Grace Community Church, Arlington, TX

Knowing the truth about who you are is so important because knowing who you are will determine how you live. Today we want to talk about the truth: I am a Saint.

Biblically the word does not refer to special people who have been canonized by a church council; special people who are venerated by bowing, kissing, and burning candles to their statues or images.

The term saint is used to define those who are sanctified in Christ, who call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Any believer, any true Christian, is a saint.

The word saint in the Greek means holy one. The Corinthians were holy. Holy before God because they believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, not holy in the way they lived. They had not yet made their life match their position.

He starts off… “You are saints”. Then in verse 10 he basically says, “Act like it.”

How did they ever get holy?

Jesus cleanses and sanctifies. He makes us holy by His offering, His suffering, by His death.

Jesus said, “I’ve called you, Paul,

God’s part to make men holy was Jesus’ death and resurrection. Man’s part to become holy is faith.

If you are in Christ by faith, and whether you feel like it right now or not, you are holy. You are a saint! So, if you are now holy, why would you go on acting unholy? It is not who you are!

If the Holy Spirit has claimed us as his own, and that Holy Spirit has come to live inside us, then the more holy becomes our lifestyle, the more at home we will feel. Because holy is who we are.

Later in 1 Corinthians, Paul asks men tempted toward sexual immorality,

We are not as alone as we thought, the Holy One is with us wherever we go. If the Holy Spirit has made his home in our souls, then not only must we be holy in our behavior — we can be.
The apostle Peter writes,

If you really are a saint by faith in Christ. If you really have been made holy by Christ’s work on the cross and the Holy Spirit coming to live in you. Then there will be a desire to be holy in your behavior. If there is no desire to be holy in your behavior, you have reason to doubt that you have been made holy by Christ.

In this passage, he is not talking about our imputed righteous, which we have by union with Christ through faith. This is the kind of righteousness that you pursue.

That’s what 2 Peter 1:10 means when it says,

You will never fall because you’ll be confirming that you are in Christ, who is your righteousness.

In other words, sanctification does not save us by replacing our justification; it saves us by confirming our justification.

James said,

In other words, the only kind of faith that saves is the kind that leads us to fight sin and to practice obedience and to pursue holiness in our behavior.

We are justified by faith alone, but the faith that justifies is never alone. It causes us to hate sin and to fight it. Our holy behavior confirms that we are truly justified, truly in Christ. Sanctification does not replace justification; it confirms it.

If you are truly in Christ, you are a saint, you are holy, so act like it!