there is a third category.
(1) Think about going to sleep. You can’t make yourself go to
sleep the way you can make a phone call. But you can get in
a dark room, lay down on a soft mattress, turn out the lights,
and sleep will come.
(2) Think about the differences between a motor boat and a
sailboat.
(a) In a motor boat I’m in control. I start the engine, control
the speed, and go wherever I want.
(b) Sailing is different. When I’m sailing, I’m not passive, I
have a role to play – I hoist the sails and steer with the
rudder – but I am utterly dependent on the wind.
There’s no room for believing I’m in control, because if
the wind doesn’t blow, I’m dead in the water. When the
wind blows, on the other hand, amazing things can
happen.
(c) In John 3: 8 Jesus says, “The wind blows where it
chooses. You hear the sound of it, but you do not know
where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with
everyone born of the Spirit.”
(d) The word for wind is the same as the word for spirit both
in Hebrew and in Greek.
i) Jesus says the wind blows wherever it chooses.
We hear the sound, but we don’t know where it
comes from, and we don’t know where it goes.
It’s free and powerful, way beyond our control.
ii) So it is with everyone born of the Spirit, through
whose life the winds of God are blowing.
(e) the challenge to us is to hoist the sails, grab hold of the
rudder and let the wind of the spirit mold and shape and
direct our lives
D. Four crucial truths the Bible teaches concerning sanctification
1. In Philippians 3: 12
2. He speaks of the sanctification that he is called to
3. He then speaks of the sanctification he has as a gift
4. So, it is a joint project, what else can we learn?
E. Sanctification is normal, not optional
1. Just as we were justified, we are also sanctified (it is both instant and
progressive)
2. Scripture
a. In 1 Thessalonians 4: 3 Paul writes, “for this is the will of God, your
sanctification.”
b. Hebrews 12:14 says, “Pursue peace with everyone and holiness”
– pursue sanctification, because – “without holiness no one will
see the Lord.” Whoever is not sanctified will not want to see the
Lord.
c. Paul says in Philippians 3: 12,13 he may get a lot of things wrong,
but this one thing – sanctification – he does do. We may make a
lot of mistakes along the way, and we may have to let go of a lot of
other things, but this one thing we do – sanctification.
3. Sanctification and Holiness can be very difficult.
a. Hebrews 12:11
b. We want to give up
c. We think we can just take it or leave it
d. Take the Road that leads to sanctification.
(1) Like train tracks
(2) trains have much freedom when on the tracks
(3) Psalm 119:31, “I run in the path of your commands, for your
truth has set my heart free.”
4. Even if sanctification is not allowed to take place, spiritual formation of
some type WILL take place.
a. Paul, in Romans 12, says, “Don’t be conformed to the world, but
be transformed by the renewing of you mind.” Paul suggests if
you’re not being transformed by God’s renewing power, then
you’re being conformed by the world.
b. The question is not if you’re going to be formed spiritually; the
question is by whom will you be formed?
c. If you’re not formed by God, then you have a spiritual adversary –
the Evil One – who will be happy to do the task.
5. Even with the knowledge that it’s God’s will for their lives. People will
pursue other things with full devotion, but not sanctification.
6. People’s excuses for not pursuing sanctification with full devotion are:
a. “My schedule is too busy. When things settle down, I’ll pursue
spiritual growth.”
b. “My church doesn’t have an adequate program for spiritual
growth.”
c. Or, “My husband/parents/wife/pastor doesn’t give me the spiritual
leadership I need to grow spiritually.”
d. I’m not being fed
7. The offer of the gospel is the offer to be sanctified.
a. Jesus’ message was, “Repent and believe the good news; the
kingdom of heaven is drawing near, and you can now live in it.”
b. it is a choice to live God’s kind of life
(1) sanctification is simply another word for that kind of life.
(2) It’s a life of truth, love, joy, humility, and servanthood.
8. Sanctification is normative; it is not optional.
VII. Sanctification is a painstaking process not an event.
I’ve read that Michelangelo, the great sculptor and painter, was pushing a heavy rock
up a small incline to his work area so that he could do some sculpting. A neighbor
watched him for over an hour as he worked to get this rock in place. Finally he asked,
"Michelangelo, why do you labor so hard over that ugly, heavy piece of rock?"
Michelangelo said, "Because there is an angel inside that wants to come out."
A. Illustrations
1. On a trip recently, I was finally asked the famous question by our little
boy, “Are we there yet?”
2. Cooked pizza in new ultravection oven that cooks it in half the time. I
was still drumming my finger tips on the counter
3. We’re an instant gratification society.
B. Sanctification does not happen that way. Paul says, Am I there yet? Not yet.
Not today. Not tomorrow. But this one thing I do. I don’t give up. I just
keep after it.
C. In the pursuit of sanctification, you will fail often.
1. What do we do if we’re serious about pursuing sanctification and we fail
and slip into bad behavior?
2. In verse 13, Paul has a strategy: forget. He says, “I forget what is
behind me.” We tend to think of forgetting as a bad thing, as
something we shouldn’t do. But forgetting is indispensable to
sanctification.
D. It’s guaranteed you’ll slip; the danger is when you slip you’ll get discouraged
and give up.
1. Paul urges us to keep going and to forget what is behind.
2. Paul allows neither his failures nor his successes to keep him trapped in
yesterday.
3. Sanctification is a process. So don’t give up.
Gordon MacDonald, from a message delivered at the Promise Keepers’ "Go the
Distance" Conference (8-11-00);
When I first ran track in prep school, my coach invited me to his home for dinner one
night. After the meal, he pulled out a notebook displaying my name on the front cover.
He immediately turned to the back page, which bore the heading "June
1957"——three and a half years away.
"Gordon," he said. "These are the races I’m going to schedule you to run almost four
years from now. Here are the times you will achieve."
I looked at those times. Impossible! They were light years away from where I was at
that moment as a runner.
Then Coach began turning back the pages of that book, page by page, showing the
42 months he had scheduled for workouts. These were the graduated, accelerated
plans for my increasing skill on the track as the months and years would go by. He
had a sense of direction and development when it came to my athletic growth.
Coaches and leaders of all kinds understand the absolute necessity of strategic, long-
range planning. Similarly, a wise and all-knowing God has a plan for our total
lives——gradually, inevitably, down through the years, we become more like Jesus.
VIII. Sanctification is empowered by God, not by man.
A. AG Online: “By the power of the Holy Ghost we are able to obey the
command: "Be ye holy, for I am holy." “
B. “He became what we are that He might make us what He is.” Saint
Athanasius, 295-373
C. “God creates out of nothing. Wonderful, you say. Yes, to be sure, but he
does what is still more wonderful: He makes saints out of sinners.” Soren
Kierkegaard
D. When talking about transformation, Paul uses a combination of grammatical
forms
1. imperative voice: used when giving somebody a command. “Stop!” is
an imperative.
2. passive voice. That is when something happens to you. You get hit by
a truck. You get struck by an illness. That’s passive.
3. When talking about transformation, Paul often uses a passive
imperative.
a. Remember Romans 12: 2: “Do not be conformed to this world but
be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may
discern what is the will of God.”
b. It is an imperative, but he does not say, “Transform yourself.”
Instead he says, “Be transformed.”
E. Where are the winds of the Spirit blowing in your life? Where and how is God
at work in you? What sin is he seeking to free you from?
F. There are a few ways you can discern how the Spirit is working in your life.
One way is to ask the question is to pray Psalm 139:23
G. You can allow the winds of the Spirit to blow in your life.
1. That’s why sanctification is never a mechanical thing or an instant work
as some have believed in the past
2. That’s why it will look different from one person to another, and it will
look different in different eras of your life.
3. You need to discern how God is at work.
IX. Sanctification is normative, not optional. It’s a process, not an event. It’s
empowered by God, not me.
X. Sanctification should be pursued for the sake of others
A. There is a real danger in pursuing spiritual growth, because if it gets off
track it can get individualistic and ugly.
1. The scribes and Pharisees in Jesus’ day thought of themselves as very
holy, but they couldn’t love anybody. They were too absorbed with
themselves.
2. The New Testament never defines spirituality or sanctification in solely
individualistic. It’s defined in terms of community.
B. In Philippians 2:14, Paul writes, “Do all things without murmuring and
arguing.”
1. In other words, as the community matures this is what you’ll find: no
grumbling and no arguing, just grateful hearts.
2. Bitterness and resentment will be replaced by a community of
servanthood.
C. Ever been around people who thought they were holy, but were actually just
cantankerous?
D. The goal of sanctification, in a single word, is love.
1. There is a huge difference between being sanctified and being
sanctimonious. Yet sometimes people get them mixed up.
2. The goal of sanctification is loving persons.
E. Who loves like that? God loves like that. God loved you when you were
hardest to love. God wants to sanctify you, and that’s no small thing.
1. That is not some spiritual self-improvement project, and it’s not a piece
of optional equipment. That is God’s destiny for you.
2. If you miss out on that, you miss out on what you were made for. God’s
intent is to sanctify you so you can love as God loves.
XI. Tools to help implement
A. Bible Studies
1. Women’s on Wed at 7PM
2. Men’s on Tuesday mornings at 6:30AM
3. Men’s breakfast on Thursday morning at Mr & Mrs J’s
4. Monday night Bible study by Marlene Knight
5. A couple of HOME Group Bible Studies
B. Sunday School
C. Accountability Groups
