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This fall we’re talking about SANCTIFICATION = how God works to change you, a sinner, and make you more holy in your heart and in your actions.
Westminster Shorter Catechism 35:What is sanctification?
Sanctification is the work of God’s free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness.
When God made Israel his kingdom on earth he told them that everything he was giving them was a gift - their land was a gift, getting to be God’s nation and kingdom on earth was a gift, their security and safety and wealth was all a gift. But if they rejected God as their God and king they would lose this gift of the kingdom. And that’s what Israel did - they rejected God as their God and king. So God rejects them as his nation and sends them into exile in Babylon. Ezekiel is a prophet to Israel in exile.
Read Ezekiel 37:1-14
God comes to the prophet Ezekiel and gives him a vision of a valley full of dead bodies. But it’s not just dead bodies, it’s skeletons, millions of skeletons and dried up bones filling this valley. God tells Ezekiel that is a picture of what his people Israel are really like in exile because of their sin. They may be physically alive but spiritually they’re dead bones.
Israel dead in exile is really a picture of the problem for all of mankind. Everybody is really in exile from God because we’ve all rejected God as our king with our sin. We’re all spiritually dead; we’re all skeletons filling a valley, just millions of dry bones.
So what do we do? How do skeletons and dry bones fix their situation and come back to life? If you’re dead what can you do to make yourself undead and come back to life?
Nothing! If you’re dead you can’t do anything for yourself.
So?
It’s God who makes these dry bones come to life again.
What happens in v.7, and in v.8?
In v.7 the bones come together forming skeletons. In v.8 all of sudden the bones are being covered in sinews, tendons, nerves, then muscle and flesh and then skin.
But, are the bodies alive yet?
No, it’s not a valley of dry bones; now it’s a valley of corpses, dead bodies.
When do they come alive?
In vv.9-10 you get these four winds, this breath that is breathed into the corpses AND NOW they come alive.
What’s this wind stuff?
And you find out in v.14 that these four winds, this breath is the Holy Spirit.
[Holy Spirit] This freaky vision that God gives Ezekiel is a metaphor, a picture of our salvation. We have to escape the ultimate exile of physical and spiritual death. In the gospel of John 20, three days after Jesus had been crucified, he is risen and he appears to his disciples and it says Jesus breathed on his disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
Jesus MUST be saying that for his disciples to be saved from the death he just died for them and to have his resurrection they must have the Holy Spirit.
Right before this vision God told Ezekiel what the vision would mean, spoiler. Ezek 36:25-27:“25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”In the NT in John 3 Jesus is talking to the Pharisee Nicodemus and says you have to be born again, “5 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”Jesus is using the same language from Ezek 36 and 37. And he’s saying before you get physical resurrection on judgment day at the end of time you first have to get spiritual resurrection right now.
Does sin make us sick or dead?
[Application] Sin doesn’t make us sick. Sin makes us dead - sin makes us dry bones. We’re not just hurting and we need a little bit of help from God. We are actually dead and we need God to be gracious toward sinners and bring us back from the dead by the power of his Holy Spirit.
[Not Sanctification] Remember in our past lessons we said: salvation by grace and God forgiving your sins does not mean you can live however you want - you do have to change.
BUT we also said that sanctification-change is not by the Law. Some people make the mistake of thinking, “God’s job is justification = to forgive our sins AND our job is to make ourselves more holy by following God’s commandments.”BUT the Law cannot sanctify you and change you because the Law cannot change your heart or your desires.
What does have the power to change us? Or, WHO has the power to change us?
[Sanctification By Work of Spirit] This vision tells us we need God to make us alive again spiritually and that it is the Holy Spirit that makes us alive and then changes us.
Sanctification is a gracious work that God does himself. We don’t deserve sanctification but because of Jesus’life and death for our sins - God doesn’t just stop at forgiving us. He also works in us to change us to make us more and more holy.
So Jesus puts his Holy Spirit in us. You have nothing less than God the Holy Spirit at work in you to change you!
Just as justification is the work of God’s free grace FOR us, so sanctification is the work of God’s free grace IN us.
So who can experience sanctification? Can non-Christians experience sanctification?
Sanctification by the Spirit means only Christians experience sanctification because apart from the spirit you are dead in sin.
Philippians 2:13, “For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”
What does Philippians mean, “both to will and to work?”
It’s not enough to cause us to work and to do the good things, God also wants to change our desires. So he is at work in us both to will, that is, to want to do what is good, AND to do what is good. He is transforming us from within.
Does every Christian have the Holy Spirit? Can you know if the Holy Spirit lives in you?
If you believe in Jesus, and if you love him and love those Jesus loves - you have the Holy Spirit.
Galatians 5:22-23:“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”
Do you have all the fruit of the Spirit?
Yes! Once the Spirit comes to us he makes us more like Jesus. And even though we will still sin, the Spirit keeps leading us back to Jesus to follow him and be more and more like him.
1 Corinthians 12:4-7:“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”
Why does the Holy Spirit give us those gifts?
The Holy Spirit gives every Christian a spiritual gift so every Christian can serve the church with that gift.
Who helps us turn away from our sin and believe in Jesus?
Who shows us our sin and need of Jesus?
Once we believe in Jesus, who makes us look more and more like Jesus?
Who gives us power to love all kinds of people, even really annoying people?
Who gives us power to share the good news about Jesus with others?
Can the Holy Spirit ever lose you?
So can you ever lose the Holy Spirit?
Ephesians 1:14:“The Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.”
What does having the Holy Spirit promise us is still to come?
Physical resurrection and heaven and eternal glory and the Holy Spirit will get
1 Kevin DeYoung, The Biggest Story Bible Storybook, Chapter 43, The Valley of Dry Bones, Ezekiel 37 226231.