Text: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
Date: December 13, 2020
Event: The Third Sunday in Advent, Year B
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24 (EHV)
16Rejoice always. 17Pray without ceasing. 18In everything give thanks. For this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 19Do not extinguish the Spirit. 20Do not treat prophecies with contempt. 21But test everything. Hold on to the good. 22Keep away from every kind of evil.
23May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.
Jesus Is Coming! The One Who Calls You Is Faithful!
It is important to trust the things and people around you, right? When your car breaks down and leaves you stranded in the middle of nowhere, you may find it hard to trust that vehicle again. A shady website promising that they have that much-sought-after Christmas present in stock while every reputable place has no stock may not be worth the risk. A husband or wife who has been cheated on may not ever be able to trust their spouse again.
If we’re going to put our trust in something or someone, be it as relatively meaningless as a company promising to deliver a present, as important as being able to reliably and safely get to the store or work in a vehicle, or as intimate as our human relationships, the other person or thing needs to instill that trust. Trust that they are reliable, will be faithful, and will be there for you when you need them.
As we continue our Advent preparations, as we continue to prepare our hearts for the return of our Savior, it’s important that we know who we are preparing for. This is not some random person who may or may not be trustworthy. This is the God who called you and has proven time and time again to be faithful.
This is Paul’s closing to his first letter to the Christians living in the city of Thessalonica. We know that Paul endured severe trial when he preached in that city. We heard a few weeks ago about how they had a lot of confusion about people’s eternal safety—they were worried that people who died before Jesus returned would be lost. So Paul’s letter is one of setting the record straight on their confusions and bringing them comfort and direction for their lives even as they wrestled with residual trouble trying to be Christians in that city.
Let’s begin by focusing on Paul’s closing words in our brief lesson this morning. Paul writes, “May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.” Paul is focusing their attention not on themselves, not on their worldly troubles (or successes), but on God.
Paul called God “the God of peace” which is an easy word to skip over. But keep in mind what a difference that is from our natural relationship with him. By nature we are at war with God, hostile to him, his enemies. We were fighting a spiritual, eternal war with God that we would never, ever win. But the God of peace made promises to change that. In just about 11 or 12 days we’ll hear the angels proclaim in joyous words as they announce the birth of the Savior to the shepherds, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward mankind” (Luke 2:14)
The God of peace is the one who ended the hostility and war between himself and sinful mankind. He ended it by sending his Son Jesus to live and die in our place. It’s exactly what he promised to do throughout the Old Testament. In our Sunday Morning Bible Class we’ve been studying various prophecies about the Savior which God gave to his Old Testament people and looking at their eventual fulfillment in the life and work of Jesus. This peace was first promised when the Satan-crushing Messiah was first promised after the fall into sin in the Garden of Eden.
So, the God of peace has sanctified you. If you have a Catechism student in your family, we just learned that as one of our Key Terms last week, sanctification. When the Holy Spirit creates faith in our hearts he sanctifies us, literally sets us apart. God, through faith in Jesus, has set you apart from the rest of the world, has set you apart from the way you would have lived before becoming a Christian. This is a fundamental shift, a fundamental change in your life. You know that you will not die in hell but live forever in heaven. You know that your sins are forgiven. You know that the Savior who was promised has come and saved you—saved the world—from sin and death. You know that no matter what happens, God’s promises remain true.
Throughout biblical history, world history, and your own personal history God has proven time and time again what Paul says here: The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it. He is faithful to every promise, up to and including keep us blameless until the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ on Judgment Day because Jesus has made us to be blameless.
What is our response to all of this overwhelming blessing? What do we do with the truths that we are forgiven, that we are the children of God rather than his hostile enemies? How does it look to be sanctified, set apart by God’s grace? It looks like this: Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks. For this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Do not extinguish the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt. But test everything. Hold on to the good. Keep away from every kind of evil.
Rejoice always. You may hear a direction like that and say, “Yeah, but...” To be clear, this doesn’t mean you have to be happy all the time. This doesn’t mean that being sad or discouraged or feeling loss is somehow wrong or sinful. It does mean that you cling to what God has done for you, knowing that this work for you is reason for eternal rejoicing. I’ll experience sadness when my trust has been violated, I’ll grieve when death separates me from a loved one, I’ll have days where I feel like gum stuck to someone’s shoe for no discernible reason. I will cry, I will feel frustrated, I will struggle to maintain perspective. But I can also maintain the joy that knows my sins are forgiven, that my God loves me, that I will be home with him forever. I will be sad in this life, but I will not despair because my God is bigger than any problem I have. Rejoice always because the one who calls is faithful.
Pray without ceasing. Your God is always listening, more willing to listen than we are to pray, more able to act than we imagine he is. Prayer, as we’ve mentioned recently, doesn’t need to be an elaborate, eloquent flow of “fancy” words. Prayer is an ongoing conversation with the God who loves you, who wants to hear your frustrations and troubles and, in fact, promises to work them all out for your good. You pray to God to praise him, to thanks him, to confess to him, and to bring your requests to him on behalf of others and for yourself. Pray without ceasing because the one listens to you and promises to answer, the one who calls, is faithful.
In everything give thanks. Here, again, nothing happens to you or to me without God’s knowledge. Nothing happens, good or bad, that God will not work for our eternal good. Which means I can rejoice and give thanks in good and troubling things. I can give thanks to God that he allowed something positive to happen. I can give thanks to God that he guided me through that very difficult time. I can give thanks to God for those times when he reminds me of my weaknesses so that I might more fully trust in his strength. In everything give thanks, because the one who calls is faithful.
Do not extinguish the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt. But test everything. Hold on to the good. Keep away from every kind of evil. God’s Word is the focal point of our lives. It is the fire of the Holy Spirit that burns brightly in our hearts. We don’t want to treat that Word with contempt, disdain, or apathy. But rather, hold on to what God says, to see his promises and fulfillments. We test everything by the measure of that Word—be it the spiritual teaching of others or the attitudes and actions of our own hearts. The Word drives us away from evil and brings us to what God deems is good. This is especially key in our Advent preparations. The only way we can be truly prepared is when we see what God says in his Word about our sinful hearts and what he says about what he’s done for our sinful hearts. In the Word we find the complete comfort God has for us. Do not extinguish the Spirit because the one who calls is faithful.
We are nearing the celebration of one of the biggest proofs of God’s faithfulness. Next week we will hear Gabriel announce to Mary that she will be with child, the child, promised for generations. The result of that child’s arrival and work means nothing short of our rescue from the pits of hell, means our soul’s eternal salvation from sin and death. We’ll see God using even the mundane and ordinary to accomplish his goals, turning the wheels of history so that he is proved faithful to every promise. In all of these things, see your God’s trustworthiness. Jesus is coming! The one who calls you is faithful! Amen.
