Sanctification...does That Compute?

Introduction

1. On Friday, Pastor Debbie was having trouble with her computer…

• And she asked me to help…

• With our new Helping Hands Ministry…

• I had planned to sign on to help with computer problems…

• So, I guess this was my first call for help!...

• In any event, what I found when I saw her computer was a HUGE mess!!

• Her computer had literally been taken over by spyware and adware….

• How many of you use a computer with regularity?

• Have you ever seen “popups”?...

• Popups are a result of small computer programs that are put on your computer…

• Sometimes without your knowledge…

• And, when you go to a certain webpage…

• Other pages just “pop up”…

• Usually trying to sell you something…

• Some of the biggies are pharmacy, mortgages, and sex.

• So, let’s say that you go to www.usatoday.com to check out the latest news…

• If your computer has been infected with spyware…

• You might get popups for buying anything from computers to Viagra to subscribing to sex sites.

• Of course their goal is to get you to come to their website and buy something.

2. In any event, Pastor Debbie’s computer was as bad as I’ve ever seen…

• As I was trying to help her…

• She was getting literally HUNDREDS of popups…

• It took gargantuan effort to be able to close all those popups and try to get anything done.

• Anyway, after that experience, I decided to make sure my computer was good and clean…

• And then I decided to send out a list of recommendations to keep your computer running smoothly…

• As I began to think about it…

• I began to realize that there was a correlation between what we are trying to do with our computers…

• And what we are trying to do with our lives…

• As with any illustration…

• It will break down if you try to take it too far...

• But I certainly hope to get some mileage out of this idea of comparing our computer to our Christian lives…

Read: 1 Thessalonians 4:3-8

I’ve entitled my sermon, “Sanctification…does that compute?”

To be honest…whenever I hear someone trying to explain sanctification…I always cringe…

• I feel like we have made sanctification so difficult…

• And the more we try to explain it…

• The more confusing it becomes…

• But…when you finally experience it for yourself…

• It all becomes so clear.

But, in any event, I intend to take your computer…

• And use it to illustrate the sanctified life.

Body

1. Before we get saved…

A. Sin is in control of our lives…

o We do what WE want to do…

o Not what GOD wants us to do.

B. This picture of sin is the picture of someone’s computer completely taken over by spyware…

o All the popups are popping up…

o And we are following them to our own ruin…

o In some cases, it is exactly the same as the pop ups on the computer…

o Chasing after drugs…sex…and material gain…

o But, at some point, people will find that chasing after those things does not satisfy…

o That is true in real life…

o And it is true chasing after all those different pop ups…

2. So we decide to try something different…

A. We get saved!

o We give our lives to Jesus…

o Now, instead of chasing after all those things…

o We are saying “no”…

o “no” to sin…

o And “yes” to God…

o And so, in our computer allegory…

o We start to close down the pop ups…

o Each of those little windows that pops up…

o Has a little red “x” in the top right corner…

o So, whenever we get a popup…

o We start closing it down…

o But, as with salvation…

o AND with your computer…

o You haven’t yet dealt with the underlying problem…

o You are dealing with the sins…

o But not the SIN…

o and the sins just keep coming!

o Computer-wise, you keep getting pop ups…

o And you keep closing them down…

o But, as Pastor Debbie found out…

o It can still be quite a battle…

o Dealing with the pop ups…

3. The answer for the computer…

A. and the answer for the Christian…

o You’ve got to deal with the underlying problem…

o Computer-wise, you’ve got to deal with all those little programs on your computer that are causing popups in the first place…

o So, you use a spyware destroyer/blocker…

o It searches through your computer and finds all those little programs and it rips them out…

o And then, the good programs will provide on going monitoring…