Well, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, I wanna begin this morning with three important gospel questions. First, is the gospel all of grace? Second, can your Christian walk be such that you please God? And third, dear people of God, is holiness possible for you? Those are important gospel questions, and I want to answer each of them. Yes, the gospel's all of grace. And yes, those who are in Christ can walk in such a way that it pleases God. And yes, a regenerate person can grow in personal holiness. And we can say that because we believe the Bible And we believe what our Reformed confessions teach us, particularly about the doctrine of sanctification. And since we didn't use our hymnal for the hymn of preparation, let's use it now to get some instruction from our confession of faith. So let me ask you to grab your hymnal. Grab your hymnal and turn back to page 927. Chapter 13 of Sanctification. Again, page 927. Chapter 13. And I want you to follow along as I read that first paragraph. They who are effectually called and regenerated, having a new heart and a new spirit created in them, are further sanctified, really and personally, through the virtue of Christ's death and resurrection, by his word and spirit dwelling in them, the dominion of the whole body of sin is destroyed, and the several less thereof more and more are weakened and mortified. And they more and more are quickened and strengthened in all saving graces to the practice of true holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. So sanctification is a work of God's grace where Christ's death and resurrection are applied to us by the means of grace and particularly by the word of spirit that dwells within us. And the grace of God will increasingly make us more like Jesus. Here's an even shorter definition. Sanctification is God's gracious and divine process to make you holy. Now of course we need to say that that process doesn't in any way contribute to our justification. Our justification is God's legal pardon. It's the judge of heaven and earth saying, for the sake of Christ, finish work. Justice has been fully satisfied and you are acquitted. And that's a one-time legal declaration. And our works have nothing to do with that. It's by faith alone. But sanctification, is God restoring His image in us, and that's gonna be a work in progress until we reach glory. But listen, dear ones, it is a work that the Lord will surely accomplish, and we need to know that. And we need to know on this side of glory, with the Spirit's help, we can please God in our daily lives, and we can grow in holiness. And I'm emphasizing this for a few reasons. One is there's been some movements in our reformed circles in the last 15 years that have downplayed the doctrine of sanctification. men who rightly wanted to hold up the doctrine of justification as the hinge upon which all true religion turns, as Calvin said. They wanted to hold that up because it came under attack, and then as they defended justification, they began to develop a weakened and somewhat anemic view of sanctification. And dear one, sanctification is a gospel grace as much as justification is a gospel grace. So one of the reasons I'm emphasizing that is because there's been a trajectory toward a weak view of sanctification. And I'm going to come back to this next week. And that weak view of sanctification has been a part of what opened the door for things like gay Christianity and revoice. But that's for next week. Second reason I mention this is we simply don't want to have a truncated view of the gospel. I love how Dr. John Payne lays this out. He writes, God's saving grace in Christ is much bigger and more comprehensive than one might initially think. God's grace not only rescues, it renovates. It not only justifies, it sanctifies. It not only reconciles, it renews. It not only propitiates, it purifies. It not only delivers, it matures. Indeed, the sovereign grace of God not only saves us from our sin, it saves us to a life of growing in holiness. And these statements were led to consider the biblical doctrine of sanctification, a central but often neglected facet of the life-changing gospel of grace. In other words, if we don't understand sanctification, We don't fully understand the gospel and its power. So that's one of the reasons to bring this up. A second reason to bring it up this morning. The third reason is much more direct. As we return to our study in 1 Thessalonians, the apostle Paul's gonna tell us, growing in sanctification is God's will for your life. And that's powerful. So let's seek the Lord. And we'll get to one. Pray with me once more. Our great God in heaven, we bless you, we love you. We're thankful that we can sit at the feet of the Lord Jesus, who ministers his word to us, even through weak and fallible man, he ministers his word to his sheep. And so we come as hungry sheep, expecting to be fed by our good shepherd. So we pray that you would work through this under shepherd, keep them from error, help them present Christ's food as pure and true, and may souls be nourished. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Well, please turn your Bibles to 1 Thessalonians 4. We're gonna read verses one through eight. Although generally our focus will be, verses one through three, with a lot of emphasis really on verse three. First Thessalonians four, beginning in verse one, hear the true word of the living God. Finally, then brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more just as you receive from us how you ought to walk and to please God. for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you should abstain from sexual immorality, that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God, that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such. as we also forewarned you and testified. For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. Therefore, he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us the Holy Spirit. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God endures forever. May he bless it to our hearts this morning. Well, there's congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ. We're at a transition point in our study of Thessalonians. The first three chapters have by and large been occupied with two overarching themes. First, they present us the very highest scene that Paul and the other missionaries had for the church in Thessalonica, even though it was a very young congregation. From the get-go, God's work was evident in their lives because we're told early on that the gospel didn't come to them in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit. and the Spirit-empowered gospel immediately began to bear the clear fruit of faith, hope, and love within this congregation. And those gospel virtues were seen in such great degree that Paul was confident that these believers were God's beloved elect. When the apostle looked at this fledgling church, and the way gospel fruit was manifest in their life. What he saw was objects of sovereign grace that God chooses sinners for salvation from before the foundation of the world. So their election was being proven by their fruit. And after Timothy returned from a second visit to them, his report told of believers who weren't compromising the faith because of the struggles and persecution they were facing, but were standing firm in their faith and were demonstrating great acts of love. So you read these opening chapters and you just can't miss the high regard that Paul and these other missionaries have for this young church. The second main theme is the enormous affection and love that these missionary pioneers had for the Thessalonians. They not only respected their spiritual maturity, they cared deeply and passionately about this church. They loved them! Although persecution had forced them to leave Thessalonica, Paul and his band of evangelizers, they longed to get back and see these brothers and sisters and to be able to minister to them face to face. In fact, it was that longing that precipitated Paul sending Timothy back to get the report about their spiritual condition. You see, they didn't simply see the Thessalonians as a ministry or as a spiritual project. They saw them as precious saints who found a very special place in their hearts. And so when young Timothy returned with a glowing report, it was like this enormous burden had been lifted off Paul. He put it this way back in chapter three in verse eight, for now we live if you stand fast in the Lord. And now as we get to chapter four, Paul changes gears. He wants to address some ethical matters in the church. They believed the gospel. And as a church, they were growing and they were loving. But there were some areas of practical instruction for which they needed more teaching. As you glance back at 1 Thessalonians 3.10, The apostle said that he was night and day praying exceedingly that we may see your face and perfect what is lacking in your faith. And much of what's gonna unfold in the final two chapters of 1 Thessalonians is Paul filling out some areas where he knew the church needed more teaching, where there were areas where their faith still had some gaps. It was lacking to use Paul's language. Now, one of the ways you can tell that Paul's making a transition at chapter four is the way it begins. Finally, then, brethren. Now, there's an old joke that goes like this. What does it mean when a preacher says, now in conclusion? Absolutely nothing. Well, Paul isn't using an old preacher joke here. He's actually saying, I'm about to start a new section of the ladder. We know it's not really the end of the letter, because he's got two more chapters. He's saying, I've got some new material that needs to be infused into your church. And much of this new section is Paul dealing with some very practical and ethical matters. Or you might think of it this way, the apostle's going to teach in the rest of this letter a treatise on practical godliness. And one of the controlling verses of the rest of this epistle is there in the first half of verse 3. For this is the will of God, your sanctification. And then Paul's going to apply that to human sexuality. And we'll be coming back to that next week. We're actually going to pause there for a couple weeks because that's a big issue in our context. So he's going to apply that to human sexuality. Then he's going to apply it to the way we love in the church. Then he's going to apply it to the way we work and engage in our human vocations. And then he's even going to teach us that there's such a thing as a sanctified view of death. And then after a fairly extensive teaching on what happens when we die, when we get to chapter 5 and verses 12 through 22, he's going to give more than 17 imperatives, 17 commands. ethical instructions. So this section, the rest of 1 Thessalonians, is greatly concerned with practical holiness, or what the Bible calls sanctification. So let's start with this. We got a taste of what sanctification is in our introduction. But before we delve into it a bit more, the first thing we need to know is that whatever sanctification is, It's God's will for you. And that ought to catch our attention. How many times have you wanted to know what God's will is for your life? I get asked that question. Pastor Brewer, do you think this is God's will for me to? And when people say that, what they usually have in mind is, what job does God want me to take? What school does God want me to go to? Who should I marry? How should I plan for retirement? Where should we go on our next vacation? and questions like that. And you know what, every question a person has about the direction of their life is actually an important question. But here's the thing, often for those questions we won't have a perfect answer. It's not always clear to us what God would have us to do in some of those different circumstances. Often we just simply have to apply principles of scripture and then use the sanctified wisdom that God's given us. So we don't wanna miss the power of Paul's exhortation here, because he's telling the church point blank. Sure, you're gonna have a lot of questions about the will of God, but this here, this here is the will of God for you, your sanctification. It's powerful. So let's unpack the language. Glance here at the end of chapter three, You'll see that Paul concludes that prayer describing God's people as saints. They're going to return with the Lord Jesus. Now the word for saint is the word hagios. Hagios. And it designates a person who's dedicated or set apart or consecrated to the true and living God. In short, a saint is a holy one. That's what the word means, a holy one. In fact, I've shared this with you before, but this is the most common designation for a New Testament believer. It's saint, a holy one. Hagios, that's who you are. We don't think of ourselves as saints. We think if we say, someone says a saint, that we're putting them in the Roman Catholic Church or some other nonsense. But that's the most frequent designation of believers in the New Testament. You're a saint, a hagios. That's the word that Paul uses there at the end of chapter three. And in chapter 4, verse 3, the word for sanctification is hagiasmas. You can hear it's the same essential word. And that word's not only used in verse 3, it's also used in verse 5, and then down in verse 7. It's the same word, although our English translations have chosen the word holiness. But it's the same word. So a saint is hagias, and sanctification is agiasmas. So saints is what we are, dear ones. Listen, saints is what we are. And sanctification is what God's doing in us to make that designation more and more of a reality. Now this is gonna sound clumsy, but I hope it helps. Sanctification is God's way of holy-izing us. Holy-izing us. Because we are holy ones. And listen, dear ones, as I repeat myself here, this is God's will for your life, your sanctification, a life where you're being translated from one measure of glory to another to reflect the glory of the image of Jesus. And this is the calling of all believers, all believers, not just super believers. We're called to be men and women who grow in holiness, without which we won't see the Lord. That's how significant this issue is. I think I shared this with you a couple years back, but I'm gonna repeat myself. I was at the dog park and I was talking to a couple of fellows, nice guys. They asked me what I do for a living. I told them I'm a pastor. You know one of the first things people do when I tell them that, if they're smoking, they put out their cigarette. I don't know why that always tickles me, why they think that's going to be so offensive to me. But I told them, and then one of the fellows said he goes to a local reformed church. And the other guy said, oh, I belong to a holiness church, which probably meant something like a Holy Roll or Pentecostal church. But I was struck by the guy who said he belonged to a reformed church and what he said next. When the one guy said, oh, I go to a holiness church, he said, oh, we're Reformed. We're not really into holiness. I remember thinking, well, now that's a problem. And of course, I was in that unique situation where I had to correct him, and he wasn't a friend, but you know. But it misunderstands the gospel. I mean, praise God that it saves us from the penalty of sin. And it saves us in such a complete way that Paul can say, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. We are justified. We're declared pardoned. That can never be revoked. That is the good news of our justification. The penalty of sin has been satisfied, but the gospel also saves us from the power of sin. And dear ones, it's a package deal. When God justifies, he sanctifies. Right? And what I mean by that is simply, if God's justified you, He's going to be sanctifying you. Because He's declared you holy, Hagias, and He's going to make you holy, Hagiasmas. You see? Because what He began in you, what He declared in you, He's going to advance and form and shape in you. I think sometimes we want to rightly stress the wonderful grace of the gospel and the invitation of the gospel to come as you are. Come to Jesus. You don't need to clean yourself up first because you can't clean yourself up first. You need his righteousness. You need his soul-cleansing blood. So come, come as you are and be washed. That's the gospel invitation to you, to the world around us. And that is a great gospel invitation to sinners. And while it's true, God bids a sinner come as you are, God never leaves a sinner where they are. If he's begun a good work in you, he's going to carry it on. And that's because he loves us. And while our old nature battles this truth, our best life, our most satisfying life, is a holy life. Again, the old man within us is gonna say, no it isn't. Your best life is self-centeredness. By grace, God is teaching us no. Your best life is God-centeredness. It's not optional. Sanctification. is part of the gospel. God's process of making us holy is a demonstration of his gospel love for us. And if you grew up in good Christian homes, it might not matter as much to you as it does when you talk to an addict, or a person who's been sexually abused, or a person who's been treated in the most abusive ways. And you say, whatever has sort of enslaved you in your past, Christ can actually set you free and transform you. That's also part of the good news. And it's part of growing in holiness. And I do think sanctification is something sorely lacking in our churches, a commitment to God's moral standard is lacking, right? And some of that comes from those who want to be very careful to say, Christianity is not about moral improvement. Really? Do you believe Christianity is not about moral improvement? Because we read the moral law, don't we want to be conformed to the moral law? So can we say, in part, Christianity is about moral improvement? Again, I understand the argument. I understand the danger people feel, the tension, that maybe they'll step away from the gospel of grace. But I think we're also stepping away from the call to holiness that's part of the gospel of grace. Dr. John Stock provides a bit of a rebuke with these words. He writes, One of the great weaknesses of contemporary evangelical Christianity is our comparative neglect of Christian ethics in both our teaching and our practice. In consequence, we become known rather as a people who preach the gospel than those who live and adorn it. You see, Paul loves the Thessalonians too much to allow that to happen to him. under his watch, or at least without his warning, so he really starts to set the stage for all the exhortations and imperatives he's gonna give, and he sets the stage in the first two verses of this chapter. Let me read those again. Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort you in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you receive from us how you ought to walk and to please God, For you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus." Now, the words urge and exhort here are nearly synonymous. I don't think Paul wants us to parse the distinction. Rather, I think he uses the two words together to emphasize a loving but forceful desire for the church to grow in practical holiness. And it's something this church was already doing. Right? You notice that you should abound more and more. And this is something we saw in regards to the command to love. This was a super loving church, and yet Paul prayed for them back in 1 Thessalonians 3, 2, that the Lord would make them increase and abound in love to one another. And now he wants them to abound more and more in the way they walk and work out their Christian faith in practical holiness. And what Paul does here is he provides them a glorious motivation in that Christian walk, the motivation of pleasing God. I'll come back to that in just a second, but do notice that the apostle uses the word ought. And what this means is it is necessary. This is not a peripheral part of the gospel. It is necessary, something we ought to do. He's telling the church in Thessalonica they need to continue, they ought to continue in their Christian walk. That is, for those who are in Christ, it's going to be a steady progression, a constant, grace-fueled, Spirit-empowered move toward holiness. And again, this isn't a call of moral improvement to get to Jesus. This is an exhortation for those who belong to Jesus, right? Verse one, it's for those who are in the Lord Jesus. Verse two, Paul has given them marching orders to those who, excuse me, the marching orders come through the Lord Jesus. And that word commandments there probably shouldn't be thought of as a synonym for the law. It means something like marching orders. It's military language. He said, we've told you this is what it's like to be a Christian. And you know what? You guys have been doing it. You've been walking. You've been growing. You've been moving forward and becoming more and more like Jesus now. Keep doing it. It's progressive. Sanctification moves you forward. You're going to be more sanctified tomorrow than you were today, and more sanctified next week than you are this week, and so on, and so on, and so on. That's the process. One measure of glory to another until we're in glory. So again, I want to be super clear. These aren't instructions to lead a person to Christ. They're instructions for those who've been regenerated by the Holy Spirit and are resting in Christ as He's freely offered in the gospel. And the highlight of this exhortation is the motive that Paul gives for sanctification and holiness. It is to please God. And this is what the missionaries taught when they were with him, and it's what Paul's reminding them of. And isn't that amazing that Christians who walk faithfully with Jesus can please God? And this is one of our chief motivations for sanctification, that it pleases our God. There are other motivations. Our justification is a motivation for our sanctification. The fact that we are declared righteous, that's a motivation. The fact that we have a title deed to everlasting life, that's a motivation. But this is a primary motivation as well. We can please God. Isn't that something? Now, to be sure, it says in Hebrews, without faith, it's impossible to please God. So this is something only believers who possess saving faith can do. But think about what Hebrews 11, 6 says. Without faith, it's impossible to please God. What's the converse of that? With faith, with saving faith, It's possible to please God. And the Bible is, the New Testament is filled with exhortations that tell us the kind of activities that please God. Those who bear fruit in every good work and increase in the knowledge of God are fully pleasing to God. Colossians 1.10. Present your body as a living sacrifice. Why? Because it pleases God. Romans 12.1. Looking out for your weaker brother. Pleases God, Romans 14, 18. Obeying your parents, pleases God, Colossians 3, 20. Teaching the word and truth, pleases God, 1 Thessalonians 2, 4. Praying for the governing authority, pleases God, 1 Timothy 2, 1 and 3. Support your family members in need, pleases God. 1st Timothy 5.4, sharing with others pleases God. Hebrews 13.16, keeping His commandments pleases God. 1st John 3.22, basically whenever you trust God, He's pleased. Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus than to trust and obey. Pleasing And think about just what a grace-fueled motivation this is. If you're married, there's almost nothing more pleasing to a spouse than to do something that truly pleases the other. When you can do something for your wife and you know that it pleases them, That is one of the most satisfying experiences you can have. I have pleased my wife. And you don't do it because you want something. You simply do it because you love her or because you love him. And you know that you've pleased them. There's almost nothing more satisfying. Think of it this way, from a slightly different angle. Picture a child living in squalor in a third-world orphanage. He's dirty. He's malnourished. He's in pathetic condition. He's not a Gerber baby. A wealthy couple from the West, they come. They adopt him. They see that orphanage. They know the squalor he's living in, but it doesn't matter. They decide they're going to love him. They take him out of that condition, out of that squalor. They say, you're my child. As that child grows up, they're going to want to please their parents, right? Not so they can get into the family, but because they've been brought into the family. The chief end of man. is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. It's often not pointed out that that last part, to enjoy Him forever, as was originally written, had to do with sanctification. We might think of it this way. The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy pleasing Him forever. That's the motivation Paul setting before us this morning to grow in godliness. Not the only motivation, but it's certainly a precious one. The one who looked down from heaven and saw us in the squalor of our sin, said, I'm gonna bring that one into my family. I'm going to call him my son. I'm going to call her my daughter. And they're going to enjoy my royal inheritance. And so now, we live in a way to please God. Not because we need to get to a new place, but because we have all things in Christ Jesus. And we are in His family. So may we be men and women who seek to please our great God and grow in godliness. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Pray with me. Father in heaven, we thank you for your word. We pray for your power, the spirit to work in each of our hearts, to continue to do that chiseling away, to help us to kill the sin that resides within us and to live unto righteousness. We pray that we would be transformed more and more like the Lord Jesus, and we would be motivated to know that as we grow in godliness, it pleases our Father in heaven. Hear our prayers we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, brothers and sisters, as we prepare to come to the Lord's table, as you know, typically confess what we believe at the historic church using the Apostles' Creed. You can find that in the back of your hand on page 851. 851. So Christian, what do you believe? I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, our Lord. who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, Pontius Pilate, was crucified dead and buried. He descended into hell. The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From there he shall come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit. the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen. As I've shared with you before, when we read that, that's actually a part of the table fencing process. You're announcing before God and among this congregation that these are the core truths of Christianity, that you believe. And so, if you're trusting in Jesus Christ as he's freely offered in the gospel, you're a member in good standing of a Bible-believing evangelical church, and you believe those truths, then this is a table for you to be nourished by our great King of Heaven. So, I'm going to ask you to give your attention as I read Romans 5 verses eight through 11, then I have a meditation as I often do, printed in your bulletin. But I'm gonna first read from Romans five, verses eight through 11. There the apostle Paul writes, God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. much more than having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus, through whom we now have received the reconciliation. And then you can follow along as I read this meditation. We should come to the table with cheerful confidence in God as our reconciled father in Christ. As we're not going to hear our condemnation, but to receive assurance of our acquittal in his favor, we should approach in the character of children, possess the confidence of children with gladness and singleness of heart, coming to the table where our father gives the testimony of his regard to us. To come with slavish trembling and uncertainty to a feast of love is utterly improper and shows either that we're not acquainted with the nature of the ordinance or have not that faith that embraces the promises and realizes the sign. We must remember we're approaching a table which love, eternal love, has spread for sinners. We have such a powerful advocate for us in heaven that we may come boldly to the throne of grace and not fear disappointment. Due to all this, if we're really the children of God, we may without presumption draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith. This disposition is as honorable to God as comfortable to ourselves and needs to be exercised that every soul should rejoice and be exceedingly glad and triumph in the God of His salvation. We do not come resting in our own moral preparation or our own worthiness or our own goodness. There's no rest there. We come resting holy in Christ, but we come confident, serious, and cheerful. We come as those who have now received the reconciliation. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you that you have given us this covenant meal. We're thankful that it is a table of love. We marvel that the Son of God came to this world, took on a true human nature, lived a righteous life, died in our place, poured out his blood to wash us clean. And now we have signs and seals of this great work. We pray as we take these ordinary elements that the Spirit truly nourishes us with the body and blood of Christ. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.