When you go home tonight now, and you get frustrated with your slowness of sanctification,

well, good, but don't despair, rather look beneath the feet of your struggle and look at this massive rock of the

sanctification of Jesus on your behalf he's paid a debt to welcome sinners home if

they have trust in him their salvation is complete, as it were.

How does Jesus' intercession secure and transform us?

In this episode of Light and Truth, John Piper explores John 17, 14 to 19, where Jesus' prayer unveils God's provision for his people in a fallen world.

This teaching was originally delivered at Bethlehem Baptist Church on March 2, 1986.

What does this mean? Verse 19. On their behalf, I sanctify myself that they might be sanctified in truth.

Now what is the sanctification of Jesus? What do you think he's referring to here? Is that progressive holiness? No, he's never

sinned. There's no progressive holiness in Jesus. What is this sanctification of the son of God?

Devoting himself to crucifixion, to devotion to God's will, to obedience, following through with

Gassimony. He's right on the brink of Githemeny here and he says

I dedicate myself I set myself apart I deny myself I give myself holy to God I go to the cross

Isn't that what he means by I sanctify myself? It's not that he needs to become holy

It means I set myself toward

holiness, holy, holy obedience right through the cross. In order that they might be

sanctified in truth. Now we see the foundation, don't we? Sanctification is a battle, a day by day

striving for holiness. Hebrews 12, 14, strive for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

Everybody in this room ought to be striving to enter by the narrow gate, plucking out the eye if it should be a lustful eye, as it were, doing whatever you must do to avoid sin, striving toward perfection.

You hear a text there from Philippians that's just like this? How does go I press on to make it not that I have

already obtained perfection but I press on to make it my own because what he has

made me his own this is why I think this text is so full of hope. The foundation of our struggle and our battle in sanctification is a finished work of the sanctification of Jesus Christ. Jesus sanctified himself to the cross in order that we might fight with some measure of success and make it to glory.

...