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Alright. Alright, you hooligans, you can go ahead and take a seat. You're obviously a hooligan if you walked here or drove here to Salt tonight in a good way. If we haven't had a chance to meet yet, my name is Mike. I get to serve on staff here with Salt Company. For real, if you did make it tonight, like you guys are the best. Because honestly, it was dicey for a little bit there. We were in the basement and we were like, I don't know if it's gonna happen. So yeah, super glad that you're here. Tonight we are continuing in our salvation series. So this is week three out of four. So uh week one, we talked about how to be saved, how to get salvation. Week two, uh, we had a guest speaker, Chris Carson from Saul Company Madison, came over. He talked about what happens in our legal standing with God when we get saved, and now like how God views us uh after that from the book of Galatians. So if you didn't get a chance to hear that, you can listen to both of those on uh Spotify because you're not Apple Music people. I can trust that. Um uh this week, yikes, or a couple did I out a couple of you? You, Molly? Unbelievable! You corporate sellout. Um that's crazy. Uh that's Gavin is because his daddy pays for it, that's why. Oh, come on now. There he is. He's like, I know it's true, I can't say anything. All right, we're on edge tonight. There was a tornado warning, so you're gonna you're gonna get you're gonna get a lot of that. Um uh but but this week we're gonna be talking about sanctification. Okay, that's the big word for tonight. Uh sanctification is this kind of Christianese word that if you've been around church, you've heard it before. Um so what I want to do is I want to give us a working definition tonight to help actually clarify what exactly sanctification is. So if we still have screens, yeah, baby, it's on the screen. Uh the definition is up there for you. Uh, sanctification is the God-willed lifelong process of a Christian becoming more like Jesus or holy and less like ourselves, sinful. So sanctification is the next step in the journey of salvation after justification. So, again, we talked about that last week. Um, and it is the step that all Christians that are alive today are in. So we're all in the same boat. If you're a Christian in the room, we're all in the process of sanctification. And so uh tonight we're gonna be talking about sanctification, and we'll be basing tonight out of a text in Ephesians chapter four. So if you have a Bible, uh you can go ahead and turn there. There's a million pew Bibles. We should have enough for everybody. Um, but we're gonna be in chapter four in the book of Ephesians, that's in the New Testament. Um, if you don't have a copy of God's Word, we'd love to give you one for free at the Connect table. Um but as you're turning there, or still writing the long definition of sanctification, which it looks like some of you are, um, I'll give you some time to go there. Uh, but I want to start with a question. It's gonna feel like it's the most random question in the world, but it won't be, trust me. We'll get there. Um, does anybody like turtles in here? Yeah, come on. A lot of turtle fans in here. That's kind of that's hey, that's a way higher percentage than I envisioned in my mind. It helps because the crowd's small. Um I'm not talking about ninja turtles, okay. I'm talking about like regular, like you know, you find them in a river, you find them in a pond, turtles. Okay. Uh or maybe the better question is has anybody gotten like up close to a turtle before or like held a turtle? Yeah? You got any river rats out here? Come on. That's what they used to call the people that like hunt. Like a nature center? Like a field trip? You're a field trip turtle guy? Wow. I expected better of you, David. But um when I was in high school, there was a show, and in like I guess into my first year in college, there was a show uh on Animal Planet called Call of the Wildman. Do you Parker? You know you would be You guys would be the Call of the Wild Man people out of anybody. That's that's incredible. So Call of the Wild Man was this show, okay, that starred this guy named Ernie, or better known as the Turtleman, okay? So the Turtleman earned this nickname uh because he went viral for bare hand catching snapping turtles. Okay? So like this is like pre-way before TikTok, all that stuff, right? And he had this catchphrase that will kind of forever stick with me. And it's typically what I yell like most of the time if I'm doing something dangerous or interacting with wildlife. Don't say it. Parker, you can say it with me if you if you want. Okay. Live action! Yee! Like he would say it, he would say that when he was about to like, you know, interact with this like scary wildlife. This guy was incredible. Um I actually recently caught a hermit crab on vacation uh in a bucket a few weeks ago. It was incredible. Um, it was exhilarating. I was yelling like a little schoolgirl, but I did yell live action, yee-yee. My son was pretty excited. He told me we should catch a shark next, and I told him that's not how that works. So, anyways, the turtle man got in trouble uh for staging his interactions with a bunch of animals so it like wasn't always real, like he wasn't always getting a call. Did you know that? Oh my gosh, did I just ruin the turtleman for you? Wow. Parker's life's over. Um he kind of got disgraced. Uh kind of a sad ending for him. But the turtle man, his primary deal was he got famous for wrangling turtles. And he probably wrangled countless turtles over his lifetime. And one of the things that he likely noticed as he interacted with these turtles is that certain species of turtles do something that most people don't realize. They shed their shells. Okay? I don't know if that's shocking to anybody in here, but I was shocked when I found that out. Now, when we think about reptiles and animals like them shedding, we often we think like a snake where you're just like, oh my gosh, like a whole snake, like ghost of a snake is on the ground because they shed their whole uh whole shed of all of their shells and whatever scales they have, right? They're shedding everything all at once. But the thing about turtles is they actually don't shed their shell all at once. Like you don't just walk around and see like a naked turtle without a shirt shell, like in the river. Like that's weird, that's like a salamander, I think, technically, by the books. Um and they don't do this. They typically, what they do is they shed one or two layers of their shell, okay? And the parts of their shell, they're called skutes, okay? So think of it like acute, but like skeutes, uh, for various reasons. But the primary reason that they shed their shell and their layers is to accommodate growth. Okay, stay with me here. Turtles need their shell as a crucial part of their anatomy, and because of this, it has to expand as the turtle grows. And over time, as the turtle matures and grows, new skutes are produced and they grow up from underneath of the existing visible scutes, which causes shedding to occur. That's how they shed. Okay? And when they shed over time, what is quite literally happening with these turtles is the turtle is shedding its old shell and growing a brand new one underneath in its place. But this doesn't happen all at once, right? It's a process. The turtle is slowly shedding the old shell and growing a new, stronger, undamaged shell underneath of it. And by the end of this process of shedding, the turtle will look completely different than before. The shedding process may look different, also from turtle to turtle. Some turtles shed more at a time, others shed less. There's different seasons that turtles shed and don't shed, but by the time they do shed, it's for a specific purpose. Whether it's for growth or for healing, they never shed for no reason. Now, why am I talking so much about turtles with you? Because the process of turtles shedding their shell is actually a lot like the sanctification process as Christians. So hear me out. The process of sanctification is one of slow, meaningful, intentional change that helps us transform over time into a new creation. So the old turtle shell is our old selves, our old sinful nature before we place our faith in Jesus. But once we place our faith in Jesus, once we are justified, as Chris talked about last week, our old shells start to begin the shedding process. We don't shed our old selves all at once. But over time, what happens is our new shells, our new nature forms. And it's fueled by our faith in Jesus and driven by the Holy Spirit. And while we still have pieces of our old shell that need to be shed, there will never be a time in this life on this earth that we are completely made up of our new shell. There will be, however, a new time or a time in the next life where we will have a completely new shell, but more on that later. And here's the problem. So we often tend to think of sanctification and view sanctification differently than a turtle's process of shedding. When we think of sanctification, we tend to think it's going to be like a quick process. Like, okay, I place my faith in Jesus, and like tomorrow I'm going to be this like completely new person. Sometimes that does happen, yes. We tend to think that it's going to be a straightforward process. Like it's just kind of this like linear line to like, okay, I was one way and now I'm all of a sudden this perfect person. Or we think we tend to think it's going to be a painless process. Like there's not going to be any pain as we go on this journey. And here's the reality: it's not any of those things. Sanctification is not quick, it's not straightforward, it's not painless. But sanctification is a long, drawn-out process where we are shedding our old selves and our sinful nature, and we put on the new selves that are righteous and becoming more like Christ. Okay? And with that, what I want to do is I want to jump into our passage. So if you haven't turned there yet, get to Ephesians chapter four. We're going to start in verse 20. And if you got it, go say, got it. That's a little weak sauce. I'll give you another 10 seconds. Okay. Got some straggling got it. Got it? Great. Okay. Okay. I hear you guys flipping still. We locked in? All right. Ephesians 4, verse 20. It says this, but that is not how you came to know Christ. Assuming you heard about him and were taught by him as the truth is in Jesus, to take off your former way of life, the old self that is corrupted by deceitful desires, to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, the one created according to God's likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth. Okay, so tonight, what I want to do is I want to give us four steps in the process of sanctification that Paul gives us right here in our passage. Sound good? Okay, the first one is this it's remove. Like the turtles shedding their old shells, we need to shed our old selves. That was really hard to say for me, because that was a lot of shell language. Okay? Paul says this in verse 22. He says, to take off your former way of life, the old self that is corrupted by deceitful desires. Paul says a couple things that might be easy to just kind of skip over. The first is that he assumes that when you place your faith in Jesus, that your old way of living is done. Okay, notice he says that former way of life. Like he doesn't say your current way of life until you feel like trying to get rid of it. Okay, or when you get strong enough in the faith, you can shed your old life. But he says, matter-of-factly, he says, former, like it's already dead and gone. That's what Paul's assuming. The second thing he says that we might skip over is he describes your old self as a Christian as corrupted by deceitful desires. Okay, what does Paul mean here? He means that the way that we used to live, the way you used to act, the way you used to carry yourself, it's corrupt. Okay? Your old life is like the current political climate of today, right? It's corrupt. Old, corrupt, and full of lies on both sides of the equation. Your old self is fully corrupted by the curse of sin, and because of that, your desires in your old life were two. And what Paul is trying to get us to see is that your old life, it isn't good for you. Like there are aspects of your old life that are not good for you today. And when you decide to follow Jesus and you're justified before a holy God, you have a better way of life in front of you, not behind you. Paul's saying, throw your old life in the garbage. Because Jesus has an infinitely better, more purposeful life in store for you. This might look like deciding to do things like stopping old bad habits at all costs. Maybe this looks like even changing up your core friend group. Maybe saying no to opportunities you know will lead you back to your old sinful life. Okay, whatever it is, this step in the process is not going to be easy. I was in the thick of this step for my last year and a half that I spent in college, and let me tell you, it was brutal going through it. But after I had shed a bunch of my old shell, I double down and I do it again and again and again, and I'd make those hard choices and those hard decisions because Jesus had something better waiting for me. What he wanted to do was he wanted to renew me, which is our second step that Paul shows us in the process. See, like the turtles, we don't just shed our old selves and have a new likeness to be made into right away. Like we aren't just left naked without a shell. We don't just throw our old life away and not fill it with a new way of life. Okay, Paul says to take off in verse 22 in order to be renewed in the spirit of your minds in verse 23. And Paul's trying to show us that we can't just say, I'm throwing my old life away. We can't just say the old me is gone without allowing yourself to be made new by the Holy Spirit. See, when you place your faith in Jesus, you aren't justified and then just sort of left to fend for yourself. But Jesus has actually sent a helper for us to dwell within us, that Jesus says is even better than if he were here with you. John 16, verse 13 through 14 says this. I don't think it's going to be on the screen. I'm pretty sure I was too late for that. It says this when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth. For he will not speak on his own, but he will speak whatever he hears. He will also declare to you what is to come. He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you. Jesus sends the Holy Spirit so that we will not be left without someone to guide us. The Spirit is sent to, as Paul writes in Romans 12, 2, help us become transformed by what? The renewing of our minds, so that we may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God. Doesn't that make you feel like infinitely better about navigating life as a Christian? Knowing that you're never left by yourself to figure things out. Like if you are a Christian, you have the spirit of the living God living within you. 24-7, 365, in the highs and the lows. All the time. You don't have to navigate life as a Christian on your own. And he's simultaneously renewing your mind to look less like your old self and more like God. Paul's trying to get us to be comforted. That we don't have to try and renew ourselves, but we have the spirit of God to lead the way. But how does that happen? Like, like, how do we renew the spirit of our minds? There's really three primary ways we can renew the spirit of our minds today. And they may seem obvious, but this is how it happens. The first is this, and it's prayer.

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In order to renew your mind to look more like the Holy Spirit, you need to spend time with God in prayer. Again, prayer in its simplest form is talking to God. We did a sermon already on this this semester, so I'd encourage you to go back and listen to that for more in-depth look. But for us to be renewed, for us to look more like God and less like our sinful selves, we need to spend time with him. We need to get to know him through prayer, through conversation, through bringing him our burdens and talking with him. Okay, the next is this: reading God's word, reading your Bible. Okay, if we want to know, if we want to renew our mind and discern God's will, like Paul says in Romans 12, 2, we need to read what God has already spoken in his written word. Like we often wonder why God isn't audibly speaking to us into our ears on the regular, and we wonder what God might actually be saying to us, but we ignore the book full of his words that sits on our bookshelves and collects dust. Shout out to Josiah Queen for that one. God has spoken. There's no excuses. It's everywhere if we want it to be. And if we want to be renewed to look more like God, to read his word and do what it says, the next is this we need time. Okay, in order to be renewed in the spirit of our minds, we need to know that it will likely take time to see massive changes. That doesn't mean that it always happens like that, but we need to know that it takes time. And hear me when I say this: huge changes in our desires can come overnight. Okay, I have seen it, I have lived it. My wife was addicted to her vape before she met Jesus and literally placed her faith in Jesus and the next day did not desire to use her vape at all. Never has gone back since then. Okay, that was the same way with me, with alcohol, all the other people that I know suffering in the same ways with addiction. It can happen overnight, but the reality is that we are all still sinners. Even if you're a Christian in the room, even though we have the Spirit of God dwelling within us, what's happening is there's a battle that's waging within ourselves until we meet Jesus. Our sinful nature and the Holy Spirit are duke in and out for control over our decisions and our thoughts and our processes in our life and the things that we do, that will continue until we meet Jesus. Like this is why we have to understand that ourselves and all others who have placed their faith in Jesus become renewed over time. Okay? And that is okay. Because God knew that it would be like that from the beginning of time, even though he can make massive changes instantly. But our renewal isn't going to just happen beneath the surface, it also happens visibly too. This comes through our next step of reshaping ourselves. This is the next step in the sanctification process, it's reshaping ourselves. Turtles, they don't just sit left with nothing visibly changed on the outside as They're going through this process of renewal through shedding. But they're visibly changing on the outside too. Okay? I don't have a picture on the screen, but Google turtle shedding, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. Over time, the turtles will grow a new shell, one that is better, one that is stronger, one that is more protective and more healed than their previous shell. And for us as Christians, it's no different. While we internally grow and are reshaping our minds and our souls, we are reshaping the way we live on the outside too. Paul says this in verse 24. He says, to put on the new self, the one created according to God's likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth. Paul is saying, don't just stop the old habits, don't just partner with the Holy Spirit internally, but let the changes work their way to the outside and change our entire likeness. I love what Chris said last week about the change and how God sees us when we are justified. God no longer sees us as sinners who need saving, but he sees us as he sees Jesus. Righteous, pure, and blameless in his sight. So let me ask you this. If God sees us as righteous, why don't we believe that we can live that way sometimes? Like if our creator doesn't see us as a heaping pile of trash and sin, why in the world can't we see ourselves in that way? And not only see ourselves as righteous, but actually live like we are now righteous. Now, Paul's not saying to put on the new self and act like our old self never existed. Don't hear me say that. You have a story, and it was purposeful. He isn't saying to live like you're better than people who aren't saved. Okay? That's a huge, huge, huge problem today with Christianity. Is people act like they're better than the people who aren't saved. You're not. He is saying here in this passage to live like you've been saved and tell other people that they can be too. There's no gap between you and them other than God has graciously saved you and not them yet. Because we're all sinners. We're all sinners in need of saving. And the difference between you and the non-Christian is that you have received that free gift of grace and they haven't yet. Like nothing has changed about your past, but everything has changed in the present and in your future. And what happens when we put on the new self and we live in God's likeness and we live in a righteous way externally, visibly to people, is we cause people who haven't yet received the free gift of grace to say, what's different about them? Why are they living that way? Like when we display what's happening internally through the renewal of our minds through the Holy Spirit externally, we show people that even though we are still sinners and we're all sinners, that there can be real, lasting, beautiful transformation when you decide to follow Jesus that shows its way on the outside, too. Like if we don't let internal transformation reshape how we live, how will people know that they can be transformed? Paul's assuming that when we shed our old life, that we're not only being renewed internally, but we're putting on the new life externally. That's his assumption. See, like the turtles growing a new shell, we need to let the Holy Spirit reshape who we are in our way of life too, not just internally, but let those things work themselves out. But how do we reshape our lives to look more like God's likeness? How do we live righteously? Okay? Three quick ways. There's a lot of lists tonight, but we're getting after it. Three ways to reshape our lives. The first is this might sound extreme, but it's sacrifice your life. Sacrifice your life. Romans 12, 1 says this. And hear this: this is your true worship. You want to truly worship God? Sacrifice your life. Lay your life at the foot of the cross. If we still hold a death grip on the plan for our lives, how will we let the Holy Spirit reshape them? We have to not just let go of our desires, but sacrifice them in order to let the Holy Spirit truly reshape us. We need to hold our lives with open hands so that the Holy Spirit can move as he wants to. Like this means that that career that you've always wanted, like it might not be the vocation that God has for you. I had so many plans before I ended up here. None of them worked. They weren't what God had for me. Or might mean that that ideal life plan that you've had since you were five. Okay? It might not work out. It might not be the life that God has for you. Like if we truly believe that God has what's best for us in mind, what we need to do is we need to sacrifice our life in order for Him to fully and completely reshape us into, as Paul says, we were created to be. Okay, and in order to do that, we need to let the Spirit lead. That's the second of three here ways to reshape our lives. Let the Spirit lead. This might sound cryptic, especially if you're not super familiar with church. What does that even mean, right? But in order to be reshaped in our lives, we can't have complete control of the steering wheel of our life. Okay, I talked about that internal battle that's happening within us with our sinful nature and the Holy Spirit, and we can't leave any space for change, no space for conversations, no space for plans being altered, and fully let the Spirit lead. We cannot have a death grip on our lives if we want Him to leave. If our lives are to be reshaped, like if they're to be truly reshaped, we need to be willing to go where the Spirit leads, to do what the Spirit leads us to, and to say what the Spirit has us say. But how do we do that? Do we delete Google Calendar? Like do we just are we done with it? Nope, that's not what I'm saying. Do we quit our jobs and drop out of school and be led like spirit-led grifters on the side of the road? No, that's not what I'm saying. But you do need to allow for flexibility in your schedule. You do need to spend more time in prayer before making decisions. You do need to talk to God throughout the day and ask for wisdom and discernment. Because if we don't let the Spirit lead, we are reshaping our lives, not Him. Which is why it's so important that we don't do it alone. That's the third way that we can reshape our lives. Don't do it alone. One of the beautiful things about the Christian life, okay, is not that it's that a select, not a select few receive the Holy Spirit. Everybody receives the Holy Spirit. It's not just one person, it's not just the best Christians, but it's all Christians everywhere who receive Him. And a benefit of this, one of the biggest benefits of this, is that we can all be reshaped in community because we are all being molded by the same person.

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This means that as we sacrifice our life, as we let the Spirit lead, we can have other Christians right there with us to help us reshape our lives and help discern what we should do next to look more like Jesus and less like ourselves. Okay, the primary way that we do this at Saul Company is through our campus groups. Okay, there's like three weeks left in the semester. But if you're not in the campus group yet, if you haven't tried a campus group yet, try a campus group this week. Okay, I'm pretty sure there's gonna be people at the Connect table that can help you with that. If not, come see me, I can get you in one. Okay? I know we have four weeks left. I know many of you are about to move back home or go do an internship somewhere, and that's great. Congrats to you. But if you're trying to be reshaped by the Holy Spirit alone, if you are not in community, you are not taking advantage of the built-in spiritual family that you have all around you right now. Okay, feels like a family gathering in here tonight. So why not take advantage of all the built-in things that we have in order for you to grow in community? And our hope is that it's a family that will be there for you, that will speak into your life, that will help you be reshaped into all that God wants you to be. So, yes, you should join a campus group if you haven't yet. I realize there's three weeks left, right? Do it. Take the plunge. Walk through life being reshaped with a community. Okay? But regardless of whether you're in a CG or not, we need to walk with others as the Holy Spirit reshapes us into God's image. It's non-negotiable if you want to thrive and let Him lead. The last step in the process of sanctification is this, and it is to repeat. Okay? Four hours, you heard it. That's right, Diego. The steps that are required to be sanctified. Okay, the steps in this process to become more like God and less like our sinful selves, they are not a one-time deal and then you're done. Okay, like the turtles shedding their shell over time, we don't just shed our old life and sinful habits all at once. We need to be continuously shedding our old shells, removing our old life and its habits from our lives. We need to be renewing our minds through the Holy Spirit and praying and reading God's word. Like we need to be reshaping our lives externally through sacrifice, through letting the Holy Spirit take the lead and through other Christians around us. And this process, it's not one that's quick. This process is not super clean. Okay, but it is long, it is drawn out, and it is messy, and it's totally and completely worth it. Now there is a step in this process of sanctification that maybe some of us in here actually haven't done yet. Okay, some of us in here can't even get to step one of removing the old self and our old desires because you actually need to take the step before that and repent. Okay, Paul actually began our passage in verses 20 and 21 by assuming that if you are going to journey through this process of sanctification, that you already belong to Christ. The reality is that we can't shed our old selves if we're still apart from Jesus. We can't even start this process until we actually come to Jesus and repent before a holy God. And here's what's true about becoming a Christian. Okay? We've all fallen short. Every single one of us. We have all fallen shore, and we all have to do the same thing and come to Jesus and repent. And repentance simply means that we need to come before God and acknowledge some truths. The first is that God is God and you're not Him. Second is that you have sin that separates you from God. The third is that God sent His Son Jesus to die the death that you deserve, and he didn't stay dead, but rose from the grave. And if you call on Jesus tonight, if you do what Romans 10 9 says and you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, then you can be justified instantly before a holy God and declared righteous in God's sight. And if you have made that decision, if you've made the decision, you can join the believers in the room and start this long but rewarding process of sanctification. And you can start to shed your old shell and put on the new.