(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) - All right, good morning, church family.

Happy Lord's Day. Hope you had a good week in the Lord. Let us begin our service this morning with worship and let us sing together the song Psalm 103. (gentle music) ♪ Bless the Lord, O my soul ♪ ♪ And all that's within me, praise Him ♪ ♪ Bless the Lord, O my soul ♪ ♪ And forget not all He's done ♪ ♪ He forgives all your iniquities ♪ ♪ And He heals all your infirmities ♪ ♪ He redeems your life from the pit ♪ ♪ And crowns you with mercy ♪ ♪ As far as the east is from the west ♪ ♪ So far have you taken our sins from us ♪ ♪ And as high as the heavens are over the earth ♪ ♪ So great is your steadfast love toward us ♪ ♪ Toward us ♪ ♪ Toward us, O Lord ♪ Sing bless the Lord.

♪ Bless the Lord, O my soul ♪ ♪ And all that's within me, praise Him ♪ ♪ Bless the Lord, O my soul ♪ ♪ And forget not who He is ♪ ♪ As the Father shows compassion ♪ ♪ To His beloved children ♪ ♪ So the Lord shows compassion to us ♪ ♪ To those who fear Him ♪ ♪ As far as the east is from the west ♪ ♪ So far have you taken our sins from us ♪ ♪ And as high as the heavens are over the earth ♪ ♪ So great is your steadfast love ♪ ♪ And as far as the east is from the west ♪ ♪ So far have you taken our sins from us ♪ ♪ And as high as the heavens are over the earth ♪ ♪ So great is your steadfast love ♪ ♪ So great ♪ ♪ So great is your steadfast love toward us ♪ ♪ Toward us ♪ (upbeat music) - Well, good morning, church family.

Welcome to our Sunday service. If you guys are here for the first time, we do have a welcome table and a booth outside in the courtyard. And if you wanna find out more information about the church, different meeting times and stuff like that, you can go there and check that out.

I do wanna call your attention to a few announcements that we do have. As you guys know, the all church retreat, we do have the dates set and we do have the vertebrae set basically. All the costs and different details we're still putting together. But if you can make it a priority to block out Sunday, August, or Friday, August 11th to the 13th, that would be good.

In a couple of weeks, we have just our passion week and Easter celebration on Easter Sunday. So that week, Monday through Friday, we have something here every evening, including a Thursday Passover feast, which is, you guys have to sign up for that 'cause it is limited in seating. And then Good Friday service followed by sunrise service at 6 a.m.

on Sunday morning. So we do have that. So if you guys can, please prioritize making it out to those things. If you are new to the church and you wanna become a member of the church, you are required to take a membership class and that next round starts in a couple Sundays on April 16th.

And if you have any questions, you can talk to Pastor Nate Kwok for that. We do have a couple missions trips lined up. One of them is in the summer for a team that's consisting of mostly college students. And so they are gonna have a fundraiser through softball on May 20th.

So if you can keep that in your prayers or you can encourage, you can make your way out to cheer, all of that would be a source of great help for that group. Members meeting is also just in a few weeks. It's a mandatory meeting. It's not something that you just skip because you feel like it.

So please do prioritize that on your calendar and there will be a service team fair just explaining all the stuff that is happening at our church. You guys can also participate. And here's one new announcement for this week. Our VBS dates have been set and we're not taking any registration for the children yet, but we are looking to have volunteers.

So if you are a member and you've been safety trained or you plan on getting safety trained, you can volunteer for that. And that's July 10th to the 14th in part, if not in full, if you can make those dates, that would be of great benefit to us. We do have an offering basket, a physical one in the back.

Otherwise you can send your offering to the Lord via Zelle. And let me pray and give you guys a few moments and then we'll continue with our service. Father, this morning we acknowledge that everything that we've been given is yours and it's a privilege for us to steward all the resources that are in our lives.

And we pray, Father, that you would just be magnified this morning, even in our giving. And I pray, Father God, that you would give us wisdom as a church to know how to use every penny in a way that you would deem appropriate. And I pray, Father God, that you would bless our time of singing and would you prepare our hearts to hear your word and soften our hearts as we lift up our voices in just declaration of your beauty and your majesty.

We thank you for just the freedom to come together like this. In Jesus' name we pray. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Church family, let us stand together as we continue our worship. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Come thou fountain, every blessing ♪ ♪ To my heart to sing thy grace ♪ ♪ Streams of mercy never ceasing ♪ ♪ Call for songs of loudest praise ♪ ♪ Teach me some melodious song ♪ ♪ And sung by flaming tongues above ♪ ♪ Praise the mount I'm fixed upon it ♪ ♪ Mount of thy redeeming love ♪ ♪ ♪ Here I raise, here I raise my heavenly serve ♪ ♪ Hither by thy help I've come ♪ ♪ And I hope by thy good pleasure ♪ ♪ Safely to arrive at home ♪ ♪ Jesus saw me when a stranger ♪ ♪ Wandering from the fold of God ♪ ♪ He to rescue me from danger ♪ ♪ Interposed his precious blood ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Oh to grace how great a debtor ♪ ♪ Daily I'm constrained to be ♪ ♪ Led by goodness like a fetter ♪ ♪ By my wandering heart to be ♪ ♪ Prone to wander, Lord I feel it ♪ ♪ Prone to meet the God I love ♪ ♪ Here's my heart, Lord, take and seal it ♪ ♪ Seal it for thine courts above ♪ ♪ ♪ Oh that day, oh that day when free from sinning ♪ ♪ I shall see thy lovely face ♪ ♪ Clothed in limbo, washed linen ♪ ♪ How I'll sing thy sovereign grace ♪ ♪ Come my Lord no longer tear me ♪ ♪ Take my ransomed soul away ♪ ♪ Send thine angels now to carry ♪ ♪ Me to realms of endless days ♪ ♪ Come my Lord no longer tear me ♪ ♪ Take my ransomed soul away ♪ ♪ Send thine angels now to carry ♪ ♪ Me to realms of endless days ♪ ♪ ♪ Speak, oh Lord, as we come to you ♪ ♪ To receive the fruit of your holy word ♪ ♪ Take your truth, plant it deep in us ♪ ♪ Shape and fashion us in your likeness ♪ ♪ That the light of Christ might be seen today ♪ ♪ In our acts of love and our deeds of faith ♪ ♪ Speak, oh Lord, and fulfill in us ♪ ♪ All your purposes for your glory ♪ ♪ ♪ Teach us, Lord, full obedience ♪ ♪ Holy reverence, true humility ♪ ♪ Test our thoughts and our attitudes ♪ ♪ In the radiance of your purity ♪ ♪ Cause our faith to rise, cause our eyes to see ♪ ♪ Your majestic love and authority ♪ ♪ Words of power that can never fail ♪ ♪ Let their truth prevail over unbelief ♪ ♪ ♪ Speak, oh Lord, and renew our minds ♪ ♪ Help us grasp the heights of your plans for us ♪ ♪ Truths unchanged from the dawn of time ♪ ♪ That will echo down through eternity ♪ ♪ And by grace we'll stand on your promises ♪ ♪ And by faith we'll walk as you walk with us ♪ ♪ Speak, oh Lord, 'til your church is built ♪ ♪ And the earth is filled with your glory ♪ ♪ Amen.

You may be seated. If you guys have your Bibles, please turn with me to Ephesians chapter 5. Ephesians chapter 5. I'm going to be reading verses 25 to 27. And the text will also be provided on the screen for you. So this is the reading of God's word, Ephesians chapter 5, verses 25 to 27.

Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself up for her, so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she would be holy and blameless.

Let's pray together. This morning, Lord, would you speak and fill this sanctuary with your truth. Cause us to worship as we see you clearly, as we think on your purposes, and cause us as we leave here to be rested, to be recharged, to be fed. Would you bear fruit through this time, and would you be honored by the preaching of your word that we might make much of you and less of our lives.

We pray for your help to have ears to hear, so would you speak. We pray all of these things in Jesus' name. In the summer of 1997, I was on a college ministry mission team to Mexico. We spent a month in a province of Oaxaca, one of the southernmost parts of the country.

And we were in an area that was pretty lush and mountainous, and it was very humid. And at that time, much of the region was underdeveloped, and our month there was spent with very few modern conveniences. So we did our own laundry by hand at the river. And our team of 11, we did the laundry together about two to three times a week.

The ladies washed the clothes, and the men wrung the water out of the clothes and hung them up. So wringing the clothes was okay. No one complained. The towels, however, were a little tricky, especially if they were the thick bath towels. And two of our ladies, and I'm going to name them, Susie and Monica, had packed those for the month.

So we men, we didn't grumble when we had to wring out the shirts or even the pants, but we grumbled every time we had to wring out Susie and Monica's large bath towels. And I think we borderline disparaged these girls every time we did the laundry. You see, if we didn't wring them out well, and if we left even a little water in those thick towels, they wouldn't dry properly, and we would have to smell that mildewy smell everywhere we went.

And I, for one, I hate that partially dried rag smell. So it was imperative that we wring those thicker towels well, and it actually was a lot of work. Wring, wring, wring, wring, fold, wring, wring, wring, wring, twist, wring, fold, and repeat. And those thicker towels required two brothers and about 20 strong twists.

And so we got blisters from this process, and we let the sisters know it. I remember naming the blister on my left hand Monica. And actually that was a source of a lot of team strife. This towel illustration is going to be an important one for this morning, not because I'm going to be exhorting our men to do all things without complaining or to be chivalrous or sacrificial toward the women, but rather because as it pertains to our growth in holiness, there's a lot of hard wringing involved.

And also in a similar vein, our sins run very deep and very thick. So I'm sure you found that Ephesians 5, 25 to 27 is often read at wedding ceremonies, in part, if not in full. In fact, this was the very text I used yesterday for Nathan and Michelle's wedding.

Pastor Peter Kim preached from this at my wedding back in 2007. And the vows that are made at Christian weddings are usually based on this portion of the scriptures. But a careful study of the context will reveal to us that Ephesians 5 is not primarily a text on marriage.

It's about Christ's holy love and passion for his church. Marriage is used as an illustration. It's not the main point. Marriage is used in application. It's not the primary theme or the focus. So what we find in Ephesians 5 are not marriage goals or guidelines, but rather how being filled with the Holy Spirit affects the Christian in the important spheres of his daily life.

So the Apostle Paul is saying that the Christian marriage is supposed to be an imitation, a very good imitation, an accurate replica of God's love for his church. And you can more easily see this if you look at just the bookend verses of this chapter. So allow me to read the beginning and the end of Ephesians 5 for you.

Ephesians 5, 1 to 2. "Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma." And I hope you notice that a lot of the wording even reads the same here.

The focus is not on marriage but on the imitation of God. And Ephesians 5, 32, the other bookend. "This mystery is great, but I'm speaking with reference to Christ and the church." So again, marriage is not the central theme of Ephesians 5. The exhortation of verse 25 for husbands to love their wives is the what of the verse, but in the rest of the section we actually get a clearer understanding of the more important why.

He wants the church to look more -- to look glorious as a bride and even smell glorious as an offering and a sacrifice to God. Verse 25 is more about Christ sanctifying his bride than it is about husbands loving their wives. But oftentimes our eyes and our minds focus so much on the marriage-related aspects of the verse that we just gloss over the main point.

So I want to turn our attention back to the text that I read at the beginning, Ephesians 5, 25 to 27. And this section has as its focus Christ's sacrificial love for the church. And the statement of his love is followed by three hynna clauses. The Greek word hynna is a conjunction word denoting purpose.

So it's usually translated so that, that, in order that, and sometimes it's translated because. So it's answering a rhetorical question every time it's used. So it's almost like a little toddler asking why, why, why after everything. So you can insert a why almost after every hynna. So let me read this passage again for you and I've arranged it visually for you so you can see the reasoning behind the outline that I'm going to be providing.

Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her. Why? So that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word. Why? So that he might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing.

But so that she would be holy and blameless. So if you take a close look at the structure of these verses, you plainly see the purpose of Christ's sacrifice. It's the sanctification of his people. That's the point. Christ didn't die just so that he could leave behind a good example for humanity and for husbands.

Christ didn't die just so that you and I can avoid hell. Christ didn't die just so that we can have a better earthly life. Christ didn't die so that our businesses would thrive and our children would be raised with good morals and become successful people. Christ died to sanctify his bride.

Christ's perfect life, his death on the cross, and his defeat of death through his resurrection were all for the purpose of sanctifying his bride, the church. And sanctification is both a one-time deal, as it says in Hebrews 10, 14. We have been perfected once for all time, but it's also an ongoing process.

Like marriage, it's permanently initiated once, but it is also lived out in process. We have been saved, but we are continuing to be saved. We have been sanctified, but we are continuing to be sanctified. So this morning, we, his bride, will look at what our sanctification was and is, what exactly it entails.

I'm going to give you my outline up front so that you can follow the flow of thought in both the text and in my sermon. And I've worded the outline this way so that it's easier for you to track and remember. And it may feel a little jagged and edgy, but for each point, I wanted us to first see the emphasis on sanctification, and then on what that means for the church.

So we read in verse 25 that the purpose of Christ's sacrificial love is sanctification. Verse 26 describes for us sanctification's process in the church, and that's point one. Sanctification's process in the church. Point two, verse 27, sanctification's purge of the church. And then point three, which comes from verse 27 as well, sanctification's presentation of the church.

So basically, we're going to be spending the bulk of our morning thinking through our sanctification, how it happens, point one, what it looks like, point two, and why it delights the heart of God, and why we are to joyfully embrace it, point three. You can track along as we move from henna cloths to henna cloths.

So point one, sanctification's process in the church. Let me read the first two verses again for you. "Just as Christ"--I removed the husband part temporarily so that we could focus, okay, so husbands don't be offended, or wives don't be offended. "Just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her"--and here's our main henna-- "so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word." So Christ loved the church and gave himself up for the church so that he might sanctify the church.

So for us who've been churched, this isn't sounding like anything new. But I want you to take a moment to think with me, what is sanctification? What is that? And it's very important that we define it. Now, if I were to ask all of you to give me a working definition, my guess is that very few of you would get it wrong.

Because we can all punch out somewhat of a textbook definition. So I'm going to supply one for you. This is from my textbook in seminary, from Millard Erickson's Christian Theology. It reads, "Sanctification is the continuing work of God in the life of the believer, making him or her actually holy." Working definition.

And I don't have any problems with Erickson's definition, but it doesn't really paint a picture for me as to what that tangibly entails. So what does it look like? What does it emotionally feel like? How do I know if that's happening to me because Christ doesn't sanctify a dead corpse?

He doesn't sanctify a nonbeliever. So how do I know this is being done in my life? When I was a younger Christian, I thought of sanctification as more of like a spiritual self-improvement. And this was my thought process. I put my faith in Jesus, and as I get older, I will naturally become less worldly, less selfish, less prideful.

In the process of sanctification, I will naturally become more patient, more steadfast, more generous. I'll naturally be less lust-filled, less covetous. I'll be more passionate, more loving. I will pray better, be a better handler of the word. I will be more useful to the church. And I will steadily and naturally become more and more like Jesus Christ.

I've been a believer now for 29 years, and for the most part, these things have objectively happened. But I'm coming to discover that none of it was natural because none of us naturally move toward Christ. The natural man actually drifts away, always away from God. So most all of my growth has gone against what is natural.

In fact, all of my growth has been supernatural as a result of Christ's love for me and not so much a result of my effort. Sanctification is 100% supernatural. When I was younger, I thought growth and holiness happened through like a spiritual osmosis. Breathe in the air in the church, hang out with some nice Christian people, listen only to Stephen Curry Chapman and other Christian music, attach myself to a good mentor, go on some mission trips, buy a big study Bible, and voila!

I've grown in holiness. But I've since learned and discovered that sanctification is not spiritual self-improvement. It's not modified behavior. You can clean the outside of the cup. You can make the exterior of your tomb white. But that doesn't mean you've grown in holiness. The spotless and wrinkle-free bride is the one who is spotless and wrinkle-free on the inside and not just the packaging only.

Here in Ephesians 5, the Apostle Paul writes that Christ cleansed the church by the washing of water with the Word. And when we hear washing, our mind only processes it as something like external. Because we don't really wash inside, right? But the word "cleansed," "katharizo," from which we get the word "cathartic," it's a very strong word.

The understanding of the word "cleansed" is actually closer to "purged" or "purified." So let me further illustrate. I cleaned my room. It has a very different feel from "I purged my room." So this is a different kind of cleansing and washing. It's a washing that alters, that changes, that realigns the very core of our being.

Titus 3, 5, it reads, "He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to his mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit." So the bridegroom cleanses his bride, and he does so inside out. It's a very erroneous and a grievous thing for a person to be told that he needs to first clean up his act before he comes to church or to the foot of the cross.

Sanctification is 100% initiated by God. Sanctification is 100% inside first. No one can pre-sanctify himself before coming to God. So if you're sitting here as a non-believer, thinking you're not worthy enough or good enough to be here in the presence of God, you're absolutely right. But if you think you first need to get your act together to make yourself somewhat more worthy or less sinful or more acceptable, then you're absolutely wrong.

Because he's not after your behavior or your religious modification. He's after your heart. Christ alone initiates this cleansing. It has nothing to do with any merit of those being cleansed. And no cleansing whatsoever can happen before coming to Christ. So to put it simply, Christ's death was enough to pay for our sins and to give us not just a clean, better slate, but a perfect, spotless one.

And therefore, restore our relationship to holy God. So sanctification begins and then causes us to unite ourselves with Christ by receiving this gift in faith. As it reads in Romans chapter 6, "Therefore we've been buried with him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

For he who has died is free from sin." Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. So what is sanctification? It's being made holy by the blood of Jesus Christ. It's a one-time act with ongoing ramifications. If you put your trust in the Son of God, you have been made new.

You are a new creation. And your spiritual DNA, your tender heart of flesh that was transformed from a heart of stone, that will cause you to steadily walk in newness of life. You can't help this. You can't stop this. You can't not do this. So every believer continues to walk in this newness.

Unfortunately, many church people in our day are under the assumption that putting that initial trust in Jesus is the end goal. Now that they've been once saved, they'll continue always to be saved. Now that they have an irrevocable get out of hell card, they can go on living life and doing whatever they please since it's all about grace.

There's something grossly wrong with this kind of thinking. It's akin to two engaged people thinking that the end goal of their engagement is the wedding, not the marriage. If a person only wants a wedding but doesn't care about gaining a spouse in marriage, you know that there is no real relationship there.

So point one, sanctification's process in the church. The church has been cleansed by the blood of Christ and will continue to be cleansed by the blood of Christ. It is being made holy by the blood of Jesus Christ and it'll continue to be made holy by the blood of Jesus Christ.

All the residual effects of sin on the flesh have been purged but are still being purged. I am dead to sin but I am still dying to sin. Sanctification. That brings me to my second point. It purges the church. Sanctification's purge of the church and I want to go back to our text.

Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing. So Christ's desire for the church is that she be spot, wrinkle, and blemish free.

Paul could have easily just said sin free but he gets down to the nitty gritty. He talks about even the last wrinkle, the minutia. 1 John 2, 15-17 can give us a little bit of insight of what he means even though it's written by John. Do not love the world nor the things in the world.

If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life is not from the Father but is from the world. The world is passing away and also its lusts.

But the one who does the will of God lives forever. The lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, our pride, these stand in direct opposition to God. They separate us from God. Those who engage in such things stand in absolute cosmic treason and rebellion against God. God hates and abhors these things.

Christ died to rid his people of these things. God's hatred toward these things is a perfect hatred. In his perfect hatred, he will rid the church and the believer of these things. Not one single spot or wrinkle or any such thing will remain. God wants to obliterate every form of materialism in your heart.

He will do whatever it takes to get you to wholeheartedly seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. He will do whatever is necessary to purge lust, to purge deception, to purge any form of worldliness out of your life. He hates all forms of pride. Our arrogance, condescending attitudes, our self-righteousness, our self-absorption, our man-centeredness, our insecurities, our self-reliance.

He is holy, holy, holy God, so he cannot but declare an all-out war to get these things out of our hearts, out of our flesh, out of our lives. He will twist and wring and then fold and twist and squeeze and wring until the lust of the flesh, the lust of our eyes, and the boasting of what we have and what we do is 100% expunged from our lives.

Not one spot or wrinkle or any such thing shall remain. In the beginning when we're new believers, it almost feels like with every little twist, sploosh, so much junk, sploosh. But you know you're a Christian for 10, 15 years. The surface stuff is gone, but that fold hurts. And as a spiritual towel, you're like, "Ahh!" And you mature a little bit more, he doesn't want a single wrinkle of sin.

He will squeeze again. Wring, wring, wring, twist, wring, squeeze. I got so excited I lost my place. Just when we think we've matured a little, he ordains more folds and twists and squeezes. The man, the material, runs real thick. And the stuff is immersed real deep. So in his love, he ordains more folds and twists and squeezes until every ounce of sin is eventually gone.

Until we are made holy just as he is holy. So what are the means for the purging of these things? What does Christ use in cleansing his bride today? And I concluded that there are primarily three. The means. The first one is his holy word. Second, circumstance. And third, people.

Holy word, circumstance, people. Let's first look at the portion of Jesus' high priestly prayer in John 17. "I do not ask you to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth." So as remnant of believers, we're left in this world and we're assaulted by the world. We are hated by the world. The prince of the power of the air, the ruler of this age is constantly looking to steal, kill, and destroy us.

But Jesus, in the midst of all of that, that he sees, he doesn't pray for our rescue and our escape from the world. But he prays that we, his saints, would persevere. One day, the wedding of all weddings will happen. And we will know the only true God in Jesus Christ, whom he has sent, John 17 3.

And we will know him eternally and perfectly. But in preparation, while in this engagement period, there are guests who have not yet gotten the invite. So he prays that we may be sanctified by the word of truth. And one day he will return and take his church out of the world.

But in the meantime, we both proclaim and cling to the word of truth. Because as it says in Ephesians 2 10, we've been saved so that we would do good works. That's the purpose for why he's left us here. And what do those good works entail? 2 Timothy 3 16-17, we read that the scriptures are literally "phiapnustos," briefed out by God.

And they're profitable for this task. Profitable for the purpose of our training in righteousness, a.k.a. our sanctification. So not only does his word build and train us up, it's the primary agent of the purging of the residual sin, getting that out of our hearts. Hebrews 4 12 tells us that his word is living and active and it's super sharp.

It's so supernaturally sharp that after judging the very core of our souls, it has power to purge and cleanse the very intentions of our hearts. But tragically, many resist the sword of the spirit. Almost every member at Berean Community Church, you will acknowledge that the word of God is supremely important for our daily Christian lives.

For our growth, for our sanctification. So I'm not going to belabor that point. But some of us who verbally acknowledge scripture's importance do not carefully read it. We do not prioritize it. We barely prep for Bible study, not for God, not for my feeding, but for people so they won't judge us.

Some of us even turn a deaf ear to the scriptures. I don't like what that says, so no thank you very much. If that is you, you're either spiritually dead or are dying quickly of spiritual malnourishment and you will soon prove yourself apostate. You're deceiving and being deceived. You have the form of godliness and are denying its power.

There may be some evidence of religious conformity for social pressure, but there's no evidence of cleansing. And you're not just resisting the cleansing, you're embracing the spots, the wrinkles, and are proactively throwing on more. Because it's all about grace. If that is you this morning, hear, repent, feed, and live.

Don't be like the five unprepared virgins who find themselves on the outside of the bridal party looking in. We do not grow closer to the Lord through effort. We grow closer to him through appropriately responding to his living and active word. He sanctifies the church by his truth and his word is truth.

Amen? And he also cleanses his people through circumstance. Passages like Romans 12 teach us that God's will is perfect and he makes no mistakes and that he's perfectly good. He has not made a single mistake in my life, nor has he made a single mistake in yours. Every success, every failure, every up and down has been on purpose for a purpose.

And because he is a perfectly good father with a perfectly good will, he will perfectly orchestrate and ordain events in our lives for our growth and our holiness. Because our holiness, not our comfort, our holiness, not our sense of self-worth, that's his priority. So he disciplines us. He disciplines his children through every divinely ordained circumstance.

He prays for us with groans that words cannot express and then answers his own prayer by ordaining the appropriate circumstance that will grow us and that will sanctify us and that will one day glorify us. As it says in Romans 8, I'm going to read from 27 to 28.

Most of us have 28 memorized. But 27 is actually pretty important and I want to read that for you. "He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God." "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose." So circumstances that correct us, that wean us off this world are evidence that we are beloved by God.

That's why we see Romans 8 ending with such a powerful description of his great love. Nothing can separate God's children from his love. No circumstance befalls the life of the bride of Christ from outside of his love. So this is why as a Christian you can give thanks in any and every circumstance because you know he is good.

It's actually the Father's will in the bridegroom that we give thanks. 1 Thessalonians 5, 16 to 18, some of you guys have this memorized. "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing in every circumstance, give thanks for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." Not about who you will marry or what job you should take, what school you'll get into.

His will that has been revealed to you and me is that we give thanks because he wastes nothing and he is good. I wrestle with my role as a father. I pray for daily wisdom to raise up my kids well. And I am far from anywhere near even a good dad.

But I do my best to discipline my kids both in like a positive way to train them up or what they would call negative way to correct. Sometimes when they adopt like a defeatist attitude, I positively challenge them, encourage them to try their best, to try something new, to do it even if they don't feel like it.

I will coach them, I will teach them, I'll praise and applaud and flatter them. That's a part of discipline. But when there are areas of their behavior or attitude that need correction, I'll discipline them appropriately even if they call that a negative, hateful thing. Sometimes I'll refrain from giving them the thing they want because of my heart of love.

Sometimes I'll take something away because they need to focus and pay attention or they need to correct. They need to learn. But even as an imperfect selfish father, I will never play games with my kids' lives. I will never tease them or take things away from them out of spite.

I will never punish them and make them guess the reason why they're being punished. With everything that is in my power, I will do for their good or for good. I will shepherd their hearts and in order to do that well, sometimes I will get involved in the circumstance.

Sometimes I will ordain a change of circumstance. I will manipulate details of their circumstance but always and ultimately for their good. God will discipline us. He will sanctify us through circumstances so that we become more and more beautiful. So that we may share in his holiness. So that we might have righteous fruit because without that, we cannot get to God.

Hebrews 12 9-11 reads, "Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us and we respected them. Shall we not much rather be subject to the father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them. But God disciplines us for our good so that we may share in his holiness.

All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful but sorrowful. Yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness." We can know with absolute certainty that every circumstance in the Christian's life has been ordained for good or for our good.

God makes no mistakes. He waits nothing. Every disease, even if it be terminal. Every good and perfect gift given. Every idol or distraction expunged from our life. Everything is good or is for good or for our good. But how do we respond when the circumstances start to ring, twist, squeeze and purge our lives?

We plead for change of circumstance. We sometimes get upset at the Lord and demand he explain himself. "Why are you doing this to me, God?" We think of bad circumstances not as trustable discipline but cruel punishment. "Why are you doing this to me?" And then we justify disappointment in God.

"I don't like you. You're not answering my prayer. Therefore, I reject you. Because you are no good. You're not faithful." But you know as we are sanctified, as we grow and mature, we will learn slowly to submit ourselves to even the most painful and most sanctifying circumstances. Because we've grown to trust him.

And that we trust that he is beautifying and perfecting us. His word sanctifies us. Ordained circumstances sanctify us. And third, so do people. Think with me for a second. Every single person who is in our lives is there on purpose. Right now you're thinking of people I know. And your eyeballs are like, "Oh." Every single person that is in your life is on purpose.

Every single person who is in our lives, the good, the bad, and especially the ugly, is divinely appointed there. If you are a Christian, you love because you have first been loved. You don't love because people deserve it. We love because we've first been unconditionally loved. We forgive because we've been forgiven.

And sometimes that can mean you love even an enemy as you would love yourself. We love even the persecutor whose animosity toward our faith is likely satanic in origin. If Christ calls us to love even the satanic persecutors and to bless them, how can we ever resent or hate brothers and sisters in the faith?

How can we ever justify our bitterness toward those for whom Christ has died? God in his wisdom put us in community. We cannot do his will or build his church in isolation. God has put us together in a community of redeemed people surrounded by a sea of unredeemed people who desperately need to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And when we're disunited, we don't think about the sea of people. But people make life hard. People sometimes even make loving God difficult, don't they? Pastoral ministry, I think, would be awesome if people weren't involved. It would be a great job to have, just read, just pray, and not deal with people.

Our sermon is on the sanctification that we see described in Ephesians 5, 25-27. But just a few verses before that, we read that in their imitation of God, spirit-filled people who correctly understand the will of God are to speak spirit-filled words to one another. So I'm going to read a few verses before this, Ephesians 5, 17-21.

It reads, "So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father, and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ." And then verse 22 continues, "Wives, be subject to your own husbands," and so on and so forth.

So I'm going to summarize this passage that I just read. "The fear of Christ will cause the members of the Bride of Christ to heed the words of Christ brought to them by the spirit-filled people of Christ." I'll repeat that. "The fear of Christ will cause the members of the Bride of Christ to heed the words of Christ brought to them by the spirit-filled people of Christ." And that's how I would summarize the section just before the exhortations to the wives and the husbands in chapter 5.

"You will be both encouraged and sometimes hurt by the words of the people here at church." And I'm not referring to just the playful banter or even like the reckless self-centered words, but as spirit-filled people of God, spiritual conversations, exhortations, and reproofs will all happen here. They are supposed to happen here.

They have happened here. And there will be times when you do not like what someone says. "We are called to speak the truth in love, but I believe that the saint is also to take and heed spoken truth in love. For by the truth of God spoken by the people of God, we are often sanctified and stimulated to love and good deeds." Hebrews 10:24.

And at times, even when words are spoken rashly or recklessly or thoughtlessly, and even if they don't necessarily come from a good place, wisdom will teach us and train us to listen and heed. Proverbs 27.6 says, "Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but seatful are the kisses of an enemy." I'd rather be kissed than wounded, but I trust that every wound ordained by my Lord is for good or for my good.

So when someone says something that really bothers me, that I can't shake out of my head, and you guys know those thoughts where it just keeps coming back. I pray and ask the Lord the following, "Lord, is there something in what he said that you want me to hear?

Is there truth in what he says? Help me to pay more attention to what he said than how he said it. Give me humility to submit to all truth, no matter how painful the truth." And sometimes I have to pray that repeatedly, again and again, all throughout the day.

Especially if my friend wounded me kind of deep. And after I prayerfully and humbly process through this and I conclude that there is very little truth in what a person says to me, then I can let it go, laugh it off, reject it completely. I say, "Dude, he's just crazy.

I don't need to pay attention to no crazy." Just, and I move on with my life. But sometimes even hateful words from unbelievers and those who are hostile to the faith serve to sanctify us. As Charles Spurgeon once said, "Christians are not so much in danger when they are persecuted as when they are admired." So how does our Lord sanctify his bride?

By his word, by ordained circumstance, and by people. He uses his word to surgically cut deep, to humble, and to carve stuff out. He uses circumstances to wean you and me off this world, to put zero hope in this world. And he uses people so that we can better understand his heart of compassion.

Circumstances do not arouse compassion, people do. Circumstances give no reason to extend grace or forgiveness, people do. So in all of these things, God is sanctifying his bride so that she will have no spot, no wrinkle, nor any other thing, but that she would be blameless and holy. And God will wring, squeeze, twist, fold, wring, squeeze, twist, and fold until we are holy just as he is holy.

Because as it says in Hebrews 12, 14, just a couple verses after the whole father's discipline stuff, it says there, "Without holiness, one cannot see God." So this brings me to my third and final point, sanctification is presentation of the church. Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word that he might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless.

God desires that his people be holy just as he is holy. This was his desire in creation. This was his desire in the calling and setting apart of the people of Israel, Leviticus 19, 2. This was his desire for all his people, Jew and Gentile alike, 1 Peter 1, 16, that they be holy.

And this is his desire for you and me today. He wants us to be holy just as he himself is holy. And he died so that his people could be holy. Spots, blemishes, wrinkles or stains keep you separated from God, and you yourself cannot remove them. You can try to cover them up or divert people's attention away from them, but you cannot remove them.

It is by grace you have been saved, and this not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, and you cannot boast. But once he has saved you, he will not leave you alone. Praise God. Once he has saved you, he will not leave you alone because he is not a derelict father or an unfaithful groom.

He will not leave you alone. He will wring and squeeze and twist. He will not leave you alone because it is against his character to leave you spotted or wrinkled or blemished. His love for his bride is a holy, holy, holy, purifying, fierce, sacrificial love. So when you feel the twists and the squeezes from his word, from the pressures of life's circumstances, from the family of God around you, don't fight back.

Don't resist. And that's the only real application I'm going to leave with you today. Work hard at not resisting. It's all deep. Make every effort to not fight back. Hebrews 3, 7, "Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, 'Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the wilderness.'" So don't harden your heart.

Trust and obey because there's no other way to be happy in Jesus. We just studied 2 Peter a few months back. It says in chapter 3, verse 14, "Be diligent to be found by him at peace, spotless and blameless." If you're being sanctified right now, and you are if you are a child of God, let it happen.

I would encourage you, don't pray for change of circumstance. Pray for insight into his heart, into his love and his care for you, knowing that he loves you with a perfect love. Do not fight back. Every blot, every blemish, every satanic wrinkle, every stain of rebellion will permanently and perfectly be purged out of the church in his time.

Hallelujah. And one day, in our perfect righteousness, we will see God face to face. Right now, we see as we look in a mirror, but then we will see face to face. Now, our knowledge is only in part. Then we will know fully as we are being fully known.

You will see God, the creator of the universe, and stand in his presence and not die, and marvel at the beauty of our creator, because he has made you holy and qualified you to see his face. And I'm going to close with one very short, but very profound and powerful verse from Psalm 11.

Psalm 11, 7. "The Lord is righteous. He loves righteousness. And the bride of Christ, the upright, will behold his face." I'm looking forward to that. Let's pray together. Lord, I pray for your grace that we would understand better your purposes, your will, and especially your great love for this church.

Continue to sanctify your bride and help us to grow in wisdom not to resist for your glory and for our joy. I pray this in Jesus' name. Church family, would you please stand for the closing praise? Who, O Lord, could save themselves? Their own soul could heal. Our shame was deeper than the sea.

Your grace is deeper still. Who, O Lord? Who, O Lord, could save themselves? Their own soul could heal. Our shame was deeper than the sea. Your grace is deeper still. You alone can rescue. You alone can save. You alone can lift us from the grave. You came down to find us and let us out of death.

To you alone belongs the highest praise. You, O Lord, have made a way for the great divine you give and should. When our hearts were far away, your love went further still. Yes, your love. Yes, your love goes further still. You alone can rescue. You alone can save. You alone can lift us from the grave.

You came down to find us and let us out of death. To you alone belongs the highest praise. We lift up our eyes, lift up our eyes to the giver of life. You alone can rescue. You alone can save. You alone can lift us from the grave. You came down to find us and let us out of death.

To you alone belongs the highest praise. You alone can rescue. You alone can save. You alone can lift us from the grave. You came down to find us and let us out of death. To you alone belongs the highest praise. Lord, would your word bear fruit in our lives this week so that the world around us would know that you are God, that you are good, and that you are worthy of all our praise and our worship.

So help us to feed and drink deeply and help us to grow more and more like your perfect son, Jesus Christ. Now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and love of God the Father, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with each and every one of us who make up the beautiful bride of Christ now and forever.

Amen. God sent his Son. They called him Jesus. He came to love, heal, and forgive. He lived and died to buy my pardon. An empty grave is there to prove our Savior lives. Because he lives, I can face tomorrow. Because he lives, all fear is gone. Because I know he holds a future and life is worth the living just because he lives.

Amen. Thank you, Peter. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪