ENTRUSTED UNTO GLORY
Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on December 12, 2018 under PM Bible Study |
PM Bible Study Group; December 12, 2018 – from 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
Theme: Our walk in the Lord should show itself in how we conduct the various relationships that our church life touches.
(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).
Paul—along with his two colleagues Timothy and Silvanus—have touched on some wondrous themes in this short letter. In the first three chapters, he has expressed his joy over the way in which the gospel of Jesus Christ had transformed his dear Thessalonian brothers and sisters. And then, in the last two chapters, he has called upon them to walk faithfully in all that they have received by grace.
Now; there is a hint of Paul’s ongoing concern for these believers in the next letter. He wrote in 2 Thessalonians about his concern for some who might work to dissuade them from the simplicity of the faith toward Jesus in which they began. In fact, a call to stand fast in the faith is a very major theme in his second letter to them. So, no doubt, a growing concern for the stability of the faith of these dear brothers and sisters was beginning to be on his mind as he closed this first letter.
But as we come to the closing section of the first letter, we find where his confidence is placed with respect to these fellow believers. Before giving them some final instructions in verses 25-28, he first gives them this confident blessing in verses 23-24;
Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24).
Paul was limited in what he could continue to do for these dear believers. But he had no fear of entrusting those who belonged to Christ to the one who was able to preserve them safely unto eternal glory. In a similar way, he once gathered a group of pastors together to himself from the city of Ephesus. He was about to leave them for the last time; and just before he did so, he warned them that there would be ‘savage wolves’ who would come and attack the flock. He even warned that some from among their own ranks would arise and mislead the saints. It was a hard situation in which to leave them. But as a final blessing, he told them;
So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified (Acts 20:32).
To “commend” or “entrust” these fellow believers to God and to His word of grace was the safest and best thing that he could have done. And that also is what he does with these Thessalonian believers.
These closing words from Paul to the Thessalonians, then, ought to be a great encouragement to us. The confidence that Paul had for them was not a confidence in himself—or, for that matter, in any other human resource. It was a confidence in the very same God who also keeps and preserves us in the faith today. We can take these words for our own encouragement then; and know that we—like they—have been entrusted to the safe-keeping of our God unto sure and certain glory.
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Notice first …
1. TO WHOM IT IS THAT WE ARE ENTRUSTED.
Paul began this section by writing, “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely …” And so, here, we see that Paul entrusted his readers to “the God of peace”.
We might want to immediately take this to be referring to a circumstantial kind of peace—a peace in which there is no turmoil or trouble or trial. But it only takes a brief survey of the next letter to know that that’s not the kind of peace Paul is talking about. Clearly, there were troublesome times ahead for the Thessalonian Christians. Rather, the “peace” that Paul is speaking of is of a much more profound nature than would be found in peaceful circumstances and surroundings. Paul is speaking of a relational peace—a peace in which the cause of enmity between ourselves and God has been removed, and in which there is no longer any cause of hostility between Him and ourselves. Our God is the God who makes it possible for us to have peace with Himself—which is the most essential kind of peace any human being could hope to experience. It’s the peace that makes all other forms of peace possible.
Perhaps a good way to understand this “peace” is to consider a couple of other places in the Bible where God is called “the God of peace”. In Hebrews 13:20-21, for example, the writer gives this benediction:
Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen (Hebrews 13:20-21).
Clearly, the peace being described here is one in which we are made acceptable to God and are brought into His full favor. It’s a peace made possible by the sacrifice of Jesus for the atonement of our sins. Another very startling example is found in Romans 16:20. After warning against those who cause division within the church, Paul writes,
And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly (Romans 16:20).
This is a “peace” that involves the crushing of the head of the enemy of our souls—the one who seeks constantly to accuse us before the heavenly Father. So; far more than being just a ‘peaceful circumstance’, the name “the God of peace” speaks of a peace that God brings about in which He completely removes everything stands in the way of a relationship with Himself, and in which He brings about a fullness of our fellowship with Him. It’s a peace that results in an end of our separation from Him.
And note that it is He Himself who brings this peace about. When Paul speaks of entrusting us to the God of peace, he clearly states the fact that it is the God of peace “Himself” who sanctifies us and establishes us in this relationship of peace. It is a peace that only He can bring about—and it is a peace that only He, in fact, does bring about! We can be absolutely sure that He who brings about this peace will also see to it that everything that this peace was intended to establish will indeed come to pass. As Paul says in Philippians 1:6;
… being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6).
So; that’s who it is that we’re entrusted to—“the God of peace”. And next, consider …
2. IN WHAT SENSE WE ARE ENTRUSTED TO HIM.
In these words of blessing, Paul goes on to write, “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul was entrusting his readers unto a work of God by which they would be completely sanctified by Him.
“Sanctification” comes from the Greek word that means ‘holy’ or ‘set apart’; and this sanctification is the process by which God works in us to set us apart unto Himself and make us more and more like His Son Jesus Christ. There are three aspects to God’s work of sanctification in our lives. First, there’s what we might call ‘positional sanctification’. That’s a work of God by which He draws us from out of the lost condition of fallen humanity and claims us as His own through Christ—separating us from the rest, and declaring us to be His own. It describes our new ‘position’ before Him in this world. This can be seen in how the apostle Paul called the Corinthian believers “saints” in 1 Corinthians 1:1; even though they were far from ‘saintly’ in their behavior. There is also what we might call a ‘progressive’ or ‘practical sanctification’. This is an aspect of sanctification in which—every day; in an ongoing and progressive way—God is helping us to put away the old sins of the past and to put on the new habits and practices and patterns of our new life in Christ. And finally there is what we might call ‘perfect sanctification’; which is an aspect of our sanctification that will occur when our Lord returns for us, and we are finally conformed to His image in complete glory and sinless perfection.
It seems that in the first half of verse 23, Paul was speaking of his wishful prayer for the ‘progressive’ or ‘practical’ sanctification of his fellow believers. He prayed that the God who brought these believers into a state of peace with Himself would also continue the work of making them to live more and more like the people that they ought to be. That is something that his expressed desire for in 4:1;
Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God (4:1).
But we can’t help also seeing in verse 23 the hints of that future ‘perfect sanctification’ being looked to even as the work of ‘progressive sanctification’ was going on. Paul said that he entrusted his readers to a total preservation by God—a ‘complete’ sanctification. Not only are they sanctified by God, but they are also kept in that progressive work of sanctification unto a future and perfect work of sanctification—one for which they are preserved ‘blamelessness’ in the wholeness of their persons—in “your whole spirit, soul, and body”; which definitely looks ahead to the future. And it is a preservation in blamelessness that finds its completion “at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” It’s as Paul expressed in 3:12-13;
And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all, just as we do to you, so that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints (3:12-13).
When we rest confidently in God’s work of sanctifying us in Christ—and fully cooperate with His work in us through the Holy Spirit—we do so with an expectation and hope that we share with the apostle Paul; an expectation of our full glorification at Jesus’ return. As another of the apostles put it in 1 John 3:1-3;
Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure (1 John 3:1-3).
That is the expectation to which Paul entrusted his readers. It is one that we can wholeheartedly embrace for ourselves in Christ. And finally, then, notice …
3. WHY WE CAN BE CONFIDENT IN SUCH AN ENTRUSTMENT.
Paul closes by declaring in verse 24, “ He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.” The same God who calls us to Himself in Christ is also the one who accomplishes the completed work of our sanctification and preservation. He has a vested interest in sanctifying and preserving those whom He calls all the way to the very end of the process. As he wrote in Romans 8:28-30;
And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified (Rom. 8:28-30).
Do you notice in those words the way Paul described our final glorification in the same tense of the verb as our calling and as our justification? Our glorification in Christ is as sure and certain as if it had already been accomplished; because it is an outcome that the almighty God—the God of peace—has predestined us to in Christ. He is faithful in His work of sanctifying us; and He will not consider the work done until we are, in fact, in full and perfectly glory with His Son Jesus Christ throughout eternally.
If He who does this for us is so faithful, then we can be confident in that glorious hope to which we’ve been entrusted!
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Back when God spoke to King David and made the covenant promise to him of a ‘seed’ after him with whom God would establish an everlasting kingdom (that is, Christ); all David could say in response was, “LORD, the word which you have spoken concerning Your servant and concerning his house, let it be established forever, and do as You have said” (1 Chronicles 17:23). Some of the promises that God gives us in His word are so great—and so completely dependent upon only Himself—that all we can really do in worship is simply say, “God, do as You have said!”
We should do the same thing in response to this wonderful blessing written down by Paul. We should pray, “Lord, I read this blessing from your servant Paul—given with authority by the enabling power of the Holy Spirit. And I say, ‘Amen!’ Heavenly Father—God of Peace! Sanctify me completely! Do this work by Your own hand! And as a result, may my whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless all the way to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ upon this earth in glory!”
We can pray this with confidence—even in troubling and uncertain times; because God’s word promises that He is faithful—and that He will do it!
EA
