In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Last week in church we talked about conversion, and how coming to faith in Jesus is entirely the work of God which takes place completely apart from anything that we do or contribute. This week in church, though, I’d like to talk about what happens after conversion and how even though we don’t do anything in order to become Christians, that doesn’t mean that we don’t anything at all once we are Christians. By looking more closely at our Gospel lesson today from Mark chapter 7, the healing of the deaf and mute man, I want you to consider with me what the details of this miracle teach us about sanctification. And for those who might not know, “sanctification” is simply the Biblical word for referring to the new way that a person lives once he or she becomes a Christian. To sanctify something means to “set it apart” or “make it holy,” and we Christians are called to live a sanctified life and holy life where we are set apart from the world.

In any case, the first thing that the healing of the deaf and mute man teaches us about sanctification is that sanctification always follows after justification.  Before we can begin to do the things that God requires of us, and serve Him as His obedient children, the Lord has to make us His children by forgiving us of our sins and giving us spiritual healing. It’s not that we live a sanctified life and then God declares us righteous in His sight and worthy of heaven, but rather that He declares us righteous in His sight and worthy of heaven through faith in Christ and then we live a sanctified life. First comes God’s grace, then comes our response to His grace.

Just look again at the account of the deaf and mute man from Mark chapter 7. When Jesus first met him, that man couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t hear and he could speak. It was only after Christ intervened and spoke to him, that the man was finally able say something in return. As our texts says, “And looking up to heaven, Jesus sighed and said to him, ‘Ephphatha,’ that is, ‘Be opened.” And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly.” Isn’t it interesting that in order to heal the man who could not hear, Jesus did it by speaking to him? That seems completely backwards. But that is the power of the Word of God. God’s Word has the ability to create things out of nothing. Just like God made the whole universe simply by saying “Let there be” and there was, God can cause deaf people to hear simply by talking to them, and, more importantly, He can cause unbelievers to have faith simply by preaching His Word them. As we heard in our Epistle lesson today from Romans 10, “So faith comes by hearing and hearing the Word of Christ.”

The point here is that just like Jesus had to physically heal the deaf and mute man before he could speak correctly, our Lord has to spiritually heal us before we can do good works. It’s not our good works that cause God to forgive and heal us. It is His healing and forgiveness that causes us to do good works. Remember what we sing at the beginning of every single one of our Matin’s services. The very first words out of our mouths are, “O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare Your praise.” That is a confession that in order for us to praise God in the right kind of way, God has to open our lips. In order for us to live the kind of life that is pleasing to Him, Jesus has to intervene in our lives. He does that both by dying for our sins and by giving us the gift of faith to trust in Him for forgiveness. Then, and only then, can we begin to do the things that Jesus wants. Because again, as the healing of the deaf and mute man shows us, sanctification always follows justification.

The next thing that the healing of the deaf and mute man teaches us about sanctification is that it is a necessary part of our Christian lives. Since our good works are not the cause of our salvation, but the result of it, sometimes the impression is given that Christians don’t have to do good works at all and that they don’t even have to try and live a holy life. In the most extremes cases, some people in Lutheran circles will even argue that trying to live a holy life is actually part of the problem itself and that sanctification is really only about getting used to your justification. But that kind of attitude is extremely dangerous to our faith. 

Again, look at the account of the deaf and the mute man. When Jesus healed that man from his ailment, the man didn’t just walk away and do nothing. On the contrary, our text specifically tells us that he spoke plainly. A more literal translation of that word in the Greek would be “orthodoxly” or “rightly.” The man didn’t just speak with good grammar, he spoke accurately concerning that which had happened to him and how it related to what we learn in the Bible. Instantly, from the moment that Jesus cured him, he was able to do things that he could not do before.

This is the exact same thing that happens to us spiritually when we receive the gift of faith. After the Holy Spirit is given to us through the washing of water and the Word, and we are joined to Christ and become one with Him in our Baptism, now we are able to do things that we couldn’t do before. As Jesus tells us in Mathew chapter 7, “So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, and a bad tree bears bad fruit.” The fruit that our Lord is talking about is the fruit of the Holy Spirit. It is good works, as in, true love toward God and true love for our neighbor. It is impossible to be a Christian and not do good works. Just like it is impossible for a heathy apple tree not to produce heathy apples or a sick apple tree not to produce rotten apples, it is impossible for those who have the Holy Spirit not to live differently. As Saint Paul tells us in Romans chapter 8, “Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him.” And as he also says in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” 

Sanctification does not simply consist in getting used to our justification. It doesn’t mean that all we do is realize that we don’t do anything good at all and that everything that we do is sinful. We used to not be able to do anything at all. We used to only be able to sin. And we still can’t do anything but sin apart from Christ. But we are not apart from Christ! We have been joined to Christ through faith. And now, in Christ, we can do things. We can cooperate with the Holy Spirit and not push Him out of our hearts by being willfully and stubbornly defiant to the teachings of the Bible. We can choose to sit at the feet of Jesus like Mary did and have our faith nurtured by God’s Word and Sacraments. We can do good works.

Besides not simply being about getting used to your justification, sanctification also isn’t just about refraining from overtly wicked acts. It doesn’t just mean that once you become a Christian, you stop robbing banks, having affairs, getting drunk, or physically abusing your spouse and kids. Even those who do not have the Holy Spirit are able to keep themselves from doing these sorts of things to some extent. Sanctification, on the other hand, is about becoming an entirely different person. It’s about living for Christ and not for yourself. It’s about trying to do the things that God tells you to do in the Bible, and being upset with yourself when you fail. When people who are living a sanctified life realize that they are doing something that the Bible forbids, they don’t defend it. They confess it, and they try and stop it. They do everything that they can to avoid the things that make God angry and grieve the Holy Spirit. Likewise, and this should go without saying, people who are living a sanctified life actually want to go to Church and hear the Word of God. They don’t just go out of obligation, or because someone else made them. They do it because they want to be there and they know that they need to be there. They are legitimately concerned with the state of their soul and more invested in eternal things than worldly things. It’s hard to argue that someone is living a sanctified life and definitely has the Holy Spirit in their heart if they won’t even go to the place where the Holy Spirit promises to be present and active to forgive us our sins and keep us in the faith. On the contrary, the more that a person grows in his or her sanctification, the more that they realize that they need to be in God’s House and in His Word constantly. 

As soon as the deaf and mute man was healed, he spoke rightly. As soon as Zacchaeus the tax collector experienced salvation, he immediately wanted to give half his goods to the poor and restore what he had stolen fourfold. As soon as an individual comes to the knowledge of Christ, and knows what Jesus did on the cross for their salvation, if they believe it, they will want to hear about that salvation more and more. Again, it is not as if sanctification is the cause of our justification. But we should be clear that no one who is justified in the eyes of God will be without it.  And that is because sanctification is a necessary part of our Christian life. It is the inevitable result of our justification. 

And lastly, the healing of the deaf and mute man shows that even though sanctification is a necessary part of our Christian life, it is never completely perfect in this life. Yes, it’s true that whoever has the Holy Spirit will be filled with new and godly desires and that their life will look different than it did before they had faith. The man that was deaf and mute was different after Jesus healed him. And we are different after Jesus heals us by forgiving us of our sins. But even though we are different, that doesn’t mean that we are perfect. It’s not that we never sin anymore at all, but that our attitude towards our sin has changed. Now, we hate our sin. Now, we want to be rid of our sin and eagerly await the time when that will happen in heaven. And most importantly, now we actually trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins and believe that because of His death on the cross our sins will not condemn us to hell. But we still have sin.

When Jesus healed the deaf and mute man, we learn that those who were there and saw it happen started telling other people about it. Even though Jesus told them explicitly not to tell anyone, but to keep it a secret, as our reading says, “The more He charged them the more zealously they proclaimed it.” Now, it certainly seems like these people did have faith in Jesus. After all, they were the ones who brought the deaf and mute man to Jesus in the first place, and at the end of our text they praised Him for “doing all things well.” But even those who had faith in Jesus did not do exactly what He said. Who knows why Jesus told them not to talk about the miracle. Maybe Jesus wanted to be known by His teaching and was concerned that other people might try and treat Him like a “genie in a bottle” instead of the Savior of sinners. We don’t know. But what we do know is that Jesus told them to be quiet and they weren’t. They still struggled with their own flesh and at times thought that they knew better than God.

And that’s how it is for us sometimes too. Sometimes, we get things wrong. Sometimes, in our weakness we fail to do what God says and even have difficulty knowing what the right thing to do is in the first place. Sometimes as Saint Paul tells us in Romans chapter 7, “I do not do the good that I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” And yet, none of that necessarily means that we are no longer Christians. 

Image all of the stuff that we couldn’t do anymore if we actually believed that it was possible to stop sinning in this life entirely. We couldn’t pray the Lord’s Prayer anymore. Don’t we say, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us?” How could we pray that prayer from a sincere heart if we didn’t think we had any sins that needed to be forgiven? Or what about taking Communion? Doesn’t Jesus tell us, “Drink of it all of you this cup is the New Testament in My Blood shed for you for the forgiveness of sins?” What would even be the point of going to Church and listening to the sermon at all, if we had already reached the point of perfect sanctification and there was nothing from the Bible that we didn’t already know or that we didn’t need to hear again? 

The question is never whether or not our sanctification is perfect, which it won’t be in this life, but whether or not it is real. Are we among those who mourn our sins and try to live a godly life by the power of the Holy Spirit, or have we given into our sins and stopped trying to fight them altogether? Just because no one can reach a state of complete perfection on this side of heaven doesn’t mean that we don’t strive for it. It doesn’t mean that we don’t even try. As Saint Paul also tells us in Philippians chapter 3, “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me His own.” 

We strive to live a sanctified life not to merit eternal life, but in order to guard it. We pray against our sinful nature, come to Church to take Communion, and read our Bibles on a regular basis because the Holy Spirit promises to work through those things to sanctify us and keep us in the faith.  There are times when we feel as if we are progressing in our sanctification and there are times when we feel that we are not making any progress in it at all. But at every time, if we want to be rid of our sin and want the forgiveness that comes from Christ, then we can be certain that Christ has not left us, and that soon our struggles will be over. We can rest assured that God is still at work in our hearts to sanctify us completely. May the Lord grant it to each of us for Jesus’ sake. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.