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Good morning. It's a joy to be with you once again. We have been praying for you at Valley Bible Church as you undertake this pastoral search. And it's an honor to share the word with you. If you haven't already, please open your Bibles to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, which is page 988 in the church Bibles. And would you pray with me? Heavenly Father, we thank you that you have given us your word. We ask that you would minister to each one of us according to your word this morning. We ask that you would sanctify us completely by your power and by your grace so that we are ready for the day of Christ. We pray in his name, amen. Well, as I mentioned last week, we have been preaching through the book of First Thessalonians at Valley Bible Church, and today we come to the end of the book. And the repeated burden of this letter of First Thessalonians, which is woven throughout the letter, is the burden that we as God's people in Christ would be sanctified. that we would be set apart for God, walking in obedience and holiness. And this burden of sanctification has an urgency to it. We must be sanctified so that we would be found ready at the coming of Jesus Christ. We see the burden of this letter back in chapter three, verse 13, where Paul prays this for the believers. He says, so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness. That's the sanctification. before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all the saints. The agenda is sanctification. The urgency is the coming of our Lord Jesus, blameless in holiness at the coming of Jesus. That's the burden of this letter. That's why Paul wrote it, to make us holy and obedient, set apart for God so that we are ready at all times for Christ's return. And as Paul comes to the end of this letter, as we saw last week, he is in rapid fire command mode. Because of his great love for the Thessalonian believers, he is squeezing in a bunch of final commands so that they will be sanctified at the coming of Jesus. Last week I gave the analogy of a loving mother dropping off her little boy at summer camp. And as she's being ripped away from him, the last minute commands come out. Brush your teeth. Change your clothes. Check for ticks. Not too much candy. The rapid fire commands are coming out at the end of the letter, and the rapid fire commands that we looked at last week had to do with our life together in the body. This morning, the rapid fire commands have to do with a sanctified attitude. And the sanctified attitude that God calls us to here is a radical calling. It is an unnatural way of life. It is a rare and uncommon attitude and a complete change from what comes naturally to us. What comes naturally to us? Well, we get bounced around by circumstances. And our attitude gets bounced around too. When something good happens, we feel good. When something bad happens, we feel bad. In our natural state, our mood and our attitude are tossed to and fro by the winds and waves of circumstance. But the uncommon attitude that we're being called to here is completely different. A sanctified attitude is not driven by circumstance. It is anchored in God at all times, no matter what the circumstances may be. Look at this uncommon attitude we're being called to in verse 16. Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks in all circumstances. For this, all of this, I think, is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus. Whether circumstances are good or bad, we are called to rejoice always. To give thanks in all circumstances, no matter what is happening, no matter how bad it gets, we can rejoice in the Lord. Paul writes a similar command to the Philippians in Philippians 4.4. He says, rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say, rejoice. But I want you to notice we are not commanded to rejoice in all things. There are some things that are just bad. Some things are downright unrejoiceable. We're not being asked to rejoice in all things. But if you are a Christian, you can rejoice at all times. That's what we're being asked to do. Even when bad things, unrejoiceable things are happening, we can rejoice, not in our circumstances, but in the Lord, in the midst of our circumstances. No matter what's happening, we can rejoice at all times because we belong to God. We can rejoice at all times that God has promised us that he will never leave us nor forsake us. We can rejoice at all times in the promise that God is using all things, even the bad things, for his good purpose and for the good of his people. We can rejoice at all times that our God sees and he knows. We can rejoice at all times that our Lord Jesus Christ is making all things new. We can rejoice at all times that God demonstrated his great love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, that he sent his own son to redeem us from this world of woe. We can rejoice at all times that there is coming a day when he will wipe away every tear from our eyes. So we don't need to rejoice in all things. That would be quite unnatural. But we are called as Christians to rejoice in the Lord at all times. And we can do that by faith even when bad things are happening all around us. But maybe you came in here this morning and you are not yet a Christian. You're just curious. Well, if you are not yet a Christian, all you have is your circumstances. No anchor in the ups and downs and the waves of life. But if you come to Jesus in faith, you can have an anchor for your soul. You can have a well-being and a contentment that supersedes any circumstance. If you call on Jesus, you have hope in any situation. If you belong to Christ, then God is with you. He is for you, even in the darkest hour. And if you are a Christian here this morning, you are called to this uncommon attitude to rejoice at all times. Because you are in Christ, you can rejoice at all times. And verse 18 is similar. Verse 18 commands us to give thanks in all circumstances. Again, we can't give thanks for everything, but we can give thanks in the midst of everything, in the midst of anything. At Valley Bible Church, we had a little catastrophe this past week. It's a little catastrophe, but it felt like a big catastrophe. Something has gone wrong with our main air conditioning system, and so Monday and Tuesday, water was pouring through the ceiling into our foyer. And there's a lot of damage from the condensation that came through the ceiling. And I have to confess, I was really frustrated. Just when I thought we could get ahead of our constant building needs and focus our resources on our ministry needs, here comes another expensive building catastrophe. But in the back of my mind, I remembered that at the end of the week, I was going to have to preach this passage. So I had to try to put it into practice. I was unable to rejoice that a water leak was destroying our church foyer. I was unable to give thanks for that. So I had to look harder. I had to dig deeper. And do you know what happened? I found opportunities to rejoice and give thanks, even in the midst of this mini catastrophe. I rejoiced that we have a church building. What a gift. I rejoiced that until recently we even had air conditioning. What a blessing. I rejoiced that the Lord gives us strength in the midst of trials. In the midst of that mini-catastrophe, I couldn't give thanks for all of that mess, all of that headache, all of that damage. But I did find reasons to give thanks. Thank God that he has already provided the funds to fix the problem. Thank God for the amazing people that he provided, like my brother Jim Archambeau, who's retired. But instead of leisure, Jim is devoting what strength he has and countless hours of his golden years to help our church ministry function and thrive. Thank you, Lord. And I can thank God for Mike LaValla, who always comes to lend a hand when we call and with a cheerful disposition. But this rejoicing and giving thanks in all circumstances is not my default response. And it isn't yours either. It's only because I was working on this passage that I had a somewhat better response than my default. But no matter what happens, we can rejoice in the Lord and we can give thanks in the midst of every circumstance. That's the sanctified attitude that we are called to. And let me not forget the call to pray. It's sandwiched in the middle there in verse 17. Pray without ceasing. Pray unceasingly. But how do we do this? What does it look like to pray without ceasing? Are we meant to be praying while we sleep? Praying while we work? Never ever stopping? Now people have taken this command in one of two ways. Some interpreters take without ceasing figuratively. In other words, you literally pray a lot, but not literally all the time. Or others take pray figuratively. In other words, you interpret prayer more broadly so that you can be doing it all the time. Your work is not a literal prayer, but it's a kind of prayer as you work unto the Lord. Your sleep is not a literal prayer. You're not literally talking to God. You are unconscious after all. But you sleep as unto the Lord, so it's a kind of a prayer. So if you take prayer figuratively, you can do it literally all of the time. But either way, it can't mean that we literally pray literally all the time. So which one is it? Maybe both interpretations have their merits. Personally, I take it as a call to literal prayer, a literal talking to God in deliberate address, and we are being called to pray a whole lot. I think Paul is saying something like, may your whole life be interspersed with prayer, saturated with prayer, devoted to prayer. And if that's the case, then prayer is not just a formal religious exercise. at a certain time of the day or a certain time of the week with a certain prescribed liturgy, although that can be included for sure. The idea is that prayer is happening frequently, spontaneously throughout the day and night. We're not just living for God, but we're also talking to God deliberately, frequently, at all times, communicating with the Lord, asking the Lord, thanking the Lord, living in communion with the Lord and addressing Him at all times. Now, if that's the right way to take it, then the picture here is that our relationship Our deliberate, expressed relationship with God should invade our whole life. It's not just a religion off to the side. It is a relationship that invades our whole life. And when I compare myself to that, I can certainly grow in prayer. How about you? I need to pray more often in all kinds of situations. I can certainly pray more unceasingly, bringing all of my things to God in prayer whenever the need arises. It should be our natural and our regular response to take it to the Lord in prayer. And I think that means that quick prayers are okay. It doesn't have to be a long ceremonial thing. A prayer can be short. Lord, help me. I am struggling here. Lord, speak through me in this conversation. Lord, help me to keep my cool. Lord, strengthen me to obey. Lord, help me to say no to this temptation. So this uncommon attitude, this sanctified attitude that we are called to here is rejoicing always, constant in prayer, giving thanks no matter what. And the second parting instruction that Paul leaves them with is a call to discerning obedience. We find this in verse 19. Do not quench the spirit. Do not despise prophecies. But test everything. Hold fast to what is good. Abstain from every form of evil. Now, I don't know if you've noticed this, but today it seems like we've got two different branches of the church. More than that, but in the Evangelical Protestant Church, we've got two different branches. We've got the charismatic churches who welcome prophecy, but may seem to lack discernment. And we've got the decidedly non-charismatic churches who seem to despise prophecy. So which one is right? It seems neither one. We are called to openness. Do not quench the spirit. Now, the word quench here is when you take that five-gallon bucket of water and you douse out the campfire. We're not to pour water on the spirit's fire so as to put it out. The Holy Spirit is alive and at work within us and among us as God's people, and we are called to live by the Spirit and to walk by the Spirit, and that means that we must not despise prophecies. In other words, when someone claims to be speaking for God, whether it's in this pulpit or it's out there in the pews, when someone claims to be speaking for God, we should not immediately dismiss it. We shouldn't pour cold water on it. We should not despise prophecies. We should not quench the spirit. So does that mean that we should just take it as fact? Are we opening up the church to all kinds of deception? When someone claims to be speaking for God, should we just blindly obey? Not at all. We are commanded on the one hand not to quench the Spirit and not to despise prophecies, but instead to subject them to testing, evaluation. We test the Word, test everything. Does this Word seem to be from God, based on what we know from the Word of God? Is this consistent with his ways and his purposes? Prophecies of this sort are fallible. They're subject to human error. But the word of God, the scripture, is infallible without human error. So if anyone claims to speak for God, we should test what they say according to the word of God. Like the Bereans in the book of Acts, we should search the scriptures to see if these things are so. And if a prophecy can be validated by the word of God, then we should obey it. Verse 21 again, test everything, hold fast to what is good. And if a prophecy is deemed invalid by the Word of God, then we should abstain from every form of evil. Now, I don't know about this church, but some churches subscribe to the formal doctrine of cessationism. Now, cessationism is the idea that now that we have the Word of God, that the scriptures are complete, that prophecies have ceased. God does not give prophecies anymore. Cessationism, they have ceased. And that might be true. If that's your view here, that might be right. The only trouble I have with that view is that I can't find it in the Bible. So as far as I can tell, this instruction here, do not despise prophecies, still stands today. If God should want to say something to us, we should want to hear it. We shouldn't despise prophecies, but we should test them. I went to a Christian college, Wheaton College, and Here's something that might often happen at a Christian college. A young man will go up to a young woman who is way out of his league and say, God is telling me that we should get married. Now, that's not the kind of claim that can be rendered valid or invalid by the word of God. So in that case, we should do our best to test it, to evaluate it, not this specific thing, but things like this. Test it, evaluate it, seek out godly counsel, and then I would say that we are free to obey or to disobey. In the case of God told me that we should be married, we could simply respond, well, I am flattered. If God tells me the same, I will let you know. And we should be very careful as believers about saying, God told me. Those are not words that we should throw around casually if we are not sure. We should be aware constantly of our own fallibility. It's better to say something like, I could be wrong here, but I feel that God is leading me to say this to you. What do you think? You test this out according to the Word of God. Use your spirit-given discernment. So in the case of God is telling me that we should be married, it's usually better to say, I really like you. Would you like to go out with me? And leave the divine authority out of it and see how God's will is confirmed in time. So we are called to discerning obedience. It's obedience because we don't want to pour water on the Spirit's fire, but it's discerning because we need to test everything and only hold fast to what is good and run away from everything that is evil. So I hope that you here will be a discerning church. I hope that you will not be a church that despises prophecies, but that you will be a church that holds fast, tests everything, and holds fast to what is good. Now these commands, especially this one, this sanctified attitude at all times, this is a high calling, a daunting responsibility. And when I compare myself to these commands, I feel utterly inadequate. To say nothing of the other commands in this letter, to abstain from sexual immorality, to be devoted to one another in brotherly love, to do good to all, to live ready for the return of Christ at all times. If this is what it looks like to be sanctified, to be ready for Jesus coming, I have some growing to do. I need to make some changes. And we can begin to get discouraged. How can I possibly live this out? How can I possibly measure up to this sanctified standard? Well, Paul ends his letter with good news. Our radical calling of sanctification is also God's remarkable doing. That's what we find in verses 23 and 24. Look with me at verse 23. Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely. And may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful. He will surely do it. Isn't that good news? God is the one who sanctifies us and he sanctifies us completely. God is the one who keeps us blameless at the coming of Jesus. He is the one empowering our obedience. We get the optimistic promise there in verse 24. He who calls you is faithful. God always comes through and he will surely do it. You see the mysterious symbiotic relationship? It is our calling, but it is based on His faithfulness, and He will surely do it. So in our obedience, God is at work. We like to make it an either-or. We are simple-minded creatures. We can't handle two things being true at once. We think it is either our job or it is God's job and there's nothing for me to do. But it's not an either-or, it is a both-and. Biblical sanctification is a both and. It is 100% our doing and 100% God's doing. Well, maybe it's 101% God's doing. We are the ones who strive to walk in holiness and abstain from immorality and walk in brotherly love. We are the ones who choose to rejoice always and to pray without ceasing. We are the ones who choose to give thanks in everything and we strive to live out holy and blameless lives. Yes, we must do it. That's what all the commands are for. And, yes and, God is the one who sanctifies us. He's the one who will work in us. He is the one who keeps us blameless at the coming of Jesus. He is faithful and he will do it. So don't make it an either or. Don't stop striving for holiness. It is your calling. God has called you to sanctification. But in your striving toward holiness, don't despair. Because in the midst of our striving for holiness, God is the one who is at work. This sanctification project, you becoming holy and blameless for the day of Christ, is his project. in us and through us. We do the obeying, but as we do, God is the one who is doing the sanctifying. We have all his power, his faithfulness behind us and within us. And if God is the one doing something, I have news for you. It's going to happen. When Almighty God says, Let there be light. We don't wonder if it might happen. When Almighty God says, let there be light, there was light. And so it is with our sanctification, our preparation for the coming of Jesus. God is faithful and he will do it. He is the one who sanctifies us. So if we belong to him, If we have put our trust in Christ, if we are walking by faith in Christ, if we are connected to the power source, then we can obey him boldly in hope, knowing that it doesn't depend on our strength. He hasn't left us alone in this. We may be weak in our own strength, We may be imperfect, we may have a very long way to go, but we can trust that this sanctification project God calls us to has all of Almighty God's power behind it. He is faithful, and he will surely do it. So let's get to it. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, would you bless this congregation? Would you bless me to live the holy calling that you have given us for the day of Christ? And we thank you that you are faithful and you will do it. May it be for our good and for your glory. Amen.
Our Calling, His Doing
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