Good morning. Let me get this open. This morning we're going to continue our series in 1 Thessalonians and the title of our message is A Benediction. We'll be looking at 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and verses 23 through 24. Now for those young and old alike who would like to keep track of the key word, it is today sanctify. We could also add sanctification or whatever version of that word. But if you could make a tally mark, it'll help you stay awake. It'll help you stay focused on the message. But anyway, that is especially helpful for the children who are able to listen and make a mark every time you hear the word sanctify. And then come up after the service and tell me how many times I have used that word. So would you like to stand with me for the reading of God's word in 1 Thessalonians chapter five and verses 23 and 24. Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you for your goodness. Heavenly Father, we thank you for sending your Son to be the Savior of the world, Lord. And we ask, God, that you would open our eyes by the power of your Holy Spirit to see the wonderful things that have been there all along. But Lord, as you illuminate our hearts and minds, that we would see them and rejoice in them. And so, Holy Trinity, we ask you to work in unity to bring about, Lord, our insight and understanding today. And we ask it in Jesus' name, amen. We begin with this phrase, may God sanctify you. May your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. If you have been with us for a while from the beginning of this series in First Thessalonians, you may recall that there is a mode in the Greek language, Koine Greek, called the optative mode. And in this optative mode, the word may shows up consistently as a prayer or a wish of blessing or even of cursing upon someone. When you hear the phrase may you be and whatever follows is a request to God to do something to the person that you're speaking to. And as we see, for instance, Peter saying to Simon the sorcerer, may you perish with your money. But in this case, it's not a curse, it's a blessing. In fact, we would call this a benediction, which simply means a prayer of blessing upon the church. And you've probably noticed that we end many of our services with someone coming up here to the front and reading, reciting, a benediction, a prayer of blessing upon the church as we depart and go to live the life that we have now been equipped to live by the Word of God and the ministry of the Word. So we have seen this optative mode before. Let's go back and take a look at that in 1 Thessalonians chapter 3 and verse 11. Notice the framing of this passage. Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus Christ direct our way to you. And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all just as we do to you. so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints. You perhaps heard the phrase that great minds think alike, right? Well, I think that another true statement would be that great hearts are often redundant. You'll find in many of the writings of the great Bible teachers, both in the scriptures as well as beyond in church history, that there's a redundancy in their writings, in their speaking, that they tend to say the same things over and over again in different ways because that is the abundance of their heart speaking. And therefore, because that abundance is consistent, it will come out in as echoes of one idea or another. But today we're going to be focusing on this word sanctify. That's the focus of Paul's blessing and benediction here. And so this is the Greek verb hagazo, which means it's just simply the common word that means to separate, to set apart for a special purpose. Now, I don't know how much of this is being done today. There's so much of what was common in my childhood that has seemed to kind of go the way of the dodo, you know, and disappeared. But when I was a little boy, are you guys little boys up here in the front? Okay, are you are you a little boy? Okay, well, I used to be a little boy. Okay, so just want to warn you, you're headed in my direction. Okay, you're going to someday grow up and be like you might even be an old man someday. But when I was a little boy, like you guys, my mom had a special set of dishes. They were extra pretty. They were very colorful. And she kept them in a cabinet. And we only brought those dishes out when we were having company. Okay, so those dishes were set apart for a special purpose. If I decided I needed a bowl because I wanted to put my turtle in it, and if I went to that cabinet and got a bowl out of that cabinet and put my turtle in that bowl, my mother would fly into a rage. You have used my special bowl for your turtle. That is terrible. And she was really upset. I'm thinking, what's the big deal? It's a bowl, right? Well, sometimes things are set apart for a special purpose. And when you take those things and use them for a more common purpose, like putting turtles in, it is offensive to those who have set them apart. So this word in the Greek means to separate, to set apart for a special purpose. And so that is what the word sanctify is all about. In this case, it means to be set apart from sin and all the things that offend God and his law and to be set apart for the purpose of holiness. And what is holiness? Well, if you recall an earlier message in this same series, I attempted to make the case that in practice now we're talking about, holiness can best be understood as staying focused on the purpose or fulfilling the purpose for which you have been set apart. And so to remain holy would to be remain undefiled. That means you're not contaminated by the profanity of the holy things, by the sin. You're undeterred. You're not swayed and put off into another direction. You're undistracted and staying focused on the purpose for which God has set you apart. That's what it means to be holy, as God says, as he is holy, to stay focused as he stays focused on his purpose. And we're told in First Thessalonians chapter four in verse three, that this is the will of God. This is the will of God, your sanctification, your being set apart for a special purpose. This is the will of God. And so he gets specific in this passage in saying that you should abstain. That means stay away from sexual immorality. And he explains how that can be done by saying that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel, that is your physical body, in sanctification, in holiness, in being set apart for the special purpose that God has for your body. And your body is intended to be held in honor, not in dishonor. It's to be given over to doing what is right and good and wise, rather than being given over to the passions of lust. as he refers to as the Gentiles do, and the definition of a Gentile is not just that the Gentile is not Jewish, it is that the Gentile does not know God. These are the people around the world who do not yet know God, but they could know God if the gospel is taken to them and they are introduced to Jesus, then they will know God. And so Paul often refers to the Gentiles as those who are yet lost in their sinful culture. So God did not set us apart at the cost of his own son's blood so that we can continue in the very sins that he was paying for when he died on the cross. It would just not make any sense at all for us to say, oh, it's great, I've been forgiven, and all my sins have been forgiven, so I'm just gonna continue to live in sin. No, he set you free from your sins so that you can be devoted to doing what he intended all along, and that is to live for his glory. Now, as Terry pointed out, there are so many major doctrines tied up in this simple idea of sanctification. It's going to be very hard not to go off into rabbit trails every time another word pops up in this passage. I'm going to try to resist, but there are a few cases in which I have joyfully indulged myself in some rabbit trails. Let's begin with Exodus chapter 19 in verse five to see how holiness shows up in the Old Testament and then how the same concept shows up again in the New Testament. Moses is writing and speaking now to the Jewish people having been set free from slavery, being brought into the promised land, or out into the wilderness actually at this point. And he says, now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice, this is God speaking, and keep my covenant, then you will be a special treasure to me. You see that word special there. above all people, for all the earth is mine. Okay, and out of all the earth, I've chosen you to be a special people. And he says, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests. That means you will represent me to the people, and you will represent the people to me. That's what a priest does. He makes sacrifices to God on behalf of the people, and he brings the word of the Lord from God to the people. And so Israel is intended to be a kingdom of priests. and a holy nation, a nation set apart for the special purpose of representing God in a world that is lost in sin, layer after layer after layer of sin. These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel. Now we turn to first Peter in chapter two and notice the echo here from the passage in Exodus. But you are a chosen generation. Peter's speaking to the church now. A royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people. that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light. Do you see the connection there? And so both Israel and the church are set apart by God to be a holy nation and a royal kingdom of priests. That is why God has saved us, set us apart, and left us in this world. He could have just zipped us out of this world as soon as we were born again, but he has chosen to leave us in this world as representatives, as ambassadors. for him and his kingdom to the people around us. Now, not only people, but also places and things can be set apart to be holy, just like my mom's special dishes. You'll notice Mount Sinai was set apart for God's special holy use as a place to meet with his people. And no one but Moses was allowed to go near that place in Exodus chapter 19. We see that in Genesis chapter two in verse three that the Sabbath day, Saturday, was set aside, it was sanctified, it was set apart unto God as a day of rest from all what I would say unnecessary work. Now I put this word unnecessary in because Jesus tells us in the New Testament that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. And that there are times in which as we say the donkey's in the ditch. and the only humane thing to do is to get the donkey out of the ditch before it drowns or whatever, and that's work, and that's okay. There are times in which the Sabbath principle of rest can be set aside for some higher good, such as helping a neighbor with a flat tire along the road who doesn't have AAA. So you just have to stop and help. That's work, but that is necessary work. It's not the kind of work you do because you just, you know, want to work or want to make a little extra money. It's setting aside a day to be special. Now I can hear all of our questions of, whoa, wait a minute now, are we under the law or not? No, we are not under the law. We are under grace. But the law teaches us about the goodness and the wisdom of God. And as the apostle said to the Gentiles at the great convention concerning how the Gentiles were going to relate to God's law in the Jewish community, he says, the synagogues are open every Sabbath. They can come and hear the instruction concerning God's law. But the keeping of that law is something you get to do if you want to walk in the goodness and the wisdom of God, rather than something that you have to do in order to avoid offending God. And so we find ourselves with the liberty that comes under the Lordship of Jesus Christ to do what is good and wise and right and loving and kind, not as a matter of law, but as a matter of bringing glory and honor to God and showing his love and his kindness to others. Now it's easy for us to swerve into one ditch or the other on this issue. We can either go into legalism on the one hand, or we can swerve into lawlessness on the other hand, and God intends us to stay on the road, and the road itself is the Lordship of Jesus Christ, a personal living Lord who can communicate to Peter one thing, and to John another thing, and it's okay. We don't all have to be doing the same things. to be living under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, a living Lord, not a list of rules, not a church culture, but a living Lord who tells us, I want you to do this, I want you to do that, and it won't always be the same thing. Am I making any sense here? Okay, good. I always worry about this, you know, because this has been a problem for the church throughout the centuries. Now, the tabernacle was set apart by God, and all of the vessels in the tabernacle, kind of like my mom's bowls, were set apart for a special purpose in Exodus chapter 30. You might recall in the book of Daniel that a Audacious king decided to go and have his servants bring the vessels that had been taken from the temple in Israel, in Jerusalem, and bring them in and use them to have a party and have a debauchery and a drinking, a drunken festival. And that's when this hand appears and the handwriting on the wall begins to write, you've been weighed in the balances and found wanting. And that very day, that kingdom fell. to an invading nation that was coming in at the very moment. You see, God does notice when we have a audacious, insubordinate attitude toward things that are intended to be holy. And so, his patience should not be confused with his approval. His long-suffering with us should not be mistaken for his approving of our sin. The temple itself in Jerusalem was set aside as holy, set apart for a special purpose in 2 Chronicles 7. So we can see in the Old Testament, the idea of certain things and places being holy is very common. So whenever something or somewhere has been set apart for a special purpose, that thing or that place is deemed to be holy, okay? So I hope we're understanding a little bit of what it means when something or someone or somewhere is holy. Now something that may surprise you is that Christ sanctified himself. Now this really does kind of nail the idea that being holy is not a matter simply of not sinning, okay? Jesus is God the Son. He has nothing to repent of. So how can he be sanctified? How do you get any more sanctified than you already are if you're truly sinless? Well, the answer is you set yourself apart for the purpose of accomplishing something that's special. And that defines Jesus perfectly. Notice he says, they are not of the world, speaking of his disciples, just as I am not of the world, sanctify them in your truth. Set them apart for this special purpose by giving them your truth. Your word is truth. There we have it. The scriptures, the Bible, it's the word of God. You study the word of God, give yourself to the word of God, you will be changed. You will be set apart for the purpose for which God has saved you and called you and created you. But he continues, as you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. and for their sakes I sanctify myself. What does that mean? Jesus came into this world to seek and to save that which was lost. To seek, to go and find them and gather them, save them, how do you do that? By dying on the cross and rising from the dead. When you see that Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem, what is he doing? He's being holy. He is staying focused on the purpose for which he's coming to this world and that is at one point to go to Jerusalem and lay his life down for the sins of the whole world. Jesus died to save us. And he's saying here that they also may be sanctified by the truth. The truth that comes out of his sacrifice is now the focus of our lives as we not only live in the liberty that it provides, but also take the message of the gospel to the ends of the earth, to the whole world. Our Lord set himself apart in order that we might be set apart by the truth about him. And so we are sanctified. Now holiness, this holiness that I'm describing is the goal of the Christian life. In 1 Peter 1 in verse 13 we read, therefore gird up the loins of your mind. That's a beautiful metaphor there. When Roman soldiers were going to go into battle, this was a time in the culture of the Romans that men wore robes. And so they had a robe, you could say they had a dress, okay, and it's hanging down below their knees. And when it came time to go into battle or to do anything that was involved, a lot of physical exertion, you would take your robe and you pull it up and you tuck it into your belt. And that way you wouldn't get tangled in your robe. And so Peter is saying here, I want you to take the hem of your robe in your mind and tuck it into the belt and get ready for action. gird up the loins of your mind, that's the phrase, and be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Now, you notice that throughout, in most of the passages that we see a reference being made to being holy, it also refers to the coming of Christ, being ready for the revealing of Christ, for the return of Christ. And the reason is that this sanctification process will be completed at Christ's return. It has already started. It started in the past when you came to faith in Christ and were born again. It continues in the present as you pursue holiness to stay focused on the purpose for which Christ saved you and it will then can be completed in the future. When Christ returns and when we see him, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. There's something transformative about seeing Christ as he is that will finish the job and all the things that we struggle with in this life, the struggle will be over. And so he continues, as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, this is what you were all enthused about before you came to faith in Christ, as in your ignorance, the reason that you were so enthused about these lusts is because you were ignorant, you were uninformed as to what truly is important, but as he who has called you is holy, You also be holy in all your conduct. Notice the conduct is in view here. You be holy in all your conduct. Holiness is not some ethereal state of mind where you say, oh, I'm feeling holy now. Oh, now I don't feel so holy. I need to go feel more holy. No, holiness is a matter of conduct. It's not just a matter of what you feel, it's a matter of what you do in all your conduct because it is written, be holy for I am holy. And as I said before in a previous message, the most practical way to understand this is that to be holy means to stay focused. You stay focused on my purpose for saving you. because I am always focused on completing that purpose in you. God never gets distracted, never is deterred, never is defiled, he is holy, and his intent is to be and to do good, and you are the recipient of that goodness. And now God calls you to stay focused as well. Now, why is God called the God of peace. Some are confused by this because we see God so many times in the Old Testament administering his wrath. We see God in the book of Revelation pouring out his wrath upon sin, upon a sinful world, upon Satan. and yet he's referred to as the God of peace, and this is not just one occasion. Notice, here we see, now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely. But notice, the Greek irin here means peace, and peace means the cessation of strife, lack of conflict. And so when we are dealing with God in the New Testament through Christ, this is the God who has made peace with us. Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you. Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen. Romans 15, 33. Romans 16, 20. And the God of peace will crush Satan. That doesn't sound very peaceful. The God of peace is gonna crush Satan. Right? Why is he crushing Satan? In order to bring peace to the universe. So, peace is not a matter of being pacifist. It's a matter of establishing a lack of conflict to bringing a cessation to strife. One way to think about time and eternity is in eternity past, there was only one will in all the universe and every other creature lived to fulfill the will of the one true creator God. And then an angelic being said, I will arise. I will set my throne above the heavens. And now there are two wills in the universe. And time began. Time begins with the appearance of a second will. And that will continues until the end when Satan is crushed. And all those who have followed Satan go with him into the bottomless pit, the lake of fire, and everything from that point on is there's only one will in the universe, and every conscious creature in the universe is submitted to that one will, and there is only thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And so then eternity future begins. We're living in a very brief parentheses between the eternity of past and the eternity of the future. And in the meantime, I think Satan was surprised. I think he thought when he tempted Adam and Eve that there would suddenly be three wills in the universe, Adam, Eve, and Satan. But instead, now there are billions of wills, and everyone has gone his own way. And God has laid the iniquity of all of us on him who died in our place. And so that's a rabbit trail, sorry. But God is the God of peace, even in the process of crushing Satan. Philippians 4.9, the things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do and the God of peace will be with you. The peace of God will rule in your hearts and minds like an umpire. Hebrews chapter 13 verse 20, now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead make you complete in every good work to do his will. And so we see that peace is the best word to sum up God's work, both in and through the gospel. The gospel is called the gospel of peace in Romans 10 verse 15 and in Ephesians 6 verse 15. And so we really do have a consistency here. The sum total of the gospel blessing can best be expressed as peace. God has made peace between himself and us through the blood of Jesus Christ. And notice it's only the God of peace himself who can sanctify us completely. We can't sanctify ourselves completely, but the God of peace himself will do so. And so Ephesians chapter three, verse 20, we read now, to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think. Don't you love the way the apostle Paul piles these phrases on top of one another? You can tell how excited he is about the truth he's talking about. Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us, to him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations. It's God himself who does this. He doesn't send an angel to do this for us. God himself is going to do that. It's his power alone that sets us apart and allows us to stay focused. But you have to notice that it is God's power in us that is at work. And this brings us to the relationship between his working in us and our working in his power. Hebrews 12, 14, pursue peace with all people. and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord. This is so important that the writer of the Hebrews is telling us here, if you are not pursuing holiness, not just peace with people, but holiness, being set apart, being focused, you're not going to see the Lord. The purpose of the Christian life is to be holy. And so don't think that you can pass this off and say, oh, that's all legalism. No, God has a purpose for your life. Stay focused on it. Because without that focus, you will not see the Lord. Now, this reminds me, and this is a little rabbit trail. You remember all the passages where people show up saying, Lord, Lord, didn't we cast out demons in your name? Didn't we do all these miracles in your name? And he says, depart from me. You lawless ones, I never knew you. In other words, some people are going to be surprised on that day to find out that their entire religious life was just that, a religious life. It was not done with the Lord, by the power of the Lord, for the Lord. It was something that was like, you know, they could have just as easily been, you know, one of the Kiwanis or Elks Club or, you know, some other charitable organization. Lord, did we not raise thousands of dollars of money to save, you know, to feed the poor and the hungry? Depart from me, I never knew you. And the word lawless shows up there. Let us be careful not to just lightly disregard what God has revealed to be good and wise. It was required in the Old Testament, now it's offered to you as a gift of opportunity in the New Testament. Your heaven is not secured by your works, but your life in this world can be substantially improved if you don't do things like murder, and steal, commit adultery, and lie. I mean, think about it. These are laws. And there are some people who think that there's some way to be a child of God and totally disregard what God has revealed to be His will. Don't flip into that error. So, sanctification is God's work in us. by the means of which we are enabled to devote ourselves to the pursuit of peace and holiness. And this brings us to two different sides of holiness. Have you heard the phrase sins of omission and sins of commission? You know, certain sins that we commit, we do things we shouldn't do. And there are other sins where we failed to do what we should have done. You know, like the priest who walks by the guy laying on the side of the road. He didn't sin by commission, but he sinned by omission. Well, in another sense, holiness has the same positive and negative aspects. You have holiness by omission and holiness by commission. Let's take a look at some passages that reveal this. Romans chapter six and verse 12. First we have, therefore, this is gonna be an omission, do not let sin reign in your mortal body. Don't do that. that you may obey it in its lusts. And do not represent or not present your, and do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin. So that's the omission part. And then we come to commission. But present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead and your members. as instruments of righteousness to God, for, and here's another omission, sin is not to have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace. Do you see how there's... Get rid of this and get that. Get rid of this and get that. Now, let's take a look at Romans 12, 1. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you, here's a commission, present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And omission here, do not be conformed to this world, but instead, commission, be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is good and acceptable and perfect will of God. And so we have things that we should not do, and things that we should do, and both of them together are expressions of staying focused. on the things that God has saved us, redeemed us, and even originally created us for. Now, I want you to notice that in the Christian life, much of what we're commanded to stop doing is accomplished by doing what is right. It's like I can't, I can't turn to you without turning away from something else. So if I turn away from you, the very fact I'm turning away from you to something else is the same action. Okay? So what I have here is a wonderful reality that doing what is right and stopping doing what is wrong is the same action. And in fact, God is not pleased with me trying to just stop doing something, but rather for me to start doing the opposite. Now, where this shows up in practice would be, for instance, and I don't have this in the slide here, but remember the instruction that Paul gave to the thief in Ephesians? He says, let him who stole steal no more. but rather let him work with his hands the thing which is good in order that he may have something to share with others in their need. So do you see what's going on? The thief doesn't just stop stealing, he starts working. And not only is he working, he's sharing what he earns, legitimately earns with others in their need. That's the opposite of stealing. Stealing is taking what rightfully belongs to others. Repentance from that is to earn your own and then give it to others as they need it. And so the very act of turning away from stealing and turning to working is a complete act of repentance. And so God doesn't want you to just stop doing something. He wants you to start doing the opposite. And you'll be amazed at how much more fun that is than just trying to live a life of don'ts. You want to live a life of what you get to do rather than what you don't get to do. So there's a dance here between the Holy Spirit and our own spirit in this process of sanctification. Now I don't mean to take this beyond what it should be, but it's all over the writings of the Apostle Paul. First Corinthians 15 verse 10, by the grace of God I am what I am. and his grace toward me was not in vain." How could the grace of God be in vain toward you? Well, if you were to not do anything with it. See, he's saying, I labored more abundantly than they all, all the other guys. And yet not I, but the grace of God, which was with me. Do you see the dance there? It's like two steps. Like this, Holy Spirit, me, Holy Spirit, me. You know, I'm not a very good dancer, but anyway, the idea is somebody's gotta lead and somebody's gotta follow. I'm gonna follow the lead of the Holy Spirit, but I am following the lead of the Holy Spirit. It's Christ in me who accomplishes this, and yet it's not in vain. I worked harder than all the rest, and yet it wasn't me, it was the Holy Spirit, it was Christ, in me now who is it is it christ or is it me it's yes it was you have a part to play in this process it's not a part that invades god's part but it is a part that doesn't allow god's part to be in vain And so Colossians 129, to this end I also labor, striving according to his working which works in me mightily. You see the dance going on here between me and God as I walk in the spirit and do not fulfill the lusts. of the flesh. Philippians 2.12, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Now the phrase fear and trembling is an idiom that is used in Greek in order to communicate the idea of taking it very seriously. If you want to take it literally and say go fear and tremble in the corner somewhere, fine. But I think that we should understand it as an idiom that means take this really seriously, don't take it lightly, don't take it for granted, you know, don't be light about it. For why? For it is God who works in you, notice, both to will and to do of his good pleasure. In the theology of evangelism and revival, God brings revival first and then reformation. He stirs up within his church a desire to do the will of God, that's the will. And then that follows through with a reform movement that begins to do what we should have been doing all along. So God is working in us both to will, to have the desire, and to actually do, to follow through with action. to fulfill what is pleasing to him. In 1 Thessalonians 5, 24, as we read here today, he who calls you is faithful who also will do it. And so we see that in this call for us to be sanctified, it is God himself who's going to accomplish it in us by his spirit. So we strive for holiness because God is at work in us. to make us holy. He's the one who set us apart for that purpose. Now we come to an important question. To what extent are we to be holy? The Pharisees and the religious leaders of Jesus' day fell into the sad religious situation of only being concerned with externals, only being concerned about looking good to other people. And so Jesus would talk about how, you know, you wash the outside of the glass, but the inside is full of filth. Now think about how disgusting that would be to come into a beautiful home and all the glasses are just beautifully clean on the outside and you go to get a glass of water and you look inside the glass and it's got all kinds of crud in the glass. That's what God is saying to the religious leaders of the day, this is how you are to me. You've got this obsession with looking good and you are not on the inside concerned about actually being. Good. So 1 Thessalonians 5, 23. And now may God, the God of peace himself, sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, who also will be. do it, and so sanctify you completely. This comes from two Greek words, holos, which means that we, which we get the word holistic, you know, when something's holistic it takes in the whole picture, right? And that means total or complete. But the second half of the word, holoteles, means to give us the end, every part of which of each of you, or through and through would be another way to say this. So what God is telling us in this passage is there's no part of our being that is excused or excluded from being holy, meaning wholly focused on being and doing what we've been set apart to do. Excuse me. Sorry to those of you on the tape there, okay? and those of you in the room. My sneezes often come in pairs, so beware. Okay. Now, this brings us to the question of your entire body belongs to God. In 1 Corinthians 6.18, we are told to flee sexual immorality. And he gives us this reason. Every sin that a man does is outside the body. but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God? And you are not your own, for you were bought at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. Now as I was trying to think this through and come up with an analogy that might be meaningful, I came up with this. It's like a teenage boy who has to borrow his father's car in order to go out with his girlfriend. In the same sense, we have to borrow our own body from God in order to do anything. Our entire being is not our own. And so think of it this way. You're going to God and saying, God, can I borrow my body for the afternoon? I wanted to go out and do this or that. Well, what is this or that you're going to do? Okay. If the teenager says, is it okay if I go borrow the car and take my girlfriend out and we're going to go do a little heavy necking? No, I don't think so. In the same way, we need to have this sense that we're getting permission from God to do whatever we're doing with our body. He bought it, he owns it. It's the temple of the Holy Spirit. Now we need to be careful at this point because I have friends who've taken this idea in such a way as to go back under the law and to live a life of miserable health food. Okay, I'm just teasing. I'm just teasing. Okay, but I am concerned that sometimes we take this idea of our body is not our own, and we go back under the law, even into Old Testament law, and we end up losing that joy and that liberty that God intends us to have in Christ. There's nothing wrong with having high standards in terms of what you choose to eat or not eat, but whenever we're dealing with the Great Commission. Paul tells us to eat whatever is set before you without even asking questions about it. You see, because we're not supposed to interfere with this process of relationship. Food is a very important part of how we interact and commune with one another. You see feasts all over the Bible because God intends food to bring us together. Now, My dear wife, Sono, she's gone to be with the Lord. And I'm sure he sat her down and talked to her about this. But she would sometimes try to maintain a standard that would make the food at the table, people would walk away from it. They wouldn't eat it. It was so healthy, it was inedible. So I'm just throwing this out. Maybe I should not have done this, okay. But the point is, we want to be fulfilling the purpose of God that he saved us for. And sometimes, as we see in the scriptures, God is gonna require us to go ahead and enjoy something, not just eat it, not just tolerate it, but actually enjoy it, because that vibe comes through to the others around us, whether we're enjoying this time or not. Learn to enjoy these contexts in which the gospel is the main thing, not the food. And then in those other, at home you can be as strict and miserable as you want, but when you're out in the public arena, rejoice over whatever is set before you. Now, I hope you take this in the humor I'm intending and I'm not trying to snipe at you, okay. So what is our entire being? Now we've got another issue to deal with. Because he says here, may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now Paul is saying that both the material part, which is your physical body, and the immaterial parts of your being, which would include your spirit and your soul, are to be holy. So, does this reveal that human nature has two parts or three parts? Some of the people that I admire most as Bible scholars have taken the position of what's called a I'm blanking out on the word, dichotomy, a two-part model of human nature. And others whom I highly regard have taken a trichotomy approach, which is a three-part model of human nature. Personally, I cannot buy the arguments for a two-part view. The scriptures speak too often of the spirit and the soul as two aspects of our immaterial nature. Now those who take the opposing point of view saying, well, you know, these two are just the same thing in two different ways of speaking. But it just doesn't make sense to me as I read the scriptures where it talks about how hard it is for the spirit and the soul to be divided, but the word of God is sharp enough to do it. Why would that be meaningful if the spirit and the soul were the same thing? You'd just be cutting the same thing in half. That's not hard to do, but separating two very close things from one another, that seems like that honors the sharpness of the word of God. And so in Mark chapter, in the gospel of Mark, Jesus refers to our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Now there's a four-part model of human nature. You could see the heart as representing the spirit, which is the seed of our faith. We know that the soul is the part of us that yearns and longs for things, and so we're even told that the sinful flesh wars against the soul. And then we have the mind, which can count the cost, run the reconnaissance and find a plan and a strategy for action. And then we have our strength, which would seem to be primarily our physical body, but it's the part of us that's able to take action and fulfill those plans that satisfy the yearnings of our soul and fulfill the purpose of God, which resides in the faith. that we have in our heart. So I see these things as being necessary parts. It seems to me that we actually have four distinct elements of our being, our spiritual heart, our emotional soul, our mental mind or intellectual mind, and our physical strength. And this animates our emotional and intellectual and physical body to be forceful and to follow through and to do things. Now, this is one of those rare occasions where my time has run out. And so what I'm going to do, rather than trying to rush through the last part of this message, I'm going to pick up next time where I'm going to leave off now, okay? I don't want to do any disservice to the continuity of the message, but I believe it would be responsible for me to go ahead and and close with this. And so let me see if I can bring up my navigation here and run down to... God is going to finish what he has started. This is the last phrase, last statement in the passage we've been reading. In Philippians chapter one and verse six, we read that we are confident of this very thing, that he who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. That's when it's over, that's when it's done, and we will be like him. In Romans 13, 12, we read, therefore, let us cast off the works of darkness. and let us put on the armor of light. There you see the omission of one thing and the commission of the other thing. Let us walk properly as in the day, not in lewdness and lust, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lust. Whenever I read this phrase, do not make any provision for the flesh, it reminds me of when I was in in my teenage years, and, you know, I had become a Christian, and yet I had some bad stuff under the mattress in my room. That's provision for the flesh, my friends. That's wrong, that's stupid. And so, when God convicted me that this is wrong, I burned it, I got rid of it, very soon after I became a Christian. But the point is, this is what this is talking about. Don't say, God, forgive me for my sin, while you keep a stash of drugs somewhere, or you keep a stash of illicit, immoral material somewhere. And it's just sitting there waiting for you when you want it. Don't make any provision for the flesh. Now, if God's putting something on your mind right now, then maybe you should do something about that, okay? Not just maybe, you should do something about that. You should take some action in which to remove whatever provision you've made for the flesh to sin, to fulfill its lust. Paul would not have had to write this to the Romans if this was not something that was happening in the church in Rome. And so we need to be open and honest that we can be just as foolish as the Romans and need to stop making provision for the flesh to fulfill its loss. Now, our success in being holy, in staying focused on God's purpose in our lives is decided by our moment by moment decisions to put off the darkness of this world, and to put on the Lord Jesus Christ. And so it's all the same action. Putting off and putting on is the same. It's like repenting, turning away and turning toward what is right. And so in 1 Thessalonians 5, 24, he who calls you is faithful. We can count on God to finish what he started in our lives and he will do it. And so holiness is saying no to what is wrong and evil and foolish simply by saying yes to what is right and good and wise. It's turning away from sin by turning to God. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, be glorified in our lives. Lord, take this first half of this message and use it, Lord, as a foundation we will come back to and continue to build upon. But Lord, may you be glorified in our lives this week. May we come away with enough here today to be doers of your word and not hearers only, deceiving our own selves. And we give you all the praise and all the glory in Jesus name. Amen.