Being Established in Holiness

Paul's Longing for the Thessalonians' Holiness

0:04 I encourage you to turn with me to the third chapter of 1 Thessalonians as we continue our studies in the morning services of this very warm, personal, intimate letter of the Apostle Paul to the infant church of the Thessalonians. We are presently considering the last few verses of the third chapter, this chapter that gives us an insight to the passionate longings of the Apostle's heart for the people of Thessalonia, particularly the Christians there. And that longing was expressed, as we saw several weeks ago, in his prayer of verses 9 and 10, a prayer suffused with thanksgiving and a prayer that had as its focus that God would return him night and day, praying exceedingly that we might see your face and perfect that which was lacking in your faith. Verses 11 to 13, as we saw last week, are simply the extension into conscious desire of that which Paul had previously prayed. True desire and true prayer are always inseparable.

1:30 The Lord Jesus tied them together in Mark 11, 24, when he said, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, indicating that true spiritual desire gives birth to prayer, and conversely, true prayer then intensifies the desire. And so you have this cycle of desire giving birth to prayer and prayer giving birth to desire. So having prayed, as he says in verse 10, that God would bring him to them, now he records his sanctification and purified longings for them in verses 11 to 13. Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way unto you.

2:13 Do we pray night and day that he'll bring us? So not only do we pray, this is our longing, and so we express this longing, may God bring us to you. Is his prayer that their faith will be perfected, as we read in verse 10? If so, then his longing will be that they, get perfected.

2:34 And so he reads, we read in verses 12 and 13, And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one to another and toward all men, even as also we do toward you, to the end that he may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints. So as his prayer had this two-fold longing to see them, to perfect their faith, so his desire is expressed in those words, May God direct my way to you, and in the meantime, may he perfect you by his grace. Last week we studied the manward direction of his longing, or excuse me, the Godward direction. May God bring us to you. And the three great lessons that were there, one a practical lesson concerning the power of God, absolutely concrete, covering all the opposition of the devil who had hindered him previously, a theological lesson about the nature of God, Paul using that compound subject, God and Christ in the singular verb, may he bring us to you, indicating in the apostles' mind the doctrine of the Trinity, that God and Christ are one God. And then we considered together the other lesson that was in this text,

4:02 and it's left me, now just exactly what it was, oh yes, the practical and searching lesson concerning the nature of true saving religion. Paul could say, our God and our Lord Jesus Christ. And no man is a Christian, no woman is a Christian who can say in a scriptural sense, our God, my God, our Lord, my Lord. Then we just began to consider his manward longing, his longing Godward is that God would bring him to these people, his longing with regard to the people, verses 12 and 13, that the Lord would make them to increase and abound in love to the end, that they might be established unblameable in holiness. The object or the focus of his longing for the people at Thessalonia was that they might be established in holiness. And then we sought, to discover what he taught us about holiness, that it was something of which God was the author, may he establish you in holiness. The inner life is the seed of it, establish your hearts in holiness.

5:16 The whole heart and life, the extent of it, establish you unblameable in holiness. And then the coming of Christ will be a revelation of its genuineness, unblameable in holiness, before our God at the coming of Christ. Therefore, the goal of his longing is that they might be established in holiness. This morning we focus upon verse 12, which tells us the means by which this goal is to be accomplished.

Refuting False Means to Holiness

5:48 By what means will they be established unblameable in holiness? As we seek to think our way through this particular portion of Paul's expressed longing, consider with me, in the first place, this question, what means is it that will bring us to a mature and settled holiness?

6:16 Now, some people would answer the question this way, well, it's obvious. The way you get established unblameable in holiness is to have a second work of grace that will eradicate the sin nature. If ever that was true, here was the most ideal place in all the world for Paul to establish. Now, if that's your goal, and you know that the means by which that is to be accomplished is some deep, powerful, second work of grace that will eradicate the sin nature, here's the place to inject it.

6:55 But we don't find Paul saying, now may the Lord give you this coat of many colors experience that will establish you in holiness. There are some who'd say, well, they don't need an experience of eradication, that's not taught in scripture, but if they could get the baptism of the Spirit, though it wouldn't eradicate them, it sure would go a long way to establish them in holiness. Now, if ever that was how young believers got established in holiness, here's the place to find Paul expressing it. But we don't find him expressing that.

7:27 Others would say, well, the way you get established in holiness is simply to more and more conform the outward life to the do's and don'ts of our little evangelicals, to the evangelical checklist. If you don't go here and don't go there, and if you do this and do that, that's how you're established in holiness. And so though they would reject any thought of being established in holiness by an experience of eradication or a baptism of the Spirit, they say, no, it's by the process of conforming yourself to the evangelical checklist, as I call it.

8:02 Well, some would say, well, a plague on the house of every one of you, really, the way you get established in holiness is by realizing you can't be, but that the Lord must live His life through you. And the minute you recognize you can't be and just give up and let go and let God, then you've got it. Well, if ever that was the teaching of Scripture, here's the place to find it. Now may the Lord help you to realize you can't be established in holiness and just quit, let go, and let Christ live through you.

8:30 But we don't find that here either. Now, why am I giving all these negatives? Well, for the simple reason, it's one of the ways we learn. How do you get established in unblameable holiness?

8:42 That's a pretty basic question. Because as we saw last week, without holiness, no man shall see the Lord. And the primary and the overriding evidence of grace is a pursuit of holiness, holiness of heart that extends to the whole man that will stand the scrutiny of God and those factors that we saw in verse 13. Well, in answer to the question, what means is it by which believers are established in holiness, we see now it is not eradication, baptism of the Spirit, conformity to an evangelical checklist, coming to the great negation, where you just say, I don't do anything, I give up, I let go and let God. It's none of these things. Well, then what is it? Well, notice carefully what it is.

The Scriptural Means: Increasing and Abounding Love

9:35 And the Lord makes... He makes you to increase and abound in love one to another and toward all men, even as we do toward you, to the end that He may establish your hearts in holiness.

9:50 You see the answer of Scripture? Listen carefully as I try to summarize it.

9:57 Settled holiness or sanctification in the eyes of God is the object in view and the means by which it is to be attained is a growing and overflowing love to men. May God give you, Paul says, an increasing and overflowing love to men to the end you may be established in holiness. Indicating that to the extent that their love increased and overflowed and only to that extent were they being truly established in a holiness that would stand the scrutiny of God. at the coming of Christ.

10:42 So, whatever this means is, two things are very clear before we go into some of the details. It involves a process. The words increase and abound are words of process. And I find from being in the Great Britain for two and a half weeks, I almost said process.

11:03 It's amazing how your ear gets acclimated to hearing a word a certain way. I often wonder, why is it that English children talk different from American children? It's just that they heard the words all their lives different and we say them as we hear them. And I'd heard process for so long that I almost said process and you would have looked at me and scratched your head and wondered what's happened to our poor pastor.

11:23 The process aspect is very clear here. Increase and abound are words of process. So, whatever means God has ordained to establish us in unblameable holiness, let's get away, from the itch for some great and glorious coat of many colors experience. This itch for shortcuts in the development of spiritual life is in every one of us by nature.

11:56 And what makes all the wild teaching on sanctification so susceptible or what makes it so acceptable to so many, whether it's some of these things I mentioned earlier, eradication, or a great and glorious baptism of the Spirit, or anything else, is that we just plain have a deep itch for some shortcut to holiness. I get weary fighting sin, don't you?

12:26 Don't you? I get weary with the outcroppings of my flesh. And just when you begin to think you're making progress in a given area and breathing easy, there, lo and behold, that thing will crop up. Don't you get weary of that?

12:41 I hope you're weary of it. That's the mark of life. The mark and the sign that there's conflict. And so in the midst of the weariness when someone says, oh, you weary pilgrim, I have something that's going to help you.

12:55 So no more weariness. No more conflict. No more struggle. No more process or process.

13:01 You're just going to get shot into some beautiful state. Our spiritual fangs just drip. And we say, ah, that's for me. Well, you settle it that if ever that was the answer, here's the place you'd find it.

13:14 Because this passage, without any question, is dealing with how people get established unblameable in holiness. And Paul confronts us with the concept of process. And secondly, it involves essentially the increase of love as its crowning grace and gift.

The Relationship Between Love and Holiness

13:38 So, in answer to the question, what is the means by which we get established in holiness? Paul tells us, process, and it involves the centrality of the virtue of love. All right, if that's so, then the next question we've got to ask and seek to answer, and I confess I've expended a lot of mental sweat trying to understand the answer to this question, and I'm still not satisfied, but I'll give you as far as I have life this morning. Here's the second question.

14:06 What is the relationship, then, of love to holiness?

14:14 If the means by which we're established in holiness, is an increasing and abounding love, then this question must be before us if we're thinking at all, what is the relationship between love and holiness or sanctification? If increasing love is the means to attain this, how are the two related?

14:35 One theologian has said, the connection between love and unblameable holiness is one of the most important topics of experimental theology. And by experimental, he did not mean theology that you carry on in the test tube, but the experimental means in the realm of experience as opposed to theoretical theology. In theoretical theology, you may be dealing with the concept of one of the attributes of God. Experimental theology, you're dealing with some aspect of man and his experience.

15:11 And this theologian has said that this connection that we're trying to see right now between love and unblameable holiness, unblameable holiness is one of the most important topics of experimental theology. All right, now the question is before us. Here it is. The relationship between love and sanctification or holiness, what is it?

15:31 Now, if we're gonna answer that question, we've got to first of all, know what this thing over here is. What is sanctification? Before I can know the relationship of love to this, I've got to know what this is. Well, what is sanctification?

15:45 You say, pastor, all you do is ask us questions. You don't give us any answers. Well, we've got to ask questions before we can get some answers. Now, the best answer I know to that question, what is sanctification, is that which is given in the Shorter Catechism.

16:00 And I meant to bring my catechism with me this morning. I did, but I didn't have it here on the platform.

16:06 Question number 34. Listen carefully. Sanctification is the work of God's Spirit whereby we are renewed in the whole man, whereby we are renewed in the whole man, after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin and to live unto righteousness. Now let's put that in a summary form.

16:30 Sanctification then is a work of the Spirit by which we are enabled more and more to be done with sin and to be occupied with righteousness. Sanctification then, is the work of the Spirit, by which we are enabled more and more to be done with sin and to be occupied with righteousness. Sanctification then, is the work of the Spirit, by which we are enabled more and more to be done with sin and to be occupied with righteousness. Sanctification then, is the work of the Spirit, by which we are enabled more and more to be done with sin and to be occupied with righteousness.

16:47 Sanctification then, is the work of the Spirit, by which we are enabled more and more to be done with sin and to be occupied with righteousness. Sanctification then, is the work of the Spirit, by which we are enabled more and more to be done with sin and to be occupied with righteousness. Sanctification then, is the work of the Spirit, by which we are enabled more and more to be done with sin and to be occupied with righteousness. Sanctification then, is the work of the Spirit, by which we are enabled more and more to be done with sin and to be occupied with righteousness.

16:49 In a process of renewal in relationship to a fixed standard. He dies to sin, something that doesn't measure up to the standard. He lives more and more to righteousness, the things that do measure up to the standard. So, let's think of sanctification then as a process of renewal involving the whole man in relationship to a fixed standard.

17:18 Now, what is that fixed standard? If sanctification is the process of becoming more and more conformed to that standard, then what is the standard? Well, the answer of Scripture is clear. The standard is the law of God.

17:33 We die more and more to sin. Well, what is sin? Sin is the transgression of the law. 1 John 3, 4.

17:39 What is righteousness? Romans 8, 4. That the righteousness of the law may be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. So then, the will of God, the law of God, is the standard by which sanctification is measured.

18:00 Now you begin to see the connection, I trust, between love and holiness. For having answered the question, what is sanctification? This renewal in terms of a fixed standard. That fixed standard is the law.

18:14 Now I ask myself, what is the essential requirement of that law? And what is the answer of Scripture? When our Lord was asked that question, what is the great commandment? What did He answer?

18:28 Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind, soul, and strength, and thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang what? All the law and the prophets. Matthew 22 and verse 40.

18:46 Look at Romans 13 for a moment, where we find the same thing. And please gird up the loins of your mind and think with me. I know this is hard, and I've asked God to give me unusual gifts of simplicity and the rest, and I still feel somewhat frustrated, but stick with me now, and I think you'll find the effort worthwhile when all this ties together. Romans 13, verse 8.

19:12 O no man anything save to love one another, for he that loveth his neighbor hath fulfilled the law. For this, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not covet, and if there be any other commandment, it is summed up in this word, namely, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbor. Love, therefore, is the fulfilling of the law.

19:45 You have essentially the same thing in Galatians 5 and verse 40. Now, how far have we come thus far? Let's back up and see if we can mark our steps. What is the means by which this sanctified state is realized?

Love as the Fulfilling of the Law

20:03 By an increase and overflow of love. Well, what's the relationship then of love to holiness or sanctification? Sanctification is this process of renewal in which we're made more and more after this absolute standard. That standard is the law of God, and its core, its summary requirement is, in terms of human relationships, to love my neighbor as myself, so that I'm sanctified only to the extent that that love to my neighbor as myself is being realized in my own experience, as well as my love to God with the whole heart, mind, soul, and strength. Now, how? How does this love to one's neighbor work? Love, in a biblical sense, is not merely a feeling or a disposition, but an energy that works with intelligence and purpose for the good of my neighbor.

21:07 Love delights in the happiness and good of its object. Hence, love leads me to do all that the law requires, because the law requires nothing but what is good for my neighbor. When the law says, thou shalt not kill, that's the demand of love. For to kill my neighbor is to harm him.

21:27 Love worketh no ill to his neighbor. Therefore, the law of God, in all its requirements, whatever it prohibits, is the prohibition of love. Whatever it demands, these are the demands of love. So that if I love my neighbor negatively, love works no ill to my neighbor.

21:47 Romans 13.10 Positively, Matthew 7.12 As you would that others do unto you, even so do to them. Love seeks to positively promote the good of my neighbor.

22:01 Now, let me get specific. If I love my neighbor, love worketh no ill to him. What does love do then? Love stands like a sentinel at my lips and will not allow cutting, biting, unkind words to pass from my lips, to be like daggers to be stuck in the back of my neighbor.

22:26 If I love my neighbor, love worketh no ill to my neighbor. Therefore, love will act as a mighty principle, a sentinel at my lips. Other times, love will act not as a sentinel on the lips, but as a porter upon the lips, to carry out of the lips words of forgiveness, words of kindness, words of gracious rebuke, words of understanding, words of patience. Love worketh no ill to the neighbor.

23:01 That's the negative. He stands as a sentinel. But, love works for my neighbor's good. He acts like a porter to carry out those words that will convey grace and mercy to one's neighbor.

23:16 Love will not permit unforgiveness. Impatience. Dishonesty.

23:24 Selfishness. No, love will not permit that in relationship to my neighbor. For love worketh no ill, but in its place, as I would that others do unto me. Love will enable me to regard my neighbor in such a light that I will long to express to him all that I would want him to express to me if I were in a similar situation.

23:48 And so we may say in summary, that we know practical sanctification and holiness no further than we are advancing in love. A love that fills up the heart and overflows in the life. So when Paul is thinking of the end that he has in view, that these Thessalonians be perfected in sanctification and in holiness of faith, a heart that will stand the scrutiny of Christ, he knows that it will only be as love abounds and overflows. For if sanctification is conformity to an absolute standard and that standard is the law and the primary requirement of the law is love to God and man, then the only way to fulfill the law is to be filled with love.

Sanctification, Love, and Law: An Inseparable Trinity

24:50 So that as we think of this whole matter of holiness or sanctification, there are two words that we must never divorce from that word sanctification or holiness. And the words are love and law. And if you ever separate those three words, you've missed the biblical teaching. Sanctification, love and law.

25:14 Don't rip out any one of them. If you have sanctification or holiness only in terms of an absolute standard law without love being the means of salvation, by which it is realized you have a hollow, empty, cold, lifeless legalism. If you think of sanctification in terms of love without any law to guide its direction, you have mere sentimentality. For law is love's eyes and without it love is blind.

25:46 Love makes me want my neighbor's good, but the law tells me what is his good. Sin has so perverted me that I might think it would be to my neighbor's good, to take his property. Maybe I see he's getting proud and he's getting too worldly minded and that his riches and his possessions are destroying him spiritually. And so I say, look, I've got to help that fellow.

26:13 So I make a little trip at three o'clock in the morning with my burglar tools and I take away from him some of those things that are going to hurt him spiritually. See, it might appear to me that stealing his goods would be for his good. So because we're in a disordered world with sinfully darkened, blackened minds, I must seek his good in terms of what God has said in his law is good. Maybe some fellow sees that his neighbor's wife is terribly frustrated and he says, well, the poor woman just needs lots of affection and love.

26:44 And so I'll just consort with her once a week so she'll be a happier, more contented person. I love my neighbor so much, I don't want him to have a grumpy, frustrated wife. So if I consort with her once a week, she'll be more satisfied, she'll have a sense of fulfillment, she'll be a better wife to him. So he'll commit adultery.

27:00 So he'll commit adultery. He'll commit adultery with her once a week. Now you see, love, which longs for my neighbor's good, looks to the law to know what is my neighbor's good. So that the law becomes love's eyes.

27:15 But love becomes law's heart,

27:19 which gives the motivation to keep that law of God. I trust you see a little more clearly than the relationship between sanctification, the law, and love. Now let's move on in our text to ask the third question. What are the specific factors involved in the kind of love which will produce this sanctification?

The Source and Subject of Love

27:44 What does our text tell us about this love? Well, in the first place, it tells us the source of it. Notice. And the Lord make you to abound in love one toward another.

27:59 Now whether the Lord there refers to God the Father, or to the Lord Jesus Christ, or as some commentators feel, possibly even to the Lord the Spirit, as He is called in Corinthians,

28:13 the issue is clear that the Lord refers to one of the persons of the triune Godhead. So that as Paul thinks of his longing that these Thessalonians be established in holiness, a holiness that will be realized by means of an increasing, overflowing love, he tells them at the very outset his only hope that it will come to pass is if God is pleased to do something. You just don't have it, he says. The Lord make you to increase and abound.

28:44 For the Apostle acknowledges that salvation is all of grace in all of its manifestations from beginning to end. And the same God who awakens us and regenerates us and turns us to Himself is the God who worked in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure, Philippians 2, verse 2, verse 13. The fruit of the Spirit is love. Now that's just not a theological proposition for which we should fight.

29:11 We ought to fight for it. But it's a very practical proposition. If I'm convinced that I advance in holiness only to the extent that I advance in love,

29:24 well then I'm going to want this love. And once I want it, I better know where to get it. For if I go looking in the wrong place, I'll be frustrated. And if I look within, hoping, and somehow to either concoct it or to brew it myself, I'll be doomed to failure.

29:40 So, Paul would direct us immediately to look outside of ourselves for the source of this love. May the Lord make you to imbound. And once we're convinced of this, we will look only to Him. And then we will cry earnestly to Him.

29:58 For it's one of those gifts of God that awaits our earnest prayer. Ye have not, because ye ask not. Ask, and it shall be given you. Like as the earthly father in his sinfulness gives good gifts to his children, how much more shall the Father in Heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him?

30:20 So, immediately, all the talk amongst unregenerate, unconverted people about loving the neighbor is all a bunch of theological and practical poppycock and foolishness. For you see, you can't have that that love of which God is the source until you're rightly related to God. Look at the mess the world is in in practical human relationships because there is no cement of love to hold the fragmented pieces together. And they're the ones that talk loudest about love.

30:52 Well, you see, until I'm so related to God that I have the privilege of coming as one of His redeemed children and asking, there's no hope that I will have this love. And if I'm speaking this morning to some, some who are strangers to repentance and faith and you've never come as a guilty, helpless sinner throwing your sin-laden soul upon Christ, then let me urge you today to seek the Lord while He may be found. Turn to Him in faith and repentance. And as you are rightly related to God through Christ, then you are tied into the source of love.

31:28 But hurry on with me to consider the subject of this love. God's the source, but upon whom does it come to light? Notice. And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love.

31:44 And in the original, it's very emphatic. The you is at the beginning. And if you were translating it literally, you'd say, but you may the Lord make to increase and abound in love.

31:58 In other words, God's going to do something in us so that we will do the loving. The whole idea that Christ loves through me is unscriptural. Write it off. It's unscriptural.

32:14 Paul doesn't say, now may the Lord love through you. He says, may He make you to increase and abound in love. God's the source of this love, but the subject of it is the redeemed sinner in whom God actually works something of divine love. John says in 1 John 3, we know that we've passed from death unto life because we love the brethren, not because Christ loves the brethren through me.

32:44 If in your thinking this concept of Christ loving, living, yearning through me is there, cry to God to expel it because it has terrible practical implications. No, God's laid hold of me. And if I am to increase and abound in love, it will be as God works in me. And gives me grace to love.

33:10 Isn't that the teaching of Scripture throughout the entire New Testament? God worketh in you to will and to do. Hebrews 13, May the God who brought from the dead the Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, make you perfect in everything to do His will. Philippians 4.13, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I do it because Christ does something to me. He doesn't do it by bypassing me. He does something in me so that I can do it.

33:42 I say, Pastor, there you go playing with words again. Oh, no, that's not playing with words. Because you see, if you fail to love, then who do you blame?

33:53 Hmm?

33:56 Is it your failure? You bet your boots it is.

34:02 And this whole idea of the funnel theory of Christianity, Christ lives through me, Christ thinks through me, leads to a lessening of the guilt of failure and to a lessening of the guilt of failure. And it leads to a subjectivism for Christ is infallible. And He never does anything wrong. And if I'm there and He's funneled through me, everything's all right.

34:22 And practically speaking, it always leads to a disrespect for the objective guidelines of Holy Scripture. And this is not a theoretical danger. If you could have sat where I sat just a few weeks ago and seen a young man tormented, tormented, blood pressure affected, because he came under this abominable teaching of the faith, funnel theory, that he was just a funnel and Christ had to think through him and live through him and love through him and feel through him. And the poor boy was in actual torment and one of his buddies had been sitting for two years in his room waiting for Christ to move through him and to lead him to where he should go.

35:00 Dear ones, it's a dangerous, unscriptural, imbalanced teaching. The subject in which this love will come to rest is the redeemed child of God. Now, if we separate either the first principle or the second, we get in trouble. Who's the source of this love?

35:19 God. Who is the subject? The redeemed sinner. Now, if you separate one or the other, you've missed it.

35:27 If you get the redeemed sinner as the subject of it, he must love, he must increase, he must abound. And don't tell him that God's the source. That leads to despair.

35:40 If you say God's the source, don't emphasize, don't emphasize that in answer to prayer God's going to do something in you, that leads to fanaticism and passivity. But when you put the two together, you've got biblical Christianity. I can do, I am the subject, through Christ, who strengthens me. Now, that's all the difference in the world.

36:03 Christ strengthening me to do something and Christ doing it for me. There are times when my children get themselves in situations where they need Daddy to do something for them. As often as we've told them some of you know that wrought iron place up from our hallway that separates the cliff there, the living room floor from that hallway about four feet below. And we've told the children not to get sitting in there, but sometimes they like to get their legs entwined in there and they just have the best time.

36:33 And they struggle to get out and finally they come and say, holler, Daddy, Mommy, I'm stuck, I can't get out. Well, you see, I've got to come then and take them out of there. I don't tell them how to do it, how to extricate themselves. I actually come and physically, bodily take them out of there and all they've got to do is relax.

36:53 I tell them, you just relax and I'll work you out. That's me doing something for them.

36:59 Now, if I stand off and give them directions as to how to do it, they are doing it, but by the direction that I give. You see, there's the difference. Now, there's an absolute difference between Christ doing something for me, living through me, that concept, and Christ, by His Spirit enabling me to do the thing that is His will. We must keep the two together.

The Measure of Love: Increase and Overflow

37:24 Then the third thing about this love, and it's right here in the text, is the measure of it. God is the source of it, the redeemed saint, the subject of it. What's the measure of it? The Lord make you to increase and abound.

37:41 The New English Bible translates it this way, May the Lord make your love to mount and overflow. The first word referring primarily to the inward experience. The Lord make you to increase inwardly in this experience of love, and then overflow will be its outward manifestation. Now, you children, listen to your pastor now while I ask you a question.

38:04 Suppose I had one of those plastic glasses that is opaque. You can't see through it. It's opaque. It's not transparent, like a regular white clear glass.

38:15 It's not translucent, like some of them, but it's opaque. You can't see through it. You can have it full of mud, full of marbles, full of juice, and from the outside you can't tell. Now, suppose I held that glass up here this morning, and I had a pitcher of milk, and you can't see through the glass.

38:31 It's one of those that, you know, you can't see any color, any light through. And I'm filling the glass. When would you know the glass was full? If I held it up here, where you couldn't look up over the top, when would you know the glass was full?

38:45 Hmm? When it began to do what? When it began, to run over. Sure.

38:52 When it began to overflow. For you know there's no overflow until there's what? Fullness. And the proof of fullness is overflow.

39:01 Now that's the thought that Paul has here. We sang about it as kids in Sunday school. My cup is full and, what? Running over.

39:12 Running over. My cup is full. The next stage is running over. That's what Paul is saying here.

39:17 The Lord make you to increase, be filled up to the point of overflowing. And the only way anyone can know that God is filling me up with love is when they get splashed by the overflow.

39:34 That's the only way. How do you know when people's hearts are full of love? When you get the blessing of the splashings of the overflow. So that in practical day-by-day experience, you know by the conduct and actions and reaction of this person to you that there is somewhere a hidden, inward filling up because you are getting the blessed experience of the overflow.

40:03 Now that that was the case of the Thessalonians is clearly indicated from chapter 4. Will you notice as we just make a quick glance into the next chapter? Verses 9 and 10. But concerning love of the brethren, ye have no need that one write unto you, for ye yourself, yourselves are taught of God to love one another.

40:25 For indeed, ye do it toward all the brethren that are in Macedonia. But we exhort you, brethren, that you abound more and more. Now he said, we have no need to write to you to love one another. He said, we know that you love one another.

40:41 Why? Notice, for ye do it toward the brethren. Paul said, we know that God is filling up your cup with love because we see the overflow in the lives of the brethren.

40:54 Now as Paul discerned it in the Thessalonians, so this is the only way we can discern it in each other. And you never can have too much. Here he says, you people have got enough to overflow, but I want more poured in because the more you pour into a cup that's already filled, the more it's going to spill over the outside. And so he said, I want you to abound more and more.

41:18 I want that there should be more overflow. So, the source of it, God. The subject, the redeemed sinner. The measure of it, increasing, overflowing.

The Objects of Love: Saints and All Men

41:28 Now, who are the objects of it? Who should be around to catch the drops that spill over the top of the river? Notice, the Lord make it to increase and abound in love one toward another and toward all men. The objects of it, first of all, the saints with whom we live.

41:49 The Lord make, you Thessalonians, to increase and abound in love to one another. Now, think with me this morning. What relationships place the greatest demands upon love?

42:05 Casual or intimate?

42:11 What relationships place the greatest demands upon love? What relationships are the deepest test of love?

42:19 Casual or intimate?

42:22 Are you thinking with me? If you are, I hope you've answered in your mind, intimate. And every married couple here is proof of that.

42:34 You never had a good rousing fight till after you got married somebody. What happened? Your engagement even was relatively a casual relationship. When you started living under the same roof and eating off the same table with the same dish, too salty or not salty enough, in the same bedroom, either too hot or too cold.

43:01 See what I'm driving at? The more intimate a relationship is, the more there is the demand of love.

43:10 And that's why many a marriage goes on the rocks. Because the relationship prior to marriage was casual.

43:21 And the kind of love necessary to keep it together and make it precious after marriage was just not there. Now, Paul says to saints, in the intimate relationship of New Testament fellowship, that primarily this love of which God is the source, you saints are the subjects, the measure of it, His increase and overflow is to come to light in this interpersonal relationship of one saint to another.

43:54 That's pretty easy to have your love overflow when you go across the ocean and you're welcomed like Michael was welcomed here and my wife and I were welcomed over there. That's fine. They've got on their best clothes and I've got on my best. And I've got on my best clothes.

44:08 And we're all in our best behavior. And all our warts are covered up and all our blemishes and molds are underneath the mascara and the pancake makeup of good behavior. Everything's fine.

44:22 But it's when you're there a few weeks and some of the mascara begins to wear off and the pancake makeup begins to get thin and the molds and warts begin to show that the demands of love come into focus.

44:38 And he says above all else, I want, I want that there should be that work of God in you that will give you love that will stand the test of the intimate knowledge and relationship of Christian fellowship on a local level.

44:56 As I've been thinking of this in the past year, particularly why God has instituted and constituted the church, I'm convinced more and more of the biblical teaching that God has ordained that spiritual life come to light in community. And the cursed problem we have in our day is that the minute we face a test of love which demands that either we cry to God for a greater measure than we've ever had before or go down under, what do we have? We have people that get their nose bent and they run off to this church. And when they don't like it here, they pull a pout and run off to that church.

45:33 And pastors who get pouts with their people run off and start candidating at another church. Whereas if by the grace of God we said, look, we're in this thing together. Sink or swim. And God's given us grace to swim.

45:47 And there's love enough to cement together this many people with all of our warts and moles and blemishes and just roll up our sleeves and be determined to stick with God and before Him in prayer until we have that kind of love. What happens?

46:03 What's the goal? Establishment in holiness. What's the means? Increasing and abounding in love.

46:11 So in that way, as your life makes demands upon love that I don't have and it drives me to God for it, I'm the benefactor. As my life makes demands upon you and you see, look, I can't even overflow. I don't even have three teaspoons full of love for that guy. Let alone overflow.

46:33 I don't even have to fill the cup. What does it do? You know, look, I'm in this. Either I've got to sit there and broil or learn to love Him.

46:41 That drives you to God. Doesn't it? Drives you to God. He pours in the love.

46:44 What's happened? You've been benefited by my warts and my moles and my blemishes. Now do you see? Do you begin to get what I'm driving at?

46:56 And that's the beauty of fellowship. And it's the way of sanctification. And that's why Paul in this passage says this is his deep longing that the objects of this love be the saints. You see, if love suffers long, how do you know love does that unless you get some people that make you suffer and suffer for a long time?

47:21 How can the long suffering of love be manifested unless there's a situation that demands suffering for a long time? Is love patient? Well, the only way it can show that is to get with some people that naturally would make you what? Impatient.

47:40 All those qualities of love can only come to light in what we would call nasty situations.

47:48 Could this be one reason why God has ordained a process of sanctification instead of a glorious, wonderful crisis? Could it be? I think so. God doesn't want us to miss the blessing of applying ourselves to Him for that love that His scripture says covers a multitude of sins.

48:09 But not only does He want the saints in particular with whom we live to be the objects of it, but notice He said, and to all men, and I must hurry to a close, and to all men, as God sends His reign upon the just and the unjust, so the Lord would have in His saints a general spirit of benevolence to those who differ with us in political persuasion. Oh, how hard it is to love some unconverted people, not because they're unconverted, but because of their politics.

48:41 Frankly, I find it hard to love some of these mealy-mouthed, left-wing liberal politicians. Oh, how I need to cry to God to love them. But He says, you've got to have love that spills over even on people whose political views you despise. Isn't that what it says?

48:59 Toward all men!

49:04 That's it. And you can carry it out into every other area of human relations. So that boss,

49:11 you think if he sat down and planned for 45 minutes before he came to work how he could be nasty that day, he couldn't do any better.

49:19 You're quite sure he's got some kind of a master plan how to try the patience of all his employees. Some of you at times may feel your wives do that. They say they had a bad night and you wonder, well, maybe they were awake half the night scheming how to be churlish the next day. Maybe some of you men, maybe your wives think this of you, your husbands, had a rough day at work.

49:45 And you don't need to have them tell you that. It's quite obvious. Quite obvious. Well, you see, in all of these relationships, God says the love that increases and overflows, the last thing about this love is the example.

The Example of Love: Paul and Christ

49:58 Notice in the text, it's all right here. Even as we do toward you. Now, you would have thought that Paul would have said the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one to another and toward all men even as Christ to the church or Christ to the world. For this is what he does in other places.

50:20 Husbands, love your wives even as Christ loved the church. In other places, he uses God's love, Matthew 5, the love of benevolence. God, the Lord Jesus said, you're to be like your Father in heaven who sends His reign upon just and unjust. You're to love not only your friends, but your enemies.

50:39 But here, he uses the human example even as we do toward you. And this is a principle found throughout Scripture that God not only gives us the divine principle and the divine example, but how it works out in human experience. And if you have thought through as we've expounded chapters 2 and 3, what a manifestation of love to the saints and to all men. He spoke of the gentleness of a nursing mother.

51:05 He spoke of his self-denial, laboring night and day that he would not be chargeable to any of them. In chapter 3, he spoke of his yearning when we could no longer forbear. He said, we live if you stand fast. This was one torrential gush of holy love and affection.

51:24 And now Paul says, by God's grace, I have been made, to be increased and overflowing with love, be followers of me even as I am of Christ.

Holiness as a Heart-Work and Personal Application

51:38 We don't have time to finish up what I hoped. I told my wife this morning, I said, I don't know if I'm going to get through, but maybe we'll pick up there next week because there's another even deeper principle here. So you'll notice that this whole prayer, which has as its goal holiness and the means, love, is all in the realm of the heart. The Lord make you to increase, and abound in love, which is basically an inward working of the spirit in the heart.

52:04 To the end, he may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness. There's no direct wish touching conduct isolated from the heart. And here is a tremendous principle relative to the whole matter of sanctification. But that'll have to wait for another exposition as we close our study this morning.

52:25 Let me just ask you the very personal and pointed question. Are you being established in holiness? Are you? You are only to the extent that you are increasing and overflowing in love.

52:43 Love of which God is the source and you gladly acknowledge it. But love which you are conscious is being fused into your own spirit so that you know you're loving people now that six months ago you couldn't stand their guts.

53:01 And you're loving people now in forbiddance bearing with them and being patient in a way six months ago you couldn't. God's doing something in you to make you increase and abound in love to the saints initially and primarily but to that difficult boss to that difficult neighbor to all men. And as you read the example of the apostle you can say well I'm a far cry from what he was but thank God I'm a little bit further now than I was last year. May God grant that this shall be true of each one of us.

53:33 Each one of us as we talk much and I trust pursue much true sanctification it will only be by this means of increasing and abounding in love. Let us pray.