God's Perfect Will

God's Will, Truth, and Love in a Controversial Cultural Moment

Perfect Will, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, we'll be looking today at verses 3 through 8. And you might be thinking, well, hey, I thought we were in the Gospel of John, why are we now going to take this detour?

Well, some of you may have already heard about some comments that a really well-known public figure, a really kind of famous preacher and pastor, made recently. The comments were actually made back in September, and it was on a podcast called Truth for Life.

It is a brother in Christ, a really faithful gospel champion, a man that has been a really a gift I perceive from the Lord in helping me to think through theological matters in my life as a Christian.

It is the pastor Alistair Begg. And the pastor, Alistair Begg, gave some advice to someone that had asked him about whether you should attend gay weddings if you're a Christian, and he said, yeah, you should not only attend, but that you should bring a gift to sort of, I don't know, celebrate.

And the context of those comments were really more of, hey, we want to show love to people. And he said, he prefaced that comment with saying, you know, if you don't go, you know, they would think you're critical, you're hypocritical, you're judgmental, and he said, you know, you could catch them off guard by going and actually showing them love would surprise them and not affirm that you are critical or hypocritical or judgmental.

And so that was the advice that he gave, and since then, he has preached and kind of commented on that whole segment there. The comments were made back in September, but just, I'd say probably last month, they kind of came to the surface, and so if you haven't heard those comments, if you listen to any Christian podcast, you are going to be hearing now the fallout and this dividing line within Christendom about whether we should do that or whether we should not do that.

Now if I'm going to, so I want to make it clear, I'm not saying that Alistair Begg is a false teacher or a heretic, I do believe that the advice is sinful. I don't think it's bad advice, I think it's sinful advice.

I want to try to help us think through this in light of what the Scripture teaches us on this topic. So we're not going to go look up passages that really support what we should do based on cultural, political opinions.

I don't want us to be in the realm of what another person should do, what they should do. The Scripture speaks to us. I want us to think about what God's will is for our lives, what the will of God is for you, not for those people that are attending or not attending that wedding.

Now if I'm going to say that to Alistair Begg and his ministry at Parkside Church, then I would have to give the same kind of advice here in Laurel and Billings because I've heard the exact same thing.

It's not loving, that we have to embrace, affirm, and I want to show us what does God have to say. What is happening here in our culture? Something is going on. Is it indeed unloving to not attend that wedding?

What does it mean to stand for truth? Well, I think the problem that we have is that we have allowed the world to redefine what love is, and we've allowed the world to redefine what truth is. So we need to humble ourselves under the authoritative Word of God and listen to what the Word of God, how it defines love, how it defines truth.

And I think that will help us to think correctly. Yeah, the same kind of advice has been given here in Laurel and Billings. I've listened to many of the preaching pulpits here in town, some of the bigger churches, some of the smaller churches, same kind of advice, same exact advice.

That you're a Pharisee if you're not affirming of the LGBTQ community. That the Pharisees in the scriptures are you as a Christian if you're not willing to spend time in fellowship with the tax collectors.

The tax collectors are the LGBTQ of today, and you're a Pharisee if you don't affirm their lifestyle, because Jesus did. He fellowshiped with them. Wait a minute here. Now, let's think about that statement.

I've heard that from all of the pulpits. I have an Excel spreadsheet with every church in Billings, and most of them in Laurel, there's probably 30 to 50. I could probably count on one hand of the faithful exposition that I've heard since I've come to this town.

We are hearing this throughout this community, and so we need to think about this. This has penetrated our congregation. How are we to rightly think about these matters at the same time being loving, desiring for every person to know the Lord, not being judgmental, not being hypocritical, but being loving and sharing the truth with other people?

To help us think about this in terms of going beyond our community in the state of Montana, let me share with you some research polling. I had actually shared some statistics with the congregation back in March when we were going through Philippians, and it was statistics that were done at the University of Arizona in 2020 where we have a third to half of Christians who are affirming of same-sex marriage who support abortion.

It goes beyond just issues of, you know, morality in terms of those specific categories, but even one of the topics was lying, that there was over a third of Christians that thought it was okay to lie in order to advance your career.

So this particular area actually correlates to different areas for us. So it is important. Now I don't want to share, reshare those statistics. Actually the statistics in the last couple of years, you could probably think have they gone down or have they gone up?

Well, they haven't gone down. Those statistics are even higher now. But to see what's happening, let's look even further back. So first, let's go back even to 2007. In a Pew Research poll, pewresearch .org, you can find this information, this is 2007, 44 of Christians in the U .S. said that homosexuality should be accepted rather than discouraged by society.

Like, wow, that's a high number. So let's just jump seven years. The same polling conducted also by Pew Research in 2014, the number had gone up 10%. So the Pew Research poll in 2014 found that 54 of Christians in the U .S. said homosexuality should be accepted rather than discouraged by society.

So we're not even thinking that it's a sin issue, it should just be encouraged. Now there is a connection not only to other sin, but specifically other kinds of immorality. And this is important. So now the University of Arizona did the thing in 2020.

University of Texas sociologist Mark Regnerus interviewed about 16 ,000 Americans between the ages of 18 and 60. And out of that pool of people, there were church-going Christians. So in the category of Christians who are regularly attending church, this is what this University of Texas study found.

And here's the correlation. Church-going Christians who oppose same-sex marriage, only about 4 said that viewing pornography was okay. I wish that number was zero, but 4%. So they opposed it, only 4%.

On the other hand, church-going Christians who supported same-sex marriage, 33 said it was okay to view pornography. That's over a third. This is in 2014. Now there were some other categories. Church-going Christians who oppose same-sex marriage, only about 11 said that premarital sex is okay.

On the other hand, church-going Christians who supported same-sex marriage, the number jumped to 37 said that premarital sex is okay. Church-going Christians who oppose same-sex marriage, about 5 said no strings attached sex, meaning one-night stands, is okay.

And the opposite is true. So that is just a sad statistic, 5%, at least it's not double digits. On the other hand, church-going Christians who support same-sex marriage, the number was 33 that said having a one-night stand is okay.

This is Christian polling. These are church-going Christians. Church-going Christians who supported same-sex marriage, 33 said couples with kids should stay married. I like that statistic. I think that's at least a third said that they should stay married.

But the church-going Christians who oppose same-sex marriage, it was 52%. So the folks that were supporting this issue, over half said couples need to stay married, while only a third that were in support.

So it's just kind of letting us know there's other areas of life, and when we see a person supporting this, the other areas of life, those numbers, they just go down, and it's not a pretty picture. For example, church-going Christians who oppose same-sex marriage, only 1 said that marital infidelity was okay.

So praise God, 1%. Again, why is that number even one? Shouldn't marital infidelity not be okay? It should be a zero. Now the people that were supporting same-sex marriage, so church-going Christians support same-sex marriage, the number was 8%.

8 said that it was okay to cheat on your spouse. Church-going Christians who oppose same-sex marriage, 1 said it is okay for three or more adults to live together in a sexual relationship, only 1%.

The folks that supported same-sex marriage, it jumped to 16%. Church-going Christians who support same-sex marriage, 16 said it is okay for three or more adults to live in a sexual relationship. Church-going Christians who oppose same-sex marriage, 6 said they supported abortion rights.

I would love to see that number at zero or a minus. Church-going Christians who supported same-sex marriage, 39 support abortion. And these are church-going Christians. These statistics from 2014 are disturbing.

And I would love to say that all those numbers are lesser now, but they're not. But I just wanted to keep it in the past. I don't want to discourage you too much. Something is going on in Christian life.

Something is going on, not just in Montana, not just in the United States, but globally in the universal church. Something is happening to the minds of Christians that we are accepting in a broad way, immorality.

Immorality. And I would argue in some sense that they, that the statistics are the result of false teaching and false teachers. We have this thing, it's called the Word of God, and it is authoritative over all of our lives.

It is inerrant, it is sufficient, it is inspired by God. But we have men in the pulpit who say, well, I don't want to be unloving, I don't want to hurt your feelings. Where we don't now, as professing followers of Christ, we do not humble ourselves under the authoritative Word of God, as we've been learning in the Gospel of John.

Who is the Word of God? Is it not Jesus Christ? How can you say you're a follower of Christ, but yet we don't live by His Word? The powers of darkness that rule over this world temporarily are always on the attack against the truth.

What we are grappling with in this time of the earthly Christian kingdom is an attack on the truth and a redefining of biblical love. So we can ask three questions. Is it unloving to tell the truth? Is it unloving to tell the truth?

More importantly, how do we define the truth? How do we define the truth? And lastly, how do we define love? Well, the truth is that abortion is murder. The truth is marriage is between a man and a woman.

The truth is sexually immoral behavior is not acceptable in the sight of God. We are living in a dark time when Satan has fooled Christians into thinking that an appeal to holiness is unloving. An appeal to the truth is unloving, a wicked, demonic lie concocted by the devil.

And so we're going to spend time in this letter that Paul wrote to the church in Thessalonica and think about God's will, sanctification, and love. So let's now pause and read this passage together, and then we will return to some of these big themes.

Reading 1 Thessalonians 4:1–12

Please stand with me for the reading of God's Word. It's going to be 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. For the sake of context, we'll start back at verse 1. 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, starting in verse 1. Keep your eyes on 3 through 8.

We'll read the first 12 verses. Paul says,. Finally then, brothers, we ask and exhort you in the Lord Jesus that as you received from us as to how you ought to walk and please God, just as you actually do walk, that you excel still more.

For you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus. Verse 3. For this is the will of God, your sanctification, 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, 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.

For God did not call us to impurity, but in sanctification. Consequently, he who sets this aside is not setting aside man, but the God who gives his Holy Spirit to you. Now concerning love of the brothers, you have no need for anyone to write to you.

For you yourselves are taught by God to love one another. For indeed, you do practice it toward all the brothers who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to excel still more 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, so that you will walk properly toward outsiders and not be in any need.

You can be seated. This passage today is just as relevant as when the Apostle Paul wrote these words 2 ,000 years ago. God's word calls his people to be holy. The big idea or theme in chapter 4 verses 3 through 8 is sanctification.

The Apostle Paul wrote his first letter to the Thessalonians to exhort the Christians in Thessalonica to grow in sanctification, to walk in personal holiness, and to encourage them. He encouraged their prayer lives so that they would be ready for Christ's imminent return.

Paul is exhorting believers to personal holiness by pointing out that sanctification is God's will for their lives. This is Paul's big theme, sanctification. If you had to say what the theme of really 1st and 2nd Thessalonians is, it would have to be sanctification.

Sanctification, or in its verbal form, sanctify, literally means to set apart, to set apart for special use or purpose. That is to make holy or to make sacred. The 20th century Scottish theologian John Murray said this about sanctification.

He said, indeed, the more sanctified the person is, the more conformed he is to the image of his Savior. The more he must recoil against every lack of conformity to the holiness of God, the deeper his apprehension of the majesty of God, the greater the intensity of his love to God.

The more persistent his yearning for the attainment of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, the more conscious will he be of the gravity of the sin that remains, and the more poignant will be his hatred of it.

Was this not the effect in all the people of God as they came into closer proximity to the revelation of God's holiness? I thought that was a helpful note. We'll focus on this passage, but we will also look at a few passages from 2 Thessalonians.

I want to trace out here Paul's logical flow of thought. Paul's big picture ideas, his logic, his reason, and conclusion are critical to understand for us as we grapple with these questions about truth and love so that when we hear our favorite preacher, we hold our favorite preacher's words up to the authority of Scripture, and that we have to humble ourselves under the Word of God.

I don't care who your favorite preacher is. If you hear something that doesn't sound right, check what you're being told against what the Bible teaches. And so, we just need to think about that. Now, if we think about Thessalonians, really most of Paul's first letter, the apostle talks about the Lord's return and living in a way that will be pleasing to Jesus when he arrives.

So, I think first off, we need to remind ourselves, obviously he's talking to the Thessalonians, but, you know, who is Paul talking to? Look at chapter 1. Go to chapter 1, starting in verse 2. Paul is talking to the perfect Thessalonians.

Chapter 1, starting in verse 2, he says, we give thanks to God always for all of you, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ before our God and Father, knowing, brothers beloved by God, your election.

For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full assurance, just as you know what kind of men we prove to be among you for your sake, you also became imitators of us and of the Lord, having received the Word in much affliction with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia.

For the Word of the Lord has sounded forth from you, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith toward God has gone forth, so that we have no need to say anything. Who is Paul talking to?

The perfect Thessalonians. The Thessalonians got a perfect report card. A plus as a congregation. A plus. Yet, Paul is still exhorting them to abstain from all forms of immorality. He's exhorting them.

We can ask it like this, who is Paul talking to? Well, he's talking to us, too. He's talking to us. He's talking to you. He's talking to you this morning. Paul is exhorting you to abstain from all forms of immorality.

All forms. This has as much to do with you today as it did with the Thessalonians when they read this letter. Maybe more. Maybe more. Jesus is coming back and Paul's letter is soaked with this reality.

It's soaked with this fact. Look at this. Look at this reality. Follow along with me. I'll name the verses. Let's think about this greater theme. Sanctification and love has to be thought about in this way.

The Lord is coming back. And if we look at this letter, let's look at the big picture. Chapter 1, verse 10. And to wait for his son from heaven whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who rescues us from the wrath to come.

The Lord is coming back. How about chapter 2? Go to chapter 2, verse 19. For who is our hope or joy or crown of boasting? Is it not even you before our Lord Jesus at his coming? The Lord is coming back.

How about chapter 3? Go to chapter 3, verse 13. Verse 13. So that he may strengthen your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints. The Lord is coming back.

It's like, OK, well, that's done. He's not going to bring it up again. How about chapter 4, verse 16? Oh, he sure is. Chapter 4, verse 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.

The Lord is coming back. Be ready. And he's not done. Chapter 5, verse 2. For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. The day of the Lord. The Lord is coming back.

Be ready. Paul is deeply concerned for the Thessalonians. He's deeply concerned that they understand this truth. Jesus Christ is coming back. Jesus is returning. Paul's exhortation is for them to live a life of holiness in light of this fact.

The main point of this passage is that holiness is God's will for our lives. Paul gives some practical application and exhorts the people to abstain from immorality, from all sexual immorality. In verses 3 and 6 of chapter 4, he points out that God desires personal holiness and gives examples of how to be holy.

How do you be holy? Abstain from immorality. And also, he points out that disobedience brings God's wrath. In verse 7, Paul restates the message of the preceding verses. God's call is for us to live pure lives, free from immorality.

And Paul concludes his flow of thought in verse 8 by stating that a rejection of this teaching is a rejection of God, not man. In verses 3 through 8, Paul gives you really three life-sustaining motives so that you may obey this exhortation.

Three motives for you to obey God's exhortation. Number one, God's will. God's will, verses 3 and 5. Number two, God's vengeance, verse 6. And number three, God's call, verses 7 and 8. The first motive for you to obey the exhortation, number one, God's will.

God's Will for Sanctification

Look with me at chapter 4, verses 3 through 8. He says, for this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality. This word will is not simply wishing. No, this is not, I wish for you to do this.

This is the idea of a strong desire. This is not a hope. This is not a wish. This is a reckoned plan and best intention toward you that will be accomplished. God's will or desire for your life is to be literally set apart from sin to holiness.

And specifically, when it comes to sexual depravity. The word sanctification is a setting apart from the world. In other words, holiness. Holiness. He intensely, God, intensely desires your continual setting apart from the world and from sin.

Now, this is a completed act in salvation, but also God's continuing work of making you completely different from the world. And this is the doctrine of sanctification in which we are permanently justified through faith in Jesus.

We have a new position in Christ, but there is also this continual progression, a continual progression into personal holiness as God conforms us into the image of his son. He does that. God gives us an ever increasing desire for righteousness through the power of the Holy Spirit and through the power of his word.

The doctrine of sanctification describes this upward trajectory of increased personal holiness in the life of a believer as a child of God. Turn over to 2 Thessalonians in chapter 2. So, let's just kind of see some, let's trace Paul's thinking here.

In his second letter to the Thessalonians, Paul comments that the Holy Spirit sanctifies through belief in the truth. 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, look at verse 13. It says, but we should always give thanks to God for you, brothers, beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you as the first fruits for salvation.

How? Through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. This takes us back to the ministry of the Holy Spirit's illumination. God does this, the Holy Spirit's ministry of illumination. He allows you to do this.

He enables you to do this, that there's an increasing understanding, that you grow in your understanding and knowledge of the Word of God, and then listen, listen, an ever increasing conviction that the Word of God is the truth, is the truth.

Very important. Go ahead and flip back to chapter 4 of the first letter. We're looking at verse 3. The Word of God is the means in which a believer is sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Jesus reiterates this monumental reality of sanctification in his high priestly prayer.

As we've been in the Gospel of John, we can zoom forward a bit. John 17, the high priestly prayer. These are the words of Jesus praying for his future disciples to God the Father. This is what Jesus prayed to God the Father for about you.

He says, make them holy by your truth. Teach them your word, which is truth. Just as you sent me into the world, I am sending them into the world. And I give myself as a holy sacrifice for them so they can be made holy by your truth.

By your truth. Now, if we look about this, this will that God is showing us here, this is the will of God, that you abstain. The word for abstain in verse 3 is the idea of being far off from a position.

To be far off from a position. This is more than trying not to do something. This is avoiding contact at all costs. No exceptions with zero compromise. I'm giving you the lexical definition here if we go back to the original language.

That you are to be far off from what? Immorality. And the word here for sexual immorality in the Greek, and try to hear the word in there, porneus. Porneus. Immorality. Immorality. It is an important word.

It is where we get the word pornography. Porneus. It has an exhaustive meaning. No exceptions, zero compromise. You're not part of this. Some early manuscripts have the word all in front of it. Your copy of God's word may.

This is comprehensive. This is comprehensive. This covers all of it. There's no sidelines here. No exceptions here. This immorality may manifest in multiple ways. It could be in our speech, our actions, or our thoughts.

It has the idea of evil. This is evil, unlawful, strictly prohibited activities. Strictly prohibited sexual activities. Deadly and dangerous acts that are the opposite of good. This is evil. Abstain from evil.

Sexual standards were extremely low in the Roman Empire. And I think we can see in our current culture they are really not any higher. Our global culture today is really a reflection of what we would see in the Old Testament, even from the nation of Israel.

We could look to the book of Judges for this. Judges chapter 21. In those days, Israel had no king. All the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes. I can't think of a more crystal clear picture of the human heart than that.

And certainly our culture is no different. What we are seeing today is the glorification of homosexuality, of same-sex marriage, pornography, and sexual promiscuity outside of marriage. Outside of marriage.

But here's where Satan twists it. All of these things are happening under what? The guise of love. The guise of progress. The guise of equality. The guise of freedom. One could make the argument that we live in a society that has even lower standards than that of Thessalonica at the time that Paul wrote this letter.

And Paul continues. Look at verse 4. He says that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor. And the idea is to acquire or take control of one's body. To master your body.

To master your carnal desires in holiness with integrity and uprightness. The word know is very important here. It's the idea of understanding or knowing how to take mastery over yourself. It's not uncertainty.

It is a disciplined self-knowledge. A disciplined self-awareness. You have to pursue deeply and with intention the idea of mastering the art of living. He says not in lustful passion like the Gentiles who do not know God.

We are not to be subdued in the passion or giving over to lust like the unbelievers. Like the unbelieving world. That's the idea of sanctification that you're set apart. He says don't be like that. And this lustful passion is the idea of intense craving.

An intense craving. A giving over to those cravings without any self-control or restraint. He says no that's not how you were saved. It's not what we taught you. This lustful passion is an unbridled loss of composure.

Temptation to engage in in exploits outside of marriage has always been powerful. But sexual sins always hurt someone. Giving into this temptation or this immorality of really of any kind hurts the individuals involved.

It hurts families. It hurts businesses. And often very very often it hurts churches. The unbelieving world does not care about the will of God. God's will is going to be accomplished despite what the world believes about it.

Because God is sovereign over the world. Despite the broad acceptance of sin, God is exhorting his people to holiness. Not like the Gentiles. You have been set apart. You are different. Sanctification.

I like this illustration when thinking about progressing in sanctification. The process of sanctification can be compared to an iceberg. Think about an iceberg. And I don't know if you're like me, probably most of you went to the movie Titanic.

The iceberg's up there and there's a big thing underneath. But this is how we should kind of visualize this. About 90 of the thing is underwater, right? There's an iceberg, about almost 90 is underwater.

But as the sun shines on the iceberg, what happens? The exposed part melts, moving the lower part upward. So what was unseen is now coming to the surface. In the same way, we are usually aware of only a small part of our own sinfulness and need.

Which is all we can deal with one thing at a time. However, as the light of God works in our lives, changes us, those areas we know about, we become more aware of new areas, needing new work, needing new help from the Spirit.

This is a work of God. This is not external behavior modification and checking off, you know, the box so that we can say, oh, I do this and I do that. No, this is about acknowledging the sin we have in our lives and counting on God to help us.

He's pruning us, He's shaping us. What an encouragement to know that God's will is for us to be set apart in the world in holiness. He will do it. Three life-sustaining motives so that you may obey the exhortation.

The number one is that it's God's will. What a blessing for us. God's will is your progress and good. God's will is your progress and good. And number two, right out of verse six, is God's vengeance. Let us not forget.

He says He is the avenger in all these things. Look at verse six. 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, we sin against other believers when we engage in this kind of defilement with them.

And more importantly, we sin against God. And here's the question at the end of verse six. What does it mean that the Lord is the avenger? The Lord is the avenger? Let's look again at 2 Thessalonians.

Go to 2 Thessalonians chapter one. 2 Thessalonians chapter one, starting in verse five. What does it mean that the Lord is the avenger? Well, look at this. He says in verse five of chapter one, second letter.

This is a plain indication of God's righteous judgment, so that you will be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which indeed you are suffering. Since it is right for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you and to give rest to you who are afflicted and to us as well.

At the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, executing vengeance on those who do not know God and to those who do not, listen to this, who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His might. When He comes to be glorified in His saints on that day and to be marveled at among all who have believed, for our witness to you was believed.

To this end, also we pray for you always that our God will count you worthy of your calling and fulfill all your good pleasure for goodness and the work of faith with power, so that the name of the Lord Jesus, our Lord, will be glorified in you and you in Him according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Go ahead and turn back to chapter four of the first letter. Now, it's important to think about this. The Lord is the avenger. But Paul says there is now no condemnation in Christ Jesus. This is for the unbelieving world.

So then as Christians, as followers, as those who have been redeemed, ought we to live in a way that glorifies God with our lives, with our thinking? What are we supporting in this world? Are we for God or for God's creatures?

Yeah, verse six, He is the avenger in all these things. When a person has sex outside of marriage, they degrade themselves and the other person. Sexual promiscuity is regarded as a matter of defrauding another of his or her rights.

Sex before marriage represents the robbing of the other of that virginity, which should be brought to a marriage. So we can't just focus on one group that are committing sin. No, God has called you to a life of holiness.

There's a standard that we are to live by, not so that we can check a religious box so that we can bring glory to God, to live our lives like a thank you letter in response to the gospel of our salvation.

But this reality that God is coming back is soaked through this letter. And if we think about verse six, that the Lord is the avenger in all these things, we probably can think of even the two foundations, the two foundations parable in the gospel of Matthew.

At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock, and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house, and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock.

Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house, and it fell, and great was its fall.

Think about what a loving God we have. God lovingly warns us about his coming wrath, lovingly warns. It is a serious thing to disregard God's vengeance in defending his holiness. We can even think back in the historical theology and the sort of ancestors that we have.

One group is the Puritans. The Puritan Matthew Henry said this on verses three through eight, just an excerpt from his commentary. He said, the Lord calls none into his family to live unholy lives, but that they may be taught, they may be taught and enabled to walk before him in holiness.

Some make light of the precepts of holiness, because they hear them from men, but they are God's commands, and to break them is to despise God. In this passage, Paul gives you three life-sustaining motives so that you may obey the exhortation.

The first is that God's will is your progress and good, and the second is a sobering reminder that God's vengeance is a certainty. God's vengeance is a certainty. And number three, God's call. God's call.

God's Call to Holiness

Paul says in verse seven, for God did not call us to impurity, but in sanctification. God has not called us to impure living. And the word for at the beginning of the verse is used as an explanation of the preceding verse.

It clearly indicates the warning that Christ's judgment is justified. Christ's judgment is justified in view of what he has already done. His lordship was established in his resurrection. His lordship is established.

And again, the word sanctification is a setting apart from the world. That this is a work of God. Paul spoke about this in his letter to the Philippians, a familiar passage for all of us, Philippians 1 -6.

For I am competent of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you, that's it, positional sanctification. You're saved. You're justified forever before God. You can't lose your salvation. He will perfect it.

Here's the progressive part. The one who began the work will perfect it until when? The day of Christ Jesus. Until Christ returns or God calls you home. Sanctification is the work of God. That's an encouragement.