This morning we come to the last in our studies of Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, the first letter to the Thessalonians. Next week we are going to roll out our new church-wide teaching theme for the year with a short three-part topical series. I’ll preach the first of those and then I’ll be on vacation and some of our other pastors will be preaching as well. And then when I get back we’ll launch into our next major exposition. And I would ask you please to be in prayer specifically for the next few weeks in the life of our church. A good deal of our primary programming resumes. There’s a lot of new teaching and fresh ministry that will get underway and we want to seek the Lord’s blessing on all that we are doing for His glory and for the good of His people.
For now, let me invite you please to turn with me one more time to 1 Thessalonians and to look at chapter 5 and we are considering verses 23 through the end of the chapter. If you are using a church Bible, you can find that on page 988. You will remember that a major concern of the apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians has to do with Christian sanctification. Paul is writing to help the Thessalonians, he is writing to help us grow in godliness, especially in light of all that he has been teaching us about the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so it’s no surprise really that it is once again to the pursuit of holiness that Paul returns in these concluding verses. Only with this important difference – until now, much of what Paul has to say about sanctification in 1 Thessalonians is hortatary. That is, it has been an exhortation. He is calling us, exhorting us, challenging us toward holiness. But the dominant note of this closing section is not hortatary; it is promissory. It is not an exhortation to expend every effort in making progress in holiness; we must do that. But here, it is a promise that God Himself will make His people holy by His wonderful grace.
And that’s such a helpful note to end on, don’t you think, because Paul wants to leave us encouraged and emboldened. As his exhortations have penetrated our hearts and consciences and spurred us to new obedience, he here reminds us of the resources of heaven that will equip us and strengthen us and give us courage to be faithful. As we look at the passage together we are going to consider it under four headings. First, I want you to see the source of sanctification. Where does it come from? How do you get it? From whom does it proceed? The source of sanctification. Secondly, the scope of sanctification. How far must sanctification reach in our lives? And how deep must it penetrate? And how long will it take? What is its final horizon line and destination? So the source and then the scope. Then thirdly, the certainty of sanctification. Will it really happen? That’s a question sometimes I find myself asking as I’ve looked at my own remaining sin, so strong, so resistant to all of my efforts to deal with it and to remove it. Will it really happen? Well yes it will. See the promise of God. The certainty of sanctification. And then finally, with the concluding few exhortations, Paul almost summarizes the teaching he has given us on sanctification throughout the whole of the letter. He gives us the structure of sanctification. Here’s how it will work, how it will play out in your life in practical terms.
So there’s the outline. Do you see it? The source, the scope, the certainty, and the structure of sanctification. Before we read the passage together, let’s pause and pray and ask for the help of heaven. Let us pray.
Lord Jesus, to whom else shall we turn? You have the words of eternal life. So give us now the Spirit of truth to take of what is Yours and make it known to us. And guide us into all truth, that by the truth we might be sanctified. Your Word is truth. For Your name’s sake we pray, amen.
First Thessalonians chapter 5 at the twenty-third verse. This is the Word of God:
“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. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.
Brothers, pray for us.
Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss.
I put you under oath before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.”
Amen.
Let’s think first about the source of sanctification. I recently came across claims that New York City’s pizzas and bagels are the best in the world, a claim I’m sure is contested by some. But listen to this. They’re the best in the world because of New York City tap water! Apparently, it makes the best dough! Smithsonian magazine, for example, claims, “New York’s water is a bit like the Goldilocks of bagel water, bagel water chemistry – just the right softness, creating just the right degree of tenderness and chewiness in the resulting bagels.” Let me say upfront, I have no idea and make no claim that New York City has the best pizza or the best bagels. Please don’t come at me afterwards offended because you like Chicago or Boston or LA better! I certainly can’t comment on whether or not the city’s water makes that much difference; I’m dubious myself. But that’s the claim, right? That’s the claim – the water source makes all the difference in the world.
Whatever the case with pizza and bagels, when it comes to sanctification, the source really is the key thing, really is the key thing. Look at verse 23. Paul says God Himself is the source of sanctification. “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you.” Sanctification – let me remind you of the definition our Shorter Catechism so hopefully provides – “Sanctification is the work of God’s free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin and live unto righteousness.” That’s sanctification. That’s what we are talking about. And it is the work of God’s free grace. That’s its source. It is God’s great work in your heart, believer in the Lord Jesus, to make you holy.
Back in chapter 3 verse 13, Paul prayed – do you remember – that God would “establish our hearts blameless in holiness.” In chapter 4 verse 3, he said very directly, “This is the will of God, your sanctification.” In chapter 4 verse 7, he added, “God has not called us for impurity but in holiness.” And in the second half of chapter 5, as we’ve seen, there is a whole series of exhortations concerned with the practicalities of growing in godliness. And so real, obedient, diligent, practical, visible holiness, holiness that penetrates and changes the head and the heart and the hands, that changes how we think and speak and feel and choose and will and want and love and serve, that’s the burden of the apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians.
And in this closing benediction he draws all of these different strands of teaching about practical holiness together. You’ll notice the word with which verse 23 begins – “Now, now may the God of peace Himself. Now – that is, in light of all that I have been saying, let me sum it all up here. Now in light of all of this teaching about sanctification, I want you to know where I am looking and to whom I want you to look to get it done in your life.” “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you.” The Greek order of that opening phrase puts the emphasis on the word “Himself.” “Himself now, may the God of peace sanctify you.” The God of peace Himself. This God and no other. He is the soul, fountain and source of a holy life. You won’t get it looking anywhere else, certainly not to your own strength or resources. It is the gift of God alone.
That means, by the way, there is no point along the road of your Christian pilgrimage at which you can stop and say, “Look what I’ve done.” There’s no success in your daily conquest with sin, no victory that you may gain over some besetting, besieging sin in your life where you can stand back and say, “I did it! I did it! Look what I did!” No, no, when all is done and you stand before the Lord Jesus at the last, face to face with your risen Savior in eternity, you will say, “This was all Your doing and I give You all the praise.” Sanctification is the work of God’s free grace. “Twas grace that brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.” God is at work in you to will and to work for His good pleasure. “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you.” Is one reason you make so little progress in your own battle with besetting sin every day that you are looking more to your own strength than you are to the God of peace? Are you cast upon His help and grace? Do you cry for His strength? Do you trust Him to do it? Look to Him. That’s what Paul is urging on us and on the Thessalonians.
And who is this God? He is – notice the language – “the God of peace.” He is the God who by the Gospel makes peace between rebel sinners and Himself. God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. He is the God who brings peace between Christians who might otherwise have no earthly reason to love or care for one another. Having removed the dividing wall of hostility, Paul writes to the Ephesians, “by abolishing the law of commandments, expressed in ordinances, He has created in Himself one new man in the place of the two, so making peace, reconciling us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.” God makes peace. He is the peacemaker. He is the peacemaker. The God of peace.
And in the context of our passage, Paul wants us especially to understand that God is at work making peace not just between us and Himself, with whom by nature we are at enmity because of sin, and yet through the cross God reconciles us to Himself; not only is He making peace between us, joining us as brothers and sisters in Christ to one another, He is establishing and making peace in our own troubled hearts. It is the God of peace Himself who sanctifies us. Now you may remember the Westminster Confession of Faith chapter 13 speaks about our Christian experience of growing in holiness with remarkable pastoral realism and uses Paul’s language from Galatians 5:17 and Romans 7 to remind us that “Though this sanctification is throughout in the whole man, yet it is imperfect in this life and so there abideth still some remnants of corruption in every part, whence ariseth a continual and irreconcilable war.” That’s the ordinary Christian experience. And haven’t you found the battle lines drawn in your own conscience, in your own heart and experience? An irreconcilable war rages in your heart. The Spirit and the flesh lusting against one another, fighting, struggling for the mastery. “The good that I want to do I do not do, but rather the evil I do not want to do that I do. Who can save me from this body of death?” That’s how Paul prayed, and isn’t that how you cry out to God? “I am not the man I want to be. I am not the Christian I long to be. Sin that I so hate still seems so often to gain the upper hand. There is a war raging in my heart.”
So let’s remember what’s really happening in that combat zone. It doesn’t feel terribly peaceful, does it? But what’s happening? It is the conquest of the God of peace who will make peace by conquering our sin. He wages war in your heart to conquer your sin. That’s what’s happening. That’s why you feel this internal strife. It’s not some defect of your Christian life. Rather, it is the pattern by which the Prince of Peace establishes peace in the souls of His people. He, like Joshua leading the armies of Israel into the land of Canaan, conquers the enemies of God until the land has rest. That’s what God is doing. That’s why He is the God of peace who sanctifies you. He is waging His warfare until holiness at last reigns. And so take heart if you feel that fight and struggle in your heart. You are not failing; it’s not a defect. It’s a feature. It’s not a bug. This is the normal Chistian life. The Prince of Peace is marching into Canaan to conquer the land for Himself in your heart, and He will not stop until His peace presides in every faculty of your nature and His reign triumphs supreme, until you are like Christ. The source of sanctification – the God of peace Himself.
Secondly, notice what Paul says about the scope of sanctification. How far will God take it? How deep must He drill down to root out the weed of sin festering in the soil of our lives? Look at the text again. “May the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely and may your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless.” Notice those two words – “completely” and “whole.” The sanctity, the holiness that Paul is asking God to accomplish in you is comprehensive, isn’t it? It’s not superficial or partial. It is comprehensive. It penetrates and permeates the whole self.
That’s the force, by the way, of the three nouns that he uses next to describe a human being. Do you see them in verse 23? Sanctification happens, Paul says, “in our spirit, soul and body.” Now let’s be careful here. The New Testament does not teach, and Paul is not here advocating for what is sometimes called trichotomy, that is, that a human being has three parts – a spirit, a soul and a body; three distinct components. That’s not the teaching of God’s Word. In fact, again and again you will find the Scriptures using “spirit” and “soul” interchangeably. So Paul isn’t here advocating for trichotomy. What he’s really doing is taking three virtual synonyms for a human being and piling them one on top of the other to give us the clear impression that sanctification will leave no stone unturned, no area untouched.
There will be no, no-go zones in the human soul into which the Spirit of God will not reach to bring likeness to Jesus Christ. The work of sanctification will not be finished until every part, every faculty, every aspect of your nature, your will, your affections, your habits, your inclinations, your appetites, your predilections, your tastes, your orientation, it must reach all the way down to the hardwiring of the way that your heart and head and hands operate; down to the precognitive, prevolitional level. Right down into the very roots of your personhood, your identity, the way you make decisions, your sense of humor, your personality. All of it must be sanctified and rendered holy. The work of God seeks to penetrate and transform your convictions, your thinking and your beliefs. Your commitments – they must be sanctified. Your doctrine must be sanctified. Your sentiments must be sanctified. Your stewardship of money and of time and of physical energy must be sanctified. The use of our eyes and our lips and our hands must be sanctified. What we watch and hear, where we go, what we do, the relationships that we maintain. All must be brought into conformity and obedience to the will of God. You may say of no part of your life, “This belongs only to me.”
You remember the famous words of Abraham Kyper, speaking about the created world, that “There is no square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ who is sovereign over all does not cry, ‘Mine!’” Christ is Lord over the fabric of the created universe. He has dominion over culture and science and politics and the arts. And all of that is true, but it is especially true with regard to your Christian life and mine. It’s true regarding our hearts and our heads. Every square inch of you and of me. Not one square inch is outside of the domain of King Jesus. Not your mind, your emotions, your will, your body, your soul. All of it, He says of all of it, “Mine! Mine! And I will reign here as Lord.” And so Paul prays that we might be sanctified completely. That means, by the way, you don’t get to sign a truce with sin in any area of your life, nor do you get to say, “I am making real progress over here, and I’ll get to that stuff later. I’ll live with it for now while I press on over here.” Or, “I’ll let myself off the hook for this besetting sin because I’m being really faithful in this area of obedience.” No, the Lord Jesus claims every part of you. Every part of you must be rendered in submission to Him as a sacrifice holy and pleasing in His sight. “All of you,” He says, “All of you belongs to Me, and sanctification must touch every part.” He prays that we might be sanctified completely. The depths of it.
What about the length of sanctification? It must reach, notice in the text, all the way to the end of the age. All the way to the end of the age. Look at how Paul puts it in the passage. Look at the text. “May the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless till next Tuesday!” – “Until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” We’ve seen this again and again, haven’t we, as we’ve walked through 1 Thessalonians together. It’s the great concern of the apostle Paul to equip Christians to live lives in the light of the final appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ at the end of the age. He wants you to be ready for the last trumpet and the cry of the archangel when every eye shall see Him and every tongue confess Him Lord to the glory of God the Father.
Sometimes the way that we think about and talk about holiness can be all too this worldly. We think about the Christian life as mainly about easing my passage through life’s daily troubles. We say, “Well, the center of our concern is that I am not right, I’m not healthy, I’m not whole, and so I need Jesus, I need the grace of God to make me who I am meant to be so that I can live the life I was supposed to live.” And that shift of focus actually onto self sometimes can be quite subtle but it is deadly to real progress in Christian godliness and it is the root, if I may say so, of two almost opposite diseases in the Christian soul. On the one hand, this kind of self centeredness, this worldly focus for the Christian life can lead to a kind of spiritual narcissism that puts me at the center and reduces Jesus to a mere means to an end. “Sure, I’ll take Jesus if Jesus can make me a better husband, a better father, a better employee, a happier human being. That’s what my Christian life is about. That’s all I need Him for is to make my life better.” And so Jesus becomes a tool to use, not a God to adore nor a Savior to rest in and I am the center of my own attentions. That’s one disease.
The other disease is almost the opposite. It is this idea that becoming self absorbed can rob us of our own sense of assurance. The more we look for change in ourselves and focus on ourselves alone the less and less confident we become of any progress whatsoever. If the Christian life is all about self improvement and then you look at yourself and see very little improvement, you’re destroyed and you find yourself wondering “Why, instead of life getting easier and easier, the longer I walk with the Lord things seem to be getting harder and sorer and more complicated and my awareness of sin actually becomes more acute. It stings my conscience more severely now that I am a follower of the Lord Jesus. Maybe I am doing it wrong. Is that the problem?”
Paul wants to lift our gaze from our navels and focus them on the true horizon line of Christian sanctification – the return of Jesus Christ. Not just look back. He wants us to look back to the cross where your sanctification was purchased by the blood of Christ, but to look forward to the return of Christ when it will be final and complete. Paul wants us to look up and away from ourselves to our soon approaching Savior. Look to the finish line so that you can be as ready for the great day as you possibly can when it finally dawns. Are you looking to the finish line or are you only self absorbed? Is Jesus a tool you leverage for your own ends or is He Himself the great goal toward which you are running, that you long to take hold of and you are seeking by all the means of God’s appointment to get ready for that day so that when He comes you might enjoy Him forever at last?
The source of sanctification is God Himself. The God of peace. The scope of sanctification – He wants to make you holy, completely – spirit, soul and body – and He will not stop until it’s done, until Jesus comes. Now thirdly, the certainty of sanctification. Look at verse 24. “He who calls you is faithful. He will surely do it.” There it is in black and white. It’s unambiguous, isn’t it? You can’t argue with it. There are no exceptions. No qualifications. No appendices specifying who among His people are exempt from this promise. There are no special cases. You are not a special case. No, no, “He who calls you is faithful. He will surely do it.” He will. Brothers and sisters, God is radically committed to your holiness and He will not stop. He will not stop. He will not withhold any necessary suffering, any necessary success, any necessary challenge, any necessary comfort. He will keep nothing from you that is required to make you holy. And there is no sin still festering in your believing heart that can make Him back off from this commitment. Not your fear, not your laziness, not your lust, not your pride, not your anger, not your darkest secret sins. There is nothing in you, no matter how twisted, no sin in you, however grievous or aggravated, no misunderstanding, no confusion, no unbelief, no error of doctrine or practice – there is nothing in you, nothing at all, if you are a child of God by grace through faith in Jesus Christ that will turn Him from His purpose to make you shine with the pristine beauty and likeness of the character of Jesus Christ one day.
In the suburb of Glasgow where I grew up there was a large house just around the corner from our family home, and the gentleman who lived there was renovating it. And it was a top to bottom renovation and he was doing all the work himself so he was never finished. There was a dumpster parked outside; it seemed like it was there permanently. Pallets of bricks and tiles and all sorts of things. And the work was just – throughout my whole childhood this work was going on and on and on. At one point he took large sandstone blocks from the gable end just under the roof where the chimney was, covered them with a tarp, presumably with the intention of replacing them, and I think years went by with that tarp hanging over the hole. Listen, if sanctification was our work alone, it would be like the renovation of that house – we’d never get it done. We’d never get it done. The heavy sandstone blocks of our sin, we’d never move them. The tarp would be hanging over the hole forever. Praise God, praise God He always finishes every renovation project He begins. “He who promised is faithful. He will surely do it.”
“Surely” – you’ve got to love that word here. “Surely.” Not in any doubt. This word is a solid rock in the storm. You can anchor your faith to it. “He will surely do it.” That word “surely” is like the sun coming up. It chases away the gloom of your discouragement and promises you that one day the sun will shine with all its brightness and glory. Surely. “He will surely do it.” Your sanctification is the promise of a faithful God. You are going to be like Jesus one day and He is going to make it happen.
The source. The scope. The certainty. And finally, and very, very briefly, the structure of sanctification. The last three verses, in many ways sum up – it’s almost as though Paul went back over 1 Thessalonians and asked himself, “How can I find short one-liners that hit on some of the key exhortations that I’ve made along the way just to remind you, now that you have received the encouragement of God’s promise, what this should look like as you live it out?” He mentions four things. Let me just list them.
Verse 25, number one – pray for your leaders. “Brothers, pray for us.” Number two, verse 26 – love one another. “Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss.” Number three, verse 27 – get more Bible into your system. “I put you under oath,” that’s weighty, “I put you under oath before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers.” Number four, verse 28 – whatever you do, cling to the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.” Prayer, fellowship, more Bible not less, and a growing dependence on the grace of Jesus Christ. That’s the path to practical holiness, isn’t it? It’s actually really very simple and clear. It’s not clever; it’s not complicated. Pray, Christian fellowship, more Bible, clinging to the grace of Jesus Christ. And know as you do, “He who promised is faithful. He will surely do it.”
Praise the Lord. Let us pray.
Lord, would You please forgive us for thinking that becoming a Christian is Your work, but staying a Christian is our own; getting into fellowship with Jesus is the work of the Holy Spirit, becoming like Jesus is the work of our own energy and effort alone. What a wretched deception that has been in our lives. How defeating and discouraging and demotivating. Thank You, so much, for Your precious promise. It is Your agenda, Your pattern for our lives to make us thoroughly holy, in every, every facet of who we are so that our whole being, our whole spirit, soul and body would shine like a polished mirror reflecting the glory of Christ one day. That is Your great promise and we know that the road between here and that final destination may yet be bumpy and difficult, that it may need to be painful and hard as You root out our sin and teach us to trust You and lean upon You and rest upon Your grace. But O God, we pray that You would carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus just as You have promised. Give us grace to believe the promise that You are faithful, O God of peace, and You will surely do it. And as we cling to that promise, make us bold to press on, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.