God of peace himself sanctify you entirely, and
may your spirit and soul and body be preserved
complete without blame at the coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ, faithful as he who calls you, and
he also will bring it to pass. Operation Desert
Storm is on the precipice of a new phase, as
we gather this morning. We are led to believe
that the ground war, such as it will be, is about
to begin. Our soldiers who have been waiting
these many months are naturally eager to get
on with it and yet at the same time fearful because
of some of the terrifying results that may come.
That's natural. And yet when the order does come
to advance into Kuwait or into Iraq, they will
do so because of an important principle that
is the bedrock of military life and that is the
principle of duty. Duty, according to Webster,
is a moral or legal obligation to follow a certain
line of conduct. One of the first things that
a soldier learns in going to boot camp is the
importance of obeying orders and that to do so
is a duty. of him as a soldier. It is an obligation.
The word duty comes from the Middle English period
and a word that then meant what is due. And so
duty is that which is due to a government, to
a commanding officer, to someone who is in authority
over me. We who are believers in Jesus Christ
have a duty to God. Now this assertion that I'm
talking about this morning, our duty to God,
does not contradict the teaching of the gospel
of the grace of God. Duty is a reasonable response
to God's gracious and genuine work in us. That
is why when he came to the twelfth chapter of
his epistle to the Romans, the Apostle Paul began
by saying, now because of these great mercies
of God, that I have been telling you about in
these first 11 chapters. Present your bodies
to God as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable
to God, which is your reasonable duty, which
is your service to Him as though you were worshipping
Him. Present your bodies to God, he says. That
is our duty. In Ephesians chapter 4 we find a
similar statement made. After three chapters
of laying out before us, line upon line, verse
upon verse, of the grace of God in saving us,
he says in the fourth chapter as he begins to
shift gears, I therefore entreat you to walk
in a manner worthy of the calling with which
you have been called. He says, because of the
grace of God active in your lives, I entreat
you now to your duty. It is to walk worthy of
the calling of God in your life. Salvation is,
of course, by grace, and it is free to the believing
sinner. We are grateful that it liberates us
from the law of God. which actually only exposes
the problem. It's incapable of giving us a new
heart, as grace can do. But a true preaching
of the gospel of grace does not lead to irresponsibility.
It does not imply that the saved by grace person
has no obligations to God after his salvation.
Indeed, we have a duty to God. Our duty to him
is not one of law keeping. It's one of grace
obeying. And part of our duty to God is reflected
in our duty to His work in the world, in the
church. As we saw last week in the previous verses
here in 1 Thessalonians 5, we have a duty to
be sensitive to the Holy Spirit. It is a duty
not only to God, but to others in the church.
Because my sensitivity and your sensitivity to
the Holy Spirit affects everybody else in the
body. If I am insensitive and careless to the
Spirit of God, then everybody else in my church
is affected by that. Because we are part of the
same body. On the other hand, if I am yielded
to the Spirit of God and surrender to the Lordship
of Christ, everybody else in the church benefits
from that. We have a duty to the Church and to
God to be serious about our calling to holiness
as the people of God. That is Paul's prayer as
he concludes this epistle in these two verses
before us. He says, I pray that God will do this.
May he sanctify you entirely. That is God's calling
in our lives, he says. and faithful is the one
who calls us, he will do it. The calling of God
is a major theme in Paul's writing to the Thessalonians.
Look back in chapter 2 and verse 12. He exhorts
them to live a certain way, like a good father
or a coach. And then he says, so that you may
walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls
you into his own kingdom and glory. In chapter
4 and verse 7, he reminds us, God has not called
us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification.
In 2 Thessalonians chapter 1 verse 11, he says,
To this end we also pray for you always, that
our God may count you worthy of your calling.
fulfill every desire for goodness and the work
of faith with power. In chapter 2 verse 14 he
says, and it was for this he called you through
our gospel that you may gain the glory of our
Lord Jesus Christ. You see the emphasis upon
our calling here? And so the Apostle it seems
to me is saying something that is very important
for you and for me to grasp as he concludes this
book. As he prays that God will sanctify the
Thessalonians, he is also saying to all of us
in the church, be serious about God's calling
in your life to holiness. Be serious about that.
He says that God's calling has a two -fold purpose
in the first place. On the one hand, his calling
is for our complete and ultimate sanctification.
Sanctification is a long theological word that
has a very basic meaning. It means to set something
aside for special use. You ladies probably have
some special dishes in your house. Not the kind
that you pull out every night of the week. But
the kind that you put on the table only when
the company comes. And that's how the kids know
somebody's coming. You might be eating in the
dining room and it's set with that special china.
Now why do we call it special? Because it's been
sanctified. Because it's been set apart for company.
And you use it on special occasions. So God has
set you and me apart. And His purpose in calling
us is our ultimate setting apart, our complete
sanctification. He says that every one of us
and every part of us, spirit, soul, and body
is affected by this calling. Every person who's
sitting here who's a believer in Jesus Christ
is a part of what we're talking about, this calling.
And every part of us This body, the soul, and
spirit on the inside of us, every part of us
is involved in this calling that we're talking
about. And God's purpose in the calling is that
one day in every respect, every one of us will
be like the Lord Jesus Christ. Our character
will reflect our calling. The ramifications of
this are pretty staggering for right now. In
light of this, back in chapter 4 he told us that
we are to keep ourselves from sexual immorality.
He says you have to learn how to control the
desires of your body in purity. Why? Because
God has called you to this purpose, to be like
Jesus. That's pretty practical, isn't it? We
can no longer live for selfish pursuits of any
kind Selfish pursuits because of God's calling
in our lives to be like Jesus God's purpose is
our complete and ultimate sanctification, but
it's also our certain and safe preservation Notice
he says and may your spirit soul and body be
preserved complete without blame at the coming
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Complete means undamaged
or left intact. It's like the planes that come
back from the raids in war, and they're not shot
up. Nothing's come close to them. They come back
complete, intact from the battle. He says, I
pray that you will arrive one day at your heavenly
destination, complete, not shot up by the enemy,
but intact, preserved. without blame. That means
no legitimate accusation being leveled at you,
that no charge can be found that has any base
to it, blameless at the coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ. This preservation from harm and from
accusation, this preservation for Jesus Christ,
will one day be complete when he comes again.
We're being kept until that day by the power
of God. God's purpose is that we might share
the glory of Jesus Christ. That's what He's called
us for. That's why He is sanctifying us. That's
why He is preserving us. So that one day we can
reign with Christ in His glory. That glory will
be two different kinds. It will be glory that
will be seen in us. because we will be glorified
to be made like Him. And it's glory that we will
live in because it's the location, the land of
glory. Heaven is called glory in the Bible. And
one day we will be there in glory. God's purpose
is that we be there and be glorified. Be serious
about your calling. Then he says something about
God's process in this calling here. There is
one sense in which God's calling upon us is a
completed act. You'll notice perhaps in verse
7 of chapter 4, he says, God has not called us
for impurity but in sanctification. The word
called there is in the aorist tense. In other
words, it is a once -for -all completed action.
It may look to the past. It is something that
has already been accomplished for them. In this
sense, God's calling is over. It's done. It's
finished. It's completed. It came to them through
the preaching of Paul, the gospel that he proclaimed
to them. God's calling in your life is in one
sense completed. It came at that moment that
you trusted Christ as a youngster at camp or
as that person came to your home and called on
you or whatever the situation was. That moment
that you prayed to receive Christ, God's calling
came to you and it was completed and consummated
at that moment in one sense. But in another sense,
God's calling is a process in your life. We are
being called. You'll notice when he uses this
term in chapter 2 verse 12, it's in the present
tense. The God who calls you to his kingdom and
glory. And that is the same sense that we're
looking at here in chapter 5 verse 24. Faithful
is he who calls you. This is the call of God
right now in our lives. It is the call of God
for transformation. It is the call of God for
change. It is the call of God which He will consummate
one day when Jesus comes. It is certain that
He will. Faithful is He who calls you. It is
the call of God that we have a part in. Yes,
we have a part. We have a responsibility in this
whole process. of God's calling. Our responsibility
is found, for example, in 2 Corinthians 7 .1,
where it says, Therefore, having these promises,
beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement
of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the
fear of God. God's calling and God's work in
us is to make us holy, but we have a part in
that. We cooperate with God in this process of
His calling, and if we don't cooperate, then
it's to our loss. This is an important aspect
of God's calling in our lives, and it's one that
Paul underscores in this epistle. In chapter
4, for example, he tells us that we are to live
purely, we are to live lovingly, we are to live
honorably. You may recall that series from chapter
4. We are to live purely, we are to live lovingly,
we are to live honorably because of the calling
of God in our lives. Let me ask you an honest
question. What difference does it make in your
marriage because God has called you to Himself?
Does it make you a more understanding and loving
husband? Does God's calling cause you to be more
considerate of your wife? What difference does
it make in the way that you live in the business
world because of God's calling? We say that's
up to God. It's God's calling. Yes, it originates
with God, but we participate in this process.
Do the people you do business with know that
there's a difference about you, that you live
honorably, you're an honest business person?
Do they know that because they come to you, they're
going to get a fair deal? That you're not trying
to steal from them because of the calling of
God in your life? The calling of God should make
a difference. That's the point this morning.
We are to be serious about God's call in our
lives to holiness. He concludes by giving us
God's promise. Faithful is He. He will do it.
A couple of weeks ago I went back to my alma
mater in Chicago and there participated in the
25th reunion of our graduating class of 1966.
It's amazing how old some people in our class
have gotten in the last 25 years. Age has really
taken its toll on them. But we still have our
memories, for the most part. One of the things
that we talked about was our class verse. It
was the custom, you see, that each class would
adopt a verse. And our verse was 1 Thessalonians
5, 24. Faithful is he who calls you. He will
do it. And as we shared about what's happened
in the last quarter of a century, It was interesting
to hear that though all of us have been through
times of pain and disappointment, as well as
blessing and some success, that the theme that
came out over and over again was exactly what
the promise of God was to our class 25 years
ago. Faithful is he who calls you. Your final
salvation Your sanctification, to be made like
Jesus Christ, rests finally and ultimately upon
God. He began the process. We cooperate with
him in the process, but he is the one who is
going to consummate it. He who has begun a good
work in you will complete it, says Paul to the
Philippians in the day of Jesus Christ. Just
as He justified you by grace, He will sanctify
you by grace, and His calling in your life will
be realized. Be serious about your calling. Live
so that one day when that final adjustment is
made, so that when you are like Christ, it's
not going to be a leap of a hundred miles, but
just another step. in the process. Why is this
so important with regards to the church? In the
first place because this calling to holiness
affects the witness of our church. People in
the community know what we teach, hopefully.
And it is the holiness, the godliness of our
lives that backs up our witness and gives us
credibility. I remember when I was pastoring
another church, I went calling on a person who
had visited our church some time before that.
And the essence of his response to my visit and
my plea with him was this, look, I know so -and
-so that goes to your church, and if that's what
Christians are like, I want nothing to do with
it. The only thing I could do at that point was
to make a hasty and apologetic exit, because
any credibility of the message that I was trying
to deliver had been undermined. This call to
holiness is something we have to be serious about,
folks. because it affects the witness of our
church. It also affects the work of our church.
Because if there are some of us not serious about
God's calling to holiness, the Holy Spirit is
quenched. And to the extent that He is quenched,
or as Havner put it last week in that quote,
squenched, to the extent that He is, then He's
not working powerfully through us. It affects
the work of our church, and finally it affects
the worship of our church. For if we are not
serious about our call to holiness, our worship
to God is in vain. Sometimes read the first chapter
of the book of Isaiah and see what God thought
about the worship of the Jews in Isaiah's day
when their lives were not holy. We must be serious
about God's call to holiness because it is our
duty to God and it's also our duty to the people
of God. A gentleman was visiting a coal mine
on one occasion and as he got off the elevator
there in the shaft and began to walk he saw a
flower. a flower of all things blooming, white,
beautiful, there in one of the cracks in the
seam of coal. And he asked the question, how
can it blossom in such purity and radiance in
the midst of all of this coal dust? Whereupon
his guide said, well throw some coal dust on
it, and he did. As he threw the dust on the petals,
the dust simply came off of it. It slid off,
leaving the snowy white petals unstained. Because
God has made that particular flower with petals
that are so smooth that the grit and the grime
of a coal mine cannot attach to it. The application
of that seems to me obvious. Our hearts should
have a similar characteristic. Just as that flower
could not control its habitat, so we cannot help
that we have to live in a world that is filled
with evil. But God's grace can keep us so clean
and unspotted that though we touch sin on every
side, it will not cling to us. That's God's calling.
That as you and I walk through the world this
week, the sin that we must come into contact
with Will not pollute us Will not spot us But
at the end of the week as we come together for
worship we come as a pure people That's our duty
to God We owe that to God Because he's called
us to holiness Let's pray Spirit of God We thank
you for the calling that you've given us, a calling
to salvation which is sure and certain, guaranteed
by your presence in us. But we thank you too
for that calling to holiness, whereby one day
we will be like Jesus, in every respect. And
right now, On this day, in this week of 1991,
our desire is that the process of this calling
will be real in our lives. We pray that we will
be yielded to the Holy Spirit in every way that
we know, so that as we walk through the world
this week, we will be left unstained. I pray
that you will write upon our hearts the importance
of our being serious about your calling in our
lives. In Jesus' name, amen.