The One Who Calls Is Faithful

Read aloud

Paul's letter ends with a prayer. He asks the God of peace Himself to sanctify the Thessalonians completely and to keep their entire spirit, soul, and body blameless at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The prayer is not a demand that believers achieve a flawless condition by their own effort before Jesus returns. It asks God to do the sanctifying and keeping. The whole person is included. Christian holiness is not merely an inner feeling, nor is it a public reputation with a hidden life left untouched.

Then Paul says, “The One who calls you is faithful, and He will do it.” The sentence gives the prayer its confidence. God is not merely the person who begins a project and waits to see whether people can finish it. His faithfulness is the ground of the hope that He will complete what He calls His people to become.

Paul asks the Thessalonians to pray for the missionaries as well. The letter does not leave the leaders above the need for prayer. It tells them to greet all the brothers with a holy kiss, a sign of family welcome in their setting, and charges them before the Lord to have the letter read to all the brothers.

The public reading matters. This letter is not a private message for a spiritual elite. The whole church is to hear it: workers and unemployed people, the confident and the fainthearted, people who need admonition and people who need help. The final grace belongs to the whole community.

First Thessalonians began with grace and peace. It ends with grace and the faithfulness of the God of peace. The church's endurance, holiness, hope, and love rest finally on Him.