2 Thessalonians chapter 1. I'm going to read and we're going
to look at some scriptures until we get down to the main part
of our text here. Verse 1, Paul said, Paul and
Silvanus, Timotheus, unto the church of the Thessalonians and
God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. We saw Sunday that
Paul is distinguishing who it is he's writing to here. He's
writing to the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ. Just like Paul said in Romans
9, they're not all Israel which are of Israel, they're not all
the church which are in the local assembly. The church was chosen
of God in Christ, redeemed by Christ, born of the Spirit of
God, sanctified by the Spirit of God. The true church of God
are chosen of God, redeemed by Christ, sanctified by the Spirit,
and the reason we're born again is because Christ laid down His
life for us and redeemed us. Let's look over at Ephesians
2. Ephesians 2. It says now, in
verse 13, now in Christ Jesus, you who sometimes were far off
are made nigh by the blood of Christ, for He's our peace, who
hath made both one, whether Jew or Gentile, that takes in His
elect scattered through the world, Jew or Gentile, but He's made
both one, both Jew and Gentile. Gentile elect, he's made us one,
he's broken down the middle wall of partition between us, having
abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments
contained in ordinances. for to make in himself, you see
how this is in him, the church of God, in him, in himself of
two, he made one new man. So make in peace, and that he
might reconcile both to God in one body by the cross, having
slain the enmity thereby. He fulfilled the law for his
people. That's what we were using to exalt ourselves, put a difference
between ourselves, We thought we really were better
than others because of our merit and our law keeping. Christ took
that out of the way. But then there was something
else that needed to be done. And we read it here, verse 17, And
He, Christ, came and preached peace to you. you which were
far off, and to them that were nigh. For through Him we both
have access by one Spirit and to the Father." So every elect
child that He redeemed, He came with the gospel, called you,
and He's going to call everyone He redeemed. He justified us,
He's going to call them. So now, you're of the household
of God. You're of the church of God.
You're built by Christ. Look at verse 19, Ephesians 2.19, Because Christ redeemed us, because
he sent the gospel and quickens you by the Spirit, you're no
more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the
saints and of the household of God. Remember the Hebrew writer
said, Christ as a son over his own house, whose house we are. If we hold fast to confidence,
firm unto the end, if we go on trusting Christ only, that's
going to be the proof that we really were called and saved
by Christ. But we're not only built by Christ,
we're built upon Christ. He said there, we're of the household
of God, we're built upon Christ. Look at verse 20. You are built
upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself
being the chief cornerstone. He is the foundation. He is the
rock and everything is in Him. So we are in Christ framed together
in Christ, and God is in us through the Spirit. Look here in verse
21. In whom, in Christ, all the buildings fitly framed together,
He builds the church, and grows unto a holy temple in the Lord,
He's growing us, in whom also you're built together for a habitation
of God through the Spirit. So God the Father is in Christ,
Christ is in you, God's in you, you're in God the Father. We're
one. We're one. Look over to Ephesians
4. One in Christ. One in Christ,
and that means we're one with each other. Those that have been
made to know this in the heart, we're one with each other. Verse
1, I therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech you that you
walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you're called. I always love
that. This vocation that you've been
called into is the vocation wherewith you were called. You've been
called to be a witness of Christ and it was this witness of Christ
wherewith you were called. So while worthy of vocation wherewith
you are called with all lowliness and meekness, with long suffering,
forbearing one another in love. And all of that's in love. Loneliness,
meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another, that's all in the
love of God, in the love of Christ in the heart. Endeavoring to
keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Here's
why. There's one body. This is the Church of God. It's
so of his elect here, it's so of his elect wherever the gospel's
preached and every place he's preached, this is so. We're one
body, one spirit, even as you're called in one hope of your calling,
one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who's
above all and through all and in you all, but unto every one
of us is given grace according to the measure of the gifts of
Christ. Now go back to 2 Thessalonians,
since this grace and this peace is all of God our Father and
the Lord Jesus, that's who we pray to for more grace and peace. Look here in verse 2. Grace unto
you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
Paul's prayer for them. That's our prayer for one another.
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus.
It all came from Him Before we knew it, it came to us when He
made you to experience His conversion, His call, and now we depend on
Him to give us grace and peace, so we go to Him. Since we are
what we are by the grace of God, by God our Father through Christ
Jesus, we're bound to thank Him for everything. Look here in
verse 3. We're bound to thank God always for you, brethren,
as it's meat. It's fitting to thank God. That's
our subject, fitting to thank God. We're bound to thank God. It's fitting to thank God because
we are what we are by the grace of God. Have you seen here everything
we've looked at? God did it. He did it. And we're dependent on Him to
keep doing it. That's why we pray to Him for grace and peace. Every blessing, every spiritual
blessing, And don't confound temporal trouble with spiritual
blessings. Temporal trouble sometimes is
a blessing. But the blessings are spiritual. From Christ to the new heart
and every blessing God gives, whether it's spiritual or it's
something in providence, it's temporal. Everything is from
God toward His people. James said, every good gift and
every perfect gift is from above. Comes down from the Father of
lights with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. He
loves by grace and he never takes his gifts back from his people.
He gives and gives and he's going to save by his grace. There's
no shadow of turning with him. Those he loved, he's going to
love to the end. Of his own will begat he us with the word of
truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.
But Paul says here in verse 3, he says, it's meat for us to
thank God. It's meat for, we're bound to,
because it's only by God that you have faith. It's only by
God that you have the love of God in your heart. And He's the
only one that can grow us in faith and love. Look here at
verse 3. We're bound to thank God always
for you, brethren, as it's meet, as it's fit, because that your
faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you
all toward each other aboundeth. You see who Paul's thanking?
We're bound to thank God for this. We're bound to thank our
Lord Jesus for this. He's the one that gave faith.
He's the one that created love in the heart. He's the one that
grows it. Faith's a gift of God. I don't have to remind you of
Ephesians 2. He said it's the gift of God.
It's by grace. It's by grace. And it's God who's
going to grow us in faith. Faith has one object. One object. Faith is looking to Christ. Faith
is casting it all into Christ's hand. Today, tomorrow, for all
eternity, we're trusting Christ to bring us home to God. And
we trust Him to get us from here to there. He's the author and
the finisher of our faith. He's already run the race, He's
already perfected faith by which His people are saved. He gives
us faith in measure, keeps growing it, but that faith's looking
away from us, it's looking away from this world, it's looking
away from one another, trusting Christ only. Trust in Christ
only. And God is love. And so, when
the Spirit of the Lord enters in, and He has created a new
man in us, and He's within us and abides in us, we love Him
and we love those born of Him. Look over at 1 John 4. 1 John
4. Here's the thing about this love,
brethren. It's not of us. and it's sustained by God, and
it's grown by God, so it's never going to fail in God's people.
We're going to love each other to the end. This is what Paul
said. He said, right now, faith and
hope, these are childish things. But when we become grown, when
we get to glory, we're going to put away the childish things.
We won't need faith, we won't need hope, but we're going to
still love. This is the crowning grace that the Lord gives is
love. So God's people are going to love for eternity. Every other
biological relationship you have, every other relationship you
have in this world is going to be dissolved at death. There
won't be marriage in heaven, but we're going to love one another.
So we love each other now by God's grace. Look here at 1 John
4, 7. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God,
and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. You know,
when you know God, when He's brought you to know Him, He is love, and He's in you. If you believe Him and know Him,
He's in you. And it's His love in you that's going to make you
love. And this is one place where the saying is true, to know Him
is to love Him. Because you behold Him who loved
us when we didn't love Him. He loved us everlastingly, and
He loved us in His Son, and He sent His Son to be the propitiation
for our sin. That's how much He loved His
people. That's the manner in which He loved His people. and
He keeps being long-suffering to us. We see Him and know Him
and know how long-suffering He's been to us. When He suffered long with us
to call us, now He's suffered long with us since He's called
us. He's merciful to us. Keeps being merciful and merciful
and merciful to us. He remembers our frame. He knows
we're dust. This is what makes you love Him.
When you are weak, and He sustains you, makes you know He did it,
this is what grows you in love to Him. When He makes you seek
Christ, and you see how Christ came and laid down His life and
bore all your sin away, and made peace with God on behalf of His
people, and He makes you know that in your heart that He did
that for you, this is how He makes you love Him. And when
you have tried to stray, Like David prayed in Psalm 119, Lord,
save me, I've strayed like a lost sheep. And He turns you back
to Him and keeps you partaking of His holiness. These are things
that make you love Him and grows you in the love of Him. And so
everybody that's born of Him, brethren, they're going to love
others born of Him. Look over at 1 John 5 verse 1.
Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.
That's the only way you believe, is being born of God. Whosoever
believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. And every one
that loveth him that beget, loveth him also that's forgotten of
him. We're all of the same household, one spirit, one Lord. So if that
one spirit's in me, and that one spirit's in you, and that
one spirit's pointing us both to Christ, that one spirit's
gonna keep us both loving one another because we're both born
of the same Father, both redeemed by the same Redeemer, both kept
by the same Savior, and we're gonna love one another. We're
bound to thank God for brethren. Bound to, it's fit to. because
we have faith and love by God and He's the one that grows it.
So we're bound to thank Him. He's the only one to thank. Now
go back to 2 Thessalonians. Paul said he and these other
ministers that he mentioned in the title, he said they gloried
in these brethren. He tells these brethren in his
letter that we glory in you to other churches. If a preacher
in our day stood up and he said to a people, we glory in you. When I'm traveling, when I'm
out there at rescue, I'm going to glory in you. And somebody,
you know, some super spiritual person said, well, you shouldn't
say you glory in the Lord's people. Well, Paul said it. Look here,
2 Thessalonians 1.4. He said, we ourselves glory in
you in the churches of God. As we go into these other churches,
we're telling them about you. We're telling them about you.
We're telling them about your faith and your love. What are
they saying? What are they speaking about?
For your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations
that you endure. We saw in Acts 17, when Paul
went there at the beginning, he preached, went in the synagogue,
preached three Saturdays. And some believed. And some began to come out from
among their former Jewish legal religion and they were believing
the gospel. And there were some Jews there that believed they
were saved by the works of the law. This was the rub. Paul came
preaching Christ as the end of the law for righteous and to
everyone that believed. He came preaching that you and I can't
keep the law. He came preaching that it was a necessity. This
is why he said it was a must. that Christ lay down His life
and die in the place of His people, that He raise again the third
day, and that this gospel will be preached in His name. That's
why it's a must because we can't save ourselves. This is how God
purposed to save from eternity by sending His Son and giving
Him the glory. He's the righteousness of God.
Well, these men got upset because Paul was preaching that. And
Jason, he was the man that was taking in these brethren and
had Paul and others with him. And they went and pulled Jason
out of his house. They were so angry. And so Paul
and Silas, they left by night, and they carried them by night
to Berea. And as soon as these Jews heard about that, they followed
them all the way to Berea, stirred up people, stirred up the base
of sort, brought all kind of, stirred the people up against
them, made them, told them, because they were preaching that Christ
is the King, the Lord of Glory, they said, He's preaching against
Caesar. Stirred them up. And now Paul says, and that wasn't
the end of that. These brethren endured that a
lot for men. And in that day and time, they
could beat you, they could do a lot of different things to
you. And he said, so we're telling people about your patience and
faith and all your persecutions and tribulations that you endured.
Now, we love to watch athletes you know, that are at the top
of their game, that perform really well. Those athletes didn't get
where they are and be that good at their sport by just walking
out there on the court and starting. That's not the first day you
saw them play. They've been practicing. They've been exercising. They've
been getting conditioned. And what you're seeing is them
at the top of their game playing excelling in their sport. Brethren, we don't learn these
things overnight. And it takes a lot of exercise.
And one of the ways that the Lord exercises His people and
grows us is through persecution and all kinds of tribulation.
That's one of the ways He grows us. Persecution and tribulation
is how He exercises us. What He's doing is He's making
us experience His faithfulness. That's what's going to grow you
in faith. He's making us experience His love for us. That's what's
going to grow you in love to Him and to your brethren. He's
making you experience how He doesn't do anything hastily.
He does it in His time. And He makes you wait on Him.
That's how He's going to grow you in patience to wait on Him.
And so these things are exercising us, they're making us wet on
His power and grace. But what happens when you're
persecuted? If somebody's rejecting the gospel,
right now in this country, about the most we have to endure is
just slander and talking in a tongue. But we may end up having to endure
something worse than that. But what do we do now? Even when
people are persecuting and they're angry because we preach Christ
is all and we stand by this gospel and we won't compromise, what
do you do? Or any other tribulation you
face. What are we doing? What is faith doing? Faith is
looking to Christ to sustain us. Right now, face looking to
Christ to trust us, to save us. We're trusting Him to keep us,
preserve us, sustain us, grow us. We're trusting Him for everything
every day. Every day. And He doesn't ever
make you ashamed for trusting Him. I can guarantee you this,
men will disappoint you, I'll disappoint you, brethren will
disappoint you, we'll disappoint each other, and certainly men
in the world will disappoint you. You trust Christ and you
believe Him, when the trouble comes, and just know, this is
going to turn out for my good, I know it is, because He's promised
me that. He will not make you ashamed
for trusting Him. But the Lord's going to wait.
He's not going to work it in your time. He's not going to
work it in my time, and you can't speed up the process. He's going
to do it in His time. And there's a reason for that.
It's because Christ suffered. We're going to have to suffer
some things. You know, Paul, we saw in Philippians, he said,
it's given to you in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe
on Him, but to suffer for His sake. That's given to you. It's for your good, it's for
our good, for my good. But we're going to suffer because
He suffered. And we're going to have to patiently
wait and patiently endure till He makes it better and delivers
you out of the trouble. But He will. I promise you, He
will. This Word tells us He will. And
when He does, it will be so sweet because He's making you know
more of Him and His faithfulness so that you hope more in Him
and you trust more in Him. And by this, He's going to grow
you in love to Him. And He's going to grow you in
love to your brethren. I've said this many times we've gone through
trials that the Lord is going to keep His people and we're
going to love each other more when He's brought you through
the storm. That's just so. That's what He does. He brings
you closer. Remember when He brought them
to the Red Sea and He told Moses to tell them stand still, see
the salvation of the Lord and when the Lord delivered them
across that Red Sea They trusted the Lord and they believed Moses.
Well, that's what the Lord's done for us. He's making us trust
Him. He's making us believe His gospel that's being preached.
And He's endearing us to one another more. And I want to show
you all of this in Romans 5. Go over there with me to Romans
5. Romans 5, now all of this is
put together right here for us. Everything I've said up to this
point about our salvation, our justification, verse 1, therefore
being justified by Christ, by faith, we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ. By whom also we have access by
faith into this grace wherein we stand. And we rejoice and
hope with the glory of God. We know one day we're going to
see Christ as He is. We have good hope. It's in Christ. But now look, not only so, that's
not all we glory in. We glory in tribulation also. That's trouble. Hard, bitter
suffering. We glory in that too. It's fitting
to thank God. Paul said we're bound to thank
God. Why do we glory in this? Knowing that tribulation worketh
patience. That's what God works. He's working
patience in you through the trouble. And patience, experience. He's
making you experience His love, His faithfulness, His steadfastness,
everything about Him, His long-suffering, His mercy, His forgiveness. You're
experiencing all of that because you're going to sin and have
falls and troubles as you're going through all of this. But
you're experiencing it and it's growing you, it's maturing you.
And experience works hope. As you experience Him save you
out of this little trial, it makes you hope in Him a little
more. So when the next trial comes, you hope in Him a little
more. That's why you find these older saints that have been through
a lot of trouble over the years and the Lord has grown them.
And while me and you are, you know, just shaking and we don't
know what's going on. Oh, what are we going to do about
this? And you talk to one of these older saints and they're
just calm about it. And they trust in the Lord and
they're waiting on the Lord and that's what they'll tell you
to do. Why? They've been through this. They've been through all
this. And here's what makes us, and
you're not going to be ashamed for trusting Him. Why? Because
He's going to make you know the love of God in your heart. Because
the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost
which is given to us. Now here's what He's teaching
us. If we don't learn this, we're not learning anything. It's not
about just you getting out of the trouble and having some peace
for a while. That's not what the point is.
It's good when that happens, but that's not the point of any
of this. The point is to make us remember
what Christ has already done for us at Calvary's Cross. Look,
you know this, if He did this for you when you were ungodly
and had absolutely no faith, no strength, you didn't trust
Him, you didn't know Him, you were an alien, all those things
we saw from Ephesians 2, and He did this for you, now that
He's done it and justified you, you know you're going to be saved
by His life. Now look, Romans 5 verse 6, when we were yet without
strength, In due time, Christ died for the ungodly. That's
me. That's His people. Scarcely for
a righteous man would one die. Perventure, a good man. One that's
not really righteous, but he's a pretty good man. Some would
even dare to die. But God commanded His love toward
us, and while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more
then, being now justified by His blood. We shall be saved
from wrath through Him. Of course He saved His people
from the wrath of God. That's what He bore on Calvary's
cross. But He's going to save us from the wrath of unreasonable
men who persecute because of this gospel. He's going to save
you from that too. And we're going to be saved through
Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by
the death of His Son, much more being reconciled we shall be
saved by His life. Go over to 2 Corinthians 11.
I want you to see something. Now Paul is the one teaching
this, and Paul experienced this. He's telling something he knows
by experience. Talk about suffering, and we
start complaining about our suffering. Listen to this suffering. Listen
to this right here. We ought to go read this right
here next time we get ready to complain about suffering. 2 Corinthians
11 verse 24. of the Jews, five times received
I forty stripes save one." Five different times he was beaten
with a cat-o'-nine-tails. I can't even imagine what that
felt like. Five times. Three times I was beaten with
rods once I was stoned. Three times I suffered shipwreck.
A night and a day I've been in the deep. In journeyings often,
in perils of waters, in perils of robbers. He was robbed. They had to walk where they went
and go on ships, and he was robbed a bunch of times. I've been in
peril by my own countrymen. Jews wanted to kill him. In perils
by the heathen, in perils in the city, in the wilderness,
in the sea, among false brethren. In weariness and painfulness,
in watchings often, in hunger and thirst. in fastings, often,
in cold, in nakedness. Besides those things that are
without, that which cometh on me daily, the care of all the
churches. Who's weak and I'm not weak?
Who's offended and I burn not? If I must needs glory, I will
glory of the things which concern my infirmities." Now I want you
to see him say that. I'm glorying in the fact that
I'm utterly weak. I'm glorying in the fact that
I suffer these things. Now connect that with, he's still
talking, same subject. He said he was called up to the
third heaven, given abundance revelations, and to keep him
humble he said, God gave me a messenger of Satan to buffet me. Probably
talking about all that suffering he just talked about. Each time
he went through one of those things, it was the message of
Satan to buffet him, to keep him humbled. That's what God's
doing for us. But here he said, if I'm on glory,
I'm on glory in my utter weakness. Look at verse 9. The Lord said
to me, my grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is
made perfect in weakness. When you feel like you've got
some strength and I feel like I've got some strength, we don't
trust the Lord. If we feel like we can fix it,
we're not looking to Him to save us. He's going to make you weak,
so you trust in Him alone. His strength is made known to
us in the face of our utter weakness. Most gladly, therefore, will
I, rather, glory in my infirmities." Somebody would say, well, you're
so weak. You ought to be stronger in the
faith. You're so weak, and you've got so many infirmities, and
you're just suffering so much, and oh, you're just so... Paul
said, I glory in that. Why? That the power of Christ
may rest upon me. I'm being saved by His power,
not mine. Therefore I take pleasure in
infirmities and reproaches and necessities and persecutions
and distresses for Christ's sake." How could you take pleasure in
that? Well, you don't take pleasure in getting beat on the back 39
times. But what the Lord teaches you
through that, this is what Paul, these things he just talked about,
that's what he's called light afflictions. And he said they
work for us a far greater eternal weight of glory. That's why he
takes pleasure in them, because of what Christ teaches you through
it. He's growing you in faith, He's growing you in love, He's
growing you in patience, He's growing you in hope. All of it's
in Him. You trust in Him, and you see
Him more, and you know Him more. That's what he said where he
said we're turned away from things that are temporal and we look
at things that aren't seen. Because they're the eternal thing.
I know brethren, none of us like to suffer. I don't like to suffer. But Christ grows us by it. He grows us by it. So Paul knew
It was God who grew these brethren, and that's how God grew these
brethren. That's what He's saying in 2
Thessalonians 1. Look there. We're bound to thank
God always for you, brethren, as it's meat, because that your
faith groweth exceedingly, the charity of every one of you all
toward each other boundeth, so that we ourselves glory in you
in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your
persecutions and tribulations that you endure. Those Jews that
were causing those problems, they were looking at this little
weak band of Thessalonians and saying, Lord, I thank You that
I'm not like them. Look at all we do and look at
them. Look at how weak they are. And
yet the Gospel comes to them through the Spirit and says,
in everything you're suffering, this is how the Lord is growing
you to trust Him only. This is how He's growing you
to defend each other, stand with each other, and comfort each
other, and strengthen each other with the Word of the Gospel.
That's what He's doing. This whole letter is to encourage
them to don't give up. Look here now, go over to 2 Thessalonians
2.15 and we'll just end with this. 2 Thessalonians 2.15. Therefore, brethren, stand fast.
Hold the traditions which you've been taught, whether by word
or epistle. Now our Lord Jesus Christ Himself
and God, even our Father which hath loved us and hath given
us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort
your hearts and establish you in every good word and work.
Look down at chapter 3 and verse 1. Finally, brethren, pray for
us. that the word of the Lord may
have free course and be glorified even as it is with you. And that
we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men, for all men have
not faith. But the Lord is faithful. This
is what Paul had learned through everything he went through. But
the Lord is faithful. Who shall establish you and keep you from
evil. Well, it didn't look like Paul
being kept from evil. He suffered all that. That wasn't
evil. That was for his good. He's going to keep you from the
evil of falling away and being a son of perdition and being
lost. He's going to keep you from you.
He's going to keep you from looking to self. He's going to keep you
from being swept up in the religion of the Pharisee. He's going to
keep you from the evil. And we have confidence where?
In the Lord. That's right. Touching you that
you both do and will do the things which we command you. Our confidence
that you will is the Lord. And the Lord direct your hearts
into the love of God and to the patient waiting for Christ. So
brethren, I say to you what Paul said. Hold fast the gospel of
Christ. Hold fast. Don't give up. Hold
fast the gospel of Christ. Continue looking to Christ in
faith. Be patient in every trial. Wait on the Lord. Continue in
love to one another. It's not this phony thing religion's
doing. They got their little cliches.
It is doing what you're doing. It's supporting the gospel, showing
up for one another. We go to one another's house.
We provide for one another if somebody has a need. We pray
for one another. We speak the gospel to one another. We're just going through the
wilderness together. And we love one another because
we have one spirit. And continue praying for one
another. Continue praying. Every time you pray, when somebody
in this congregation comes to your mind, pray for them. Pray
for them. And in all of this, do what Paul
did. Thank God for the trials and
for the persecutions because this is how He's growing you.
This is how He's establishing your heart. We want to be established
by our flesh. That's how we start out. He's
not going to let you be established by the strength of your hand.
He's going to establish you in spirit, in the heart, trusting
Him. That's truly being established
on the foundation, on the rock. And so thank Him for these trials
and these persecutions. The Lord is faithful, He said,
who shall establish you and keep you from evil. That's what He'll
do. All right, Brother Greg.