Let's open this morning's service
with hymn number 70 from your hardback, Tim Noll. Number 70,
holy, holy, holy. Let's all stand together, number
70. Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee Holy, holy,
holy, merciful and mighty, God in three Persons, blessed Trinity. Holy, holy, holy, all the saints
adore thee, casting down their golden crowns around the glassy
sea. Cherubim and seraphim falling which were, and are, and evermore
shall be. Holy, holy, holy Though the darkness hide thee,
Though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see. Only Thou art holy, there is
none beside Thee, perfect in power, in love and purity. Holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty
All thy works shall praise thy name In earth and sky and sea
Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty, God in three persons,
blessed Trinity. Please be seated. Only thou art holy and there
is none beside thee. Best definition I ever heard
for holiness is other. Other. He's other than we are
in every way. The scripture says that the Lord
Jesus Christ died for the ungodly. The ungodly. Now that's not a
moral judgment against someone who's doing really bad things
in their life. Ungodly means not like God. If you're unhappy, you're not
happy. And so what the Lord is telling us is that there's no
There's no point of connection between us and God as far as
similarity is concerned. There's nothing about us that's
like Him. He's holy. Holy, holy, holy is
the Lord God of hosts. Heaven and earth is filled with
His glory. He's holy, we're unholy. He's
righteous, we're unrighteous. He's perfect, sinless, separate
from sinners, the Scripture says. Separate from sinners. That's
what holy means. What a blessing He has given
us to be able to come here and ask Him to meet with us and enable
us to worship the Holy God. There's no greater blessing,
no greater thing that we can do to worship God in His holiness. Let's bow together and ask His
pleasure and His blessings on this hour. Our Heavenly Father, We have great hope in knowing
that the Lord Jesus Christ has made access to you by grace pleasing
and acceptable in thy sight. Lord, we come before you confessing
to you, Lord, that we're unholy, we're sinful, we're unrighteous,
know how desperate we are to have You make Yourself known
to us and give us hope in our substitute. Cause us, Lord, to
find our comfort and all our salvation in Thy dear Son. We pray for Your Holy Spirit
to bless Your Word. We pray, Lord, that You would
cause it to be sharp and powerful and able to divide the thoughts
and intents of our hearts, cause us, Lord, to find ourselves fleeing
in faith to Christ. Lord, we pray for our brother
Robert and we ask for your hand of healing and blessing and encouragement
to be upon he and Deanna as as he recovers. Lord, we pray that
you would be pleased to return him to fellowship with us and
worship with us. We thank you for, for protecting
Bert this week. And we pray Lord that your hand
of healing would be upon him and that you would give him full
recovery from his injuries and enable him to, to be able to
return soon and be in fellowship and in worship with your people
here. We thank you for it in Christ's
name. Amen. I mentioned Wednesday night that
I hate giving announcements anymore, or telling anybody anything for
that matter, because every time I do, somebody says, oh, I already
knew that. It's on Facebook. I don't know what's on Facebook,
but I assume everybody knows that Burt Dunbar had a a real
serious accident in an automobile accident Monday. He's at home
recovering, has a broken sternum, so you can imagine the pain of
breathing and moving around that that has, and bruised up real
bad. But Lord willing, he'll be back
with us next week. Robert, Deanna texted this morning
and said that Robert was having a real bad day today. That was
her words. I'm not exactly sure what all
that means, but I assured her that we would be remembering
him in prayer also. All right, you have your Bibles
open. Let's open them together to 2 Thessalonians. We've been
studying this epistle. While I'm making announcements,
believe it or not, we have two Don and Mary W's now. Don and Mary Williamson and Don
and Mary Williams in our fellowship. If you haven't gotten to know
Don and Mary, you'll love them. So welcome. We're so glad you all are here
and part of our fellowship now, Don and Mary Williams. I've titled this, Grow and Abound. Grow and Abound. And I want to try to answer from
this chapter, what are the means that the Lord uses to grow us
in faith and to cause us to abound in love for one another. He commends
the church in Thessalonica because they are growing in their faith
and they are abounding, every one of them, as Scripture says,
in love for one another. And so, Let's look. Look at verse 3. We are bound
to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meat, as it
is proper. It's proper that we should thank
God. For the growing of your faith and the abounding of your
love is from God. So we're not We're not patting
men on the back. We're not giving them the idea
that they are the cause of this. God's the cause of it. God's
the cause of it. And we thank God for the growing
of faith and for the abounding of love. We are bound. Bound
by the truth. Bound by the Spirit of God. bound
by the way it really is, to give thanks to God. He's the one that did it, and
He's the one that gets all the glory. What do you do? Because that your faith groweth
exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you all toward
each other aboundeth. So Paul has sent Timothy back
to check on the church in Thessalonica and he's come back with these
reports. You're just not going to believe, Paul, how much they're
growing in faith, and what the Lord has done for them, and how
the Lord has knit their hearts to one another in an unfeigned,
genuine love for one another. And Paul's just beginning this
letter by saying, we are bound to give thanks to God. for that. It's proper for us. It's meat
that we should express our gratitude to the Lord because he's the
one that did it. When God sets out to grow us
in our faith and to cause us to love the brethren, he accomplishes
what he purposes to do. All faith is a gift of God. whereby
grace are you saved through faith and that That not of works, it's
a gift of God. And so all faith, the initial
experience of faith, enabling us to believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and growing in faith and in grace and in the knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ is of the Lord. Did the apostles not
say, Lord, increase our faith. If we're gonna have more faith,
you're gonna have to give it to us. All faith is from God. faith
is not contrary to what to what most religious folks believe
faith is not our contribution to our salvation it's not a work
it's all of grace so hope so you know we we just weird to
completely depend upon faith is a dependence upon the Lord
and and and so we're depending upon him for more faith I'm If
the Lord sets out to grow us in our faith and to abound us
in our love for one another, it will happen. Period. Period. It will happen. Why? Because
He's doing it. He's doing it. Is it possible
for the Lord to try to save somebody and not save them? If you listen
to what's happening and what people say in religion, that's,
you know, God loves everybody and Christ died for everybody.
God's trying to get everybody saved, but, you know, He needs
you to do your part. That's not our God. That's not
an omnipotent, holy God who holds all the angels in heaven and
all the inhabitants of the earth in His hand and does with them
whatsoever He wills. Our God is sovereign. Not only
is He sovereign in salvation, He's sovereign in sanctification. He's the one who grows us in
faith. So we don't, you know, that's
one of the reasons why believers get together. They don't do what
the religious do. They don't have a hierarchy of
holiness among their members. They don't boast in one man being
more godly than another man. Believers know that we're all
ungodly. And whatever faith we have, and
whatever measure of faith we have, it was given to us of God. What do you have that you did
not receive? So faith is not something you
drum up. Faith is not something you work up. Faith is something
God's got to give you. And that truth will cause the
children of God to say with the apostles, Lord, increase our
faith. And the Lord will. Let me ask you a question. If
you had the ability to guarantee the success and the growth and
the well-being of your children, would you not make sure that
they turn out well? We do what we can, but we don't
have that ability. We don't have that ability. Unlike
our relationship with our children, Our Heavenly Father has that
ability with His children. If you, being evil, know how
to give good gifts unto your children, how much more will
your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit and good gifts unto
those who ask Him? Turn with me to Hebrews chapter
12. We do everything we can to try
to guarantee the The welfare of our children. And some of the things we do
are right and some of them aren't. The Lord speaks of that in Hebrews
chapter 12. It's always, well, let's read
beginning in verse 5. And you have forgotten the exhortation
which speaketh unto you as unto children." Somebody recently
asked me, well, isn't everybody a child of God? No. No. Everybody's not a child of God. If you want to say everybody's
a child of God by creation, I guess you could say that. But no, this
familial relationship that we have with God is by the miracle
of the new birth. Not everybody's a child of God. I came unto my own, and my own
received me not, but as many as received me. To them God gave
the power to become the what? Children of God. So everybody
is God's creature. but not everybody his child. So this is to his children. He
says, have you forgotten the exhortation that God spoke concerning
his children? Despise not thou the chastening
of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him. For whom
the Lord loveth, he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom
he receiveth. And if you endure chastening,
God dealeth with you as with sons. And what son is he whom
the father chasteneth not? But if you be without chastisement,
whereof all are partakers, then you are bastards and not sons."
You're an illegitimate child if the Lord doesn't discipline
you and chastise you. This is the means by which He
grows us in faith and causes us to love one another. Furthermore, we have had fathers
of our flesh which corrected us and we gave them reverence.
We gave our fathers reverence, even though oftentimes their
means and motives and modes of discipline were not right. uh... we still reverence them because
they were our father might i say at this point uh... parents we
have a lot of small children in our fellowship and work on
the way uh... the most important thing children
are going to be children they're going to act like children they're
going to foolish things but the most important thing that you
can teach a child is to respect authority respect authority Of
course, teach them the gospel. Have them under the sound of
the gospel. But as a parent, teaching them to reverence authority. They'll have no respect for God.
They'll have no respect for authority in this world. And that authority
begins with you, doesn't it? So, tolerate lots of foolish
things that children do. But don't tolerate disrespect.
They need that. They need that. Correct it. And
teach them. Say, well, how young do I start
teaching them? Oh, you can't start too young. If you hadn't taught them that
by the time they're five years old, it's probably too late.
It's probably too late. I see people all the time trying
to teach teenagers to be respectful. Too late. You gotta get a handle
on that by the time they're five. So here the Lord says, fathers
you showed reverence for your father. Shall we not much rather
be in subjection unto the father of spirits and live? For they
verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure.
You're gonna make mistakes. Your parents made mistakes. You
do things after your own pleasure. You get angry sometimes with
your children and discipline them out of anger. That's never
a right thing to do, but every parent's done it. You've tolerated
things you shouldn't have tolerated. What the Lord's doing in this
passage of scripture, he's contrasting the way we raise our children
to the way he raises his children. And he's saying, you make a lot
of mistakes. I don't make any. I don't make
any. I know each one of my children.
I know exactly what they need, when they need it. And I'm going
to be successful in raising them properly. So that's the reason
Paul said, we thank God. for your faith and for the love
that you have for one another, for that's his work that he's
done in your heart. Verse 10, for they verily for
a few days chastened us after their own pleasure, but he for
our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. Now,
no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous.
Nevertheless, afterwards, it yieldeth the peaceable fruit
of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. The Lord's going to accomplish
his purpose. He's going to bring about the
peaceable fruit of righteousness. He's going to use whatever means
he deems necessary to cause us to rely upon Him, to look to
Him, to follow after Him. Wherefore, lift up the hands
which hang down in the feeble knees, make straight for your
feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way, and
let it rather be healed. Follow peace with all men and
holiness, without which no man will see the Lord. Looking diligently, lest any
man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing
up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled." See, what the Lord's
saying here is if he, well, look at verse 16. He goes on to elaborate
on that very point. Lest there be any fornicator
or profane person as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his
birthright. Was Esau a child of God? No. No, Jacob I've loved, Esau I
hated. Esau wasn't a child of God, that's
the reason Esau wasn't corrected. What the Lord's saying is, I
correct my children and I'm successful in growing them in their faith,
causing them to love me and love one another. I'm not gonna fail,
I'm not gonna lose one of my children. It's a painful thing. It's a painful thing in this
world when a parent loses a child. Not just in death, but in a life
that is self-destructive. The Lord's saying, I'm never
going to do that. I'm not going to lose one. So
we thank God. for the faith that we have, for
the growing of our faith, for the love that he's put in our
hearts for one another, we thank God for it. He's the one who
knows how to correct and grow and discipline his children.
And he gets all the glory. We don't, we don't, we don't
have a a mutual admiration society here, like most religious organizations,
where everybody's boasting in one another. The Lord did it. He gets all the glory, doesn't
he? All right, go back with me to our text. What are the means
by which the Lord grows us in our faith and causes us to abound
in unfeigned love for one another. But I want to take this in reverse. So if you'll begin with me in
verse 10. When He shall come to be glorified
in His saints and to be admired in all them that believe because
our testimony among you was believed in that day. In what day? In the day in which the gospel
was preached to you, you believed it. Here's the means. The preaching of the gospel is
the means by which the Lord grows his children in faith and causes
them to love one another. The Lord said He's going to keep
you. And when the Lord Jesus Christ
returns with His holy angels, those who have been made to believe
on Him and believe His Word, that's faith comes by hearing. And hearing comes by the Word
of God. And all Scripture, all Scripture,
at somebody recently well not recently been some time ago uh... came here and visit our church
on was true not he said he went to every church in a pop every church in a pop and we
were the only church preaching from the Word of God everybody
else was entertaining telling stories having drama you know
throw a little scripture in here and there but doing burst by
now He didn't stay. I hope he comes
back. But my point is that in religion,
men are not... they don't believe God's Word.
If they believed it, they'd be preaching it. All Scripture is
given by inspiration of God, and all Scripture is profitable.
for doctrine, and for reproof, and for correction, and for instruction
in righteousness, that the man of God might be thoroughly furnished
unto all good works." So here's the means. Paul says he's commending,
he's thanking God for the fact that this church in Thessalonica
has grown in faith and shown abundant love for one another.
And then he's saying the means by which the Lord did that was
His Word. It was His Word. Turn with me
to 2 Timothy chapter 4. It's a familiar passage, just
over a few pages. 2 Timothy chapter 4. Now here's God's charge to every
pastor. and every church and every gospel
preacher and every believer. This is God's charge. I charge thee therefore before
God. 2 Timothy chapter 4 verse 1,
"...and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and
the dead at His appearing and His kingdom." Preach the Word. Be instant, in season, and out
of season. When it's convenient, when it's
not convenient, when men want to hear it, when they don't want
to hear it. When you feel like it or don't feel like it, be
instant in the Word of God. reprove, rebuke, exhort with
all long-suffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they
will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lust shall
they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears, and they
shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned
unto fables." But watch thou in all things, endure affliction,
do the work of the evangelist, and make full proof of thy ministry."
What is our ministry? Our ministry is to preach the
Word, to declare the truth as it's
revealed in the Scriptures. It's the Word of God that's powerful. It's the Word of God that's sharper
than a two-edged sword. It's the Word of God that's able
to divide the soul from the spirit and the thoughts from the intents
of the heart. The bone from the marrow, the Scripture says, the
Word of God is sharp. It's not storytelling. It's not
entertainment. It's not anything else. It's God's Word. And so Paul
says, the reason you've grown in your faith the means by which
God had the reason is the Lord and he's to get all the glory
but the means that he used was to give you faith in the testimony
of his word the gospel that was preached I go back with me real
quickly it back to our text in second Thessalonians chapter
one the second means the second means that the Lord used and
these are Well, let's read the verse first.
Verse 11, wherefore also we pray always for you. that our God
would count you worthy of this calling and fulfill all the good
pleasure of His goodness and the work of faith with power."
So, if the teaching and preaching of the Scriptures is the first
means by which the Lord grows His people in faith and abundantly
causes them to have unfamed love for one another, what's the second
means? Prayer. And they're not necessarily
in that order. Matter of fact, I would say the
prayer is first. The Lord said, knock, and it
shall be opened unto you. Seek, and you shall find. Ask,
and it shall be given unto you. For he that knocketh, he that
seeketh, he that findeth, it be given. And when you ask, James
said, ask in faith, nothing wavering. double-minded don't think well
some others can be by what is it to be double-minded all of
us feel double-minded every believer feels double-minded cuz he's
got two natures he's got the old man the new man doesn't but
when James says if you're if you come before God double-minded
do not believe that you receive anything up the Lord for double-minded
man is unstable in all of his ways what that means is not just
that you coming with your old man It means that you're coming
with the idea that you can offer God something to force His hand,
to cause Him to bless you. It's coming to Him on the basis
of works and grace. That's what it means to be double-minded.
And James says, when you ask, ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like
the waves of the sea tossed to and fro. Let not that man think
that he shall receive anything from the Lord. for he's double-minded
and unstable in all of his ways so here Paul says we prayer is
what faith does and it's an expression of our absolute complete dependence
upon the Lord for everything we don't pray thinking well now
I've now I've prayed now I've been to church now I've read
my Bible now I've done this and I've done that now now God's
gonna bless me No, it's just the opposite. It's the Lord. Well, the Lord gave a perfect
example of it between the Pharisee and the publican, didn't He?
When the Pharisees said, God, I, they prayed unto himself,
is what the scripture says. I thank thee that I'm not like
other men, extortioners, adulterers. And I thank you I'm not like
that publican over there. I fast twice a week. I give tithes.
I do all these things. He was praying, praying to himself. and expressing his litany of
good works before God, obligating God. That's what it means to
be double-minded. He was acting like grace and
coming to the Lord based on works. What about the publican? He would
not so much as even look up, but smote himself upon the breast
and said, God, have mercy upon me, the sinner. And the Lord
said, which one of those two went down to his house justified?
Which one went down to his house justified? So the Lord uses his
word and he uses prayer. Those are the means. And if we pray a rite, it's because
He put it in our hearts to pray. Prayer's not a work. Faith is
not a work. It is the evidence of grace. It's the work of grace, and God's
to get all the glory for it. Prayer is just what faith does. Thirdly, the verses we skipped
over, I want to read them quickly. Look at verse four, so that we
ourselves glory in you and the churches of God for your patience
and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations which you endure. which is a manifest token of
the righteous judgment of God that you may be counted worthy
of the kingdom of God for which you also suffer. So there's sufferings,
there's tribulation, and there's persecutions that God uses to
grow us in faith and to cause us to love one another. seeing
that it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation
to them that trouble you and to you who are troubled rest
with us when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with
his mighty angels in flaming fire taking vengeance on them
that knew not God and that obey not the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ who shall be punished with everlasting destruction
from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power,
when He shall come to be glorified in His saints and to be admired
in all them that believe." God uses sufferings, He uses
persecution, He uses tribulation to cause us to have faith and to love one
another. that your experience now historically
every time the Lord has allowed life-threatening persecution
which you and I know nothing about but it's happened many
times in the history of the church and every time that it's happened
it is had two effects it's purged the church by causing those who
were not converted to leave. No one's going to give their
life for something they don't really believe in. And so every
time life-threatening persecutions come against the church, there's
always been people who leave the church rather than suffer
persecution. And the second effect it has
is the increased faith and love that abounds among the believers we don't know much about that
We might know a little bit about being ostracized from our friends,
being talked about behind our backs, having men hate us because
of what we believe. But as far as life-threatening
persecution, we don't know much about that. But if it did happen
in our generation, I'm certain that that's what would happen.
Those who are not converted would run for their lives and those
who are ours would band tighter together in love for one another
and in dependence upon the Lord. That having been said, we have
an adversary. We have an adversary that every
believer can identify with. We've got our old man. Every
child of God sympathizes with other believers and grows in
their dependence upon the Lord because of the presence of that
dead man hanging on their back. We know what one another experience
and we pray for one another, encourage one another, tolerate
one another, forgive one another. Why? Be kind and compassionate
toward another and forgiving one another even as God for Christ's
sake hath forgiven you. We know something about that.
And that causes us, that old man causes us to become more,
and as we grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus
Christ, we become more dependent upon the Lord for His mercy,
don't we? And we become more compassionate
and affectionate towards one another, knowing that we're all
in this together. Secondly, we have our adversary,
the devil. uh... who like a roaring lion
seeks whom he may devour and uh... i know what that's like
in my life and i know what by by by association i know what
it's like for you and so we uh... we know that he's the accuser
of the brethren uh... we know that he uh... he's a a constant threat and
adversary and his very presence the Lord it's it's the Lord's
devil he's got him on a leash there's no question about it
but but the Lord let's him loose in order to cause us to have
more faith and more love and I'm thirdly we've got this world
that we live in we live in a world that's contrary to everything
that we believe It is. If you can't identify with that,
I would beg you to ask the Lord to save you. If you're a child
of God, you know the values of this world, the direction of
this world, the things that this world has their investment in. It's all contrary to you. And
the thing that you hate most about the world is how easily
you are influenced by the world. And yet this whole world is anti-Christ. It's anti-Christ. We're pilgrims. We're strangers. We're sojourners. We're in a foreign land. We don't speak the language.
We don't have the same values. And believers can identify with
one another on those grounds, can't they? So, here we are. We've got our flesh. We've got
Satan. We've got the world. We've got the enemies of the
gospel. And those adversaries have to... The Lord says that God sent them. God sent them. They cause us
to grow exceedingly in our faith and abound in our love for one
another. So there's the means. Prayer,
preaching of the gospel, persecution. That's the reason that Paul was
able to thank God. Thank God that they, that every
one of them, every one of them, growed exceedingly, grew exceedingly,
and that their charity toward one another abounded. May God be pleased to use those
same means to bring about that for us. Let's take a break. Thank you.