Sanctified Series

Some of you may have read the children’s book The Very Hungry Caterpillar. In the story, the caterpillar had a hunger that could never be satisfied. He was always hungry and always eating. But one day everything changed. He no longer crawled on the ground nor did he feel that intense hunger.

Instead, he was fulfilled and now had wings to fly. Then the author reveals that he was never created to remain a caterpillar; he was designed to be a beautiful butterfly.

In a way, I can relate to this caterpillar and maybe you can too. Like the caterpillar, we were never designed to remain hungry and unfulfilled. Instead, we were designated to live in a relationship with God through the sacrifice of Christ. We were designed to live set apart from the ways of a sinful world; we are set aside to become something greater.

Today we will be using 1 Corinthians 6 for our message. In this writing, Paul was trying to help us understand the process of being set apart from the rest of the world. Set apart from the rest of the world—that’s what it means to be SACTIFIED.

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Do you agree? God is Holy. Do you agree, God is set apart, separate, and unique from His creation? Ok. Did you know that God isn’t the only one who is holy? As His children, we too are to be holy and set apart from the world around us. To be holy is to be sanctified, and the Christian life is a life growing in sanctification.

1 Corinthians 6:9-11 – “Don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s kingdom? Do not be deceived: No sexually immoral people, idolaters, adulterers, or males who have sex with males, 10 no thieves, greedy people, drunkards, verbally abusive people, or swindlers will inherit God’s kingdom. 11 And some of you used to be like this. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”

When we come to faith in Christ, He makes us new. Paul used 3 key words to describe Christ’s work in us.

1. Washed – We are washed clean of our sin through faith in Christ. 1 John 1:7 tells us “The blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”

2. Sanctified – We are set apart by God and declared holy. Hebrews 10:10 tells us, “By this will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all time.”

3. Justified – We are considered righteous in the sight of God. The righteousness of Christ is attributed to us. Remember 2 Cor. 5:21 from 3 weeks ago? “He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Washed, sanctified, justified. All of this happens at the moment of salvation—the moment we believe and trust in Christ, the One who lived a perfect life, died a sinner’s death to take away our sin, and rose again to give us new life.

Justification is a one-time event, but sanctification is a daily process. Our sanctification begins at the moment we’re justified, but it continues throughout our lives as we grow more and more like Christ. We are justified for our sins one time when Christ died for us. But we are set apart daily and we strive to draw closer and closer to God.

The beauty in being sanctified and set apart in Christ is that we’re no longer enslaved to sin as we once were. Paul listed some of the many sins that are or can be so prominent in our lives. But he says in verse 10, “some of you used to be that way, but you’ve been washed, sanctified, and justified.” It was a humble reminder that they were justified not by their actions, but because of Christ’s death and resurrection. And so have we.

Paul was telling them that their lives should no longer look like their old way of living. That goes for us, too. We are sanctified and set apart from the old way of life. Whatever sin you may be involved in, as a Christian, you are now above that, you are separated from that because of what Jesus did for you. We will only find death in sin, but we find life in Christ. When we come to Christ, everything changes.

1 Corinthians 6:12-14. ““Everything is permissible for me,” but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me,” but I will not be mastered by anything. 13 “Food is for the stomach and the stomach for food,” and God will do away with both of them. However, the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14 God raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.”