The document discusses what it means to be called a saint. It explains that every believer, no matter how immature, is called a saint because they have been separated and set apart by God through salvation in Jesus Christ. While saints positionally, believers still struggle with sin in their daily lives. The disconnect between what God has promised and what believers experience shows that sanctification is a process that will only be completed in heaven. As saints, believers have a responsibility to live according to their calling by avoiding conduct unbecoming of saints and properly identifying sin in their own lives rather than just in others.

1. Ordinary Saints
Based on Respectable Sins by Jerry Bridges

2. I Corinthians 1:1-2
 The Church at Corinth was messed up morally and theologically.
 They were proud, tolerated all kinds of sexual immorality, sued each other in court,
abused the Lord’s Supper, misunderstood spiritual gifts, and were confused about
the future resurrection of believers.
 Despite all this, Paul still says they are “called to be saints.”
 Paul’s favorite form of address seems to be calling people saints.
 Romans 1:7; II Corinthians 1:1; Ephesians 1:1; Philippians 1:1; Colossians 1:2.
 How could Paul refer to ordinary believers as saints? What is a saint?
 The Greek word for saint is hagios refers not to one’s character, but to a state of
being.

3.  A saint is “one who is separated unto God.” Every believer, no matter how ordinary
or immature, is a saint.
 Paul also said these saints were sanctified in verse 2.
 Sanctified means to be set apart or separated. So Paul is literally saying the
Corinthians were “separated in Christ Jesus, called to be separated ones.”
 Every true believer is set apart by God for God.
 Titus 2:14
 I Corinthians 6:19-20
 According to these two verses, a saint is “someone whom Christ bought with His
own blood on the cross and has separated unto Himself to be His own possession.”
 What are we set apart to do?
 Every believer – even you! – is separated from their old, sinful life and set apart by
God to glorify God as his or her life is transformed to be more like Jesus.

4. Sainthood is a state of being.
 Being a saint is an entirely new condition of life brought about by the Spirit of God
living inside you.
 Paul described it in Acts 26:18 and Colossians 1:13
 We don’t do stuff to become saints; we are made saints the moment we ask Jesus
to forgive our sins and save our souls.
 We are made saints instantly by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
 II Corinthians 5:17
 Ezekiel 36:26
 The problem is we still sin in our attitudes and actions and words, and thoughts.

5. Why is there a disconnect between God has
promised and what we see in our daily lives?
 Galatians 5:17
 This is a daily fight in the heart of every Christian.
 We are set apart at the moment of salvation, but you have to remember that
sanctification is a process. Our hearts change immediately, but the outworking of
that change is not instantaneous or absolute. It will only be completed in Heaven.
 Paul starts the letter to the Corinthians by addressing them as saints and spends
the rest of the letter encouraging them to ACT like saints!
 “Be what you are.” The idea is that our new state of being as saints set apart by
God comes with the responsibility to live as saints in our daily lives.

6.  As saints, we need to live consistent with our calling.
 The Bible calls conduct unbecoming a saint sin, and the word sin covers a wide
range of misbehavior.
 The problem we face is that we neither think of ourselves as saints nor of our
misconduct or misbehavior as sin.
 “Sin is what those people are doing over there.”
 We can quickly point out the sins in other’s lives, but live in denial about the sin in
our own.
 Over the next few months, we are going to look at common sins Christians ignore
in their lives and how to deal with them so we can truly live consistent with our
calling to be saints.