I had planned this evening to
sort of look at the New Testament commands because Paul in 2 Thessalonians
chapter 3 talks on, in several, four occasions at least, about
commands. He says in verse 4 of chapter
3, we have confidence in the Lord touching you that you both
will do the things which we command you and the Lord direct your
hearts into the love of God and into the patient waiting for
Christ. And it goes on in chapter 6, chapter 3, verse 6 and 10
and 12 to talk about these commands. But last week I spoke, last time
I was speaking on this passage, I spoke a bit about what it was
to, for people to be walking disorderly and not up to the
traditions. And we looked at the essential
things of the gospel which the apostles believed and proclaimed. But there's another word that's
used often in Paul's letters and in these ones here as well,
and that is to follow him. So there is for the Lord's people
a following of the Apostles, as 1 Corinthians 11 says, Paul
says, be followers of me, even as also I am of Christ. So that we actually, as the Thessalonians
have come to understand and we have come to understand and witness,
bear witness to, is that not only do the Lord's people follow
the Apostles, in their doctrine that as a result of the things
they believe, they actually follow them in their life in this world. And that life involves all sorts
of things that the Lord uses for our good, none of which we
would put our hand up for if we knew beforehand that they
were going to happen, the persecutions and the trials and the tribulations.
But in those things there are, promised of God, extraordinary
blessings for His people. So I wanted to talk about that
a little bit this evening. So Simon, would you like to pray
for us and then we can begin? Heavenly Father, thank you that
you have put upon your children and blessed them and love them
from eternity. Thank you that you chose us in
Christ and that in him you have provided all things necessary
that we might enter into your kingdom, Heavenly Father, and
more than that, be in union with you. We thank you for your Holy
Spirit and the workings that he undertakes in this world,
but even more than that, the ones in our hearts have we failed
within you, that you have opened the eyes of my understanding,
and you have caused us to see your glory in the face of Christ.
I do thank you for the Gospel, Father, and because of that Gospel
you have grouped us together, and you've raised up the Church,
and you've sustained us, and provided all things necessary
that we might meet with you and honour you. My Father, I just
thank you so much for that. Pray that you continue to cause
us to be united together and to be mindful of one another
and caring for one another and loving to all one another and
praying for each other and encouraging each other. We just pray for
those that aren't here today, Heavenly Father, in your mercy. You just cause them to miss us
as we miss them and cause them to long to be gathered together
again with us and especially with you, Heavenly Father. We
do think of our brothers and sisters around the world, especially
Peter, and we just pray for you to override the activities of
men and help them to get his visa. But we do thank the Heavenly
Father for his visits and pray that maybe we might see him again
soon as well. I just thank you for your mercy.
Please strengthen Angus tonight and all people causing him to
be bold and faithful, and bless us with the healing of the gospel
again. We pray in Christ's precious name. I suppose the essence of
my message tonight is the extraordinary privilege of serving the Lord,
of being the Lord's servants and children in this world. We
delight to think and talk often of the Eternal Covenant, that
before the foundation of the world, the Lord had set. set a people that He had given
to the Lord Jesus, and He set a time for them to be in this
world to the praise of the glory of His grace. And He set the
circumstances of their life, the circumstances of their life
prior to their conversion, the circumstances of their life at
their conversion, the growing in grace and knowledge of the
Lord Jesus by all sorts of extraordinary events. And in the mercy of the Lord,
He opens our eyes to see who He is, to see that this is God's
good plan and purpose for our good and for His glory. And He opens our eyes to see
the things that happen in this world, and He has written them
down for us. And He has, in the lives of the
Lord Jesus and all of the prophets and the apostles, He has just
given us a living historic testimony of how they lived in this world. And we bear witness to it, brothers
and sisters. We bear witness to it. I'm glad
that Simon prayed about the Church. The Church is incredibly, incredibly
special. It is the place where God the
Father has determined to get glory for His Son. And we know, we know, as 1 John
says, that we are of God, the children of God, the apostles
of God, And then he says, we know that we are of God and the
whole world, 1 John 5.19, lies in wickedness. We know that. We know that the whole world,
in fact it means the whole world lies in subjection to the evil
one. And it's into that world that
the Lord has brought his people, it's into that world that he's
caused them to be born, it's into that world that he has so
worked in their lives that they will bear witness to him. 1 John
5.19 is strong, but it's not the only passage in scripture
which describes this world that we live in. in Ephesians 2, isn't
it? We in time past walked according
to the course of this world, according to the prince of the
power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children
of disobedience. The spirit now works, they lie,
according to 1 John, in the arms of Satan. the prince of the power,
the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.
And we know what it's like, verse 3, among whom also we had our
conversation, our life, in times past, in the lusts of our flesh,
fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were
by nature children of wrath, even as the others. This is a world, if you like
me have been following the events in the world over this last little
while, it's very easy to see more and more clearly the fragility
of all of this world. It's extraordinary, isn't it,
as Western civilisation grows and becomes more and more powerful
and more and more able to boast in its abilities, it becomes
more and more weakened and more and more fragile and more and
more fragmental and more and more tribal, and there are more
and more people living in fear. The more they have, the more
fearful they are. The Lord Jesus said, as the apostles
went out and preached the gospel, He said, I saw Satan falling
from heaven like lightning. And in Revelation 12 it speaks
of this great dragon that was cast out, that old serpent called
the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world. And he was cast
into the earth and his angels were cast out with him. And I
heard a loud voice saying in heaven, now is come salvation
and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of his
Christ. For the accuser of our brethren
is cast down, which accused them before our God night and day."
He has no place in heaven. You cannot accuse the saints
of God when the Prince of God is there in heaven with his worms. There is There is no law to bring
against the people of God, there is nothing to accuse them of
ever again. And they overcame him, isn't
that a lovely word, they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony. Paul is speaking in 2 Thessalonians
about this testimony, this tradition, this testimony of the gospel
that he proclaimed, this testimony that's actually proclaimed in
the life of the Lord Jesus and proclaimed in the lives of his
servants, and this testimony, this tradition that's held before
men. It's the testimony of who the
Lord Jesus Christ is by the word of their testimony and They loved
not their lives unto death. And then he goes on to say, Therefore
rejoice, ye heavens and ye that dwell in them. Woe to the inhabitants
of the earth and of the sea, for the devil is come down unto
you, having great wrath. because he knows that he has
but a short time. He has great wrath. This world
lies in his arms. He has that power over all those
who are disobedient. We read, as Graham read to us
on Sunday morning out of Matthew 24, because iniquity shall abound. the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto
the end, the same shall be saved." You see, that's the world that
these Thessalonian believers were in. And that was the world
that these Thessalonian believers were marvellously redeemed out
of by the power of the Lord Jesus through the preaching of the
Gospel. He says at the beginning of 2
Thessalonians, he says, in the midst of the persecutions and
tribulations that you endure, verse 4, chapter 1, It's a manifest
token. the 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 he's encouraged, isn't it,
in the midst of all of that, in the midst of that world that
lies in the arms of the evil one, in the midst of all of that,
in the midst of the persecutions and the tribulations that are
a necessary part of the life of all of God's children in this
world. Look what happens to them. Look
at all of that which you would think would be designed to cast
them down. If you look at verse 3 of chapter
1 in 2 Thessalonians, we are bound to give to thank God always. We're bound to. We don't have
any choice. We just are amazed by it. As it is right, as it is meat,
because that your faith in the midst of that world, your faith
groweth exceedingly and the charity, the love of every one of you
toward each other aboundeth. What a remarkable thing. Persecutions
and trials and tribulations and in the midst of all of that,
Faith is grown and love is grown. Only our God, only our God who
makes light to shine out of darkness, Only our God can work that wonder
in the midst of His people. They suffered for the Kingdom
of God, but they were counted worthy to suffer for the Kingdom
of God. When the apostles suffered their
first trials of persecution and acts, they departed from the
presence of the Council. that Sanhedrin had just put the
Lord Jesus to death. They departed from the presence
of the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer
shame for his name." The greatest evidence of the
whole world lying in subjection to the evil one is not the increase
in terrorist threats. It's not global financial crises
and instabilities. There are many more just around
the corner, no doubt. It's not wars and rumours of
wars. It's not the prospect of the
Americans having a man called Donald Trump being their president
next year. It's not all of those things,
is it? the worldwide apostasy from the
Gospel. It is the abundance of false
religion and it is the miraculous, God-powered, miraculous, growth
of His Church and witness of His Church in this world. I think
it was Spurgeon who said that saving faith is like a little
candle. You know those little floating
candles that you put on ponds? It's like one of those little
floating candles being kept alight in a hurricane at sea. Imagine
it. That's exactly the testimony
of God's people, is it not? That we are cast down, we have
trials and tribulations, and somehow in the midst of all of
that, God causes faith to abound, and God uses that, that love
for one another abounds. It's remarkable, isn't it? One of the reassuring things
as we read this letter that's nearly 2,000 years old is that
the journey of these Greek brothers and sisters of ours nearly 2,000
years ago and the journey of Paul is the journey of his saints
in this world today. They're written for our encouragement. They're written for our encouragement. They are written. and we should
read them as if the ink is dry on the page. We have the extraordinary
privilege, because we have the Gospel, we have the extraordinary
privilege of seeing these things not just written there for us,
but lived out amongst us and lived out in us. So here in the midst of these
trials that these brothers and sisters of ours had gone through,
God had the opportunity to reveal his tender care for his little
ones. I love what Psalm 68 verse 6
says, he says, God sets the solitary in families. He setteth the solitary
in families. He's got to make them solitary
first, brothers and sisters. He sets the solitary in families. He bringeth out those which are
bound in chains. But the rebellious dwell in a
dry land." Everything that God does, as I said earlier, everything
He does, He does for His glory, and everything He does, He does
for His glory, as it's revealed in the Church. Romans 8.28 makes
that abundantly clear, isn't it? We know, we know that all
things work together for good to them that love God, to them
who are recalled according to His purpose. Ephesians 3 has
this remarkable encouragement for those who love the Lord and
love His Church. Paul says in Ephesians 3 verse
8, Unto me who am less than the least of all saints, I love how
as Paul grew older and grew closer to heaven, He grew down and down
and down. He's the least of all the apostles. He's the least of all the saints.
He is, by the end of his life, the chief of sinners. who am
the least of all the saints, less than the least of all the
saints, I'm sorry, is this grace given that I should preach among
the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ and to make
all men see what is the fellowship of this mystery. which from the
beginning of the world has been hid in God, who created all things
by Jesus Christ, to the intent, that was the intention, wasn't
it, that now under the principalities and powers in heavenly places
might be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God. but only the Church knows the
manifold wisdom of God. According to the eternal purpose
which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness
and access with confidence by faith of Him, by the faith of
Him, wherefore I desire that ye faint not at my tribulations
for you which is your glory. For this cause For this cause,
in His tribulation, for this cause, for this Church, I bow
my knees under the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom
the whole family in heaven and earth is named. We all bear His
name. As His bride, we bear His name. that He would grant you, according
to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by
His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your
hearts by faith, and that ye, being rooted and grounded in
love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the
breadth and length and depth of height, and to know the love
of Christ, which passes knowledge, that ye might be filled with
all the fullness of God. Now unto Him that is able to
do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according
to the power that worketh in us, unto Him be glory in the
church. That's where His glory is, isn't
it? Glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages. World without end. Amen. This is the only time. This is God's appointed time
for you and I and our brothers and sisters around the world.
There is no better time. There would be no other better
time. God has purposed that this is
the time And this is the world that we live in, that God would
get glory for His name by His working in us. To know, to know the love of
Christ which passes knowledge. It's beyond the knowledge and
wisdom of men, that you might be filled with all the fullness
of God. You are completing him, it says. This is a precious time, isn't
it? in this world which is under
seeming siege in so many ways, in this world where there is
just so much disruption and so much cause for anxiety amongst
so many people around the world. This is the time that God has
ordained for us. These are the circumstances that
he's brought us to. This brief time, it's the only
time in all of eternity where we will have the opportunity
to exercise faith and to have hope. Love will continue on,
what love there is in heaven. The moment heaven's doors are
opened at death for the saints of God, we will know what love
is in a way that we could never ever possibly imagine. We will know His love for us.
And because He loved us, we will know in a very real and experiential
way our love for Him. And we will need to be new creations
to be able to cope with that. And we will need eternity to
comprehend something of the depth of it. Counted worthy, what a
privilege it is to be born again in this time, to be born again
in this world, in these circumstances. That's what Paul says, doesn't
he, in chapter 3 verse 7, he says, for you yourselves know
how you ought to follow us. I mentioned earlier in 1 Corinthians
11.1, he says, be ye followers of me even as I also am of Christ. Be followers of us. In 3 verse
9 he says, not because we did, go back to verse 8 sorry. Neither
did we eat any man's bread for nought, but were wrought with
labour and travail night and day, that we would not be chargeable
to any of you." He didn't come there to take from them, he came
there to give to them. Not because we have not the power,
he had the right, he had the right as all the apostles, that
those who preach the gospel can live by the gospel. Not because
we have not the power, but to make ourselves an example unto
you to follow us. He says of himself, doesn't he,
in Philippians 3, he says, I press towards the mark for the prize
of the high calling of God in Christ. It's a high calling we
are called to, brothers and sisters. It's a high calling. to bear
witness to the Lord Jesus, to bear witness to His Gospel. It's
a high calling to suffer for that Gospel in this world. There is a way of the saints
in this world which will never be understood by the religious
people, no matter how zealous they are. I love what Paul says
in Acts 24 in those courtrooms at Caesarea. He says, after the
way which they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers. He worships the God of Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob and Benjamin. He worships him in a way that
the religious world calls heresy. and he does it believing all
things which are written in the Law and the Prophets. He does
it by faith. For there must also be heresies
among you, 1 Corinthians 11, 19, that they which are approved
may be made manifest among you. There is a way which they call
heresy and it's the only way that you can worship God. And
there are these trials and these heresies among the church and
in the church and persecuting the church from outside and in.
that there is then in all of that a testing and a proving
of the genuineness. Remember Ralph Barnard was asked
once whether he believes everything in the Bible. And of course he
believed it. He preached it and proclaimed
it. But then he turned around and said, I really only believe
that which I have experienced. And part of the reason for God
sending us trials is that in that we'll actually experience
yet again and again and again. We'll experience that this book
is true, brothers and sisters. We will experience in ways which
go deep down into our hearts. that this is a faithful testimony,
not just of what happened thousands of years ago, but a faithful
testimony of what God is doing in the lives of his people. And therefore, again and again,
We long for and we look and we take great delight in the fact
that God works through instruments that seem weak and pathetic,
and methods that seem so contrary to the wisdom of this world. Listen to Paul's description
of himself. And I, brethren, when I came
to you, 1 Corinthians 2, came not with excellency of speech
or wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined
not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified."
Listen to his description of himself. And I was with you. I was with you in weakness, and
in fear, and in much trembling, and my speech and my preaching
was not with enticing words of man's wisdom. not enticing, not
using the wisdom of man, not appealing to the wisdom of man,
but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power." And there is a
purpose for it, isn't it? Verse 5, that your faith should
not stand in the wisdom of There is a faith, isn't there? There
is a belief system. There are church structures that
stand in the wisdom of men. Your faith, real faith, doesn't
stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. The Lord
Jesus, delighted, didn't he? He rejoiced and he says, I thank
you, Father, that you have hidden these things from the and you've revealed them to babes. Isn't it remarkable that the
babes in Christ, who have Christ dwelling in them, are far more
brilliant theologians than almost all of the ones in all of the
Bible colleges in the world put together. That's what God says. to have Him and to know Him,
to have Him dwelling in you, as we just read in Ephesians
2, is eternal life. So that's what Paul can say,
isn't it? Follow us in doctrine, follow
us in life, follow us as we follow Christ, follow us as that heart
of flesh The heart of flesh has replaced the heart of stone that
we inherited from our father Adam. A heart of flesh that is
alive, that is sensitive, is feeling, is growing. A heart of flesh that is empathetic. A heart of flesh that delights
in the glory of God, a heart of flesh that can be wounded
and can be healed by our God. To that God, and to that cause,
and to that church, and to those people, service is a blessed
privilege, isn't it? It's the most extraordinary gift
that God can give, to give you life and then give you opportunity
to exercise that. And so people read the commands
and automatically our Adam Flesh rises up in enmity. I think who's going to rule over
me? In the heart of flesh the new
creation finds exactly the opposite to be the case. I love how as soon as the Ten
Commandments are written on stone for Israel and the Lord then
makes some other commands One about making idols of gold and
silver. The other one about building
an altar. You shall not sacrifice burnt offerings and peace offerings
in all places. You shall not make an altar of
stone. You will not have an altar that
is on the basis of human activity but on God's provision. You shall
not build upon it of hue and stone, for if you lift up thy
tool upon it, thou hast polluted it." Salvation is all of grace,
and so is service. You can't go up to steps. You
can't go up to God on steps to His altar. If you go up by steps
your nakedness will be discovered. But then he has this remarkable
passage in Exodus 21 and it seems almost incongruous and out of
place until we see that it's about the Lord Jesus and his
bride. That's just the most beautiful
passage about service. Now these are the judgments which
you shall set before them. If thou by a Hebrew servant,
six years shall he serve and in the seventh he shall go out
free for nothing. If he came in by himself he shall
go out by himself. If he were married then his wife
shall go out with him. If his master Just listen to
this and think of the Gospel. If his master has given him a
wife, and she has borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her
children shall be her masters. They'll stay with the master.
And he shall go out by himself. And if the servant, if the servant,
shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children. I will not go out free. Then his master shall bring him
unto the judges, and he shall also bring him to the door and
unto the doorpost. And his master shall bore his
ear through with an oar, and he shall serve him forever."
Isaiah makes it very abundantly clear that of the Lord Jesus,
who is the Lord's servant, he says, he has opened my ear, pierced
him through with an awl. This is about the Lord Jesus
Christ. But there is one person in all of this who is completely
passive and extraordinarily delighted. There was the servant who had
the opportunity, the door was opened, legally in a sense he
could go out, and there was the wife. She was completely passive
in all of this. but completely moved in all sorts
of ways, in the most delightful way, as she heard her beloved
husband say, I love my master, I love my wife, I love my children,
I will not go out free. See that's one of the wonders
of our great God, isn't it? Our great God, the creator and
the sustainer of this universe, is a servant. He's a servant
to God and he's a servant to us. And in doing so, he transforms
and obliterates human understanding of servitude, service, is a blessed,
blessed privilege. The love of Christ constrains
us. The love of Christ compels us. The commandments of the Lord
are not burdensome. Imagine that wife after that
ceremony. What would have delighted her
more than anything else? And she and her husband got back
together again. Did he have to get out a great
big stick and a whip and beat her? She would have delighted to serve
him and to serve with him. So when we come to these New
Testament passages that seem to speak in command and we'll
look more closely at them next week. and the delightful privilege
it is to serve God, the delightful privilege it is to bear witness
to Him in this world. I thought I'd finish by just
reading something of 1 Peter. Paul is asking people to follow
him. Peter is asking people, the apostles
are asking people to follow them as they follow Christ. I'll read
from chapter 4 of 1 Peter. For as much then as Christ has
suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with
the same mind. For he that has suffered in the
flesh has ceased from sin, that he no longer should live the
rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the
will of God. For the time past our life may
suffice us to have brought the will of the Gentiles, when we
walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revelings, banqueting
and abominable idolatries, wherein they think it strange that you
run not with them to the same excess of riot. Not only do they
speak evil of you, who shall give account to him that is ready
to judge the quick and the dead. And above all things, we go down
to verse 7, but at the end of all things is at hand, be ye
therefore sober and watch unto prayer, and above all things
have fervent charity among yourselves, fervent love. For charity, love
shall cover the multitude of sins. Use hospitality to one
another without grudging, as every man hath received a gift,
even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards
of the manifold grace of God. If any man speak, let him speak
as the oracles of God. If any man minister, let him
do it as of the ability which God giveth, that God in all things
may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and
dominion for ever and ever. Amen. Beloved, think it not strange
concerning the fiery trial which is to trial you, as though some
strange thing happened unto you. But rejoice inasmuch as you are
partakers of Christ's sufferings. that when His glory shall be
revealed, you may be glad also with exceeding joy. If you are reproached for the
name of Christ, happy are you, for the Spirit of glory and of
God resteth upon you. On their part He is evil spoken
of, but on your part He is glorified. But let none of you suffer as
a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody
in other man's matters. Yet if any man suffer as a Christian,
let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God on his behalf. For the time is come that judgment
must begin at the house of God, and if it first begin at us,
what shall be the end of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely
be saved, what shall the ungodly and the sinner appear? Therefore
let them suffer according to the will of God and commit the
keeping of their souls to Him in well-doing as unto a faithful
Creator. The elders which are among you
I exhort, who am also an elder and a witness of the sufferings
of Christ and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed,
feed the flock of God which is among you, taking oversight thereof,
not by constraint but willingly, not for filthy lucre but of a
ready mind, neither as being lords over God's heritage, but
being examples to the flock. And when the Chief Shepherd shall
appear, you shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away. Likewise, you younger, submit
yourselves unto the Elder, yea, all of you be subject one to
another, and be clothed with humility. For God resisteth the
proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. Humble yourselves,
therefore, unto the mighty hand of God. that He may exalt you
in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He careth
for you." Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we again with
such ignorance and feebleness express something, Heavenly Father,
of our gratitude to you for sending your dear son into this world
and for sending him into our lives and sending him to build
this church and causing your people to stand, Heavenly Father,
to stand in the midst of trials and tribulations and to stand
in such a way that you receive honour and glory for the faith
and the love that you work in the hearts of your people. O
our Father, we pray that you'd work in our hearts, that we would
find it a delight to be in service. a delight to be in fellowship
with Him. Heavenly Father, we pray that
You would take us and that You would use us for Your glory in
this dying and depraved world. Cause us, Heavenly Father, by
the light of Your Gospel to shine like stars in this darkness. Father, we thank you for your
extraordinary grace. We thank you, Heavenly Father,
that it is you who work in the hearts of your people to bind
us together, to open our eyes, to see who the Lord Jesus Christ
really is. Our Father, this world is passing
away. We are able to bear witness to
its fragility. to the fact, Heavenly Father,
that it is not a place for any person to build their nest and
make their home. We thank you that you have made
it so, Heavenly Father, in our experience, and we pray that
you would knit us together in love for your dear and precious
Son, that we might be counted worthy, Heavenly Father. of suffering
and standing for the Gospel of the Lord Jesus in this world. We commit ourselves into your
hands with expectation and gratitude. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.