I've never lived through a war, but many of my friends in Dubai,
where my wife and I live for seven years, are currently doing
that very thing. They regularly get interrupted,
even in their gatherings. All their phones will go off
with warnings, loud buzzing noises and they've had to
announce that their service leader has to say at the start
of the service, hey, if the alarms goes off and you want to
seek shelter, you know you're welcome to do that.
Go out these doors and you can go down the stairs.
You're also welcome to stay in the building.
They regularly hear and and have to live through loud noises like
missiles being fired and debris falling, drones dropping from
the sky. I think some of them have gotten
used to it now. But Can you imagine living in a
war zone? Is there peace in your home?
Perhaps some of you don't need to imagine living through a war
zone. You live in one regularly.
Is there peace in your marriage? Constant fighting, bickering,
regular conflict, shouting, screaming.
Friend, if you're visiting this morning, do you have peace with
God? Peace is all about what our
passage is about in First Thessalonians 5.
Turn your Bible if you have it with with you to 1st
Thessalonians chapter 5. If you didn't bring a Bible,
maybe you don't even own one. Just raise your hand.
Somebody will bring you a Bible from the back table right now.
Be great to open God's Word this morning.
This is our last sermon in the Apostle Paul's letter to the
Thessalonian Church. Paul planted the church.
They were brand new believers, still wet from their baptismal
waters, only a few weeks into their life together as a church,
when suffering struck them. The Apostle Paul, their founding
father in the faith, was run out of town by persecution, Paul
says of their church. They were birthed in much
affliction, and months later when Paul wrote this letter,
they were still under pressure. They faced suffering and Satan.
So Paul was worried about their faith.
He wanted their faith to endure to the last day when they stood
before Jesus Christ. But he feared his labor would be
in vain. So that's why he sent Timothy to
them to check up on them to, to hear about their faith.
And that's why he wrote this letter to them to encourage them
in their new found faith. Listen, as I read First
Thessalonians 5 verses 12 to 28, hear the word of the Lord.
We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and
are over you in the Lord, and admonish you, and to esteem them
very highly in love because of their work.
Be at peace among yourselves. And we urge you, brothers,
admonish the idol, encourage the faint hearted, help the weak, be
patient with them all. See that no one repays anyone
evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to
everyone. Rejoice always.
Pray without ceasing. Give thanks in all
circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus.
For you do not quench the Spirit.
Do not despise prophecies, but test everything.
Hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.
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 underoath before the Lord to have this letter read.
To all the brothers, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with
you. Paul closes this letter to the
Thessalonians with a barrage of imperatives, 15 in total.
At first glance it seems like this is just Paul's laundry
list, a shotgun approach of random requests.
Each Saturday, Hannah and I, we make a list of to do's for the
day. Work out, make pizza dough, go
on a walk, go to the park, clean the kitchen, do some chores.
If you took our To Do List from yesterday and you studied it and
you tried to analyze it for themes, there would be no
connection, nothing. They're just a random things we
need to get done on Saturday. It is not so with Paul's list.
How do these 15 commands then fit together?
Did you hear Paul's prayer? Look at verse 23.
Paul prays that they'd be kept blameless at the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ. It is to this end, to this
purpose, that Paul exhorts them to peace.
Notice the word peace. It frames these final
exhortations, verse 13. Be at peace among yourselves.
Verse 23 now may the God of peace in order to stand
blameless before Jesus Christ on that day, they need to be at
peace with their pastors and with their church and most
importantly with their God Trinity Baptist Church.
We face our own pressures like the Thessalonians, don't we?
How can we weather our storms and stand blameless before
Christ on that day? Four ways. 4 points.
First, be at peace with your pastors.
Verses 12 and 13. Be at peace with your pastors.
Look down at verses 12 and 13. Paul addresses the Thessalonians
in verse 12. Brothers.
He does this three times in his final verses.
You could translate it as brothers and sisters.
Paul's talking to the whole church.
The church is a family, brothers and sisters following the Lord
together. And here's how the family of
God, the elders and the members should live together.
In verses 12 and 13, Paul teaches us what we should expect
from our pastors and what our pastors should expect from us.
What should you expect from your pastors?
Hard work and hard words. Paul describes pastors or elders
as those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord.
Your pastors should always work hard.
We know Paul's talking about pastors in these verses because
the same word in Greek for those who are over you in verse 12 is
used later in First Timothy to refer to elders in the elder
qualifications. An elder must manage.
There's the same word for our over you his own household.
Well, so he's talking about pastors, but what do pastors do,
have you ever wondered? That is pastoring?
The opposite of working at Chick-fil-A, which is always
closed on Sundays? Is pastoring a Sunday only
occupation if you're lazy? Is the pastor at the right
pursuit for you? The right career path in the New
Testament? The chief Shepherd, Jesus
Christ, delegates authority to under shepherds, pastors who are
recognized by churches. Pastors are both among you and
over you. In other words, pastors are both
sheep and shepherds, and the shepherds should smell like the
sheep because our job assigned by Jesus Christ is to keep watch
over your souls. That's it.
Pretty simple. Not a big deal, easy work.
The preacher on YouTube will not give an account for your soul.
That favorite podcaster of yours will not give an account for
your soul. Your pastor will.
How important are doctors responsible for caring for your
body? They diagnose your ailments and
offer treatments. You hope they know what they're
doing. What's at stake in a doctor's
work? It's just life and death.
What about your pastor responsible for caring for your
soul? They diagnose your problems.
They offer aid from God's Word. They better know what they're
doing. What's at stake is heaven and
hell. Brothers, do you aspire to be a
pastor? Paul says to Timothy.
If anyone aspires the office of overseer, he desires a noble
task. If God calls you to serve his
church as a pastor, here's your job description in a picture.
It's show and tell kids you know about show and tell.
You come to class with your stuffed animal or your pet
gerbil. You show it and you tell
everyone about it. Hi, here's my teddy bear, Billy.
My grandma gave him to me when she was on a trip to Florida on
vacation. This is her souvenir.
This is Billy the Clot. Hi, Billy.
That's show and tell. That's a pastor's job.
They teach God's word. Second Timothy 42.
Preach the Word, be ready in season and out of season.
Reprove, rebuke, exhort with complete patience and teaching.
They live God's Word. First Timothy 412 set the
believers an example in speech and conduct and love and faith
and purity. They tell they live, they
preach, they practice, they say they do.
Brother, if you aspire to be an elder, this means that you are
teaching others what it means to be a Christian, not just from
your sermons, but also from your life.
Your life is a sermon and church.
When we nominate men to serve as elders, listen to them preach
and then watch how they live. You have to use both your ears
and your eyes. And please, always, always,
always talk to any of the elders if you have concerns about
someone we've nominated to serve in this office.
The elders are currently reading a book on eldering by the
reformer Martin Bootzer called The Care of Souls.
Here's his description of the work of a pastor.
The pastoral office involves such a great and important work,
and one which, so long as we live here, is unending.
Unending. That is the work of a pastor.
No matter how much work you do as a pastor, there is always
more work that could be done. Your pastors are farmers, rising
early, planting, plowing, harvesting, hoping for you.
Your pastors are athletes, training and learning and
growing and playing by the rules for you.
Your pastors are soldiers, receiving orders, marching to
the front lines, warring for you.
Your pastors should always work hard.
In verse 12, Paul describes 1 aspect of their work.
Look at verse 12. They admonish you.
Your pastors should sometimes speak hard words to you.
Hard words. That's what admonishment is.
It's warning against sin and its consequences.
It's correcting and rebuking wrongdoing.
At times. Shepherds must warn sheep.
This does not mean that your shepherd should be harsh with
you. They cannot be domineering, but
they need to speak the truth in love.
If a man is not gentle, he cannot be a pastor.
If a man can't have a hard conversation, he can't be a
pastor. Brothers and sisters, this means
that you should expect sometimes for your pastors to rebuke you.
There are times when they'll need to pull you aside and open
the Scriptures and admonish you if you're being foolish or
divisive, or you're believing lies or spreading lies, or
straying from the flock, or setting a bad example or leading
others astray. Pastors are over you, meaning
God's given them this job with authority over you for your good
and for your flourishing. Pastors are over you in the
Lord, Paul says, meaning their rebukes must always come from
Scripture. They must work to keep watch
over your soul, to present you blameless before Jesus Christ
Christ, the one whom they will then give an account to for
their shepherding of you. Expect hard work and hard works
from your pastors. Now flip the script.
What should your pastors expect from you?
Paul says two things, respect and love.
Look again at verses 12 and 13. Paul calls the church to respect
their pastors in verse 12 and to esteem them very highly in love
in verse 13. Why verse 13?
Because of their work, what should your pastors expect from
you when they admonish you? This is surprising.
Appreciation, honor, love. Does that not surprise you to
see that? Let a righteous man strike me,
the psalmist sings. It is a kindness.
Let him rebuke me. It is oil for my head.
That, brothers and sisters, should be your posture towards
your pastors. Or as Hebrews 1317 says, obey
your leaders and submit to them for their keeping.
Watch over your souls as those who will have to give an
account, Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for
that would be of no advantage to you.
Are you someone who is a joy to pastor, or are you someone who
makes your pastors groan? Make your pastors ministry to
you a joy. Don't despise them.
Delight in them. Don't ridicule them.
Respect them. Don't flatter them.
Encourage them. This is to your advantage, Paul
says. My aim to my fellow pastors,
Brandon Ashok, we're not here right now, is that when they
need to have a hard conversation with me and since they're not
here, you can tell them this when they need to have a hard
conversation with me and they will that they won't go, oh man,
got to talk to Michael today. I don't want them to groan
because of me. When we understand the work our
pastors do, which is often behind the scenes, our hearts
should swell up with love for them because of their labour of
love for us. I have so much respect and
admiration and affection and regard for Brandon and Ashok
Trinity Baptist Church. You are blessed to have these
brothers serving you as your pastors.
And when pastors work hard and members labor to love the fruit
that grows up in this greenhouse, look at verse 13 is
peace. Paul says be at peace among
yourselves. This is peace between the
shepherds and the sheep. To stand blameless before
Christ, you need to be at peace with your pastors.
Second, be at peace with your church.
Verses 14 and 15, Be at peace with your church.
Look at verses 14 and 15. Paul teaches us what we should
expect from one another. What should the members of
Trinity Baptist Church expect from you?
Verse 14? Whole person care verse 15
wholehearted forgiveness. Paul urges the church with six
commands which all relate to other members.
These commands require Christians to be in a committed
relationship with one another. In other words, the preliminary
step to being at peace with your church is to be a member of a
church. Look at the members job in verse
14. This verse, verse 14 is worth
you memorizing and meditating on regularly.
Three kinds of people are mentioned, the idol, the faint
hearted, the weak. 3 cures are required, admonish, encourage,
help, all circumstances. All members require patience.
Paul says be patient with them all.
This is whole person care. Members of Trinity Baptist
Church, verse 14 is every member's ministry.
Notice the first command Paul gives.
Admonish the idol. It is your pastor's job to have
hard words. It is also your job to have hard
words. Admonish the idol.
Idol is a military term for when soldiers were out of rank.
Picture of military battalion with undisciplined soldiers out
of order in 2nd Thessalonians 3. Actually, Paul addresses the
idol again, but it's not so much that they're not working.
That's what we often think of with idol.
We think of lazy. It's that they're working hard
on the wrong things. 2nd Thessalonians 3, they're working
hard at being busy. Bodies in the church.
The late billionaire owner of the Utah Jazz, Larry Miller,
reflected on the effort, the work he put in to achieve the
success that he reached. He said I worked nearly every
waking hour, 90 hours a week for 20 years.
I worked when other people were home watching TV or sleeping or
eating breakfast. I was getting the next day's
work done a day early. I was sleeping about 6 hours a
night. It made me successful, Larry
says. It made me a failure too, he
says. I miss most of my children's
youth. I miss ball games and science
fairs and back to school nights. I miss the first day of
kindergarten and playing catch in the yard.
I miss dinner at home with my wife and kids.
Perhaps this is a temptation for us.
Working hard at the wrong things, winning at work, losing
at home. This is also a picture of an
idle life. Disordered members who are
living disordered lives need your help to bring them back
into order. A healthy church is 1 where
verbal critique admonishment happens.
It's not the dominant note, but it's not absent.
When you bring a critique to another member, bring a scalpel,
cut to heel. Let your critiques be
occasional. Do not critique someone every
time you see them. Let your encouragements be
frequent. Let your critiques be specific.
Don't leave them wondering what in the world you're critiquing
them of. Let your critique be
constructive. Pray for them before you
critique them, and pray for yourself also that this critique
would be for their good. Take the log out of your own
eye. Jesus says in Matthew 7 that you
wouldn't be a hypocrite. Give them hope for change.
They are a Christian. They have the Spirit of God.
What about when another member brings a critique to you?
Lower your defenses. Learn to listen.
Listen, don't speak, don't defend yourself.
Ask questions to understand. Look for the needle in the
haystack. They may be wrong about 99%.
Is there a kernel of truth? Thank them for critiquing you,
because surely they must love you and care for you.
Pray for your own heart to be humble.
Share the critique with a trusted friend.
Somebody who knows you will ask them to help assess the
critique. Is this fair?
Help them help you see yourself. We need to learn to admonish one
another. But admonishment is not the only
play. Look at Paul's next command in
verse 14. Encourage the faint hearted.
Some of the Thessalonians were faint hearted.
Paul left them. The pressures of persecution
pressed in on them. Some of their own members
recently died. They did not need hard words.
They needed wind in their sails, strength for their souls.
They needed encouragement. Encourage the faint hearted by
listening. Find out what's troubling them.
Try to put yourself in their shoes.
Encourage them with scripture. Share a specific, timely verse
with them. Encourage them with your
prayers. Tell them you're praying for
them like Paul does. Tell them what you're praying
for. Encourage them, as Paul does,
over and over again with Christ's return.
Remind them regularly, like Paul does, of heaven and the coming
of Jesus Christ with all his Saints.
Encourage the faint hearted whole person.
Care, Paul says, also includes help.
Help the weak. Paul likely means the physically
weak, those who are sick or suffering.
The church is the place where the weak should be strengthened,
a people where the strong offer their strength to the weak.
The weak do not need a lecture, they need a helping hand.
But whether you're administering to someone who is idle or faint
hearted or weak, Paul says be patient with them all.
Every member of this church, including you, requires
patience. Be patient with them all.
Members of Trinity Baptist Church, can you tell the
difference between someone who is idle and someone who is faint
hearted? Between someone who needs a hard
word and someone who just needs help?
Can you administer the right medicine for each member?
Some of your one trick ponies? You are great at encouragement.
You need to grow an admonishment.
You are an incredible helper. You need to be ready to give a
hard word. Hammers are great.
Have you ever tried a screwdriver?
Screwdriver is not working. Pick up the wrench.
The health of this church depends on you knowing how to
pick up the appropriate tool for the appropriate person.
And the peace of this church is contingent upon verse 15.
Wholehearted forgiveness. Look at verse 15.
See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek
to do good to one another and to everyone.
Paul says do good when someone does evil to you, do good to one
another and to everyone. We you might be able to quickly
understand everyone. I mean, the Thessalonians had
enemies, they were being persecuted, but what about one
another? Aren't these Christians?
And yet they're being evil to one another.
They're sitting against one another.
The Thessalonian Church was made-up of three kinds of
people, Saints, sufferers, and sinners.
Those three kinds of people actually all made-up a single
member. Each member was a St. and a
sufferer and a Sinner. So not only were the
Thessalonians to respond to persecution from the outside
with goodness and with forgiveness, as Jesus taught
love your enemies, the Thessalonians were also to
respond to their fellow members who sinned against them with
goodness and in with mercy. Jesus taught his disciples,
Blessed are the peacemakers. You will be sinned against in
this church we're a year and a half in.
If you've not been sinned against yet, just wait.
Don't be surprised. You will sin against other
people too. You are a Sinner.
If you're slandered by a member of this church.
Don't seek revenge. Don't even dream about it.
If you're mistreated by a member of this church, don't retaliate.
Don't even rehearse it in your mind.
Return curses with blessings for bear, and forgive, for you have
been forgiven much. Now, just a brief caveat.
If someone breaks the law in sinning against you in this
church, the appropriate authority should be involved.
Forgiveness does not mean foregoing justice.
But Paul's focus here is more on interrelational conflict.
That's what he's talking about. You can actually see a snapshot
of a church at peace by how they greet one another.
Skip down briefly to Paul's greetings, verse 26.
Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss.
What's interesting is here in First Thessalonians, and also in
Romans 16 and 2nd Corinthians 3 and First Peter 5, the New
Testament authors all link greeting with a holy kiss, with
being at peace with one another. Meaning this kiss, which was a
cultural greeting, was actually an expression of the peace that
they had in their church. If you're visiting, you may be
worried. Are we going to apply this
passage today? We do plan on it, but don't
worry, we will not go around kissing one another after the
service. But however, you should be able
to observe our interactions with one another and sense an
affection and a warmth in our church.
Simply by how we greet one another, you should be able to
see peace through our affection in our greeting.
Third, be at peace with God, verses 16 to 22.
In verses 16 to 22, Paul's already covered their
relationship with their pastors and to their church.
Now he turns to their relationship with God,
specifically their corporate relationship with God.
There's 8 commands in these verses, all 8:00, every single
one are plural, meaning they're to be obeyed together as a
church. The first 3 commands, verses 16
and 18, are about prayer. The last five commands, verses
19 to 22, are about prophecy, prayer, then prophecy.
Paul tells this persecuted church to pray.
Verse 16 Rejoice always pray without ceasing.
Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the
will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
How should they pray always without ceasing in all
circumstances? When they gathered as a church,
rain or shine, in seasons of plenty or in one, they were to
pray. Meaning they weren't just to
praise God for His goodness when they received good things.
They were also to praise God for His goodness when he sent them
sorrows. And he had sent this church a
few of those. Paul himself modelled what he's
teaching here. He modelled what he tells them
to pray. He modelled joy in the midst of
suffering. He could even say of himself in
Second Indian Six that he was always sorrowful, yet always
rejoicing. We faced our own sorrows as a
church. You could say.
Like the Thessalonians, our honeymoon period has come to an
end, but we have reason to rejoice.
The same God who served the Thessalonians serves us.
He is good to us yesterday. Today He'll be good to us
forever. That is our God, and as we pray
to God, as we bring him everything in prayer with
Thanksgiving, as we let our request be made known to God, He
promises that his peace, which surpasses all understanding,
will guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.
Prayer produces peace. Prayer is a remedy for grief and
sorrow and anxiety. We cast our anxieties on God
because he cares for us. We thank God in all
circumstances because God is the giver of every good gift to us.
When we pray together as a church, we're having a corporate
conversation with the God who created us.
In prayer, we call upon the name of the Lord.
Together. We must never let our trials and
our troubles push pause on our prayers.
In our services, we often prepare our prayers in advance.
Maybe you've noticed that this is not required by Scripture.
Just so you know, we do this for the sake of clarity and care.
Recently, I celebrated our 10th anniversary.
My wife wrote me a letter. She spent time thinking through
her thoughts. She put them on a piece of
paper. When she handed that to me and I
read over it, I did not think well.
This is disingenuous. You prepare this beforehand.
It's similar for us. We can use preparation as a tool
for clear and careful communication to our Creator.
Brothers, sisters, do you need help praying?
Learn how to pray by praying with Paul.
Look through Paul's epistles and learn Paul's priorities.
Learn how to pray by praying the Psalms.
There's a whole book 150 prayers to God in every season of life.
Learn how to pray by praying with us in our corporate prayers
each Sunday. We rejoice always.
We praise God for His character as we did this morning.
When you pray, meditate and marvel at your Maker.
We pray as a church without ceasing.
We pray morning and evening. When you pray, set aside time in
your day for prayer and be prayerful throughout your day.
We pray as a church, prayers of Thanksgiving, thanking God even
in trials. When you pray, trace every gift
back to the giver in verse 25. If you look down to the greeting
again, you find that even apostles need prayer.
Paul asked the Thessalonians, Brothers, pray for us.
Paul the Apostle needed prayer. Pray also for your pastors.
As Charles Spurgeon said, if you would find my ministry more
profitable to your souls, pray for me still more.
And let it not be said of your minister that you do not profit
by his preaching, and that you have not, because you ask not
pray for your pastures. From prayer Paul turns to
prophecy with five quick commands.
Look at verse 19. Do not quench the Spirit.
My son Shepard and I went camping a few weeks ago.
At night time. We had a nice fire.
He was enthralled by it. But when it was time for bed, we
had to put the fire out. We separated the coals.
We quenched the fire. We extinguished it.
The Spirit is often associated with fire in the New Testament.
To quench the Spirit is to put out the fire, to disregard the
Spirit's work. And Paul's specific focus of the
Spirit's work in these verses is prophecy.
Throughout acts of the Spirit spoke to God's people through
prophets like Agabus. You could think also Philip's
four daughters. So Paul says verse 20, don't
despise prophecies, but alongside God's prophets in the
New Testament, there were also false prophets who were
deceiving God's people, trying to lead them astray.
So Paul says verse 21, but test everything, hold fast what is
good, abstain from every form of evil.
The Thessalonians needed to be careful.
They needed to weigh what was said, to test it against
Scripture, and to determine if it was from God.
Everything needed examination. They needed discernment.
But notice again in the greeting verse 27, Paul tells them, test
the prophets, but not his word as an apostle.
That word he says he puts them underoath before the Lord to
read it aloud to all the brothers, to the whole church.
Test the prophets, he says, not to test an apostle.
His authority as an apostle was over the authority of the
prophets. Now as we seek to heed these
exhortations, there's one important difference between the
Thessalonians and US today. It has to do with the role of
prophecy. Today.
Prophecy in the Scriptures is a direct, infallible revelation by
the Spirit. All three direct infallible
revelation, the prophets in the Old Testament said.
Thus says the Lord, they spoke on behalf of God, and if someone
delivered a false prophecy, they were a false prophet.
The prophecy in the New Testament, I would argue, is the
same as prophecy in the Old Testament.
The church, Paul says in Ephesians 3/22/20 excuse me, was
built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets.
And now that we have the sufficient scriptures, the
foundation of the church is set. The cement is no longer wet.
So just as the gift of the apostles ceased in the 1st
century, I would argue that the gift of prophets also came to an
end. Therefore, there are no new
utterances and no more prophets. It's interesting.
We have qualifications for the offices that continue with the
church, deacons and elders. There are no offices
qualifications list for prophets in the New Testament.
Now, just to be clear, there is a whole lot of debate about
everything I just said, and you actually don't need to believe.
Anything of what I just said, you can disagree with me and
still be a member of this church.
None of what I just said is in our statement of faith.
There's actually nothing in our statement of faith about the
continuation or cessation of prophetic gifts, just to be
clear. But you still need to obey this
passage. How can we as a church not
quench the Spirit? Two ways.
Obey the scriptures and test every teaching.
All you need, brothers and sisters for life and godliness
is found in the sufficient scriptures.
Obey them. If you want to grow in your
capacity for understanding the Scripture, start with how you're
obeying the Scriptures. If you want to conform your mind
and your will and affection to Holy Scripture, you need to heed
the Script, the Spirit's voice in Scripture, by obeying the
Scripture. The 17th century poet and pastor
George Herbert gave a beautiful little picture of Holy
Scripture. He called it the well that
washes what it shows. Scripture shows you who you
really are, so receive its rebuke.
Then Scripture washes you clean. Scripture reveals your need,
then it provides what you need. It opens your heart and then it
heals your heart. It unmasks you, and then it
comforts you. Every single time you're
convicted by the spirit. As you encounter the scriptures,
receive the diagnosis. Then walk in Deliverance, walk
in obedience, and when you hear the Scriptures taught, like
what's happening right now, test every teaching.
Scripture itself gives us many tests.
Here's four. First, is the teaching
consistent with all of Scripture?
Don't just read a verse in isolation.
Read Scripture in light of other Scripture.
Is the teaching in line? Does it submit to Christ's full
humanity and divinity? If anyone tells you otherwise,
they are a false teacher. Is the teaching in accordance
with the gospel of grace? Is the teachers character and
conduct godly? Paul aims these 8 exhortations
so that our church would be at peace with God. 4th And finally,
rest in the God of peace. Rest in the God of peace verses
23 and 24. After the barrage of
exhortations and before final greetings, Paul turns to the
Lord one more time in prayer. Paul prays to God for the
Thessalonians, and Paul encourages the Thessalonians by
his prayer. Listen to Paul pray 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. Notice who Paul prays to.
He prays to the God of peace. God is the source of the peace
that must flow through and into the church.
God is an ocean of peace. Each tributary of peace in the
church, between the elders, in the church, between the members
and one another, ultimately finds its source in God.
And Paul prays for the Thessalonians because as much as
this passage is filled with commands for them to obey, and
they must obey, their obedience is impossible apart from God's
gracious work in them. Paul praise for their
sanctification. Each command obeyed one step
further in sanctification. Each step in sanctification
builds towards the culmination on the final day when
sanctification will be complete and it will give way to
glorification. Paul praise for their whole
spirit and soul and body. Think of yourself when you're
cooking a a burger on the grill. It is not enough to cook the
outside. You can get the grill Marks and
the inside still raw. Nobody wants a raw burger and if
you do that is that's problematic.
You need to cook the burger all the way through.
That's the picture Paul paints. Spirit, soul, body, every
thought, deed, desire, all of you, all of us holy.
Paul prays that they would be kept blameless by God at the
coming of Jesus Christ. This church was just a few
months old when Paul left town. He constantly reminds them of
the second coming of Christ, the most important day on their
calendar, the second coming of Jesus Christ amidst all their
troubles and trials, their persecution, the temptations
from Satan, even strife amidst the church, the second coming of
Jesus Christ. That's where all of history is
heading. It's where you and I and
everyone is heading, standing before the Lord Jesus Christ on
the last day. That's what it's all about.
Imagine a great line. You're standing there waiting to
meet the Maker of heaven and earth to give an account.
If you're not a believer, how can you stand blameless before
Christ, our judge on the last day?
It's by receiving Christ as Savior today.
Jesus Christ came truly God and truly man, to die on the cross,
the death that sinners deserved, to bear judgement that we all
accrued for our sins. And he rose from the grave, and
he's seated at the right hand of God, and he will come again to
judge the living and the dead. That's what this day is talking
about, the day when Christ Jesus, who once came as a baby,
will return as the judge of all the earth.
Friend, the only way you can stand blameless on that day as
if you've been washed clean by the blood of Jesus Christ, turn
from your sins and trust in Jesus Christ and find
forgiveness in him. And it can be said of you that
you will be blameless on that day.
Brothers and sisters, Paul has no doubt that we will be holy on
that day. He assures US, verse 24, He who
calls you is faithful, He will surely do it.
Has God called us to Himself? He will keep us to the end.
Has God been faithful to His people?
He will be faithful to our church.
Has God ever broken a promise? He will not break His promise to
us. He who calls you is faithful, He
will surely do it. Let's pray.
Father, as we consider that day when we'll stand before Jesus
Christ, Lord, we thank you that we can be comforted even as
you've called us to be holy, that you will make sure of it
yourself that we will be holy on that day.
Lord, we pray that you would continue to produce the peace we
need with one another and with you in our church.
We pray in Jesus name, Amen.