Let's turn in our Bibles to First Sessalonians, we're actually finishing our study in First Sessalonians today, and we're going to move on to studying the epistle of James, which is quite a different epistle, from this one and many others in the New Testament, here in the coming days, but we finished First Sessalonians today. And the Apostle Paul has, as you know, presented himself in this text in this letter as one who deeply loves the Thessalonians. In fact, in chapter 2, he says, I was gentle among you like a mother with her children. Most men would never claim to know much about mothering. I have a book in my library that is entitled What Men Know About Women, and you open it up and all the pages are blank. I'll probably send that to one of you men for your birthday, one of these days, when you particularly impress me with your deep knowledge of women. And I've reminded of a woman who says that she was on her way to the hospital to the labor room. She was in labor, and her husband actually said to her, honey are you sure you want to go through with this? Men don't understand, I understand that, but Paul actually claims to understand and to have a love that is similar to a mother's. And you see this throughout the scriptures, as he says in chapter 1, verse 2, we always thank God for all of you mentioning you in our prayers. We continually remember you before our God and Father. And in chapter 2, we loved you, verse 8, so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our lives as well. Doesn't this sound like a mother? And he says in verse 5, I can't find out about your faith. I was afraid that in some way the temper might have tempted you, a mother's concern, looking out for you, even chasing you down. Chapter 4, verse 1, we instructed you, verse 1, we asked you, we urge you. Sounds a lot like a mother, doesn't it? And in chapter 5, he says over and over again, we encourage you, you encourage each other, this nurturing love of the apostle, which is typical of the love that we should have for one another in Christ. Well, as we come to the end of this letter, this motherly love, this coming out of the heart of this celibate apostle, finds itself in full expression at the end of the letter. And here's why it's so precious. You know, so many of us who have had faithful Christian mothers, and that would be a lot of us in this room, we could in some ways say, you know, if we wanted to live a purposeful life and a good life, we'd just be what our mom has wanted us to be in the first place. Isn't it true that if you could just live up to your mother's expectations, wouldn't that be a wonderful way to live life? Wouldn't the rest of us be happier if you did that? And here's the apostle, the apostle of the mother, who's expressing his greatest concern as he summarizes it at the end of the letter. And this is not just our physical mother. Here's the apostle, the organ of revelation from God Himself, sharing with us what it is weird to be in to do in this life. And so it is a very important goodbye that the apostle shares with us. And we've seen from the hellos in the epistles that both the hellos and the goodbyes are chocked full with theological significance and with spiritual application for our lives. And to the end that we might understand it and put it into practice, let us seek the Lord in prayer. Gracious God, you are gracious and you do reveal yourself to us for which we are profoundly grateful. For we are unprofitable servants. We are unworthy servants for we have sinned against you and against our neighbor. But Lord, we do celebrate as we have already this morning. Your love for us, that you love us not because we're good but because we're yours. And therefore, as your children, we pray, O God, speak O Lord for your servants. Listen, Amen. 1 Thessalonians 5, 23, through 28, hear the word of God. May God Himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and He will do it. Brothers pray for us. Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss. I charge you before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, be with you. All men are like grass and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass, withers and the flowers fall. But the word of our God stands forever, Amen. Well, we know that when the most important things in life, whether you are a Christian this morning or not, and everyone seems to be saying it, both Christians and non-Christians, one of the most important things in life, is that you know your purpose, your mission in life. That you know what you are about. Stephen Covey in his book, Seven Habits of a Highly Effective Person, he says that as the second principal, after saying, be proactive, he says, begin with the end in view. Live your life with the end in view. And the illustration, of course, is that if we were at your funeral and the preacher were honest, what would you want him to say? If there were a testimony given from your family, what would you want them to say about you at your funeral? And if that be the case, then live your life in view of the desired end, what your mama wanted you to be and do all your life. Live that way. You must have the target in view in order to make decisions in the present that lead to the desired end. And unfortunately, many people are living like those without any target, whatsoever. And when you live that way, you are open to every wind of doctrine, every fat, every fashion, every religion, every idea, every philosophy, every lifestyle. You have no anchor in your life. You have no destiny toward which you're moving and you are susceptible to anything that comes along. And as one person said tragically about our own day, most people live without a target and those who don't have a target, hit it every time. And most people are hitting, no target every time. You will notice in the Christian life that it is not that way, the Lord Jesus Christ clearly lived with a mission in view and he communicated the mission to ourselves. The Apostle Paul likewise. And it seems to me if I were to summarize what the basic mission in life, what the agenda is all about, is twofold. One is inside your skin and secondly outside your skin. First of all, inside your skin, that is to do just exactly what the Apostle says here to be sanctified through and through. And then, of course, we have the great commission where to be loving people as we love ourselves, where to be reaching the world for Jesus Christ, this law from dying world, that is outside our skin. That is the mission. But the first mission has to do with ourselves. And do you realize no matter what affliction you are going through, no matter what decision you have to make, no matter what circumstances in which you find yourself, the number one agenda from God's perspective is your sanctification. The big drama in your life, no matter what is going on right now, the big drama from the divine perspective is your sanctification. The Apostle Paul says here giving it my way of benediction, if you will, in verse 23, may God himself, that is the eternal, unchangeable, infinitely glorious God, that God may he, the God of Shalom, the God of well-being to his people, may he sanctify you through and through? sanctify. That's the agenda. As Peter Drucker once said, you need to ask yourself two important questions. Number one, what's business? Number two, house business. And I have to ask you this morning, my dear friend, in every single seat of every single pew, what's your business? God's business for you is to be holy. What's your business? House business. The Apostle Paul makes it clear here, may God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. You pick this up also, if you'll turn back to chapter 3, you'll see in verse 13, he says, may he strengthen your hearts? Here's another benediction, may he strengthen your hearts, so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones. This is the goal, when the end of time comes, and the Savior himself returns in all of his glory, you are to be holy and blameless. That's the target, and nothing else really matters too much at all. Whether you're single or married, black or white, young or old, whether you're rich or poor, live here or somewhere else, the target is the same for all humanity who understand the purpose for our existence, and that is to be sanctified. He says in chapter 4, verse 3, it is God's will that you should what be holy, be sanctified. Now, we know from the scriptures that to be sanctified is to be consecrated, and that means simply literally to be set apart. So, for example, if something is set apart in the book of Exodus for the Tabernacle, it is consecrated from common use to holy use. The vestments that someone might wear on any ordinary day are not the same vestments that the priests would wear when they went into the Tabernacle. Those were consecrated vestments used only for worship, and you could not go into the Tabernacle with common ordinary vestments on if you were a priest. Even the anointing oil that the priests wore, everything about it, all the vessels for use in the Tabernacle were consecrated. Other people had vessels, they had them in their own homes, but when it comes to the temple or the Tabernacle rather, these are especially consecrated for use in worship. Everything in this world is either common or sacred from the perspective of the worshipper, and nothing common comes into the sacred. If it did, it turned into toast very quickly, as you can see from a number of instances in the Old Testament. You will notice that in the practice of the sacraments in church, whether it's baptism or the Lord's Supper, before each of those, there is what we call a prayer of consecration, a prayer to set apart. What are we setting apart? Well, first of all, we pray, Lord, take this common water, set it apart from its common use to this sacrament of baptism. We pray the same for the bread and the cup to set it apart. At the same time, we pray for the consecration or the sanctification of the people in view, the one being baptized that he or she would be set apart to be a worshipper. Of course, that's what it means to baptize your child, is that they are being set apart for worship. Just as vessels were set apart to be in the Tabernacle, your child is set apart, not presuming regeneration or election at all, just set apart to be a worshipper. You train them to worship. And the same would be true at communion. We pray for the Lord to set apart his church and you, that we may be the consecrated people of God. So what's the goal of life to be set apart? Now, let me give a little theological sidebar here for a moment. When you talk about sanctification, there are two aspects in the scriptures of sanctification. There is what we call definitive sanctification, something that's already completely done, and there is progressive sanctification that which is continuing. The majority use in the New Testament has to do with definitive sanctification, for example. First Corinthians 6, Paul says some of you were druggers and adulterers and thieves and so on, but he said, but now you have been washed. You have been sanctified. You have been justified. It's something that's been completely done. You have already been set apart to be the worshipping people of God. But here, and in some other instances in the scriptures, the apostle is praying for progressive sanctification. May God sanctify you wholly. Well, they're already sanctified. They're already set apart. But no, the apostles prayed, made your character continue to transform. Not just positionally set apart for God's worship, but now practically growing in His grace. That's the number one agenda. So dear friends, this is the target. Is it your target? Is the apostles prayer for you, your own prayer for yourself? Secondly, when we look at a target like that, if you know yourself as well as I do myself, you say, this is not only unreasonable. It's impossible. Me? Holy? You've got to be wholly kidding. For me, to be like Jesus Christ, we're told that from all eternity, God chose us to be conformed to His Son. We're told in Ephesians 1, He chose us to be wholly and blameless in His sight. This is the whole purpose of all the eternal decrees of God. This is the reason that we were being created with to be wholly in His sight. It's impossible. How can I do this? Look at the next verse. You'll see in verse 24 how it's done. The one who calls you is faithful, and He will do it. Dear friends of course, when you look at yourself, you're going to wonder how in the world do I do this? You're going to say, this is impossible for me. Take your Bibles for just a moment and turn back a few pages to 1 Corinthians chapter 1. And let's see what Paul says about this very idea when speaking to the Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 8, the apostle Paul says, he, God, will keep you strong to the end so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God who has called you into fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful. What does faithful mean? It means if you give your Word to do something, you do it. You are faithful. If you make a promise to perform, you do it because you're faithful. What does it mean for God to be faithful? Every time He utters a promise, He will bring it to pass because He stands behind His own Word and His own character is faithful. And this is hard to learn. The Israelites had a hard time learning that when they're delivered from the bondage of Egypt, and then they face a big sea in front of them and these ravaging Egyptians behind them, that they're not cooked, then a hard time learning that because they couldn't see how God could possibly do this. You know why? Because their God was too small and our God is faithful. He guides the Red Sea and He sends His people out and not one of them lost one sandal on the way through. Well, so they get through and they say the Egyptians start and you come through and they say, well, how's God going to handle this? Well, their God was too small because God is faithful and He sent the Red Sea over to wipe out the Egyptian to protect his own people. They get into the wilderness, they get really, really hungry. And they even start hungry for the flesh parts of Egypt and they start complaining and murmuring. They've forgotten something. They've forgotten. They've forgotten. The Arabian will take care of you and they couldn't imagine that food would actually come out of the heavens, named Manna. And they got really, really thirsty and they were in the middle of the wilderness where you're supposed to find water in a wilderness. That's what makes a wilderness wilderness. There's no water. And God had brought them out there and played a dirty trick on them. That's what they were thinking but they forgot something that's very, very hard to learn. And that is that God is faithful and He said, he'll feed you and give you water. He'll bring water out of a rock. And so they got to the Jordan They were ready to pass through into the promised land and they didn't know how they're going to get across the Jordan They forgot God can hold back to Jordan and let them go through and they came to a mighty fortified city I mean a really mindily fortified city in Jericho and they thought well these people they've been here a long time Their ancient civilization. They're not gonna let us into their country. They're gonna wipe us out They forgot something that God is faithful when he says we'll go in and conquer the land and he brought the walls of Jericho down And the people be fighting battles and they needed more daylight to finish the battle off They didn't know how they're gonna do it and they forgot something had to learn again and again again God is faithful and he can even stop the sun and extend the length of the day
Is anybody here so bad a sinner that you're worse than water in it from a rock
Do you think if God is faithful to care for his people in the wilderness which he decisively proved centuries ago You think maybe he can get you to heaven even you If possible Paul says I'm pronouncing a benediction made a God of all peace sanctify you through and through every part of your being Every aspect of your personality your emotions your body your spiritual life your social life Everything about you may be sanctified and don't think for a minute I'm depending upon your moral strength to get it done know the very God who called you he is faithful and he will do it Even if he has to kill you to get it done Because if you followed Christ sometimes you take up a cross and sometimes you die on it But the agenda is your holiness And nothing else really matters at all So dear friends the apostle gives us The grand goal of the Christian life It is not more knowledge. It is not to be a spiritual person It is not to be well-liked in popular is not to be married or single children or not children It's not to be happy necessarily the goal is holiest And the guarantee is the very character of the living God who's determined to do this Now if this be the case a question it often arises in our minds is if this is the case well Can we just sort of glide along Just slide and glide or as some say Let go and let God Well, we should surely let God if he's doing the work we should let God but don't let go Hang on to let God And that's what you get to in these next verses because you not only have the goal which is guaranteed But now you he's going to give us the means and the motivation of this great goal We're not just thoughtlessly tugged along by some alien power that doesn't change our own hearts. Oh no He is determined to get us there, but the way in which he gets us there is by changing our hearts and Giving us a desire to participate in getting ourselves there We couldn't do it by ourselves not at all enough for a second But we participate as weak members and partners in this great work of sanctification And we do it through the means that he is here illustrated for us in verses 25 through 27 prayer And the love of the saints and the apostles doctrine These things are secondarily essential to your growth and your sanctification and your being set apart Now this is the difference between what is known as eternal security on one hand And perseverance on the other hand And there's an important distinction here Eternal security Expresses it from the divine perspective and of course, this is true We are eternally secure if we're in Christ Christ doesn't work unfinished himpanies He doesn't do something halfway. He's not an Indian giver from his perspective If he saves you that is eternal salvation and you will not be lost you are eternally secure But that only expresses part of the principle involved here The more holistic word is the word perseverance that is he secures us Through our perseverance as Jesus said he who perseveres to the end will be saved And who will persevere to the end those whom Jesus Christ has saved and secured he changes our heart And he causes us to persevere so we hang on but we're trusting God the entire way When I came to Jesus Christ I came to understand that he has done it all by his grace And part of that all that he has done is to change my heart put my hands on the plow and let's go plowing And I march ahead and I'm a brow is sweating I'm working hard But I do it as part of his securing me to get me home to heaven that's the mystery Of perseverance It is God working through human beings look at the first principle. It's prayer The Apostle Paul says pray for us He's pronounced this incredible target scientification And his immediate reaction is would you please pray for me? And I feel the same way this morning we're talking about this amazing goal way over all of our heads And the first thing I want to say is pray for me The Apostle Paul of all the people understands his own weakness His own fragility his own susceptibility his own temptations his own sins He says pray for me Dear friends Prayer is essential It's it's the work God gave us to do in which we persevere that gets us home safely If we have no interest in talking to the Lord perhaps We are not one of his because that is how he gets you home safely He puts prayer on the hearts of his people so that we will get home That's part of his decree and saving you is to give you a prayer relationship with him So use the means that he's giving you if your target if your real mission is to be like Christ and use the means that he gives us to do that Some of you in fact, I'm sure a good number of you've read the prayer of Jbez which is very popular and I notice this morning in the New York Times It's still number one on one of the New York Times bestsellers lists And those of you who have met or know Bruce Wilkerson know that he's a wonderful Christian has been used widely of the Lord Admissions and in teaching here in America and certainly this book is being widely used of the Lord and I suggest it to you To read it. There's some great things in there. Primarily I would say that we Often if not regularly underestimate the power prayer And we overestimate what we can do apart from prayer and I think that book will certainly help as you estimate Your usage of prayer in your own life I would issue a couple of little suggestions however with regard to it I think there is a sense in which Bruce may have overly stressed Our being blessed before we can bless other people at least we need to be very careful how we think about that blessing that blessing is a cross And so if God would bless me he would give me his own cross the cross of Christ As well as the power of his resurrection And the prayer that you'll notice in the Lord's prayer which is commended to us as a prescriptive prayer Not just descriptive as with jabas, but prescriptive the Lord says pray like this You will see the prayer says die kingdom comes. I will be done on earth as it is in heaven That's the prayer Lord whether I live or die your kingdom come Whether I have a lot or little whether my boundaries grow or not Your kingdom come expand your boundaries and be pleased to use me in it So I would suggest you to be very careful that your prayer is like the apostles prayer For example look back just one book in your Bible in Colossians chapter 4 look at the prayer here This is a typical prayer of the apostle He says in verse 2 of Colossians 4 Colossians 4 verse 2 devote yourselves to prayer Being watchful and thankful and pray for us too now. Let's look at this prayer That God may open a door for our message So that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ for which I'm in chains there's the prayer and then he prays Pray that I may proclaim it clearly as I should And that's a typical apostolic prayer pray for me that I'll have courage to withstand the onslaught of the enemy Pray for me to be protected so that I can get the gospel out you see how kingdom centered it is So as you pray pray like the apostle pray for the kingdom in your heart and in your realm of influence And you'll find Jesus Christ of course praying the same way for us in John chapter 17 And I would just simply suggest those patterns as a little safer than the one you'd find in first chronicles the jadez prayer Second word I would issue to you is Be very careful in thinking that simply by praying a particular prayer with particular words that that somehow magically will make you a better question Now the Lord did give us the Lord's prayer and we probably pray that every Sunday as I think we ought But it's not because we just pray some magical words It's because we're asking for the things that Jesus Christ wants us to ask for And if you know Bruce Wilkinson you know that there are many things about his life That the Lord has done that makes him a very effective missionary and teacher in the church and not just because he's prayed A particular Set of words for 25 years as helpful as that may be so I think if you'll watch out for those things that prayer of jb S. Can be useful But what is certainly useful and necessary is that we learn to pray like the Lord taught us Secondly, the apostle says Greet the brothers with a holy kiss. Oh, I love that verse Greet the brothers with a holy kiss Those of you who have traveled in other parts of the world and been with the church You know that the men kiss the men and the women kiss the women And in Ukraine the men kiss your right on the lips In in case you're unless you're ready and you can dodge and with Americans they'll hug you Now they know that you're a little colder than they are but they kiss right on the lips other Europeans kiss on the cheek We're a bit more distant than that and the point would be of course greet one another warmly And I think that you know Americans can certainly warm up a whole lot Second press veterans a very warm place and I'm thankful for that but greet one another in America of course The men kiss the women the women kiss the men and the men shake hands and I kind of like that too but I do like Extending affection to one another why The apostle is saying that you will grow in sanctification as you let yourself be loved and as you give affection to other people You know there's some people in this community who think well I can be just to find a christian as anybody else and stay home and watch on TV Or have nothing to do with public assemblies of worship I say if that's what they think they have no idea of what the target for life is you couldn't be sanctified You couldn't experience consecration you couldn't grow in holiness without being loved by the brothers and sisters It's impossible The more wouldn't have given it as a means if he didn't mean for it to be an essential means of our christian growth So we must be involved Any displaying affection toward one another and then he says I assure you in the name of the Lord read the letter to all the brothers. That is the apostolic doctrine You see the means of growth Prayer the fellowship of the saints and taking the Bible into your life hearing it read hearing it explained Devoting yourself to it in private these are the means We say pastor this is just getting worse and worse you start off with an aim I can't hit and then you give me means and I fail at every every week of my life How am I possibly to do this? How am I possibly to be motivated? I don't know if any of you saw the USA today last Thursday But there was an interesting article. I think it was a lead article on the front page about The problem with the workforce in America And the article described that 55% of our workforce says they are decidedly Uninthusiastic about their work and 19% of the American workforce is an absolute sour apple In the batch they're hostile to the company for which they work In fact the article described in 19% of America's workforce would do their company a favor by calling in sick It's how bad we are And so people been trying to figure out how do you motivate these people Well in the solutions they're grand we have a multi-billion dollar motivational industry now You know a time Peter's either was here recently or is coming soon motivational speaker. Do you know what he gets paid for one speech Somewhere between 55 and 65 thousand dollars for a speech Of course, Clinton's getting a hundred thousand Is doing it people a whole lot of good in it 55 to 65 thousand dollars and one company They paid almost a million dollars to another company to motivate their incoming staff 5,000 of them over the past six years to walk on coals 1500 degree Fahrenheit coals for a distance. So they all bond together
I'll do it for far less money than that if they just ask People are trying to figure out how do you get people motivated to do the important things? Well, even it's difficult to get people to motivate it for the job How difficult do you think it is to get people motivated to read the Bible pray and love one another and grow in sanctification Try that one corporate motivational speaker Not just the goal and the guarantee of it by the Lord Now the means that we're to use now he gives us the motivation the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you Christ Unmerited love and mercy from God. I know myself to be an unworthy unprofitable servant. I'm standing against the Lord. I've canceled. I've I've actually demolished any right. I could possibly have ever to enter his sanctuary ever to be in his tabernacle ever to be in his presence ever to be his friend ever to be his child And not only that not only have I surrendered any rights I have absolutely no human power in and of myself to get myself back on track and he sent his son to die in a tree to pay for the price of that And he was raised from the dead and went to heaven and with his father He sent the spirit to cleanse my heart and renew my love for him and convinced me that this thing is possible with the power of God Holy grace of the Lord Jesus Christ If that is with me It's more powerful than the love of my mother Who loves me and nurtured me cared for me who always forgives me and who thinks I'm wonderful This is more wonderful than my mother's love And dear friends, that's the only thing There will ever motivate you to want to be a consecrated person But if you know that love a consecrated person is precisely what you want to be Because when you are and to the degree that you are It is then that you experience the everlasting arms of the living God Around you cherishing you and loving you and reminding you that you are a person of destiny indeed What a Savior what a gospel praise be the God of all grace for the spray
Father, we thank you for giving us the highest purpose any human being could possibly have And that is to be set apart from the ordinary creation To be of the redeemed people consecrated Set apart for worship and service of the king of kings and the Lord of lords Thank you gracious God For the divine guarantee That you will do it No matter what our circumstances or our background when we come into your life by Christ and the gospel you will do it Thank you for granting us the privilege of partnership and giving us the means of grace by which we can know you more dearly We pray for the power of prayer in our lives grant us the spirit of grace and supplication Then we too may pray from our hearts that I kingdom come that I will be done on earth as it is in heaven Use me Lord whether by life or by death to exalt the name of Christ and gracious God We thank you for the divine motivation that spurs us on from moment to moment That we are an unworthy people who have been greatly loved and adopted in your family And for this oh God of all faithless We sing our song of praise and glory To your matchless name Father Son and Holy Spirit