Sanctification: How God Makes His People Holy

What this church actually teaches about growing in Christlikeness — the ground it stands on, the battle it names, and the means God provides to win it.

Positional and Progressive: Two Sides of One Coin

Sanctification is not one thing — it is two things held together, and you have to understand both or you will mishandle either one. There is a positional sanctification: 'in Christ, God sees His people as holy.' If you do a word search in the New Testament for 'sanctified' or 'sanctification,' what you find are declarations — believers called saints, people described as 'already sanctified.' ^[5] That positional standing is tied directly to justification. God looks at you in Christ and sees holy. Full stop. ^[5][SF]

But that is only one side of the coin. 'The other side is that because of justification, God will begin to not just see you as holy, but create holiness in you.' ^[5] This is the progressive nature of sanctification — the lifelong work of being made what God has already declared you to be. 'The ruling power of sin has been broken,' and yet 'remnants of corruption remain in our hearts that we will fight throughout our lives.' ^[SF] Understanding this distinction is not a theological nicety. It is the difference between a Christian who strains under guilt and a Christian who fights with confidence — because the verdict is already in.

Christlikeness Is the Target — Always

If you had to say what maturity looks like in two words, here they are: *like Christ.* ^[12] That is not a vague aspiration. The New Testament is specific. We are 'created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness' (Eph 4:24), and who is the likeness of God? Jesus — the image of the invisible God. ^[4] Romans 8:29 pins the whole predestining work of the Father to this one end: 'those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.' ^[12] Sanctification is that predestined conformity being worked out in real time.

What does that conformity look like on the ground? It means you 'increasingly think like Christ, feel like Christ, react like Christ, and love like Christ.' ^[2] It means that when you look at the twelve-year-old Jesus staying behind in the Temple — absorbed in his Father's words, drawn into fellowship with the Father's people — you are not just looking at an impressive child. 'This is what it looks like to be a disciple of the risen Christ. This is what it looks like to be conformed to His image.' ^[6] The goal is not religious behavior management. The goal is a whole person becoming, by grace, genuinely more like the Son of God.

And this is not merely a future hope — it is present glory. 'When the final day comes, Jesus Christ will be glorified in us on account of what we have become by His grace, and we will be glorified in Him on account of what He has done for us.' ^[10] Our progressive transformation is itself a vehicle of praise. Every inch of Christlikeness in a sinful, self-centered person is evidence that Someone far greater than that person is at work.

The Battle: Crucify and Cultivate

Scripture does not let you choose between fighting sin and growing in grace — you have to do both, and in that order. 'If you want to grow in holiness, be killing sin or it will be killing you. Crucify the flesh.' ^[5] This is not optional maintenance. It is war. The flesh is still there. The dark trinity of the world, the flesh, and the devil is still operating. ^[4] The believer has two identities in play — the old self patterned on that world, and the new self 'created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness' (Eph 4:24). ^[4] The work is to put off the first and put on the second — consistently, repeatedly, by the Spirit's power.

But crucifying the flesh is not the whole picture. 'Sanctification requires more than just crucifying. It also requires cultivation.' ^[5] You are not just tearing down; you are building something. The Spirit produces fruit — and fruit requires cultivation. The three movements that sanctification consists of are: 'They crucify the flesh, they cultivate fruit, all the while walking by the Spirit.' ^[5] Miss any one of those three and you have a diminished and eventually distorted picture of how God's people actually grow.

Here is what makes this battle winnable: 'Resting in Christ's finished work never renders our effort unnecessary but rather enables the joyful pursuit of loving and pleasing God.' ^[SF] The fight is real. The effort is real. But it is not the striving of someone trying to earn what they do not have — it is the striving of someone 'compelled by grace.' ^[SF] True disciples 'long to become like Christ even in his death,' and that desire — that controlling ambition — is 'the controlling desire and the controlling ambition in everything they do.' ^[8]

Grace All the Way Down

Every inch of growth is grace. 'We become fruitful by grace, we persevere by grace, we mature by grace. By grace we grow to love one another. By grace we cherish holiness.' ^[10] Paul is not just saying this as a theological courtesy. He is saying it because he is 'very much aware that by God's grace and God's grace alone that any of those things will be accomplished.' ^[10] The believer who thinks he can manufacture his own Christlikeness is working from a wrong doctrine of himself.

'Jesus cannot be glorified in our lives, nor can we be finally glorified apart from the grace that God provides for us.' ^[10] This is why believers 'must persevere in faith and obedience in order to be saved, yet this perseverance is also a gift of God in Christ, who preserves his own and keeps them safe forever.' ^[SF] The perseverance is real. The effort is real. And it is all, from first to last, held in place by Someone who will not let go.

The gospel connection is essential here — and it must not be reversed. 'We don't commune with God to be accepted by Him. We commune with God because in Christ we are accepted by him, and we want to know him better and see him move in our lives.' ^[1] Sanctification built on the wrong foundation collapses under the weight of failure. Sanctification built on justification is actually freeing — you fight because the verdict is already rendered, not in order to get one.

The Means God Provides

'Among the many means of grace, the Word of God, prayer, and fellowship are primary instruments of our sanctification.' ^[SF] These are not suggestions for the spiritually ambitious. They are the tools God has designated for this particular work. Spending time with God in Word and prayer is 'a means of grace. It's not a way to earn grace, because we can't earn grace, but it's a way to just tap in to the grace that he has for us, to position ourselves to honor and glorify him as much as possible and just enjoy the fellowship that Jesus bought for us when he died.' ^[1] The Lord's table belongs here too — 'our union with Christ grows' through sanctification, and 'sanctification is given extra help and extra grace through coming to the Lord's table.' ^[13]

Fellowship is not optional — it is indispensable. 'Spiritual fellowship is essential to devoted discipleship. It's not optional. It's indispensable. When we downplay it or we duck the opportunities... we're starving ourselves.' ^[7] Avoiding the Word is a hunger strike. Avoiding fellowship is 'a digestion strike.' ^[7] The Spirit works in community — 'stirring each other up, exhorting each other, rebuking each other, admonishing, encouraging, edifying each other up into a spiritual house.' ^[7] And the grace that flows through that fellowship is not metaphorical. 'Let your speech always be gracious... that it may give grace to those who hear' (Col 4:6; Eph 4:29). Christians are 'conduits of grace' to one another — their words, their texts, their care group check-ins all become means by which divine power reaches God's people. ^[9]

The love that drives all of this is the love of Christ himself. 'We don't just seek after holiness for the sake of holiness, or to jump through some hoops. We do it to get more of Christ. We do it because we love Christ.' ^[2] And for anyone born again, that love is already present — sometimes buried, sometimes quiet, but there. 'In all of us that profess Christ, it's in there.' ^[2] Sanctification is, in the end, the Spirit drawing out what He has already placed within.

Holiness as the Entire Aim of Biblical Piety

Robert Murray M'Cheyne defined true holiness as 'an all-consuming passion for Christ.' And 'entire likeness to Christ, devotion, and the whole man, is the aim of biblical piety.' ^[2] That phrase — *the whole man* — matters. This is not a program for improving religious habits. It is the total re-orientation of a person toward the Son of God: thinking, feeling, reacting, loving — all of it brought into alignment with Christ. ^[2][4]

'Believers grow in the knowledge of God, obey Christ's commands, walk by the Spirit, mortify sin, and pursue God's priorities' — not in order to be saved, but because they are. ^[SF] And the promise underneath all of it is this: 'those whom He predestined, He called; those He called, He also justified; and those He justified, He also glorified.' ^[12] The chain is unbroken. God does not predestine people to Christlikeness and then leave them to figure it out alone. He works in them. He keeps them. He finishes what He started.

This page synthesizes what Chris Oswald has preached on sanctification at Providence Community Church. Every claim above traces to the cited sermons — follow any citation to read the full sermon, listen to the audio, and see the surrounding context. Minute marks are approximate, estimated from each sermon's transcript.