What are the three tenses of sanctification? What is God's part? What is your part?
The Great Necessity For Me to Experience the Fullness of Sanctification
1 Thessalonians 5:19-24
(Children's Sheet for Sermon Interaction is at bottom. Notes are throughout sermon)
Pastor Kerry Kinchen, Bridgeway Bible Church
Please turn in your Bibles, with me to 1 Thessalonians 5:19-24. As you are turning there, I want to introduce this sermon by saying that I know that most of us here read our Bibles regularly. Some of us have what is called a "quiet time." It is where you set aside time each day to read the word of God, and pray. Many of us here are probably inclined to read inspirational, and Christian oriented books, and articles. We listen to various Christian speakers, and teachers, through media and other means. We are doing this very thing now. I also know that in these times, sooner or later, we read and hear all kinds of things about the Holy Spirit. We know that the Holy Spirit is a person. The Holy Spirit is a He. He is the third person of the One God, who is triune in being. We also know that the Holy Spirit does miraculous things. The Holy Spirit is working among God's creation, and He is working in God's people. One way that the Holy Spirit does this work is through His word. Through the word of God, the Holy Spirit has an intimate instructional conversation with us; if we will listen to Him. He wants us to care about what He says, as if it is the most important thing we will ever hear. The reasons for this are many. For one, God thinks His words are important. He tells us that they are. And so in the simplest way of looking at it, when the Holy Spirit has spoken, we should show interest, attention, and hunger, for every word and detail, because the reality is that the words of God really are the most important words you will ever hear. Just the origin of the word of God is amazing to think about. The word of God comes from an existence that is set apart from the world culture around us. The word of God comes from God, who is Spirit. The Spirit's words are light, and it takes children of light to see them and understand them. And the Spirit makes sure that we do. In His intimate relationship with us, He enables us to see and understand. It is where that which comes from that other place of the great perfection of God, is then brought to you, and it changes you forever to be sanctified from the darkness and ignorance of God and His will. This morning we are going to examine some of these very important things as we study some parting comments of Paul to the Thessalonians. Let's read our text, starting with verse 19,
"19 Do not quench the Spirit; 20 do not despise prophetic utterances. 21 But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; 22 abstain from every form of evil. 23 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. 24 Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass." 1 Thessalonians 5:19-24
Please prepare your heart to learn, along with me, from the preaching of God's word, in this sermon titled,
The Great Necessity For Me to Experience the Fullness of Sanctification
[pray]
In salvation, it is necessary to be sanctified. We have talked about this before. I preached aspects of this when we were working through 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8. We have also looked at the meaning of the word sanctify. It means to be holy. To be a sanctified one, or to be a holy person, is to be someone who is called a saint--A saint is someone who is set apart in Christ. The Biblical words--sanctified, sanctification, holy, holiness, consecration, being a saint--are all translated from the same Greek word. They all mean to be set apart, or, one who is set apart, or like the command; be separated. It describes God setting people, or things, apart. It can be seen as people setting something apart. And it can be seen in you setting yourself apart. This is why I will usually use the definitional phrase "set apart" in place of sanctified, and holy, and I will say "set apart ones" for saints, when I am conversing, preaching, and writing. Doing this is like what the Amplified Bible does. It makes it easier to understand the archaic language. There is something else that God wants us Christians to know about being set apart. They are the various aspects of being set apart that God has determined to occur for His people. To experience the various aspects of sanctification, we must abide by certain things. All the things have to do with the Christian life, and the fullness of the Spirit filled life. This morning we are going to learn about four things that have to do with the great necessity for us to experience the fullness of sanctification.
/1/
This leads us to the first cluster of things that are necessary. The grouping forms the first point, as found in 19-21, where Paul says,
"19 Do not quench the Spirit; 20 do not despise prophetic utterances. 21 But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good;" 1 Thessalonians 5:19-21
@1 God wants me to examine everything carefully and hold fast to that which is ______________. (1 Thessalonians 5:19-21)
To experience the various aspects of sanctification, we must not quench the Spirit. In other words, you must not hinder the work of the person of the Holy Spirit in your midst and in your heart in respect to God's word. When you do, you are throwing water on the Spirit, and instead of the Holy Spirit continuously filling you, and instead of the Holy Spirit flowing out of you, you are being full of yourself and your own personal ideas, where you are flowing your self all over the Spirit and His work. The unsaved do this, but so do saved people; and this is why Paul makes this urging. We must be careful not to think we can not, or, are not, doing this too. In Thessalonica, the temptation to despise prophetic utterances as the precepts and decrees of God, was evidently a danger. Failure to recognize, discern, and act, upon God's word is one of the greatest dangers that any of us Christians face; and I don't say that lightly. For the Thessalonians, the New Testament was not finished, yet the Spirit was speaking to them the needed revelation through the apostolic prophets, and the Old Testament prophets.
When it comes to New Testament Scripture, this Thessalonian's epistle is actually considered the earliest one. And so, for the emerging church, the prophets (which were the preaching-apostles and those prophets recorded in the Old Testament) were the sources of knowing the revelation of God for proper discipleship in New Covenant truth. Paul recognized this importance, and wanted to make sure the Thessalonians were grounded in it to the fullest extent as well. We remember that when Paul and Silvanus left Thessalonica, they went directly to Berea, and it was there in Berea, that Paul saw men doing what Paul wishes the Thessalonians would do. We read of the account in Acts 17,
10 The brothers immediately sent Paul and [Silvanus] Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews.
[Now I want us to pay special attention to what is said next. It is so important;]
"11 Now these [Bereans] were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so. 12 Therefore many of them believed, ... 13 ... the word of God had been proclaimed by Paul in Berea" Acts 17:10-13
In Acts 17 we read that Paul commended the Bereans as being more noble minded than the Thessalonians because they examined the prophetic utterances of the apostles in accord with the Old Testament to see if what was being said was good--was true. The Bereans were eagerly doing what it took to get grounded in the truth. We should all be eagerly doing what it takes to get grounded in this too. Paul repeats the importance of the revelations that the apostles proclaimed in Ephesians 2:19-20, where he says that saved people,
"... are of God's household, 20 having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, ..." Ephesians 2:19-20
Christ being the Chief, there is no other foundational ministry revelation for the church than the apostles and prophets. With the weight of this in mind, we realize, then, that to extinguish the Spirit is to extinguish the inspiration, where the Spirit is talking, and so whenever someone diminishes any aspect of God's word, they are diminishing what is important to God, Who is the builder of the household upon the solid foundation. Whenever someone diminishes any aspect of God's word, what they are doing is purposely walking away from God while He is talking. When it is put this way, we immediately think;
How rude!
But to walk away from our Lord while He is talking to us, is more than rudeness. It is to quench the Spirit concerning what the Spirit thinks is important and good. The Spirit indicates to us that,
"16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; 17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work." 2 timothy 3:16-17
@2 God gives us the Bible so that we will be ________________ for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)
Scripture is simply prophetic revelation written down. It is both uttered, and it is written. "All" of it, which means every single dot and tittle, is profitable, and good. Neither the utterance, nor the writing, should be despised, or ignored; or as some sinfully do today, be considered irrelevant. Now think about relevance for a moment:
Can you imagine Moses standing before the burning bush, and God is talking, and Moses says something like,
"Well that is all nice and fine, but what I really want to know is if all of this is relevant?"
Or think about Paul being carried into the third heaven in his mystical experiences where God is talking to Him, and Paul thinks to himself,
"This is really an amazing experience, and so much of what I am hearing is mind blowing, but is it really relevant?"
To even suggest such reactions makes us cringe with the absurdity of such irreverent scenarios. When Eve was in the garden, she actually did decide to contemplate which part of God's utterance was relevant to her or not. So did Adam. What I am saying seems so easy to understand, but this is what people are really doing in their own experiences with the Holy Spirit when they consider His word to them to be irrelevant. This reminds me of a man I know who goes to a culturally driven church here in San Antonio. He came to me a couple of weeks ago, and he said that he had a concern that there were multitudes of people in his church who were ignorant of basic biblical doctrines. He wanted to do something about it, so he said he wanted to approach "the leadership," with an idea for a discipleship class that grounds people in some important fundamentals of the faith. He asked what I suggested for such a class. I began sharing some ideas of what I would teach, which is what I preach. They were basic doctrines of the Bible, particularly New Covenant revelation for the body of Christ. As I was talking about the various things, he interrupted me, and said that he wanted to make sure that what he would teach would be "things that were relevant." What I told him is needed, then, is a teaching on what God considers relevant from His prophetic word, in contrast to what Christians want to think is relevant. I told him that such a class would be a good class to start with. I explained to Him what I have been preaching this morning--that God's Bible is relevant in every single ordained word. I told Him that the fullness of God's revelation is relevant because that is what God says despite anyone else's theories are on the matter. The irony is that the particular culture driven church that the man goes to is already expressing their own views of what relevant is supposed to mean, and that is why so many there are lacking in basics of Christian doctrinal understanding. They keep looking for what they want to think is relevant, and here is the point--they've already found it embodied in their culturally driven church. What is even more disturbing, is that I just found out that the same man has decided to support his wife's decision to unbiblically be a Pastor. Biblically, women are not qualified to be pastors, and so this very odd action on his part, and his wife's part, confirms that the man himself is in dire need to learn the relevancy of all of God's prophetic revelation on the matter, examining it carefully and making sure he relentlessly holds fast to it as the good that should be driving his actions, and the actions of his wife. The point is, folks, that your doctrine will drive your actions, and your view of relevancy concerning all of God's "good" words, is one of your doctrines. Some of what drives you, might be man made doctrines, based upon your philosophical preference of what you think is important, but nevertheless, it is doctrine that you have which drives your actions, and so your fruits (not the Spirit's) will follow. Actually, this is a really big problem that all of us must to be careful not to embrace. The problem comes in (and has come into the church from the world culture) because Christians have told the Holy Spirit that His prophetic word is irrelevant in certain areas, and so what has happened is that many in the church among our generation start down this same insidious road, with the result that they are in a continuous state of extinguishing the Holy Spirit; and many Christians look around and act surprised, or act like they don't understand what is happening. Paul wanted to make sure that this did not happen to the Thessalonians. We need to make sure this doesn't happen to us. We need to make sure this does not happen in our families. We need to make sure this does not happen in our church. Paul says,
"Do not quench the Spirit."
which means that your God is telling you,
"Do not quench Me."
Using something that the Thessalonians would be familiar with, if you were in their culture, when you would think of quenching something, you would think of extinguishing, or dousing out the fire of a lamp, the fire of an earthen stove, or a country side campfire. Listen to me carefully, because this is so important--In your discipleship, where you are learning about the things of God, and in your fellowship, where you share the things of God, and in your ministry, and in your daily living, where you manifest God to the world, the flame of God can be quickly washed out by thinking certain vital aspects of God's eternal revelation are irrelevant to you or others around you. You douse the needed flame that has the power, and so you might not even think you are doing it, but you are extinguishing the Spirit's work in your life and the life of the other members of the body in what God thinks is relevant. The results of these extinguishing judgments, is that Christians, who think they are being led by the Spirit, are actually walking according to the flesh, which is what they were delivered from in the first place. The result is lack of true Spiritual discernment, a sick church, and those who are causing the sickness keep spreading the disease throughout the body. Some even divorce from the body as a result. Here is the irony (and we must be careful not to fall into it)--because of the way they have handled God's meeting with them, where He has intimately spoken through His Scriptures, they refuse to quench their own personal opinion; they fail to examine their own personal revelation carefully, and so they hold fast to that which is bad, false, and detrimental, even though they think it is good. So, when Paul says don't quench the Spirit, he means:
a) Embrace all of God's words, whether they be what you think is irrelevant or not.
b) Repent from (which means turn from) anything that quenches the Spirit, which is anything that is activity that is contrary to the words of God.
Really, all we are doing, when we do this, is properly honoring the Spirit. Paul says that the good news word of God, was not brought by the apostles as mere words of men, but it came with power, and the person of the Holy Spirit, and with the full conviction of the apostles. Our reaction to the miraculous word of God should be that we do not take it for granted, in full conviction. We should act like the sacred weight of being spoken to by the Holy God of the universe has been pressed into our lives as the most important words that exist, in full conviction. It is our duty, (enabled by the same Spirit,) to examine everything carefully, and we must hold fast to all of God's word, with full conviction.
The Spirit speaks to the lost too, and unless the same Spirit empowers them, they will reject that which is good. In Hebrews 6, we see how people taste of the Spirit by hearing the word of God,
"... those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God ..." Hebrews 6:4-5
Hebrews 6 goes on to explain that if the unsaved Hebrews of that first generation, after being enlightened in a taste of the good news, reject it, and continue to rely upon a temple system for their justification instead of the fullness in the New Covenant in Messiah, then they have despised the prophetic utterance. They have quenched the Spirit in their lostness, and demonstrated that they remained lost all along. They are apostate Hebrews who do as Stephen prophetically uttered in Acts 17,
"... You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit;" Acts 17:51
For the unsaved, to resist the Spirit by resisting the good word of God is to continue to quench the Spirit, where the gospel has been brought in power. Then there are God's children in Christ Jesus. We receive the Spirit willingly, and He seals us. It is when you are saved as a miracle. And so, throughout the rest of our saved lives, not quenching the Spirit in your walk; not despising prophetic utterances, examining everything carefully, and holding fast to that which is good, is how you grow spiritually. With this in mind, all these things can be understood in terms of two main issues:
The first is spiritual discernment.
The other is simple obedience.
Both are based on the word. When you and I are saved, God wants us to radiate the Christian life of the Spirit in discernment and obedience. When we are lacking in these two areas, we quench Him and His fruit does not come out in a ripened bounty. Paul, (speaking to us Christians), calls it grieving the Holy Spirit in Ephesians 4:30,
"Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed ..." Ephesians 4:30
@3 I should try not to _____________ the Holy Spirit of God. (Ephesians 4:30)
All of these things minister something to us that we need, don't they? The Spirit is telling us that we need to be familiar with the word of God in the first place in order to examine everything carefully in the second place. We must be learning if we are discerning. Further, we must be careful with anyone who talks to us and says that they are sharing God's word with us. We must be discerning what we are learning. The point is that we learn, discern, and we obey. But, in knowing this, we must be careful. What I mean is that in the great necessity for me to experience the fullness of sanctification, I must understand that sanctification and discernment, involves, (in a necessary way), something that the Spirit is doing as part of His miracle work. We can not sanctify ourselves by ourselves, in our own power. Further, we do not have discernment just because we are smart. To explain what I mean, I want us to think about the unsaved, and the saved again. I want us to think about the unsaved, and the saved, because there are various tenses of sanctification.
/2/
This is the second thing I am wanting to bring out for the great necessity for us to experience the fullness of sanctification. It has to do with the very important work of first being saved by God. This is the most important sanctification to experience. I will call it the setting apart of people by God as A. It is from sanctification "A" that we go through the alphabet to get to "Z" sanctification. The A starting point is found in verse 24,
"24 Faithful is He who calls you, ..." 1 Thessalonians 5:24
This is your own personal Genesis where God speaks you into existence of spiritual life in Christ. In the beginning God calls us out. What this means is that God sets you apart from the lost world by His effectual call in the Son. We read in 1 Peter,
"1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those ... who are elect 2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying [setting apart] work of the Spirit, [for a reason that must occur, which is] to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood:" 1 Peter 1:1-2
The necessity of this initial sanctification is your salvation, and you can not do this yourself. God must do this. It is the initial sanctification where you are set apart from the body of Adam, and reborn into the body of Christ. If we are not set apart by God in salvation, then we are dead in our sins and we are enslaved to sin in the evil domain of darkness. We are lost, and in lostness, we experience the dark sanctification, where we are set apart from God and are doomed to eternal destruction. And so, for salvation, we must be delivered from the domain of darkness, and placed by God, into the Kingdom of Christ in the family of God, as the church, which is the body of Christ. Think about this glorious sanctification as,
"He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son," Colossians 1:13
@4 Salvation is a rescue, where I am transferred to the __________________ Of Jesus Christ, God's Son. (Colossians 1:13)
In this process, God set you apart and gave you the discernment to understand and embrace the gospel by grace through faith. This is the initial spiritual sanctification which is of vital importance as what I will call getting to A.
/3/
This leads to the next tense of our sanctification, which is the next thing we need to learn in respect to the great necessity for me to experience the fullness of sanctification. It has to do with what you are called to do once you are set apart by the Spirit, and transferred to the kingdom of Christ. You and I, as spiritually saved people, are called to
"... hold fast to that which is good;" 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22
This is the doing side of your Christianity that is right back in there with discernment (from the word) and obedience. This is where you and I are called to, motivated to, and empowered by the Spirit, to accomplish good deeds of the faith. This daily tense of sanctification is something that you do, but you can only do it because the Spirit empowers you to do so. In our daily present tense of being set apart, God wants us to set ourselves apart from what is bad by discerning, and holding fast, to that which is good. We can think of this as being the whole rest of the alphabet, as we move toward the end, which is Z.
That which is good, is best seen in what is known as classic Christianity. Now a lot of folks will debate over what classic Christianity is, and what it is not, but there is New Covenant teaching that is at the fundamental level of basics that virtually all agree fall in line with classic Christianity. Holding fast to that which is good in respect to prophetic utterances is safely done in recognizing, believing, discerning, and holding fast to the fact that: the Bible is the written revelation of God, complete and sufficient in all respects. It is classic Christianity, to discern in examination, that the Scriptures are God-breathed and therefore fully authoritative in and of themselves as the prophetic utterance that is the Word of God. The Scriptures, as they embody the very speaking of God, partake of His authority, His power, and the Spirit. It is classic Christianity, to discern in examination, that there is one true and eternal God, unchanging, unchangeable. God is the Creator of all that exists that has been created. God has all power, all knowledge, all wisdom, and is due all glory, honor and praise. The Bible teaches that there is only one being of God, yet there are three Persons who share this one being of God: the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Each Person is fully and completely God, each is described in Scripture as possessing the attributes of God. It is classic Christianity, to discern in examination, that man was created in the image of God. Man rebelled against His Creator, and fell into sin. As a result, man became spiritually dead. It is classic Christianity, to discern in examination, that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died in the place of sinful people, providing full and complete forgiveness of the sins of specific people by His death upon the cross by grace through faith. It is classic Christianity, to discern in examination, that no other work can provide for forgiveness of sins, and no additional merit performed earns continuous salvation. It is classic Christianity, to discern in examination, that Jesus Christ is both Savior and Lord. His state of being is both. As Savior, Christ is Lord of the church. As Lord of the church, He is also its Savior. It is classic Christianity, to discern in examination, that the New Testament prophets tell the body how to live and act in respect to their Lord and Savior. These are all classically Christian things that are the good things that we glean from the prophetic utterances of the New Testament prophets, including Jesus Himself. As God's people, we are to discern these things as good.
Among the Thessalonians, there evidently was a problem that some people had with Paul, Silvanus, and then later with Timothy, in respect to some things spoken concerning the prophetic word of God. Paul wants to quickly make it clear, that when it comes to God's word from His prophetic messengers, it should not be treated with the same irreverence as the words of men. However, Paul also counseled his readers to test prophetic utterances according to proper discernment. In so doing, they should retain everything that passed the examination. Keeping in mind that the Bereans did this, only weeks later after Paul left Thessalonica, Paul wanted to see the same thing happen among the Thessalonians. Surely Paul was confident that the Thessalonians would find all of what Paul preached to be good. For us today, this means that we should also compare Scriptural teachings with Scripture. With this in mind, there is more to classic Christianity for us to retain too, especially in respect to the Lordship aspect of who our Savior is. It has to do with what Paul says next, which is to,
'2 abstain from every form of evil." 1 Thessalonians 2:22
@5 God wants me to not be involved in any form of ________________. (1 Thessalonians 5:22)
Obedience to this command flows from true, saving faith in empowerment by the Spirit. Yet at the same time, God never says that sinless obedience, is necessary to gain justification before God. Justification comes by God's grace through faith alone, so that no man can boast. God's prophetic word reveals to us that good works are the outworking of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, Who works out His Law of Love through us. This is what it means to be obedient to the Savior of your life, Who is the Lord of your life. The outworking of the great New Covenant law of love for God and love for others is the main theme of the present tense aspect of being set apart in Christ, for Christ. To abstain from every form of evil, then, is to set yourself apart (sanctify yourself) from anything that shows a lack of love for God and others.
I've gone round and round with folks who want to tell me that when you get saved, then you automatically know what to do because you have the Holy Spirit, and somehow, the Spirit mystically convicts you, without the word of revelation, of the proper way to love God and love others. Yes, the Spirit causes us to love. Yes, God shed His love in our hearts, but, God gave us the prophetic utterances to know the proper way to manifest this love. The way we know how to act, and think, is by examining the Scriptures and holding fast to all New Covenant prophecy for the body of Christ. This is called Bible based discernment which is grounded on that which is good. It is in, and through, God's word, that we know what evil is in the first place, and then from there, we know to abstain from it. The Holy Spirit changes us so that we finally accept it and discern it. You are no longer a slave to sin, but you are now a slave to righteousness, and so now we learn about the teachings, precepts, and equipping for righteousness as the good, then we hold fast to it as that which is best, and then we do the word, by the enabling power of the Spirit.
/4/
This leads us to recognize the fourth and final thing this morning, that we need to learn in respect to the great necessity for me to experience the fullness of sanctification. It is that God is the One Who does this in us by His Spirit, which empowers us to outwork it. We are God's people, and so you and I are the one's who obey Him in our sanctification, but let's look at what Paul says,
"23 {And the} God of peace Himself
set you apart entirely;
and your spirit, soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass." 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
@6 In Christ in salvation, God makes sure we are saved forever without ______________ for any sin. (1 Thessalonians 5:19-24)
A lot of legalistic kinds of people miss this; especially people who don't understand that salvation is a miracle. There is a real inner change that the God of peace Himself does in His action of setting us apart. We already know that God sets us apart from the world entirely in supernatural sanctification of being born again. It is initial salvation. This spiritual sanctification occurs in God's Son, and means that you are eternally secure in your salvation. You can not lose it. You are set apart in the Righteous Set Apart One; and when you die, God will make sure you are set apart again, (in the most perfect sense of the word), in the afterlife, where every tear will be wiped away, and where sin and death will be eradicated from your life forever as you live with the King of glory in eternal perfection. This is the sanctification at the end, which is Z, which is really a new beginning. Paul is using a common blessing pronouncement that is found in a lot of His epistles, where he says, "God set you apart." Paul does not say, "May" God set you apart, because the word "may" is not in the Greek. He means that God does and will set you apart, in his blessing ending comments of this epistle.
Paul also says that God will set apart the Christian reader's spirit, soul, and body, and it will be preserved complete at the parousia, which is the coming of the Lord. I don't want to confuse you with particulars but we need to know that all throughout the epistles, spirit and soul are used in certain instances as interchangeable words. Sometimes they mean personality, or something along that general line, but typically they simply mean "the life of the person" in a broad definition. Some people think we are a dichotomy. What they mean is that we are comprised of a body as one part, and the other part is the spirit which is really the soul. After studying these things, I still believe that Paul is saying that we are a trichotomy. In other words, I think Paul is clearly stating that he believes that people are made up of three distinct parts, yet as one person. I do not think he is repeating himself by saying the word "spirit," which is pneuma, and then "soul," which is psuche like he means the same thing by each different Greek word, and then finally your "body," which is soma in the Greek. I think that Paul knows, through divine revelation, that we are somehow a composite of three distinct aspects in our humanity, and he is voicing it as a prophetic utterance; and whether we completely understand it, or not, we hold fast to the way it is stated as good, true and relevant. The distinction is also found in Hebrews 4:12, between the body, soul, and spirit.
"12 For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart." Hebrews 4:12
The writer even mentions the heart in his point. Because of the fact that people think they know, but nobody is really completely sure of what the distinctions always are, (except, of course the physical body), I like to stay with the reference that Paul uses for the "inner man," as the general label that covers the soul, spirit, and heart. Paul talk's about the law of God in the inner man in Romans 7:22. In 2 Corinthians 4:16
"... though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day." 2 Corinthians 4:16
Paul says that he wishes that God would grant the Ephesians
"... to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man," Ephesians 3:16
The main point is that God, in His comprehensive setting apart work concerning His people, will preserve us in all aspects of our being, complete, or as can be just as legitimately translated--preserved whole, undivided, and perfect. God also preserves you "without blame." What this means is that in your salvation, you are the spotless bride, without blemish. Christ makes you that way, no matter what sins you have done. Christ makes you the righteousness of God in Himself. It is God's work to preserve us whole, and blameless, and He makes sure that He does. Grace is really grace from A to Z. We know this is what Paul is talking about because of Paul's soothing punctuation point at the end of the statement of sanctifying security in our salvation, where Paul says,
"24 Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass."
Everyone who is saved is completely secure. God Who is the author and finisher of faith, is more faithful than we are. It is the great sanctification, where God who calls you, is the faithful one to make sure your sanctification is complete, and that you will experience that last and final act of sanctification. It may happen after we die. It may happen at the coming of Christ. The big take home point is that we are eternally secure, and after we leave this world behind in the eternal setting apart of being in our next state of being, we will be perfect, complete, sinless, and at peace in a perfect place forever and ever. Our Father who called each one of us to this, is the one who is faithful, and he will absolutely bring it to pass. Paul says the same thing to the Philippians,
"6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ" Philippians 1:6
@7 God Who _____________ a good work in me in salvation, will complete it Himself so that I am once saved always saved. (Philippians 1:6)
Praise God that through His work of sanctification, He is the One who completes what is necessary by perfectly accomplishing His work in us!
I urge all of us this morning to be thankful to God for His revelation of the great necessity for us to experience the fullness of sanctification. Let's be making it our ambition to not quench the Spirit. Our habit should be to revere God's word as our life sustaining food. We should think of it as the most important information to be found anywhere. We should recognize that it is all completely relevant in every single little detail--even the parts we don't understand. God's church is built upon this foundation, and we are His church. Prayer and praise is our audience with God where we are uttering to Him. God's word is where He has an audience with us too, and it is there that utterances are spoken to us out of love. All of God's word is inspired by Him, and all of it is profitable for teaching us, for reproving us, for correcting us, and for training us in righteousness, so that as men and women of God, we will be adequate, sanctified, and equipped for every good work. God wants you to operate in true discernment. The Holy Spirit is telling us to repent from anything that quenches the Spirit. I urge you to recognize salvation for what it really is. Ask yourself:
Am I really saved?
God saves you, and not you. The Scriptures proclaim that we are saved by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ as the sacrifice for sins, and the resurrection. He is the one who paid the penalty for sins. You can't do it. It is His work alone where he sanctifies you from lostness in the lost world. If you already have that settled, then I urge you to hold fast to that which is good in respect to God's revelation of what good is, and abstain from that which is evil, which God's revelation also explains. Live according to classic Christianity. This is pleasing to the Spirit. Finally, I urge you, once again, to find great comfort in the fact that God will make sure that you are set apart entirely, preserved complete in the end of your life on earth. He will bring it to pass. amen.
@1 God wants me to examine everything carefully and hold fast to that which is ______________. (1 Thessalonians 5:19-21)
@2 God gives us the Bible so that we will be ________________ for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)
@3 I should try not to _____________ the Holy Spirit of God. (Ephesians 4:30)
@4 Salvation is a rescue, where I am transferred to the __________________ Of Jesus Christ, God's Son. (Colossians 1:13)
@5 God wants me to not be involved in any form of ________________. (1 Thessalonians 5:21:22)
@6 In Christ in salvation, God makes sure we are saved forever without blame for any sin ________________. (1 Thessalonians 5:19-24)
