It's a blessing to be here, as
always. I appreciate y'all having us. We sure enjoy being with
you. And I do pray with our brother
that the Lord will meet with us this morning and teach us
and bless us. Exalt Himself in the preaching of His Gospel.
1 Thessalonians chapter 5 is where
we'll be If you would, turn there please.
1 Thessalonians 5 and verse 23. The Apostle ends in this final chapter
of this letter, this first of his letters to the Thessalonians
with some very powerful exhortations to them. He's corrected some things, he's
taught them doctrine, he's established them in the faith, and then he
gives these exhortations and a prayer that I think, I pray
will be a blessing to us this morning. Verse 23, And the very
God of peace, Sanctify you wholly. Every word of this now is key.
So, let's read it that way. You know, I was thinking as our
brother read the scripture, there's a lot of reasons to be here with
a bit of a trembling heart this morning in awe of our God. Not the least of which is, he
says, I have power on this earth to forgive sins. He can forgive
your sins if He wants to. He can forgive the sins of your
loved ones. There may be somebody here that doesn't know the Lord. He has the authority and the
ability to wipe all your sins away. And every problem that
you have in time and eternity is because of your sin. Not somebody
else's. Your sin. And He can wipe them
away. with the power of his word. Thy
sins be forgiven thee. There's mercy with the Lord that
he might be feared. The very God of peace sanctify
you wholly, and I pray God, your whole spirit, soul, and body
be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now that phrase, the very God
of peace, is actually the God of peace himself. That word himself
is key in scripture and you see that in other places. He by himself purged our sins. And that's a clear, that's pretty
clear language. By himself, he completely without
any help from you, without cooperation, without compromise, without any advice even. Who shall be
his counselor? The very God of peace or the
God of peace himself. Sanctify. Sanctification is God's
work. God works in His people. There's
two aspects to the definition of the word sanctify. One of
them is to separate from profane things and dedicate to God. Now there's a sense in which
we do that. The Lord said, separate yourselves,
be ye separate. Come ye out from among this godless
world and be ye separate. And a lot of people say sanctification
has to do with our works because of that. But remember this about
that. God, it is God that worketh in
his people both to will and to do of his good pleasure. That's that aspect of sanctification. God did it. You're not even gonna
want to if he doesn't make it happen. To will And to do. So there is a setting apart of
the saints in the sense of that definition. God does that. Holy. That's our scripture there. Holy. And then the other aspect
of the word sanctification is to purify by expiation. To free from the guilt of sin. We know what that means. That's
clear language. That's the gospel, isn't it?
Christ accomplished that on Calvary. So you see why he says, may God
himself, the God of peace, if there's going to be peace between
you and God, God's going to have to make it happen. He hath made
peace by the blood of his cross to purify by expiation John said
it this way in Revelation 1.5, unto him that loved us and washed
us from our sins in his own blood. These words, his own, himself,
holy, himself, the God of peace himself, your whole spirit, body,
and soul. Paul makes this prayer in verse
23 now. Consider the context of this.
He prays that, that God will do the work in you and for you
that you cannot do yourself. And he says that after he tells
you to do this and do that and don't forget that and don't fail
this. It's right in the context of,
and here's just a partial list of what he exhorts in this chapter
for us. To do, do this. Don't sleep, but be watchful. He says that in this chapter.
It's high time to wake up. Be watchful and careful. He says
this, put on the breastplate of faith and love. Put on the
breastplate of faith and love. Put on the helmet of the hope
of salvation. Armor yourself. Defend this way. The devil can chew you up and
spit you out like he did Judas, or the Lord, as he said to Simon,
I've prayed for you. I've prayed for you. That he
might not sift you as wheat. And here's how that happens.
Your faith fail not. It's faith in Christ. It's belief
in Him. Believing Him. That's the means
by which God keeps us and holds us up. But notice these exhortations. Comfort yourselves together.
Have you honestly done much of that lately? Comforted your brethren? Cherish and pay attention. Edify
one another. Cherish those who labor among
you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you. Warn them that are unruly. Warn them. Now that's not everybody
exposing everybody else's sin, or pointing fingers at one another. This is to be done by a pastor. But those that are unruly, if
there's a distraction, if there's a... I don't like the word distraction. People say, well, that's a distraction.
Yeah, a fly is a distraction. There's a lot of distractions.
People use that word. I think it's overused. If you
can't help but hear from God, there's not a whole lot that's
going to distract you. You're going to hear from God. You're
going to come and you're going to be glued to every word that comes
out of God's mouth. So we use that a lot. We blame
that a lot on just our unwillingness to hear. But if there really is a disruption to the worship, it's got to be
dealt with. It's got to be dealt with. Comfort the feeble-minded. You know, we think of feeble-minded
as maybe older folks that are losing their edge a little bit,
like me. But that's not, I mean, that's
people that have just been broken. This world has a way of breaking
you. And when I say this world, I mean God uses it. Because most of us are better
broken than we are not broken. Comfort one another, comfort
the feeble-minded. See that none render evil for
evil. Follow that which is good, pursue
that which is good. How many good things are there
in this world? If you just sit there and count
them, what in this world is really good that God would say is good? Run after those things with all
your heart. Rejoice evermore. Don't ever
forget. It's a sorrowful world, isn't
it? But don't forget who's running it. Don't forget whose hand you're
in. Don't forget his precious promises.
We know how this thing ends. Rejoice. Rejoice in the Lord
always. Pray without ceasing. These are
all right here in the same context. All of this. Pray without ceasing. We depend on Him. If we're going
to have anything, it's going to come from Him. Ask Him for
it. He said ask and you don't have
what you need because you don't ask for it. Did He not say that? In everything, give thanks. Well, that's tough, isn't it?
These things are not possible without the grace of God. Without
God working in us, both to will and to do of His good pleasure.
Give thanks in everything. Thank God. Despise not the preaching. Despise
not the preaching. If the Lord sends you a man that
preaches the gospel from this book, and we're going verse by
verse here, this is not, let's start here and let me tell you
what I think that means. No, that's not preaching. Don't despise the preaching.
Well, I know he said that, but yeah, you gotta take that with
a grain of salt, no? Not if he's speaking for God,
you don't. Improve all things. Test everything. Don't be gullible. Don't be carried about with every
wind of doctrine. Be anchored and stable on the
rock of Christ and His Gospel. Hold fast that which is good. Pursue it and then grab hold
of it like there's no tomorrow. Abstain from all appearance of
evil. And in the context of this book,
that is doctrinally primarily. That doesn't mean necessarily,
you know, don't wear too short a skirt or don't, you know, smoke
or things like that. We're not supposed to even, you
know. No, that's talking about anything that smells like compromise. Anything that even has a whiff
to it of anti-Christ, free will, man-centered, anything that's
not, in other words, directly from God's Word. Stay away from
it. People arguing about, you know,
inferlapsary and superlapsary. Stay away from that. The Word
of God doesn't have anything to do with that. The Gospel,
that has nothing to do with how God saves sinners, not one bit.
and other arguments that people get into, abstain from all, do
these things, obey these exhortations, wake up, build, pursue, embrace,
but all of these are vain unless God does something for you that
you can't do for yourself. Paul prays that God will set
you apart for himself and preserve you blameless until the Savior
comes back. What a beautiful prayer. After
all the exhortations, you do this, you be careful, you worship
God now. You serve Him, honor Him in everything
you do. But then, as we do that, we need
God to make us holy. Because none of that is going
to add to your relationship with God at all. Not one whit. Religion considers us doing all
these things, obeying these exhortations to be sanctification. But Paul
teaches here that when you've done all these things, you still
need God himself to sanctify you. Holy. So it's not saying you do all
this and then God will pick up the slack. No. You need to be
entirely sanctified if you obey every one of these to the extent
that it's possible to obey them. You still need complete sanctification
by God through the blood of His Son. I think that's pretty clear here.
Holy. Body, soul, and spirit. God must
do that. Are we still trying to get glory
in this thing of salvation? Anybody? It's clear to see that religion
believes that sanctification is what they do because of the
haughtiness of religion. The I, me, mine. It's up to you
and everything depends on you and you have a free will. The
bragging. The I-know-more-than-you attitude
with which they preach and holier-than-thou facade that includes even the
clothes they wear. A bunch of squirming maggots
in religious garb putting on a show, putting on pretense. Is there anything more repulsive
on God's earth than a slimy, disgusting, stinking maggot? Of course there is. A sinner. That's just a shadow of a sinner. Preserved in our text means to
keep one in the state in which he is now. We fell in the garden and we
will fall from grace today unless God holds us up. Just as surely
as he holds up the planets and the stars, he must hold us up.
We have just as much sustaining power over ourselves as a cold
rock in outer space. When it comes to our relationship
with God, Lord, don't let us go. Don't let us go. Preserved. Holy. God must wholly sanctify you. This thing of sanctification
is not a matter of you doing your part and then God doing
the rest. It's not you taking the first step and God doing
the rest, or you taking any steps. This word wholly here is a compound
word which includes the word our Lord spoke from the cross
when He said, it is finished. It means perfect. God's got to
perfectly sanctify you, not partially after you've done all this other
stuff, perfectly, wholly. He's got to do all of it. And consider this, we need to
understand this about this. When Paul prays this prayer in
verse 23, he's not saying, may God help you to do all of these
things, and then that's sanctification. No, he's talking about a whole
separate thing here, from you honoring the Lord in these things.
So your sanctification is separate from that, but it's brought up
in the context of that, because when we typically start thinking
about, oh, well, I need to do this, this, this, and this, and
this, and this, we start thinking, well, you know, we've got to
be pretty good folks, you know, in order to be saved. The reason for verse 23 is that
that cannot, cannot be our thought. Verse 23 is not saying, may God
help you to do all the things that we've exhorted you to do.
Paul is speaking of a completely separate thing here. When you
have prayed without ceasing, when you have pursued and laid
hold of that which is good, when you've done all the best things
you can do, the best that you can do them, there is something
altogether separate from all that that needs to happen to
you. Something only God in his infinite grace can perform. This sanctification here is not
God picking up the slack or helping you out. God does not help those
who help themselves. In fact, this gospel teaches
that if you help yourself, Christ will profit you nothing. If you
do anything to recommend yourself to God and count that as such,
as improving upon your standing with God or your position before
God, Christ will profit you nothing. So this perfect sanctification
that he's talking about, he's making it clear that all of these
exhortations, even if they're followed to the letter and all
obeyed by you, that has nothing to do with your standing before
God. He's reminding us of that. Your standing before God is something
that God in Christ does wholly, perfectly as your substitute. And apart from Christ, your best
works will be your damnation. That's verse 23 in the context
of all this other. This perfect sanctification is
prayed for here specifically because it is the natural thought
of the believer. When we think of our works now,
as a believer, as somebody who's sitting and clothed in their
right mind, when we think of our works, religious anti-Christ
free will Pharisees may very well feel secure when they consider
their obedience in spiritual things, but not a believer When
a believer gets on that subject of obeying God, serving God,
loving God, worshiping God, because of God's grace in us and the
understanding He's given us, our immediate thought when we
think of our obedience and our service is to plead the blood
of Christ, the righteousness of our Redeemer, to beseech Him
to do what we can't do, to be all of our righteousness, all
of our sanctification, That's our text. I've never done a long study
of the difference between spirit and soul. Some of y'all may know
more about that than I do. It says body, soul, and spirit.
But I think we could suffice it to say for now that God must
perfectly sanctify and preserve us, all of us, every bit of us. Body, soul, and spirit, in the
entirety of our being, he must sanctify us, make us pure, expiate
our sin, remove from us our guilt, and set us apart for his service.
Blameless, the word blameless means what it sounds like. Unblameable,
unreprovable, faultless, and we know how that happens. unto
him that is able to keep you from falling. He doesn't just make it so that you don't fall.
He keeps you from falling. In other words, when he said
to Simon, he said, I've prayed for you that your faith fail
not. What do you think would have happened if the Lord hadn't
prayed for him in that regard? That's what we're talking about
here. He keeps us from falling, because that's exactly what we're
going to do without His grace. And to present you faultless
before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. That's what
we're talking about. Lord, keep us, preserve us, preserve
us blameless. To the only wise God, our Savior,
be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen. Who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect, it is God that justifieth. Who's gonna nay say that? If
God says, he's perfect in my sight, who's gonna nay say that? Who is he that condemneth? It's
Christ that died. It's because of who died and
what he accomplished when he died that we're blameless. We're just simply blameless.
The coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, he says, until our Lord
comes, may He keep you until He comes back. The coming of
the Lord Jesus Christ back to this earth is the mighty conqueror
coming to claim the spoils of His victory. is the Redeemer
coming to take possession of the purchased ones. Listen to
Ephesians 1.13, in whom also you trusted, after that you heard
the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also,
after that you believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit
of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance, until the
redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of His glory.
Thank God I'm bought and paid for and he's coming back for
me. He's gonna come take possession
of me body, soul, and spirit. Verse 24, we'll have a final
thought here on verse 24 back in our text. Faithful is he that calleth you
who also will do it. Again, remember the context.
I want to be faithful in these things, don't you? I want to
know how to pray and do so with all my heart before God. What
absolute blithering idiots we are if we don't cry out to God
constantly, knowing that he's on the throne of grace, that he works all things for
our good anyway all the time and that he's able abundantly to supply anything that we might
ask or even think and he says you don't have it because you
don't ask for it. Faithful is he. I want to be
faithful to pursue that which is good, which is, of course,
Christ, things of Christ, the worship of Christ. That's all
that's good in this world. I want to be faithful to all
of those exhortations, but here's the gospel. Faithful is he. There's your comfort. Don't look
to yourself and your keeping of these wonderful exhortations. You're not going to find comfort
there though. Here's the comfort of the gospel. Faithful is he
that calleth you, that does something for you. You can rest there. There's peace there. Do these
things, but not as a yoke of bondage. Do these things, but not in fear. Do these things not out of law,
but out of love for the Savior. Remember when the Lord told the
disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane to watch and pray? Watch and pray. As He's pouring out His heart
and His very blood already under the weight of the sins of his
people. What was happening there in Gethsemane?
Well, we know our Lord said, My soul is exceeding sorrowful,
even unto death. There's just one thing that causes
sorrow. My sin. He's already bearing my sin there. An unthinkable burden that's causing
the very blood to pour from his brow. And he says to his disciples,
watch and pray. And they're unable to do that. He said, could you not watch
with me even for one hour? And then not long after that,
he said to them, sleep on, sleep on, it's enough. It is enough. Why would he say sleep on if
he's told them to watch and pray? Is that not a contradiction?
Not at all. Our Lord says, watch and pray.
Watch with me in this one hour of all hours out of honor and
worship. And he said, lest you enter into
temptation. This is good for you. But to
honor and worship him that one hour, not even that hour they
could watch. Because of the momentous nature
of the occasion, because of what he's doing for them. He's doing
that for them. If you had to stay awake to claim
a lottery ticket winnings, you'd stay awake, wouldn't you? We should wake up. He says that
because we should be wakeful and watchful and vigilant. Especially
when he says, with me, could you not watch with me? We should
work and strive and endeavor in all the things that we're
exhorted to do and be here, but why then did the Lord say, sleep
on? It's enough when they fail to
watch. Because it is just as important
for us to understand that none of this depends on us. None of
it. It is enough. What's enough? Christ is enough. Not only was
he in the grip of doing everything
necessary for our salvation, and not only did we not have
any part in that, we couldn't even watch him do it. And it's just as important for
us to understand that as it is to desire and endeavor to honor
him. Christ is enough without my cooperation,
without my input, without my decision, without my will. He is faithful. He will also
do it. That's our peace. This is why our Lord did not
say, put my yoke upon you because nothing is going to happen today
that you and I can't handle together. He said, put my yoke on you and
you rest. You rest. Rest in his finished work. Rest
in him who does it all. God give us grace to work. to
serve, to love, to worship, but also give us grace all the while
to rest in you. Amen.