Called for a purpose - Sanctification

1 Thessalonians 4:1-5:3 from the daily reading in the One Year Bible

Finally then, brethren, we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do walk), that you excel still more. ² For you know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. ³ For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; ⁴ that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, ⁵ not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God; ⁶ and that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you. ⁷ For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification. ⁸ So, he who rejects this is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.

⁹ Now as to the love of the brethren, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another; ¹⁰ for indeed you do practice it toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, to excel still more, ¹¹ and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you, ¹² so that you will behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need.

¹³ But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. ¹⁴ For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. ¹⁵ For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. ¹⁶ For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷ Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. ¹⁸ Therefore comfort one another with these words.

5 Now as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you. ² For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. ³ While they are saying, “Peace and safety!” then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape.

In today’s text it says:  God has not called us for the purpose of impurity, but in sanctification. So, he who rejects this is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.  Our salvation is a matter of faith. It is believing in Jesus and the cross for the forgiveness of our sins. That salvation and our reconciliation to God happens the moment we believe. But, having believed we are called for a purpose. Part of that purpose is to walk in sanctification. The text says:  We request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God. For you know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God.   If we continue in sin after receiving salvation by grace, if we embrace the same lustful passions as the world, we are rejecting God. How can we expect to have and walk in God’s blessing and His promises if we reject Him?

There are many today who expect that we should walk in the fullness of the power of the Holy Spirit; that like Jesus and like the early church we should experience miracles, signs and wonders. We should see blind eyes opened, lame healed to walk. We should speak to cancer and it should be removed. We should have the authority and power to raise the dead. It is true, we should. In John 14:12-14 Jesus says:  “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father. Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.”    Our ability to walk in the fullness of the power of the Holy Spirit is not based on our goodness or our righteousness. The level of power in our lives is not determined by how good we are. In truth, it is not about us at all. Jesus says:   “Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do.”  In truth it is not we who do it. It is Jesus and He does it so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. How can we expect that Jesus will do the works He did through us, if we have rejected God?   The text says:  He who rejects this is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.  We are given the Holy Spirit. We are given the power to do the works of Jesus, not in ourselves but in Him. Perhaps the greatest miracle of Jesus life was that He walked in a body of flesh like we do. He experienced emotions and thoughts with a human mind like we do; Hebrews 4;15 says:  We do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.   That is perhaps the greatest work of Jesus that we can hope to do. It too, walking without sin, is not something we can do on our own, but if we ask Him, He will do it.  

Today’s text ends saying:   Now as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you. For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. While they are saying, “Peace and safety!” then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape.    The early church walked in the power of the Holy Spirit in part because they truly believed that every day could be the day that Jesus would return. Many today have been lulled, by two thousand years of waiting, into complacency, into peace and safety in the world. Two thousand years should not change our desire to walk in the sanctification of Christ. We too should expect that Jesus would return today. In truth, we should be the Christ that the world sees today. We should walk in all that Jesus did. We should do it so that the Father may be glorified in the Son; remembering what Jesus said:    “If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.”   

Heavenly Father, Lord Jesus Christ; precious Holy Spirit; thank You for the grace by which I am saved. Thank You for giving me the Holy Spirit, that I can walk in sanctification, ever closer to You. Thank You for the power and the promise that You will do great works in and through me. May I do the first and greatest work, to walk in temptation without sin, through Christ in me.  Amen.