TOPIC:‌"Prayer and the Christian's Holiness"

                  by Rev. Dr. Reg Dunlap

 

TEXT:‌I Thessalonians 5:18-28

 

"And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (I Thessalonians 5:23).

 

‌‌Most of Paul's prayers come at the beginning of his Epistles, but this prayer as you will notice comes at the end of the Epistle. Here we find Paul praying for the sanctification of God's children, or as we may call it, the holiness of the people of God. It is the work God does with us after we are redeemed by His grace and before we are resurrected by His power.

 

‌It is good to realize that in the New Testament there are a variety of words that describe God's work of sanctification. They are "sanctify," "holiness," "consecrated," "separated," "purity," "perfect," and "filled" as it relates to the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the Christian's life. Saint Paul made use of each one of these terms in the Epistles that he wrote. Without question, the paramount concern of all Paul's writings is the holiness of every individual Christian.

 

‌This concern of Paul finds expression in the words of our text. Here, in this matchless letter, we find Paul's purifying prayer for the sanctification of the believer's life. Such a prayer by Paul must never be taken lightly by any of us. Hear it again as the New Living Translation renders it: "Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until that day when our Lord Jesus comes again." Let us look at some of the components of this purifying prayer of Paul.

 

I.

 

‌Consider, to begin with, some BASIC INFORMATION that we need to know about this prayer - "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly" (v. 23). There are three facts here I want you to catch.

 

‌First, it is a DIRECTIVE prayer - "sanctify you." The "you" here refers to Christians. This is a prayer for believers who have put their faith in Jesus Christ. They have turned from idols and have been converted to the Christ life. This is evidenced by Paul's words about them in chapter 1 verse 3: "your work of faith, and labor of love, and patience of hope." In virtue of these exhibited graces by these Thessalonian believers, Paul's heart is filled with abundant joy. He now passionately desires that they come to experience their full possibilities in the life of Christian holiness. So Paul prays for God's best for them which is a life of continuous and complete . . .