The Local Church
Sanctification, or getting ready to meet Jesus, requires meeting together with other believers.
This is something I didn't understand as a young believer. In fact, I didn't understand it until I understood that sanctification was a REQUIRED aspect of salvation:
John 17:15“I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. 16“They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17“Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. 18“As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. 19“And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth. 20“I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; 21“that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.
This passage is a recording of Jesus praying to the Father. When He prayed for us, He prayed that we would be set apart (sanctified) from the world, and drawn together as one... First with Him, then with each other.
There is a reason that sanctification and unity go together. Sanctification only can really happen as I let it happen. I let it happen as I see the need for it, and I see the need for it as I learn to love God and other people learning to love God.
Sanctification won't happen "to" me by accident. Free will requires it doesn't happen without some really specific choices I make:
1. To come out of the world and into the presence of God - this happens in private and then corporately. Both are required. God's throne room...the real one...is filled with angels and people. I can't really learn to be in God's presence without also learning to love the other beings in God's presence. Love is sacrificial...it requires I learn to yield to others seeking God.
Mark 12:29Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. 30‘And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. 31“And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
John 15:12“This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13“Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.
In John 15, quoted above, just like John 17, Jesus was speaking to the baby beginnings of the early church...His 11 disciples (Judas had already left to betray them)...in John 17 he tied us all together and said He was praying for all of us.
The basic reality is that I need to learn, sacrificially, to be to be in the presence of God with others....there is no other true presence of God, long term.
2. Another element that is required for sanctification is truth.
It takes more than one person to uncover the truth of God. This is intentional. There are four gospels, there are four seraphim, there are two witnesses, seven churches in revelation 2....etc.... because of God's infinite nature, we need each other for the fullest revelation of God to be understood.
In America, we live in an incredibly self-centered culture...individualism is prized. However, the Bible describes the kingdom of God as a body and a family...individualism is not prized, love is. This is because God is infinite and made all people. He values what each person sees about Him.
You see things only you can see. I see things only I can see. But, when you tell me what you see, I see more and vice versa. This is the only way God's kingdom operates:
Revelation 4:8The four living creatures, each having six wings, were full of eyes around and within. And they do not rest day or night, saying:
“Holy, holy, holy,
Lord God Almighty,
Who was and is and is to come!”
9Whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, who lives forever and ever, 10the twenty-four elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne and worship Him who lives forever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying:
11“You are worthy, O Lord,
To receive glory and honor and power;
For You created all things,
And by Your will they exist and were created.”
What one person sees stirs the other to worship with more revelation. It is that SEEING that makes us LIKE JESUS (sanctified):
2 Corinthians 3:16Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 17Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 18But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
To be sanctified, which means to be set apart from the world into the truth, REQUIRES I become part of the "set apart"....the body of Jesus.
Matthew 13:30‘Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.”
We have to let ourselves be gathered together with the others near us who are also committed to being gathered. There is no salvation apart from this reality. If you don't commit to God, then the other people committing to God, you simply won't be with Him.
Jesus is returning for the Church...not individuals (Ephesians 5:27). If I don't learn how to get along with others, value what they see, and say what I see (even though it might upset my brothers and sister for a minute), then I won't be gathered together with the body. We need one another, at the local level.
It is absolutely necessary to commit to a group of Jesus followers and then learn to sacrificially live with them. It is literally the point of the church.
2 Timothy 2:22Flee also youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
A self-centered consumerism has infected the church culture. Church isn't about what I get out of it, though there is much to receive. Church is about getting sanctified. Many are confused right now, hopping from fellowship to fellowship trying to find what they want...the "move of God." Or worse, completely checking out of the body and thinking they are still connected. The Bible teaches us about this mistake:
1 Corinthians 12:14For in fact the body is not one member but many. 15If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? 16And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? 17If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling?
The Bible is clear that the 'move of God' is sanctification and it happens at the local level...from the inside out!
Luke 17:20Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; 21“nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.”
Consumerism and self-centeredness short-circuits the whole point of Church! You will not actual get ready to meet Jesus apart from committing to a group of believers and learning to love them despite their unlovable qualities.
YOU NEED PEOPLE TO BUG YOU! That is how we find out our own selfishness and learn to love people that God loves. You bug people, too, and they need you. Paul wrote to Titus, who was starting a Church on Crete, and told Him what the new Church would be like:
Titus 1:10 For there are many insubordinate, both idle talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, 11 whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole households, teaching things which they ought not, for the sake of dishonest gain. 12 One of them, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” 13 This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, 14 not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men who turn from the truth. 15 To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled. 16 They profess to know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work.
If there was ever a church to quit, this would be the one! BUT, God knew Crete was good for Titus and Titus was good for Crete. You can get sanctified in ANY Church as long as you commit to God and to others and let the Holy Spirit change you. God may call you to move on, but He definitely wants you committed to a local body SOMEWHERE. You need it, and so do I.
I picture it like a washing machine...we get together, Jesus pours in the water of His Spirit and the soap of his word and we agitate one another...if we don't quit, eventually that agitation will uncover our own selfish tendencies and we repent of them together. That is literally how sanctification works. It is REQUIRED before Jesus returns. The writer of Hebrews tells us to draw back from this all in pursuit of the first and second commandment is to draw back to "perdition," which means hell:
Hebrews 10:22let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. 24And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, 25not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching. 26For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. 28Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?
30For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. And again, “The LORD will judge His people.” 31It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
32But recall the former days in which, after you were illuminated, you endured a great struggle with sufferings: 33partly while you were made a spectacle both by reproaches and tribulations, and partly while you became companions of those who were so treated; 34for you had compassion on me in my chains, and joyfully accepted the plundering of your goods, knowing that you have a better and an enduring possession for yourselves in heaven. 35Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. 36For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise: 37“For yet a little while,
And He who is coming will come and will not tarry. 38Now the just shall live by faith;
But if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him.”39But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.
It is essential to have a personal relationship with God. Jesus drew away for time with the Father, but He spent most of His time serving the disciples. It is great to connect with other places in the church, but not if I am not sacrificially serving and committed to a local body of believers. That is where I learn to serve and to hear and to selflessly separate from the selfish and consumeristic way the world approaches life.
It would take a miracle to learn to love all the people who are learning to love God. It would take a miracle for someone like me to learn to be selfless and not selfish, but that is what is required. If heaven was full of self-interested people, it would be just like here, with all of the death, hatred, greed, poverty and depravity we have right now. Jesus paid for us to become a clean and spotless Bride. That takes living together, separate from the world and getting clean together!
Ephesians 5: 1Therefore be imitators of God as dear children.
2And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.
3But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints;
4neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.
5For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.
6Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.
7Therefore do not be partakers with them.
8For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light
9(for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth),
10finding out what is acceptable to the Lord.
11And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.
12For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret.
13But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light.
14Therefore He says:
“Awake, you who sleep,
Arise from the dead,
And Christ will give you light.”
15See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise,
16redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
17Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
18And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit,
19speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord,
20giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
21submitting to one another in the fear of God.
22Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
23For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body.
24Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.
25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her,
26that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word,
27that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.
28So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself.
29For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church.
30For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones.
31“For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
32This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
This is something I didn't understand as a young believer. In fact, I didn't understand it until I understood that sanctification was a REQUIRED aspect of salvation:
John 17:15“I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. 16“They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17“Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. 18“As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. 19“And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth. 20“I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; 21“that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.
This passage is a recording of Jesus praying to the Father. When He prayed for us, He prayed that we would be set apart (sanctified) from the world, and drawn together as one... First with Him, then with each other.
There is a reason that sanctification and unity go together. Sanctification only can really happen as I let it happen. I let it happen as I see the need for it, and I see the need for it as I learn to love God and other people learning to love God.
Sanctification won't happen "to" me by accident. Free will requires it doesn't happen without some really specific choices I make:
1. To come out of the world and into the presence of God - this happens in private and then corporately. Both are required. God's throne room...the real one...is filled with angels and people. I can't really learn to be in God's presence without also learning to love the other beings in God's presence. Love is sacrificial...it requires I learn to yield to others seeking God.
Mark 12:29Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one. 30‘And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. 31“And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
John 15:12“This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13“Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.
In John 15, quoted above, just like John 17, Jesus was speaking to the baby beginnings of the early church...His 11 disciples (Judas had already left to betray them)...in John 17 he tied us all together and said He was praying for all of us.
The basic reality is that I need to learn, sacrificially, to be to be in the presence of God with others....there is no other true presence of God, long term.
2. Another element that is required for sanctification is truth.
It takes more than one person to uncover the truth of God. This is intentional. There are four gospels, there are four seraphim, there are two witnesses, seven churches in revelation 2....etc.... because of God's infinite nature, we need each other for the fullest revelation of God to be understood.
In America, we live in an incredibly self-centered culture...individualism is prized. However, the Bible describes the kingdom of God as a body and a family...individualism is not prized, love is. This is because God is infinite and made all people. He values what each person sees about Him.
You see things only you can see. I see things only I can see. But, when you tell me what you see, I see more and vice versa. This is the only way God's kingdom operates:
Revelation 4:8The four living creatures, each having six wings, were full of eyes around and within. And they do not rest day or night, saying:
“Holy, holy, holy,
Lord God Almighty,
Who was and is and is to come!”
9Whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, who lives forever and ever, 10the twenty-four elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne and worship Him who lives forever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying:
11“You are worthy, O Lord,
To receive glory and honor and power;
For You created all things,
And by Your will they exist and were created.”
What one person sees stirs the other to worship with more revelation. It is that SEEING that makes us LIKE JESUS (sanctified):
2 Corinthians 3:16Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 17Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 18But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
To be sanctified, which means to be set apart from the world into the truth, REQUIRES I become part of the "set apart"....the body of Jesus.
Matthew 13:30‘Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.”
We have to let ourselves be gathered together with the others near us who are also committed to being gathered. There is no salvation apart from this reality. If you don't commit to God, then the other people committing to God, you simply won't be with Him.
Jesus is returning for the Church...not individuals (Ephesians 5:27). If I don't learn how to get along with others, value what they see, and say what I see (even though it might upset my brothers and sister for a minute), then I won't be gathered together with the body. We need one another, at the local level.
It is absolutely necessary to commit to a group of Jesus followers and then learn to sacrificially live with them. It is literally the point of the church.
2 Timothy 2:22Flee also youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
A self-centered consumerism has infected the church culture. Church isn't about what I get out of it, though there is much to receive. Church is about getting sanctified. Many are confused right now, hopping from fellowship to fellowship trying to find what they want...the "move of God." Or worse, completely checking out of the body and thinking they are still connected. The Bible teaches us about this mistake:
1 Corinthians 12:14For in fact the body is not one member but many. 15If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? 16And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? 17If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling?
The Bible is clear that the 'move of God' is sanctification and it happens at the local level...from the inside out!
Luke 17:20Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; 21“nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.”
Consumerism and self-centeredness short-circuits the whole point of Church! You will not actual get ready to meet Jesus apart from committing to a group of believers and learning to love them despite their unlovable qualities.
YOU NEED PEOPLE TO BUG YOU! That is how we find out our own selfishness and learn to love people that God loves. You bug people, too, and they need you. Paul wrote to Titus, who was starting a Church on Crete, and told Him what the new Church would be like:
Titus 1:10 For there are many insubordinate, both idle talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, 11 whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole households, teaching things which they ought not, for the sake of dishonest gain. 12 One of them, a prophet of their own, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” 13 This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, 14 not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men who turn from the truth. 15 To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled. 16 They profess to know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work.
If there was ever a church to quit, this would be the one! BUT, God knew Crete was good for Titus and Titus was good for Crete. You can get sanctified in ANY Church as long as you commit to God and to others and let the Holy Spirit change you. God may call you to move on, but He definitely wants you committed to a local body SOMEWHERE. You need it, and so do I.
I picture it like a washing machine...we get together, Jesus pours in the water of His Spirit and the soap of his word and we agitate one another...if we don't quit, eventually that agitation will uncover our own selfish tendencies and we repent of them together. That is literally how sanctification works. It is REQUIRED before Jesus returns. The writer of Hebrews tells us to draw back from this all in pursuit of the first and second commandment is to draw back to "perdition," which means hell:
Hebrews 10:22let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. 24And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, 25not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching. 26For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. 28Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?
30For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. And again, “The LORD will judge His people.” 31It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
32But recall the former days in which, after you were illuminated, you endured a great struggle with sufferings: 33partly while you were made a spectacle both by reproaches and tribulations, and partly while you became companions of those who were so treated; 34for you had compassion on me in my chains, and joyfully accepted the plundering of your goods, knowing that you have a better and an enduring possession for yourselves in heaven. 35Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. 36For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise: 37“For yet a little while,
And He who is coming will come and will not tarry. 38Now the just shall live by faith;
But if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him.”39But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.
It is essential to have a personal relationship with God. Jesus drew away for time with the Father, but He spent most of His time serving the disciples. It is great to connect with other places in the church, but not if I am not sacrificially serving and committed to a local body of believers. That is where I learn to serve and to hear and to selflessly separate from the selfish and consumeristic way the world approaches life.
It would take a miracle to learn to love all the people who are learning to love God. It would take a miracle for someone like me to learn to be selfless and not selfish, but that is what is required. If heaven was full of self-interested people, it would be just like here, with all of the death, hatred, greed, poverty and depravity we have right now. Jesus paid for us to become a clean and spotless Bride. That takes living together, separate from the world and getting clean together!
Ephesians 5: 1Therefore be imitators of God as dear children.
2And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.
3But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints;
4neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.
5For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.
6Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.
7Therefore do not be partakers with them.
8For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light
9(for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth),
10finding out what is acceptable to the Lord.
11And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.
12For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret.
13But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light.
14Therefore He says:
“Awake, you who sleep,
Arise from the dead,
And Christ will give you light.”
15See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise,
16redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
17Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
18And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit,
19speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord,
20giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
21submitting to one another in the fear of God.
22Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
23For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body.
24Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.
25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her,
26that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word,
27that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.
28So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself.
29For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church.
30For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones.
31“For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”
32This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
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