"Called to Holiness" I Thessalonians 4:7-8

I. The God of the Bible is a Holy God. We may fail to keep this in full perspective in our ignorance but the one thing we can’t do is to live in denial to this truth.

A. Understand that God gives us moral commands in His law that are reflective of His character, nature and being. Such commands are holy and they are there to liberate us and not to stifle us. They are there to bring joy to us and not to cause us to despair in life.

You can’t have fullness of life in living out your purpose as a Christian before God without a passion for holiness.

Big Idea: Pursuing holiness is a divine empowerment that enables believers to live out their unique purpose in Christ, ultimately transforming how they influence others around them for the pleasure and glory of God.

Want to know what God’s will is for His calling upon your life? One of the most basic and foundational answers to that question is the Pursuit of Purity. Look back at your text to verse 7.

I. The Pursuit of Purity (7).

A. Now the immediate example of impurity that Paul is referring to in the context is sexual immorality. And how the believer is to abstain from it and to exercise self control in this area.

And someone might say it was easy for the Apostle Paul because he didn’t live in a sex charged culture like we do today. But we all need to understand something. the passion of lust was still around in the first century just as much as it is today. Because lust proceeds from a heart that is sinful by nature.

They had their own versions of it in their day just as we do today. Sex hasn’t changed one bit and neither has the depraved nature of man. There is one difference though; and that is that the mass amounts of graphic sexual depictions that we are bombarded with in our day due to modern media and technology.

These things are attempts of the evil one to but us in bondage to our sinful lust so he can rob God of His glory and enslave as many as he possibly can to sin and the kingdom of darkness.

Christian God has called us in holiness that we might live with a personal dedication to the interest of God and His holiness.

Could you imagine being married to your spouse and being passionately in love with that person and the chief characteristic of what makes the so wonderful and good and actually defines who they are in their identity you despise or prefer to disregard in your relationship with them.

Stop and think about it if that were the case it would seem that the more your spouse exhibited their chief attribute, the more it would undermine your love and passion because your disdain for who they are would be directly in violation of their identity and character.

It would undermine the passion of your love for them and you would only be left trying to change their identity and character to fit you.

I mean if you came into marriage counseling and told me that about your spouse I would look you right in the face and say to you: Well why did you marry that person in the first place?

Christian this is a prideful pursuit of God because it emphasizes the desirable aspects of what God has to offer in His provisions with little to no desire for Him and His chief attribute of holiness. To knowingly reject aspects of His holiness is the same as rejecting Him. This is the Problem of Passivity that Paul warns us of in verse 8. Look back at your text to verse 8:

II. The Problem of Passivity (8).

A. The problem with passivity is that when you reject the pursuit of holiness you reject, not man, but God. Living in defiance of holiness is living in defiance of God. And there are games that people play in their minds as to remove any contradiction so as to alleviate their guilt and shame or to protect the idol of their sin.

This is why when people are confronted by their elders at times they try to deflect their sin and accuse the elders of being ungracious or unloving.

Christian understand something, God did not send His Son, the most precious and glorious display of His holiness, the very One that Isaiah encountered in Isaiah 6 seated on His throne, into the world to suffer the cruel death of a Roman Cross to liberate you to sin. He did all of that to liberate you from sin and the destruction and judgement that comes from it.

The Gospel doesn’t make us autonomous to be free to do what ever our sinful nature wants. The Gospel makes us free to choose and to live in accord with God’s moral law and His character, nature and being. And you say how does this happen Pastor if we are prisoners to sin in our nature?

Glad you asked, Look at the end of verse 8: who gives His Holy Spirit to you.

B. Christian, Faith is the first fruits of regeneration by the Spirit. And if you are truly regenerated by grace through faith then you have the Holy Spirit in you because God gave it to you. And He enabled you to be free from the bondage of the will to sin and to believe the gospel.

The firstfruits of regeneration but the Spirit doesn’t leave. He stays around and starts challenging your heart on a daily basis and sanctifying you in light of the truth of God’s word. And He is making you into someone who gradually to a greater and greater degree reflect the holiness of God in Christ.

God is in the renovation business on a Universal scale. He buys old houses, the kind that are beyond repair. The ones that the world wouldn’t take a second look at. The kind that look hopeless and most men would say just need to be torn down, there is too much work to do.

He buys it and He makes it His own but He does not neglect His property. He begins little by little renovating it in the perfection of His holiness to reflect His character, nature and being and His design. To the point that all the other houses in this run down community of this fallen world marvel and long to be purchased by God.

Liberal theologian and author Nadia Bolz-Weber, in her 2019 book, Shameless: A Sexual Reformation. She argues that Christians need to abandon what the church has traditionally taught about sex and gender and to forge a new Christian sexual ethic. And she argues for this for the purpose of reaching a generation that has largely rejected the traditional view of sex and gender so as to make God relevant to their lives.

Such views and arguments fail to recognize that what the Bible teaches about sex and identity are tied into the character, nature and being of a Holy God. The moral law and the creative design of God are reflective of who He is in the perfection of His holiness. The problem for those who reject the biblical view is that they fail to realize that to reject God’s moral law and design, that is reflection of Himself, is to reject God.

Christian if you believe that the good life, the full life, is defined by the world you are deceived. It is not just true in sexual things, but in all of our lust for sin in the world. The moral law is not to put you in bondage. It is to guide you into living freely in Christ to the glory and praise of God. So that you may taste and see that the Lord is good and that His mercy endures forever.

Conclusion:

We were made for something greater and more fulfilling than anything this world has to offer. We were made for God and His purposes. We were made to be His in Christ to the eternal glory of Jesus Christ who bough us and redeemed us for God. We were redeemed to be the Bride of Christ not as a prostitute for the world, the flesh and the devil.

Christian if the pursuit of holiness weighs you down in despair, you may be pursuing by principle instead of by passion. The gospel of grace is like the fuel line to the heart of passion that keeps the passion motor running. You disconnect from living in light of grace the motor is going to quit.

Motorcycle running out of gas resulted in me pushing it home. I used my tank and turned it to reserve and a couple times I did that thinking oh I got plenty left to get home to the farm where my father had a big 500 gallon tank with plenty of gas.

Needless to say, I did a lot of pushing in my time. I thought I had enough in my tank and before I knew it I was pushing. The gospel of grace calls us home to our fathers provision in Christ, to reservoir of His sovereign grace to us. He supplies the fuel source to feed our passions by the finished work of Christ.

Christian are you tired of pushing the pursuit of holiness by your own strength? Come home to the Father and be filled and once again have the passion for Christ fuel you drive for holiness. Confess and receive from Him.

My dad once saw me coming he went and stood by the tank and as I pushed it towards him he stood there with the hose waiting. And he had this smile on his face as to say I had plenty why didn’t you fill up before you went out.

God doesn’t just hold it out for Christians, He is holding it for you too unbeliever. Come to Him, do not turn away from Him, He is hear to call you to Himself by sovereign grace. Do not harden your heart today. Turn to Him in faith alone for salvation. Let’s pray!