About four months ago, on March 6 to be exact, we began this journey through the book of 1 Thessalonians. And when I started preaching in this book, I gave you this title for our series – “Kingdom Called.” And I gave you this verse as a theme verse – 1 Thessalonians 2:12 – “We exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.” The reality that Paul is trying to impress upon his audience, first of all the Thessalonians, but us too 2000 years later, is that Christ is the Lord. He is our King. And he has called us into his kingdom and glory. And that trumps everything else in this world. And he has called us to “walk in a manner worthy of God.” That means enduring hardships, like Jesus endured hardships. That means living lives of holiness and honor, like Jesus lived a life of holiness and honor. That means living lives that are pleasing to our King and imitative of our King. Because Jesus is the King! And we are called to be part of his kingdom. 

And the question that I asked so many weeks ago is this: Are you part of his kingdom, church? Are you living for him and walking in a manner worthy of him? Putting up with affliction even in order to follow him? Waiting for his return? You might say, “Yeah, Pastor Tony, but I could use some help with that. I could use some encouragement to keep doing it.” Well, I hope that you have been helped in these last few months as we have studied this book and learned how we can better do that. 

And today, I want to capstone that idea. I want to land this plane with just a few final thoughts on what it means to be a Kingdom-Called Church. This is not the cake necessarily. This is the icing on the cake. These are just a few final evidences that a church is truly living out its mission and exemplifying what 1 Thessalonians 2:12 says, “walking in a manner worthy of God” and “called into his own kingdom and glory.” If we are truly doing that… if we are that kind of church, then these six things are going to be happening here at this church.  

Go ahead and write these down. Six things that are going on even right now in a Kingdom-Called church. Here’s #1.

A Kingdom-Called church is…

1. Being sanctified by the God of peace (5:23a)

Are you being sanctified right now? Are we as a church being sanctified? Yes, we are! And Paul prays that it would be so here in verse 23. 

23 Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, 

Now I know most of you are familiar with that word “sanctified.” Paul prayed a similar prayer earlier in this book (3:11-13). The Greek word that Paul uses here for “sanctify” is the word ἁγιάζω. That’s a verb, and it’s related to the adjective ἅγιος, which means “holy.” So, “sanctify” means to “make holy.” I said earlier in this series that I wish we had a word like “holify,” so that “sanctify” was more clearly linked to our word “holy.” But I didn’t invent the English language. I’m just trying to understand it. 

But I want you to know that when you see that word “sanctify” it means “holify.” It means to make a saint, like yourself, more holy. The God of peace is doing that in our church. And Paul is actually praying for that here in verse 23. 

You know, that’s not something that we often pray for in the church. We pray for health. We pray for prosperity. Those of us who are particularly pious might pray for spiritual growth. But holiness? Who prays for that? Well, Paul does! And he prays not for partial sanctification. He prays for complete sanctification. He prays that every unholy part of your life would become holy. That’s a big ask of the Lord. But it’s important. And the Lord loves this prayer and this pursuit within the church. 

Let me just say this and then we’ll move on to #2. I’ve got to keep things moving this morning because we’ve got six points. A healthy church, a God-honoring church, a Kingdom-called church, is going to be a church that grows in holiness. Everyone with me? We’ve got enough unholy churches in this world. We’ve got enough Christians that settle for something less than complete sanctification in their lives. 

And let me say this too. I grow impatient with churches that try to create a false dichotomy between grace and holiness, as if those things are mutually exclusive. Let me just say that biblical grace is not just a big pile of mush. Grace has a backbone. Grace and holiness are friends. They hang-out. They like each other. And the Bible teaches clearly that the grace that saves you, changes you. 

And the same is true with love and truth. People try to create a false dichotomy between those as well. But according to 1 Corinthians 13, love and truth are good friends too. To embrace one is to embrace the other. And the God of grace is also the God of holiness. The God of peace is also the God who sanctifies us and makes us holy. So, to be Kingdom-called means to represent the Holy King Jesus, who died and offered his grace to us—not so that we could live lives of sin and wickedness, but so that we can be holy as he is holy. Let’s be that kind of church! 

Remember what Paul said earlier in this letter. For this is the will of God, your sanctification (1 Thess 4:3). God’s will is your “holification”! ἁγιάζω! That’s what God wants from us, and that’s what Paul prays for here. God, make us holy!

Go ahead and write This down as #2. A Kingdom-Called church is being sanctified by the God of peace. And a Kingdom-called church is also…

2. Preparing for Christ’s return (5:23b-24)

Paul says in verse 23… actually Paul prays in verse 23…

and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it. 

Paul has spent a lot of time in this book talking about Christ’s return. Actually Paul makes a reference to Christ’s return in every chapter of this book (1:3, 10; 2:12, 19; 3:13; 4:13-17; 5:1-10, 23). I preached on that topic already in Chapters 4 and 5. We looked at Christ’s return, the rapture, our new bodies, the dead in Christ, etc. Paul is reiterating here his emphasis on that theme. And he’s praying once again that God would keep us blameless until the coming of Christ’s Jesus. And then he says confidently, “He is faithful. He will do it.” Paul’s not praying this prayer in fear. He’s praying in confidence knowing that God’s ultimate purpose will be accomplished. 

So, what does it mean to be a church that is “prepared for Christ’s return?” Does that mean that we become “preppers” and stockpile freeze-dried food in our basements? No! I mean you can do that if you want. But I don’t think that’s what Paul means here. I think, and I hate to be repetitive here, but I think it means almost the same thing he said earlier about holiness. To be blameless is to be holy. What’s different from the first point and the first part of verse 23 is the emphasis on Christ’s coming and on God’s sovereignty. 

Paul prays, “may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of Christ.” That means your whole being: your hardware (“body”) and your software (“spirit” and “soul”). I don’t think we should create hard distinctions here between soul and spirit. Those terms are often used interchangeably in the Bible. I think Paul is talking holistically about the whole person, just like Jesus did when he said we should love the Lord with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Luke 10:27, et al.). In other words, we should love the Lord with our whole being, with our emotions, our affections, our actions, and our intentions. Everything that we are should be moving towards blamelessness. Not hypocrisy where we say something with our mouths but do the complete opposite with our actions. That’s something to be avoided. 

So, what does being prepared for Christ’s return look like? Well, it means loving Christ and longing for his return. It means living a life that is pleasing to him. It means communicating the truth of God’s love and grace. It means warning people of Christ’s imminent return. It means not letting people be duped into thinking that the “right side of history” or the “wrong side of history” has anything to do with how we view and interpret this world. It has everything to do with how God interprets the world, and how God is going to sort things out when he returns. I don’t want to be on the “right side of history,” if that means I’m on the “wrong side of Jesus Christ.”

Are you ready for Jesus to return, if he returns today, church? A Kingdom-called church is preparing for his return. And notice the confidence that Paul exerts in verse 24. Paul says, “He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it” (5:24). God is not wringing his hands up in heaven agonizing over who is going to be his and who’s not. If he has called you, he is faithful. He’ll take care of you. 

Write this down as #3. Here’s a third thing that a Kingdom-called church does.

A Kingdom-Called church is…

3. Praying for its leaders (5:25)

There’s a bit of review here in these final verses. And Paul has already expressed his desire for the church to follow their leaders. Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13, “We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves.” Paul never argued for a flat hierarchy where the church reports to itself without leaders and without followers. That’s never something the Bible accepts for families, for governments, for churches, or even for businesses. That doesn’t lead to freedom; that actually leads to anarchy. Paul knows it’s a bad thing to have bad leaders. That’s why he spends a lot of time hammering on good leadership. But it’s no improvement on bad leadership to have no leadership. That creates chaos. 

So, in addition to following leaders, Paul also encouraged praying for leaders. And he does it in an incredibly humble and self-disclosing way. He says, “pray for us!” 

25 Brothers, pray for us. 

He says, “pray for us!” Notice the plural “us” there. In light of 1:1, this includes Timothy and Silas. Maybe also it includes some of the Thessalonian leaders who are traveling with Paul. Paul says, “Pray for us. We need it!”

If you know anything about the Book of Acts and what Paul went through traveling around as an apostle and an evangelist, you know that Paul needed prayer every day. And maybe some of those miraculous deliverances of the Apostle Paul were the result of the faithful prayers of people like the Thessalonians?

And by the way, this is not a one-way street. Paul said at the very beginning of this letter. “We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess 1:2-3). Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 3:10, “we pray most earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face and supply what is lacking in your faith.” You pray for us. We pray for you. This is what you might call “Holy Spirit quid-pro-quo” right here. You do this for me; I’ll do this for you. 

So, here’s a way we can practice this in our church. We as elders will commit to pray for you. You pray for us. That’s a healthy church right there that does that. You pray for us. We pray for you. And we pray together often as Paul says in chapter 5, “Pray without ceasing.” 

You know, we don’t have an Apostle Paul in the world right now to pray for. We don’t have his equivalent in our day. We don’t have “Apostles” in our day… I’m sorry but the Pope is not a modern-day Apostle Peter, no matter how much the Catholic Church wants to present him as such. But I think there are leaders in the church who have a very visible ministry before the world that we can and should pray for. I’ll just mention a few of those individuals: John Piper, John MacArthur, Alistair Begg, Al Mohler, Matt Chandler, Kevin DeYoung, and Joni Erickson Tada. Pray for these individuals to lead effectively and maintain a good witness before the world. They are all under a lot of scrutiny. 

Can I say this too? Pray for your pastor. Pray for me and my family. I guess if Paul can ask for it, I can ask for it. Ask the Lord to keep us steadfast in our service to him. Pray for God to strengthen us and “holify” us as we lead the church. Pray for your pastoral staff. Pray for your ministry leaders. Pray for your elders and their wives to not grow weary in doing good. 

Write this down in your notes as #4:

A Kingdom-Called church is…

4. Greeting one another in holiness (5:26)

Paul says in verse 26.

26 Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss. 

I know this verse is shocking in our modern world, especially our current COVID-19 world. But it was quite common to greet people with a kiss in the ancient world. Even in Croatia, that custom is quite prevalent among friends and family members. The churches in Paul adopted this practice as a way of greeting and showing proper affection to one another. Notice Paul says, “holy kiss.” That word “holy” is very important there! 

Now just a bit of cultural background here. Kissing as a form of greeting was prevalent in the First Century AD. Usually kissing on the cheek or on the forehead. Sometimes it was limited between genders, but it was never erotic or sensual. It was a kind of greeting. People didn’t shake hands or hug typically; they kissed. And in the church, it was a holy (ἅγιος) kiss among holy ones (οἱ ἅγιοι) who were committed to holiness (ἁγιάζω). Or let me say it this way: “It was a saintly kiss among saints who were committed to sanctification.” 

Now what was really shocking in Paul’s world wasn’t the kiss as a formal greeting between genders, but the kiss as a formal greeting among people of different ethnic groups. Jews and Gentiles were told in the church to greet each other warmly with a kiss.  Rich and poor were told to greet each other in the same way. Paul says, “Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss.” That is a radical form of egalitarianism in the church. The idea here is that the ground is level at the foot of the cross and at the doors of the church. We are all sinners saved by grace, and we stand as equals before God and before each other. 

So, here’s the question we need to ask: Do we, as twenty-first century believers, need to obey Paul’s command literally to greet one another with a holy kiss? No, I don’t think so. First of all because we greet one another with kindness and love in different ways in our day. But also, because it’s difficult to maintain a semblance of holiness and propriety in our day with a kiss. It’s too easy for that to be unholy or unwelcoming (or quite frankly awkward) in our day, which is the exact opposite of what Paul wants in this passage. 

So, I don’t think we need to adopt that custom slavishly at church. But I do think that our greetings to one another need to be appropriate, warm, and affectionate. There’s nothing worse than coming to church and being ignored or un-greeted by people. There’s a place for a holy handshake. There’s a place for a fraternal fist-bump. I personally love high-fives. But I know some people think that high-fives are dorky. I personally think high-fives are awesome!   

So, a few suggestions here. In most cases, I think a “holy handshake” accomplishes what Paul is suggesting here with a “holy kiss.” And if you do shake hands with a person, that needs to convey warmth and greeting. You’re not trying to squeeze someone’s hand so tightly that they feel intimidated by you. It’s not a power-play. It’s an expression of warmth and brotherly love. And it works between genders. You can shake a man’s hand and a woman’s hand, and both are very much a signal of love and greeting.

I think in some cases a holy hug is acceptable. But let’s be sensitive to one another. We have people with different backgrounds here at church. For some people, hugs are an acceptable and even expected form of greeting. And that’s how they express and receive a greeting. Other people are more reticent to hug. That’s okay. The goal is not to establish hard and fast rules on how we greet one another. The goal is to express warmth and tenderness to one another in a way that is holy and honorable. 

By the way, the Greek word here for “greet” is the word ἀσπάζομαι. And it means “to engage in hospitable recognition of another… through word or gesture or both.” It means to welcome or receive a person as a brother or sister in Christ, and so the action is not as important as the intent. Sometimes that intent can be conveyed with just a smile and a wave. 

I know there’s probably more that I could say about this. But let me just give a few statements here about how you greet one another. Ask yourself these questions:

1)   Is it a culturally acceptable way of greeting someone?

2)   Does it convey a warm welcome?

3)   Does it have the appearance of holiness?

4)   Does it express brotherly love for one another? 

Let’s continue. Write this down as #5:

A Kingdom-Called church is… 

5. Reading the Scriptures (5:27)

Paul says, 

27 I put you under oath before the Lord 

Notice the shift to the first person there. Paul says “I” not “we.” 

27 I put you under oath before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers. 

Paul probably wanted his letter read publicly because some of the church members were illiterate. Besides that, there was only one copy of his letter, and it was difficult to produce multiple copies. It’s not like in our day where, thanks to the printing press, we have multiple print copies of the Bible in our homes, and multiple Bible apps on our smart phones. 

But even beyond that, I think Paul realized that there is power in the corporate reading of God’s Word. Did Paul know when he sent this letter that it would be Scripture? That we would be reading it 2000 years later as Scripture? I think he had an inkling that was the case. I think he knew that his words have a “Thus says the LORD” quality to them! And even if he didn’t, the Holy Spirit who co-authored this letter knew the power of this Word. He knew that power, and he knew the effect that they have on people. So, he says, “Read it to all the brothers!” 

And Paul says elsewhere, by the way, to his understudy Timothy, “devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching” (1 Tim 4:13). Why did Paul say that? Why should Timothy do that in Ephesus? Why should your “Timothy” (a.k.a. Pastor Tony) do that at this church? Well because, as Paul tells us, “All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:16-17).

By the way, for what it’s worth, I love having people come up and read God’s Word before I preach. I think that’s been a really nice part of our service in this 1 Thessalonians series. Certainly, I could read it every week, but I like hearing from you guys and having you read it before I preach. Some of you are quite good at reading Scripture, so why not leverage that ability for the benefit of our church. 

And finally, go ahead and write this down as #6.

A Kingdom-Called church is… 

6. Living by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ (5:28)

Paul says in Verse 28. 

28 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. 

Paul closes with a reference to grace. By the way, did you know, church, that all thirteen of Paul’s letters in the NT end with a reference to “grace” (Greek: χάρις)? Every single one of his letters have a signoff that references grace. How important is that!

Dwight L. Moody said once, “A man can no more take in a supply of grace for the future than he can eat enough to-day to last him for the next six months, or take sufficient air into his lungs at once to sustain life for a week to come. We must draw upon God’s boundless stores of grace from day to day, as we need it.” Jesus said, “Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matt 6:34, NASB). That’s why God daily offers us grace and bestows upon us his grace. That is why Paul says,

28 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. 

If you remember, Paul began this book with a reference to grace. Paul says in the first verse of the first chapter of this book “Grace to you and peace, Thessalonians” (1 Thess 1:1). Now Paul reiterates his affinity for that grace in the last verse of the last chapter of this book. 28 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. So, this letter is bookended, just like our lives, with grace. 

Do you have the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ with you? Do you now? Just a little reminder here at the end of this book that we aren’t saved by works. And we aren’t saved by anything we’ve done. Do you remember one of the great battlecries of the Protestant Reformation? Sola Gratia! Grace alone. That’s how we are saved. The Lord Jesus Christ took on human flesh and died on the cross for your sins. And he offers you, by grace alone, unmerited favor, that’s what grace is… he offers you by unmerited favor freedom and forgiveness of sins. That’s the grace of the LORD Jesus Christ. May it be with you, says Paul. 

28 The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. 

Amen and Amen. That’s the book of 1 Thessalonians, church. This is God’s Word.