I Thessalonians 5:23-28
we’re going to read some Scripture this morning. Words will be on the screen, and we’re going to finish up the book of 1st Thessalonians this morning, so we’re going to read verses 23 through 28 of 1st Thessalonians chapter 5, and here’s how the Apostle Paul closes his letter to the church in Thessalonica. May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through.
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. Brothers and sisters, pray for us.
Greet all God’s people with a holy kiss. I charge you before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers and sisters. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
All right, 1st Thessalonians chapter 5, we’ve been in this book for about four months.
The theme is be ready. And what are we to be ready for? Well, we’re to be ready for the return of Christ. That’s the theme of the book.
In every chapter, there’s five chapters, the apostle Paul speaks of the fact that Christ is coming again someday. And so, the theme is to be ready for the return of Christ. And this morning, we’re going to look at these six verses and just kind of unpack them and then think about what are some application truths from the passage that we’re looking at this morning.
i. Paul’s prayer
So, this is Paul’s final instructions. He’s wrapping up the book and he begins this last section here, I call it Paul’s prayer, by praying for the Thessalonian church. That’s how he started his letter, 1st Thessalonians 1:2, we always thank God for all of you continually mentioning you in our prayers.
So, Paul was constantly praying for the churches and for the believers at Thessalonica and as he closes his book, he offers a short prayer for these believers. And I want us to look at just three truths from this prayer that’s found in verses 23 and 24. First of all, notice how Paul begins his prayer.
1. God is the God of peace
Verse 23, may God himself, the God of peace. So, Paul refers to God as the God of peace. He is the source of peace.
He is the maker of peace. He is the one who gives us peace. There is no true lasting peace apart from knowing God.
And I like to talk about, and I’ve shared this many times, there’s a triad of peace in the Bible, three aspects of the peace that God wants to give you. First of all is peace with God. That’s Romans 5:1, therefore being justified by faith, we’ve made what? Peace with God.
If we’ve not taken that step, we are His enemies. But Jesus rescued us, sent Jesus to the cross so we could make that peace treaty with Him. And the book of Ephesians says Jesus Himself is our peace.
So, that’s the most important step, to make peace with God, to make peace with your Creator through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. But there’s a second aspect of peace that God wants to give us, and that’s the peace of God. This is the internal peace that we can have even when we’re going through the midst of a storm.
It’s like the eye in the middle of a hurricane and there’s tribulation and troubles all around us, but we can still have peace. How do we get that peace? Well, Philippians 4:6, and 7, be anxious for nothing, but in everything with prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. So, our first response to trouble needs to be prayer.
And then when we do that, when we give it to God, here’s the promise, and the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard our hearts, that’s our emotions, our minds in Christ Jesus. So, you can be going through a great, great trial, but God can still give you peace because you know Him, you know that He’s in control. And there’s a third aspect of peace that God wants us to experience, and that’s peace with others.
That’s our relational peace on our horizontal relationships. And Romans 12 talks about that. In fact, it’s the cover of our bulletin this morning, live peaceably with all men.
And when Paul writes that, he says, as much as it lies within you, as much as you can, live at peace with everyone. Sometimes it’s not possible to live at peace with everybody because peace takes reconciliation, it takes two people. So, those are the three kinds of peace that God wants to give us, peace with God, the peace of God, and peace with others.
2. God is the agent of sanctification
Well, the apostle goes on to talk about another aspect in his prayer, not only that God is a God of peace, but that God is the agent of sanctification. God is the agent of sanctification. May God Himself, here’s the request, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through.
So, there’s three aspects to salvation. When we put our faith in Christ, we are justified, we’ve made our peace with God, and we have that relationship restored. So, there’s the justification, we could say, I have been saved.
But then there’s a present aspect of our salvation, and that’s called sanctification. We could also say, I am being saved because God is continually wanting to work in our life, and it’s a lifelong process, and that’s what Paul’s talking about and praying for here. And this is what the Scriptures tell us to do; may you grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus.
And then there’s a third aspect of our salvation, yet future, that is glorification. We could say, someday I will be saved. That’s when we’re in heaven and we have our new bodies and a glorified body and we’ll be like Jesus.
But how does this sanctification work out in our life? Well, God’s the agent of that. May the God of peace sanctify you. And it’s a cooperative process.
It’s not something that just happens automatically as we sleep or we put our Bible under our pillow at night and think we’re going to wake up more spiritual. Here’s what Paul says to the Philippians, therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed, continue to work out your salvation, not work for, work it out with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to fulfill His purpose. So, this is a cooperative process, that as we obey, as we follow God’s Word in our life, we become more and more like Jesus.
John 17:17, Jesus says, sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. So, the Spirit of God takes the Word of God and He changes our life to make us more like Jesus. And that’s what Paul’s praying for here.
May the God of peace do His work of sanctifying you through and through and making you more like Jesus. And then there’s a second request. May your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of Jesus Christ.
3. God is the ultimate promise keeper
So, God’s the agent of sanctification. And here’s another request. May God keep you blameless until what? Until Jesus returns.
And there’s different interpretations of Scripture, but we believe the Bible teaches eternal security. That once you receive Jesus as your Savior, you are secure in Him. And the Bible talks about faithful is He who calls you, who also will do it in the next verse.
So, God is going to, what, take us all the way home. There’s a picture in John chapter 10, it says the believers are in Jesus’ hand and God the Father’s hand is around Jesus’ hand, that we’re secure in the double clutch of Jesus and God. And we don’t have time to read that whole passage in Romans chapter 8, but let me just hit some highlights of it, where the Apostle Paul says and asks the question, if God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also give us graciously all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.
Who then is going to condemn us? No one. And then he goes on and says, what shall separate us from the love of Christ? And he gives a long, long list. Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors.
For I’m convinced that neither death nor life, angels nor demons, present nor future, nearer any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything in all creation can separate us from the love of Christ. And so, it is God who keeps us. It is God who will keep us all the way to the end.
And this is what Paul is praying about here. And he says in the next verse that the one who calls you is faithful and He will do it. And just saying that God’s the ultimate promise keeper, Titus 1:2 says, we have a God who cannot lie.
ii. Paul’s prescription
And so, if God says He’s going to do something, He will do it, and He’s going to carry us all the way to the end. Well, now we move on to verses 25 and 27, Paul’s prescription. So, it’s Paul’s prayer, Paul’s prescription.
1. pray for us
There’s a request here, and then there’s two instructions. So, Paul’s prescription. Notice what he says in verse 25, brothers and sisters, pray for us.
Now, Paul regularly prayed for many, many people. If you read the New Testament, usually he starts his letters to the churches and the individuals, and he says, I am praying for you. And that’s all through Scripture.
But as I studied the New Testament in preparation for this message this morning, eight times in Scripture, Paul asked people to pray for him. So, he didn’t just pray for people, he’s saying, would you also pray for me? And whether we realize it or not, all of us are standing in the need of prayer. There’s an old hymn that says, it’s me, it’s me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer.
Not my brother, not my sister, not my preacher, not the deacon, not my mother, not my father, not the stranger, nor my neighbor. It’s me standing in the need of prayer. And as I looked at this passage and realized how many times Paul asked for a prayer, I got a little bit convicted because I’m like, do I ever ask people to pray for me? I need to do that more.
And I hope you pray for your pastor because your pastor needs prayer, but you need prayer as well. And so, Paul boldly says, hey, would you pray for me? Brothers and sisters, keep me in prayer.
We need to pray for one another, don’t we? And Paul’s asking for prayer. Now, here’s the first of two instructions. And this is where our text gets rather interesting.
2. greet all God’s people
And if your mind’s kind of drifted, this verse is going to bring it back. Verse 26, greet all God’s people with a holy kiss. That’s interesting, isn’t it? I was thinking if we practice that literally, I don’t know if it would increase our attendance or decrease it.
Not sure. But this command is found in the Bible four times. Romans 16:16, greet one another with a holy kiss.
1st Corinthians 16:20, 2nd Corinthians 13:12, 1st Peter 5:14, I guess it’s in there five times. And also here in Thessalonians, greet one another with a holy kiss. So, what in the world? Have we been disobeying God’s word? Well, let me read to you just a couple paragraphs from a website that I go to often called Got Questions, very theologically sound.
And so, I just asked the question, what is a holy kiss? Are you ready? Here it is. It says there are several passages in the New Testament that refer to a holy kiss. I just listed them all.
In the New Testament times and in the culture of the Near East, a kiss was a common form of greeting among family and close friends. A kiss then symbolized love, brotherly affection, and fellowship. Hence the instruction to greet one another with a holy kiss cultivated a sense of unity and equality among believers.
The adjective holy signifies that this kiss is different from romantic or sensual kisses. Instead, it embodies the love, purity, and sanctity of Christian fellowship. Over the centuries, the practice of greeting one another with a holy kiss adapted to fit various cultural contexts.
What remained constant was the godly principle of mutual love and respect for brothers and sisters in Christ. Therefore, the essence of Paul’s instruction is the expression of genuine and sincere affection regardless of the form it takes. In contemporary Christian communities, the practice of greeting one another with a holy kiss varies greatly.
In Western churches, in the Western culture specifically, a kiss is often replaced with a handshake and a hug. You’re off the hook. This gesture signifies warm fellowship in Eastern Orthodox and Middle East churches.
However, the tradition of greeting one another with a literal kiss continues and is culturally appropriate. And so, the idea here is that we need to greet one another, warmly acknowledge one another as brothers and sisters in the Lord, and there’s various ways to do that. So, one of the ways when we read Scripture, we need to read it with the context, we need to read it canonically, that means in comparison with other Scriptures, and we need to also understand the cultural context of the day.
3. read the Bible
And so, Paul’s prescription, pray for us, and then he says, greet all of God’s people. And then here’s another instruction that he gives to the Thessalonian believers, verse 27, I charge you before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers and sisters. So, when Paul writes this to the church at Thessalonica, he says, I want this read to all the surrounding believers and churches in the area.
Remember, they had the Old Testament Scriptures, they did not have the New Testament, and so Paul says, I want the Scriptures read to all the brothers and sisters. And this is all through Scripture, isn’t it? That God wants us to read His Word, and we’re privileged to have His Word. There’s millions and millions of people that don’t have the Word of God in their own language.
That’s why we support Wycliffe Bible translators and Ethnos360, who go into tribal locations to record a language and translate God’s Word so they can hear the good news. And so, read God’s Word. One of the instructions that God gave to the Israelites when the Israelites said, hey, we want a king like all the other nations, rather than they rejected God as their king, basically, we want a physical human king.
And so, God gave some instructions about what that is to look like. And here it is, this is Deuteronomy 17:16 through 19 actually. The king, if you’re going to have a king, you can’t acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt.
He must not take many wives or his heart will be led astray. Well, Solomon blew that one. When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of the law from that of the Levitical priest.
It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord as God, follow carefully all the words of the law and the decrees. What’s God saying the king of Israel needs to do? He needs to write down God’s Word and read it every day. And that’s not only true for the king of Israel, but that’s true for us.
Bible reading frequency among Christians in the United States, here’s the statistics, 10 to 15% read it daily. A third of Christians in the U.S. read the Bible weekly or more. 50% read it a few times a year or never.
Latest survey, only 20% of Americans believe the Bible is the literal Word of God. 80% don’t believe the Bible is actually God’s Word. That’s down from 24% in 2017.
That tells me we don’t have a reading problem. We don’t have a problem of access to God’s Word. We have an authoritative problem that people have rejected this book as God’s authoritative Word, and most people put themselves in that place, and I’m going to determine my own truth.
iii. Paul’s postscript
Well, Paul says, hey, pray for us, greet God’s people, read the Word of God. Well, Paul’s prayer, Paul’s prescription, here’s Paul’s postscript. This is found in verses 28.
“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you”
Here’s how he closes the book. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. That’s often in his greeting as well, but he closes by saying, may you experience God’s grace.
And we certainly need God’s grace in our life, don’t we? Ephesians chapter 2, verses 8 and 9, we need God’s grace for salvation. For it is by grace that you have been saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it’s what, a gift of God? Not by works, lest any man should boast. We don’t work our way to heaven.
Heaven is God’s gift to us, God’s grace, someone that crossed it, God’s riches at Christ’s expense. He took our place. Sin had to be paid for.
Either you’re going to pay for it, or you receive what Jesus did on the cross in your place, and put your faith in Him to pay your sin debt. And so, God’s grace be with you. There’s saving grace, but there’s also sanctifying grace, and we need God’s grace for this work of sanctification in our life.
Titus 2:11 through 13, the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It also teaches us to say no to ungodliness, unruly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope, the return of Jesus. So, we need God’s grace for salvation, we need God’s grace to live a godly life.
The Apostle Paul was going through some difficult challenges, physical challenges, and he has what he called a thorn in the flesh, and many people think that he had very bad eyesight. And the Apostle Paul writes in 2nd Corinthians, he says, I asked God three times to take it away. God, would you heal me? Would you heal me? Would you heal me? And God chose, in His sovereignty, not to heal and take away Paul’s thorn in the flesh.
And so, let me read verse 8, three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me, but He said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness. So, Paul, I’m not going to take away your physical ailment, but what I’m going to do is I’m going to give you my strength and my grace to enable you to live with that. And someone said, God will either erase our pain or grace our pain.
Questions to consider ….
And God’s grace is sufficient. And so, Paul closes this book by saying, may you experience God’s grace, and I trust that you have this morning. All right; I have five application questions.
We’re going to run through these real quick. So, let’s look at these five questions.
1. Have I made my peace with the God of peace?
Here’s the first one. Have I made my peace with the God of peace? Have I made my peace with the God of peace? In other words, am I a Christian? 1st John 5:11 through 13 says, these things are written that you may know that you have eternal life, and this life is found in the Son. He who has the Son has life.
He who does not have the Son of God does not have life. And so, 61 years ago, as an eight-year-old boy in a church service in Cleveland, Ohio, where my dad was a pastor, I put my faith in Jesus and made my peace with God. And I trust that you’ve accepted the wonderful gift of salvation, and we accept it through prayer, and just recognize I can’t make it to heaven on my own.
2. am I growing in grace? (sanctification)
I know that I’m a sinner. I’m turning from my sin, and I’m putting my faith and trust in Jesus, and Jesus alone as payment for my sin. I trust you’ve done that, and if you haven’t, we’d love to make sure that you know that before you leave here today. Secondly, am I growing in grace? Am I growing in sanctification? This was Paul’s prayer. Sometimes we can get stagnant in our Christian lives, and the Bible says, grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus.
Are you more like Jesus today than you were two years ago? You should be. Should you be more of Christ’s love in your heart and the fruit of the Spirit? And so, growing in grace, and one of the gifts that God’s given to us so that we can do this is the body of Christ, the church. The Christian life is not designed to be lived alone, but in community and encouraging one another in our walk with God.
3. do I recognize my personal need for prayer?
Thirdly, do I recognize my personal need for prayer? Why don’t we ask people to pray for us? Well, sometimes it might be because we feel like we’re self-sufficient. So, do I recognize, do I ask people to pray for me? And that’s, again, another good reason to be a part of a church family, because we can pray for each other, pray for each other’s needs.
I know the Monday night Mark Bible study; they pray for the needs as part of their Bibles. They’re not just studying the Gospel of Mark; they’re praying for you on Monday night. And I hope that you have some sort of, you know, there’s some prayer requests that need to go out to the whole church, but there are others that might be more in a smaller circle.
I hope you have some sort of group that you can shoot off a prayer request to, a small group text prayer group. Our church leadership kind of functions like that because we’re in a group text and we not only pray for one another by sharing those personal prayer needs, but we share the needs of the congregation. So, hope you have that place when a crisis hits that you can automatically turn to and you can have people praying.
4. do I take initiative in greeting other believers?
Number four, do I take initiative in greeting other believers? So, the command, greet one another, holy kiss, isn’t a suggestion, it’s a command. It doesn’t say greet one another only if you are, like, an extrovert in your personality. You don’t get a bypass of, well, I’m an introvert. There’s no, like, wiggle room here, no, you are to greet others in the body of Christ. And so, take initiative.
5. am I regularly reading Scripture?
We need to take initiative in greeting and welcoming the body of Christ. And then lastly, am I regularly reading Scripture? I charge you before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers and sisters.
So, I trust that you’ve got some sort of plan to get into God’s Word on a regular basis. And that’s God’s desire for your life. Have I made my peace with the God of peace? Am I growing in grace? Do I recognize that I need prayer? Do I greet others? And am I reading God’s Word? And as you do, you will grow and you’ll be encouraged and others will be encouraged.