Teaching Tuesday: What Are We Doing Here? - God's Blessing Copy

Series: What Are We Doing Here?
Sermon: Knowing God - Ephesians 1:15-23 (1.12.25)

Sunday’s sermon was all about sanctification, which is the process of being made more and more holy in the eyes of God. Which is to say, sanctification is about becoming more like Christ Jesus, because he is our perfect human barometer for what holiness looks like. 

This quote from Bible scholar Mike Bird is a pretty good summary of what we’re after: 

“The Holy God is sublimely sacred and must be approached in holiness. This is why holiness is both gift and demand, election and calling, infusion and action. The God who cannot be approached because of divine holiness, approaches us, and gives us access to himself through the cleansing and sanctifying work of Jesus Christ.

Thereafter, the Holy Spirit leads God’s people into holiness by producing conviction, desire, and reverent fear. Holiness is apprehended in union with Christ and is imparted to the believer through the Spirit of Holiness (1 Cor 1:30). Holiness then becomes a type of habit that occurs from immersing oneself in things divine and cultivating deep piety. Holiness happens through the imitation of God (Eph 5:1) and the mortification of sin (Rom 8:13).”

Holiness is the natural and unavoidable result of being saved. We are justified (saved) when we accept God’s offer of reconciled relationship with him through putting our faith in Christ Jesus and his atoning death in our place. We are sanctified (made holy) when we respond to the Holy Spirit’s nudging away from sin and toward Christlikeness. 

The process of pursuing holiness is both a demand and a gift; God expects it from us, and he has bestowed it upon us so that we can know him better (Ephesians 1:17). We owe it to him (he created us and saved us, after all!) to make engaging in sanctification the primary goal of our lives, but besides that, recognizing and submitting to God’s will for our lives is also what’s best for us. 

It may require trading in some of our short-term and earthly desires for an eternal perspective, but as our minds and hearts and very selves become more Christlike we will realize that is no real loss. A life lived in the increasingly full image of Jesus will bring more fulfillment, more purpose, more peace, and more joy (though, as we know, not the absence of sorrow and trouble…see John 16:33) than the temptations of this world ever could. And that’s to say nothing of the promise of eternal reward for those who come to Christ and remain in Christ!

I love Bird’s writing on this, so I’m just going to share his words here: 

“What makes the gospel “good news” is that God has declared us and even made us something else: saints, holy ones, children of God, and the church triumphant. Our faith compels us to think of our sins as nailed to the cross and we bear them no more, for God has made it well with our soul.

Consequently, although it is common to think that Christians are merely sinners saved by grace – depraved worms ever deserving of the deity’s dumpster of destruction – who are graciously granted a share in eternal life, that should not be our conclusion. Instead, we should think of ourselves as saints who sometimes sin.

What defines us is not who we once were apart from Jesus, but who we are being conformed to the image of the Son (Rom 8:29) and who we shall be revealed to be as the glorious children of God (Rom 8:19). That is because we are no longer who we once were, nor will we ever be that person again. That old self is dead, crucified, buried, and raised into a new person. True, sin might nip at my heals, try draw me back to a life I left behind, but sin is no longer our true master, and sin is no longer the source of our true identity.

Holiness is not simply about trying harder; yes, it takes effort, but it is more than that. It is about faith in God’s holy power, a power that makes the unclean clean, turns the profane into something sacred, calls and consecrates us into a Christ-shaped way of being human.

Holiness happens when I draw myself nearer to a Holy God and God’s Spirit is drawn into the very fabric of my being.”

To know God and to make Him known!
- Pastor Brady