Focal Point

Guest (Male): Today on Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez. If we are set apart from sin, God says, "Ah, there we go. Now I can use that person." The more set apart from sin we are, the more God sees that we're useful. My goal as a Christian is that I will be increasingly holy and useful. The goal of sanctification.

Justification and sanctification. These two words don't often come up in everyday conversation, and yet these two words are active and working in the life of every Christian. Today on Focal Point, Mike Fabarez provides an introduction, or maybe a refresher, on being justified and being sanctified. Understanding what these words mean and the role they play in our lives can build up your faith and make it stronger. Today's message is titled, "A Crash Course in Justification and Sanctification."

Mike Fabarez: If I asked it this way, it would be a trick question: Does baptism save you? Yes, but no. Because you have to ask this follow-up question: Which baptism are you talking about? There are two baptisms that we can instruct you on in scripture. One saves you and one is a picture of that salvation. Both are required, by the way. Both are commanded, but one is the one that saves you. The other one is the one that solemnizes your saving.

Matthew 28. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them. Them refers to disciples. I don't baptize people to make disciples. I make disciples and then I baptize them. What's a disciple? Someone who's in Christ. Therefore, baptism does not save me, but once I'm saved, I'd better get baptized. Why? Because God told you to. Obedience is obedience. Obey God. God told you to be baptized.

There's a clear biblical distinction between the ceremony and the reality. The reality is a baptism by the Holy Spirit into Christ. That saves you. There's another one that's by a pastor into water. That's the ceremony. Those are the two baptisms in scripture that we need to be instructed about. One obediently solemnizes the other.

In 1 Peter chapter 3, some people stumble over this text because it says right there, "baptism saves you." I've already conceded that point. Baptism does save you. Which one though? 1 Peter chapter 3 verse 21, talking about the flood. You had an ark, went through the flood. Isn't that interesting? They were saved through the flood, through the water. All that. Interesting. Verse 21: "and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you."

Not the removal of dirt from the body. Not that one, not the splish-splash one, but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. That's crying out to God in repentance and faith. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. What saves you? The baptism of being placed into Christ.

Not being placed into water by a pastor, but being placed into Christ by the Holy Spirit. That means the day I cried out with a good conscience, a pledge of a good conscience to God: "God, save me." I was then, by the Holy Spirit, my files were taken out of my file cabinet and they were placed into Christ. That's baptism of the Holy Spirit into Christ.

The water symbolizes baptism which that now saves you also, not the removal of dirt from the body, but a pledge of a good conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Christ Jesus because he did all the work. When one sincerely cries out to God in repentance and faith, he is placed into the family of God. He is placed into Christ. It's called justification. That I am now cleansed of my sin before God, that I'm now rightly in Christ. That's the prerequisite in scripture. We see it throughout the book of Acts.

What is the requirement here that I've got to be convinced of before I lay my hands on someone? For instance, 1 Timothy 5 says don't lay your hands on people hastily. Be thoughtful about it because you've got to make sure they've got the right kind of heart and they're the right kind of people. What does it require? What do I have to make sure has been happening in their life? Sanctification, where they have made some progress in the Christian life, and I feel like that's the right kind of person to do the job. Justification, sanctification. Okay?

If you're not justified, repent of your sin and put your trust in Christ. Happens instantaneously. Then you do the ceremony that celebrates the instantaneous justification. You've got to make sure you've been justified, but you've got to make sure you're being sanctified. Sanctified. We use that word because it's translated into English that way, but it comes through Latin. And in Latin, the word hagios or holy, in its various forms, was translated into the word sanctus. That's the Latin word for holy. Sanctus means holy.

Holy means, if you look it up in a dictionary, to be set apart. Or how about this word, saint? You know what a saint is? It's a Christian. A holy one. What is a holy one? Someone who's set apart. All you have to do is repent of your sins and put your trust in Christ. And if you are justified, you become a saint. That's why if you look just linguistically through the New Testament for the word sanctification, you will find that sometimes sanctification refers to justification—being set apart judicially and forensically one time. But then, most of the time it says, but then it's a process of practically becoming sanctus—holy.

The process of sanctification is simply, just remember the word holy. It's the process of becoming increasingly holy. And here's the other side of becoming holy as it relates to sanctification and laying on of hands: it means now I'm more useful to God. I become increasingly more qualified to do more things for God. Because if I'm less holy, I'm not qualified to do things for God. The more holy I am, the more I am like Christ, the more doors of opportunity open up for me—and not only opportunity but responsibility before God to do things in the body of Christ.

Let's quickly in this section look at a few passages. Let's start with Romans chapter 12 verse number 1. You will see in Romans chapter 12 that sanctification is a process, as clearly stated in Romans chapter 12 verses 1 and 2. Let's look at it. "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy," which was what chapter 11 was all about, "offer your bodies as living sacrifices." Now here's an important word that in Latin is translated sanctus. What's the word? Holy. "Holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual act of worship."

You know what? Here's the holy thing. It's kind of a process. How do I know? Verse 2: "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed." Here's a process now. "By the renewing of your mind." And the more you renew that and the less you're conformed to this world, you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing, and perfect will. All of us who've experienced something on the journey of sanctification know that's just a process. The farther I get up this hill, the more I see clearly his good, pleasing, and perfect will. I now become more like Christ.

Look at it this way: sanctification, sanctus, sanctuary, sanctify, saint. All those things. It's a setting apart from something and a setting apart to something. And in a moral sense, it's setting apart from sin and setting apart to Christlikeness, as this passage will say clearly. 2 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 18. Now the imagery here is Moses coming off the mountain. His face was glowing, so he put the veil on because it kept going away. It was like a light bulb or one of those glow sticks and it starts to kind of mellow, it's not as bright anymore.

It's not how it was though, or should be with us. Verse 18: "And we who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being," process now, "transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit." Do you see that's a process? When I become a Christian, I'm not looking a whole lot like Christ. The longer I go in the process, it's called sanctification, the more I should be looking like Christ. Which means the less I'm looking like my old self, which was characterized by selfishness, self-absorption, and sin.

No longer. My sin may not have been your sin, but we're all into that thing, living for ourselves. Not there. I'm being set apart from that and I'm being set apart to be more like Christ, reflecting his glory as I'm transformed into his likeness. It doesn't mean you look like him obviously, because we don't even know what he looks like. It means that I'm acting like him, I'm speaking like him, I'm thinking like him. Therefore, it becomes easier for me to see what his good, perfect will is in this world.

2 Timothy 2. Couple more. The other side of this coin is being useful to God. If we are set apart from sin, God says, "Ah, there we go. Now I can use that person." The more set apart from sin we are, the more God sees that we're useful. The analogy, and often misunderstood by the way, in 2 Timothy chapter 2 is God looking around his house at different things. And just like you, I assume, have paper plates tucked away in one of the cabinets, and regular plates, and then over here somewhere with dust on them you have the special plates called china.

Do you have those three sets of plates in your house? God's looking at his church and he's seeing paper plates—that's hot dog, corn dog, right? Regular plates—casserole, stew, steak. China—fru-fru food, right? Whatever you put on china, I don't know. We never pull ours out. But you've got three different sets. That's the picture here. Verse 20: "In a large house there are articles," this is 2 Timothy 2:20, "not only of gold and silver but also of wood and clay. Some are for noble purposes and some for just like common stuff, ignoble purposes."

"If a man cleanses himself from," now here's the problem with the NIV. It says "the latter," and unfortunately that'll put your mind back to the closest phrase. This is—that's not technically what the Greek text says. Houtos here, the demonstrative pronoun, points back further. "These things" literally is what the Greek text says. What things? You can draw a line up to verse 14—quarreling. Verse 16—godless chatter. Verses 17 and 18—doctrinal fudging and foolishness. Verse 19—wickedness.

If he cleanses himself from the latter, here's what he'll be: an instrument or some kind of article for noble purposes, which is what verse 20 was all about. Made—hagios, sanctus—holy. Now I'm an article of gold or silver for noble purposes. Look at the next word, isn't this great? "Useful to the master and prepared to do any good work." If I'm still—look at the things. Verse 14, if I'm still the bickering, quarreling person and I'm always nitpicking people's words and argue, argue, argue, then you're not very useful for God. You may think you're Mr. Doctrinal Smart Guy, but you're not. God can't use you. You're just little baby Christian. Okay, can't use that guy. It's paper plate.

If you can get rid of that and the godless chatter and all that foolish talk and doctrinal equivocation and wickedness, verse 19, then you will be more and more holy and more and more useful, prepared to do any good work. That's what God would want of us: that we would be becoming increasingly holy because when we do, we get increasingly useful to God. That's called sanctification. Sanctification.

Letter B. If you become increasingly holy and useful to God, guess what God wants to do? Put you to work. He wants to see you commissioned into fruitful ministry. Who does that in the church, by the way? Leaders in the church recognize that God has set people apart and they commission people into service. Even the lead preaching senior pastor guy—even he has to be put and commissioned into ministry by pastors. That's the way it works.

Example: Acts 13. It's the church in Antioch. They're getting together. Let's look at the very beginning of this passage. Last one I'll turn you to. Acts 13. Here's the practical side. I said the moral side of it is—ethical side of it—I am being set apart from sin to Christlikeness. If you want to, you can say that's kind of the reality. The practical is that now I am being set apart for ministry, and leaders should be recognizing people that God is setting apart in their morality and ethics and spiritual growth, that the church is now saying you need to be involved in ministry.

Take a look at this, verse number 2: "While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said," now look at this, "set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." That's an interesting phrase. God had already called them to do it. In God's mind, they were already set apart. What is now God saying to these people in the church? Set them apart. Sanctify them. Well, wait a minute, they're already sanctified and God has already sanctified them to do the work. Now you guys sanctify them.

Verse 3, so they respond: "So after they had fasted and prayed," they wanted to make sure—that's the 1 Timothy 5 passage, don't do it hastily—"they placed their hands on them," laying on of hands, and sent them off. Go do the work. My goal as a Christian, no matter how laborious it may feel, is that I will be increasingly holy so that someone will put their, quote-unquote, "hands on me." It's not an ordinance; it doesn't always have to happen that way. But that someone will say, "Mike, here, get to work for God." That ought to be my goal.

If that's not your goal, you don't understand the baby food of the Christian life. The baby food of the Christian life is justification leads to sanctification, and sanctification means somebody's putting their hands on me in terms of leaders in churches and saying, "Get to work. Serve the Lord because you're increasingly more useful to God. Get to work." That's the goal of sanctification.

Notes real quick. Let me give you three examples that go in canonical order, chronological and canonical order, that move from commissioning to the most simple to the most responsible. Jot this one down, I think it was already in the examples. Acts chapter 6 verse 6. Let's just put it down. Commissioning servants. Here are deacons—diakonos—servants. This is as mundane as passing out cookies after a service.

God says that there is at a particular point in your Christian life where you ought to be commissioned to serve other people in the church. Could be watching babies in the nursery. It could be picking up chairs after the service is over. It could be running cables, taking speakers down. But you ought to be commissioned at some point to service. If you're sanctified, you'll get to that place being commissioned to serve. Commissioning servants.

Next level, Acts 13:3. This team—Barnabas and Saul—were now leaders in this, and he wasn't the big hotshot by chapter 13, not yet. He was being commissioned to lead this church plant team—these guys together were. I put it this way: in Acts 13:3, they were commissioning leaders. Commissioning servants, secondly, commissioning leaders. There's a difference between serving in an area where it's the kind of, well, they need this so I'm going to serve in this way. Commissioning leaders is now taking the responsibility because I've become increasingly holy, useful to God, doctrinally, spiritually, behaviorally, ethically, morally. Now I'm going to take the lead.

I'm going to lead a small group. I'm going to lead someone through partners program. I'm going to lead a children's ministry team. I'm going to teach a Sunday school class. I'm going to move from the service to the leadership. Thirdly, the pastoral epistles talk a lot about laying on of hands, and it does in reference to pastoral leadership. Okay, commissioning lead pastors in particular.

I'll just put it that way because that's what 1 Timothy chapter 4 verse 14 and chapter 5 are all about: commissioning preaching pastors. And there are some people listening to me on the radio or in this auditorium right now who God is setting apart to be a preaching pastor. Stop fighting it. It's often the people that sit back there and go, "Well, Mike, he don't know what he's doing." Great, I don't. You do. Let's commission you to do the work. "I'm just going to do it myself." You can't. The Bible says you need to be commissioned by leaders in the church to do it, but let us do it. Let us work with you.

Let's work together at this and let's get you into being a lead pastor somewhere because guess what? If Compass is half of what we as a staff think it's going to be in terms of starting churches with a common not only doctrinal stance but values stance, we're going to need a lot of lead pastors. Came to church, they made me a pastor. Not trying to make you a pastor today, okay? But can we start with some service level and then can you be open as God takes you down the road to some leadership level?

Let's always be open to the fact that God may pluck you out and it's never pretty. Trust me, I've been through it. You will go kicking and screaming into it. But if God wants you there, you'll be there. We need to start with the service level. If you're sitting here going, "Ah, that doesn't sound good to me," then you don't understand the basics of the Christian life. Justification gets me saved, sanctification gets me useful to God. We need to be useful.

I was a band geek in high school. Have I told you that? Full-blown. Okay. And band geeks have to go and play for the football players at the football games every Friday night. You know what we used to think sitting up there in the bleachers? We had good seats for every game, but you know what we always thought about the football players privately and secretly? We wished we were one. Because all the cheerleaders are very interested not in the band geeks but in the football players.

On Friday, all we could do is tote around our instrument case while they're wearing their jerseys. And all the pretty girls are dancing around cheering on the guys with the jerseys on. I remember just like most band geeks thinking to myself, "Is there any easy way to get on the team? Don't give me the ball. I don't want to run with it. I don't want to get tackled. I don't want to sweat. I just want to have a jersey." And you know what God says to that? No.

Some of us want to be justified without being sanctified because sanctification means we work out and eventually get put in the game and we take a few hits, and it's work. You are not called to be a consumer. You were called to be pulled into the body of Christ to grow up, and it's going to be hard. But you're called to serve, to lead, and maybe even to pastor. God's going to call you to do that. And you need to be open to it. And you've got to recognize if you're on the sidelines and think you can join the team without being useful in the game, you can't.

Let's just concede the point. "I want to be on the team because I want to go to heaven." Now that I'm on the team, I've got to have some responsibility. One day we're going to get our act together; we're working on it. We're going to have some opportunities and make it easier for you to know what are the areas where I can get involved. Because that'll be the next question and we'll get there. But right now, get creative.

Some of you guys watch our musicians up here every week and you know, "You know what, God has gifted me to do that." But you know what, I just want to sit back and it's, you know, I don't want to do this. You know what, stop. Ask: "How can I show—is God calling me to do that?" Get involved. You drop your kids off there. You think, "Man, you know what, I want to," get involved. You've got a jersey, get involved. If you don't have a jersey, get a jersey and get involved. Because that's how it works. Let's pray.

God, help us to understand the basics of the Christian life that are really basic. And yet for a lot of us, it seems we've found nice little rationalizations to avoid sanctification which ultimately is going to lead to some demands in my life. It's going to mean another night out; I can't do the home thing and watch my TV and sit on my couch. It's going to demand some effort. I'm going to be criticized. There are going to be people that don't like me.

God, I just pray we get past all of that and be willing to recognize that if you have justified us, it's time for us to grow in our sanctification. And that'll mean eventually people are going to be putting their, quote-unquote, "spiritual authority on us," putting their hands on us and saying, "This person's called to do that ministry." God, I pray we wouldn't fight it anymore. Get us plugged in, get us involved, move us from passivity in the body of Christ to activity. I pray that everybody here would do some real thinking about justification and sanctification in their Christian life. In Jesus' name, amen.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Focal Point and a message from Mike Fabarez called "A Crash Course in Sanctification and Justification." As you're probably aware, these Bible teaching programs are made possible through the generous gifts of listening friends just like you, who value Pastor Mike's teaching and want to see Focal Point continue. Any donation you can give makes a huge impact to this ministry. When you give today, we'll say thanks by sending you a resource called "The Revelation Answer Book."

This book addresses the most pressing questions about scripture's final book, clarifying topics like the timeline of end-time events, the mark of the beast, the millennium, and what heaven will be like. Request your copy of "The Revelation Answer Book" when you give to Focal Point. Just call 888-320-5885 or make your gift at focalpointradio.org.

Today is a great day to step up and join us as a partner. Becoming a Focal Point partner through monthly donations creates the stable base we need to advance this ministry's mission. Your consistent giving empowers us to plan strategically and extend Pastor Mike's verse-by-verse instruction to audiences we've never reached before. Sign up as a Focal Point partner today by calling 888-320-5885 or join online at focalpointradio.org. Well, Pastor Mike, you've got something exciting on the calendar for later this year. Share what's coming up.

Mike Fabarez: Thanks, Dave. I'd like to invite you to join me September 19th through the 26th, 2026, on a Christian cruise through New England and Canada. We'll sail Holland America's Zuiderdam, known for its elegance and exceptional hospitality, to historic cities like Boston, Halifax, and Quebec City. We'll gather for devotional times in God's Word, followed by thought-provoking Bible teaching throughout our journey.

Grammy-winning musicians Keith and Kristyn Getty will lead us in worship. You'll enjoy the stunning autumn landscapes as we explore charming coastal villages, all while building friendships with like-minded believers. It's a unique opportunity to deepen your faith and see some of the most beautiful scenery on the eastern seaboard. Space is limited, so don't wait to sign up. Secure your cabin today at focalpointradio.org.

Guest (Male): Come back tomorrow when we will continue our study in Hebrews chapter 6. Ever wonder how all this will end? We'll get a glimpse of history's finale Wednesday on Focal Point.

Mike Fabarez: Pastor Mike here. I pray today's message will help you live out your faith with truth and love. After all, that's the kind of biblical faith that changes lives and transforms a crooked culture. But if you haven't truly surrendered your life to Christ, then I'd like to invite you to get in touch. We'd love to pray with you and help you discover God's plan of salvation. Visit focalpointradio.org.

Guest (Male): Today's program was produced and sponsored by Focal Point Ministries.