Greetings. This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a moment of truth, where we challenge you to think through an issue of life and faith. Today, can a Christian possibly make the world holy? What a question you might ask. You might say, I would in fact ask, is a Christian responsible to make his world holy?

Sounds like an oxymoron, doesn't it? A holy world? Is it possible to take the evil world of culture, society, and politics that we have today and conform it to the will of God in the Bible? It seems like an impossible task, an insurmountable obstacle. But even further, are we obligated by the very nature of the gospel to do so?

And I would suggest to you, O Christian, especially you Christian listening to this broadcast today, that an integral component of the gospel does require us to make holy insofar as we are able, the world in which we live. That component of the gospel is called sanctification. It's a big word. Many people have no clue as to what it means. Some Christians have heard it from time to time, may have a vague notion.

What is sanctification? And what does it have to do with a presidential race or abortion or political corruption? I would suggest you sanctification has everything to do with these issues because the Christian is indeed supposed to make his world holy around him, his actions, his behaviors, his sphere of influence. And that sphere of influence will influence then politics, culture, and society all around him. The Westminster Shorter Catechism gives us a succinct definition of sanctification.

It says that sanctification is the work of God's free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, excepting in how we deal with politics, culture, and society. No, it doesn't say that. It says, sanctification is a work of God's free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die into sin and live unto righteousness, unquote. In the Bible, to sanctify something involves two things, both of which are reflected in the answer in our Westminster Shorter Catechism.

But in the Bible, Old Testament and New Testament, sanctification involve two things, that is, to make morally pure. Prophets, priests, and people were meant to be right and good and morally pure. Sanctification is the work of God's free grace that does this. Secondly, sanctification means to set aside for God's service. This is also reflected in the Scriptures.

Whether it was a priest of the tribe of Levi or a piece of furniture made for the temple or an elder ordained in the New Testament, a thing set aside for the use of God in his service was said to be sanctified. The question then becomes, can our world as we know it be sanctified? This brings us to the meaning of the word world, too, as well as sanctification. What do we mean when we say our world must and can be sanctified? On its face, the question of whether a believer can sanctify his world seems absurd to the average Christian.

We hear verses like the one I'm about to read you, and we immediately associate the world with that which is thoroughly evil and irredeemable. John says in 1 John 2, verses 15 to 17, do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and the pride of life is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

Unquote. Yet most modern evangelical Christians misunderstand the meaning of the word world. world. When it's here, it has particular meaning indeed to the desires of the flesh and pride of life and evil and that sort of thing. John is using world in that context.

But the word world, which is cosmos in the Greek, from which we derive our English word cosmos, cosmos, world, has seven different shades of meaning in the New Testament, only one of which is represented by a text like the one I just read you. The text from 1 John 2, for example, represents one shade of meaning for world. There it represents what the Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament says is that which is hostile to God, lost in sin, wholly at odds with anything divine, ruined, and depraved.

There is a meaning of the word world in this sense, but most Christians bring the whole freightload of meaning of that to every occurrence of the word world. But the idea of the word world is not that which we have in mind when we say the Christian must sanctify his world. That kind of world will never be sanctified until Christ returns and banishes evil altogether in the eschaton, which is the new age, the new world coming. For us, when we say the Christian must sanctify his world, when I say this, I mean the world, once again, as the Greek-English lexicon puts it, the scene of earthly joys, possessions, cares, sufferings, and human affairs.

That kind of understanding of the word world is found in texts like these. For example, 1 Corinthians 7, I want you to be free from anxieties, Paul says, the unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord, but the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the same goes for the married woman, the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband. But the idea of worldly things here does not have to do with evil and corrupt and irredeemable.

It has to do with the prosaic things of life, like cooking and cleaning and working as well. In 1 John 3, 17, he says, if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Unquote. So when we talk about the world in this sense, we're not talking about the world which is inherently evil, but rather the world which is filled with that which is human and good when used according to God's purposes. The world's goods, for example, as expressed in 1 John 3, being a classic example of this, we share the world's goods with those in need.

And when we do that, we show that God's love abides in us, and thus we sanctify our world to that extent. And this is how we are to sanctify our world. We make our world holy. Do we not? When we do God's good works, fill the world with those good works, and we begin to sanctify and to make that world holy.

And it's holy and sanctified around us as we perform those deeds. And whether we do that in the community, in the voting booth, in the halls of Congress, in the White House, we begin to sanctify the world around us. Also, the text I just read you about the married man and the married woman, they are anxious about worldly things. It's not necessarily behaving sinfully or in an evil way, as worldly is used in 1 John 2, but rather it is inhibited. The idea here is being preoccupied with worldly things, one is inhibited from giving his or herself in full-time devotion to the things of the Lord, which Paul says is better.

So it is important then to remember that when I use the word world, when I say a Christian should sanctify that world, this is the sense in which I use it. The scenes of earthly joys, possessions, cares, sufferings, and human affairs, as the Greek lexicon categorizes it. The scene of earthly joys, possessions, cares, sufferings, and human affairs. And I don't mean that which is hostile to God, lost in sin, holy at odds with anything divine, ruined, and depraved. Okay?

So this previous world, which can be made holy then, and this world that I'm talking about can be set aside for the uses for which God intended them. It is this world of which Paul speaks when he says to Timothy, for everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God in prayer. Unquote. Sanctification then is an important part of the gospel when it is preached as it should be. Once more, what is sanctification?

Sanctification is the work of God's free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God and are enabled more and more to die into sin and live unto righteousness. So sanctification is an important part of the gospel because it proves the power and presence of Christ in the converted heart. And you should bring this into your world. You should bring this into culture and society and politics too. Yes, politics should be sanctified, even as it was in Christian nations all over the world throughout history.

Those who practiced, they were called ministers in England, right? Ministers of various departments of government were set aside, setting aside their work as holy unto God. They were sanctifying government. So sanctification is an important part of the gospel. Who would believe, for example, a newborn baby was alive if it did not move and cry and suckle its mother?

That is, give evidence of life. And who would believe a pirate was reformed if he continued to rape, steal, and murder rather than make restitution and live an honest life? So sanctification is merely that portion of the gospel which evidences this new life. As the new saint dies more and more to sin, and the Puritans used to call this process of dying to sin mortification, putting to death the old man, which is the negative side of sanctification. And then he lives unto righteousness.

That is, the new saint does and becomes good like Christ, which is the positive side of sanctification. And this is so because he is truly converted as our sanctification question, excuse me, puts it, that we are renewed in the image of God. Now, I have spent some time reviewing sanctification because it is not only important to the gospel, but also to our surrounding world, your surrounding world, especially in this election year, including the world of your society and culture and politics. You are not expected to influence the sphere of influence, the politics, culture, and society of Pago Pago, right? Or of some far-off island or nation.

No, you are meant to sanctify your immediate sphere of influence, your world. This means sanctification has importance for our involvement immediately in where our nation is going, too, in regards to her society, culture, and politics. You can't just throw up your hands, put on your blinders, and say, I'm going to be as good as I can. I'm going to convert as many people as I can and wait for the rapture. No.

There's a man who is being sanctified. Sanctification is a lifelong process, too, by the way. Hebrews says, for by a single offering, he has made perfect for all time, those who are being sanctified. Does a man who's being sanctified vote differently than a non-Christian? I would say yes.

Does a man who's being sanctified think and act on a whole host of issues like abortion or sexual orientation or war or social welfare, all these kinds of things, does he think and act differently than a non-Christian? Now, most every Christian would give a hearty yes to these two questions. And also, any Christian who understands the gospel at even a rudimentary level would also agree that this doctrine of which I speak, sanctification, is an integral part of the gospel. You do not preach the gospel of Jesus Christ if you do not also preach sanctification. Well, with this in mind, we must ask, what part of my life must be sanctified?

Huh? How much of my life must be set aside for God's use? And how much can I keep back for myself and my flesh? Right? Some of us ask that functionally, if not literally.

Well, how much of our life must be made holy then? That is the other part of its meaning, made good and pure and right. Can some of my life be sanctified, like my church life and family life, while the rest left untouched by the gospel that is secular, like my finances or my sex life or my relation to the state? I can just let those go by and by. Further, how will my efforts to live a holy, righteous, and good life, that is a sanctified life, how will it now affect the world around me?

A very important question. This is how we sanctify our world, I would suggest, is that we live a holy, righteous, and good life, and all of those things combined with others who are living a holy, righteous, and good life to begin to create a sanctified world around us. Am I sanctified in a vacuum? Can my life be transformed without transforming in some small way the world around me, including my society, culture, politics, and the state?

These are important questions, dear Christian, for they help determine, they help determine how you live out your Christian life for the gospel, and to what extent you live out that life on behalf of the gospel. So, does God expect, then, only part of you to be sanctified? Of course not. We would say, of course not. The Apostle Paul summarizes sanctification eloquently, too, in Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2.

Paul says, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Unquote. What an eloquent definition of sanctification. When you present your body as a living sacrifice, you present the whole person as a living sacrifice.

A sacrifice gave all, didn't it? Gave its entire life unto God. And Paul says, you must be a living sacrifice, that is, somebody who continues to live and breathe on behalf of God, the whole person. And you are expected not to conform, that is, you are expected to mortify your life, the sinful life, and then you must be transformed by the renewal of your mind. That is, you must be transformed under righteousness, to those things which are good, acceptable, and perfect.

But there are too many Christian schizophrenics, I tell you, too many Christian schizophrenics in our churches today who behave in one manner for the church and in another manner for the world, including their relationship to the state. In this presidential election year, it is so important to understand that we are meant to sanctify all of our world, including human government. Conventional wisdom has it that schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder in which a person appears to have multiple personalities that can manifest themselves in conflicting behaviors one with another.

A classic split personality can love you one moment, hate you the next, drink heavily one moment, live abstemiously the next. The classic schizophrenic personality may speak lovingly and courteously one moment and curse you up and down the next. Perhaps we've known people like this. By analogy then, to live one's Christian life as if the gospel does not touch every part of your life is to live as a spiritual schizophrenic. You cannot be of two minds in your marriage, having the wife God gave you and a mistress on the side.

You cannot be of two minds in your finances, giving a portion to God and spending the rest willy-nilly without considering how God would have you allocate the whole of it. You cannot be of two minds in your speech, speaking love and righteousness on Sunday and then hatred, contention, and cursing the rest of the week. Yet such Christians often think they're truly converted and they're going to heaven. There's Christian schizophrenics. I'm saved and going to heaven when I die and so am I, right?

If this is the case with you, then you are obligated as Christians to sanctify all of your life under each of the covenants to which we are bound. This brings us in then to the spheres of our sanctification and they come in a covenant form. God's economy is a covenant economy. It is not dispensationalism. It is not included in another testament.

No, God's will is included in his covenants, his economy. The way he works with man is through covenants. And there are four great covenants by which God dispenses love and mercy, wrath and punishment, righteousness and goodness. All of the things that God dispenses to man, he dispenses through a covenant economy. Four great ones there are.

Number one, we are to sanctify them as well. We are to sanctify our lives under the covenant of creation, for example. We are to sanctify our lives and our world under the covenant of creation. This is that covenant, the covenant of creation made with our first parents, Adam and Eve, by which they and all their descendants would fulfill the dominion mandate, which is ensconced in Genesis 1, 28. And it reads, and God blessed them.

And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. The dominion mandate, part of the covenant of creation. And as we do those things, as we fill the earth and subdue it, as we take dominion over the creation, we indeed sanctify it. That is, we make it holy. We turn it for God's purposes and we bless it.

The second great covenant, we are to sanctify our lives in our marriage covenant. Most of us see this pretty clearly, don't we? This great covenant, the marriage covenant, assures the continuation of the human race, providing loving companionship for husband and wife and for godly seed to which God desires. God desires godly seed. So those two covenants, there's a third covenant.

We are to sanctify our lives in the covenant of grace, the covenant of grace or the covenant of redemption. It's sometimes known as this is that great covenant by which we're saved. Dear listener, in that covenant, God covenants with his son to save a people for himself. Those whom you have given me, as Jesus puts it in his high priestly prayer. When we are engrafted into Christ, we are made part of that covenant.

We become covenant children. We are then obligated to keep the terms of that covenant. Jesus himself said, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. These are the terms of the covenant, Christ's commandments under this covenant of grace now. And then fourthly, we are to sanctify our lives under the civil covenant.

We are to sanctify our lives under the civil covenant. And when we do this, then government becomes holy and righteous and sanctified as well. This is that covenant, the civil covenant begun in Genesis, that covenant by which we live in society together under law, under God's law. And almost all teachers agree that this covenant was inaugurated with a command to exercise the death penalty for murder. And this was, of course, after Noah had reclaimed the earth.

Chapter nine of Genesis verses five through seven goes like this. And for your lifeblood, I will require a reckoning from every beast. I will require it. And from man, from his fellow man, I will require a reckoning for the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man by man, shall his blood be shed for God made man in his own image.

And you, he says to Noel, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it. But here, God republishes the covenant of creation to Noah after destroying that creation and beginning now to make it new again. So he republishes then this dominion mandate. Be fruitful and multiply, he says to Noah, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.

So these four great covenants, dear listener, encompass the entire spectrum of our life with God and with one another, including the voting booth, including if you are a government magistrate, including what you do in government, including then correcting corruption when it occurs, being proactive, taking a vital part of life in government and our nation. All of our actions can be guided by the principles of each of these covenants if we know them and if we know their provisions. For the Christian, you are responsible to do this. And it means sanctifying your life in relation to these covenants, including the civil covenant.

A lot of Christians cop out, cop out Christians they are when it comes to serving and when it comes to making a difference in their world and to standing and resisting wicked government as we have now. No, you are meant to not to cop out, not to say sanctification applies to everything but this. No, your purposes here today, it means that you can sanctify your life under the civil covenant. In fact, if sanctification is a vital part of the very gospel of Jesus Christ, then you are obligated to sanctify your life under the civil covenant. This means you are responsible for your nation.

God will judge the nations. Part of your personal judgment, dear listener, whether you realize it or not, is how you have responded to the civil covenant. You may take an exception here. You may put this in parentheses and say, I'm not responsible, but God will judge you because he judges the nations. This is one of the rubrics under which the final judgment will come.

He will separate the nations, will he not? As Matthew 25 says, he will separate the nations. He doesn't say individuals. He will separate the nations into sheep and into goats. The goats go to hell, the sheep go to heaven.

Part of your personal judgment, dear listener, will be how you responded under the civil covenant. That is how you responded in society and culture and yes, oh yes, politics. Can you fight and resist an evil and wicked government that we have now? You are responsible to do so and you will be judged for what you did or did not do under the civil covenant, dear listener. You are responsible and I'm here to tell you that.

We must also then understand that it is possible then to sanctify our world, to sanctify our surroundings, our culture and our society and our politics. And we see the evidence all around us indeed that there have been men and women in the past. History is an eloquent testimony to the very fact that others, our forebearers, have indeed sanctified their world. Now you have experienced historical blackout in your public schools and in your churches as well, dear listener. Most pastors teach indeed that we must be blind sheep submitting to the government, whether it's good or evil, whatever it says and does, we are to do.

And that's, as we talked about last week, a misinterpretation of Romans 13, 1 to 7, as if we are to have our consciences a tender and alive in our life of sanctification to everything else except our government and our responsibilities under the civil covenant. Are we to turn our consciences off and just say, well, we must obey, we must draft whenever we're supposed to be drafted, we must abort whenever we're supposed to abort babies, we are indeed to have gender-neutral bathrooms, or we are to shower with special privileges, those of different sexual orientations just because the government tells us we should.

No, brothers and sisters, we are to have a tender conscience for all these things. And we are to be proactive and active in opposing where we need to oppose, encouraging where we need to encourage, and complying and obeying where we need to comply and obey. And not just comply and obey like sheep and turn off our consciences because the government tells us to, and because of a biblical pastoral misinterpretation of Romans chapter 13. And once again, history demonstrates eloquently, brothers and sisters, that indeed others are forbearers have sanctified their world in the past.

I use for an example, the Christianity and slavery, for example, many, many issues we could bring up, but Christianity and slavery is one good example. Now, slavery was practiced and practiced narrowly in terms of time and space in the West. Comparatively, slavery has been a worldwide institution and it is Christianity that has brought a stop to it. William Wilberforce in England, of course, being the most famous example of a man of Christian conscience who began to sanctify his world, began to sanctify parliament, if you will, bringing God's will to bear there in ending slavery, which eventually spread then to the United States as well.

The abolitionists, the abolitionist movement began in churches when men and women of faith and conscience began to take a stand against slavery. And insofar as they were able then to have an impact on their culture and society, they sanctified it by getting rid of slavery, by standing in good conscience against it. And we must do the same thing in our world today. And as we do so, we will sanctify our world as well. I think of Christianity and science.

Many of you are listening to this broadcast over technology and science that has blossomed and flourished and grown because of a Christian culture for science. Otherwise, you'd be listening to this between two soup cans stretched on a string. No, it is Christianity and its culture and its attitude towards science that helped to develop science. As men and women, scientists, Newton in particular, wanted to sanctify his world. And he did so then by practicing science in accordance with God's will.

The Bible says, there's a proverb that says, it is God's glory to hide a thing and it is a king's glory to uncover it. That is, it is man's goal and duty then to discover what God has made and built in creation. This was the scientific impulse, brothers and sisters, and it was a Christian one. As Christian men and women of science sought to sanctify their world. And our world is a better place.

Our world is a more holy place. It is a world set aside more and more for God because men and women have done precisely that. Those that founded our nation, especially the Puritan divines, the pilgrims, they all came to this country indeed hoping that they would usher in the new millennium, that they would indeed bring in God's kingdom. Now, they may have been disillusioned in this, but they brought with them the idea of a Christian republic to establish here in this country. And they worked to sanctify their world, to sanctify the state.

That may seem like an oxymoron. Again, the idea of a holy state, the idea of a holy kingdom. But we have been so filled with secularism here in our nation throughout our history that we have forgotten that it is possible to sanctify our world around us. And that includes government. And we need to have that attitude more and more in our statesmen, in those that serve us in government, indeed to have an attitude that we can indeed sanctify the world around us, bring it more and more into conformity with God's will and with God's world.

Brothers and sisters, this has been Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church. I encourage you to come and join us for worship on Sunday at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. And you'll hear this and other things like it as well in our radio broadcast and in our sermons. Come and visit us at 10 a.m. for worship on Sunday, 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. And call us for input, feedback, information, 523-0196. 523-0196.