Four Stages in the Process of Sanctification—moving Toward Perfection

Colossians chapter 3. Let us receive this word from the Lord. I want to speak about four stages on the road to holiness, four stages in the process of sanctification, the journey of perfection that God has for all those who enter into His walk. The subtitle of this presentation is “Moving Toward Perfection.” The Lord calls us to be perfect, as our Father who is in heaven is perfect. The word perfect means complete, well-rounded, possessing the attributes and qualities God desires for our lives. And this is a continuation of the subject I began last Sunday concerning the distinctive beliefs of our church with respect to holiness: what is it that we believe?

I have wanted to define more clearly what we believe regarding the process of healing and sanctification, and we are going to go straight into the Word, here in Colossians chapter 3: four stages of holiness, moving toward perfection. The apostle Paul says in his letter to the Colossians, chapter 3: “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things above.” There is a precondition and a condition, or a conclusion. How many have been raised with Christ? I hope that you have already been raised with Christ through His work in your life. “Seek the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things above and not on earthly things, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ manifests Himself in your life, then you also will be manifested with Him in glory.”

There is a reward. After we struggle here in life, God deals with us, purifies us, heals us, cleanses us, and perfects us; there is an ultimate reward, which is that our life will be fully manifested with Christ in glory. Amen? So, all right, then, you know what? I was going to do what I did this morning. The material we are going to address is in verses 5 through 14, but instead, to save time, I will work through it as we go along so that I can make it more concise. So, my brothers and sisters, this is a meditation based on last Sunday’s message, and I have briefly wanted to reinforce a few things about holiness: how we perceive holiness as a congregation, how I perceive it as the senior pastor, and how the leadership of this church perceives it. We speak of holiness as a call from God that has existed from the very beginning of the Scriptures, from the inception of the people of Israel. God called Israel to be a holy people, set apart from the contamination and corruption of the societies around them, reflecting a way of life different from that of the world surrounding Israel. Israel was also set apart to represent a holy God, different from the pagan, corrupt, sensual, false gods worshiped by those nations.

And I was saying that we are likewise supposed to share that same calling to be set apart from and set apart for. We are also supposed to reflect a different way of life, one that equips us to be faithful and effective witnesses to a world that requires us to have different values. We were also saying that holiness, as I see it, is not merely something pertaining to the sensual aspect of life. It does not mean only abstaining from immorality, although that is obviously an essential part of it. I also spoke about a vertical holiness toward God, which reminds us of the essential and total holiness of the God whom we serve; we are supposed to reflect that purity, that moral perfection of God. But I also spoke of horizontal holiness, which refers to the holiness involving the people to my right and to my left, those who walk with me on the earth.

I am also supposed to reflect God’s values in the way I relate to and treat others, including my wife, my sons, my daughters, my fellow church members, the colleagues with whom I work, and people on the street. In my life and character, I am also supposed to reflect those exalted values of the gospel. And so, what I was saying is that our church will always try to maintain that balance between the two things. For us, it is not enough simply to say, “Well, abstain from homosexuality and immorality; stop drinking, stop smoking, stop using obscene language.” All of that is absolutely important—understand me clearly—of absolutely crucial importance. But I was also saying that we will measure the maturity of our congregants by the way we behave toward one another. Paul’s letters strongly reflect that call to love one another and to embody that quality of congregational life, as well as the way we treat others.

For example, it says, “Bless those who curse you; bless and do not curse. Forgive those who offend you. Love those who speak ill of you.” In other words, there is a very high standard for our relationships with outsiders and a call to an ethical height that—whew—is absolutely incredible. That is the height to which God calls us: vertical holiness, horizontal holiness. Now, I want to speak to you about how the Word handles this value, how the Word of God—as I put it—expresses these very important values and sentiments. I want us to see how the Word operates, because I want to reinforce it; I want to drive it deep, like a root that penetrates deeply into the soil of our congregation.

And this morning I remembered that many years ago I had preached a sermon, so I went to a box I keep in the basement, searched for it, and found it. There was a sermon from 1995—January 8, 1995. Do the math: 17 years ago. That is the sermon I have used as the basis for what I am going to preach. And you know what? When I saw there what I had written, there was nothing I needed to change. That is what I have always believed and what we have always preached, because it is God’s truth. Perhaps we have nuanced it a little more, but it is the same. So I want to speak on the basis of that meditation on Colossians chapter 3, so that you can see how the Word embodies this. What I promised you last Sunday was the interpretive lens, if you want to call it that; it is the theoretical-theological frame of reference.

But what I want to show you today is how the Word of God handles these things and presents them to us implicitly. If you have the right lens, you can distinguish the parts of what appears to be a whole but is also very well structured: four stages of holiness. What I want to tell you—this little device is betraying me again, but let me see if I can... Now I have turned it off completely. I am not a good technician. Well, someone will come; do not worry. Just listen to me, then. The second slide tells us something, namely, that sanctification is the work of a lifetime. It does not end when you come forward. Many people impoverish the gospel by thinking, “I have already come forward, punched my card, received the visa stamp in my passport, and now I can simply sit back and get fat for the next 40 years, and I have nothing else to do.” No. You know what? That is where a sublime and wonderful journey, filled with adventures, begins: the road toward perfection.

Paul says, “I press on toward the goal.” The Word of the Lord says, “For the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until the perfect day.” The Christian life should be one of perpetually surpassing ourselves, of perpetually becoming new things. We must always move toward perfection. What we have in the first four verses is a theoretical, theological exposition of what follows in the remaining verses. Paul says here in the opening verses, “If you have been raised with Christ.” Paul places an emphasis on the person of Christ. Paul is always what people call Christ-centered. Our calling to holiness and the reference point for what God wants us always to be is Christ: what Christ was like, how Christ moved through the world, what Christ did on the cross, and what Christ obtained for us.

The foundation of all our aspirations and the source of our power to live as God desires is Christ. His sacrifice on the cross makes everything else possible. There is also a passage in Colossians saying that Jesus defeated the principalities and powers on the cross. It says that He made a public spectacle of them—that is, He exposed their utter shame—and canceled the record of decrees that stood against us. On the cross, Christ secured a series of benefits that set us free to follow the path to holiness. And we must fix our eyes on Him. What Paul says is that through the cross we have received certain virtues. By the way, where does the Bible say that we are seated? You might say, “Well, at 68 North Hampton Street right now.” That is where we are physically, but spiritually we are seated together with Christ in the heavenly places, at the right hand of God. Positionally, you are seated at the right hand of God the Father with Christ Jesus.

That means there is authority, there is power, there is perspective—from above, you can see everything. There is freedom from the circumstances that control the man or woman who does not know Christ. There is a new freedom, a series of new values, a new calling, a sublime, exalted condition that you now receive as a child of God. So, as a consequence of that, since you are seated up there, where should your head and your heart be? Up there, because if you are up there but your head is here in the world, you need a lobotomy, some kind of change, a serious operation. Many Christians are like that: their spiritual state is up there, but where are their aspirations, their minds, their hearts, and their loyalties? In the world. And Paul says, “No, you have been raised with Christ. You are citizens of the kingdom of God, destined for eternity. Your values, affections, aspirations, and focus must also be on the things above.”

Many of us are friends of the world, and we are not consecrated. Holiness begins when you understand that all your energies must be consecrated to God. Therefore, you must seek the things above; you must set your mind on the things above. Holiness begins when you understand that call to establish priorities. Why? Because you have died. Ah, you are alive now, but you know what? Spiritually, in relation to the world, you are dead, disconnected; you have been unplugged from the world. That connection that bound you to the world and gave the world such decisive power over your life is supposed to have been unplugged. As far as the world is concerned, you are dead. It says that your life is hidden with God.

Oh, brothers and sisters, if only we understood, in judicial terms, what we are and what God has declared us to be! Everything begins with your identity, because your performance in life will correspond to your sense of identity. Many of us have still not changed our identity; we have not changed our consciousness. Therefore, we are still in the world and believe that we are very much alive and kicking for the world. That man, that old man, is not old at all; he is still fresh and vigorous. There is friendship and fellowship with the world. But Paul says, “No, set your minds on the things above.” Brother, if you love the things of the world, you are not a good candidate for sanctification, because the world will keep pulling you and injecting you with its energy, while you are here supposedly aspiring to be like a child of God. There is an inherent, structural contradiction that needs to be corrected.

That is why Paul says, “You have died; your life is hidden with Christ.” There must always be death first so that afterward there may be resurrection, as in the case of Jesus: He had to die in order then to rise again. The call on the path to holiness, therefore, is this: let us establish priorities. What are you focused on? Where are your affections set? What do you think about? What kind of music do you give priority to in your life? When you listen to things—even last night, I watched a movie called Hugo. I recommend it to you; it is a beautiful movie. I do watch movies from time to time, just so you know, brothers and sisters. But when I watch a movie like that, I am thinking about how it equips me to understand the things of culture and art, how it broadens my intellectual understanding of culture, film, art, and human values. All those things are there.

I am viewing it through the eyes of a pastor. Now, I am enjoying the movie, understand me, but I am interpreting it in light of who I am and how I can interpret it in the light of the kingdom of God, as I am doing right now. I am extracting all the juice I can from what I saw. No, because your focus and mine must always be on the things above. You must view the world, the actions of your life, your experiences, your falls and recoveries, your adventures, victories, and defeats in the light of eternity. What is God telling me through this? How can I use this as a step toward the perfection to which God calls me?

Paul then says in verse 5, as a consequence of everything God has done, where is your focus, where is your ontological, spiritual position? As a consequence of all that you are, Christ has accomplished in you everything He has for you in eternity. Look at what he says then: ‘Put to death therefore’—see that ‘therefore’? That ‘therefore’ ties what I have just explained to what follows. ‘As a consequence of that, do certain things,’ and what I want you to see with me is that there are four levels of growth and perfecting to which the Word calls us, but first look at this. In those four movements there are two categories: two of those movements are for destroying, stripping off, undressing, and two of those four movements are for dressing, putting on, and clothing ourselves. There is a tearing down in order to build up. Having spent 17 or 18 years building, working in construction, I have literally come to understand what this means.

Every time we have taken on a building like this one, I always realize that things have to be torn down, that we have to dig, get rid of things, remove old things in order to put in new ones. Destruction and stripping away always come before renewal. If you want to be like Christ, there are things taking up space, and one of the laws of physics says that two objects cannot occupy the same space. Something has to leave your life. Many times we are so full of old attributes that Christ’s new ones cannot fill our lives. We are so full of the life of the world that the life of Christ cannot fit inside us. If you want to live, you have to die. The Lord Jesus Christ said that unless the grain falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone, it remains fruitless; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. You always have to die in order to live; you always have to strip yourself of something in order to acquire something new.

There are things you love and value which, unless you first surrender them to the Lord, will prevent you from receiving the good thing God has for your life. Look at Abraham, for example. Abraham had to strip himself inwardly of what he loved most, which was his Isaac, his possibility of permanence, inheritance, procreation, fame, and worldwide influence, just as God had promised him. And when God gives him what he wanted at 100 years of age, He now tells him, ‘Give him to Me.’ Glory to God that Abraham said, ‘It seems crazy, but take him,’ because many times what God wants is for you to strip yourself of what you love most. Until you die, you are not going to live, brother. And I always see that dynamic in Scripture. When the son—the rich young man—comes to Jesus full of anxiety and a desire for perfection, he says to Him, ‘Lord, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’

‘Well, you know what the commandments say; do this,’ but He said it to him with a mischievous little smile on His lips. And the rich young man said to Him, ‘Well, Lord, but I have already done all that.’ ‘Well, you lack one little thing: take all your possessions, take all your wealth, your properties, your social standing, your influence; take all of that, sell it, strip yourself of it, and give it to the poor. Then come and follow Me, and you will find what you are looking for.’ And the Bible says that because he had so many possessions, he became sad and preferred to leave and continue carrying his spiritual burden rather than be free and strip himself of what bound him to the world. Now, I have always said that if that young man had told the Lord, ‘Well, Lord, all right, I surrender it all to You,’ when he turned his back, the Lord would have said, ‘Oops, wait a moment, come back here. I was playing with you,’ as He did with Abraham. ‘I only wanted you to make the transaction inside yourself, to transfer the money mentally, spiritually, emotionally. Now that you have done it, keep it, take it, use it for My glory. And you know that the mortgage, the deed, is in My name; whenever I want to ask you for it, you have to give it to Me. Live as though you have it, but as though you did not have it; use it as a loan from Me, for Me.’

And many times, in order to bless us, God first has to cut things away from us. To reach Christ, you first have to strip yourself of everything human, carnal, earthly, devilish, animalistic. So the apostle says, first put to death, then live. So there are four things, right, that are here; there are four sections in the passage that follows, from verses 5 to 12. From verses 5 to 7 there is one call, from 8 to 11 another call, from verses 12 to 13, and in verse 14 a final call: four levels of spiritual perfection. The Bible calls them constant growth, from one level to another, from one level to another. Brothers and sisters, everything that is alive grows. If you are alive in Christ, you are going to grow; there is constant development. How sad that we in many churches have sold people this harmful thing—I do not know what to call it—this lie that, when we enter the gospel, all we have to do is simply follow a routine, speak in a certain way, memorize formulas, and lock up our inner selves. Quite the contrary: that is where things begin, and your whole life will have to be a matter of going, going, going toward something. When you have reached one level, you have to go to another, and another. There is continual growth. We never stop; we cannot stagnate. You have to be perpetually restless, desiring more for your life.

What I want to call you to, my brothers and sisters, is to be cosmonauts of the Spirit, always exploring new frontiers, like Star Trek. We all have a little Star Trek thing right here; we are dressed as cosmonauts: ‘where no man has gone before.’ We have to go to other parts of the universe of the Spirit, discovering many areas of our lives. There are many passages that tell us this: always keep adding things. Look, for example, at just one, 2 Peter 1:5–8: ‘But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith knowledge; to knowledge self-control; to self-control perseverance; to perseverance godliness; to godliness brotherly affection; and to brotherly affection love.’ I am already tired just from reading what I have just read to you. I need a Coca-Cola—somebody out there help me.

It is continual work. Well, I already have virtue, I behave well, I am a virtuous person; but do you know what? If you do not add to that knowledge of the mysteries and subtleties of the Word of God, you are a virtuous fool; you are an ignorant person with good intentions but little knowledge. The Word says that this is why Israel failed: it had great zeal for God but lacked knowledge. I love knowledge, and many people despise knowledge of the Word. ‘Oh no, the pastor got far too sophisticated today. What I like there is a pork chop with two potatoes, and let’s get down to what we came for.’ No. The Word contains sublime truths that we do well to study. So after virtue comes knowledge. But what happens? Many people have virtue and knowledge, and then that somehow becomes an end in itself. It is as though they grab hold of a high-voltage cable, but self-control is required in order to channel that, to handle it correctly, because otherwise many people with virtue and knowledge become proud. So we have to control ourselves.

There is a call from God to control the appetites of the flesh, control our emotions, control bad memories, control the bad experiences that have deformed us; and all of this is part of self-control, of controlling our faculties. Then, after self-control, patience, because if you have virtue, knowledge, and self-control, then you no longer have patience with those poor devils who behave so badly in church. You become an impossible person to put up with. Patience is needed—with yourself and, while you are at it, with others. So it is a matter of always putting on new attributes and things, because what does the Word say? If these things are in us and abound, they will keep us from being unfruitful; there will always be something to do in the kingdom of God.

So it is a vision to which God calls us, one of constant growth, versus the impoverished vision Christian people often have of a stagnant and simplistic religious life. So look at the first level, as quickly as I can. The first level says, ‘Put to death, therefore, what is earthly’—everyone say, ‘earthly’—what is earthly in you. That is the first level, and that is often where we remain. I call the earthly the biological, human life, the carnal life, the animal life, the obvious carnal passions, that which is most obviously sinful. That is what people think of when they think of holiness: ‘Well, I am not homosexual, I am not a fornicator, I am not an adulterer, I do not smoke, I do not drink, I do not do bad things, I do not kick little old ladies in the street, I do not steal lollipops from children when their parents are not looking; therefore, I am ready to go to heaven.’

And there are many people like that who believe, ‘Well, since I have already stopped...’ And in many holiness churches, as I tell you, that is it; that is what they limit the sermons and the calls to. And what happens? There are holy people who are so horribly unpleasant that I do not want to have dinner with them or have them in my home, frankly. Forgive me for telling you so sincerely. The way they speak to people and live their lives is a poor testimony to the beauty of the kingdom of God, because to me holiness is beautiful, lovely, attractive, smiling. As I was saying last Sunday, it is something beautiful, something that wins people over, something likable. ‘Let your gentleness be known to all men,’ says the apostle Paul. So many people think of the earthly, the carnal. Brother, this is very important: if you have not dealt with that first level, do not dress it up, as I said last Sunday. If you have not dealt with that first level, you are bound to the devil. There is a very large breach through which the enemy can bring in everything he wants to do in your life, cause harm, rob you of your energy, and boss you around, because that is the energy he embodies, and we have to cleanse ourselves and deal with it.

We are never going to strip ourselves completely of what is carnal and animalistic, because our very nature—biological, neurological—is earthly. But we have to wage a continual battle, to have our inner being renounce it, to appeal to the strength and power of the Holy Spirit and to God’s illumination so that He may always be cleansing us, purifying us. We have to submit our being to God’s dealings. The battle against the flesh will never end. These different levels are continually occurring in our lives in different sequences and in relation to one another. But definitely, the first level is this one, and Paul mentions some of the things that characterize that first level: fornication, porneia—that is, everything having to do with... The word ‘pornography’ did not exist; it means everything that is impure. It is not merely having sex before or outside marriage, but everything impure and everything incompatible with holiness and with God’s spotless purity.

Impurity, disordered passions, greed—because it is not only sexual; it is also greed: corporations that exploit people, media outlets that addict people, executives who lie and manipulate and create needs that people do not have, who go home with obscene bonuses knowing that they are lying and cooking the books, because they know that later all of it is going to come crashing down. But what do they care if they already have their three-million-dollar bonus? Whoever gets hurt can go hang; that is their problem. That is the wickedness of the world. It is not merely sexual; it is everything that binds human beings to the here and now, to space and time. So Paul says, free yourselves from all of that; battle against all of it.

And it says here: ‘The wrath of God is coming upon the children of disobedience, in which you also once walked, when you lived in them’—imperfect past tense, meaning, ‘Hey, I am already assuming that this is no longer a dominant factor in your lives. You used to live in that, but now...’ Brother, God always assumes ‘now.’ But we have already dealt with those things, at least at a basic level. God is calling this congregation more and more each day, brothers and sisters, to the sanctification of our lives, first at that level. Let us leave those things behind, that impurity. Please, young people, men, I know there is a great deal of appetite here. I know that the old man, the old woman, is still shouting and shrieking inside them—inside us—but the Bible says, ‘Hey, those things are for the people outside. You used to live with that; you used to move among those things. Now the Word assumes that those things are dying, that we are detaching ourselves from those things in our physical and psychological life. They should not even be mentioned among us.’ I say that with fear and trembling. It is assumed that this is no longer a dominant reality in our lives. We do not practice it; it does not dominate us.

Notice the wording: to practice, to be dominated by, to be immersed in this, is different from having moments when we fall, stumble, and get back up. But we do not live in it, we do not celebrate it, we do not practice it, and we never cease to feel repentance pierce us when we do these things, because we know that we are outside the will of our heavenly Father. We are sensitive to God’s rejection of these things. So the Bible calls us: let us strip ourselves of these things, because our life is now with Christ.

Second level, it says here then in verse 8—look, look how interesting: "But now you must also put away." This is what I mean when I tell you that the Word works and conjugates things in a very beautiful way when we understand it. The Holy Spirit guides the apostle Paul to tell the Colossians—and, by extension, us—brother, leave behind those violent and ugly things from the animal life of man without Christ. And people say, wow, thank God, I have already left all that behind; it no longer dominates me. But now—that is, there is a second level; do not get too comfortable—"but now you also must put away all these things: wrath, anger," and so on. What are all those things?

The first level is obvious, outward actions. The second level is what I call something internal: attitudes, personal traits, habits of the heart—wrath, anger, malice, blasphemy, filthy language. Why does the Holy Spirit make this distinction? Because it is just as I say: in many churches, and among Christians and in Christian circles, people focus on the first level; and pastors, preachers, the discipleship process, and even a church’s ethical teaching very often avoid the other one, the other level. We do not talk about that as much, but the Bible calls us to it.

I believe we cannot truly reflect the goodness of God unless we have allowed God to deal with that dimension, and that is what makes the Christian journey so agonizing for me. I point to myself, because every day I measure myself against that Word and find myself wanting; I need God’s dealings in my life. I cannot let my guard down. Brothers and sisters, do not worry: I am not going to shoot myself within the next 10 or 20 years. No, it is not that I live neurotically because of it either, no. But I know where my task lies, and I accept it joyfully because I know that I already have the approval of my heavenly Father, and He is committed to working with me. What I understand is that I am not a 100-meter runner; I am a 26-mile runner, a marathoner, and I have to run the good race of faith until I reach the end. And God calls me to other levels of perfection that I do not yet possess; I am dealing with that, right?

Wrath, anger, malice, blasphemy—in many congregations, secretly, in families and among Christians who serve the Lord, there are things. How many of us are touched by this? And Paul would mention things similar to these, because there are many others: grumbling, grudges, lies we tell about one another, attitudes present in our lives. We are hypersensitive to the perceived offenses of others. There are even other things: a tendency to despise ourselves, to despise others, to manipulate people, control them, point out their faults, and humiliate people with our verbal ability and our hurtful sense of humor. Many things belong to that second dimension of being perfected. It is that whole inner life of the self that also imprisons us. And Paul says, put away these things too—not only what is sexual and immoral; put away improper attitudes as well, the inappropriate treatment of others. Ask the Lord to heal you.

I believe that in the future I am also going to speak about, okay, what is the mechanism God uses to make change effective in our lives? Because that is important too. How are we going to arrive at this, right? So look at this clarification, brother. You know what? Based on personal experience—my own experience and observation—and not only in this church, but literally in hundreds of churches and ministries, I would say that this boundary is often what causes the most harm in congregations, impoverishes them the most, damages the church’s testimony the most, makes ministries the ugliest, neutralizes leaders the most, and kills the most ministries that God would like to unleash but cannot. It is what brings the most disrepute upon the kingdom of God on television, in large churches and in large ministries: failing to let God deal with that area and failing to reflect God’s dealings, the divine bleeding-out in that dimension.

That is what pits leaders against one another. The secret agendas that so often govern people, the divisions in churches, those of us pastors who do not lead our congregations well—we allow ourselves to be possessed by ego, pride, domination, showmanship and the exploitation of others. It is that dimension. That is why I dwell on it, and the Word dwells on it as well. My brothers and sisters, we have to set these things aside. Let God deal with the area of your mind, your personality and your emotions. It is known as the process of discipling and perfecting the self. Listen to me: this kills marriages. This is what is killing so many families. This is what makes the work of counseling so difficult for me and for other counselors. Because I see this lack of God’s dealings in that dimension within spouses, and it is bleeding dry the marriages of people who love God and come to church; but the values they exemplify and the way they treat one another almost tie the hands of me and others who want to promote healing in marriages. It makes it difficult for the wife to endure her husband; it often makes it difficult for the husband to respond with the love that is needed; it causes children to lose their love and affection for their parents.

And so, brothers and sisters, sometimes one does not know what to tell them. Please help the Holy Spirit by asking the Lord to deal with your life and with mine, asking Him to burn us, kill us, cut us and bleed us out so that the life of Christ may be manifested within our families and our spirituality. Then the Word of the Lord can be properly incarnated in the lives of God’s children.

You know, when you let God deal with that area of your life, you are going to be a different person. Are you upset with me because I speak to you this way, my brothers and sisters? I hope not. It is the Word of God speaking to your lives. That dimension has to be dealt with. I hope no one leaves here upset with me. I am not pointing to your wound; I am pointing toward what God wants for your life. Look at it positively, and it will be a blessing to you in your work, your human relationships, in everything. Let God’s surgical knife enter you and cut those things out, replacing them with the character of Christ Jesus. Let God form you.

There is a third level. First, carnality, mere biology—the carnal, earthly level. Second, strip off those secret attributes that disfigure the human personality, those wounds and deformities from the past that turn you into a thorn in everyone else’s side, those secret black veins running through your life. Ask the Lord to bleed you out so that they may leave you and you may become more like Christ. There is a blood transfusion, from human, carnal blood to the blood of Christ within you. But the third level is more exalted still. We move from what is lowest, concrete and hard, to something a little lighter, and then to something even more sublime.

Look at what it says. Then in verse 12—I am going to skip three verses, a transition—verse 12 says, there it is: "Clothe yourselves." The first two are: put off, strip off, free yourself from, cast down. Here it says: "Clothe yourselves"—put on, assume, dress yourself. You are naked because supposedly you have already freed yourself; now get dressed. Remember that I said we have to destroy in order to build. "Clothe yourselves, therefore, as God’s chosen people." You know, the Word calls us to assume and live according to the identity we have as children of God. You are a child of God, and so God tells you: now live like one who has been chosen. Do not live a schizophrenic life, with a sublime, noble and royal status within you while living like a beggar and a vagabond.

Live as God has made you. How are we supposed to clothe ourselves? What qualities are we supposed to express, the qualities that should characterize us outwardly? Holy and beloved. What does "beloved" mean? Easy to love, I would say: kind, good, pleasant, lovable, tender; holy and beloved, with heartfelt mercy, meekness, patience and other similar things—transparency, honesty, mercy, forgiveness, joy, peace, meekness, temperance and self-control. All these things we talk about, these are the virtues we should be assuming day after day after day in our lives.

I wish I had time—I am not going to do it—but time to pause over each one of these qualities. How many of us are before the Lord saying, "Father, I want to be like Christ. I want to exemplify the character of Jesus. I am not content simply to have left the old things behind. I want to clothe myself in new things that glorify You and adorn my life, Lord"? How often are we asking the Lord for these things, brothers and sisters? That is where the positive side comes in, right? This reminds us of something else. It says, "Bearing with one another and forgiving one another." Why? Because look, my brother, no one—not even you yourself—behaves at that level, and sooner or later we have to bear with ourselves or others. And ultimately, if someone offends us, that means forgiving them and even forgiving ourselves.

We have to immerse ourselves in a way of living. "Clothe yourselves" means covering yourself completely, filling yourself, allowing yourself to be governed by conduct that measures up to our condition. Remember the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 22: love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance. There are many of them; there are lists: everything good, everything noble, everything pure, everything lovely, everything perfect, everything of good report—if there is any virtue, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. There are continual lists of those callings, those qualities, that point us toward one thing: deny yourself, love others, live for others—that denial of self. The world, the jungle, is for the strongest: my needs. Christ says, do not look to your own needs as much as to the needs of others.

Do not regard your own glory as you do the glory of God. It is the opposite of carnal gratification, which seeks the gratification of the self at any cost. The self must die; it must yield to consideration for others. That is the foundation of love; it is a higher principle to which Scripture calls us. The final level—be patient and give me just a few more minutes—the final level is love. So leave behind what is earthly; leave behind impure and ignoble qualities; strip all that off; put on virtues consistent with the kingdom of God, virtues of goodness and patience; and then comes the crown—and I would say that the jewel atop the crown is love. Love completes it all. The apostle Paul says love is the perfect bond, that which unites us to one another in an indissoluble and organic way.

I was telling the brothers and sisters this morning, look, do not ask God for love, because it is not as though God is going to give you love with a magic wand. Love is the culmination of a life surrendered to God’s dealings. Love is what results when you have assumed all the virtues to which the Word calls you; together they constitute an attitude and a posture called love. That is why every day we have to submit ourselves to God’s dealings, surrender ourselves to the being of the Lord, and recognize the height to which He has called us; then, little by little, love becomes the distinguishing quality of our lives. Perfect love is the result of an entire lifetime of being perfected and dealt with by God. Without love, the apostle Paul says, if I do not have love, I am nothing. If I do not have love, the things I do are of no use to me. If the motivation of my life is not to bless those around me, if the motivation of my life is not to manifest the love of Christ, if the manifestation of my life is not to strip myself of myself, be and live.

If I do not reflect the self-denial of Christ in my life, then ultimately nothing I do has value or meaning. Do you understand the height to which God calls us, brothers and sisters? Four levels of sanctification: that is what beautifies, ennobles and firmly establishes all the other spiritual qualities. Strip away your body that screams at you and controls you; strip away the emotions and deformities that disfigure you; assume the qualities and virtues of the character of Christ; and above all, let your life reflect love toward others—a love that only God can manifest through you, because it is not in us to manifest a love so lofty, something as lofty and sublime as that.

Brothers and sisters, I hope I have complicated your lives a little this afternoon, those of you who are still listening to me. I hope you leave here thinking, wow, this is more complex than I thought, but also more interesting. Now I understand why I was so bored in the Christian life, and it is because I had impoverished and oversimplified the journey of Christianity. This is something serious and beautiful: to become a little better, to be bled out a little more. If you are fortunate in the Christian life, every day God is going to come and stick a syringe into you and draw out a little blood. He is going to weaken you a little so that you may manifest a little more of God’s love in your life. He is going to hollow you out a little so that more of God’s anointing can fit inside you.

He is going to impoverish you a little in order to enrich you a little more. He is going to remove a little flesh so that He may put in some of His Spirit. May God grant that this be the blessing of our lives. I ask God that this church and this pastor may exemplify a little more of the kingdom of God each day, so that this world may believe that Jesus Christ is Lord. Stand to your feet. Glory to the name of the Lord Jesus; we give glory and honor to His name.

Father, this word is too lofty for us, but we proclaim it anyway and receive it; we enter into it because, if we put it on, it is too big for us, Lord, but we want to grow, grow, grow until we fill out that word. I ask that, in Your mercy, this people may, for as long as this church remains here, reflect those values. Begin with me, Father. I admit before Your people that I do not measure up to the word I myself preach, and I need Your dealings. Holy Spirit, take us to the level we need to reach. Manifest Your energy, not the energy of the world. We want the energy of Christ to fill these families, these homes, this community represented here, and may that power, that energy of Yours, fill that sublime message of Yours and begin to spread like a holy vapor, a cloud of glory toward the four winds, filling this community, establishing an example, preaching a message, displaying a life—an example, Lord, that people can see. Begin with me, my home, my family; continue with every man, every woman, every home represented here.

I send Your glory upon this people now, Father; I send Your energy. Put to death everything in us that must be put to death, Father. Lord, send Your knife now to cut away everything that is not Yours. Deal with us; do not stop dealing with us. Lord, drive it in—a stake, a sign—into the heart of this church, Father, until Christ comes. Help us to measure up to that message, Lord, for Your glory. We worship You. Thank You for what we have experienced today in this holy place. We take it with us like a little flame; may nothing extinguish it. We are going to protect it and keep it. We are going to place it on the altar of our homes so that it may illuminate our lives and our homes. Send us out of here like blazing flames who exemplify the gospel of Jesus, His good word. Thank You. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen and amen.

People of God, receive that word and ask the Lord to make it real in your life and in mine. We are blessed.