10.4.26 | Sam Fischer

Sugar Plain Friends Chruch: It's a joy to be together with you today as we look into the Word. Today's sermon, as we talked about last week, is going to be on holiness, entire sanctification. Last week we looked at kind of what it is not, some misconceptions, some difficulties that people might have with this experience. And today we're going to be looking at what it is and kind of looking through scripture, how holiness is the theme of scripture and the theme of the Christian life and what prepares us for heaven. If we open today, we'll begin with kind of the verse that we'll go back to. This one is probably the most clearly defined holiness statement in the Bible. 1 Thessalonians 5 23. May God Himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Thessalonians 5 23. I say this is the most clear statement because this is the very verse that we get the term entire sanctification. Sanctify you through and through. Some translations may say holy or entirely. It's a complete sanctification. Paul was writing to the Thessalonians, who he calls saints, who he calls Christians. And he's writing this so that there is something more for them beyond their initial salvation. There's something more for them. He's calling for them to move on to entirely give up everything of themselves. Entire consecration is part of entire sanctification. When we give everything of ourselves, there's a a kind of like phrase that when talk about what's the difference between salvation and sanctification. Well, in salvation you give God all your bad. You give up all your sins, you confess them, and God cle and God forgives you of them. In entire sanctification, you give God all that you have. You're entirely consecrated. And the sanctification part is the work of God to take what you have, yourself, your personality, your gifts, every part of yourself. And it's the work of God's grace to take that and sanctify it, to make it holy. And that enables you for holy living. And as we looked last week, when we talk about this, you can have in your mind those misconceptions. That doesn't mean you can't sin anymore. It doesn't mean that you're perfect now in the sense that you're flawless. Doesn't give you a new ability, but it simply changes the attitude and the purpose of who you are. Why should we have it? Why should we have entire sanctification? Salvation certainly is enough to get us to heaven. That is for sure. When we are saved, we have the promise of heaven. We have the assurance of the Spirit to tell us that when we die, we are going to heaven if we keep in faith in Christ. So why should we be sanctified? We'll look at that very briefly. First and foremost, sanctification is God's will for us. 1 Thessalonians 4 3. It is God's will that you should be sanctified. I can't get much more clear than that when we read scripture. It is God's will that you should be sanctified. 1 Thessalonians 4.3. Very simply there. We could stop there. We don't need much more reason than that. But there is more reason because there's more to it than just that. It is also God's command. Matthew five, forty eight, be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Be perfect is a command. It is something that we are to do. Within the Wesleyan and more Arminian traditions, and Quakers are not exactly in those traditions, but they do agree with a lot of Wesleyan Arminian positions. If there is a command in Scripture, God will give grace to enable you to fulfill it. <unk>D would not command something that is impossible to do. When he says, be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect, to not make God cruel in giving us something that we can never achieve. God must give grace to make this possible. And what is that grace? And we'll be looking at that today. Another statement, not just the New Testament, the Old Testament, Leviticus 19 2. This is definitely Leviticus 19 2 is sometimes considered the climax of the law. The Torah. It's the climax of the law, Leviticus nineteen two. Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them, Be holy, because I, the Lord your God, am holy. Leviticus is considered the peak because it is the core law. And why is it the peak? Because it reveals how Israel within the old covenant is to be holy as God is holy. And the very verse that says that core thesis is in ver is in chapter nineteen. Be holy as I am holy. In the old covenant, the way that they were holy was by keeping the covenant, by being faithful to the covenant. However, this covenant is not as the same as the new covenant. The old covenant was mostly by works. They had to work to be holy. They had to obey the law, which is why when we read the old, you read the law, Leviticus and Numbers and the Deuteronom and Deuteronomy account of Leviticus. You see command after command, if statements, what you must do, conditions. And at the end of all of the laws that God gives, He usually gives: if you do this, I will bless you. You will be my nation. You will inherit all these things, and you will be called my beloved. But if you do not do these things, you'll be cursed. Deuteronomy, the last chapter in Deuteronomy, second to last chapter in Deuteronomy has this. If you do not do these things, you'll be cursed. The ground will be barren. It says it'll become like iron, impossible to plow. Nothing will grow for you. Your cattle will die. Water will become sickly to drink. I'm just paraphrasing, but it's saying that the world will turn against you. I will take my blessing from you, and you will be no special than any other nation to me. It's a conditional. The theological term for this kind of covenant is bilateral, saying that there's two sides to it. God does something and man has to do something. It's a bilateral covenant. There's two things going on. It's conditional. It's conditional upon the people of God to do something. And if they don't do it, they will receive punishment and removal of blessing. In this bilateral covenant, there would be a point, how can they fulfill this command be holy? Be holy. If they break one command, they have broken the whole law. They're no longer holy. They've broken the covenant. And many times Israel did break the covenant, but then there are some covenants which are unilateral, which means one side. One side has to hold it together. A unilateral covenant that we can see in scripture is like the covenant with Abraham. If you remember the story, I'll give it briefly. Abraham, when he was called to give a covenant with God, laid out the animals, he cut them out, prepared the place where they would make the covenant. And God gave the covenant that he said, Abraham, your people will be my people. I will be your God. Your children, you will have many children, and you will bless all the nations. And he said, I'll make a great nation out of you. However, there was no condition for Abraham. The only condition that Abraham had. Was to believe that God would do it. The writer of Hebrews describes this and s and talks about how Abraham, the father of faith, he was declared righteous because he had faith in God that he would fulfill the covenant, that he would fulfill his promise, even though he was old in age. It was a unilateral covenant. Abraham did not understand how he could do it. He was beyond childbearing. He was beyond like child to have children. And his wife was. Far along in years as well. He did not know how God was going to do it, but the only condition to enter that covenant was to believe that God's promises were true. One of the most beautiful passages in all the scripture, in my opinion, is in Hebrews. It says that in making this covenant with Abraham, he made two unchangeable things clear. And first, that it's impossible for God to lie, and that God doesn't change. Knowing that this covenant was firm and secure, it says that we have that same covenant. The covenant that we have in the new covenant, as Hebrews describes, is like the Abrahamic covenant, it's unilateral. We just have to place our faith in God and He's sure to it. As Hebrews three, things fifteen and sixteen, I don't have it written down. Let us hold unswervingly to the faith we profess. That we have firm, this hope that we have is firm and secure. As our forerunner, Jesus, goes into heaven on our behalf. We don't go into heaven on our behalf. Jesus does. It's a unilateral covenant. Our only condition is to place our faith in him. What's another unilateral covenant that we talk about? We'll be looking at that soon. But we see this theme of God says to be holy because I am holy. Holiness is a requirement. It's non negotiable. It's non negotiable. You can't be a Christian and not be holy. If you're not holy, you're not a Christian. As simple as that. If we are not holy, we can't enter heaven. We'll be looking at this a little bit later. Kinda look at my notes. Revelation twenty one, twenty seven, Nothing impure will enter it, speaking of heaven, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life. Impurity will not enter heaven. Why should we have holiness? It was Jesus' prayer and desire for his disciples, of which we are. Sanctify them by the truth. Your word is truth. John chapter 17, 17 through 19. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them, for I sanctify myself that they too may be truly sanctified. And it's through Jesus that we are sanctified. Because Jesus went to the cross, he made it possible for us to be holy. Now, it may kind of seem as I'm talking about this, you're like, what's the difference between entire sanctification and salvation? When it comes to holiness, they're part of the same work. They're part of the same thing, which is salvation. God bringing us out of sin and into holiness. They're part of the same work. They're just different steps in what changes occur in us. It's not a change in God of what He's working on, it's still the same work. But it changes in what we're needing at the time. When we are saved, we give God our sins and we confess them. And at the moment of salvation, God gives us the power over willful sins. We don't have to sin wilfully any longer once we give our heart to God. At the moment of salvation we also receive the Holy Spirit. But at the moment of salvation, though you can be sanctified holy in that moment, there's oftentimes more to it, more to sin than what you know right then. I'm sure you can remember back to when you were initially saved. Did you know all the things that God wanted in your heart at that moment? You made that initial commitment and said, I wanna give, I place my faith in you. I wanna give every I confess all of my sins and I believe that you'll save me. And I commit my life to you. But part of that commitment, it takes time to understand, what am I committing? And there comes a moment, sometimes it's at an sometimes as at the altar in which you first give your heart, where you say, I give everything that I have. But sometimes that comes later. Sometimes it comes later when you realize that there's a part of you that is resisting God. There's a desire that goes against God. It's something that is refusing to submit. It's rebelling in a way. And it goes against even what you want. You may want to follow God, but you know that there's something in you that's wanting to go away. This is called the sin nature and is probably the most Well-proofed thing about humanity in all of history. We don't have to even read scripture to see that mankind left to his own devices tends towards evil. That's kind of the doctrine of the sin nature. Mankind left to his own devices will tend away from God. Holiness, very simply, this is it. Why is a sin nature? We don't even have to have a doctrine. Without God, there is no holiness. So the only thing man can do is evil without God. And any good that man does is because God was there. God enables it. That's a difficult idea to have because we want to see the good in people, and we want to see that. And it's true, we can see good, but we recognize that that good ultimately comes from God. James chapter one all good and perfect things come from above, which the father of lights, of which there's no shadow of turning within. All good and perfect things come from God. The sin nature, our desires are perverted. So I say, Galatians 5, 16 through 17, one of the most clearest descriptions of what the sin nature does. So I say, walk by the spirit, and you'll not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit, and the spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so you are not to do whatever you want. Galatians talk about the spirit, the Holy Spirit has desires, and our spirit that has desires, but there's a flesh aspect that is running contrary to even our will. It's running contrary to the Holy Spirit's will. Let's look at what the Bible answered to this. What's the answer to these? Conflict within yourselves. Probably the most clear one is James. James chapter four, wash you hands, your sinner, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Double-mindedness is kind of a unique word that James kind of made. He put two words together, kind of like how we just put two words together into one and make them have a different meaning now because of it. But double-minded, he's saying that someone who's two-faced, someone who's going two directions, someone who's being pulled in different ways. That's kind of the idea here. Double minded. Someone who has one direction and then has another direction that are competing with each other. He says, Purify your hearts, you double-minded. Your hearts there implies that this is desire, that this is will. You double-minded. James's answer is purify. Get rid of it. Purify it, make it pure, one in direction. What is pure? A hundred percent of something, right? When we have pure gold, we say it's nearly a hundred or just a hundred percent. When we have pure whatever, like vanilla, pure vanilla extract, it's one hundred percent vanilla. When we have pure anything, it's one hundred percent. There's no two-faced about it. There's no doubleness. Purify one direction. John's answer. First John chapter three. Dear friends, now that we are children of God and what we have been has not yet been made known, but what we know is that when Christ appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is, and we have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. Everyone who sins breaks the law, in fact, sin is lawlessness, but ye know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins, and in him is no sin. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him. Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is righteous is right. Just as he is righteous, the one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. This is the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work. No one who is born of God continue to sin because God's seed remains in them. They cannot go on sinning because they have been born of God. This is primarily speaking of when you are saved, you don't have to keep on sinning. You're not forced to any longer. You have the power over Satan to rebuke that. You have power over temptation, as he says in his word, that when temptation comes, God gives us a way out so that we can resist it. We can resist temptation. We have those promises in Scripture. And ultimately you have you have the Holy Spirit to guide you. That doesn't mean you won't make mistakes, but your hearts. Direction is towards holiness. John says that we should purify ourselves as Christ is pure. Paul's answer, as we already read, may the God of peace himself sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Your whole self, everything that you are, be made holy. That's Paul's answer. The writer of Hebrews, Hebrews three, one, therefore, holy, brothers and sisters. He already calls people holy, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest. One direction towards Christ. Fix your thoughts, only go towards him. That's what the writer of Hebrews says. Now we're at a point. We need a definition. What does this mean? I will give you the functional definition, the one that I think is most useful. Entire sanctification is God's work to remove carnal desires from your heart. It's heart purity. It makes your intention of your heart focused on Christ. That's all it is. It's nothing higher or lower than that. It's oneness. It's direction towards Christ, fixing your thoughts completely on him. Can we do that on our own? Well, we just read that there's a flesh that is rebelling against us. Even if we wanted to, can we overcome it? We can choose to do holiness, but it's always going to be rebelling. It's always going to be polling the other way. An entire sanctification, as we just read through these passages, is purity. And it's God's desire to be sanctified through and through, to have wholeness. As we already read, if God commanded us to do something and gives promises to do something, we believe He will do it. He will make it possible. Now I want to look at briefly. I should give probably the more legal definition or the theological definition. I'll just do that. The work of God subsequent to regeneration, in which your whole self is consecrated to God in faith and made pure by the blood of Christ, filled with the Holy Spirit, and enabled for holy Living in perfect love of God and man. We won't break all that down, but you can see the themes of holiness throughout it, what it does. That's just a more technical way of going about it. So we already saw God says for us to be holy. And it's through God's Holy Spirit, God's Spirit is holy because it makes things holy. Holy is a descriptor, not just of what it is, but what it does. The Holy Spirit is a sanctifier. It sanctifies what it goes into. The Holy Spirit can't exist in anything that is not holy. Logically, it can't happen. There can't be any shadow of turning in God. There can't be a mixedness. So wherever the Holy Spirit is, it is holy. What it fills, and if we are to be filled completely. That is entire sanctification, then, the work of the Holy Spirit. As we look at this, be holy, as we saw, it's God's command, the theme of the law. Exodus five, three. God in the bush. Do not come any closer, God said. Take off your sandals, for the place where you're standing is holy ground. Holiness is necessity for access to God. And nothing impure can enter this presence. We see that again, Leviticus 10, 10 through 1 through 3. Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, took their censors, put fire in them, and added incense. They offered unauthorized fire, unholy fire before the Lord, contrary to his command. They disobeyed God. They knew what they were supposed to do, but they didn't do it right. And this is, of course, under the old covenant. They did something wrong. So fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. They were instantly struck down because of their disobedience. Moses said to Aaron, This is what the Lord spoke of when he said, Among those who approach me I will prove to be holy. In the sight of all people I will be honored. You can't get any more clear than that. God's holiness will not be compromised. Any one who enters his presence must be holy. What hope do we have on our own merits to enter God's presence now? Only by the blood of Christ are we made holy to enter his presence with confidence. That is the message of the gospel there. It is what the new covenant has come to offer, and why the old covenant was insufficient to make people holy. It's why it says it was a lawmaster for a time. But it did not prove its original purpose, which was to make people holy, because the hearts of men turned against God because they sinned, because they constantly turned away. But what do we have in the new covenant to keep us from turning? To keep us wholly focused on God? What's the difference? We have Jesus who imputes the sacrifice, but what imparts to us the focus that the Israelites struggled with? To keep from turning will continue on. When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the covenant of law in his hand, he was not aware of the fact that his face was radiant, because he had spoken with the Lord. When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, his face was radiant and they were afraid to come to him. Just being in God's presence changed. Moses. Just being in God's presence. So we see there a way that God's presence changes people, makes them holy just by being in the presence of God. Continuing on, Numbers eleven, twenty-nine. Moses was one of the few people in Scripture that got as close to God as any man before the new covenant did. He stood face to face with God. It says in some points, he says that he was. That face to face in Hebrew terms kind of means nose to nose. This was how close he was with God. But Moses, his heart was not, I am special beyond all my other peers. He's not saying that I'm the only one that can do this. Actually, Numbers 11, 29, this is so telling of the heart of God here. A man who's face to face would say this. But Moses replied, Are you jealous for my sake? saying, Are you jealous because I'm the prophet of God? He says, I wish that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put their spirit on them. Ezekiel thirty six, I will sprinkle clean water on you and you'll be clean. I will cleanse you from all impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I will remove you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh, and I'll put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. That is the promise of the new covenant in the Old Testament. That is the heart that Moses had. I want Everyone to have this same relationship. I want everyone to have this same connection. And God says that one day I will give it in Ezekiel. Continuing on, even when Jesus was around and they walked with him, they still didn't have that close relationship fully with God. The disciples were still struggling back and forth. And they were worried that once Jesus leaves, we're gonna fall away. Many of the disciples even did kind of fall away for a little bit. They ran away from Jesus when he was arrested. They were afraid to show their face for a time. Maybe not they fell away in the salvation sense, but they certainly were shameful. They hid away. They did not believe in Jesus' promise to them when he said that I will the third day I will raise again. John fourteen, sixteen through seventeen, and I'll ask the Father and he'll give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever, the spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him because it neither sees him nor knows him, but you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. God's spirit will be in you. We see that very same language from Ezekiel. Jesus is talking about this covenant here. To see the fulfillment. This is such a great privilege that we have as Christians today that we can see the progress of promises of God throughout scripture and see them fulfilled. Continuing on, even just j Jesus' promise there, which calls back to the promises in Ezekiel, which calls back to the heart of God in the law. Acts two, three through four. And they saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. And all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit. And began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. They were filled with the Holy Spirit. Jesus' promise was fulfilled within fifty days of the Passover on Pentecost. One of the most direct interpretations of what happened at Pentecost happens actually in Acts 15. Acts 15, 8 through 9. I believe it's James speaking. I don't have it written here. I think it's James. Might be Peter. I don't remember. Don't check me on that. But Acts 15, 8 through 9. God who knows the heart. I think it's Peter, sorry. God who knows the heart. Showed that he accepted them by giving them the Holy Spirit. He's talking about Cornelius's house in Acts 10. The Gentile believers there that Peter went and ministered to. He's talking about them. He showed that he accepted Cornelius and his whole house by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us. He's talking about Pentecost. He's saying that God did the very same work in the Gentiles that he did in us at Pentecost. Peter sees this as a distinct event, something that happened that was special. He did not discriminate between us and them, for he, what did he do? He purified their hearts by faith. I think it is amazing that Peter recounting Acts 2, remembering that time, he doesn't say, Well, we spoke in tongues. We had great power. We were filled with boldness. We went out and did great things. We saved so many people that day. No, his main thing, what happened that day? If you were to ask him, what happened to that day? And it says right here, what happened to that day, Peter? He says, our hearts were purified. We can see a change in the disciples reading through Acts. There's a change in the disciples. Compare. Maybe you can do this on your own time. Compare. Just pick one of the disciples, maybe Peter or maybe James or maybe someone else. Pick one of the disciples. Read what the new what the gospels say about them. What did they do? What were their attitudes? What did they say? What did they think? And then compare that to Acts after Acts two. Compare their personalities, compare what they chose to do, compare what they say. I think you'll find if you do Peter, you'll see a quite a stark change that occurred after Pentecost. Before Pentecost, Jesus called them beloved, so we know that they were saved. They believed in him, they placed their faith, but there was something more for them. Peter says that his heart was purified. Hebrews twelve fourteen, make every effort to live at peace with everyone and to be holy, because without holiness no one will see the Lord. As we already read in Revelation, nothing impure will enter heaven. Even Paul's description of after he placed his faith in Jesus. He was not fully purified yet. He believed at the moment on the road and there was a time between where he wrestled, he struggled. Acts twenty-six. He's recounting to one of the judges that he was on trial with. He's talking about his testimony. If you haven't read it, I encourage you to read Acts 26, because it's a beautiful recounting of the testimony of Paul from his own words. He says, Then I asked, Who are you, Lord? Talking about his road to Damascus. I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting, the Lord replied. Now get up, stand on your feet. I have appeared to you and appoint you as a servant and as a witness to those you have seen and will see me. I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending them or sending you to them to open their eyes and turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they rem receive forgiveness of sins and be placed among those who are sanctified by faith in me. His mission has two purposes for the remission of sin of the Gentiles, to give them the gospel, but also to sanctify them by faith. As we see in some of Paul's work, the Ephesian Christians, I don't know if you remember from Acts, I don't have the references right here. But Paul, on one of his first missionary journeys, stopped in Ephesus and they found that there were people, Jews and Gentiles, who already believed in Jesus. They already knew his name. They were holding church together. They were meeting together, but they didn't have scripture. They didn't have other Christians' disciples who knew the apostles. They didn't have an apostle there to talk about what Jesus taught, to teach them what they had commanded. But they went there and they were surprised. And they're like, But have you received the Holy Spirit? And the Ephesian Christians were like, No, what is that? And so Paul was able to tell them about receiving the Holy Spirit, and God Blessed them in the same way that he did at Acts 2. There's there's three, I think there's three Pentecosts in Acts. We got Acts 2, there's Acts 10, where it fell on Cornelius' house. I think it's Acts 18. Don't quote me on that one. Acts 18. We're then the Ephesian Christians. And we can kind of see God's movement of extending his Holy Spirit and fulfilling that promise that all people, first was the Jews at Acts 2. There were all Jews there. No Gentiles. All Jews. Cornelius, they were Gentiles, but they were also God fearers. They knew about Jewish customs and they tried to follow them as best as they could. They were God fearers. They were not Jewish, but they acted in the way that someone who believes in the Jewish God would act. Those are God fearers. So Gentiles that knew and followed God before Jesus came. But then we get to the Ephesian Christians. Who were Gentile pagans through and through, didn't know anything about Jewish people, didn't know anything about God, but they placed their faith in him because they and then God sh confirmed them by giving his Holy Spirit, fulfilling the Ezekiel promise that all people Such a beautiful thing in scripture. We see in scripture these Pentecosts. What does it require of us? What does God ask of us? It's not by our c condition of works that we become sanctified. It's not because we do it ourselves. But it does require us to place faith, to recognize our need. The first re the first thing that we need to do is we need to recognize our inful inward sinfulness. What does that mean? We need to recognize that there is a desire that goes against God. There's something in us that is turning towards ourselves. John Wesley would describe the sinful nature as a bent turned inward. You think of a rod that goes one direction, it's pure in its direction. Sinful nature turns it back in on yourself. Your thoughts are towards yourself, your selfishness. But ask what do I want instead of what is pleasing to God. We need to recognize that in for inward sinfulness. If you've not experienced it, or maybe right now you're realizing maybe I do still have that inward bend. I feel this struggle in my heart that goes against God. We can recognize that. We need to have conviction of the need to be purified of it. God's desire is not for us to have inward focus. The second, we need to have complete consecration, much in the same way that. Faith placed in Christ with confession is a condition of salvation in the same way consecration is a condition for entire sanctification. We have to be completely give everything. We can't give any space for the sin nature to exist. What's the best way to get rid of the sin nature? Allow the Holy Spirit. We already saw through scripture that where the Holy Spirit is, there can be no sin. Remember back last week does not mean you cannot sin any longer. Doesn't mean you're gonna be flawless. Remember those things as we're talking about this. Complete consecration. We need to allow the Holy Spirit to do the work of sanctifying. We have to allow it access. The Holy Spirit's not just gonna do it without your permission. It's not just gonna do it in the same way that when you're saved, God doesn't save you first. He prepares salvation and he waits for you to ask, to place your faith in him. When you have complete consecration, allow the Holy Spirit to do his work in your heart. Give sin no bastion to live. Give it nowhere to thrive. The Holy Spirit's not going to compete with you. It's not going to compete. God's not gonna compete against your own heart. He offers one way, which is entire consecration. Give me everything. Allow me to have enter. If you allow sinful desires to exist. I pray the Holy Spirit has conviction on that. If you are not convicted of that, I would have you consider. What is going on? Why are you holding on to this? What is making you hold on to this? We want an example from scripture of entire consecration. Just look at Isaiah chapter six. Isaiah chapter six, I need to get my Bible here. It has too many verses. Isaiah chapter six can give us synopsis while I'm looking for it. This is the calling of Izaea. Before this, it's a little bit of prophecy, but then Isaiah gets to this point in chapter six where it's about him. He's talking about when he was first called to be a prophet. Isaiah says that before he even was a prophet, God came to him. He saw the Lord sitting on a throne high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. He saw a vision of God in all of his grandeur. Above it stood the seraphim, each one had six wings, six wings covering its face and covering its feet, of which he did fly, and two that fly. One cried out, the angels cried out to each other, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is filled with his glory. And the post of the door moved at the voice of him that cried in the house that filled with smoke. Then said I, This is Isaiah speaking, Woe is me, for I am undone. It's hard to get the intensity of the Hebrew here of what's going on. Woe is me. He's pretty much saying, I'm dead. I'm a goner. I'm there's nothing I can do. I'm dead. For I am undone. He's saying that I'm destroyed. Everything that I have is gone. Because I'm a man of unclean looks. Why is he saying? Because he sees the glory and holiness of God and he knows his own sinfulness. His heart is fully exposed. He says, I'm a goner. He knows that God's holiness will not be trifled with. And his unclean lips have to testify it. And I dwell in the midst of the people of unclean lips. He says that I am in a world of uncleanness. How can I be clean in a world of unclean people? For mine eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts. He says, I can't, I can't live any longer. Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, have a live coal in his hand, which he had taken from the tongues off the altar, and he laid it on his mouth, saying, Lo, this had touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. Consecration, exposing, woe is me. That kind of consecration. Confession of need. I need it. If I'm to live, I need to be wholly pure. Presentation of all. Romans chapter 12. He says to offer our bodies as livy sacri sacrifices to God. Offer our bodies completely, everything that we have. Presentation of all, we need to consecrate all. To be sanctified wholly through and through, as Paul says, we have to offer through and through. We have to offer it. And finally, sanctifying faith, as we saw in Acts, both with Peter talking about they were saved by faith, sanctified by faith, their hearts pured by faith. And also Paul's recounting of his testimony says that sanctifying by faith. We have to have a place of faith in God that he will do it. We go back to our opening verse. May God Himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through you and through. May your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. If you have that in your heart today that you know you have that need, I've laid these steps out. You need to recognize it. If God's already moving in your heart, you're on that first step. And if you recognize it, there's only decision is forward. If God is convicting you right now, it would be sin for you to turn away. It would be sin for you to turn away right now. Because God has already revealed what He wants in your heart. What you need to do is like what Isaiah did, if God is revealing in your heart your need, confession of that need, woe is me. Presentation evolves. We see in Romans 12, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice. What does that mean? You don't leave your hand off the altar. You don't stretch out and be, I'm you can do the rest of it. You say, Okay, I'm okay, I can offer a foot. It's best I can do. Your whole body is a living sacrifice. It means you lay down on the altar. That's what that means. Living sacrifice. You walk up there. You walk up on the altar and lay yourself down. God doesn't make you do it. He doesn't pick you up and tie you down and force you to be a sacrifice. Living sacrifice is complete consecration. It says that I am willing to receive what you give, to lack what you withhold, to relinquish what you take, to suffer what you inflict, and to be what you require and to do what you command. Everything. Everything, leaving nothing back. And having sanctifying faith that God will do it. I wanna pray right now. Even if you have been sanctified before you believe and you have given your all to God. There's still moments. Life changes. Maybe when you were first sanctified, you gave everything that you had, but even now there's more that you have. And maybe there's more that you need to give. I can think of times in my life when I was a child I gave everything that I had. But now I have a wife. I have a baby boy. I have a job. I have hopes for a career. I have a direction in life. Maybe I didn't have that before. There are more things that need to be consecrated. So this is while you're entirely sanctified right now, that doesn't mean that you need to stop giving to God. So if you have already been sanctified, there may be more that God is leading you to sanctify and give to Him. So we'll pray right now. For the Holy Spirit to do his work to convict, and I hope that you do not leave here with the Lord's conviction on your heart. Let us pray. Holy and lovely God, we pray for your Holy Spirit to come into this room. We know that you have been here and present in this time. We pray that you will lay your conviction on us and expose our heart to what you want us to give to you, Father. You say in your word that holiness is the only way that we're gonna see you. That we need to be single in mind, not double-minded, that we need to be pure. As Christ is pure and Father, we're asking for your Holy Spirit to work. Change our desires. Lord Jesus, yes, we can make it to heaven just like this. But Father, if you convict us of this right now, we want to give it to you. We don't want to go halfway. Lord Jesus, we recognize that we have a sinfulness in our heart that turns against you. And we confess it. Lord Jesus, I pray also that you will help us to present everything that we are. Maybe we need some time to think about it, God, but Father, help us to know the need that we have, to give everything. Hold nothing back, saying, I am willing. Lord Jesus, call on me. We believe you in your word that says that you will do it. Go with us from this place. And may your Holy Spirit continue to work beyond these walls and let no one leave here convicted. In your name we pray. Amen.

John 17 · chapter mention Romans 12 · chapter mention