Certain Hope for Uncertain Times
02/10/2002 - He Will Do It!
A. J. Gordon, one of the founders of Gordon Conwell Divinity School up in Boston, loved to tell the story about the day he was out walking in the country. At one point he stopped and looked across a farmer's field and saw an amazing sight. Next to the farmhouse was a man furiously pumping one of those old hand pumps. As he stood there and watched, he couldn't believe his eyes. The man seemed almost superhuman, pumping up and down, on and on, absolutely tireless, never stopping, never even slowing down. And water was gushing out of the pump. It was incredible!
So A. J. decided to walk over to the man and check it out. But as he got closer he could see that it wasn't a man at all, it was actually a wooden figure painted to look like a man. And the arm that was pumping so fast was actually hinged at the elbow and the hand was wired to the pump handle. It was an artesian well and in a well like that pressure from the ground causes the water to gush out like a fountain all by itself. So the man wasn't pumping the water, the water was pumping the man.
In many ways that's a picture of what it means to live for Jesus Christ. Extreme Christian living, the kind of living we talked about last week, is not about our own superhuman effort and pumping as hard as we can to obey God and keep his commands and do all these good things that the apostle Paul has been telling us about in his letter to the Thessalonians. Extreme Christian living is about realizing that the Holy Spirit lives inside us, the power of God energizes us and flows through us like an artesian well and produces changes in our lives that make us more like Jesus. And all we have to do is keep our hand on the handle. All we have to do is let the river flow. Let the river flow. Holy Spirit come. Move in power.
One of my professors in seminary liked to say that having the Holy Spirit dwelling in our lives is like having an infinite amount of money in our bank account. Sounds good, doesn't it? But, all that money will do us absolutely no good, unless we write the checks to draw out that money. Without the checks the account is worthless. And so as believers we need to know how to write the checks that release the unlimited power of the Holy Spirit in our lives or else we quench the Spirit and he's useless to us. If you have a Bible turn with me to 1 Thessalonians 5:23-28.
This morning we conclude our series called Certain Hope for Uncertain Times. It's been a wonderful series. Since October we've been unpacking this little letter that the apostle Paul wrote to the church he started in the city of Thessalonica in northern Greece.
Thessalonica was and still is a major city in northern Greece. And Paul knew that if he could start a church there it had the potential to spread the gospel throughout the entire Roman Empire because Thessalonica was located on the Via Egnatia, the major Roman trade route that connected East with West. It was also nestled along a bustling seaport on the Aegean Sea. It was a world trade center.
But Paul only spent three weeks there, and then he was run out of town. Yet in those three weeks a lot happened! A number of Jews and Greeks came to Christ when they heard Paul's message, but as soon as they did, they became victims of terrorism at the hands of those who didn't believe in Jesus. Riots, harassment and beatings started immediately.
And so Paul had to run for his life first to Berea, sixty miles west, and then when he was discovered there, he headed two hundred miles south to Athens. And then finally moved on to Corinth where his companion Timothy joined him and gave him an update on the situation in Thessalonica. And in response to that update he wrote this letter, which is full of certain hope for uncertain times.
The main hope that Paul holds out there for these believers and for us is the hope of the return of Christ. No other letter that Paul wrote talks more about the return of Christ. Jesus is coming back. It could be today. That hope is so real that he closes every one of the five chapters with a reference to the second coming of Jesus.
1 Thessalonians 1:9-10, They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead-Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.
1 Thessalonians 2:19, For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you?
1 Thessalonians 3:13, May God strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.
1 Thessalonians 4:17, After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. As so we will be with the Lord forever.
1 Thessalonians 5:23, May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus is coming again people and we're closer to his return now than any generation has ever been. Are you excited about seeing him face to face? Are you ready for his return? Paul finishes his letter by telling us how to get ready. He tells us to be alert and self-controlled. And then goes on to tell us in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-22 what self-control looks like, that high voltage passage we looked at last week. It looks like being joyful always. Praying continually. Giving thanks in all circumstances. Not putting out the Spirit's fire or ignoring the Word of God. Testing everything. Holding on to the good. Avoiding every kind of evil.
That's God's will for us and that's God's Word to us. That's extreme Christian living. But how do we pull that off? How do we pump up that kind of lifestyle? If you're like me you might be thinking, "I can't do all that! That's just not me! I'm not perfect." If you feel that way, you're absolutely right. That isn't you and that isn't me either. That's why it has to be a God thing. That's why it's God's work in us.
Look at 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24, May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.
He will do it! God will do it! The God of peace is committed to overhauling our lives. And he's got a big job on his hands with every single one of us. But he's not going to quit on you or on me, even though we often quit on him. He's committed to sanctifying us through and through. He's working on our spirit and on our soul and on our body so that when Jesus comes back we won't be ashamed or embarrassed at his coming, but we'll be blameless in his sight.
God is head over heels in love with you. Do you realize that? And God's a jealous lover, he's a hopeless romantic, who never stops courting us, never stops wooing us, never stops pursuing us. He's not like your average husband who gives up the chase the day he says, "I do." For God, the chase is never over. He keeps coming towards you and me. He is, as John Eldredge writes in his book The Sacred Romance , a wild lover.
I love the quote by Simon Tugwell that Eldredge includes in his chapter on "God the Ageless Romancer." Tugwell says, "So long as we imagine that it is we who have to look for God, we must often lose heart. But it is the other way about. He is looking for us. And so we can afford to recognize that very often we are not looking for God, far from it, we are in full flight from him, in high rebellion against him. And he knows that and has taken it into account. Yet he has followed us into our own darkness. There where we thought finally to escape him, we run straight into his arms. So we do not have to erect a false piety for ourselves, to give us the hope of salvation. Our hope is in his determination to save us, and he will not give in."
The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it. We're not called to live this extreme Christian life alone. God is working in us. He is orchestrating circumstances around us, good things and bad things. He allows struggles to come into our lives to show us how much we need him. He's giving us opportunities like this to hear his voice and chances to be in community with others who love him too. But we have a choice to make, like any lover, we can either run from him in fear and rebellion or we can run towards his embrace of love.
God himself is out to sanctify us. That word sanctify or sanctification is a big word in the Bible and you need to know it. So let me explain it to you. Here's a little Theology 101. Literally, the Greek word sanctify means "to set apart or to make holy." It's the word from which we get our word saint. God is out to make us holy, to make us saints. That sounds scary, I know! When we think of holy most of us don't think of ourselves. We think of priests and monks and monasteries. "They're holy, not me. And I'm not sure I want to be, right?"
Well, too bad, if you're a believer in Jesus Christ God says you are already holy, you are a saint. You're set apart because you're in the family of God. That is your position right now and that's often called positional sanctification. It's true of every believer no matter how you're living your life right now.
Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 6:11, But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
Hebrews 10:10 says, We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Our English word "saint" comes from this word sanctify. And get this, if you're a believer in Jesus Christ you are a saint. Right now! You may not be living like it, but you are one. Often Paul addresses Christians as saints. Like in Philippians 1:1, Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi. Paul's not writing that letter to dead people who did two miracles and were canonized for it. He's writing to living people, who are the product of God's miraculous grace, believers in Jesus. Christians are saints. So how does it feel to be a saint? From now on you can call me Saint Bruce! That's positional sanctification.
The second aspect of sanctification is practical sanctification. Which simply means that just because we're called saints we don't always live like saints, do we? Sometimes, to be honest, we live like the devil. Practical sanctification is the ongoing work of God in your life and in my life right now. This is spiritual growth. This is the process of becoming more like Jesus. This is the three steps forward and the two steps backward dance that we all do. This is God's work to make you a better lover, a better parent, a better spouse, a better friend, a better business person, a better student.
This is what the apostle Peter writes about in 1 Peter 1:15-16, But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do. For it is written, "Be holy, because I am holy."
In positional sanctification no one believer is more sanctified than any other. We're all saints in God's eyes. But in practical sanctification no two believers are exactly a like. We're all at different places in the process. And this is where God is the relentless lover of our souls. He will not quit in his efforts to make us more like Jesus. That's practical sanctification.
The third aspect of sanctification is perfect sanctification. That is when our positional sanctification and our practical sanctification finally converge. That's when we finally act like the saints we really are. And that will come when we see Jesus face to face. Then we will be like him. And that will happen when Jesus comes at the rapture of the church.
The apostle John says in 1 John 3:1-3, How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in them purify themselves, just as he is pure.
That's perfect sanctification! It just doesn't get any better than that! That's certain hope for uncertain times.
How do we become holy? How do we become like Jesus? Everything we looked at in this book hinges on those four little words at the end of verse 24, he will do it. If we're going to be certain of our faith like we talked about in chapter one. God will do it. If we're going to build a life that lasts like we talked about in chapter two. God will do it. If we're going to handle the pain that comes into our lives like we talked about in chapter three. God will do it. If we're going to please God in our sex life and in our work life like we talked about in chapter four. God will do it. If we're going to live with that sense of anticipation of Christ's return like we talked about in chapter five. God will do it. If we're going to be the kind of leaders we talked about a few weeks ago. God will do it.
The Christian life is not about pumping as hard as we can to do these things. It's about keeping our hand on the handle and letting God pump his life through us. Let the river flow. Let the river flow. Holy Spirit come. Move in power.
So then what's our job in this whole process of practical sanctification? If God's going to do it, what do we have to do? Do we just sit back and let it happen? Is it kind of like going to the barbershop or to the beauty salon and telling the stylist what we want done to our hair and then sitting back and just letting it happen? Is that what spiritual growth is like? Well, yes and no.
In one sense I have nothing to do with it. God will do it. It's his work in me and I can rest in that. Yet in another sense I have everything to do with it. I need to put myself in that chair. I need to put myself in a place where God can do his work in me. Places like worship and the Word, like right here. Places like community with other believers and solitude alone with God. Places where I'm serving God and others and even hard places where I'm suffering. That's the chair where the changes take place.
Some of us are trying really hard to break a habit or an addiction, but we're getting frustrated because we're not on the sanctification plan, we're on the self-improvement plan. We're trying to do it ourselves. We're trying to cut our own hair. We're not putting ourselves in those places where God can do it. Yet he keeps calling us there. The sanctification plan is when we put ourselves in the chair, where God not only addresses the habit that we want to kick, but the anxiety and the fear and the pride that drive the habit. It's the place where God grows us. That's keeping our hand on the handle. That's writing the check.
Paul ends his letter by asking for prayer. The most powerful Christ follower who ever lived was not beyond the need for prayer. Look at verses 25-28, Brothers and sisters, pray for us. 26 Greet all God's people with a holy kiss. A kiss on the cheek was a customary greeting in that day and an outward expression of Christian love.27 I charge you before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers and sisters. 28 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
God loves each one of us more than we know. And he wants to grow us so that we look more and more like Jesus. And that's his work. And he will faithfully pursue it. All we need to do is put ourselves in places where he can do his work in our lives.
Whenever I think of the work of the Holy Spirit's work I think of the little boy whose Dad found him one day trying to lift up a heavy stone. The kid pushed and pulled and struggled to get the boulder to move. But it was too heavy and it just wouldn't budge. And just when he was about to give up his Dad said, "Son, are you using all your strength?" "Sure am," he said. "No you're not," his Dad said. "I've been standing here the whole time and you haven't asked me to help!" The Holy Spirit is like that Dad. He stands ready to help us move the boulders out of our lives. All we need to do is ask him.