Sermon for 3/5/23: Second Sunday in Lent

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Abounding in Holiness

I Thessalonians 4:1-7

 

 

Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

 There is a false teaching very much alive and well among Christians: the idea that, having been saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, it becomes our responsibility to make our lives pleasing to God. “Salvation is God’s gift to us; a holy life is our gift to Him.” The first half of that statement is quite correct; the second most definitely is not. St. Paul made this clear in his first Epistle to the Corinthians: “Christ Jesus…became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption— ³¹ that, as it is written, ‘He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.’” Not only is our salvation a gift from God in Jesus Christ; our entire life of faith, with its holiness and obedience, is also a gift that comes to us through Jesus Christ. It is only when we believe and understand this that we can talk about playing a role in abounding in holiness.

When grace and faith turn our hearts to Jesus Christ, there is a profound change that occurs. When we are convinced that God loves us so much that He gave His own Son as the great Substitute for the whole world, our hearts are overcome by that divine love and a desire to please God in all things. And that is what the word “sanctification” means: the God who gives His Son in the greatest act of sacrificial love overwhelms our hearts with that same love, that we cannot help but abound in holiness. That is not only God’s desire, but ours, as well. But the truth remains that we are both flesh and spirit. Though we are to abound more and more in holiness, and our spirit genuinely desires that, the sinful flesh that clings to us will keep us from achieving it this side of the grave. As Jesus said regarding His disciples, “The spirit, indeed, is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

It doesn’t matter how long one has been a Christian. The time will never come when we can say we have done all the abounding in holiness that God desires of us. On the surface, this text might seem to address those who are faced with the kinds of temptations that are most typical to the young. But each age and generation has temptations to immorality unique to it. As long as you live and breathe in this world, what Paul says here cuts across every age and every source of temptation: “We urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God.” But we still find ourselves repeatedly in that same condition as Paul: “The good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.” Were we to live to be as old as Methuselah himself, we would still need to pray daily, “Forgive us our trespasses.”

But now, with the encouragement to abound in holiness, Paul also tells us how this is to be accomplished under God’s grace. He singles out for attention two of God’s Commandments which are especially important in one’s personal holiness: the sixth and seventh commandments. “This is the will of God, your sanctification; that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one transgress and defraud his brother in this matter...” Being constantly bombarded by such things, that already delicate sense of right and wrong can be easily lost and, before you know it, even Christians are apt to go along. It sounds something like our day, doesn’t it? Isn’t it often true that what you and I consider right and moral, because it is pleasing to God, the society around us generally considers abnormal? Isaiah saw it clearly: “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil...”

If we are to stand successfully against these temptations, we cannot forget the weaponry God has given us: His Word and prayer. If your heart and mind are saturated with the Word of God, if you continue to think on it and pray over it, there will simply be less and less room for sinful thoughts and desires. Satan loves a vacuum. If your heart and mind are empty of divine things, you can be sure he will find ways to fill them up with his things. Last Sunday we heard how Jesus met every temptation with the Word of God. If it was necessary for Jesus to do this, how much more so must it be for us? If we are to abound more and more in holiness, who will be doing the motivating? Will we motivate ourselves? Is that our part of the bargain? Or will our motivation come from our Lord Jesus, through His Holy Spirit, “...our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption?”

One of the great blessings of the Lenten season is that it intensely focuses our attention squarely on the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Of course, that is where our attention should always be directed. But in this holy season, we are brought face to face with the suffering and death of Him who came for the singular purpose of saving us from sin, death, and the devil. Only in His saving labors do we find forgiveness of sins, life now, and life forever in the security of God’s eternal Kingdom. Only in His saving labors may we abound more and more in holiness. May God in His rich and abundant mercy grant this to us for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the name of the Father and of the Son (+) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

 

The peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus always. Amen.