A Prayer for Complete Sanctification
1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
As we come to the wonderful time in our worship when we turn to hear from the Lord Himself, we're privileged again to turn to Paul's letter to the Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. This morning we're going to be looking at verses 23 and 24, 1 Thessalonians 5:23 and 24.
Paul writes: "Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you and He also will bring it to pass."
George Gallop, the famous American pollster has been in a sort of continuous effort to try to dissect the religious patterns of Americans. Some of you will remember an earlier poll some years back when his survey indicated that 80 percent of Americans say they are Christians. That same poll indicated that 70 percent of Americans say they are church members. Very recently he has completed another poll which shows up in a new book, following up that initial poll and endeavoring to try to discern the level of Christianity that exists among these 80 percent who claim to be Christians.
He determined in the poll that only 40 percent of those who say they're Christians knew who wrote or preached the Sermon on the Mount. In case you're wondering, it was Jesus. He also found in his later studies that about five to ten percent of Christians are prepared to articulate and defend their faith. Five to ten percent of those who claim to be Christians can define what it means and defend it. He also concluded that less than ten percent of those who claim to be Christians fall into what he called, quote: "High spiritual faith." He said that is a category of deeply committed Christians who live their faith. In fact, he called them, quote: "The quiet saints in our society who have a powerful impact," end quote.
And that is interesting to me because originally when the Gallop poll first came out, everyone was kind of excited to find out that 80 percent of the people in America were Christians. Everybody assumed that this meant there was a massive revival in this country and that many were now claiming and naming the name of Christ. Well, even the pollster, George Gallop, wanted to find out what that claim meant and has now come to the conclusion that less than ten percent of the people who claimed to be Christians can defend what Christianity is and live at a high spiritual level of commitment. What he is basically identifying or attempting to identify is who is really a Christian. A true Christian is not one who claims to be a Christian but one who lives like a Christian. It's not the sayers, Jesus said, but the doers in the Sermon on the Mount. So even George Gallop is concerned to identify true Christians and sort them out of the larger mass of people who make the claim.
What he is really identifying is sanctification. That's a big theological word but that's really what he's talking about. There are some people who have been transformed. Sanctification, we believe, is inseparable from justification. Justification refers to the very salvation event whereas sanctification refers to the process of spiritual development. And we believe that justification and sanctification are inseparable so those who were truly justified are being sanctified. Those who experienced the saving event are in spiritual progress and it shows up in their life.
The issue of sanctification then is central to the reality of the Christian faith. George Gallop is finding it out. We hope that many others will find it out as well. Certainly the Apostle Paul knew it. He knew that sanctification was central to Christian life and experience. And so his prayer, really the sort of benediction prayer at the end of this epistle, is that the God of peace Himself will sanctify you.
Now that introduces to us this matter of sanctification. There is, believe it or not, an awful lot taught about sanctification in these two simple verses, and we'll try to extract as much as we can in the limited time we have this morning. But I want you to do with me a little bit of a study on sanctification. Let's start with point number one, the nature of sanctification.
When we talk about being sanctified, when we talk in the terms of Gallop Poll about "high spiritual faith," when we talk about deep commitment, what are we really talking about? What is this sanctification? What does it mean?
Well look at the verse, verse 23,