How does God's grace continue its work in us through the Word and the Spirit?
God's sanctifying grace cleanses us from sin in our thoughts, words and acts, and enables us to live in accordance with God's will.
Catechism for the Global Methodist Church, question 67
2Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. 7Cleanse me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 8Make me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. 9Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. 10Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. 11Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. 12Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.
31Behold, days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 32It will not be like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, a covenant they broke, though I was a husband to them, declares the LORD. 33For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my instruction within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34And no longer shall each man teach his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.
25I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you; I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
16I say then: walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desire of the flesh. 17For the flesh desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, so that you may not do whatever you want. 18But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19The works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality. 20Idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, factions. 21Envyings, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness. 23Gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.
11For the grace of God has appeared, saving for all people. 12It trains us to renounce ungodliness and worldly desires and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age. 13While we wait for the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. 14Who gave himself for us, so that he might redeem us from all lawlessness and might cleanse for himself a people special, zealous for good works.
7But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
The catechism now moves from regeneration to the grace that follows it. The question's phrase "through the Word and the Spirit" is lifted from Article XI of the Confession of Faith, Sanctification and Christian Perfection, and so is the answer: sanctification is "the work of God's grace through the Word and the Spirit, by which those who have been born again are cleansed from sin in their thoughts, words and acts, and are enabled to live in accordance with God's will." ΒΆ102.6 of the Book of Doctrines and Discipline calls this the process by which the Spirit increasingly cleanses the heart.
The answer names two things sanctifying grace does. The first is cleansing. David's prayer after his sin runs on this word: "Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin" (Psalm 51:2), and "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me" (Psalm 51:10). Ezekiel promises that God will do what David asked: "I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness" (Ezekiel 36:25). John says where the cleansing comes from, "the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin" (1 John 1:7), and ties it to confession, since God "is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9).
The second thing is enabling. Jeremiah's new covenant promise is, "I will put my instruction within them, and I will write it on their hearts" (Jeremiah 31:33), which is the Word doing its work inside a person. Ezekiel's parallel promise is, "I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes" (Ezekiel 36:27), which is the Spirit doing the same. Titus says that grace itself "trains us to renounce ungodliness and worldly desires and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age" (Titus 2:12).
For a Methodist this is the doctrine that gives the Christian life its direction. Wesley taught that the believer is to go on to perfection, by which he meant perfect love, and Article XI says that this gift "should be sought earnestly by every child of God" while warning that it does not remove "the infirmities, ignorance, and mistakes common to man." A Methodist therefore keeps confessing (1 John 1:9), keeps hearing the Word, and keeps walking by the Spirit, expecting the cleansing and enabling that Article XI describes to continue for as long as life lasts.