Sanctification

Sanctification isn't something that just happens automatically like some automatic program that runs on its own once you become a Christian. And the longer time happens, the longer you're a Christian, then automatically you're more sanctified. No friends, that can't be true because I know too many old deacons who are just big spoiled babies who aren't any more sanctified than when they first believed.

If you want more of the Holy Spirit, then He has to have more of you. There is a cross that stands smack dab in the middle of the Christian life, for the Christian life is lived via the cross, and you must embrace it and know something of the cross in the life of a believer. If you want to grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ Jesus and become more Christ-like, then there's a cost involved because what costs counts and what counts costs.

If you just walk now, casually receive Jesus and don't die to your self-life on a daily basis, then you never picked up your cross to follow Jesus to begin with. Don't get me wrong, sanctification isn't something we do for ourselves. It's something God's Spirit does for us.

He does in us. But we need to put forth some effort on our own, becoming more Christ-like or we'll end up like a piece of driftwood that's just taken back to sea when the tide goes out. You can't liberate yourself from sin's power because we're all born with a rude nature and a bent towards sin.

Just watch a bunch of little kids playing together. You'll soon see how selfish they are. One of them will slap the other down if he grabs his toy, and that selfishness just grows worse and worse the older we get to where we always have to have first place in line, first grab at the turkey at Thanksgiving dinner.

And if anybody tries to jump ahead of us, take our place, then there's hell to pay. But in 1 John 4, 4, we read, greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. That means God's Spirit puts power in you to live above sin.

He lives in you so that when he is in control, then you have the reality of that verse, greater is he in you than he that is in the world. By his great power, he can transform our lives and cause us to live as God wants us to live. And little by little, we grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus.

That's what sanctification is, friend. It's becoming more and more like Jesus. But you have to maintain a close walk with him.

If you don't, you're in for a hard time. I'll give you an example. I used to have a friend who was a Christian businessman and a leader at church.

And we went to church together. And every time I met this man, all he wanted to talk about was Jesus. He'd talk about the Bible verse he studied in his daily devotional time that morning.

And he talked about it with excitement. This man was on fire for God and he made you thirsty for Jesus. Do you know someone like that, that every time you're with them, they're like salt in that they make you more thirsty for Jesus? Well, this man was like that.

Every time you got around him, all he wanted to talk about was Jesus. He sure was excited about Jesus. But then his business began to grow and so did his bank account.

And eventually, when I met this man for lunch, he didn't want to talk about Jesus anymore. All he wanted to talk about was business and making more money. Until one Sunday morning, I ran into him in the church parking lot and he avoided eye contact with me.

And I thought that was strange. And I told my wife about it. And I said, I've got a funny feeling that he's cheating on his wife.

And my wife said, that's ridiculous. He's one of the best Christians we know. But it turned out I was right.

He had hired a pretty new secretary, half his age. And soon they were in an adulterous affair. And it not only ruined this man's reputation, because he was a leader at church, but it also ruined his family.

It breaks me up to even talk about it. He had a loving wife and three adorable children, but he couldn't keep his hands off his pretty new secretary. And he, who was one of my biggest inspirations, became one of my biggest warnings.

I can trace his trouble back to when he stopped being excited about Jesus and money became his God. That's when he began to go downhill into spiritual bankruptcy. I saw him a few years later, sitting at a bar in a restaurant, drinking alcohol and looking lost.

He never did repent that I know of, but I know he just kept going from one new girlfriend to another. That's the downward path of sin, friends, or sanctification is from God. But we need to stay excited about Jesus and desire to become more and more like him, or we'll go in the opposite direction, like my friend did.

I guess that's a warning to each of us, just like 1 Corinthians 10, 12 declares, Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.