1 Thessalonians 4:1-12 Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke
Epiphany 6 Sunday, February 16, 2020 “Your Sanctification Is God’s Will”
God wants you to be holy. God wants you to do what is right, all the time. We’ve heard it said in a variety of ways already in our service today, and we are going to discuss it further in this sermon. Branches Band sang a song based on Psalm 1 that warned as the Psalm does: “the way of the wicked shall perish.” Jesus preached in his famous Sermon on the Mount that God was not only concerned with outward actions. He expects proper behavior as it relates to thoughts. He points out ways that people disobey God which they probably wouldn’t even think about or think of as disobedience. Jesus wants you to be holy. The Apostle Paul likewise, in our sermon text for today, the Second Lesson from 1 Thessalonians, reminds us that God wants us to be holy. He says, “this is God’s will: that you be sanctified.” God wants you to be holy. How does that make you feel? Are you frustrated because you feel it is an unreasonable expectation? Does that seem unfair? Does it worry you to hear that because you know that you haven’t lived up to it? Does it scare you to think about what your life looks like compared to what Jesus describes? Or to think about what that means you deserve? It’s possible that any or all of those thoughts go through your mind when you consider that God wants you to be holy. The fact that God wants people to be holy is scary news. At least it is scary news for us, for all people, the way that we are born into this world. When we are told that God wants and expects holiness, that should be scary for people who are not holy, and that is all of us. When we were born, we didn’t care one bit what God wanted or expected. We didn’t want the same things, we wanted the opposite. We wanted whatever seemed best to us, whatever we felt like. But God doesn’t address these words to people as they are by nature. He addresses them to people he has called to faith, to people he has changed. It is true of Jesus preaching the sermon on the Mount. He addressed that sermon to believers, disciples. It is true of Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians. He was writing to the Church, to people who confessed their faith. It is the same way when I stand up in front of the congregation assembled here. I address my words to baptized people of God, to believers who have joined together to worship him. God wants you to be holy. God wants you to change your life and your attitude and your speaking. Your sanctification is God’s will. But that still presents a problem, doesn’t it? Are you holy? You know the answer, and the answer is “no.” While you can easily point to someone else who has wronged you or frustrated you, and you can say about them, “He’s not holy, either. She’s not holy either.” If you judge yourself by the same standard and use the same scrutiny, you will say the same thing and come to the same conclusion. We will all be in agreement that none of us are holy. Even King David, whom the Bible calls a man after God’s own heart, the most revered and beloved of God’s Old Testament kings, even he demonstrated plainly that he was far from holy. So doesn’t it seem a little strange that Jesus’ sermon to believers would say so much about the things that they should do and say and think? Doesn’t it seem a little strange that Paul would tell the Thessalonian Christians, “you received instruction from us about how you are to walk so as to please God (as indeed you are doing)”? Yet that’s exactly what he says, and exactly what Jesus talks about. There is a key factor that we have to recognize if we are going to understand these words correctly and if we are going to properly apply them to our lives. If we are depending on our behavior to earn heaven for us, if we expect to be holy in order to make God love us, we are certainly going to fail. But look at what God actually asks of his people. He calls them to live this way “in the Lord Jesus.” Paul writes to the Thessalonians, “just as you received instruction from us about how you are to walk so as to please God (as indeed you are doing), we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus that you do so even more.” “In
the Lord Jesus” is an incredibly important phrase. It reminds us that the words of 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 don’t stand alone. They follow on three chapters in which Paul lays out and reminds the Christians in that city what it means to be Christians. Yes, God wants you to be holy, and the first thing that you need to know is that God has made you holy in Jesus Christ. Through baptism, through faith, God has taken the perfect life that Jesus lived and applied it to you. He has taken all your sins and shortcomings away by having those laid on Jesus and having him suffer and die for them. So now, in Jesus, “God wants you to be holy” means something altogether different. It doesn’t need to make us scared or guilty, even though sometimes it has that effect. When God directs those words toward his faithful, redeemed people, he means for them to respond with joy and say, “Yes! That is exactly what we want!” Said another way, God says to us, “I have made you holy by giving you the holiness of Jesus. Now I invite you to be who you are. Be holy!” And in that spirit, we are eager to be reminded of what that means. We are eager to know and to be reminded of how God wants us to live. In our verses, Paul mostly speaks about two aspects of Christian living. The first aspect deals with God’s gift of sexuality. God wants us not to act according to passionate lust, not according to our own selfish desires. Instead, he invites us to have pure relationships and to enjoy his gift in a special way only in marriage. The other example that Paul uses is concerning brotherly love, just how we treat those around us. And, really, his point is this: You Thessalonians know what God wants you to do. Do it. More and more have your life reflect what God wants. And God says the same to us. You know what God wants. If you don’t, just listen to what he says. In our adult Bible study, we are almost finished with a study of the Ten Commandments in which we spoke in some detail about what God wants our lives to look like. In our confirmation classes for sixth, seventh, and eighth graders as well as those for adults, we discuss what God’s Word says about these things. Week after week God’s Word is applied to specific areas of our lives. It should not be difficult for us to know what God wants from us. But too often it is difficult for us to follow through on that. We know God doesn’t approve of living together before marriage, but when it saves money and seems to make sense and everyone else is doing it, we figure we ought to also. We know that Jesus tells us that it is sinful to look at someone lustfully, but we turn our heads at billboards and commercials and websites that entice us to do just that. We know that God would have us treat our neighbor with love and kindness, but we often just worry about ourselves. So the encouragement that we receive throughout Scripture to be sanctified, to live holy lives, that is never about earning our way to heaven or convincing God to love us. Both are impossible. Instead, our sanctification that God wants so much for us comes because he has given us salvation and because he has already demonstrated his great love for us. And that is what motivates us to listen. It moves us to strive to live lives that are holy and enables us to make progress in sanctification day after day. As Paul writes, “we encourage you…to do this even more.” Let us listen to that same encouragement, Let’s be encouraged in Jesus to be sanctified. Let’s look to his law for direction and to his gospel for strength. Let’s live as the holy people God has made us in Christ. Yes, your sanctification is God’s will. My sanctification is God’s will. Your salvation and my salvation are God’s gifts. Living life in love for God and in service to my neighbor is my life’s goal. Help me to grow in this, day by day, Lord!
The Text: 1 Thessalonians 4:1-12 (EHV) Therefore, beyond this, brothers, just as you received instruction from us about how you are to walk so as to please God (as indeed you are doing), we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus that you do so even more. To be sure, you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. Indeed, this is God’s will: that you be sanctified, namely, that you keep yourselves away from sexual immorality. He wants each of you to learn to obtain a wife for yourself in a way that is holy and honorable, not in lustful passion like the heathen, who do not know God. No one is to overstep and take advantage of his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, just as we said previously and solemnly testified to it. For God did not call us for uncleanness, but in sanctification. Consequently, whoever rejects this is not rejecting a man, but the God who gives you his Holy Spirit. Concerning brotherly love, there is no need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God, with the result that you love one another. In fact, you are doing so toward all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we encourage you, brothers, to do this even more, and to make it your ambition to live a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, just as we instructed you. Do this so that you are conducting yourselves decently toward outsiders and are not lacking anything.