Abound more and more in holiness.

Sermon for Lent 2, Reminiscere, March 8, 2020

Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.  Amen.

Abound more and more in holiness.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

            “The Lord told Moses to speak to the whole community of the Israelites and tell them these things: ‘You shall be holy, because I, the Lord your God, am holy.’” (Leviticus 19:1-2)  This statement of our God serves as a command, a warning, and a promise.  Jesus, likewise, told His followers, “So then, be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48)  The thought is repeated throughout the Bible that God wants us to be perfectly holy—indeed, that we must be to dwell with Him. 

In our sermon text, Paul takes up the same theme.  We are to be holy before God.  Paul wrote to fellow believers, even commending those beloved Christians, but at the same time urging them to strive even more to live in Christian holiness in the midst of a world that is anything but holy.  The same could be said about all of us; we want to be holy before God, but the world fights against us.  So that we don’t give up the fight, the Holy Spirit encourages us through St. Paul to Abound more and more in holiness.

1 Thessalonians 4:1-7  Therefore, beyond this, brothers, just as you received instruction from us about how you are to walk so as to please God (as indeed you are doing), we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus that you do so even more.  ² To be sure, you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus.  ³ Indeed, this is God’s will: that you be sanctified, namely, that you keep yourselves away from sexual immorality.  ⁴ He wants each of you to learn to obtain a wife for yourself in a way that is holy and honorable, ⁵ not in lustful passion like the heathen, who do not know God.  ⁶ No one is to overstep and take advantage of his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, just as we said previously and solemnly testified to it.  ⁷ For God did not call us for uncleanness, but in sanctification. (EHV)

In the opening sentence of our text, Paul acknowledges that these believers had been instructed in holy living, and indeed, they were doing so to the best of their ability, so we might ask, why harp on the subject?  The reason is that we must be ever on our guard against those things, spirits, and people who would seek to see us fail.  The world, unbelieving neighbors, and our own flesh work against us.  The devil certainly wants nothing more than to get us to ignore God’s will for our lives.  God’s command is that we will be holy, but who among us could live up to that?

These verses address what may be the two most tempting types of sin: lust and greed.  Paul wrote, “Indeed, this is God’s will: that you be sanctified, namely, that you keep yourselves away from sexual immorality.  He wants each of you to learn to obtain a wife for yourself in a way that is holy and honorable, not in lustful passion like the heathen, who do not know God.”  We could talk about the sin that was rampant in the times of the Thessalonians, but more concerning are the temptations of our days.  Lust and greed drive so much of our entertainments, our world’s advertising, and even political campaigns.  Just as critically, lust and greed so often drive how we relate to other people around us.

Like I said, Paul is writing not to the pagans or the worst of their neighbors, but to and about Christian believers, and still, he tells them to Abound more and more in holiness.  Today, most of us live pretty stable, ordinary, Christian lives.  On the outside, we strive to look clean.  But, what if we each had a little computer monitor mounted on our foreheads that publicly displayed every thought and desire that enters our heads?  Men, what would the world see posted there when you see a pretty girl walking down the street?  Would it be thoughts we would want our mothers, or our wives, to see?  And ladies, would your thoughts be pure when meeting a handsome man?  Or even meeting that pretty girl, would your confession screen sometimes light up with the thought, “I sure wish I had her body?”

Likewise, when we think about the rich people of our society, what thoughts would pop up on those reality-checking monitors?  Would we rejoice about how God has blessed those who have more money and success than us, or would the screen say, “Why doesn’t that greedy so and so share the wealth with the rest of us?  Or might it say something like, “I sure wish I had his money!”  When we honestly examine our lives, that command that we must be holy sure seems to find us in trouble, doesn’t it?

Which brings us to the warning.  If God insists that we be holy to stand in His presence come Judgment Day, who among us could hope to do so?  Furthermore, where could our neighbors find any possible way out of condemnation?  Paul said, “No one is to overstep and take advantage of his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, just as we said previously and solemnly testified to it.”  The Lord is the avenger.  God will judge us not just on what the outside looks like, but on every part of what He sees in our lives.  Therefore, the Holy Spirit instructs us to Abound more and more in holiness, because it is good for us, and it is good for those around us as well.

The Lord is instructing us, here, to treat everyone as righteously and as purely as Jesus treated everyone He met.  The Lord Jesus walked this earth helping everyone who came to Him.  He treated the women He met with absolute respect, kindness, and purity of thought, word, and deed.  Jesus met with the rich and the poor with the same attitude.  He never once was jealous of the rich even thought Jesus had no place of His own in which to lay His head.  At the same time, Jesus was never ashamed of the poor, the crippled, the blind, or the diseased.  He willingly touched, ate with, and healed those whom society considered unclean.  

If our Savior, who we claim to follow, could live like that, shouldn’t we always do the same?  The warning says, “Yes, we should, and we must!”’  On the other hand, if we think we can please God by imitating Jesus, be warned that we fall far short of Christ’s example of perfect love.

By faith, God’s statement again comes to mind, but thankfully now as a promise: “You shall be holy, because I, the Lord your God, am holy.”  This is the promise of the Scriptures, the source of our true faith, and our only hope: Jesus has made us holy by faith in His perfect life and holy sacrifice.  In our psalm, we prayed, “Remember, O Lord, your compassion and your mercy, for they are from eternity.  Do not remember the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways.  According to your mercy remember me, because of your goodness, O Lord.” (Psalm 25:6-7)

The Christian believer strives to Abound more and more in holiness, not because we must in order to be saved, nor because we are afraid that if we don’t measure up to Jesus, He will leave us behind.  Instead, because we have been rescued from darkness and death by the Son of God, we want to live more and more holy lives, because we are grateful for all Jesus has done for us, for the life of holiness and purity He lived on our behalf every day of His earthly life, for the sacrifice of His holy body on the cross to cover our shame, for the blood that flowed from His side to wash away our sins, and for the body and blood He gives us yet today to strengthen our faith and comfort us with the assurance that His sacrifice is sufficient to make us right with God and all our sins are forgiven.

Paul said, “God did not call us for uncleanness, but in sanctification.”  God did not pluck us out of the stinking swamp of this world’s wickedness so that we could learn to measure up to His law.  Rather, God pulled us out of the slime so that He could make us clean.  Then, having granted us a new life of faith in Jesus, the Father and the Son make their home with us.  With God at our side, our desires change.  The new man of faith wants to live pure and holy.  Yes, that faithful believer in each of us has to daily struggle against the old man of death we were born with, but that is why the Holy Spirit urges us to live in the instructions of our God all the more. 

By the power of the Sacraments, the Holy Spirit changes our lives.  By the hearing of God’s Word, He works sanctification in us.  As new lives growing in God’s family, claimed in the adoption of Baptism, we want to live like our Brother and Father, holy in every thought, word, and deed, and when we fail, we now know were to turn.  Instead of looking inside ourselves, we run again and again to Jesus, to the One who made us right with His Father, to the One who left His throne in heaven to come to earth to be our Savior, who endured poverty and meanness so that we could be rich in His grace, Who suffered the punishment of wicked men and the pains of hell so that we could walk boldly into heaven, dressed in Christ’s holiness, as He intercedes for us with the Father.

Once upon a time, a tax collector (who perhaps was rich on earth, but we know was poor in spirit) stood before God in complete humility begging for mercy.  This is how we too Abound more and more in holiness.  We come before God trusting not in ourselves, or our own works, but begging for mercy for Jesus’ sake.  And Jesus declares for us, as He did for that repentant tax collector, “I tell you, this man went home justified rather than the other, because everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 18:14)

Dear friends, trusting in Christ Jesus, Abound more and more in holiness.  Amen.

Now to him who is able to strengthen you— according to the gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, . . . to God, who alone is wise, be glory forever through Jesus Christ. Amen.”