Saturday, May 23, 2020

Be Encouraged… by the Faithfulness of God - I Thessalonians 5:23-24



Be Encouraged… by the Faithfulness of God
I Thessalonians 5:23-24
Introduction: Our series from I Thessalonians, which I’ve entitled “Be Encouraged!”, is winding down. One more message next week, then we move back to meeting in our church building and start our next series, which I believe will be from one of the Prison Epistles of Paul. I pray that at such a time as this, this teaching from the apostle Paul has touched some of our needs, and indeed we’ve been encouraged by the Word of the Lord. Paul has been teaching the Thessalonians about the sure hope we have in Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ will return to judge the world in righteousness. Paul has admonished the Thessalonians concerning how they should therefore live in this fallen world, empowered by the Spirit, living by faith, with love for God and love for people. That’s how we should live. We are all, however, a work in progress, every one of us. We are indeed forgiven, we are no longer slaves to sin, but we are still, “prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love…”as Robert Robinson said in the hymn, “Come thou fount.” So, because we still need it, our Bible is full of imperatives, reminders that we need to guard our hearts!  Sanctification is one of those doctrines that can be expressed in terms of the past, the present, and the future. The root meaning of the group of words that express the idea is to be “set apart.” We were set apart by God when we believed and were saved, we are progressively being “made holy,” or “set apart” in the present. And we will ultimately be sanctified completely, when “this corruptible body puts on incorruption, this mortal, immortality.” I like the perspective of John Newton who said,
I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am…”
And so, as Paul told the Philippians, we “work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, for God is at work in us both to will and to work for His good pleasure…” (Phil 2:12-13).
       Our passage for today is short, just two verses, that come as a prayer, a kind of benediction, in contrast to the admonitions that we’ve seen throughout this section of the letter. We read in 1 Thess 5:23-24…  
23 Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  24 He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.
A short passage, but rich in the truth that is being expressed.
The Maine* Idea: God’s faithfulness is the foundation of our hope: He will complete the good work He has begun in us. We’ll consider that from three perspectives: 1) The Source, 2) The Scope, and 3) The Certainty of our ultimate sanctification.
I. The source of our ultimate sanctification: “Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you…. (23a). Notice what Paul is saying: God is at work in us who know Him. We have been set apart, and we have entered into a relationship. More and more, over time, God is shaping us in His image. Do you see how that fits with the Gospel? Charles Spurgeon reflected on this when he said,
“I believe the holier people become, the more they mourn over the unholiness which remains within them… Holiness is not the way to Christ; Christ is the Way to holiness.
       God is the One who is working in us, to mold us into the person He wants us to be. Paul prays, “May the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely...” God is described here as the “God of Peace.” The Old Testament background shows that Yahweh, the one true God, is the one who can establish “shalom,” the “good life,” life the way it should be. That dependence on God to empower His people to live differently is pervasive in the prayers we find in the Bible. We read for example…
Psalm 85:6-13   6 Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?  7 Show us your steadfast love, O LORD, and grant us your salvation.  8 Let me hear what God the LORD will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his saints; but let them not turn back to folly.  9 Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him, that glory may dwell in our land.  10 Steadfast love and faithfulness meet; righteousness and peace kiss each other.  11 Faithfulness springs up from the ground, and righteousness looks down from the sky.  12 Yes, the LORD will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase.  13 Righteousness will go before him and make his footsteps a way.
From the perspective of the psalmist, revival now, the experience of “peace” and abundant life, is not merely an act of human will and effort, it is dependent on God at work in us. Notice in our passage in Thessalonians Paul prays that the God of Peace would sanctify them, but he makes his point even more emphatic by praying that the God of Peace Himself would do it. God Himself is at work in us.
       Paul quotes from Isaiah in Romans 15 when he writes concerning the Messianic kingdom and the mission to the gentiles in…
Romans 15:12-13,  12 And again Isaiah says, "The root of Jesse will come, even he who arises to rule the Gentiles; in him will the Gentiles hope."  13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
Notice how the prophet Isaiah parallels “good news,” “peace” [shalom], and salvation in Isaiah 52:7, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, "Your God reigns."
       In Chapter 16 of Romans, Paul refers to the final defeat of the Evil one when he says in Romans 16:20, “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.”
       The God of Peace, the One who will ultimately eradicate evil and establish His Kingdom in the New Heaven and the New Earth, is the one who “sanctifies” his people. The word group, “sanctify,” “sanctification,” “holy,” and “saints” [that is, “holy ones”] all come from the same word group in Greek. They have the idea of being “set apart,” and in the context of the church, “set apart for God.” What is sometimes difficult to follow is that this idea can refer to the past, to the present, and to the future, or ultimate “sanctification” of the people of God. For example, look at Paul’s description of the Corinthian believers in the opening of I Corinthians…
1 Corinthians 1:2-3   2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:  3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
These were the Corinthians! If you remember in that letter, this church struggled with sin, and in fact were living like the world around them. Paul describes them as “babes in Christ.” But he calls them sanctified saints! Clearly, that was their position, and though it was not yet their practice, it was also their future hope. They were a work in progress! By the way, so are you and I…
       The writer to the Hebrews uses the same designation that we see in our passage in first Thessalonians to describe God, while also praying for God’s supply of all the readers need to live a life pleasing to God…
Hebrews 13:20-21   20 Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant,  21 equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever.
God at work in us… He gives us what we need to follow Him, making us into sheep who follow the Master, who live in a way that is pleasing to God. He is the source of our ultimate sanctification, and He empowers us to live victoriously now. That points us to the Maine* Idea: God’s faithfulness is the foundation of our hope: He will complete the good work He has begun in us.
II. The scope of our ultimate sanctification: “…sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ…” (23b).
       One challenge in interpretation is always to remember the historical nature of the books and letters that make up the Bible. They were written in real historical settings to address the needs that the people of God faced at specific moments in history. What the writer intended to say to his readers, what they would have understood by his words, that is the “meaning” of the text. That is why we need to understand the setting the best we are able, to try to get at the questions the writer was answering, in order to grasp the richness of the teaching in front of us. I am stating that because we can sometimes be tempted to “read into” the text more than what the historical situation would allow, more than the human writer would have intended to say. Many discussions concerning the nature of man will appeal to this passage as proof of the tripartite nature of humans, body, soul, and spirit. I don’t think that is the point that Paul was making, so I don’t want to dwell there. Quite the contrary, he seems to be emphasizing the unity of a human life, and that God’s salvific plan was not intended to simply rescue the immaterial part of humans, but that it includes the body as well. This would have been shocking in the Greek context, which considered the body inferior, and the immaterial part of humans to be the eternal, “savable” aspect of humans.
       The modifier that is used to describe this sanctification is one that appears only here in the New Testament, “completely,” Gk. holoteles, which is a compound word combining “whole” and telos, “end, goal, conclusion.” In this context, which refers to the Lord’s coming again, we get the sense that God’s story is moving toward a climax, and we are a part of it. God will bring to completion his plan for us, including his sanctifying work in us.
       The reference to the Parousia sets this teaching in its context. The completion of our salvation, our rescue from the coming wrath, will not simply be the salvation of our spirit and soul, but would include a new, transformed body. The whole person will ultimately be saved, set apart by God for himself, delivered forever from not only the penalty of sin, but from the power of sin and the presence of sin. We will be made HOLY. A similar thought was expressed in another “benediction” earlier in this letter, in 1 Thessalonians 3:11-13…   
11 Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you,  12 and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you,  13 so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.
In that passage, rather than referring to the “body, soul, and spirit” of the believers, Paul refers to their hearts being blameless in holiness. He is looking ahead to that day when we will be free from the influence of the Fall, confirmed in righteousness. That day is yet future.
The story is told of a young girl who accepted Christ as her Savior and applied for membership in a local church. "Were you a sinner before you received the Lord Jesus into your Life?" inquired an old deacon. "Yes, sir," she replied. "Well, are you still a sinner?" "To tell you the truth, I feel I'm a greater sinner than ever." "Then what real change have you experienced?" "I don't quite know how to explain it," she said, "except I used to be a sinner running after sin, but now that I am saved. I'm a sinner running from sin!" She was received into the fellowship of the church, and she proved by her consistent life that she was truly converted.
We are sanctified now positionally, we are being sanctified practically, we are a work in progress, but thank God that the day will come when we are sanctified fully. If you know Him, that is a promise. That points to the Maine* Idea: God’s faithfulness is the foundation of our hope: He will complete the good work He has begun in us. The source, the scope, finally…
III. The certainty of our ultimate sanctification: “…He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it…” (24).
       Since our ultimate sanctification is a work of God, we can be assured that He will accomplish and complete His good work in us. Philippians 1:6 is an important reference here: “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” God has a plan — and it is better than we could possibly imagine!  He is faithful, he is trustworthy. It is sometimes hard to trust people isn’t it? Particularly if we don’t have enough history with them. I like the story of the little boy who went to the beach and saw a matronly looking woman sitting under an umbrella.  He walked up to her and asked, “Are you a Christian?” She nodded her head “yes”. “Do you read your Bible every day?”  She answered, “Yes.” “Do you pray often?” he asked, she replied, “Yes I do.” Then he asked his last question, “Will you hold my quarter while I go swimming?” Trust is not always easy, people will sometimes let us down, but God is completely trustworthy! He who calls us is faithful. 
     Sometimes, people are not completely reliable.  We start projects with good intentions, but  On the human level we need reminders (2 Cor 8:6, 11).  One brother I walk with [!] said his wife is often reminding him of jobs he needs to get done around the house. He said, “There is no need to remind a man every six months about a job he didn’t finish!” That could be any of us! But God is completely reliable, he is trustworthy, he finishes what he starts. As our text says, “He who calls you is faithful, He will surely do it.” Or, as Paul wrote in another place, “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion…” Yes, “He who calls you is faithful, He will surely do it.” So we must each “…work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,  13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure...” (Phil 2:12-13).
       Several weeks ago we celebrated Easter. Remember that quotation from theologian Eric Sauer: “The present age is Eastertime, it began with the resurrection of the Redeemer, and will end with the resurrection of the redeemed… we live between two Easters, and in the power of the first Easter we go to meet the last Easter.” God has a plan, and he has included us!  As Paul said in chapter 4, “We will not all sleep, but we shall all be changed…” That is a promise. 
 What is God saying to me in this passage? God’s faithfulness is the foundation of our hope: He will complete the good work He has begun in us. God himself is the source of our sanctification, and so the scope of God’s work in us will be complete, exactly as He planned, the stain of sin will one day be eradicated, and spirit, soul and body, we will be holy. That is a certainty, because God is faithful.
What would God have me to do in response to this passage? Holiness, sanctification, is God’s work in us. That is clear from this passage. And so there is no room for pride or boasting in the Christian life. As Paul told the Corinthians,
30 He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption.  31 Therefore, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord…" (1 Cor 1:30-31).  
But as we have seen in this letter (and throughout the Bible) God has given us imperatives, commands, telling us how we should live in the light of His saving and sanctifying grace. Remember how this section of this epistle began in 4:1…
Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to live and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more.  2 For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus.  3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification
And so we work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, knowing that God is at work in us but to will and to work for His good pleasure (Phil 2:12,13)! How?
1. Be in the Word – it is truth, it is a light to our path, it is God’s Word.
2. Pray – Talk to God, express your struggles, ask for his empower-ment in areas of weakness.
3. Walk in the Spirit – Recognize God’s presence in the Spirit, yield to Him. God said, “Walk in the Spirit and you will be no means fulfill the lust of the flesh.” (Gal 5:16,25).
4. Find a brother or sister to help you in your walk – God has given us the church so that we can bear one another’s burdens.
As we seek to live a life pleasing to God, know that God’s faithfulness is the foundation of our hope: He will complete the good work He has begun in us.  Even in these says of uncertainty we can know that God is working. He will use what we are passing through right now in that process of shaping us into the person He wants us to be. Let’s pray that we’ll have ears to hear, and eyes to see the things that God wants to teach us in this time of crisis.  AMEN.

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