The Journey Of Progressive Sanctification: 7 Aspects Of Growth Toward Maturity

Join me now on the open seas, we're hovering over the waters and we're seeing a row boat, with a man rowing slowly toward a bright light. The boat is wooden, sturdy, but small. And it rows steadily. This is you, beginning your journey with Christ. Now we flash many years into the future, and we see another boat, this one is a giant battleship. It has hundreds of crew. It has anti-air guns, deck guns, turrets, depth charges, hull armor, a bridge, engineering sections, crew quarters, and many other abilities and functions. It's a dedicated, strong, powerful tool of warfare. This warship is you, as a mature Christian, living in the world for Jesus. Which one are you? Where are you at in your journey? Perhaps you're just starting out. Maybe you're further along. Maybe you're a battleship right now. But in any case, the journey from row boat to battleship is what we call the journey of progressive sanctification.

Today we’re talking about sanctification. It’s a big theological sounding word, however, it’s meaning is fairly simple, sanctification is the process by which we are conformed to the image of Christ.

In other words, sanctification is our growth process in Christ, as we live our lives. It’s how God changes us. This is done by God in us, and we respond by cooperating in the process. God builds us, molds us, shapes us, and does beautiful things in us. And God has many tools he uses to do this. Good times, hard times, ,blessings, difficulties, and on and on.

The truth is for each of you right now God is doing many, many, many different things in your life, to make you more like Jesus.

So today we’re talking about 7 ways God builds us through the process of sanctification.

First of all, when talking about the growth process God takes us through, it’s important to understand that God’s goal is to make you more and more refined as a Christian.

We’re like metal that has impurities in. And when you heat up the metal, you can clear out the impurities, and the metal becomes more pure.

Similarly, it’s like you’re an apple tree, or a grape vine. And you bear fruit for God’s kingdom. Maybe you serve others, give people food, help people with repairs in their house, or lead a bible study, or pray for others regularly. That’s what we call “bearing good fruit.”

Now, God picks that beautiful fruit, and then he prunes us. And the goal of the pruning is that the vine or apple tree would produce even more fruit next season.

Jesus describes this in John chapter 15 in the parable of the vine. Our job in that parable is to remain in Christ, and to bear much fruit. Jesus is the vine, and the Father is the pruner.

Point number 2, God builds us and grows us through difficulties. I think you all know this one, I’ve said it about a million times. God builds us primarily I think through various difficulties.

Many of these difficulties test our faith. Many of these difficulties will build various parts of our personality. One trial or struggle may increase our patience. Another trial may expand our trust in God. Another trial may increase our compassion toward people who are suffering. Still another difficulty may grow our faith. Another helps us to better learn to endure in hard times. It’s all a powerful process by which God is making us better Christians each day.

God does that through difficulties. As it says in James 1:2 “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

And that’s a key to having the peace and joy of Christ at all times, we should actually count it a good thing when we go through trials.

But I want to add one more thing here, our response to a trial or difficulty, can be good or bad. In a trial, it can push us closer to God, where we seek God in the trial, and draw closer to Him. But if we aren’t trained by the trial, it can be bad as well. Maybe instead of drawing near to God in the difficulty, we start to doubt God, and curse God, and get angry with God because he’s allowing it. That’s a trap we can fall in, so watch out for that. Respond by running to God, not away from Him.

Point number 2, part b, God builds us through good times as well. A blessing, a happy day, a good time, sweet fellowship, a wonderful feast, time with family, a vacation, God often uses all these things to build us in different ways.