Let's read God's word we're reading from first Thessalonians
chapter 3 and we're going to read from verse 9 to the end.
First Thessalonians chapter 3, verses 9 to the end.
Let's hear the word of God for those online the words will come
up on screen and we're reading. Of course, we've often
emphasised from the King James Bible First Thessalonians
chapter 3, verse 9. For what thanks can we rendered
to God again for you, for all the joy wherewith we joy for
your sakes before our God night and day, praying exceedingly
that we might see your fears and might perfect that which is
lacking in your faith. Now God Himself and our Father
and our Lord Jesus Christ direct our way unto you, and the Lord
make you to increase and abound and love one toward another and
toward all men, even as we do toward you.
To the end, He may establish your hearts unblameable in
holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ with all His Saints.
Amen. We know that God will stamp with
His own approval and blessing this reading of His own precious
and infallible Word. Now this morning as we continue
with our studies in the book of First Thessalonians.
My text today is taken from the verse 13.
It reads as follows to the end. He may establish your hearts
unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father at the
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his sins.
Now my theme today I've entitled in the form of a question, have
you a heart for holiness. Now let's remember the context.
First Thessalonians chapter 3 verse 13 is part and parcel of
one of the Apostle Paul's prayers for the church at
Thessalonica. And this prayer is found in
chapter 3, verses 9 to 13, where Paul is expressing his desire of
his heart that the Lord is God will richly bless the church at
Thessalonia. This prayer reveals A longing
and a yearning to see the face of these believers again, even
after they were forced to flee due to the opposition of an
angry, unbelieving mob. And literally, one of his
requests is about getting back to this infant church he founded
under God. Now we know that the Lord did
answer his prayer. Not immediately, but certainly
not in the day that he fled from Thessalonica.
He did return, but it was some years later as part of his third
missionary journey. You can read about that in Acts
18, verses 23, right through to Acts 21, verse 26.
These verses provide a detailed itinerary of Paul's third
missionary journey, which had to include, according to Acts 19
and two, Macedonia. We also learnt that in verse 12
he expressed his intense longing in his soul that the Lord would
make the whole of the Thessalonian church to increase
and abound and love one toward another and toward all men, even
as we do toward you. So verse 12 is a prayer about
the church loving one another, and at its heart it's a prayer
for love to grow and to develop. And last Lord's Day we thought
about the production of love toward one another, it's origin,
the Lord make, it's operation. Then we thought of the practise
of this love. It's love for Saints, it's love
for the souls of men, the lost souls of men.
It's a love for the servants of Christ.
And we closed with a Third Point, the possession of true
love toward one another. Look at verse 13, at the opening
words to the end. He may establish the words to
the end. Here's the goal of it all.
True love, I told you, belongs to and is connected with the
subject of heart holiness. And the fullest and the deepest
demonstration of true love is that we are a holy, godly people
unto the Lord, a people that hate sin, a people that love
righteousness. You see, the love of God shed
abroad in the soul by the Holy Spirit should motivate us to a
life of heart holiness. So what is verse 13 all about?
It's about a prayer for holiness of life.
So I asked the question, have you a heart holiness for God?
I want you to think of a number of things very quickly.
One, the subject of heart holiness.
Notice these words again to the end.
He may establish. Now we'll pause there.
You see, there is a connection here.
Remember what I've just said. Love is the chief grace among
all graces that make up the fruit of the Spirit.
Galatians 522 starts with the spiritual grace of love.
Love is first. Now in chapter 13 of First
Corinthians, the great chapter of love.
If you look with me at First Corinthians chapter 13 verse 13,
it says this. Now listen to it.
Look at the order. And now abideth faith, hope and
charity, these three. But the greatest is charity.
Now the word charity, young people, is not about giving a
gift of money to A cause like the Jamaican Appeal, it includes
that. But it's much more than that.
You see, the word charity is an old Elizabethan word in the
Authorised Version. The Greek word is agape, and
it's a reference here. When they use the word charity,
it's a reference to the spiritual quality of God's love.
You see, God's love at his heart is a giving love.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.
We're coming up to think of Christmas time and he gave us a
baby, Baby Jesus, God Incarnate, he, he, he gave a star to direct
us to where the baby was. And he gave this baby to be the
Saviour of the world. You see, God's love is a giving
love. Now we're taught here in First
Corinthians 1313 that love is greater than faith and hope.
Why? The greatest of these is
charity. What could Paul mean?
Remember, as I've said in verse 12, Paul is praying about the
Thessalonians loving one another.
He wanted them to practise and demonstrate and develop love to
one another. He wanted their love to grow and
to overflow. And yet here he tells us that
the greatest of these is charity.
You see, let me put it this way. True faith, which is the gift of
God, a true hope benefits yourself to a larger, greater
degree. You exercise that faith.
You lay hold upon that hope. You're called upon to have faith
in Christ. It's faith in Christ that saved
not just faith, but faith in Christ.
You're called to have a sure and steadfast hope, a real hope
that's like an anchor to the soul.
But love not only benefits you, but benefits others.
It benefits the church. Now we're not saved by love.
We're saved by faith in Christ. We're not saved by hope.
Our hope is sure. It's real.
It's fixed in the personal work of Christ, like an answer to
anchor to the soul. But true love not only benefits
you personally, but benefits many others.
That's why the Bible says in Galatians 5 and 6, faith worketh
by love. Nothing to do with the ground of
salvation, but the evidence. It's the growth and overflow of
true love to others. We've already seen that to the
Saints, to the lost souls of man in in the service of Christ.
And this spiritual love that he's talking about manifests
itself in holiness. This love that grows and
develops leads to a a life of holiness before the Lord.
So when you truly love the Lord, you'd want to please him.
You will want to do his will, you will want to know him
better. You'd want to trust Him no
matter the darkness you're going through, no matter the
difficulty that you're facing, no matter even if you're
depressed and downcast in your spirit.
The Chinese woman spoke to me on Friday at City Hall and she kept
emphasising, pastor, you've got to trust and obey.
She was a lovely saved woman from Bloomfield and we had a
lovely chat and she's absolutely right, you have to trust and
obey. Now our obedience is gay and
it's not the ground of salving, it is the evidence.
It's a sign that we have a true possession of Christ.
We live in an age when there's loads of professions of Christ,
10s of thousands of them in Northern Ireland.
But there's a vast difference between a profession of Christ
and a possession of Christ. But once you're born again of
the Spirit, the love of God is shed abroad in your heart and
you become a possessor of the gift of eternal life, the true
love of God in your heart and life.
Here's how it will operate. Here's how it will be seen to
this end. That's very important that you
grasp that connection. This spiritual grace, this holy
love is connected to the concept of true holiness.
Now you need to grasp that. The second thing is this.
In the subject of heart holiness, there's a coexistence
here. You see, there's a close
coexistence between the subject of love and the subject of
holiness. There can be no true love
without holiness. There can be no true holiness
without true love. True love and holiness coexist.
Think of these truths and not turn to the references for time.
God is holy. Leviticus 19 and two, ye shall
be holy, for I the Lord your God, I'm holy.
In the book of Psalms and Psalm 9599 and verse 5, we read Exalt
you the Lord our God and worship at his footstool, for He is
holy. And also we read in the New
Testament first John four and eight, God is love first John 4
and 16. You see, true love and true
holiness coexist in God. They're not mutually exclusive.
And what's true in relation to the divine nature of God is also
true in the life of a true believer.
Listen to me carefully. If there's no true love for God
in the things of God, then there's no true holiness.
And if there's no holiness unto the Lord, there's no true love
being demonstrated toward the Lord.
See, many profess the Lord's name.
Many say I'm a Christian. Many say I love the Lord Jesus.
But they have no desire to live a holy life.
They have no true hatred for sin.
Their own sin are the sins of others.
There's no turning their back on the world and the flesh and the
devil and and live for the honour and glory of God.
You see, if there's a true love in the soul, a love shed abroad
in the heart by the Holy Ghost, there'll be a genuine love for
holiness. The grace of a holy love to God
coexists with the concept of holy living.
Now this is a solemn, serious matter.
We live in an age of coldness, an age of carelessness, an age
of wantonness, an age of worldliness.
Among the professing people of God, there's a lack of keeping
God's commandments. People tell us I love Jesus, and
yet the knowledge that God is infinitely holy and this concept
of true holiness seems to be forgotten and despised.
Let me illustrate. Reverend John Greer spoke
recently about a man's fellowship in Northern Ireland.
A man's fellowship professing Christians.
They're in the House of God on the Lord's Day.
They've got a Bible in their hand.
They meet every month. They have a time of prayer, time
of Bible reading, a time of praise.
And yet these very same men go together to the North Coast to
drink beer. Proverbs 21 tells us that wine
is a mocker and strong drink is raging.
And whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.
And drunkenness is a sin and it's a bad testimony before an
unholy world, before a Christ rejecting world.
And they've haven't thought of the impact on the Wicker
brother. And that's only one area.
There's many others that we could talk to because many
professing Christians who say they loved Christ, they're
they're addicted to pornography on the Internet.
They're also guilty of the sin of gambling and dancing, and
they're often absent from the House of God on the Lord's Day.
And some, of course, would be guilty of smoking, cursing,
coarse jesting and coarse language.
And that's only some of the things.
There has to be a call for repentance.
There has to be a call for holy living.
That's the subject here. Very quickly.
I want you to think the substance of heart holiness will
ask the question, what is holiness?
How do you define it? We live in a day when there's
many misconceptions, many distortions.
See, people think holiness is connected to a life shut away in
a monastery like the 15th century or a nunnery.
Cut yourself off from the real world.
Live a life of prayerful devotion unto God.
But I want to tell you, you know what the monks and the nuns
discovered when they went into the monastery and into the
nunnery? That they still had sin in their
heart, That they had a love for the things of the world.
That they had lustful and carnal desires that in and of
themselves they couldn't overcome.
See, holiness is not about legalism.
It's not a list of do's and don'ts.
I'll tell you something else that's not even about being
sinlessly perfect in this life, nor is it connected to the
spirit of pride. Oh, I'm such a holy person and
I'm full of pride about that. Holiness in this text is
annoying. And often times this subject of
holiness is connected to an adjective.
An adjective is a describing word.
Such and such a one like Nehemiah is a holy man of God,
or such and such a person like Deborah is a holy woman of God.
We could talk about a holy vessel as well as a holy person.
You see, holiness has to do with being set apart for a secret
use. It's a describing word and it
denotes the spiritual quality of holiness.
I've already told you God is holy.
Leviticus 19 and 2, Psalm 99 verse 5.
Listen to what Peter says in first Peter and in chapter 1.
But as he which hath called you as holy, so be ye holy in all
manner of conversation, because it is written, be, be, be ye
holy, for I am holy. Do you see the connection?
You see God, who saves sinners, changes and transforms the life
of that Sinner, and makes men holy initially in the new birth.
And by His word that sanctifies that individual, He separates
men from this world. Men from being earthy to men
being heavenly. He, he makes them a holy vessel
when they were formerly an unholy vessel.
See this world in which we live as a fallen, sinful, unholy
world, A world of great iniquity.
It's a place of wickedness. Just look at Sudan and the
murder of the Christians there. 2000 I've told you inside 48
hours, 460 murdered in a maternity ward.
Such barbarism, such acts of inhumanity by other human
beings. And it's all contrary to the
mind and will of God. And even those who carry out
these deeds profess to be serving Allah.
They're not because he's a false God in the 1st place, the Lord
of mercy, but here's God and in his redemptive work He calls
sinners to repent and believe the gospel.
When they're born of the Spirit, they're changed and transformed.
He says if any man be in new, any man be in Christ, he's a new
creature. All things have passed away and
all things have become new. What does God do?
He works from the inside out. He changes hearts and lives and
the inside impacts on the outside of the life and this
Christianity and being in Christ that makes us better husbands,
better wives, better young people, better workers, better
citizens, better worshippers. And what he does is in the
journey of life, He weans and draws his people until the day
that all sin is finally taken away and we are perfected.
He says there in Second Corinthians in Chapter 7 and in
the verse one listen to these words Second Corinthians 7 and
one having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us
cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and
spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
Fallen man loves this world. Fallen man has set his heart
upon this world. Even though the Bible says love
not the world, neither are the things that are in the world of
any man love the world. The love of the Father's not in
him. And if the love of the Father's
not in him, then there's no love for holiness, nor that we could
grasp that holiness belongs to the very being of God.
God is glorious in holiness. God never became holy young
people. God is holy, God always was
holy, God was eternally holy. God is perfectly holy.
We sang there deliberately, that beautiful hymn there based in
Revelation 4 and 8. Holy, holy, holy Lord God
Almighty, which was and is and is to come.
And that's connected to Isaiah chapter 6, whenever Isaiah was
in the temple and, and saw the vision of the holiness of God's
being. Holiness belongs to the being of
God. God is infinite, eternal,
unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness,
justice, goodness and truth. And God in that sense has a
majestic holiness. And, and we, we don't know
anything about that. The word infinite means he's
without limitation. But God's holiness is not just a
majestic holiness of who he is. It's also a moral holiness.
Do you know that God cannot sin? It's impossible for God to sin.
God cannot lie. It's impossible for God to deny
himself because God is light, pure eternal light, and him is
no darkness at all. God's of pure rise and behold
iniquity. God is morally holy.
He is also majestically holy. And it's that vision of the
holiness of God that Isaiah saw in Isaiah chapter 6 and verse 3.
And whenever Isaiah seen the Lord and the Lord appeared to
him, what did he do? He felt smitten, he felt
unclean, he felt guilty, he felt unworthy before God.
And that's where we need to come to.
True holiness starts with God who is majestically and morally
holy. It starts with God who He is.
And then this God calls and wants you to be holy in himself.
Be holy for I am holy. What an argument.
And remember what we read in Ephesians, In Ephesians chapter
1 and in the verse 4, if you want to turn to that reference.
We read this according as He hath chosen us in Him there's
election before the foundation of the world.
This is the council of the covenant of redemption, that we
should be holy and without blame before Him.
Enough. Do you see that there?
Here's the plan and purpose of God.
God, the Bible tells us, according as He hath chosen us
in Him, that's Christ. When did He do it?
Before the foundation of the world that we should be what
that we should be holy and without blame before him in
love. God's purpose is to make his
people like him. God's purpose is to make his
people holy. God's purpose is to make his
people blameless before him in love.
And God's purpose will be accomplished.
God's purpose will be manifest. God's purpose will be fulfilled.
The third thing I want you to think about very quickly is the
seat of heart holiness. Look at their text again and it
says to this end that he may what He may establish you and to
this end he may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness.
This is where it happens. It happens in the heart.
Holiness is not something you add on, you know, it's not
something you put on like a coat.
It's not something you put into your pocket and carried about
with. You know what?
It happens in your heart. It impacts the inside 1st and
what is in the inside then begins to impact your life on
the outside. And of course, God's mind is
that our hearts would be constantly and firmly steadfast
in this holiness. See, let me just emphasise
something. What you put on doesn't
necessarily make you holy. Whether it's a suit, a tie, a
hat, a dress. There's no real spiritual value
in clothes. Why do we dress up?
Because it's the Lord's Day, Because we're going to present
ourselves unto God and we want to be the best that we can
before Him. But you know, we could be
dressed up in the finest suit, hat, dress, but our heart could
be unclean before the Lord. Our heart could not be right
before the Lord. Our heart could not be changed.
There's no heart holiness in our heart, even though we're outside
looking right. Holiness begins in the heart.
Why? Because the heart is the seat of
your personhood. The heart is the seat of your
mind, your will, your emotions, your affections.
And we know what's in the heart. The heart is deceitful and above
all things, desperately wicked. Jeremiah 17 and 9 says and who
can know it? And Mark Chapter 7 tells us this
in verse at 21. For from within, out of the
heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries,
fornications, murders, theft, covetousness, wickedness,
deceit, lusciviousness and evil eye, blasphemy, pride,
foolishness, all these evil things come from within and
defile the man. There's no holiness without a
change of heart. God begins in the human heart.
Your hearts are to be fixed and firmly steadfast.
If we think of another reference here over there in First
Thessalonians chapter 523, we read these words and the very
God of peace sanctify you holy, connected to holiness, and I
pray God, your whole spirit and soul and body, we preserve
blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In other words, it starts where? Notice the wording here.
Your whole spirit, your soul and body, it starts in the inside.
Do you see that? So I asked this question, Has
your heart been changed? Is this principle of holiness
found within your soul? As a Christian, you profess the
name of Christ. Do you hate sin and love
righteousness? Do do you want to perfect
holiness in the fear of God? Do you want to be weaned off a
life of sin and wickedness? Remember the Bible says without
holiness no man shall see the Lord, no holiness, no heaven.
You can't live for heaven and home if you love sin and love
wickedness. If you want a home in heaven,
then you'll have to have a heart for holiness.
So what's in the inside impacts upon the outside.
Someone has said what's down in the whale comes out in the
bucket. What's in our heart comes to the
fore and that's why we need our heart changed and need our heart
transformed. Holiness is not about the
observance of rights. It's not about observing a form
of religion outwardly. It's not in creeds and things
like that. Holiness is in the heart and
what's in the heart comes out on the outside.
It impacts upon the outside very quickly.
I want you to think of the source of heart holiness.
Notice this word again, stablish.
It means to settle, fixed, to make firm, to make fast, to
strengthen. He is a reference to the Lord.
You see, God performs this. It is God's spiritual operation,
and it starts in the new birth. God infuses this principle in
the new birth of holiness, and as a result, there's a yearning.
There's a desire to be a godly person, a desire to consecrate
yourself to the Lord, and it's all connected to the redemptive
work of Christ. It's not divorce from Christ.
It's not divorce from the cross. Let me show you this very
quickly turn to the book of Ephesians, Ephesians chapter 5.
And we read here just a couple of verses, Ephesians chapter 5.
And remember these, these words, husbands, love your wives, even
as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it.
Now what was the purpose of giving himself on the cross for
the church? Look at verse 26, that he might
sanctify. That's the Word connected to
holiness. And cleanse it high with the
washing of water by the Word, verse 27.
Here's the ultimate goal, that He may present it to Himself, a
glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing,
but that it should be holy and without blemish.
Christ gave Himself for the church and here was His purpose.
The outcome was to sanctify and set you apart for Himself.
And the basis and ground of your holiness is the death of Christ
and the blood shedding of His cross.
And the source. The secret is the death of
Christ and the cross. Maybe you're struggling with sin
right now. Maybe you're battling
temptation. Maybe you long for victory in
Jesus and you're, you've got a besetting sin.
And you, you say I'm in a holy war here.
I, I, I want to be holy. And yet I, I sin so easily
against the Lord and I grieve in my heart and I can't seem to get
the victory. How can I get victory?
Well, only the cross of Christ can break the power of counsel,
sin and sets the prisoner free. Only the death of Christ dealing
with sin at the cross can put sin away.
The power of the blood, the power of the Spirit, it can be
applied by faith in Him. We know that the Lord uses
means. We we know that the basis of
holiness is the blood sacrifice of Christ, but he uses the
ordinances of the Word, the sacraments and prayer.
We are sanctified. When you read the Bible, God
speaks to you, talks about your coldness and your backsliding
and your sins and your doubts, your fears and troubles and you,
you grieve in your heart. And then the Lord calls you to
get right with him and and calls you to return to him.
And as you read the word of God and let God speak that word has
a wonderful, powerful cleansing effect.
One final thing and our time is gone.
Think of the scope of heart holiness.
Notice this word in the text there unblameable.
Can you underline that that to the to the end, He may establish
your hearts unblameable in holiness.
Do you know what that word unblameable means?
It means without accusation, without charge.
And who is it before? Before God, without charge and
accusation, before God, even our Father.
And when does this take place? At the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ with all his Saints. What you've got here is a
perfection. What you've got here is a
presentation. What you've got here is a
proclamation. We're legally perfect in Christ.
We're clothed in Christ's righteousness.
That's our justification. We have a moral purity, but it's
not perfect. But we passionately desire
holiness unto the Lord. It doesn't mean we're fight sin.
It doesn't mean we're perfect. Zacharias the priest, the father
of John the Baptist, was guilty of the sin of unbelief, even
though he's described in Luke. One of the six has been
blameless before the Lord, and while he had good intention of
striving to live a holy life unto God, the word unblameable
stands out without charge and without accusing.
How is that possible? Only in Christ, only when we're
clothed with Christ perfect righteousness.
We have a legal perfection in Christ.
We have a striving for a moral perfection in Christ, but that
is never perfect until we die, until we we become one of the
spirits of just men made perfect.
And even at the coming of Christ and the bodies raised up and
we're with Christ, which we're going to see in time to come.
I'd have to stop here. The scope of this heart
holiness, there's a perfection connected to it.
There's a presentation before God, even our Father, at the
coming of Christ. God presents us.
Christ presents us, and there's a proclamation at the coming of
Christ. We'll have to leave it there.
I trust that you'll study the latter part of the verse and
your own, and I pray that God will give us help and grace even
as we deal with these things.