Well, thank you so much, Rick, for leading us in the worship. What a great hymn, and you guys sounded awesome. Well, I greet you all in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So grateful we can all be here and worship together, and you visitors, we thank you for worshiping with us this morning. Please stick around, grab a packet we have on the wall so that we can get to know you, you can get to know us, And again, just thank you for being here. And also we thank our veterans. I know yesterday was Veterans Day. So we want to give honor to where honors do. So if you served in the military or are currently serving, please stand. Let us honor you. Let us thank you. We're going to put you on the spot. So please stand. Let us see who our veterans are. I know there's more than that. Yeah, that's right. Thank you so much for your commitment to serve this country, to protect our values and our freedom so we can do what we're doing this morning. We're so grateful for you and even for your wives. We're so thankful for, you know, you wives who, you know, have to endure, you know, your husbands or whoever may be going out to serve this country. So let me pray for you, by the way, real quick and for you, those who've served and yeah, let's pray. Father, we so thank you, God. For these these warriors God, we know you raise up certain people Lord for this specific calling Lord, and we're so thankful that they are in our midst and Lord We just want to show love and appreciation to them bless them bless their families God we pray for those amongst us now who may have active members who are active in the military right now, family members who are active in the military, Lord, we pray you would just protect them and bless them, Lord. We do pray for our military. We have a great military, Lord, a mighty military, God. And we're so thankful for just their willingness to give up their life and their time to volunteer so that we can do what we do, God. So grateful, Lord. So we thank you. And we pray, bless them, in Jesus' name, Amen. Well, I'll title this sermon, God's Faithful Work in Your Sanctification. God's Faithful Work in Your Sanctification. And we're going to be looking at 1 Thessalonians, Chapter 5. So I'd invite you to open your Bibles to 1 Thessalonians, Chapter 5. And we're going to examine verses 23 to 24. And as you can see, if you go there, we don't have many verses left. So here's kind of the game plan just to give you a heads up of what the preaching schedule is gonna look like. After this sermon, I will preach the remainder of those verses, verses 25 to 28. So we'll look at 23, 24 this morning, 25 to 28, Lord willing, we'll look at the next Sunday, next Lord's Day. And then we have our dear brother Brian back at the pulpit who will finish out the month of November. And then come December, what I'm going to do is, before I jump into any other book, is start preaching on the first coming of Christ, His first advent, and hopefully lead all the way up to December 24th, where we can celebrate Christmas together. So that's kind of the game plan. December 31st, preach something, a good charge for you all for the year to come. And then, of course, the beginning of the year, start with our new exposition through the second letter of Paul to the Thessalonians. So the second Thessalonians will be our next book. Probably after that, maybe the Gospel of John or something. I don't know. I don't want to get into another narrative. And a gospel is just really calling my name every time I read them. So that's kind of what it looks like. And so we're going to finish it up. What a beautiful passage. Look at the verses there. Let me read to you God's Word and ask for His help afterwards. Notice what those verses say. God's Word says, Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you. and he also will bring it to pass. Our Father in God, will you again speak to us through your holy word that your spirit has inspired and authored so that we may know your will and by your grace enable us, oh Lord, to apply your word to our lives. We ask this all in the name of our Lord and Jesus Christ, amen. You know, one of the greatest acts of love, believe it or not, is prayer. Prayer. It's one of the greatest acts of love, especially amongst the saints. I have the privilege Wednesday evenings to sit with, we have a prayer meeting, I have the privilege there of just conducting it and attending it. And it's there I get to listen to the saints pray earnestly and really sincerely for one another. It's a beautiful thing. And when I'm watching that, I'm witnessing really love in action. I'm watching the saints really display love towards one another. I think about Sunday school just this morning, and before we start Sunday school, we always do prayer requests, and we pray on behalf of one another. Again, it's an act of love. I also think of the prayer requests that are typically sent to me via email to send out to the church at large to ask to pray for one another about something going on and to see the many responses that come back to me. We're praying, we're praying, whatever it may be. Again, another just act. of love. And I think of when we elders, when we meet, and how we pray earnestly for the flawed. And our main prayer request, believe it or not, for each of you is that Christ is formed in you. that you grow more into Christ's likeness. That is really our main prayer request. For anything else, God, form Christ in them. Again, prayer is one of the greatest forms of love. And in our text this morning, that's exactly what we're going to see. We're going to see Paul praying for the Thessalonian church. This is what you see here in verses 23 to 24. And it's not unusual because Paul is a praying man and throughout this letter we've seen him or read his prayers, right? And that's a good exercise, by the way. I would encourage you to go through the Bible and really look at all those prayers that are recorded in Scripture and evaluate them. Notice what they're praying about. Notice what they're saying about God. Notice how their faith is exercised in that moment. I would encourage it's a great prayer or it's a great exercise. And this is what we're going to do this morning. We're going to really look at this prayer of Paul's. Because in it, what we're going to learn really is about your sanctification. That's what we're going to learn about. Throughout this letter, we've kind of hit this theme. This theme has been beat up pretty good throughout this letter, but Paul just doesn't want it to escape our notice. He wants us to know the importance of our sanctification. But what's interesting about this particular prayer, or this prayer of benediction is really what it is, is what he says about God and what God is doing in your life through the sanctification process. And to me, that's exciting. Because, you know, you're like me. You struggle, right? You battle with sin all the time. You know, you realize how just a wretch you are. You can never keep up, you know, with the commands and all these things. And we're supposed to. We're responsible to obey the commands of Christ. That is part of us working on our sanctification. Yet we totally forget sometimes that God really is our backstop working out our sanctification as well. And this is what we're going to see this morning. We're going to see how God works in your life to make you holy. Because again, that's His goal. That's His agenda. Holiness equals Christlikeness. God wants to see Christ formed in you. He already sees it positionally, which we'll learn. You're clothed with the righteousness of Christ. He wants to see Christ back, reflected back to him. And so this morning, Paul is going to really uncover five ways God works in your life, five ways God works in your life to make you holy, to make you holy so that you can rejoice in Him. Five ways. And the first one, as you can see there, is in verse 23. Look at verse 23. This first way is, in relation to you. His name in relation to you. Look at verse 23 again. Now may the God of peace himself. Notice that, this title of God, the God of peace. It's a very interesting title. And it's fitting because again, Paul started this letter with what? Peace, grace and peace. And now he's ending this letter with peace. He's bookending his letter with peace. And he bookends this letter again with letting them know he's praying for them. He did that in 1 Thessalonians 1, we, the plural there, speaking of himself, Paul, Silas, and Timothy, praying for the Thessalonian church. And again, he ends letting them know, listen, we're praying for you. He bookends his letter with that. And he lets them know his desire. He lets them know his desire. Really what Paul is showing here, he's letting them know his limitation. You know, I've been separated from you, probably can't return back to you because it's dangerous. And so my work really is done. I am limited, but guess what? God is going to take care of the rest. And again, this is just an interesting thing. As you can see, he again bookends this kind of prayer for the Thessalonian church at the beginning of the letter and the end. Even in the middle of the letter, if you were to just turn to chapter 3 and look at verse 11, again, the way he just weaves his prayer just before he's going to give them exhortations as to how to live out life in the in the reality that Jesus is soon to come in the imminent return of Christ before He gives them these exhortations in chapter 3 verse 11. Notice what He does, Now may our God and Father Himself. Again, it's almost the same construction, just He puts in the word Father instead of Peace. And Jesus our Lord, notice directly to you, Verse 12, and may the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another, for all people, just as we do for you. Here's the purpose, verse 13, so that he may establish your hearts without blame in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints. It's kind of a chiastic structure there, and it's almost similar to the verses we're looking at this morning. This title, God of Peace, again, is one of Paul's favorite titles. And it's there because, again, He's talking about the work of sanctification or holiness. And again, all that He's talking about starts really, what He wants God to do, what He wants to complete in them is everything He's mentioned in chapter 4 verse 1 all the way to chapter 5 verse 22. The way they're going to go about obeying these commands is by the power of God, the enablement of God working in their life. And this is important. Paul cares about their holiness. You want to know why? Because without holiness, no one will see God. That's just the reality of it. Now God is holy, that means He's separate, He's like no other, and He wants us to be the same way, separate and like no other, right? To be other, to be holy, to be set apart, and we're gonna learn more about that. But this God of peace, again, really it's, you can even say the God of salvation. It's everything that God has done to make peace, really, for us and Him. Romans 5, 2 speaks of how we now have peace with God because at one time we did not have peace with God, right? Before you became a believer, you were enemies, you were hostile to God. You were separate from Him because of your sin. because of your sin. You were separate from Him. But God has made a way through Christ whereby peace can be displayed. When you think of Veterans Day or Armistice Day, it's really a peace treaty. It's a call for peace. This is kind of God's way. He does that through Christ. It's like a peace treaty. Peace can only come through Him. And God is the one who reconciles us to himself. We're the ones who need reconciliation to him. And he does that through Christ by making this peace. The God of peace, therefore, is really speaking of his salvation. And notice too, when you look at verse 23, now may the God of peace, right? Himself. Notice the emphasis is on who? God. This really, this pronoun here, this personal pronoun in the original language is the first word in this verse. which really elucidates emphasis that it's God Himself who's going to do this very work in His people's lives. He's going to do it. He starts it, He completes it. Philippians 1.6, right? Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will what? Complete it until the day of Christ. God works in our I think it's important for us to know this peace, this God of peace. Many of us don't know this God of peace. I think we claim to know this God of peace. I think we know of this God of peace, right? We might know something about this God of peace, but do we really know the God of peace? The only way we come to know that God of peace, obviously, is through salvation, but even through our lives in general, right? Unbelievers don't know peace. Isaiah 59, verse 8. They don't know the way of peace. They want peace, but it's peace on their terms. It's peace according to their definition, but it's not the peace that is a reconciliation with them and their Creator, God. Romans 15, 33, God is the source of true peace. And this is what we do when we evangelize to the lost. We tell them about the God of peace. You need peace. The only way you're going to get this peace is laying down your arms, surrendering to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. This whole idea of peace, by the way, this whole structure, 23 and 24, really is just almost like a priestly offering, right? Paul, he wants to offer up the Thessalonian church to the Lord Jesus Christ, you know, without blemish, without spot or wrinkle, without any kind of imperfection, yet holiness and acceptable before God. And this idea of peace, you can even track it back to the Old Testament. Because many of the Old Testament saints, proof of their faith, proof that they were genuine Christians was their adherence to the Law of Moses. The way they showed, that was really their sanctification. How did they show they were believers? How did they practice the Mosaic Law? And the Old Testament saints, they had to bring peace offerings to God, and the reason for that was to maintain peace. Praise God, we don't have to do that. We don't have to butcher animals, find the most valuable animals in our herds or flocks or whatever it may be, butcher them according to the terms of the Mosaic Law and hope God will accept them. We don't have none of that. We have Christ. He is our peace offering. But it's interesting that if you were to really track this idea of peace in the Old Testament, 31 times it's mentioned in the book of Leviticus. 31 times, it's like 9% in all of the Old Testament. But it's the most of any book in the New Testament. And it makes sense because the book of Leviticus is about what? Holiness. The way they were to maintain the presence of God was these peace offerings. These offerings that God prescribed. Romans 16, 20, I love this, what Paul says to the Roman church. He says, the God of peace will crush Satan. That is, fully accomplish what he promised all the way back in Genesis 3, verse 15. He's gonna reverse the curse, right? He's gonna restore what was destroyed and ruined by the corruption of sin and death. God is the God of peace. Notice, he will crush Satan. Notice the certainty there. He will. It's coming. It started at the cross, and it's going to work its way all the way when Christ returns to the Millennial Kingdom. He sets up His literal kingdom, and then right after the end of the thousand years, that's how long that Millennial Kingdom reigns, He's going to destroy Satan for good. Throw him into the lake of fire, and there's going to be peace. 1 Corinthians 14.33, God's peace is what rules, and the church should There shouldn't be no chaos or confusion in the church. There should be peace. Philippians 4, 9, for us who experience troubled and anxious hearts, it's the God of peace, that divine peace that should stabilize us. I love how Adam's prayer said that when we're in trial or tribulation, may the joy of the Lord overcome. overcome this trial or tribulation. I love that. Well, may the God of peace overcome whatever trial or tribulation that we're going through because that's exactly what He does. 2 Thessalonians 3, verse 16. Again, the Thessalonian church needed this peace because of false teachers teaching falsely about the return of Christ and You know, Paul uses it tactfully. May this God of peace, in 2 Thessalonians 3, verse 16, may this God of peace, now he says, now may the Lord of peace himself continually grant you peace in every circumstance, right? The Lord be with you all. And then Hebrews 13, verses 20 to 21, it's the God of peace, notice, who equips you to do his will. So I mean, you track this title down and you start to see that this title for God is more than just this kind of tranquility. It's way more than that, right? It's way more than that. So that's the first thing we have to know is this God of peace. And that's my question to you this morning. Do you really know this God of peace? And how is the God of peace really working in your life? How do you show that divine peace working in your life? Think about that this morning. You don't want to overlook this first thing because the rest won't even matter to you. If you don't know this God of peace, everything else is just legalism. Everything else is just moralism, right? Everything else is a better you. But knowing this God of peace is the first and foremost because when you come to understand, and I don't mean just in an intellectual way, I mean in a real intimate relational way, in a way that as it shows you love the Lord, then everything else we're about to say is gonna make sense and it's gonna fall in order. If you're here and you don't know the God of peace, then you can come to know the God of peace because the Prince of peace has come already. The Prince of Peace has come and he's given up his life for rebels, for sinners. That's the starting place. Do you believe you're a sinner here this morning? Do you believe that you've broken God's law, that you're separated from God, or do you think you're a good person? Do you think it's your righteousness that's going to grant you favor before God or all your good works are somehow going to even out at the end of the day and therefore I'm going to make it into heaven? If that's your thinking, you're going to be sadly mistaken when you stand before this God of peace and He looks at you with those fiery eyes ready to judge you through and through and you realize that none of those things mean nothing anymore. You have to surrender. Surrender, abandon your life of sin that is repent and trust in the Prince of Peace. Trust that Jesus Christ has died for you. Trust that His sacrifice was sufficient. Trust that His sacrifice was enough. And that on the third day He was raised to life as the Prince of Peace. He's the banner of peace. All that want peace with God must come through Him. Don't be fooled, brothers and sisters. If you don't know this God of peace, don't ever think that just because you come to church, just because you do all these niceties or whatever, that you're saved and you got this relationship with the God of peace. Really ask yourself this question. Many sit here delusional. Many sit here fooled, thinking they know this God of peace. Yet their life doesn't show it at all. Their life really shows chaos, confusion, disorder, disarray. That's the first thing we need to know. We need to know this agent who's involved in our sanctification, this God of peace. And now we'll look at His activity so we can understand something about His name in relation to you. Now let's look at the second way or second way, and that is His activity in your life. Look at verse 23 again. Notice what He says, "...now may the God of peace Himself..." What is He going to do? There's the verb, sanctify. He's going to sanctify you. How? Entirely. Entirely, there's an adjective really describing or modifying the you there. The you really is implied, or no, it's there. But He's going to sanctify you entirely. What does it mean to sanctify? It means, again, to set apart. It means to consecrate. It means to dedicate. Again, you kind of got this idea of priestly language. It's to dedicate. And this is fascinating because as you track it through, it's God himself who's going to do this. And when you look at the end goal, it's to be without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is just incredible. And as I studied it, I was just so full of joy because I see that God is going to make sure that before Christ comes, I am sanctified before Christ. I am a bride ready to receive the bridegroom. He's setting us apart. This is God's activity in our lives. This is what He does in each one of you. If you're here and you repent of your sins and put your trust in Christ, God is working in your life. And the mood, by the way, of this verb here, it's what's called the optative mood, and it just means it's typically used in benedictions, it's used in prayers, it's used in wishes. It's a lot, I mean, this prayer request, by the way, from Paul is a lot like Jesus' prayer in John 17, 17. Sanctify them in your truth. Your word is truth. Jesus is praying what? Lord, you sanctify them. I did what I could while I was here on earth. Praise God. You're gonna bless them with the Spirit. But Father, you still need to do that great work in their lives. And God is confident. He is gonna do this. And again, the you there, it's plural actually, and it speaks of the entire church. Paul wasn't leaving out one person. The you is all of them, and by extension, it's us today. It's you, you all, second person plural. If you're from south, it's y'all. And it's entirely, again an adjective, only used in this verse, really within the entire New Testament, it's found right here, this word entirely. It's again two Greek words, hala teles, hala just whole, teles means perfection or end. And the idea is just wholeness and completeness in every way. If you have the new international version, the 84 update, of course, they translated it well. It just means through and through. So God is gonna set you apart, sanctify you through and through every aspect of your being, which he's gonna elucidate here in a minute. Every part of you, God is going to set apart. You will stand before him blameless. God is gonna be the one who does this work. In other words, God is gonna be the one who separates you from sin fully and thoroughly. We can't do that in ourselves, right? We can't separate. I mean, we're committed to battle, fight, and that's what we're supposed to do. We're not to give in. We're to fight against sin, right? But God is the one who really separates us from sin fully and thoroughly. God is like the, I don't know, the dawn, your dish liquid, right, that you use to wash dishes. How do you get all that food off the dinner plates? You probably throw it in the dishwasher or something, but if you don't have a dishwasher and you have to hand wash, you have to apply soap. You're getting it off and it looks clean. This is the same idea here. What we struggle with regarding our battle with sin, God is going to accomplish. I hope that's good news for many of you here who are struggling with sin. God will eventually accomplish that. He will You will overcome. Why? Because God is going to make sure that you overcome. He's the one that can make you stand without sin. And He's doing that right now in your life. Whatever expectations, whatever standards that God has for you, notice, He will accomplish them for you. And I'm really leaning a lot on God's role on this, obviously, because that's the tone of the text. But it doesn't, again, reject your responsibility from that. And I think it's fitting that when we're on this topic of sanctification, we should understand what the Bible teaches regarding sanctification. Really, the doctrine of sanctification in Scripture is taught really in three stages or phases, right? And the first one really deals with when you were sanctified, right? And that's the first stage, which is what we call positional sanctification. Positional sanctification just means that there was a definite moment when you were sanctified or set apart by God. There was a definite moment. Now, of course, you go in eternity past, and you already know that in the mind of God, you were somewhat set apart. You weren't even in existence. You didn't even have a soul then. But in his mind, he had already thought of you as being in Christ or in union with Christ. But in time and space, this position of sanctification, this definite moment, takes place. You might ask, when did this happen? It happened at the moment of regeneration. That is, the moment you heard the gospel. Right? When the preacher is preaching the gospel and it's the Spirit of God who's working through the preaching of the gospel, what we call the special call or the effectual call. It's the summons by the Spirit of God where He goes into the heart of those whom God has appointed for eternal life and He changes their hearts. He enables them to believe the gospel. I love the language this way. This is John's language. To behold and believe the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the work of the Spirit. This is something that you and I cannot do in and of ourselves. We don't have that power or the ability. We're considered dead according to Scripture. We need life. The Spirit of God gives us that life. He gives us a new nature. And the ability now to believe the gospel, because apart from that, you're not going to believe the gospel. It's just not going to happen. I mean, you're just not going to happen at all. God has to do it Himself. And this is where God, again, sets you aside as His possession. And He declares you holy because of your faith in Christ. And this is important for us to know. It starts there. Positionally, you are holy before God. You are clothed with the righteousness of Christ. God sees you as if He sees Christ Himself in His perfect life. And that is incredible. It's here, too, that your guilt is removed. The penalty of sin is dealt with. The power of sin is broken. This is where you're legally declared justified. Okay? Which is instantaneously. It's not like what most Roman Catholics think. It's a process. No. Justification is instantaneously. It happens the moment you're regenerated. Same with your conversion and all that. You're justified. You can now obey God's commands. At one time, you could not obey God's commands. You were enslaved to your nature and your sin, and that's what you were subjected to. But when the Spirit of God regenerates you and creates life in you, now you have the ability to obey God's commands, because at one time you couldn't. But it's still a fight to obey God's commands. And one day, Lord willing, that fight will be over because you will be glorified, and now it's all obedience to Christ. All this, again, deals with our union with Christ, as a result of our union with Christ. Therefore, we're blessed with these blessings from the new covenant. Christ has won this for us. This is why God can call us saints. Right? Saints, meaning holy ones, this is what you see Paul does every time he starts a letter, to the saints who are in whatever local church, Thessalonia, or Corinth, or Galatia. They're holy ones in the mind of God, saints. It's not something they have to do, merit, they have to work up, or something like that to become a saint like the Roman Catholics teach, not at all. You become a saint the moment you're a believer. First Corinthians 611, listen to how the Bible speaks of this positional sanctification, First Corinthians 611, and I love this because, you know, it's just a fascinating verse. I'm just going to go there. I just think it's fitting to just really read it and just have it in my notes and just say it in passing. But, I mean, I really want to start in verse 9. When you really think about the context here, the Corinthians were very much confused, yet they were God's people. 1 Corinthians 6, just starting in verse 9, or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Don't be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And listen to verse 11, such were some of you, past tense, such were some of you, but you were washed. And notice, you were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of God." Past tense, you were sanctified. This speaks of our positional sanctification. This goes to show you, too, that everything I just said there is a sin. It's not some genetic problem you have. Right? Like, what the world and the news is trying to indoctrinate us with their message that, you know, it's some sort of mental illness or some genetic issue. No, the Bible says it's sin. And you need to repent of it. And this was true of the Corinthian church. There were many there who lived that practical lifestyle, yet God saved them. Hebrews 10, 14. Notice what it says. For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. Past tense. Again, speaking of our positional sanctification. The second stage, you must know, is what's taking place right now. You don't feel the first stage, of course. You don't notice it, right? There's no subsequent activity that should happen to indicate that you are now positionally sanctified, right? I mean, other than new heart and new desires, as Ezekiel 36 states, but nothing more than that, of course. But now in the second stage, as a result of this first stage, the second stage is what we call progressive sanctification. And this is God gradually, by His power, continually advancing you towards spiritual maturity. And this is what we want to see in every person who's claiming to be a Christian. There should be some what? Maturity. There should be some growth. And this doesn't mean head knowledge. You can memorize the Bible front and back. Paul memorized the entire Old Testament. As a Jewish boy, he had to memorize the entire Old Testament. And yet, look what he did before he was Paul. So it doesn't matter. You can know all the Bible you want, but are you growing in spiritual maturity? The better question is, what does spiritual maturity look like? Again, the answer is what? Christ. It's Christ. And this is God's goal, conforming you more to that. So if the first stage, positional sanctification, deals with breaking the power of sin, here the second stage is dealing with the pollution of it. It doesn't make you perfect. I know some people believe in what's called perfectionism. Well, that's not what's being taught here. We won't be perfect until we stand before Christ. We'll get to that actually. But here, this is where God is moving you towards spiritual maturity. He's setting you apart from the presence of sin, from the pollution of it, conforming you more to the image of Christ. You might be asking, how does he do that? It's a very important question. I'm glad you asked that. It does necessitate you studying the Bible. And I mean really like studying it to the point you walk away loving God more. You walk away worshiping Him more. You walk away, let's just say it changed. You walk away realizing, oh, that's a sin. I need to stop doing that. You walk away saying, oh, this is a command I need to start doing. I need to be looking out for my brother or sister or serving them in whatever way. It's really taking the Bible seriously. That's one way, 1 Corinthians 2.13, if you were to just turn there quickly, you'll see, for this reason, Paul says, we also constantly thank God that when you receive the word of God, which you heard from us, notice, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, notice what, which also performs its work in you who believe. The Word of God is performing a work in you, really, to believers, conforming them to Christ. We already looked at John 17, 17. Sanctify them in your truth. Your word is what? Truth. It's the word that constantly washes us clean. The Spirit of God, Romans 8, 13, where Paul talks about, that's the next one. First is the Bible. The second one is the Spirit, where He's helping us put to death the deeds of the flesh. Galatians 5.16 tells us to walk by the Spirit and not according to the flesh. Philippians 2.12.13 says that we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling because it is God who works in you to will and act according to his good pleasure. 2 Corinthians 6.14 we are to be holy, abstain from all those things that will taint us or pollute us. 1 Corinthians I'm sorry, 2 Corinthians 6, verse 14. Do not be bound together with unbelievers. For what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial? Or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God. Just as God said, I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God and they shall be my people. come out from their midst be separate there it is be holy be sanctified says the Lord do not touch what is unclean and I will welcome you and I will be a father to you and you shall be sons and daughters to me says the Lord Almighty you see a parallel there with the nation of Israel and even the church that the people of God are to be holy people so The Lord sanctifies us progressively, moving us to maturity in Christ through study of the Bible. Of course, you can add praying. You can add just obeying the commands. The Spirit of God, who is permanently indwelling us, helps us to do that. Even trials do that. Specific trials that God in His providence brings in our life. James 1, verses 2-4 speaks of how we are to consider it all a joy when we fall into various trials, right? Why are we to do this? Knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance, let endurance have its perfect result. Why? So that you may be perfect, there it is, mature and complete, lacking in nothing. And if you don't understand that, James says in verse 5 there, you need to ask God for wisdom. Ask God for wisdom. And then there's our service. We all are given gifts by the Holy Spirit to serve. 1 Corinthians 12 speaks of that. Ephesians 4 speaks of that. I love how one writer says it regarding God's goal in progressive sanctification, right? We're to continually be growing in our sanctification. The writer writes, God is growing you from a babe to maturity, from weak to strong, from carnal to spiritual, from putting off to putting on. And this should be you in your life. Every one of you this morning, if you're making a profession of faith, you should be looking more like Christ. Of course, not perfectly. We don't believe in perfectionism. We don't believe that you can arrive to a point in your life in the here and now that you will not ever sin. There's no such thing as that. The Bible doesn't teach that at all. Instead, you will be fighting and you will be progressing and God works in that. I should say too, by the way, just so you don't have a distorted view of sanctification. Sanctification isn't you do your part, God does His. That's not sanctification. I'm sure you heard that, right? God helps those who what? Helps themselves. You initiate it, then He does it. Or here's the other one, you know, and mainly you might hear this in Catholic circles, right, is God is only, He deals with the justification, but you're responsible for the sanctification. Those are two distorted views of sanctification. And really there's a mystery to this because, I mean, we know God is working, but we don't know how all that works. We just know that He's working and we're to be working. I mean you have to have a balance that's biblical so that you don't fall into other these various distortions of sanctification. Well again you might ask what is the third stage of sanctification because we only looked at two of them but that brings us to the third way God works in your life to make you holy and that is his preservation of your life. his preservation of your life. Look again at verse 23 of 1 Thessalonians. Look at what the text says. Not only may the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely, but notice, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete. Again, there is parallelism here, guys. There is. What he said in the first half of that verse, he's unpacking now in the second half of that verse. It's almost like a form of Hebrew parallelism here. But here, he kind of elucidates it more. God is moving toward preserving our entire being. Praise God for that. The word complete in the Greek, again, what begins the second half of this verse is closely connected with the word entirely. We don't have that in our English language. You can see how it's translated there, but in the original, the word complete will be right behind the word entirely. So you can see that they're closely connected. And the reason why I bring that up is because Paul again is showing emphasis, right, on completion. He's showing emphasis on this powerful work of God and him preserving our entire being. In other words, Paul again is stressing the idea of holistic completeness of the human person. Spirit, soul, and body here. Paul is not defining the composition of a person. He's not speaking anthropologically like this is what makes up the constitution of a person. That's not his job and role in saying that. In other places, he'll just say soul and body or spirit and body. Here, in this case, it's the only time he even does this where he kind of unpacks it this way. You're not going to find Paul saying it in any other way unless you believe that he wrote the book of Hebrews, which I do. He talks about Hebrews 4 and 12 and how the Word of God is what? Living and active and sharper than any double-edged sword and is able to separate, penetrate through bone and marrow, spirit and soul. But here again, this is just Paul's way of, again, just really speaking of the completeness and the holistic ability that God has of preserving his people. And here the word preserve is a Greek word, it's a military term, I'm sorry, which just means, it's tereo, and it means to keep regard. to keep or guard. So, when Paul is saying that God is going to preserve you completely, what he means is that God is going to protect you, He's going to guard you, He's going to keep you. And what's He going to keep? And I should just let you know this, this verb is in the passive voice. It's something that you're not doing. It's something that God is doing. God Himself is protecting and keeping. And what is He keeping? The subjects. There's three of them here. It's a compound subject. Spirit, soul, and body. This is what God is going to keep or protect. This word, tereo, you can really track it all the way back to the Old Testament where Adam was commanded to guard the Garden of Eden. And here God is the one who's guarding you. He's guarding us. This again speaks of God's security for the believer. So there's no part of you that's going to be jeopardized or lost to sin. God is going to preserve you. And the word complete, this word complete, which just means sound, And again, it emphasizes this previous word entirely, to speak of the entire unit of man, the person will be through and through sound or healthy before God. This is the power of God's preservation, His work, His supernatural preservation and how He preserves His people. This is just incredible. In Zechariah, he says it's not by strength nor by power, but what, by my spirit. It's really how he works to keep the person that he loves, that he set his affection upon, the person that Jesus has died for, he preserves, he protects, he keeps. Now, this is interesting, too, because as you look at the verse, You, your body may be preserved complete. All those things, spirit, soul, body be preserved complete. And you may ask, when is this going to happen? Because it's not happening now, obviously. But God does all this at the end of your life. Your spirit slash soul will be perfected when you see the risen Lord Jesus Christ. This can happen, really, when you die. If, you know, when you die, your perfection is done, right? Your sanctification, I'm sorry, is done, right? Your spirit goes to be with Christ in heaven. You stand before Him perfect, whole, healthy. Now, you might not have your body yet, right? That's glorification, right? That's where our body, you know, and our soul is glorified together because we can't be without a body. This happens again, could happen if Christ comes right now, if the rapture were to take place before our bodies were met with Christ, where our spirit, our inner self, our body is transformed, we're staying perfect before Him, then the glorification process happens. But this perfective sanctification, which is the third stage, I'm sorry I didn't tell you that, The third stage is perfected sanctification and that's when this happens, when your life is over. This is something we look forward to. This is the stage again that prepares us for glorification. Again it happens either at death or the rapture. This is where your spirit or your soul is perfected. Again if you You die, you're waiting for your body, for its glorification. Again, this is where all the removal of sins, all of sin's presence is removed. Again, which argues against the idea of perfectionism happening now. It's not going to happen now. Sanctification ends when either A, you die first, or B, Christ comes and snatches us or raptures us up to be with heaven. Then it happens. Listen to some of these verses. 2 Corinthians 3, verse 18. But we all, with unveiled face, the reason why he says unveiled face is because unbelievers right now have a veil over their eyes. They have a veil over their face. They can't behold and believe Jesus. And this is what he said, Jews today, when they read the Old Testament, they have this veil over their eyes. They cannot see and behold their own Messiah. And it's until this veil is lifted, By God, they can see, they can behold, beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord. I love that, the glory of the Lord. And that's what happened to us. When you hear the gospel, you should have beheld the glory of the Lord and have fallen in love with it. It's the glory of the Lord. Listen, justification, praise God. Forgiveness of sins, praise God. Spirit of God, all these things, praise God. But to behold the glory of the Lord and to love Him is perhaps one of the greatest miracles ever. I mean, it is what should consume believers, is beholding the glory of the Lord. of the Lord. Why? Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3.18, because you're being transformed into the same image, from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit. You're being transformed into this very image. This is what we see as the work of sanctification. 1 John 3.2, John writes, Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not Appeared as yet what we will be We know that when he appears we will be like him because we will see him just as he is That's that perfective sanctification again all this helps you to prepare you to meet your Lord and God and if listen that is not a desire for you right now if you do not have this deep longing to see your Lord and to behold His glory, you probably should check yourself. Because that's what is to come. If this world looks way better to you than Jesus, then you're not saved. I hope you understand that if the things of this world, if everything of this world is governing you more than Jesus is governing you, then you probably should evaluate or examine yourself. Why are we surprised that Paul speaks like this, or even John? Of course, John's seen him in his humanity, but Paul, when he's seen him, he's seen him when he was on the road to Damascus. And ever since he saw Christ, that was it for Paul. Like, that was a dramatic change for Paul. And he knows all this, again, is to prepare us to meet our Lord God, which brings us to the fourth way God works in your life to make you holy, and that is His presentation of your life. Look at verse 23 again. His presentation of your life. Notice what Paul says there in verse 23, 1 Thessalonians 5, 23, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. What does he mean by that? Without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Again, this part of the verse speaks of what is to come when we meet Christ, when we see Him. because of God's work of holiness in your life, you will be blameless. God is gonna, and we just read it this morning in Genesis chapter two, where God takes the bride, this woman that he fashioned for Eve, and what does he do? He brings her to who? Adam, he presents her to him. She's flawless, she has no sin, right? They're the only two perfect human beings at that moment. And He brings the Bride, Eve, to Adam. And what does Adam say? Oh my goodness. That's just me and my translation. It's poetry. The first poem mentioned in the Bible is right there. This is the same here. When God presents the Bride of Jesus, when He presents the Bride of Christ to Christ, I think Jesus is going to have a way better poem than Adam. He's going to see her what? Blameless. This is what Revelation 19 talks about. Remember the bridegroom in the marriage of the Supper of the Lamb where the bride now meets the bridegroom and he sees her blameless, without spot or wrinkle? This is exactly what Paul is referring to here. Blamelessness, the word without blame, it's an adverb and it's again describing that The verb, it's modifying actually, the verb preserved. That passive verb, that optative passive, he's modifying it. So we preserve complete without blame. It's modifying, it just means faultless, no complaint, no charge can be raised against that person. Praise God. Jesus does that right now, doesn't he? In heaven, when he's interceding on our behalf, and he's protecting us from the accusations of Satan. Praise God for that. He stands in our gap. Any accusation that Satan tries to throw about us to God, look at how unholy they're living. The Father just looks at the Son, because it's the Son who stands in the gap as the substitute. He prays, Hebrews 7.25. He's our high priest who prays for us. And he protects us. He takes the blame upon himself. And it obviously just runs right off. Water in a duck's back. Doesn't stick. This is what's going to happen to us. And this was Paul's prayer in chapter 3 verse 13 we looked at already. But this is going to happen at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And we already know this. Paul has littered this letter with this great event that you and I ought to be looking forward to. Jesus is coming back for his church. There's a lot of things that are going on in this world. Right? And they have some importance to them. But there's nothing that's more important than what's to come for the church. The gates of hell cannot prevail against the church. God is protecting and preserving it and He's going to come and get His church so that the Father is going to present to the Son His bride. But He litters this whole reality. And this is the reality you and I need to live in. live under is that Jesus is coming soon. He's coming for His church. And this should have an impact on you. This should really change the way you think and live, the decisions you make. Don't quit your jobs. Don't liquidate your savings account and go up to the roof and wait. You're going to be there for a long time and you're going to be broke. And you're going to look silly. And we're going to say, why are you doing that? You're going to be sinning, so don't do that. But you're to live and conduct yourself in light of this. Philippians 3, 20, 21, for our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also, we eagerly await for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, notice, who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself. Jesus is gonna do this. Well, God only works in holiness in your life by his name in relation to you his activity in your life his Preservation in your life and his presentation of your life, but is all based on this last work Everything is anchored on this last work That God has and that is verse 24 his promise for your life. Look at verse 24 Faithful is he who calls you and he will bring it to pass everything funnels on that It is that is the foundation of everything. He just said in verse 23. It is a promise You can take it to the bank. This is something we can lean on and hold to. God is going to do it. His work in our sanctification, it comes with a promise. And I love this title, another title of God. Faithful is He. Again, another title. I mean, He's mentioned everywhere. He's called the God of faith, right? He's the Lord who is faithful. His title's everywhere. Again, speaking of His trustworthiness, 2 Timothy 2.13 says, even when we're not faithful, He's faithful because it's impossible for Him to not be faithful. In other words, we can trust Him. We can trust Him. We can rely on Him. We can lean on Him. We can bank on Him. He's going to do it. And He is doing it. He's faithful. And notice who calls you. This is again, this verb here is a present participle and really it's speaking of the effectual call. Paul mentioned this earlier in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 12. He says, so that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who what? calls you into His own kingdom and glory. That's what we call the effectual call. That's what I was just talking about earlier when the gospel goes out. It's the Spirit of God who's summoning you. That's the effectual call. This is what he mentions here, the God who calls you. Notice what this God will do. Notice what this God will do. He will what? He also, he too, will bring it to pass. That verb there, bring, is in the future tense. Again, elucidating the fact that this is really where it culminates, at the end, sometime in the future, God is going to, again, Complete what he is set out to do again Think of Philippians chapter 1 verse 6 being confident this that he began to go work on you or what? Completed on the day of Christ. We can trust him. So brothers sisters. I just want to encourage you from this passage here a beautiful passage of just how God is faithfully working in your life this should give you encouragement and It should give you motivation to keep walking in the manner whether you're calling keep striving for holiness keep trusting in God Keep doing what you're doing trust in this God of peace trust in this faithful God. He's gonna work it all out He is going to work it all out. Where we fail and where we're limited at and all those things, we hit a ceiling, God is going to take care of the rest. We can trust in Him, right? We don't remain passive, we're still active, but we trust in this mighty God. Amen? Let's pray. Father, we so thank You, Lord, for Your Word and its truth and just the assurance that we can have in You, God. What an encouragement. Lord, knowing that we battle so much with sin, we're tempted in every direction, God, we fail, we fall. Lord, sometimes it really has an impact on us. But God, we can trust in you knowing that where we're weak, where we lack, you will pick up. You will meet. Thank you, O God of peace. Thank you, O faithful God. Work in the lives of your people, I pray. Make their calling and election sure. Provide, protect, teach them, oh God, through their trial and affliction, help them to overcome with the joy and peace that you've given them by your spirit. Will you be glorified in our lives, we pray. Bring us back safely, Lord willing, next Sunday. In Jesus' name, amen. Blessings to you all.