Church Words Part 5

Church Words | Part 5

Church Word: Sanctification – Growing in Christlikeness 

(Romans 6:1 – 14)

What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply?

Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Or are you unaware that all of us who were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with Him in the likeness of His death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of His resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin, since a person who has died is freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him, because we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, will not die again. Death no longer rules over Him. For the death He died, He died to sin once for all time; but the life He live, He lives to God. So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires. And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness. For sin will not rule over you, because you are not under the law but under grace.

Sanctification – What is it?

Sanctification is the ongoing, progressive work of God and believers that makes us more and more free from sin and like Christ in our actual lives.

1. To be sanctified is to be set apart for a specific purpose.

2. Sanctification is an ongoing process.

     a. It has a definite beginning.

     b. It increases through life.

     c. It is completed at death, for our souls, and when

        Christ returns, for our bodies.

3. In the process of sanctification, God and believers cooperate.

     a. God the Father disciplines us as His children.

     b. God the Son, Jesus Christ, earned our sanctification for us and serves as our example of living a sanctified life.

     c. The Holy Spirit works within us to change and sanctify us giving us greater holiness. He also produces in us the fruit of the Spirit.

     d. Our role is both passive and active.

          i. It’s passive because we depend on God to sanctify us. 

          ii. It’s active because we strive to obey God and take steps that  will increase our sanctification.

4. Sanctification affects the whole person.

      a. It affects our minds.

      b. It affects our emotions.

      c. It affects our will.

      d. It affects our spirits.

      e. It affects our bodies.

      f. It affects our identities.