Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself
and God, even our father, which hath loved us and has given us
everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your
hearts and establish you in every good word and work. Now this prayer Paul expresses
for these saints in Thessalonica is worthy of our attention for
today's worship. Sometimes we have to stop and
not just pass over certain words, and we could just as easily have,
but it seems like a good time to focus in this morning and
consider this thing of being established in every good word. And that's what we'll talk about
today. I pray the Lord will bless this to our hearts, will teach
it to us, And we won't just sit and agree with it. It's so easy
to do that. It seems fulfilling to hear something
agreeable, but that's, just agreeing with it is not the point of it.
It's a good start. But we pray the Lord will actually
do this for us. Establish us in every good word
and let's pray he'll show us what that is. and that he'll
be glorified in that through us. Remember that Paul's desire
is that Jesus Christ himself, even God, even our father, his desire is that he himself
might do this for us. Again, it's easy to miss things
like that. This is not something we're gonna figure out and work
up on our own. This is a blessing from God. I've used this illustration many
times, but people, you know, they'll put a sign on their church
saying, we're gonna have a revival. Well, you don't have revivals,
the Lord does that. And he may show up or he may
not. You don't schedule that. You pray for it, you ask God
for it. And so this word establish, it
means simply to make firm and strong, to establish, to make
firm and strong. He desires that in these two
things in every good word and every good work And there are two ways to be
established in every good word first of all inwardly To be on
firm ground when it comes to the doctrine of Christ to be
Well-versed to be a studious of it, but more than
that, for God to, I like what David said, Lord, hide your word
in my heart. I'm not sure we can do that.
I'm pretty sure we can't do that. God's got to do that. Hide your
word in my heart that I might honor you, that I might not sin
against you. And that's what we're talking
about here, to be established inwardly, to be on firm ground
when it comes to the doctrine of Christ, not only to be able
to answer those that ask a reason for the hope that lieth within
you, but to be an example, to live the word, and to be an
example, which would be the work part, every good work. Let's
talk about being established in every good word. Let's turn
to Ephesians chapter four in pursuit of that. Ephesians chapter
four. The scripture defines these things
when the scripture tells us a concept like that of being established
in every good word. You're not gonna find a definition
of that in your experience or in your, even though you may
have experienced it, The definition of it is in the scriptures, and
here's part of it right here, Ephesians 4 11. And the Lord gave some apostles
in the old days, and some prophets even farther back than that,
and some evangelists, some that traveled and preached like the
apostle Paul, and some pastors. These are like Timothy that stayed
and pastored a church and teachers of the gospel. For the perfecting
of the saints, for the maturing or the completing to establish
the saints in every good word. For the work of the ministry,
for the edifying, the building up of the body of Christ, that's
the church. The church is his body. till
we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of
the Son of God. All of us are worshiping the
same God. Somebody comes in here and by
definition of how they identify themselves, they're not worshiping
the same God we do. And that's, where the preaching
of the gospel comes in. Those who hear of Christ and
fall in love with Christ, they're gonna assemble together. We're
gonna be, there's a unity unto a perfect man, a mature, complete
body, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. This all has to do with Christ.
We're his body, it's his church, it's his Bible, it's his word,
it's his gospel. that we henceforth, verse 14,
that we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and
carried about with every wind of doctrine. If you don't have
that foundation, this word establish in our text, if you don't have
that, then the last person that you hear that sounds reasonable
and sounds like they know what they're talking about, you're
gonna go that way. You're gonna be carried about with every wind
of teaching. You don't have an anchor for
your soul. like the Lord Jesus Christ is to his people. And
it's by the slight of men. They know how to do it. They
know how to do it. The cunning craftiness whereby
they lie in wait to deceive. They're looking to deceive people.
They're trying to build, you know, how to build a church.
You know, you do these sneaky, inappropriate, blasphemous, flesh-centered
things and people will flock, you know, and get together and
give money But here's what happens in God's
church. But speaking the truth in love
may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.
The whole goal of all of it, the purpose of all of it, is
to grow up into Christ, to be made more like him. Somebody
said, somebody that made a beautiful statue of a horse. How in the
world do you get it to look so real? He said, well, I just get
a chunk of, Granite and I knock off everything that doesn't look
like a horse The Lord's doing that for his people. He's knocking
it off of us in me. He's chiseling us out It's not
that we get more and more holy, but we we grow in his grace. We grow up into him From which the whole body verse
16 fitly joined together and compacted by that which every
joint supplyeth, according to the effectual working in the
measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the
building up of itself in love. This I say therefore and testify
in the Lord, that you henceforth not walk as other Gentiles walk,
in the vanity of their minds." So you see, this establishment,
this coming together in the unity of faith and in the knowledge
of the Son of God. Don't miss those words in verse
13, the knowledge of the Son of God. Where all this week have
you gotten any knowledge of the Son of God? Probably not much
except here on Wednesday night and this morning and last Sunday. It's when we get together and
look into the things of Christ together and learn of him, take
his yoke upon us. So notice in that passage that
the way to be strong in the gospel, the way to be established and
to come together in unity is how? Speaking the truth in love. He gives what for this purpose,
for this establishment, for this, when it says that he, built his
church on the rock and the gates of hell can't prevail against
it. That's the Lord Jesus Christ, the rock of ages. And how does
he do that? He gives apostles, prophets,
pastors, evangelists, teachers, what all those have in common?
Speaking the word of truth. Here we are again. How many times
in our studies do we come back We need to hear from God. That's
how God does what he does for us and in us now as believers,
by his gospel. All right, look at Hebrews 13
with me, please. Hebrews chapter 13. Let's see
if we can find a theme regarding this. Remember, we're talking
about being established. Don't you want that? You don't
want to sink roots into this world This world's gonna burn
up and you with it if you're sunk, if your roots are sunk
into this earth, the rocky, cold, God-hating crags of this earth. Chapter 13, verse seven. Remember them which have the
rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God, whose
faith follow, considering the end of their conduct, of what
they're doing, of what they do, considering the purpose of it,
the goal of it. What is that? Jesus Christ. You see how simple the scripture
is? The Bible doesn't say a lot of things. It says the same thing
a lot of different ways in different times and different Jesus Christ, the whole purpose
of it all. We're growing up into who? If
you follow the faith, not the man, the faith that he preaches,
the gospel of salvation by faith and not works. Where are you
headed? Jesus Christ. The same yesterday
and today and forever. That's why it's a firm ground,
because he don't change. The truth don't change. No matter
what storm you're in, no matter whether you're on the mountain
or in the deep, dark valley, he's the rock, the rock upon
which we stand. The Lord is my rock, whom shall
I fear? Be not care about. Verse nine,
with diverse and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the
heart be established with grace. Grace as opposed to what? Is
the establishment of the heart grace by us? Is that what he's saying? Be
gracious to other people and that's the step? No, it's clear
in the context. He's saying grace not meets,
grace not religious observances, grace not you live in the Christian
life. Meats is talking about they had religiously set up all
these little rules that you can't do this and you can do that and
you'll please God. No, you won't. Christ pleased God and you're
not ever going to unless you're in Christ. Not me, it's the doctrine
of grace he's talking about. He just talked about the word,
the preaching. Let your heart be established
with the truth of grace. The gospel of grace in Christ,
not meats which have not profited them that have been occupied
therein. It's not gonna help you spiritually
in any way to eat certain things or not eat certain things. What helps you spiritually is
grace, the grace of God. What saves a sinner is grace.
And we preach Christ because God's grace is in him. There's
grace for sinners because He shed His blood. There's grace
for sinners because He loves with an everlasting love. We
have an altar where they have no right to eat which serve the
tabernacle. Those that do the works of the
law and by that means expect to be justified before God, they
can't eat at this altar. There's no place for that. at
the table of Christ. Same prerequisite, though, in
this chapter. It's those who are taught sound
doctrine that inwardly are rooted and grounded in the faith of
that doctrine. Look at verses 14 and 15 back
in our text. 2 Thessalonians 3, we're in verse
17, look at verse 14. Let's see, 2 Thessalonians 2,
chapter two, verse 14. What's he just been talking about
when he says, may God, may Christ himself, even God, even our father,
establish you in every good word. Whereunto he called you by our
gospel to the obtaining of the glory of Jesus Christ. Therefore,
brethren, stand fast. and hold the traditions which
you've been taught, whether by word or by our epistle. You see what he's talking about?
So when I preach this a lot, there's a couple of reasons why
I do that. I'm not keeping count. What's the point in that? It's
not because you're an important statistic, you know, for our
little board of statistics. I literally went to a church
that had a board on the wall. Last week's offering, this week's
offering. Last week's attendance, this week's attendance. Make
sure you know that we're, the count is going in the right
direction. No, no. We preach this and we
emphasize this, the gospel, the word of God, the doctrine of
Christ, be established in your heart. in that because it's clear
in the scriptures. It's frequently emphasized in
the scriptures. Am I going out of my way to talk
about this this morning? The last time we talked about
this, did I go out of my way to do that? We're going verse
by verse, aren't we? Just as methodically as we can,
verse by verse through different portions of the scripture, Old
Testament, New Testament. Am I skipping around to different
passages in the Bible so that I'm talking about what I choose
to talk about instead of what God said? The whole counsel of
God? And there's another reason why
I stress this. It's because I'm your pastor.
And I know that Christ is all just like you do. You know that.
And I also know just like you do, that if you know the Savior
at all, You'll forget it in no time, won't you? You'll forget
that Christ is all when you get in this world and you get caught
up in the things of this world, if we're not reminded. Peter
said, I think I see that it's fit to keep you in remembrance
of these things, though you know them. You know them, but you
gotta be reminded. Remember, he said, I'm gonna
do that as long as I'm in this body, I'm gonna remind you that
Christ is all. I am too, if God is pleased. The way that we experience and
are comforted in Christ is the preaching, the worship. Something
will happen in this world. The friendship of this world
is the enemies of God. And speaking of the word worship,
here's what I also know and attend to as your pastor. The worship
of God is not only the means by which God blesses his church,
he gives, he establishes us. We saw that in three places. He teaches us, he comforts us
this way. Where are you gonna find comfort
in this world? He teaches us. Take my yoke upon
you, he said, and learn of me. He gives you rest under your
soul. He meets with us. Where did he say he'd meet with
us? Where two or three are gathered in my name for his glory, for
his worship, for his sake. He communes with us. He saves
sinners like this. your loved ones, your children,
your friends that you bring. He saved sinners this way. But it's also a question of honor.
I don't hear a lot of that, but I'm telling you right now, don't
you think little of the worship of God and then wonder why your
life's a disaster. I'm telling you young people
right now. I've seen it way too much. So
wonder why. You think little of God and his
worship and his word and his way, his will. Don't wonder why
it all falls apart one day. May not happen all at once, but
I'm telling you right now, you thumb your nose in the face of
God who runs everything, who causes and brings to pass everything
that happens to you every second. Don't wonder about it. Don't
wonder why, because it'll be clear, won't it? I hope it'll
be clear to you. And I don't mean by this that
what we call bad things are not gonna happen to you if you love
the Lord and devote yourself to the Lord, they will. He said
you're gonna have tribulation in this world, but what I do
mean is if you have the Lord Jesus Christ, you're not gonna
fear what man can do to you. If you have the fear of the Lord,
you won't fear anybody else. I do mean this, no weapon formed
against you in this world shall prosper. Not gonna happen. I do mean this, that the overflowing
scourge of the, just the depravity of this world won't come at you.
Not if you're trusting in him, not if you look into him, not
if you're honoring him in your life, I do mean this, everything will
work together for your good. Everything. How's them apples? Everything. That's the God we worship. He
runs it. It comes to pass because he purposed
it and brings it to pass. Remember that when you're having
your fun and nothing wrong with having fun. I enjoy life. I've been enjoying it for 60
years almost. You're all gonna hear that a
lot. Now that I'm getting old, you're gonna be like, for a 60 year
old, I'm gonna say that a lot. You'll get tired of it. Look at Psalm 112 with me. Psalm
112. Verse six, this is talking about
the man that God makes us when he saves us, the righteous man,
righteous in Christ. Righteous because when God looks
at us, it's not our works that he considers, it's Christ's.
work as our representative. It's not our sin. He doesn't
see our sin. There's no iniquity found in
Jacob. Why? Because Christ washed him away in his precious blood.
Here's who he's talking about. He's not gonna be afraid. Let's
look at verse six. Surely he shall not be moved
forever. The righteous shall be in everlasting
remembrance. You may forget God for a little
while, but he's not gonna forget you. He shall not be afraid of
evil tidings. His heart is fixed, trusting
in the Lord. That's what we're talking about.
His heart is fixed, fixed. This is how it happens. One of
these days you're gonna fall in love with him. One of these
days I am. and we're gonna hold on and not
let go. His heart, verse eight, his heart
is established. Established in every good way,
in the gospel, in the truth of Christ, and he's not gonna be
afraid. What time I am afraid, David
said, I'll trust in you. I'll trust in you. Until he see
his desire upon his enemies. He's worthy of our time. He's worthy of our devotion,
our attendance, our applying ourselves to his counsel. He's
worthy of our thanksgiving, of our taking his yoke. He's
worthy of our trust. He is to be had in reverence
of all them that are about him. And that happens here. All of
that happens here like nowhere else. Wherever the word of God. It's not just religion talking
about living the Christian life. It starts in here now. It starts
in here. Chris decided to live with Vicky.
No. It just kind of happened, didn't
it? Because I loved her. You see the difference. It's
not a conscious. It's not I have decided to follow
Jesus. He decided to set up residence
in my heart. And I do exactly what I want
to do. By his grace, because he first
loved me, I love him. I love him. There's no substitute
for that. There's no imitation that will
hold up to that. You'll never be the loser for
devoting your entire life, devoting yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ,
even to the leaving of houses and lands and family if he requires
it. Those who do not join themselves
to his church because they're anchored to a job or a house
or even family that maybe won't come with them. You think about
that in light of eternity. We spent this life determining
that all these different things were more important than worshiping
God in his church. There's no other way to say it.
It's either more important or it's not. That man said, let
me bury my father first and then I'll follow you. And the Lord
said, let the dead bury their dead and you follow me. You're
coming with me. And if he puts that in your heart,
you're going to. People say that's crazy. But
what's crazy is not to worship the God that made you, And if he's saved you from your
sins by his son's precious blood, it's crazy not to worship him.
It's crazy. I don't believe it's possible,
to be honest. There is nothing in this life
more important than that. You must be established in every
good word, and Christ himself must make that happen And this
is clearly in the scriptures how he does it. The other way
that this must be true, being established in every good word,
is outwardly, or in what you say and do. Be strong and steady in your
heart when it comes to Christ and his word, but also Speak
thou the things which become sound doctrine Let's look at
a few scriptures Titus 2 verse 7 Titus 2 7 and 8 And this is getting again into
the work side of it which we'll talk about next time but Titus
2, 7, and 8. In all things, showing thyself
a pattern of good works in doctrine, showing uncorruptness, gravity,
sincerity, sound speech that cannot be condemned, that he
that is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil
thing to say about you. You know how that happens? If
you just give people your opinion, give you their opinion, and they're
gonna talk down on you, and they're gonna say you're crazy, and they're
gonna say all the bad things about you. But if what you say
is what God said, what are they gonna say against that? What
are they gonna say against that? You show them in the scripture,
you speak sound words, like the sound speech that cannot be condemned. You're not gonna be able to fight
against God. You can hate what God said and you can avoid it.
You can avoid him. But you're not gonna be able
to talk against it. Not when it's right there in
the scriptures. Not when it's overwhelmingly in the scriptures. First Peter three. Verse 15, for so is the will of God that
with well-doing you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish
men. So, I'm sorry, you know, that's
a pretty good, that's pretty well with our text too, isn't
it? But it's, I'm in chapter two. Look at chapter three, verse
15. but sanctify the Lord God in
your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man
that asketh you a reason for the hope that is in you with
meekness and fear. You know, we don't understand
everything about God. He wouldn't be God if we could
understand him. But I'll tell you this, there's
a reason why we believe what we believe. It's because of what
God said. It's the word of God. It's the
scriptures. It's the truth. And be ready. You know, we're not to run around
casting pearls before swine, but God may just bring it to
pass that somebody asks you. Don't stumble and fumble over
your words. I believe the Lord will give you what to say, but
be ready for that. You're not going to know what
to say unless you're established in this good word. And so this
is not just coming together to get a check mark by your name. The Lord's growing us in his
grace for a reason. What Paul wrote to Timothy as
a preacher in 2 Timothy 2 that we'll look at here, pertains
also to all that witness of the Lord Jesus Christ, whether in
your home or in the world, everywhere God gives you an opportunity,
everywhere someone asks about it or it comes up to where you
just can't keep quiet about it, the Lord arranged that. Look
at 2 Timothy 2, 15. Again, he's talking to a young
preacher here, but this applies to everybody that's a witness
for the Lord Jesus Christ. Study to show thyself approved
unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing
the word of truth. Be confident about what you're
gonna say. Y'all that know me well know
that it's just me as a person in this world. There's not a
whole lot that I'm just dogmatic about. And I don't much care
about a lot of things. But when it comes to the word
of God, there's a boldness that comes with knowing something
about who he is. And that's part of being established
in his good word. You're able to answer, and you're
able to answer confidently. you're able to tell people about
our Savior and what He did for sinners. And you're able to,
as these other scriptures that we read say, basically shut them
up about all the nonsense that they've learned in free will,
man-centered, anti-Christ religion. They won't be able to say that
stuff when you start showing them what God said. Being established in every good
word is something more than attending the preaching service and agreeing
with it. That's a start, but to be doers
of the word, which we'll say more about again when we look
at the word work in our verse, but to be doers of the word,
we must be tellers of the word. According to scripture, we are
his witnesses. When Simon said we are his witnesses
of these things, a witness is defined in that they are able
to tell the truth of what they've seen and heard. They're able
to tell something. A witness that doesn't speak
is not much of a witness. We are firsthand witnesses of
Christ's power and grace. Oh, we didn't see him heal that
lame man in the book of Acts. No, but I saw him save my soul.
I was there when that happened. I've seen him save others. I've
seen him make people a new creature. I've witnessed that. We've experienced
it ourselves. We've experienced his grace.
Who else is gonna witness to that? We're character witnesses
of Christ since we know him personally, aren't you? Can you talk about
his love, how much he loves sinners and has mercy on them? Can you
tell people who he is? We can tell how that he's mighty
to save. When somebody says, you know,
that the Lord is trying to do something, you can say, hold
on a minute. I'm a character witness of the son of God. He
don't do that. That's not him. When he loves somebody, he saves
them. He loves and. We can tell and we can sing of
sovereign grace. We can testify that he came where
we were. That salvation is of the Lord.
Jonah could testify that, right? When Jonah said salvation is
of the Lord, he knew what he was talking about, didn't he? Don't we? What Paul is praying for in our
text is that we might be made by Christ himself expert witnesses. Now we would never call ourselves
experts on anything. Paul said, I don't know anything
as I ought to know, and not that we can decide anything of ourselves,
our sufficiency is of God. But think about it, who else
can testify expertly of the one that we know, we would know and
be established and sound and knowledgeable in the scripture
so that we, as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2, six through 16, might speak
the wisdom of God. We speak the wisdom of God in
a mystery. The world can't possibly know
the mysteries of the kingdom of God. The natural man receiveth
not the things of the spirit of God, but he showed them to
us. He's showed them to us. We have the mind of Christ. That's an expert witness, whether
you want to call yourself that or not. Remember the framework
of that passage too. That passage where he's talking
about that, where people, I have not seen nor ear heard the things
that God has revealed unto us. But he did reveal them unto us. The framework of that passage,
the beginning of that passage, 1 Corinthians 2, we're talking
about verses six through 16, if you wanna read that later,
I was gonna read it. But the beginning of that chapter,
the framework of the whole passage, the wisdom that we speak, the
discernment that we have is expressed in that we determine to know
nothing save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. What makes us expert witnesses
of Christ? Though we would never consider
ourselves that. Second Timothy three, let's close
with this. Second Timothy chapter three. And just, you know, how do we
place a value on this? This is the Lord's doing and
it's marvelous in our eyes. He said, you're the salt of the
earth. He said, you're the light of the world. We know that he's the light of
the world, but he said, you're the light of the world too. Because
we know him, because we're able to tell what he told. We're able
to tell what he did for sinners and how he did it and why he
did it. A man don't light a candle and
put it under a bushel. but he sets it on the table so
that everybody that comes in can bask in that light, can see
by that light. Second Timothy 3.16, all scripture is given by inspiration
of God and is profitable for doctrine, for correction, I'm
sorry, for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction
in righteousness, that. What is it that brings us here?
The scripture. Scripture is profitable for these
things. Not you're thinking about it
a lot. Somebody said, well, I've been
giving this a lot of thought and here's what this, just what God
said. Just tell what God said. for instruction in righteousness,
so that the man of God may be perfect, that is complete. We
are complete how? Where? In Him. In Him. Throughly furnished unto all
good works. And next time, Lord willing,
we'll talk about being established in every good work. But I'll
tell you this right now, There's no more important, there's no gooder work than telling sinners about the
Savior. There's no greater expression
of love for somebody than telling them who Christ is and what he
did to reconcile sinners unto himself. May God establish us
in his gospel. Amen, let's pray.