Scripture Introduction
“The only way to keep a broken vessel full is by keeping the faucet turned on.” We are broken people. We may dress nicely to be seen by others, but the cracks remain even when plastered over. So Jesus asks God the Father to continue to sanctify us in the truth.
The beginning of the Christian life, which the Bible calls “justification,” is a once-for-all event, “an act of God’s free grace, whereby he pardons all our sins and accepts us as righteous in his sight…” (Westminster Shorter Catechism #33). Those who have been justified are kept by God forever, “they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of [Jesus’] hand” (John 10.28). Sanctification, on the other hand, remains incomplete until we reach heaven. It is the ongoing “work of God’s free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole [person] after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die to sin and live to righteousness” (Westminster Shorter Catechism #35).
In John 17, Jesus “keeps the faucet open” by praying for our continued sanctification. May we be so convinced of the goodness of God’s will and ways, that you joyfully plunge beneath these living waters and find yourself (broken though we remain) filled to overflowing by his life-giving stream.
[Read John 17.13-19. Pray.]
Introduction
The prophet Hosea preached to Israel a sermon about their “divided heart” (Hosea 10.2, NKJ). Rather than be fully devoted to Jehovah God, they toyed with pleasures offered by pagan religions. Their hearts were divided – their passions were not singularly focused. They wanted many things – success, comfort, wealth, fun, pleasure. They wanted to know the true and living God, yes; but they also feared missing out on what the world offered.
We probably need that same warning as Jesus prays for our sanctification. I find my desires divided. Yes, I want to know God’s will, but I also want to enjoy life. Yes, I want to be holy, but I also want to be wealthy. Yes, I want to be transformed into the likeness of Christ, but I do not want to miss the pleasures which make life tolerable.
So it is a sharp sword indeed that Christ drives into my divided heart when he pleads with God for our practical holiness. The great Head of the church asks the Holy Father in heaven that his people be more like him – more holy, more godly, more faithful to the Word. Here is the desire that should course through the veins of every Christian – do we want to be godly?
This is David’s prayer in Psalm 86.11-13: “Teach me your way, O LORD, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name. I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify your name forever. For great is your steadfast love toward me; you have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.”
David gives a positive example of a heart united in pursuit of holiness. The Apostle John, the same man who recorded this prayer from Jesus, provides the negative warning: 1John 2.15-17: “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world – the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions – is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.”
You need to know that holiness cannot be equated with harshness or somberness – both of which are signs of self-righteousness. True, Biblical, God-centered holiness is marked by happiness – otherwise Jesus would not have asked God to make us joyful! So the call of faith is to believe that holiness is happiness. Do you believe that promise?
Maybe an example would help. Most Christian parents desperately want their children to be godly. But in our enthusiasm for outward conformity, we may skip the hard work of healing the divided heart. One day we plead with our children: “Here is a spiritual book I bought you,” or “I will reward you if you act well.” The next day we threaten: “You will lose privileges if you talk to your mother that way again.” Of course, the law provides the standard for godly character and must be taught. But the law has no power for change – for that we must go to the Gospel. Christ has made a new covenant, one where the heart is healed, the passions are drawn Godward, the desires themselves are renewed. The heart of faith believes there is no greater reward than holiness.
I can show it to you in Hebrews 11: “By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward” (Hebrews 11.24-26). His renewed mind recognized that holiness is the way to happiness even against the promises of passing pleasure.
Do you believe? Are you an evangelist for the happiness of holiness or simply for the law’s demands?
J. C. Ryle: “He that is really taught of God knows that holiness is happiness, and that those who walk with God most closely are always those who walk with him most comfortably.”
By all means, let us know the standard; but let us never forget that the gospel is the power of God for salvation to all who believe. With that reminder of the motives for holiness guarding our hearts, let us consider some of the specifics of how truth actually changes us.
1. We Must Believe the Truth To Be Sanctified
Jesus says it in verse 17 and 19: “sanctify them in truth.” Paul teaches something similar in 2Thessalonians 2.13: “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.”
Truth is essential to godliness. God’s way of working in our lives begins with our understanding. A change in heart and behavior is drawn out from a renewed mind. Paul reminded Titus that “knowledge of the truth…accords with godliness” (Titus 1.1). They are not the same – we can know doctrine in our head and that knowledge produce pride which drives us away from God. So knowing truth and being holy are not the same, but they are related. There is a correspondence.
Salt is hygroscopic – it draws moisture from the air. So true knowledge draws holiness from the Spirit into the heart and life of a true Christian.
But note something else – Jesus speaks of Bible truth: John 17.17: “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” 2+2=4, but that does not produces practical holiness. So also, a moral lecture may change a woman outwardly and even give her the appearance of godliness. A Muslim woman may obey the Quran’s demand never to commit adultery – but she is not thereby sanctified, she is not closer to God and more like Jesus. The living and true God, to whom we must all give account, reserves for his Scriptures the honor and power of sanctification.
Ephesians 5.25-26: “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word….”
I would draw your attention to 3 applications:
First, desire this work of God’s Spirit. Jesus prays for our sanctification; will we not plead with God so that we desire what Christ desires for us? Yes the flesh resists true godliness; “but those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5.24). The power to put to death sinful desires belongs to the Spirit; let us seek more of his convincing of the happiness of holiness.
Second, desire the truth in the word. The Apostle Peter pleaded for this with a powerful image: “So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up to salvation – if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good” (1Peter 2.1-3). You know that God is good – that his ways delight you; therefore, desire the Word like an infant cries for his mother’s sweet milk.
Third, devote yourself to the Scriptures. When I have tea in the morning, I never forget the spoon of honey. I believe honey makes my tea more wonderful. In a similar way, we have read in this very worship service the same promises for the Word of God, that it will sweeten your life and cause you to be protected, blessed, and rewarded. Let us become people of the book – men, women and children who read the Bible in order to meet with God, who memorize the Word so that we can apply it to our hearts and lives, who listen attentively to the teaching and preaching of the Scriptures.
2. We Must Believe the Gospel To Be Sanctified
Many Christians err by ignoring this essential step. We know that sanctification is the conforming of our lives to God’s truth. And we know that the law, like a straight edge, reveals every flaw and imperfection in us. We then sometimes assume that more and more of the law is what will straighten us up and bring us back to level, as if the only part of the word which sanctifies is the law.
Yes it is true, the law is good and reveals our flaws. But the law is powerless to change the heart or conform us to its perfect standard. Romans 8.3-4: “God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
Sanctification is not less than conformity to the law, but it is more. It is a work of God’s grace in the gospel!
Thomas Manton, 420: “The law shows us our spots, and the gospel cleans and washes them away. The work of the law is preparation, but that which has a special and direct influence upon sanctification is the gospel: John 15.3, ‘Now you are clean through the word which I have spoken to you,’ and that was the gospel privilege.”
On Wednesday I spoke with a friend who was telling me about riding in the car with his wife, each one having a Diet Coke in their cup holders. He finished his, and wanting more, grabbed his wife’s pop. Then he stopped, put it back, and realized that though what he was doing was very minor, it was a form of stealing. The law had done a good work – he was convicted and stopped short. He felt good about himself.
But then God convinced him to probe deeper. He realized that his first thought was not whether his wife wanted all of her drink, but whether he wanted more. He saw a fundamental self-centeredness manifested in his behavior. He recognized that though the law had constrained him, his heart needed freeing from self-absorption – he needed the gospel.
Faith which makes us like God does more than hear the law; it grabs hold of the love of God, the blood of Christ, and the promises of the Word. In Christ Jesus, that only which counts for anything is “faith working through love” (Galatians 5.6). 1John 1.7: “the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” “Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God” (2Corinthians 7.1).
It matters not whether the sins are great or small, what matters are “his precious and very great promises [through which] you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire” (2Peter 1.4). Sanctification is not simply conformity to the law, it is Christ in you, the hope of glory!
3. We Must Have the Spirit To Be Sanctified
There are many opportunities for pride in the pursuit of religion. The doctrines of the Bible are deep and formidable, and intellectual pride can swell during their study. The ethics of the Bible are austere and demanding, and self-discipline and self-sufficiency can lead us to pride in our own conformity. The behaviors demanded by the Bible make us more valuable to the community, enabling us to look down on others. Even zeal for God can produce the pride of seeking to establish our own righteousness.
The necessity of the work of God in sanctification bursts the puffed up bubble of self. So dependent are we on God’s grace, that Jesus must ask the Father for our sanctification. Left to our own wills we do not seek holiness, we hate it; and left to our own wills, we seek to please God in our own power. That is why Paul had to rebuke the Galatians: “Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith? For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse…. Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.”
Maturity in the Christian life is marked by deepening dependence on God’s Spirit. The question to determine whether Jesus’ prayer is fulfilled in your life is not simply, “Am I obeying the law?” It must also be, “Am I looking to Christ as my hope, and depending on the Holy Spirit as my help?”
4. Conclusion
In her book, The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life, Hannah Whitall Smith writes: “The potential for a happy abundant Christian life is available to all who would make Jesus the Lord of their lives, yet there are many Christians whose lives lack the joy and fullness of a truly happy life. A keen observer once said to me, ‘You Christians seem to have a religion that makes you miserable. You are like a man with a headache. He does not want to get rid of his head, but it hurts him to keep it. You cannot expect outsiders to seek earnestly for anything so uncomfortable.’ Then, for the first time I saw that the religion of Christ ought to be, and was meant to be, something that would make its possessors happy, not miserable. I began then and there to ask the Lord to show me the secret of a happy Christian life.”
Notice, please, the progression in the section we are studying:
• Verse 13: Christ’s joy in Christians
• Verse 14-16: Christians remain in the world
• Verse 17: Sanctification of the Christian
• Verse 18: Christians sent into the World
Christ sends us into the world as witnesses of the true faith and the precious promises of God. Is our religion that of this Jesus – marked by happiness and holiness?
