Turning the scriptures to 1 Thessalonians
chapter 5, I just want to look at four short verses, significant and wonderful words
to all of us. One of the things that is It's
most difficult, isn't it, for us in this world and in our flesh
to actually come to grips with is the reality and the significance
of what little gatherings like this are. God has determined
according to Ephesians, that in the church is the place where
he gets glory for his son. And so the most significant thing
that's happening on this planet at the moment is not the troubles
in the Middle East, not the politics of the Americans or the Indonesians
or anyone else, The greatest thing that's happening on this
planet at the moment is the Lord Jesus gathering his people together,
meeting with his people, ministering to his people, gifting his people,
causing in the body of his people for him to be proclaimed in this
world. There are two things that drive
someone like Paul, a man of great zeal, a man of great passion,
a man of great love for these Thessalonians, and of course
the first one is the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Paul, like all gospel preachers,
was a man who said, behold your God, behold the Lord Jesus Christ. And before him, Before him, who
was saved from the depths of depravity, the depths of legalism,
the idolatry, as he says in 1 Thessalonians 1, the idolatry of Jewish religion,
the idolatry, for want of a better word, of modern Christianity.
He never got over. the saving of his eternal soul. And he never got over the fact
that when he spoke to people, he was talking about things of
eternity. One day, one day soon, you and
I will meet the Lord Jesus Christ in his true character, as he
really is, as he really is revealed in this book, this glorious book
that we have. and God's servants are ambassadors,
and God's servants speak on God's behalf, and God's servants find
their life. I love the way Paul spoke of
these people. He says, you are our glory and
joy. He says in chapter 2 verse 19,
he says, What is our hope or joy or crown of rejoicing? Are not even you in the presence
of our Lord Jesus Christ? He was expecting, when the Lord
Jesus Christ came, that there would be Paul and there would
be these Thessalonian brethren, the Church, the Church of the
Thessalonians which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus
Christ, the Church a group of believers who had received grace,
grace from God, and therefore they were people who had received
peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. In the
last part of chapter 4 and the first 11 verses of chapter 5,
Paul is discussing those issues we've looked at over the last
several weeks of the Lord's return. Him coming, Him coming back,
us going to be with Him, the glorious consummation of all
history, all of history is just centred on one person. It's centred
on one person and one event with Him, Jesus Christ, and Him crucified,
Jesus Christ, and Him resurrected, Jesus Christ, and Him coming
back. Jesus Christ will be all that
eternity is about. And when they, verse 3 of chapter
5, there are people in this world, saying to themselves and having
others say to them, peace and safety, then sudden destruction
cometh upon them as travail upon a woman with child, and they
shall not escape. But he's writing to these brethren
that they're not in darkness, they're children of light, children
of the day, and He's calling on them to comfort
each other, comfort themselves together. The word is paraplit,
that to come alongside, para, to come alongside and to support
and strengthen. Come alongside yourselves together,
comfort one another together and edify one another even as
you do. In verse 12 to 15 of the verses
that I wanted to look at this evening, and we beseech you Brethren,
to know them which labour among you, and are over you in the
Lord, and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love
for their work's sake, and be at peace among yourselves. Now we exhort you, brethren,
warn them that are unruly, comfort the feeble-minded, support the
weak, be patient toward all men, see that none render evil for
evil unto any man, but ever follow that which is good, both among
yourselves and to all men." I just wanted to briefly at the beginning
just go through these amazing words and just define them and
look at them in the context of this letter and see what they
say about us. about us right now. The ink is
still wet on the page, isn't it, when we read the scriptures.
It's fresh. It's speaking to us right here and right now. He pleads with them, doesn't
he? He beseeches them. He beseeches them as brothers
and sisters. and to know them, which labour
among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you."
What's remarkable, isn't it, is that this church, this church
that Paul had just spent three weeks with, just three weeks,
and then he left. It's a great reminder, isn't
it, that of that great promise in Ephesians chapter 4, that
when the Lord ascended on high, He ascended and He gave some apostles, and some prophets,
and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the
perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for
the edifying of the body of Christ. till we all come in the unity
of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect
man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ."
What's remarkable, isn't it, is that when the Lord raises
up a church, he raises it up in its completeness. Paul had
been there just three weeks, so much that he would have wanted
to teach them, so much that he could have spent like he did
in that last night that he had on that part of that Macedonian
soil later on. in Acts chapter 20, and he spent
there in Philippi before he left to go to Ephesus and back to
Jerusalem and then arrested and then off to Rome. And he's preached
and spoke to them all night long. And you might remember that that
was the night that the young man was sleeping in the windowsill
on the third floor and he fell down. And Paul went down and
he revived. And what did he do? He just kept
on preaching. He preached all night long until
sunrise. There was so much, so much on
his heart, so much on his heart that he wanted his brothers and
sisters to know. He knew his time was short, but
he knew that there were precious truths. And you've got to remember
that these people didn't have a New Testament. They just had
Genesis to Malachi, and if they had any writing at all, this
letter that we had before us may have been the first they
had. And what a remarkable testimony. Three weeks he was there, he
had to leave, he had to leave under trying circumstances, he
had to leave with them facing all sorts of opposition from
inside and out, all sorts of opposition from family and friends
and people they'd lived with, and yet, And yet in His absence,
in His absence, God, God had honoured this promise. We've
just read it. He gave. He gave, Son. He gave. He gave pastors. He gave teachers. He gave all the gifts that are
needed for a fully functioning body of believers. Isn't it remarkable? You think about our small fellowship
and you think about our history and it's good to think about
it. Paul is telling these Thessalonians, you remember your history, you
remember what happened, remember the circumstances, remember how
in that body of believers all the gifts that were needed were
there. If you are a believer, if you
are part of the body of Christ, you might seem like you're a
little toenail, you might seem like you're a big toe. I've just
learned over this last month how one little tiny part of my
body can affect every other part of it and cause you such grief.
So if you're a part of the body, You're a perfectly knitted part
of the body and you're perfectly joined together and God has given
you gifts that I need. He's given you gifts that I can't
survive in the Christian life without. That's what he's promised,
isn't it? That body is knitted together
and it grows with joints and ligaments and it's all joined
together. You think of the gifts we need. We need a computer guy
and the Lord sends along Norm. We need someone who knows about
running finances and doing those things and he sends along Colin
O'Meara. Just think, look around and think
of the gifts that God has given you through the body of believers. It's the body that's in the Lord. We've got to keep reminding ourselves
that this is the body that's in the Lord. And he asks them,
doesn't he? He says, to know them. To know
them which labour among you. They labour. In fact, the word
is to labour to the point of weariness. To wear themselves
out is what he's saying. They labour. If you turn over
to 1 Timothy, if you want to find out something of the gifts
of the ministry and the call of God's people, 1 and 2 Timothy
and Titus are books that are just replete with wonderful,
wonderful instructions. In 1 Timothy 5.17, let the elders
that rule be counted worthy of double honour, especially they
who labour in the word and doctrine. 2 Timothy 2.15 talks about Timothy
being instructed by Paul to show yourself approved unto God, a
workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the
word of truth. Rightly dividing. They labour. It's a labour. It's a labour
to the point of weariness. It's a labour which is a blessed
labour. The most delightful times I spend
often are just sitting and studying the scriptures and I plead with
God that he will give me a message. I plead with God that he will
speak to your hearts. If all you hear is an old farmer
from Carrara, you've learnt nothing. But if an old farmer from Tarrera
can bring a word, and it is a word from God, and it is a word that
comes, this word that came to these Thessalonians, it came
not only in word but in power and the Holy Spirit and in much
assurance. If God would come and speak to
your hearts, then spiritual things will happen, eternally significant
things for the glory of God will happen. They labour. It's a labour and
it's a delightful labour. The number of times I spend on
the two days I spend nearly all day studying are Thursdays and
Saturdays and I try and sort of do preparations beforehand. But the number of times I'm sitting
at my desk and I'm just reading the scriptures and I just smile.
The number of times I'm sitting there and I'm reading and I just
think, isn't this a glorious word? Isn't that a glorious word? Doesn't that person, isn't that
a glorious word? If God would speak that word
to the hearts of the people that I love and care for, that'll
be a precious word. And if God would write that on
their hearts, he'd write it as in stone, etched, and it would
become living and it would become real and it would become something
that causes us and causes us together, causes you and causes
me to be strengthened in the faith. to be found standing firm,
to be found delighting in who the Lord Jesus is, to be found
amazed at the Gospel again. I remember when we were in Bible
study years ago before our church started, we used to be debating
with these people about the Gospel and one of them said, it's too
good to be true. I hope again and again you say,
it's too good to be true. But it is true. It is good. The Gospel is good news. The
Gospel is a declaration of He who does reign and does rule
and has finished His work, and God the Father looks to Him. My life before God was lived
on this earth 2,000 years ago, and God says He's very pleased.
My sins were dealt with 2,000 years ago, and God says He remembers
them no more. God says that He robes a rotten,
filthy sinner like me in the very righteousness of God. It's
lovely how Paul speaks to himself, isn't it? At the beginning of
his life he says he's the least of all the apostles, and later
on he says he's the least of all the saints. Then at the end
of his life he says he's the chief of sinners. We all are
like John the Baptist. We all grow less, and the Lord
Jesus grows more. And we're all, I trust, as time
goes on and grace works in our hearts, We grow down, don't we? And it's not hard. It's not hard
for those who have been granted the grace to know who they are,
to look upon their brothers and sisters and esteem them better
than themselves. Better. Glorious. And the Church is an ordered
body, isn't it? There are those appointed to
various tasks, and those that labour to the point of weariness,
and they're placed in a position by the Lord Jesus, aren't they?
They are placed and gifted and commissioned by the Lord. And
as I said to you earlier, when God raises up a church, He raises
up all that's needed. We don't have to look outside
of the body that we belong to. for anything else. It's wonderful
to be encouraged. It's lovely to have our friends
come from all over the world. It's lovely that the Lord sends
people here to encourage it. But like these Thessalonians,
cut off from Paul and persecuted, they were complete. And God in
that short space of time had honoured that promise and he'd
raised up people among them, people who laboured and cared
for their souls. And that word, admonish, means
to instruct. It means to put into your mind
the good and wholesome things, to continually say and hold up
before you Jesus Christ and Him crucified, to again and again
bring before you the glorious doctrines of the scriptures,
the glorious doctrines of the Lord Jesus, to talk about Him,
Christ, That's all the ministry, isn't it? Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. The riches of Him as a person,
the riches of His covenant, those eternal covenantal surety arrangements
made in eternity, which govern and direct all of time and all
of history. The riches, the riches, the unsearchable
riches of Christ. the riches of His Incarnation,
the riches of that life. When you read the Gospels, you
find Him glorious, don't you? What a friend of sinners. What
a friend of sinners. What a friend He was. What an honest man He was to
the Pharisees and the others. He was just truth personified. But what a friend to the helpless.
What a friend to those that have no resources within themselves. What a friend to the lepers.
What a friend to the heartbroken. What a friend to the grieving. What a friend even to the dead. the riches of His light, and
the riches of Him on the cross, the unsearchable riches of Christ,
Paul talks about in Ephesians chapter 3, the riches of His
substitutionary death. We spoke about it a couple of
weeks ago, that remarkable event which is beyond human understanding,
but not beyond human delight, that God the Father, as it were,
gathered all the sins of all the elect and they were made
to be Christ's. and he was punished. He was punished
until God's justice was satisfied. God's justice, the very character
of God, is now our great defence, is now our great hope, that God
is just and God is holy and God cannot punish me for sins if
he's punished Christ for them. If they've been put away, they
can't be dug up again, they can't be brought against me right now. There's no condemnation. All
because my representative, my substitute, hung upon that cursed
tree and became a cursed thing for me. And hell is no longer
a possibility for any of God's children. He will not fail. His glorious substitutionary
death. And what a glorious resurrection.
He was put to death because of our sins and He was raised because
of our justification. And I love what Romans 5 says
after those great words at the end of Romans chapter 4. He was
put to death because of our sins. He was raised because of our
justification. And then he says, therefore being
justified, and that's where the comma should be, therefore being
justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus
Christ. Glorious resurrection. Glorious
unsearchable riches of what He is doing now, interceding, pleading
His bleeding wounds and His sacrificial death for His people. The riches,
the unsearchable riches of His Lordship. He is ruling all things. As Paul went on to say, the unsearchable
riches. the unsearchable riches of His
Second Coming and the unsearchable riches of living together with
Him. I love what verse 10 says in
chapter 5 of our passage, who died for us, who died on our
behalf, who died as it were as a shield over His people, absorbing
the wrath of God. He died for us that whether we
wake or sleep, we should live together That's real life, isn't
it? Living together with Him. That's what it is to admonish
people, isn't it? To admonish them is to bring before them,
to extract them, to bring before them the Gospel. The Gospel is
the thing that admonishes us more than anything, doesn't it?
We present Jesus Christ as the solution to every particular
situation. Jesus Christ and Him crucified,
no matter what the circumstances are, talk about the Gospel, talk
about Him, the doctrines of the Gospel, the glorious doctrines,
and esteem them. These people placed there, esteem
them very highly in love for their work's sake. You see, they weren't theirs,
I said, they were there, they are there because of God's doing. It's remarkable. how in the Scriptures,
again and again, the Lord speaks of His people. He speaks of His
body being precious, the place where He gets glory for His Son.
But He speaks of His particular servants, all of His servants,
we're all servants together. I love what Paul says, he keeps
saying he's a bond servant, he's a bond slave is what he's saying.
He's a slave. He doesn't have a right to his
own life. God has a right to his own life. He doesn't have
the call over the things that he does. God has a call on him. If you're a slave, you are owned
by someone. But to be owned by this Lord
is a glorious thing. But he gives gifts to his church. But in that church, these people
that labour, And all of us together, the only reason they can labour
is because they are labouring together with others in that
body. Paul describes it, he and the
apostles, he says now we are ambassadors, 2 Corinthians 5,
we are ambassadors for Christ. Ambassadors who have a message
from a king. A message from a king that will
go out, a message from a king that doesn't need the approval
of men. It doesn't seek the approval
of men, it doesn't seek their applause, it doesn't seek their
glory. We've read again and again Paul's
declaration of himself, he didn't seek praise from men, he didn't
seek praise from anyone. Ambassadors, like slaves, are
servants. And then he says, we then, chapter
6 verse 1, he says, we then as workers together with him, chapter
6 verse 1 of 2 Corinthians, beseech you also that you receive not
the grace of God in vain. They are ambassadors, they are
working together with him. The Lord Jesus sent his apostles
out. And he gave them this word, didn't
he? He says, he that receiveth you, he that receives you, receives
me. And he that receives me, receives
him that sent me. At the end of the day, I remember
what Don Fortner said when he was here a few years ago. He said, he's either a servant
of God, or is a servant of the devil. At the end of the day,
when all things are revealed, every single pastor who has stood
beside every pulpit from all of time will either have been
a servant of God, a slave of God, an ambassador of God, they
will speak on God's behalf, or they will be a servant of Satan."
It's an extraordinary statement, isn't it? That's how it's going
to be at the end, isn't it? Everything ultimately is black
and white. For us, there is black and there
is white and then there's this big grey, grey area. And God has so ordained it that
we would be humbled by that. But nevertheless, there'll come
a time when all things will be revealed and there are only two
destinies of all humanity. There are only two destinies
of all those who claim to speak. So they say, we've just read
it haven't we, it's chapter 5, verse 3 of 1 Thessalonians, they
say peace and safety. They all say peace and safety. They all say join with us and
you'll have peace and safety. But if you go back in your Bibles,
if you have them in 2 Corinthians 3, you'll find one of these remarkable
statements which is very common in the New Testament. In chapter
3, he's speaking of this ministry he has. It's a ministry that
has come from God. And we have such trust. We have
such confidence through Christ to God, verse 4. Not that we
are sufficient of ourselves to think anything of ourselves.
In fact, the more one is appointed by God and the more one realises
the weight and the heaviness of the burden of the Word of
the Lord, the more one is forced to realise that our sufficiency,
any sufficiency we think we have in ourselves, any sufficiency
that we think we have in any natural abilities is just rubbish,
isn't it? Not that we are sufficient ourselves
to think anything of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God. And then this verse is remarkable,
who has made us, who also has made us able ministers of the
New Testament. He's made his servants to be
able ministers of the New Covenant. He's made his servants to be
able ministers. That word able is the word that's
in Colossians 1 verse 12 where it says God has actually fitted
them. It's a carpentry term. You take
a square peg and you want to fit it into a round hole, you
work it and you work it and you work it. And Paul, as we've seen
as we've gone through this, has been exercised in the most extraordinary
ways, hasn't he? When he's talking about being
made, He's talking about being made by persecutions. He's talking
about being made by being flogged over and over again. He's talking
about being made by continually being harassed and bearing all
these burdens. God has made us able ministers
of the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter killeth, but the
Spirit giveth life. God has made Again and again,
God's servants are appointed by God, they are made by God,
they are commissioned by God, they are made sufficient by God.
The results and the fruit of the ministry are laid out before
them by God. Even if they don't see much of
it themselves, they will. As Paul left the Thessalonians,
he left them and there was fruit. Where did it come from? because
Paul was clever and smarter and wiser. It came because it was
God, wasn't it? God's gospel came with power
and God's gospel bore its fruit and God's gospel caused these
people to stand because they were children of God, weren't
they? In Colossians 1, he says, I became a minister according
to the stewardship from God that was given me for you. to make the Word of God fully
known. In 1 Timothy 1 he says, God judged
me faithful, appointing me to His service. In Ephesians 3 verse 7, of this
gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God's
grace which was given me by the working of His power. When our fellowship began, some
of you might recall my reluctance, my reluctance to preach, my reluctance
for us to actually hasten to do anything. Some of it's got to do with my
natural cowardice and shyness and all sorts of other wicked
things, inexcusable things of my flesh. But some of it's got
to do with the fact that as I spent more and more time studying the
scriptures and I spent more and more time being made aware that
those we had trusted those that we had trusted souls to, those
that we had trusted souls of our children to, who seemed,
who seemed from all sorts of external things to actually to
be proven to be false. And it's a sobering, sobering
thing to have people that you love and care for and work alongside
to eventually find that they were false teachers. So this is the most serious thing
in the world. I remember saying some years ago in a message,
if the Gospel we preach and the Gospel we hold to and the Gospel
that binds us together is not a matter of life and death, we
have no Gospel. We have no Gospel. If it's not
life and death, if it's not eternal life and eternal death, we have
no Gospel. It is the most serious, serious
thing in the world. By starting another church we
are saying that we've examined to the best of our abilities
all the other churches in town and we've examined the Gospel
they proclaim and we've weighed up what they say about the Lord
Jesus with what is written plainly and clearly and simply in this
book and we cannot find, we cannot find the Lord who has saved us,
the Lord who has loved us, the Lord who declares that He loves
His people with an everlasting love, the Lord who came and died
for them, the Lord who rose for them, the Lord who intercedes
for them, the Lord who is coming back. We couldn't find Him proclaimed
in those places. We are making a statement, brothers
and sisters, aren't we? We are making a statement, a
huge statement. We are making a statement to
God that this is the place where we worship Him in spirit and
truth. This is the place where He has
gathered people together. This is the place where He has
determined that this would be a witness. Alongside this Thessalonian
church, and alongside all of the other churches of the New
Testament era, were, within almost no time of them starting, other
places that claimed to be churches, with pastors who claimed to be
pastors, with preachers who claimed to have a gospel, and they sit
alongside and for the glory of God and the good of us who have
to follow them and others will follow. God has so ordained it
that they will have to stand alongside and say, this is the
truth, this is the place where you fellowship. You fellowship
with us or you do not fellowship with God. What does John say
in 1 John 4? Beloved, believe not every spirit,
but try the spirits. Test the preachers, whether they
are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the
world. Hereby we know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses
that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God. Every spirit
that confesses not that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh
is not of God. And this is the spirit of Antichrist,
whereof you have heard that it should come, and even now is
already in the world. It was in the world 2,000 years
ago, it was in the world long before that, and it's always
been in the world. You are of God, little children,
and have overcome them, because greater is he that is in you
than he that is in the world. They are of the world. Therefore
they speak of the world, and the world finds delight in them.
They can all join hands together. Jesus' all about life was all
of them joining hands together. Why? Because their gospel was the
same. And the things that they would
hold specially dear to themselves, they hold them in such a way
that they're not going to be challenged by the worldliness
of it all. They are of the world. They'll
join hands together and the world hears them. We are of God. That's not there
in the original, sorry. We are of God. He that knoweth
God, heareth us. And he that is not of God, heareth
not us. Hereby know we the spirit of
truth and the spirit of error." If God has raised us up, He has
raised us up as the witness and we are saying to this world,
we are saying to every church going person in this district,
will you please hear us? That's what the verse says, isn't
it? Will you please listen? We will just bring you a word
of the apostles. We don't bring you any words
of men. We'll just bring you words. Can we talk about the
apostles? We are of God. He that knoweth
God, heareth us. And he that is not of God, heareth
not us. Hereby we know. Know we, the Spirit of truth
and the Spirit of error. If you read through 1 John, you'll
find that that we know expression is all the way through it. God's
people are not in ignorance. Paul didn't want them to be ignorant.
The Gospel is not Not some mysterious dark secret that you have to
join some club to know. The Gospel is a plain and simple
declaration of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Jesus Christ has
come in the flesh. Jesus the Christ has come. which means that all of the Old
Testament types and prophecies, all of the promises of God are
wrapped up in that one person, on that one event, Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. What happened on the cross? That's
all we have to talk about. We just have one issue, don't
we? We have one person, Jesus who
is God, the man Jesus of Nazareth. What did He do on the cross?
What was achieved on the cross? And if we're just saying to people,
will you please hear us? You know what it's like, brothers
and sisters. You know what it's like to plead
with people. You know what it's like to be going to meet them
and to have anxious thoughts. Maybe this will be the time they'll
sit and listen. Maybe this time the Lord might
open their hearts and they might want to talk. God's ambassadors have a yearning. They have a yearning for the
glory of God. They have a yearning for eternal
souls. They are made. They are made. And it's love that drives them,
isn't it? Love for God and love for souls. You see, that's why we esteem
them highly in love. We esteem each other highly in
love, verse 13, for their work's sake, for their labour's sake,
for the labour that God has brought, the labour that God has ordained
them to do, the labour that God has promised to be fruitful.
And when that happens, when the Gospel causes us to be knitted
together, we are at peace. What a great word, isn't it?
And be at peace among yourselves. Be at peace. The others will
ultimately divide and devour each other. esteeming the things of the flesh. They are glorying in appearances. And it's so easy to appear to
be delightful in the eyes of this world in religion, isn't
it? It's so easy to appear to be caring and loving. It's so
easy to appear to be zealous. It's so easy to appear in all
sorts of ways before men, the glory in appearance, and yet
when the Gospel comes, the Gospel comes and exposes people. Do they love the Lord? What is He? What is He to them? What does it matter to them about
Jesus Christ and Him crucified? And in the light that Jesus Christ
and Him crucified, all of their works and all of their glorying
in appearance is seen for what it really is. Without the Gospel,
they are damning activities, because they give people a sense
of peace, and they speak peace and safety to each other. May God protect us. Let's just look briefly at these
last couple of verses. I love the way Paul is exhorting
them. Exhorts them. He says to walk
alongside them and to care for each other. Brethren, warn them
that are unruly. The message there is for those
who are as a soldier who is out of rank. The soldiers in those
days never fought as individuals, they always fought as a team.
And so no doubt, with all of the persecution going on, there
were some that were being unruly, they were stepping out of rank.
And the Gospel is a warning, isn't it? This is the Gospel,
this is the fellowship that God has made, this is the fellowship
that God has appointed in this place. to turn away from that
faith that Paul encourages in chapter 3, he talks about the
faith, the body of doctrine and belief and truth about the Lord
Jesus Christ. Warn them. I love the next word,
console, comfort. To come alongside, it's that
paraclete word, comfort, it's feebleminded in our translation,
it actually means little souls. It's not talking about the age
of a person, but it actually says, little souls, those who
because of the afflictions might be for a time fearful, and a
time troubled, and a time under a deep sense of sin, a time under
temptations, a time under doubt. The times that all of us go through,
all of us at times, little souls describe us, doesn't it? A you
of little faith. We comfort them, we console them,
we come alongside them. We come alongside and we stand,
as it were, alongside them and put our arm around them. We bring
the gospel to them again. When they're troubled, bring
the gospel to them. When they need to be troubled,
bring the gospel to them. The legalists love to bring law
to people, don't they? They love to bring law and works,
and it does absolutely nothing, according to the scriptures.
It does absolutely nothing to constrain the wickedness of men.
All it does is swap one form of wickedness for another form
of wickedness, and the second one is worse than the first because
it's self-righteous. Now it looks good. Comfort those. Comfort each other with the Gospel. Support the weak. And that word
support is to carry your end of the beam. Imagine carrying
a huge piece of timber and we actually go underneath and we
carry the end. We carry one another's burdens. We lift our end. We lift them
up in faith. We lift them up and we don't
despise them and we don't look down upon them for their weakness
because we esteem them better than ourselves and we haven't
achieved anything except what God has given us, have we? What
do you have that you have not received? You are recipients
of grace. You will continue, Lord willing,
to be recipients of grace to the end. Who makes you to differ
from another? What have you that you did not
receive? If you did receive it, if it's
come as a gift, why is it glorious if you've actually earned it
by your own activities? We are recipients and we are
desperately in need of grace. and be patient toward all men. Be long-suffering. So we warn
the unruly with the gospel. We comfort the feeble-minded
with the gospel. We support the weak with the
gospel. We are patient toward all men. And then he speaks in verse 15,
and I'll just look at it briefly. He speaks to the overseers, let
none render evil for evil unto any man. We don't respond. We don't respond when evil is
brought upon us with evil to any man. But ever follow that
which is good. both among yourselves and to
all men. Be at peace. Be at peace. We don't have to respond. We don't have to respond in wickedness
when there's wickedness brought upon us, isn't it? If possible,
says Romans 12, if it be possible, as much as it lies in you, live
peaceably with all men. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves. We aren't the ones to bring recompense
to others who grieve us. But rather give place unto wrath,
for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the
Lord. Therefore if your enemy is hungry,
feed him, if he is thirsty, give him drink, for in doing so thou
shalt rip coals of fire upon his head. Do not be overcome
with evil, but become overcome evil with good. render evil for
evil unto any man, but ever follow that which is good, the Gospel,
the fellowship of God's people, both among yourselves and all
men." Then he goes on to say, Rejoice evermore. We have a great
God and a great Gospel. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,
we thank you. We thank you for the gift The
Ascension gifts of the Lord Jesus to His Church. We thank you,
Heavenly Father, that you knit bodies of believers together
and you cause them to be at peace. with each other, because you,
the Prince of Peace, walk amongst them and bring peace, the peace
that passes understanding into their lives. And Heavenly Father,
we thank you that you have left us in a situation where there
are so many situations where we can care for our brothers
and sisters, care for them in prayer, care for them in words,
care for them in deed. And we praise you, Heavenly Father,
that the Church that you have established, the Church that
you have promised to sustain your witness in, is a Church
that will overcome to the end, because you have promised, our
Father, that the work that you have begun amongst us is a work
that you will carry on until the coming of your dear and precious
Son. Oh, our Father, we thank you.
We thank you for the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank
you especially, Heavenly Father, that you have sent that Gospel
particularly into our midst, and you've caused us to see the
depth of its truth. You've caused us again and again,
Heavenly Father, to sadly see the result of those who reject
it. We thank you, our Father, that
the truth is plain and clear. We thank You that You have revealed
that error has a multiple of tentacles and slithers and slides
everywhere. The truth remains firm. We thank You for a sure foundation,
a tried and tested cornerstone, the perfect and finished work
of Your dear and precious Son, our Lord Jesus. We thank You,
Heavenly Father, that He is the Prince of Peace. We thank You
that in this world you have raised up churches throughout time,
Heavenly Father, to sing, to be a place where your praises
are sung and your son is honoured. Heavenly Father, help us to know
the fragility of this and help us to esteem it as precious,
for in this world churches have come and churches by your appointment
have gone, Heavenly Father. They are raised for a time and
for a season. Help us to esteem the great and
awesome privileges you have given us, Heavenly Father. and work
in our hearts that we might honour the Lord Jesus, both in our fellowship
and the times we have outside of it, that He might be glorified,
that we might live together with Him right now, and together with
Him when we sleep, and together with Him when He comes back,
and together with Him in the new creation for all eternity. We praise you, Heavenly Father,
for salvation from sin and from hell and from Satan and from
the deceptions of this world and the deceptions that are so
prevalent in our flesh. We praise you, Heavenly Father,
for sovereign and free and reigning and triumphant grace that you
have bestowed upon your people in your dear and precious Son.
Help us to honour him, Heavenly Father, with our lives. We pray
in Jesus' name. Amen.