That You Would Walk Worthy of God
This is a transcript. It may contain small inaccuracies.
We saw last Lord's Day evening, as we were studying together this portion of the Word of God, that one of the many characteristics of a true minister and a true ministry—a true servant, whatever that ministry may be, wherever the Lord may have placed you in your sphere of responsibilities and influence—is that which Paul focuses on in the 11th verse, namely, fatherly direction. Not only is the mark of a true, faithful, trustworthy ministry, whether it's a parent to his children, an apostle to those whom he ministers, an undershepherd to his people, a Sunday school teacher, a youth leader, etc., etc., or as a witness to one's neighbor, for that matter, or one classmate or co-worker, not only must there be the gentleness of the nursing mother mentioned in verse 7—that beautiful feminine characteristic of gentleness—but there must be that masculine characteristic of fatherly direction, so little understood in our day in the natural realm, and sadly, sadly, the same can be said in the spiritual realm.
Now, we saw last week that Paul exercised this fatherly direction, which had three aspects. Number one, just to refresh our memory, there was individual attention. There was individual attention: “how we were exhorting and encouraging and bearing witness to each one of you” (1 Thessalonians 2:11), and you remember in the original, it is very strong—each and every single one of you, one by one. And secondly, that fatherly direction was exercised with varied instruction according to the need of the child of God. We were exhorting, we were encouraging, we were bearing witness.
And then the third thing we said about the fatherly direction is—but we could not expound, we could not expound it, we deferred it to today, tonight—it was that it had a clearly defined goal, a clearly defined end in view. Sure, he was giving individual attention to every single one of those believers. Sure, he had varied instruction for each one of them, but did he have an overall plan? Did he have an overall objective? Yes, he did, and he tells us what that plan was here in our text this evening, verse 12.
"So that"—see that? That's a purpose clause. "So that." “So that you would walk”, or we could translate it, to the end that you would walk. That's the end in view. To the end “that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory." So, we see that if we as parents, if we as Sunday school teachers, as witnesses, whatever our ministry is, if we would be biblical, faithful to the Scripture, if we would have the ministry that is owned of God, well, it must not only have this aspect of fatherly direction that deals with people individually, one by one, that varies the instruction to them according to their own need, but it must have a clearly defined objective, a clear goal, a direction to which all of this is really moving.
So, as we think our way through this text this evening, let us consider in the first place this end or goal described by the Apostle. The end, the goal described. That's the first main heading. And notice in the first place under that heading that his goal in all of his fatherly direction and instruction was a goal with respect to the walk of these people. It had to do with the walk of these people. We were exhorting, encouraging, bearing witness to each one of you as a father would his own children, so that—to the end that—you would what? Walk. The goal that he had in mind was directly related to the walk of these people. And so the question naturally we have to ask: what does the word *peripateo* (περιπατέω), translated walk, mean? What does it mean? Well, this word is used throughout the Scripture to describe—and we've come across this, and so this is just to refresh us—this word is used throughout the Scripture to describe the general direction, the general tenor, the climate of a person's life. You remember our Lord Jesus said in John chapter 8 and verse 21, "I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will never"—and here's our word—"walk in the darkness.". “Walk in the darkness”.
Paul says in Galatians 5:16, "But I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh." In the first John chapter 1 verse 7, "But if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light." What does that word walk mean? Well, I think if you were to sit down and try to work out a definition, you'd come up with something like this: it's used to describe the general direction of a person's life, taking in his deeds, his thoughts, his motives. It takes in the whole spectrum of a person's life, and whenever it's moving in a given realm, we say, well, that's his walk. That's the tenor of his life. That's the climate of his life.
And so to use the Scripture—to walk in the light as He Himself—if a man walks in the light, you have a man whose thoughts, whose motives, whose actions are characterized in the main—let me underscore that—in the main, not completely, not with mathematical perfection, but in the main, they are characterized by what? Light. That's the pattern. That's the tenor, the direction. A man who walks in darkness is a man who in his thoughts, his motives, his deeds is characterized by what? In the main again, characterized by darkness.
So to walk by the Spirit means that in my thoughts, in my motives, in my deeds, in the main, my life is one depicted by the realm of the Spirit. And so Paul's concern as he instructs these people in the ministry touches their walk. In other words, his goal in all of his doctrinal instruction is what? The practical living of his hearers. And that is really key. The goal in all of his doctrinal instruction is the practical living of his hearers.
And there's a tremendous principle, beloved, involved here: that the goal of all biblical instructions is to alter the walk of those who receive it. It's not just, you know, to go through one ear and out the other ear. It has a purpose—to alter the walk of the one who's receiving the instruction. Paul says we did all these things, all of them, exhorting you, verse 11, encouraging you, bearing witness to the end that in the realm of your thoughts, the realm of your motives and of your deeds, it might be evident that the truth has filtered down and it's actually affecting and impacting the totality of your life as a result.
Now, why was this goal particularly—why was it Paul's goal? Why was this Paul's goal? Well, for the simple reason, we could say this: the reason why Paul has or had as his goal the godly walk of his hearers is simply because Paul had realized this was God's goal in redemption. That's why. That's it. This was God's goal. God's goal in redemption must be Paul's goal in ministry. That makes sense, doesn't it? Of course it does. What God has pledged to do, His servants must be earnest to do.
And we read in very simple categorical language that the goal of God in redemption is what? The godly walk of His redeemed people. We read that in a verse like Ephesians 2:10: "For we are His workmanship,” God's workmanship, “created in Christ Jesus”, for what purpose? For what purpose? “For good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would”, what? “walk in them." That's God's purpose. We are created in Christ Jesus with what end in view? That we should walk in those works which God had beforehand prepared for us, even those works of godliness and true piety, biblical piety.
Peter states it with a a bit of a his own way and a bit differently when he says in his first letter, quoting from the Old Testament, 1 Peter 1:15 and 16: "But like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your conduct.” What is that? All your conduct. That's your walk, right? It's your walk. The whole tenor of your life, your thoughts, your motives, your deeds. “Because it is written, "YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY."”
And Ephesians 1, verse 4, Paul tells us, "He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him." In love. So Paul's goal is to be nothing less than God's goal. Why did God put redeeming truth in Paul's hands? Why did Paul then dispense that truth by way of exhortation, by way of encouraging, by way of bearing witness? Well, the whole end for which God committed that truth to Paul was to make His people holy.
So God's goal in giving the truth to Paul is Paul's goal in giving that truth, truth to his hearers. He states it beautifully, so beautifully and so simply, in Titus 2, in verse 10, where he says that the people of God must be careful—and I love, I love that word, that is the way it is put there. He says that the people of God must be careful to adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in everything. "You and I must be careful to adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in everything." To put that truth on, to adorn is to put it on, to put that truth on, to wear it, to wear it in the realm of my everyday walk and experience. Is that beautiful? Isn't that beautiful? To adorn the doctrine of God, to wear it, to put it on in the realm of my everyday walk and experience.
Now, will you notice how Paul did this? So the goal was to walk, and yet what was the means by which that goal was to be attained? So that's the goal, the goal is the walk, well how is that goal to be—what's the means to attain that goal? By this instruction that came essentially to where? To the mind, to the mind. Remember last week we mentioned that these three things—exhorting, encouraging, bearing witness or charging—are done with words, words addressed to the minds of God's people.
Now let us not miss this and stick with it now, it's a vital principle, beloved. We exhorted, we encourage, he says, we bore witness to the end that you should walk worthy of God, and we long that God's goal in redemption would be realized in you, Paul is saying, but the only means we had at our disposal was instruction addressed to the mind. We exhorted, we encouraged, and we charged, we bore witness. The old writers used to talk about, quote, "the primacy of the mind in the work of redemption," end of quote.
The primacy of the mind and the work of redemption, and what they meant was simply this—and this is very vital—that when God deals with us, the way He approaches us is not directly to our feelings, not directly to our will, but He approaches us directly to our minds. We are made in the image of God, we are made rational beings, and so when God is going to save a person, how does He do it? He gets His word to that person, and what does His word do? It tells that person some facts about God, it tells him some facts about himself, it tells him some facts about sin, it tells him some facts about how sin can be cleansed and purged, it tells him some facts about Christ, who Christ is and what He came to do and what He's done, some facts about repentance and faith and some facts about regeneration, doctrine, instruction, facts.
And then mingled with that there is the appeal to the affections and to the will, but the will and the affections, which must be changed before the life can be changed, are never dealt with directly by God. They're all dealt with through the mind, the truth comes to the mind, and remember what holds the mind molds the life. "How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?" Romans 10:14. It's got to be someone to teach them.
Now what is true in getting men into the Christian faith is true also with their development in the Christian faith. How are people to be sanctified? Well, our Lord tells us the main instrument of sanctification. Our Lord delineates that very clearly in John 17:17: "Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth." Well, how does the truth sanctify? How does the truth sanctify? As it comes to where? To the mind. As it comes to the mind.
Exhorting, encouraging, comforting, charging, instructing, illuminating the mind. And so the Apostle Paul joins together in a beautiful way the principle that every child of God and every stable ministry must recognize, and if you miss either one of them you will fall into an area on this side or this side of terrible religious blight and even a curse, to be honest with you, because there are those who would say, well yes, yes, we must seek to be holy, we we must have God's end to our end, we must seek to have a walk that is worthy of God, and here's error number one.
So what do they do? Well, they're doing everything in their power to get people to walk worthy of God, and so they set up a list of regulations—do's and don'ts. Or they may try to move people by manipulating the emotions. They may try even at times to to clobber them over the head and and move the will and get them to do this and that and the other, and they miss the principle that the way people walk worthy of God is to be exhorted, encouraged, and charged by the word of God. The mind must be instructed before the life can be altered. So where you have all this pressure and emphasis for the life without doctrine, you have a true—you don't have a true Christian godliness if you don't have that.
At this point, there may be an objection in someone's mind: all this talk about doctrine, doctrine, doctrine, doctrine. I mean, the thing people need the most is not doctrine—they need Jesus, they need Christ, and we just got to be concerned only about getting Christ to people. Christ is the life, and we gotta get Christ to them. Enough of this doctrine. Well, here's the question: what Christ are you talking about? What Christ are you talking about? Well, the Christ of the Bible. Well, who is He? Who is He? And when they begin to define Him, what what are they doing? That's doctrine. That's doctrine. You can't have Christ without doctrine because Paul says 2nd Corinthians 11 verse 3 and 4 “But I fear that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be corrupted from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. For if one comes and proclaims another”, *allos* (ἄλλος), “another of a different kind an”, *heteros* (ἕτερος) excuse me “another of a different kind of Jesus” “another Jesus of a different kind whom we have not proclaimed, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully." That's why it's important.
So may God keep us from that sentimental pursuit of holiness which looks down upon the place of truth—truth addressed to the mind and to the understanding. That's error number one.
Error number two—and they've got the other side of the coin, where people say, well, oh yes, oh yes, indeed, we need exhortation, we need encouragement, we need bearing witness, and we need to be taught the word of God. We need to be grounded in the word of God. We need to have the doctrine come to the mind and have it straight. But then they fall short of realizing the end of all of this. It is what? Not to pat your head, but to change your life. Not to pat your head, but to change your life. Not to walk around and say, well, I know, I know the Westminster Confession of Faith, and I know the doctrines of grace, and I can... But how is it impacting my life? How's my walk?
We exhorted, we encouraged, we bore witness to the end that you should walk worthy of God. And so Paul lays out the end that he had in all of his instruction, and we see that it touched the walk of God's people, the godly walk of God's people, and that, beloved, must be our goal. That must be our goal.
We must hurry on to see how he describes that walk, that godly walk, in the second place. So let's look at the godly walk now described. The godly walk described. Verse 12: "so that you would walk in a manner worthy"—axios—"worthy of God." This word, axios, can be used in an absolute sense, or it can be used in a relative sense, and certainly here, it is used in a relative sense, not an absolute sense.
An absolute sense—well, there was nobody worthy of anything but God, right? That's the absolute sense, and the absolute sense, nobody was found to be worthy or is found to be worthy of anything but God. In the book of Revelation, you find that description of praise in the fifth chapter. There was none found worthy to open that sealed scroll, but then the voice came, "Weep not, for there is one found who is worthy"—none other than the Lamb of God, Christ Jesus, our Lord. He is the worthy one. Worthy is the Lamb. And in the absolute sense, only one is worthy, and that is our God, but in a relative sense, the word worthy, axios, is used to describe a manner deserving something.
It is used throughout the Scripture in this way. Christ said, "He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me" (Matthew 10:37). He's conducting himself in such a way that he does not deserve the privilege of My lovingkindness, My mercy, My grace. Verse 38: "And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me."
So Paul, what Paul seems to be saying in this passage, then, is this: the end of all of my instruction is that your walk should be one that is worthy of God. That is, that you would walk like a people who belong to such a God, and therefore, express His virtue in your lives. Ephesians 4:1 and 2, actually, would be a good commentary on this: "Therefore I, the prisoner in the Lord, exhort you to walk worthy— the same expression— of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love."
Furthermore, we could say this: to walk worthy of God means to walk suitably to the great mercies that you've received from God. Suitably, to walk suitably to the great mercies that you and I have received from God. Walk worthy of God. Walk in a way that is commensurate with the great mercies that you've received from Him. I received amazing grace, mercy, forgiveness, lovingkindness. And then I need to walk in a manner that actually is commensurate with that.
Let me illustrate it. Trying to picture a young man, maybe his late teens or early 20s, living in a situation of absolute destitution, squalor, filth, poverty, ignorance, impending death because of his condition. His parent died when he was little. He had no home to call his own. Helpless, hopeless. Except that a man who sits upon a throne of royalty, who is a king by birth and by position, takes pity upon this young man in all of his destitution, squalor, and filth, and loneliness. He takes him out of that situation of squalor, and filth, and loneliness, and destitution, brings him into his palace, not only to set him at his table, but to receive him into the circle of his own household, his own family. And he does whatever is needed, whatever is necessary to make this young man legally adopted, a legally adopted son. And having no children of his own, this young man now becomes the legitimate heir to the throne of his father.
Now, once he's thought, and once he's brought into the court, and all of the legal transactions are settled, they're done, they're complete, he is in reality now a son of the king. He's become a son of the king. He's in reality a prince, an heir to the throne. But, but, he doesn't overnight learn what it is to walk, to think, to act, to react, to plan in every area of his life as a prince, does he? Some of his old ways still carry over with him, so from here on out, in every situation, he must now learn to bring his thinking to this perspective: How do I act in this given situation that will be worthy of my new position?
I no longer am a disinherited pauper, homeless. I'm no longer a nobody amongst other homeless men and squalor and filth. I am now a prince. I am a son of the king. I must walk, what? Worthy of my new position. I must carry myself like a prince, and whenever I would think of being ungrateful, I must think back of the mercy that has been brought to me and brought me into this position of a prince. And to walk worthy then of this calling into which he has been brought means that he will walk in such a way as to bring honor to his father, the king. Walk in such a way that will bring praise to his father's kingdom. Walk in such a way that will give no legitimate reproach to his father, the king. It means to walk in such a way that will show that he really appreciates the mercy that has been brought to him and brought him into that status of a prince and into the great inheritance of his kingdom.
Well, in a little way, that's what God has done to us, and illustrations like all of them break down in that we were not just in filth, you and I, not just in squalor of our sin, but we're actually under the wrath of the King and His judgment hanging over our heads. We were the very children of the devil, according to John 8, and wonder of wonders, God in His mercy put forth His hand and called us unto Himself and made us His own adopted sons and daughters and made us joint heirs with Jesus Christ.
But simply because we're brought into the kingdom and into the place of sonship and heirship does not mean that we automatically now conduct ourselves in every realm in a manner that is worthy of our new position in Christ. So that the whole goal of the instruction of the Scriptures, as we understand more and more about our Father and what would please Him, more about ourselves and what would displease Him, the whole end of all of this instruction, whether it's exhortation, encouragement, bearing witness, whether it is the reproving, the rebuking, the exhorting that we read about in 2 Timothy—it doesn't matter what it is—what's the whole end of it? That we might more and more walk worthy of this God who has called us.
That we who are princes might more and more be princely in all of our actions, all of our reactions, our dispositions, our attitudes, that we who are the children of God might be more and more like our Father who has adopted us into His family. This is what Paul means when he says the end of all of our instruction was this, that you might walk worthy of God.
And then will you notice with me how he describes God in this verse? Look at the text, this is incredible. Will you notice the latter part of the verse, the text? "Worthy of the God who calls you"—and the LSB translates it properly in terms of the tense, it is a present tense—"calls you into His own kingdom and glory." Now, literally, out of the Greek, here's the way to translate it in terms of the sequence, and this is marvelous. Paul is saying that you would walk worthily of calling you into His kingdom and glory, God, and you'd have hyphens between them.
And here's the point: He's described God, is described as the calling you into His kingdom and glory, God. Did you catch that? What God? The calling you into His kingdom and glory, God. Everything's hyphened. It's one long description of the God Paul's talking about. He said the God of whom you are to walk worthy of is the calling you into His kingdom and glory, God. That's the God. When you think of walking worthy, think of Him as this God. Now, He's many things to His people, but at this point, Paul says, I want you to think of Him as that God who calls you into His kingdom and glory.
So somehow the whole exhortation must be bound up in an understanding of this phrase, and I believe it is. So let's try to take it apart for a few minutes. When he says He is the God who calls you, what does this mean? What does he mean, who calls you? Does it simply mean He invites you? No, no, we've studied this word before, *kaleo* (καλέω). It means something more than that. It means more than simply summon.
These Thessalonians had not simply been summoned into the kingdom of God. They were in, they were in, in. The gospel came to them, how? In power and in the Holy Spirit, and they turned to God from their idols, and they were serving now the living God and waiting for His Son from heaven. This calling here is nothing less than that effectual call of God. Not only the summons, but the power that makes the summons powerful and draws sinners into vital relationship with Jesus Christ. 1 John 2:9, 1 Peter 2:9, “him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light." He's actually brought you out of the darkness into light. In Romans 8, verse 30, "and these whom He predestined, those whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified."
So when Paul uses the term—he uses the term "call"—he wants these Thessalonians, as they think of walking worthy of God, to think of Him as the God who took the initiative in their salvation. Who not only brought the gospel to them in word, but who made it actually, in fact, effectual in their hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit. The God who sought the wandering sheep and laid the sheep upon His breast and brought them home to the fold of God.
Think of Him as the God who calls you into what? What, Paul says, two things: into His kingdom—His own kingdom—and then glory. Two things. Look at His kingdom first. His kingdom. That's the place, the realm of His present blessing. Jesus said in John 3, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." He cannot enter into the kingdom of God. But when he's born again, he sees, he enters the kingdom of heaven.
And what is the mark of that kingdom? Romans 14:17: "For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking. It doesn't consist in a lot of religious regulations,” do's and don'ts—no, no. What does it consist in? Present spiritual reality right now. One day, we will see the full expression of it, literally. But right now, it is a present spiritual reality. "For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit."
So what is His kingdom? It's that realm of the present enjoyment of all of the redemptive blessings of God that He's marked for now. Now, what is He marked for now? Well, many things—the fruit of the Spirit, right? Love, joy, peace, long suffering, peace with God, the peace of God. All of these present blessings are found where? Within the kingdom.
And he says, you people, I want you to remember all the charging, all the exhorting, all the encouraging I did had as its goal: walk worthily of God. Walk worthily of God. That God, that God—not just any—that God, the God who called you into all the present blessings of the gospel. Think of them, you Thessalonians, just like the king would say to the adopted son, think of what I brought you into when you're tempted to walk unworthily of your position. Think of what I brought you into: heirship with Myself, all of My kingdom is Yours, the smile of My face, the spread of My table, the love of My heart.
That's what Paul is saying to the believers. Think of Him as the God who calls you into His kingdom, present blessings of redemption. But that's not all. He calls you into His own kingdom and—he says—glory, glory, *doxa* (δόξα), glory. Speaking of the place of future blessing and culmination of all the present blessings of redemption.
As our Lord Jesus prayed in John 17:22 for His own, that as He Himself was to be glorified, this is what He prayed for His own. Verse 22: "And the glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one." Verse 24: "Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world." What a tremendous statement.
Now we sang earlier about seeing, beholding His face. Colossians 3:4 says, "When Christ, who is our life”, “Christ who is our life is manifested, then you also will be manifested with Him” -where? Where?- “in glory." “In glory”. The glory everlasting, the presence of God, heaven, the eternal state where all of the joys that we now know in germ form will come to full expression, where all of the holy longings we now have in germ seed form—the longing after God, longing for holiness, longing after purity—all of that will come to its full blossom.
Paul says to these Thessalonians, I want you to walk worthy of the calling you into His kingdom and glory God. God—that's the God I want you to walk worthily of. That's the God whom I want you to regard in every respect of relationship of life. This God to whom you're indebted for all your present blessings in the kingdom now and all the future prospects of the glory to come, the glory everlasting.
So in a most powerful way, Paul in his text lays out their gospel duty. Now keep in mind what we studied this morning, right? He lays out their gospel duty: walk—and he does it in a powerful way—walk worthy of God. Then he undergirds it and enforces it with tremendous gospel privileges and motives. You're called to His kingdom and glory. You see that? You're called to His kingdom and glory. In the light of that, in the light of the privileges, love so amazing, so divine, walk worthily. Of such great God.
Well, so much then for the text and its meaning. What does it say to us in a very practical way in this few minutes that are remaining for us? What does this text say to us as we sit here this evening, seeking to be true servants of God? Well, first of all, in the first place, it says, well, you better have a clear goal in whatever ministry you're serving. You better have clear goals or a clear goal. You better have a clearly defined goal.
Paul said, we did all of this, but we weren't just doing it to keep busy in the Lord's service. No, no, he said, I had a plan. I had an end in view. And no matter how busy I became in encouraging a saint here and charging a saint there and teaching a saint here, in all of this, I never lost sight of my goal, my end in view. And my goal, my end in view was this: I want to see the people of God walking worthy of the God who calls them into His kingdom and glory.
Do you have any clearly defined goal in your ministry? As a parent, as a classmate, as a neighbor? The goal is not just to put a little milk on the cereal and see your kids happy and go their way to school and wash their clothes and put them on their... No, no, the goal is summed up in Paul's words. Galatians 4 and verse 19: "My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is” -is what?- “formed in you." “Formed in you”—it's a clearly defined goal.
The goal is to labor and strive, admonishing and teaching them with all wisdom so that you may present each one of them complete in Christ. Your neighbors. Your classmates. Your work associates. What's the goal that every child of God should have for those that he labors with, prays with? What's the goal I, as an under-shepherd, should have for this beloved church, along with my fellow under-shepherds? I mean, is there any higher goal than this—that we should walk worthy of God? Can you find any higher than that? To walk worthy of God? To so walk in every relationship of life that we reflect that indeed we are sons of the King and daughters of the King?
We're not living in the squalor and the sordidness of our past. We're showing forth the virtues of Him who called us out of darkness into life, as Peter describes it. We're living not only so as to reflect the virtues of our King, but we're living under the continued sense of indebtedness for the great mercies that we have received. The God in whose light we seek to walk worthy is the God who has called us out of darkness, put us into His kingdom now, and will lend us safely in glory in the future. That's the first principle we see here. Well, that's the first principle we see here.
Secondly, second principle that we see here by way of application—and this is, by the way, the test of a true servant, a true minister, and a true ministry—namely that His goal, referring to the minister, its goal, referring to the ministry, will be the glory of God in the holy walk of the people of God. The glory of God in the walk of the people of God, the holy walk of the people of God. That was Paul's goal.
How are you going to judge a true servant? Well, you ask this: what is his goal? What is his goal? That by the teaching, exhorting, comforting ministry of the Word of God, we might have a people walking worthy of God, that God might be glorified in the worthy walk of His people. That's the goal of a true minister and a true ministry.
Beloved, the goal is not to have a full church. The goal is not to have a going church. The goal is not to have a financially lucrative church. And the goal is not even to have a busy church. But the goal is to have a people walking worthy of God to the glory of God. That's the goal. That's the goal according to Paul.
One of the old saints really caught this because he realized that it's only this that will commend the gospel to a given community. Listen to what he said: quote, "It is of no use"—he's telling one of his proteges, one of the younger ones that he's mentoring—he says, "It is of no use that we walk anywhere to preach unless we preach as we walk." —let me say that again—"It is of no use that we walk anywhere to preach unless we preach as we walk." Isn't it said beautifully? "It's of no use to walk anywhere to preach unless we preach as we walk."
That's what Paul's burden was, that the people of God would so adorn the doctrine of God that wherever they walked, they preached. The things that Paul preached were powerful things. They changed people's lives indeed. They not only declared them to be sons and daughters, they made them also act like sons and daughters. Not only declared them to be princes, but made them conduct themselves like princes. That's the mark with a true ministry. It has as its goal the holiness of those who embrace it.
And then the third principle that I see in this text, and here it is: the gospel motives alone form the driving power for gospel duties. And that connects us with the morning service, right? Gospel motives alone form the driving power for gospel duties. What are gospel duties? Here it is: walk worthy of God. Walk worthy of God.
Now what motive does Paul give to it? What motive does he give to it? Well, you see, he doesn't bring to it the motive of fear. Isn't that interesting? He doesn't bring to it the motive of fear. If you don't walk worthy of God, God might chasten you with a rod, right? Well, that's true. God does that. Hebrews 12, right? And elsewhere in Scripture, that's true. But here, in this instance, he didn't bring that motive in here. He doesn't bring in the motive of reward. If you do walk worthy of God, there might be some reward. And that's a truth taught in Scripture. But it's all in the background.
Do you see what he uses as a strong point of motivating these people in this instance? And we preach the full counsel of God. Gospel motivations here are what? Gratitude. A sense of indebtedness to God. A sense of indebtedness to God. You saved me? Really? God really saved a wretched sinner like me? A rebel? God, I wanted nothing to do with You. I was blind, dead. I was heading down that path to hell. And You saved me. Lord, why? Why out of all my family? You saved me. You brought me out of all of this. You opened my eyes. You cleansed me from my sins. You transformed me by Your power.
Walk worthy of the calling you into His kingdom and glory, God. Do you Thessalonians find that you don't have much gas to move in that direction of walking worthy of God? Paul says, I tell you what will fill your tank. I'll tell you what will fill your tank. Here it is. You just stop and think of what God did when He called you into His kingdom, brought you out of darkness by power, took you out of the clutches of the devil and the grip of sin and brought you into His kingdom. You think about that. And if that doesn't do too much for you and only gets your tank half filled, you just think about what He's called you to. You just read the last couple of chapters of the book of Revelation and read about His people looking upon His face and sorrow and sickness and sighing, gone. And joy unspeakable and full of glory, enjoying the presence of God without any of the remains of corruption and sin.
Paul says, as you think of the great privileges of the gospel, these will act as a motivating power to move you in the direction of performing the duties of the gospel from the heart. Now, the church, you see, is using all kinds of motives in our day to try to get people to do things. Entertainment, motivational feel-good sermonettes, putting together a rigid circus, as it were, to get a Sunday night audience or audience period, audience, even the name, the word audience. Offering some scintillating program, dashing, outstanding, dramatic title, some unusual speaker who's been to hell and back. It's really just absolutely nauseating.
Why? Because, you see, it's using motives that appeal to the flesh and you reap exactly what you've sown and you'll get exactly what you pitched for. Beloved, if gospel motives can't move us to gospel duties, then we won't be moved at all. That's why we're not those who come and hold over the head of God's people threats that if you don't come on Wednesday night and if you don't—no, no, no. It's just simply this way: we're privileged to meet together to pray and seek the face of God. And if you love God and love His Son and His kingdom and you're not providentially hindered, then you'll be with us.
Now, if that can't move you, then I'm sorry, you won't be moved according to God's way on any given area, in any given area. So the great third principle in our text is that gospel motives alone can lead to the performance of gospel duty, obedience from the heart. Isn't that what Paul does in Romans 12, verse 1? "Therefore I exhort you, brothers”, -by what? the what?- “The mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice—living, holy, pleasing to God." Think of the mercies. And if that doesn't move you to say, “Here, Lord, I give myself away"—Paul says, I'm sorry, I've got no lever to move you. If I can't move you with mercy, you just won't be moved.
He does that in Ephesians. After laying out all those godly doctrines in the first three chapters, he begins chapter 4: "Therefore, in light of all of this, I, the prisoner in the Lord, exhort you to walk worthy of the calling with which you have been called." I, therefore, in the light of these gospel privileges, motivate you to gospel duty.
So when our heart for the gospel duty begins to lag, meditate on your privileges. When that young man begins to be lagging in his desire to walk worthy of his princely position, he needs to sit himself down and begin to think of what his Father did when he took him out of this and brought him into his kingdom and promised him all of his kingdom in the future. He needs to remember his Father as the one who called him out of his squalor into blessing and pledged future blessing. And beloved, we need to sit ourselves down somewhere and think of what God has called us out of and what He has called us into.
Let's pray.
Now, we saw last week that Paul exercised this fatherly direction, which had three aspects. Number one, just to refresh our memory, there was individual attention. There was individual attention: “how we were exhorting and encouraging and bearing witness to each one of you” (1 Thessalonians 2:11), and you remember in the original, it is very strong—each and every single one of you, one by one. And secondly, that fatherly direction was exercised with varied instruction according to the need of the child of God. We were exhorting, we were encouraging, we were bearing witness.
And then the third thing we said about the fatherly direction is—but we could not expound, we could not expound it, we deferred it to today, tonight—it was that it had a clearly defined goal, a clearly defined end in view. Sure, he was giving individual attention to every single one of those believers. Sure, he had varied instruction for each one of them, but did he have an overall plan? Did he have an overall objective? Yes, he did, and he tells us what that plan was here in our text this evening, verse 12.
"So that"—see that? That's a purpose clause. "So that." “So that you would walk”, or we could translate it, to the end that you would walk. That's the end in view. To the end “that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory." So, we see that if we as parents, if we as Sunday school teachers, as witnesses, whatever our ministry is, if we would be biblical, faithful to the Scripture, if we would have the ministry that is owned of God, well, it must not only have this aspect of fatherly direction that deals with people individually, one by one, that varies the instruction to them according to their own need, but it must have a clearly defined objective, a clear goal, a direction to which all of this is really moving.
So, as we think our way through this text this evening, let us consider in the first place this end or goal described by the Apostle. The end, the goal described. That's the first main heading. And notice in the first place under that heading that his goal in all of his fatherly direction and instruction was a goal with respect to the walk of these people. It had to do with the walk of these people. We were exhorting, encouraging, bearing witness to each one of you as a father would his own children, so that—to the end that—you would what? Walk. The goal that he had in mind was directly related to the walk of these people. And so the question naturally we have to ask: what does the word *peripateo* (περιπατέω), translated walk, mean? What does it mean? Well, this word is used throughout the Scripture to describe—and we've come across this, and so this is just to refresh us—this word is used throughout the Scripture to describe the general direction, the general tenor, the climate of a person's life. You remember our Lord Jesus said in John chapter 8 and verse 21, "I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will never"—and here's our word—"walk in the darkness.". “Walk in the darkness”.
Paul says in Galatians 5:16, "But I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh." In the first John chapter 1 verse 7, "But if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light." What does that word walk mean? Well, I think if you were to sit down and try to work out a definition, you'd come up with something like this: it's used to describe the general direction of a person's life, taking in his deeds, his thoughts, his motives. It takes in the whole spectrum of a person's life, and whenever it's moving in a given realm, we say, well, that's his walk. That's the tenor of his life. That's the climate of his life.
And so to use the Scripture—to walk in the light as He Himself—if a man walks in the light, you have a man whose thoughts, whose motives, whose actions are characterized in the main—let me underscore that—in the main, not completely, not with mathematical perfection, but in the main, they are characterized by what? Light. That's the pattern. That's the tenor, the direction. A man who walks in darkness is a man who in his thoughts, his motives, his deeds is characterized by what? In the main again, characterized by darkness.
So to walk by the Spirit means that in my thoughts, in my motives, in my deeds, in the main, my life is one depicted by the realm of the Spirit. And so Paul's concern as he instructs these people in the ministry touches their walk. In other words, his goal in all of his doctrinal instruction is what? The practical living of his hearers. And that is really key. The goal in all of his doctrinal instruction is the practical living of his hearers.
And there's a tremendous principle, beloved, involved here: that the goal of all biblical instructions is to alter the walk of those who receive it. It's not just, you know, to go through one ear and out the other ear. It has a purpose—to alter the walk of the one who's receiving the instruction. Paul says we did all these things, all of them, exhorting you, verse 11, encouraging you, bearing witness to the end that in the realm of your thoughts, the realm of your motives and of your deeds, it might be evident that the truth has filtered down and it's actually affecting and impacting the totality of your life as a result.
Now, why was this goal particularly—why was it Paul's goal? Why was this Paul's goal? Well, for the simple reason, we could say this: the reason why Paul has or had as his goal the godly walk of his hearers is simply because Paul had realized this was God's goal in redemption. That's why. That's it. This was God's goal. God's goal in redemption must be Paul's goal in ministry. That makes sense, doesn't it? Of course it does. What God has pledged to do, His servants must be earnest to do.
And we read in very simple categorical language that the goal of God in redemption is what? The godly walk of His redeemed people. We read that in a verse like Ephesians 2:10: "For we are His workmanship,” God's workmanship, “created in Christ Jesus”, for what purpose? For what purpose? “For good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would”, what? “walk in them." That's God's purpose. We are created in Christ Jesus with what end in view? That we should walk in those works which God had beforehand prepared for us, even those works of godliness and true piety, biblical piety.
Peter states it with a a bit of a his own way and a bit differently when he says in his first letter, quoting from the Old Testament, 1 Peter 1:15 and 16: "But like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your conduct.” What is that? All your conduct. That's your walk, right? It's your walk. The whole tenor of your life, your thoughts, your motives, your deeds. “Because it is written, "YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY."”
And Ephesians 1, verse 4, Paul tells us, "He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him." In love. So Paul's goal is to be nothing less than God's goal. Why did God put redeeming truth in Paul's hands? Why did Paul then dispense that truth by way of exhortation, by way of encouraging, by way of bearing witness? Well, the whole end for which God committed that truth to Paul was to make His people holy.
So God's goal in giving the truth to Paul is Paul's goal in giving that truth, truth to his hearers. He states it beautifully, so beautifully and so simply, in Titus 2, in verse 10, where he says that the people of God must be careful—and I love, I love that word, that is the way it is put there. He says that the people of God must be careful to adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in everything. "You and I must be careful to adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in everything." To put that truth on, to adorn is to put it on, to put that truth on, to wear it, to wear it in the realm of my everyday walk and experience. Is that beautiful? Isn't that beautiful? To adorn the doctrine of God, to wear it, to put it on in the realm of my everyday walk and experience.
Now, will you notice how Paul did this? So the goal was to walk, and yet what was the means by which that goal was to be attained? So that's the goal, the goal is the walk, well how is that goal to be—what's the means to attain that goal? By this instruction that came essentially to where? To the mind, to the mind. Remember last week we mentioned that these three things—exhorting, encouraging, bearing witness or charging—are done with words, words addressed to the minds of God's people.
Now let us not miss this and stick with it now, it's a vital principle, beloved. We exhorted, we encourage, he says, we bore witness to the end that you should walk worthy of God, and we long that God's goal in redemption would be realized in you, Paul is saying, but the only means we had at our disposal was instruction addressed to the mind. We exhorted, we encouraged, and we charged, we bore witness. The old writers used to talk about, quote, "the primacy of the mind in the work of redemption," end of quote.
The primacy of the mind and the work of redemption, and what they meant was simply this—and this is very vital—that when God deals with us, the way He approaches us is not directly to our feelings, not directly to our will, but He approaches us directly to our minds. We are made in the image of God, we are made rational beings, and so when God is going to save a person, how does He do it? He gets His word to that person, and what does His word do? It tells that person some facts about God, it tells him some facts about himself, it tells him some facts about sin, it tells him some facts about how sin can be cleansed and purged, it tells him some facts about Christ, who Christ is and what He came to do and what He's done, some facts about repentance and faith and some facts about regeneration, doctrine, instruction, facts.
And then mingled with that there is the appeal to the affections and to the will, but the will and the affections, which must be changed before the life can be changed, are never dealt with directly by God. They're all dealt with through the mind, the truth comes to the mind, and remember what holds the mind molds the life. "How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?" Romans 10:14. It's got to be someone to teach them.
Now what is true in getting men into the Christian faith is true also with their development in the Christian faith. How are people to be sanctified? Well, our Lord tells us the main instrument of sanctification. Our Lord delineates that very clearly in John 17:17: "Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth." Well, how does the truth sanctify? How does the truth sanctify? As it comes to where? To the mind. As it comes to the mind.
Exhorting, encouraging, comforting, charging, instructing, illuminating the mind. And so the Apostle Paul joins together in a beautiful way the principle that every child of God and every stable ministry must recognize, and if you miss either one of them you will fall into an area on this side or this side of terrible religious blight and even a curse, to be honest with you, because there are those who would say, well yes, yes, we must seek to be holy, we we must have God's end to our end, we must seek to have a walk that is worthy of God, and here's error number one.
So what do they do? Well, they're doing everything in their power to get people to walk worthy of God, and so they set up a list of regulations—do's and don'ts. Or they may try to move people by manipulating the emotions. They may try even at times to to clobber them over the head and and move the will and get them to do this and that and the other, and they miss the principle that the way people walk worthy of God is to be exhorted, encouraged, and charged by the word of God. The mind must be instructed before the life can be altered. So where you have all this pressure and emphasis for the life without doctrine, you have a true—you don't have a true Christian godliness if you don't have that.
At this point, there may be an objection in someone's mind: all this talk about doctrine, doctrine, doctrine, doctrine. I mean, the thing people need the most is not doctrine—they need Jesus, they need Christ, and we just got to be concerned only about getting Christ to people. Christ is the life, and we gotta get Christ to them. Enough of this doctrine. Well, here's the question: what Christ are you talking about? What Christ are you talking about? Well, the Christ of the Bible. Well, who is He? Who is He? And when they begin to define Him, what what are they doing? That's doctrine. That's doctrine. You can't have Christ without doctrine because Paul says 2nd Corinthians 11 verse 3 and 4 “But I fear that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be corrupted from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. For if one comes and proclaims another”, *allos* (ἄλλος), “another of a different kind an”, *heteros* (ἕτερος) excuse me “another of a different kind of Jesus” “another Jesus of a different kind whom we have not proclaimed, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully." That's why it's important.
So may God keep us from that sentimental pursuit of holiness which looks down upon the place of truth—truth addressed to the mind and to the understanding. That's error number one.
Error number two—and they've got the other side of the coin, where people say, well, oh yes, oh yes, indeed, we need exhortation, we need encouragement, we need bearing witness, and we need to be taught the word of God. We need to be grounded in the word of God. We need to have the doctrine come to the mind and have it straight. But then they fall short of realizing the end of all of this. It is what? Not to pat your head, but to change your life. Not to pat your head, but to change your life. Not to walk around and say, well, I know, I know the Westminster Confession of Faith, and I know the doctrines of grace, and I can... But how is it impacting my life? How's my walk?
We exhorted, we encouraged, we bore witness to the end that you should walk worthy of God. And so Paul lays out the end that he had in all of his instruction, and we see that it touched the walk of God's people, the godly walk of God's people, and that, beloved, must be our goal. That must be our goal.
We must hurry on to see how he describes that walk, that godly walk, in the second place. So let's look at the godly walk now described. The godly walk described. Verse 12: "so that you would walk in a manner worthy"—axios—"worthy of God." This word, axios, can be used in an absolute sense, or it can be used in a relative sense, and certainly here, it is used in a relative sense, not an absolute sense.
An absolute sense—well, there was nobody worthy of anything but God, right? That's the absolute sense, and the absolute sense, nobody was found to be worthy or is found to be worthy of anything but God. In the book of Revelation, you find that description of praise in the fifth chapter. There was none found worthy to open that sealed scroll, but then the voice came, "Weep not, for there is one found who is worthy"—none other than the Lamb of God, Christ Jesus, our Lord. He is the worthy one. Worthy is the Lamb. And in the absolute sense, only one is worthy, and that is our God, but in a relative sense, the word worthy, axios, is used to describe a manner deserving something.
It is used throughout the Scripture in this way. Christ said, "He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me" (Matthew 10:37). He's conducting himself in such a way that he does not deserve the privilege of My lovingkindness, My mercy, My grace. Verse 38: "And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me."
So Paul, what Paul seems to be saying in this passage, then, is this: the end of all of my instruction is that your walk should be one that is worthy of God. That is, that you would walk like a people who belong to such a God, and therefore, express His virtue in your lives. Ephesians 4:1 and 2, actually, would be a good commentary on this: "Therefore I, the prisoner in the Lord, exhort you to walk worthy— the same expression— of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love."
Furthermore, we could say this: to walk worthy of God means to walk suitably to the great mercies that you've received from God. Suitably, to walk suitably to the great mercies that you and I have received from God. Walk worthy of God. Walk in a way that is commensurate with the great mercies that you've received from Him. I received amazing grace, mercy, forgiveness, lovingkindness. And then I need to walk in a manner that actually is commensurate with that.
Let me illustrate it. Trying to picture a young man, maybe his late teens or early 20s, living in a situation of absolute destitution, squalor, filth, poverty, ignorance, impending death because of his condition. His parent died when he was little. He had no home to call his own. Helpless, hopeless. Except that a man who sits upon a throne of royalty, who is a king by birth and by position, takes pity upon this young man in all of his destitution, squalor, and filth, and loneliness. He takes him out of that situation of squalor, and filth, and loneliness, and destitution, brings him into his palace, not only to set him at his table, but to receive him into the circle of his own household, his own family. And he does whatever is needed, whatever is necessary to make this young man legally adopted, a legally adopted son. And having no children of his own, this young man now becomes the legitimate heir to the throne of his father.
Now, once he's thought, and once he's brought into the court, and all of the legal transactions are settled, they're done, they're complete, he is in reality now a son of the king. He's become a son of the king. He's in reality a prince, an heir to the throne. But, but, he doesn't overnight learn what it is to walk, to think, to act, to react, to plan in every area of his life as a prince, does he? Some of his old ways still carry over with him, so from here on out, in every situation, he must now learn to bring his thinking to this perspective: How do I act in this given situation that will be worthy of my new position?
I no longer am a disinherited pauper, homeless. I'm no longer a nobody amongst other homeless men and squalor and filth. I am now a prince. I am a son of the king. I must walk, what? Worthy of my new position. I must carry myself like a prince, and whenever I would think of being ungrateful, I must think back of the mercy that has been brought to me and brought me into this position of a prince. And to walk worthy then of this calling into which he has been brought means that he will walk in such a way as to bring honor to his father, the king. Walk in such a way that will bring praise to his father's kingdom. Walk in such a way that will give no legitimate reproach to his father, the king. It means to walk in such a way that will show that he really appreciates the mercy that has been brought to him and brought him into that status of a prince and into the great inheritance of his kingdom.
Well, in a little way, that's what God has done to us, and illustrations like all of them break down in that we were not just in filth, you and I, not just in squalor of our sin, but we're actually under the wrath of the King and His judgment hanging over our heads. We were the very children of the devil, according to John 8, and wonder of wonders, God in His mercy put forth His hand and called us unto Himself and made us His own adopted sons and daughters and made us joint heirs with Jesus Christ.
But simply because we're brought into the kingdom and into the place of sonship and heirship does not mean that we automatically now conduct ourselves in every realm in a manner that is worthy of our new position in Christ. So that the whole goal of the instruction of the Scriptures, as we understand more and more about our Father and what would please Him, more about ourselves and what would displease Him, the whole end of all of this instruction, whether it's exhortation, encouragement, bearing witness, whether it is the reproving, the rebuking, the exhorting that we read about in 2 Timothy—it doesn't matter what it is—what's the whole end of it? That we might more and more walk worthy of this God who has called us.
That we who are princes might more and more be princely in all of our actions, all of our reactions, our dispositions, our attitudes, that we who are the children of God might be more and more like our Father who has adopted us into His family. This is what Paul means when he says the end of all of our instruction was this, that you might walk worthy of God.
And then will you notice with me how he describes God in this verse? Look at the text, this is incredible. Will you notice the latter part of the verse, the text? "Worthy of the God who calls you"—and the LSB translates it properly in terms of the tense, it is a present tense—"calls you into His own kingdom and glory." Now, literally, out of the Greek, here's the way to translate it in terms of the sequence, and this is marvelous. Paul is saying that you would walk worthily of calling you into His kingdom and glory, God, and you'd have hyphens between them.
And here's the point: He's described God, is described as the calling you into His kingdom and glory, God. Did you catch that? What God? The calling you into His kingdom and glory, God. Everything's hyphened. It's one long description of the God Paul's talking about. He said the God of whom you are to walk worthy of is the calling you into His kingdom and glory, God. That's the God. When you think of walking worthy, think of Him as this God. Now, He's many things to His people, but at this point, Paul says, I want you to think of Him as that God who calls you into His kingdom and glory.
So somehow the whole exhortation must be bound up in an understanding of this phrase, and I believe it is. So let's try to take it apart for a few minutes. When he says He is the God who calls you, what does this mean? What does he mean, who calls you? Does it simply mean He invites you? No, no, we've studied this word before, *kaleo* (καλέω). It means something more than that. It means more than simply summon.
These Thessalonians had not simply been summoned into the kingdom of God. They were in, they were in, in. The gospel came to them, how? In power and in the Holy Spirit, and they turned to God from their idols, and they were serving now the living God and waiting for His Son from heaven. This calling here is nothing less than that effectual call of God. Not only the summons, but the power that makes the summons powerful and draws sinners into vital relationship with Jesus Christ. 1 John 2:9, 1 Peter 2:9, “him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light." He's actually brought you out of the darkness into light. In Romans 8, verse 30, "and these whom He predestined, those whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified."
So when Paul uses the term—he uses the term "call"—he wants these Thessalonians, as they think of walking worthy of God, to think of Him as the God who took the initiative in their salvation. Who not only brought the gospel to them in word, but who made it actually, in fact, effectual in their hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit. The God who sought the wandering sheep and laid the sheep upon His breast and brought them home to the fold of God.
Think of Him as the God who calls you into what? What, Paul says, two things: into His kingdom—His own kingdom—and then glory. Two things. Look at His kingdom first. His kingdom. That's the place, the realm of His present blessing. Jesus said in John 3, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." He cannot enter into the kingdom of God. But when he's born again, he sees, he enters the kingdom of heaven.
And what is the mark of that kingdom? Romans 14:17: "For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking. It doesn't consist in a lot of religious regulations,” do's and don'ts—no, no. What does it consist in? Present spiritual reality right now. One day, we will see the full expression of it, literally. But right now, it is a present spiritual reality. "For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit."
So what is His kingdom? It's that realm of the present enjoyment of all of the redemptive blessings of God that He's marked for now. Now, what is He marked for now? Well, many things—the fruit of the Spirit, right? Love, joy, peace, long suffering, peace with God, the peace of God. All of these present blessings are found where? Within the kingdom.
And he says, you people, I want you to remember all the charging, all the exhorting, all the encouraging I did had as its goal: walk worthily of God. Walk worthily of God. That God, that God—not just any—that God, the God who called you into all the present blessings of the gospel. Think of them, you Thessalonians, just like the king would say to the adopted son, think of what I brought you into when you're tempted to walk unworthily of your position. Think of what I brought you into: heirship with Myself, all of My kingdom is Yours, the smile of My face, the spread of My table, the love of My heart.
That's what Paul is saying to the believers. Think of Him as the God who calls you into His kingdom, present blessings of redemption. But that's not all. He calls you into His own kingdom and—he says—glory, glory, *doxa* (δόξα), glory. Speaking of the place of future blessing and culmination of all the present blessings of redemption.
As our Lord Jesus prayed in John 17:22 for His own, that as He Himself was to be glorified, this is what He prayed for His own. Verse 22: "And the glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one." Verse 24: "Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world." What a tremendous statement.
Now we sang earlier about seeing, beholding His face. Colossians 3:4 says, "When Christ, who is our life”, “Christ who is our life is manifested, then you also will be manifested with Him” -where? Where?- “in glory." “In glory”. The glory everlasting, the presence of God, heaven, the eternal state where all of the joys that we now know in germ form will come to full expression, where all of the holy longings we now have in germ seed form—the longing after God, longing for holiness, longing after purity—all of that will come to its full blossom.
Paul says to these Thessalonians, I want you to walk worthy of the calling you into His kingdom and glory God. God—that's the God I want you to walk worthily of. That's the God whom I want you to regard in every respect of relationship of life. This God to whom you're indebted for all your present blessings in the kingdom now and all the future prospects of the glory to come, the glory everlasting.
So in a most powerful way, Paul in his text lays out their gospel duty. Now keep in mind what we studied this morning, right? He lays out their gospel duty: walk—and he does it in a powerful way—walk worthy of God. Then he undergirds it and enforces it with tremendous gospel privileges and motives. You're called to His kingdom and glory. You see that? You're called to His kingdom and glory. In the light of that, in the light of the privileges, love so amazing, so divine, walk worthily. Of such great God.
Well, so much then for the text and its meaning. What does it say to us in a very practical way in this few minutes that are remaining for us? What does this text say to us as we sit here this evening, seeking to be true servants of God? Well, first of all, in the first place, it says, well, you better have a clear goal in whatever ministry you're serving. You better have clear goals or a clear goal. You better have a clearly defined goal.
Paul said, we did all of this, but we weren't just doing it to keep busy in the Lord's service. No, no, he said, I had a plan. I had an end in view. And no matter how busy I became in encouraging a saint here and charging a saint there and teaching a saint here, in all of this, I never lost sight of my goal, my end in view. And my goal, my end in view was this: I want to see the people of God walking worthy of the God who calls them into His kingdom and glory.
Do you have any clearly defined goal in your ministry? As a parent, as a classmate, as a neighbor? The goal is not just to put a little milk on the cereal and see your kids happy and go their way to school and wash their clothes and put them on their... No, no, the goal is summed up in Paul's words. Galatians 4 and verse 19: "My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is” -is what?- “formed in you." “Formed in you”—it's a clearly defined goal.
The goal is to labor and strive, admonishing and teaching them with all wisdom so that you may present each one of them complete in Christ. Your neighbors. Your classmates. Your work associates. What's the goal that every child of God should have for those that he labors with, prays with? What's the goal I, as an under-shepherd, should have for this beloved church, along with my fellow under-shepherds? I mean, is there any higher goal than this—that we should walk worthy of God? Can you find any higher than that? To walk worthy of God? To so walk in every relationship of life that we reflect that indeed we are sons of the King and daughters of the King?
We're not living in the squalor and the sordidness of our past. We're showing forth the virtues of Him who called us out of darkness into life, as Peter describes it. We're living not only so as to reflect the virtues of our King, but we're living under the continued sense of indebtedness for the great mercies that we have received. The God in whose light we seek to walk worthy is the God who has called us out of darkness, put us into His kingdom now, and will lend us safely in glory in the future. That's the first principle we see here. Well, that's the first principle we see here.
Secondly, second principle that we see here by way of application—and this is, by the way, the test of a true servant, a true minister, and a true ministry—namely that His goal, referring to the minister, its goal, referring to the ministry, will be the glory of God in the holy walk of the people of God. The glory of God in the walk of the people of God, the holy walk of the people of God. That was Paul's goal.
How are you going to judge a true servant? Well, you ask this: what is his goal? What is his goal? That by the teaching, exhorting, comforting ministry of the Word of God, we might have a people walking worthy of God, that God might be glorified in the worthy walk of His people. That's the goal of a true minister and a true ministry.
Beloved, the goal is not to have a full church. The goal is not to have a going church. The goal is not to have a financially lucrative church. And the goal is not even to have a busy church. But the goal is to have a people walking worthy of God to the glory of God. That's the goal. That's the goal according to Paul.
One of the old saints really caught this because he realized that it's only this that will commend the gospel to a given community. Listen to what he said: quote, "It is of no use"—he's telling one of his proteges, one of the younger ones that he's mentoring—he says, "It is of no use that we walk anywhere to preach unless we preach as we walk." —let me say that again—"It is of no use that we walk anywhere to preach unless we preach as we walk." Isn't it said beautifully? "It's of no use to walk anywhere to preach unless we preach as we walk."
That's what Paul's burden was, that the people of God would so adorn the doctrine of God that wherever they walked, they preached. The things that Paul preached were powerful things. They changed people's lives indeed. They not only declared them to be sons and daughters, they made them also act like sons and daughters. Not only declared them to be princes, but made them conduct themselves like princes. That's the mark with a true ministry. It has as its goal the holiness of those who embrace it.
And then the third principle that I see in this text, and here it is: the gospel motives alone form the driving power for gospel duties. And that connects us with the morning service, right? Gospel motives alone form the driving power for gospel duties. What are gospel duties? Here it is: walk worthy of God. Walk worthy of God.
Now what motive does Paul give to it? What motive does he give to it? Well, you see, he doesn't bring to it the motive of fear. Isn't that interesting? He doesn't bring to it the motive of fear. If you don't walk worthy of God, God might chasten you with a rod, right? Well, that's true. God does that. Hebrews 12, right? And elsewhere in Scripture, that's true. But here, in this instance, he didn't bring that motive in here. He doesn't bring in the motive of reward. If you do walk worthy of God, there might be some reward. And that's a truth taught in Scripture. But it's all in the background.
Do you see what he uses as a strong point of motivating these people in this instance? And we preach the full counsel of God. Gospel motivations here are what? Gratitude. A sense of indebtedness to God. A sense of indebtedness to God. You saved me? Really? God really saved a wretched sinner like me? A rebel? God, I wanted nothing to do with You. I was blind, dead. I was heading down that path to hell. And You saved me. Lord, why? Why out of all my family? You saved me. You brought me out of all of this. You opened my eyes. You cleansed me from my sins. You transformed me by Your power.
Walk worthy of the calling you into His kingdom and glory, God. Do you Thessalonians find that you don't have much gas to move in that direction of walking worthy of God? Paul says, I tell you what will fill your tank. I'll tell you what will fill your tank. Here it is. You just stop and think of what God did when He called you into His kingdom, brought you out of darkness by power, took you out of the clutches of the devil and the grip of sin and brought you into His kingdom. You think about that. And if that doesn't do too much for you and only gets your tank half filled, you just think about what He's called you to. You just read the last couple of chapters of the book of Revelation and read about His people looking upon His face and sorrow and sickness and sighing, gone. And joy unspeakable and full of glory, enjoying the presence of God without any of the remains of corruption and sin.
Paul says, as you think of the great privileges of the gospel, these will act as a motivating power to move you in the direction of performing the duties of the gospel from the heart. Now, the church, you see, is using all kinds of motives in our day to try to get people to do things. Entertainment, motivational feel-good sermonettes, putting together a rigid circus, as it were, to get a Sunday night audience or audience period, audience, even the name, the word audience. Offering some scintillating program, dashing, outstanding, dramatic title, some unusual speaker who's been to hell and back. It's really just absolutely nauseating.
Why? Because, you see, it's using motives that appeal to the flesh and you reap exactly what you've sown and you'll get exactly what you pitched for. Beloved, if gospel motives can't move us to gospel duties, then we won't be moved at all. That's why we're not those who come and hold over the head of God's people threats that if you don't come on Wednesday night and if you don't—no, no, no. It's just simply this way: we're privileged to meet together to pray and seek the face of God. And if you love God and love His Son and His kingdom and you're not providentially hindered, then you'll be with us.
Now, if that can't move you, then I'm sorry, you won't be moved according to God's way on any given area, in any given area. So the great third principle in our text is that gospel motives alone can lead to the performance of gospel duty, obedience from the heart. Isn't that what Paul does in Romans 12, verse 1? "Therefore I exhort you, brothers”, -by what? the what?- “The mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice—living, holy, pleasing to God." Think of the mercies. And if that doesn't move you to say, “Here, Lord, I give myself away"—Paul says, I'm sorry, I've got no lever to move you. If I can't move you with mercy, you just won't be moved.
He does that in Ephesians. After laying out all those godly doctrines in the first three chapters, he begins chapter 4: "Therefore, in light of all of this, I, the prisoner in the Lord, exhort you to walk worthy of the calling with which you have been called." I, therefore, in the light of these gospel privileges, motivate you to gospel duty.
So when our heart for the gospel duty begins to lag, meditate on your privileges. When that young man begins to be lagging in his desire to walk worthy of his princely position, he needs to sit himself down and begin to think of what his Father did when he took him out of this and brought him into his kingdom and promised him all of his kingdom in the future. He needs to remember his Father as the one who called him out of his squalor into blessing and pledged future blessing. And beloved, we need to sit ourselves down somewhere and think of what God has called us out of and what He has called us into.
Let's pray.
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