Thessalonians chapter 2. Let's ask the Lord to bless us
this morning. Father, we thank you for giving
us another day, giving us the privilege to come into your house. Lord, what a rare thing it is
to have the gospel preached in our midst. You've been so gracious establish
it here and to give us a ear to hear and to keep us. And we pray, Lord, you'd continue
to do that. We ask you today to make us to
hear and believe your word and comfort our hearts and strengthen
us in hope and joy and love and all of your graces, Lord. We
pray for those that aren't with us. Pray you'd be with them and
keep them. Those going through trouble and
hardship, we pray, Lord, to remind them that you are ruling it all
and that it's to bring them to behold your glory. And we pray
you'd do that for them. Forgive us, Lord, our sins. Forgive
us our unbelief and our not living more near to Christ and holding
Him only. It's in His great precious name
we pray, Lord. Amen. Alright. 2 Thessalonians 2 verse 15. Paul had stated here, he had
stated that in verse 13 that we're bound to thank God because
He hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation. Salvation is
entirely of God's electing grace, choosing whom He will. He said,
we're bound to thank God because the Spirit of the Lord has sanctified
you, given you a belief of the truth. He called you by our gospel. The new birth is all of God,
so we thank God. And He called you to obtaining
the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's the righteousness of Christ.
That's everything Christ is to us as salvation. everything. He's everything in salvation.
And Christ has made you behold His glory and trust Him to save
you. So then He says to us now in
our text, verse 15, Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold
the traditions which you've been taught, whether by word or our
epistle. Now our Lord Jesus Christ Himself
and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given
us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace. Comfort
your hearts and establish you in every good word and work.
He begins here saying, therefore, and that means everything is
motivated by the gospel of God. Therefore, because of what he
just stated, because that we see that God chose us, the Spirit
sanctified us, Christ redeemed us, we're His, we're saved entirely
by God, so therefore motivated entirely by the grace of God
saving us. He said, stand fast. To stand
fast is to be unmovable. Unmovable. Now here's the question.
Unmovable from who? Stand fast in who? It's not a
what as much as it is a who. Philippians 4.1, Paul said, My
brethren, stand fast in the Lord. Stand fast in the Lord. Don't
be moved away from the Lord. He said in 1 Corinthians 16.13,
Watch ye. Stand fast in the faith. Quit you like men. Be strong. You stand fast in the faith and
be strong. Be strong in who? He told the
Ephesians, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and the power of
His might. You see, if you think you're
gonna stand fast because you got some strength in you and
you're so faithful and you're so able, you're already moved
away. You see, we stand fast only when
Christ is all our strength and we're weakness. We're strong
when Christ is our strength and we're weakness. That's the only
way you're not going to be moved away. So standing fast is looking
to Christ, call on Christ to keep you, call on Christ to make
you stand fast, trust his strength to make you stand fast. That's
the only way. Paul spoke of the Colossians'
steadfastness. He said, I've heard of the steadfastness
of your faith in Christ. And as you have therefore received
Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him. How did you receive
Him? It wasn't that you just mustered up some strength one
day and you accepted Jesus. We saw it in 2 Thessalonians.
He did everything. He chose us. The Spirit of God
called you by the Gospel, He regenerated you, He quickens
you, He gave you a heart and emptied you so that you would
receive Him. It was all given to you and it
was Christ given to you. He said, now the same way you
received Him, entirely of God, entirely of His power, entirely
of His grace, walk in Him the same way. You see? rooted and built up in him and
established in the faith as you've been taught, abounding with thanksgiving. And beware now, men are going
to try to spoil you. They're going to come with philosophy
and give you these other ideas and it's all vain deceit. It's
after the tradition of men. It's after the man's tradition.
Man's tradition is to look to man. Man's tradition is to exalt
man. Man's tradition is to give himself
some glory in the work of salvation. It's after the traditions of
man. It's after the rudiments of the world. That's the law.
That's what he's talking about. The rudiments of the world. They always turn you back to
the law and not after Christ. This world's religion is not
preaching Christ at all. He said, because in Christ dwelleth
all the fullness of the Godhead in a body, and you're complete
in Him. You're complete in Christ. So
stand fast, rooted and grounded in Christ, looking to Christ,
trusting Christ, just like it was when He first called you.
He did it all, and you trust Him to do it all, even to make
you stand fast. Verse 15, back in 2 Thessalonians
2, verse 15, he said, and hold the traditions which you've been
taught, whether by word, that's the preaching of the gospel,
or our epistle. Their pastor would stand up and
he'd read these epistles, these letters Paul wrote. Now in our
day, this does not mean that men are called to faith through
letters that the preacher writes, or that we just read the epistles,
just read the Bible, and that's how God calls it. He'll use things
like that, but God has chose to save through the preaching
of the gospel, through the preaching of the word. You see, in that
day, they didn't have anything but the Old Testament scriptures.
And so the Spirit of God was moving Paul to write, just like
he wrote this second letter to the Thessalonians. The Spirit
of God moved him and he wrote what the Spirit of God gave him
to write because God was providing us these New Testament scriptures.
And so when the apostles stood up, when the apostles wrote a
letter and the pastor of these churches read that epistle, it
was the same as me standing here preaching to you that epistle. You see that? So that was the
preaching of the gospel to them in that day because they didn't
have the New Testament scriptures yet. Now in our day, the reading
of the Word of God is certainly used of God. He's going to use
the reading of the Word. But it pleased God to save through
the foolishness of preaching. So I just had to say that because
some people will try to jump on that. I've heard it before.
And try to say, well, all we need to do is read the Bible.
God's gonna save through sending you a preacher, preaching the
gospel to you. So don't leave off assembling
with God's people. Come to hear the gospel preached.
Now, the Spirit of God calls the gospel and this message of
faith in Christ and love to one another and all this gospel and
all that Christ accomplished and all that God commands us
to do as a body of believers, he calls it the traditions. In
another place, he called the gospel the faith which was once
delivered to the saints. And I want you to think about
this. There's only one gospel. There has only ever been one
gospel. Think of this now. God's given
you the same gospel and saved you by the same gospel as he
saved Abraham. Same one. Not a new gospel, not
a new spirit. Same gospel, same spirit. And so of all the saints through
the ages, every child of God chosen, redeemed by Christ, before
Christ came, he stood as their surety. It was done in the purpose
of God. They were justified in the purpose
of God by Christ. Christ came now, He's done it
for us. He did it for them and He did it for us. But even then,
when the gospel was preached, that Christ was coming, that
He would do this, the Spirit of God sanctified them and called
them through the same gospel as He's delivered to you. Same
gospel. I want you to go to Galatians
3. I'll show you this. Galatians 3 verse 8. They know that the Galatians
are being bewitched. There was another gospel being
preached saying you've got to mix the law in with faith or
you can't be saved. You've got to mix man's works.
And here's what Paul declared in Galatians 3 verse 8. He said
the Scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen
through faith, that He'd justify His elect among the Gentiles,
that's you and me, and he'd do it through faith. For seeing
this, he preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying,
In thee shall all nations be blessed. That doesn't mean everybody
in all nations. That means through Abraham came
Christ, who saved all God's elect in every nation. And he said,
so then they which be of faith are blessed with faith for Abraham. You've been given the same, the
faith delivered to you is what was delivered to Abraham. For
as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse.
It's written, cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things
which are written in the book of the law to do them. You can't
do that. I can't either. So if you try
to come to God by the law, you're under the curse. But that no
man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it's evident.
The just shall live by faith. And the law's not of faith. But
the man that doeth them shall live in them. And that's impossible.
You see, gospel says believe on Christ. The law says you gotta
do the whole law. Look, Christ hath redeemed us
from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for it's
written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. And he did
it that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles
through Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of
the Spirit through faith. Rather than I speak after the
manner of men, though it be but a man's covenant, yet if it be
confirmed, no man disowns or adds to it. If something's written
down in a covenant between men and men, you can't add to it
or take from it, can you? No point trying to add to it.
You can't add to it. It's in writing. It's fulfilled.
I mean, it's written. It's done. And you can't take
from it. Listen to this. Now to Abraham
and his seed, were the promises made. He said, God made the covenant
to Abraham and all his seed. He said, but not to seeds as
of many. He wasn't saying here, this covenant's
gonna be fulfilled by Abraham's children. He said, but to thy
seed, which is Christ. Christ fulfilled everything for
him. Everything he did, his people did in him. And this I say, That
the covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the
law, which was 430 years after, cannot disannul. It can't take
away anything from it. That it should make the promise
of none effect. It can't add to it. It can't take away. The
law can't. For if the inheritance be of the law, there is no more
promise, but God gave it to Abraham by promise. The same gospel of
God's everlasting covenant, fulfilled and ordered and sure in all things
by Christ alone, that saved Abraham, is the gospel that was delivered
to you. That's so of every age. There's not but one gospel. Why
are there so many religions in the world? Man gets tired of
his vanguard. He has to have a new one, so
he switches over and he'll make him up a new one and start him
a new work and man will start following that. Men go to one,
they get tired of that one, they go to another one, they get tired
of that one, they go to another one, but it's all the same works of
your hands. There's no difference. But there's
one true gospel that says Christ has done it all, and God saves
by that promise fulfilled by that Savior, Christ Jesus the
Lord. Same gospel delivered to Abraham was delivered to you. You know, even the book of the
law, When you go back and you look at the book of the law,
even the book of the law that God gave through Moses, it preached
the same gospel. It just preached it in shadow
and type. God's never saved anybody through the works of the law.
That's not what the law given at Sinai was declaring. God's
never saved anybody through the works of the law. Only through
the gospel of Christ. The law declares man's sin. The Ten Commandments were given
to shut our mouth and declare us guilty before God. That's
Romans 3, clear as a bell. Paul said it there in Galatians.
It was to shut our mouth and declare us guilty. If you want
to be under the law, you want the most ridiculous, insane thing
there is. Because the law only speaks to
those that are under the law. But to everybody under the law,
it says you're guilty. Shut up. Don't try to defend
yourself, you're guilty. That's what the law says to everybody.
And it declared Christ as salvation. That's what the law of God declared
that he gave at Sinai. In all the ceremonies and types
and shadows, it declared Christ as salvation. And I'll tell you
this, those that were saved by the spirit of God, giving them
a heart to understand those scriptures and believe God, When they brought
those lambs, that was their form of worship. They were assembling
to worship God. And when they brought those lambs,
they were owning before God, I deserve to die like this lamb
is dying. But this lamb is dying in my
place. And they knew that points to my Savior, Christ Jesus, who's
coming. And that's the only way God will
receive me, is only by His blood redeeming me from the curse.
And they worshiped God. That high priest came out and
he took that blood and that basin and he went into that holiest
of holies by himself with nobody else and he sprinkled that blood
seven times on the mercy seat which covered the law of God
and the angels were facing it, the cherubim were facing it,
praising the mercy seat. And that true believer in that
day, he knew that high priest is picturing my high priest,
Christ Jesus. who represents me to God in the
holiest of holies above. That blood is the blood by which
I'm saved. That mercy seat is Christ Jesus,
my propitiation, who put away my sin and whom I'm perfect and
complete and accepted of God. He did all the work. He went
into the holiest of holies and represented me so now I can come
to God in the holiest of holies through prayer. The true believer
understood that And I think they understood it far better than
me and you think they understood it. Look over at Jeremiah 23. Paul says, hold the traditions
which you've been taught. Joshua preached the same thing.
When he was old and he was about to die, he told the elect, regenerated,
redeemed children among Israel, he told them the same thing Paul's
telling us. Joshua 20.33. He said, you've
seen all that the Lord your God hath done. You've seen it by
faith. Your covenant God hath done all.
Now you think about this. They saw the things God physically,
temporally, carnally did in bringing them out of bondage, all those
plagues, all that he did to bring them out, how that Passover lamb
was slain, and the next day all the firstborn in every house
was dead in Egypt. They saw all that. They saw him
lead them through that wilderness. They saw all he'd done in defeating
their enemy. They saw all that. Some of them
didn't believe him. Faith is not sight. They experienced
all that. They saw all that and they didn't
believe Him. Faith is not carnal sight. Carnal
sight is not faith. You remember the rich man in
hell? He said, Lord, send back somebody
from this place and tell my friends not to come here. They'll believe
somebody if they rose from the dead. The Lord said, no, they
won't. No, they won't. If they won't
believe the gospel preached through the prophets, they won't believe
if a man rose from the dead. Faith's got to be given by God.
But you've seen, and the true believers saw by faith, you saw
all that God hath done unto all these nations because of you.
The Lord had an elect remnant in that group. He chose them,
and everything God did to the nations around them, He did it
for them. That's so of you and me, too.
Look here, for the Lord your God is He that has fought for
you. Why do you think you have continued to this day? How have
we made it this far? How do we continue? We didn't
do it. The Lord's fought for you. And
the Lord your God, He shall expel them from before you and drive
them from out of your sight and you shall possess their land
as the Lord your God's promised you. That's how comes this hope
sure, brethren, is God made His promise to us. He promised us. He said to them, be ye therefore
very courageous to keep and to do all that's written in the
book of the law of Moses that you turn not aside therefrom
to the right hand or to the left. Now here's where works religion
will bring the works back into it, bring law back into it. Have
you heard men preach Christ from the first five books of the Bible?
Have you heard me preach Christ from the first five books of
the Bible? That's the law of God given through Moses. These
first five books of the Bible includes everything that was
written in there. It does the same thing the gospel of God's
grace does to us. It shows us our sin, God shuts
our mouth through that word, and He shows us Christ in all
the shadows and types. And that's what the Lord, through
Joshua, is commanding them to do. He's commanding them to trust
Christ, to continue by faith, walking by faith, not looking
to their works and thinking they're justified or sanctified or made
righteous. And He's telling them, and don't
go back to your false gods, your vain gods. You keep looking to
Christ alone. Look here, verse seven. That
you come not among these nations, these that remain among you,
neither make mention of the name of their gods, and cause to swear
by them, neither serve them, nor bow yourselves unto them,
but cleave unto the Lord your God, as you've done to this day.
That's what the gospel tells us to do. All the gods of the
nations are of man. Their message is, exalt the sinner
and exalt the sinner's works. Don't even give ear to their
gods, he said. Cleave to your God as you've
done this day. You know what he's saying? He's saying hold
fast, stand fast, hold the traditions you've been taught. Verse nine,
for the Lord has driven out from before you great nations and
strong, but as for you, no man's been able to stand before you
unto this day. One man of you shall chase a
thousand, for the Lord your God, he it is that fighteth for you
as he hath promised. He's telling them, you hold fast
the traditions that you've been taught. You see, the tradition
we're holding is the same that Paul held to. He said, I know
whom I have believed. I know whom I have believed.
I'm persuaded he's able to keep that which I've committed unto
him against that day. He said, so hold fast the form
of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and in
love, which is in Christ Jesus. That's the traditions, but the
entire letter to the Hebrews. Go to Hebrews 3. The entire letter
to the Hebrews is exhorting God's saints not to turn back to the
works of the law, but to hold fast Christ, hold his gospel
to the end, Hebrews 3.6. He said, Christ was faithful
as a son over his own house, whose house are we, if we hold
fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.
Men who profess to believe the gospel of Christ, they'll come
under conviction sometime, they need to be doing something. Well,
help your neighbor. Abstain from sin. Love your brethren. Cleave to that which is good.
Be merciful to them when they sin, just like Christ has been
merciful to you. Do those things. But have you
ever considered that that conviction might be a trial of your faith? It might be your sinful flesh
pulling you away from Christ in unbelief. It might be the
devil tempting you to look to another god to depart the gospel
of Christ. The Hebrew writer spent this
whole letter exhorting the brethren to look only to Christ and don't
go back. He said those that fell in the wilderness were rejected
of God for one reason. They didn't believe God. They
looked to themselves, they didn't believe God. Verse 10, Hebrews
14, for he that's entered into Christ's rest, he's also ceased
from his own works as God did from his. Let us labor therefore
to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example
of unbelief. Verse 14, seeing then we have
a great high priest that's passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son
of God, let us hold fast our profession. In every time of
need, you flee to Christ. You come out of convictions,
you need to be doing some good work, you go to Christ. You ask
him to work the good works in you. You ask him to give you
direction on what you should do. For we have not a high priest
which can't be touched for the feeling of our infirmities. He
was in all points tempted like we are yet without sin. Let us
therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace that we might
obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Look at
Hebrews 10. He just, over and over, he's
saying the same thing Paul said. Hold fast, stand fast, and hold
the traditions you've been taught. Verse 23, let us hold fast the
profession of our faith without wavering, for he's faithful,
that promise. Look at verse 38. Now the just shall live by faith,
but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in
him. But we're not of them that draw back unto perdition, but
of them that believe to the saving of the soul. That's Paul's prayer
for them. Look, go back now. How is this
going to be working, his people? Look at 2 Thessalonians 2.16. Now our Lord Jesus Christ Himself
and God in it, even our Father. God is one God in three persons. Well, I just see Christ and God
here. What about the Holy Spirit? Well,
the Lord Jesus Christ Himself is exalted. He's going to do
this work. God our Father is exalted. He's going to do this
work. How's Paul telling them this? God the Holy Spirit, and
giving Him this Word to write. See, it's going to be our one
God in three persons that's going to save us. What has God done
for you, child of God? Verse 16, which hath loved us. Without any cause in us, without
any merit in us, He loved us because He would. He loved us
in Christ, He loved us everlastingly, and that love never ends. Having
loved His own, He loved them to the end, Scripture says. Verse
16, He's given us everlasting consolation. The consolation,
the comfort that His mercy's everlasting. He'll never stop
being merciful to us for Christ's sake. That's the comfort we have.
Listen, the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting
upon them that fear Him and His righteousness unto the children's
children. That's how He's given, it's everlasting
mercy that is our everlasting comfort. It's the consolation
of His everlasting light. He said, The Lord shall be unto
thee an everlasting light in thy God, thy glory. The Lord
shall be that everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning
shall be ended. He's given you the consolation
and comfort of Christ being your everlasting life. He said in
John 4.14, whosoever drinks of the water that I shall give him
shall never thirst, but the water I give him shall be in him a
well of water springing up into everlasting life. Verse 16 says,
and He's given you a good hope through grace. He's given us
the good hope. What is our good hope? Well,
Christ is our hope, but we do have a hope. in Christ, because
of Christ, that one day we're going to be in glory with God
our Savior. And it's a sure hope. It's a good hope. Romans 5.2
says, by whom? By Christ. We have access by
faith into this grace wherein we stand, and we rejoice in the
hope of the glory of God. We're going to be transformed
and glorified with Christ. We're going to behold Him in
His glory, and we're going to be with Him in glory. That's
our hope. Our trials are necessary. You
know why? Because Paul said in Romans 5,
that's how he's going to grow you in this hope. He said, we
don't only rejoice in this grace, we glory in tribulation, trials
also. Because tribulation works patience,
and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh
not ashamed the love of God shed in our heart by the Holy Ghost. And he tells us exactly what
our hope is. In Romans 5, He tells us exactly what it is.
He tells us exactly what He's teaching us through these trials.
When you were without strength in due time, Christ died for
the ungodly. God commanded His love towards
you while you were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So, He'll
bring you into the trial and make you see you're still totally
weak. He'll make you see you're still just a sinner in yourself.
And he'll remind you, yeah, but Christ laid down his life for
his elect when that's how we were, without strength and ungodly. And he says, much more than being
now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath and
condemnation of God through him. For if when we were enemies,
we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more
being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. That's our
hope. He said that right after saying
these trials grow us in hope. He said, here it is. He makes
you remember, it wasn't you that saved you, it was Christ. And
now if he did that for us when we were the enemy, now being
reconciled and being his friend and being justified by what he
did for us, we're going to be saved by his life. And we're
also joy in that he's now made us receive the atonement. without
sin, righteous, perfect, accepted of God. In Titus 1-2, Paul called
it the hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie promised
before the world began. It's a hope laid up for you in
heaven. We gather here to hear our hope
preached. That's what we gather here for,
is to hear our hope preached. Christ is our hope. We gather
to hear him preach. We assemble to hear him preach
and to hear him preach himself. Christ is the one preaching when
his gospel goes forth through his messenger. And the word that
goes forth is Christ himself preaching to him. I pray the
Lord grow us in a desire to assemble together every time we have the
privilege of hearing the gospel. Because it's Christ preaching.
It's Christ preaching. After all he did for me and laying
down his life to give me this good hope through grace, the
least I can do is assemble and hear him tell me about it, right? Each of God's saints is gonna
have this hope realized in glory because it's all of grace and
it's all of God. So we're gonna, this hope one
day, you're not gonna need hope. It's gonna be a present reality. And it's gonna happen for God's
people. That's why it's called a good
hope. Blessed be the Godfather of our Lord Jesus Christ, which
according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living
hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance
incorruptible, undefiled, that fadeth not away, reserved in
heaven for you who are kept by the power of God through faith
unto salvation. And that salvation is ready to
be revealed in the last time. You see, it's not that we're
trying to do something, it's that the work's done. The salvation's
ready to be revealed. The eternal inheritance reserved.
And so God calls you and God's gonna keep us all the way to
the end and bring us into that glory that we're now hoping for. Then we're gonna have it. What
will Christ himself and God our Father do for you? What's he
gonna do for you? You that are children of God,
for whom Paul prayed this, what's he gonna do for you? He's gonna
do just what Paul prayed right here. Verse 16, our Lord Jesus
Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved
us and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through
grace, comfort your hearts, establish you in every good word and work. He'd not given us a spirit of
bondage to fear. He didn't give you a spirit You're
not going to have to have preachers whipping you and bribing you
to want to believe Him and do any work that He puts before
you. He's given you a spirit to call out Abba Father, to cry
to your Father. He's given you a spirit that
comforts your hearts. He's given us preachers to comfort
His people, and He commands His preacher, comfort you by people.
And so our Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus Himself and God our Father, He's
going to comfort our heart. He's going to comfort our heart.
The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we're the
children of God. That's how He's going to comfort
your heart. When you see yourself such a
sinner and you think, I can't be God's child. How could I be
God's child and be such a sinner? He's gonna give you that spirit.
He didn't give you that spirit to bring you back into bondage
and fear. He's gonna bear witness in your
heart, you're a child of God. And if you're a child, then you're
an heir, an heir of God and a joint heir with Christ. If so be that
we suffer with him, that we may be glorified together with him.
And He's going to make you know this is how He's going to comfort
your heart. When you're suffering some affliction, He's going to
make you know the suffering of this present time ain't not worthy
to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed. I said to
you Thursday night, if you take the suffering you're bearing
and you look to Christ and you think about what He suffered,
it'll make your suffering lighter. That's exactly what He said. In Romans 8, he said, this suffering
is not even worthy to be compared with the glory that should be
revealed in us. And I'll lighten your load. Is there anybody here
that's convicted that they should be doing some good works? Are
you? I hope you are, and I hope it's
of God. But if that conviction is of God, be assured of this,
you're going to do whatever good work it is God has for you to
do. You're not going to miss it. He said He's going to establish
you in every good word and work. He's going to do it. That's what
I'm saying. God's preachers don't have to get up and whip God's
children. He don't have to rob them with
rewards. Why? Just preach Christ because God's
going to establish you. and every good word and every
good work that He'll have you to perform. He's going to do
it by His Spirit, so that you're going to speak only of Him. You're
going to speak Christ. If He gives you the opportunity
to speak of Him, our Lord said, don't give thought to what you're
going to say. He'll bring you into a situation, and He'll open
a door, and He'll make it abundantly clear that you've got an opportunity
to speak the gospel of somebody, and He'll give you the words
to speak. And by His Spirit, you want to
do every good work. And by His Spirit, He's going
to put good works before you, and He's going to give you a
heart to do them. But I'll tell you this, you're not going to
go around boasting you did them. You're not even probably going
to notice them. Because in that day of judgment, He said, when
He puts the sheep on His right hand, and He says, I was hungry,
and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me
a drink. I was in prison, and you visited me. They're going
to say, when did we ever do that? You not seeing yourself as doing
good works is not a bad thing. That's a good thing. The moment
you start thinking, no, I've done some good things, and you
start patting yourself on the back, that's not good. But he's
gonna comfort his child in every good word and every good work.
The Lord is faithful who shall establish you and keep you from
evil. Look down there at chapter three, verse three. The Lord
is faithful who shall establish you and keep you from evil. You see that? And the good work
He establishes in is the finished work of Christ. That's the good
work. And He's going to establish you
in that work. Christ said it's finished. I pray God bless that. Let's go to Him. Father, thank
You for Your Word. Thank You for Your blessings.
Thank You, Lord, that You giving us a good hope through grace.
Thank you that you've loved us. Thank you that you called us,
redeemed us, made us see what you've done for us. Thank you,
Lord, that you've carried us this far, established our hearts
in every good word and work. And we do pray, Lord, that our
Lord Jesus himself and God our Father would continue to comfort
our hearts, continue to establish us, In Christ, keep us speaking
this gospel, and keep us doing every good work You'd have us
to do. Everything is of Your hand, and we trust You, Lord,
and we believe by Your grace. By Your grace alone, we believe
You're going to make good on Your promise. You have, You are,
and You shall, and we trust You. Lord, help our unbelief. We're
so full of sin and unbelief. Keep us hoping in Christ, trusting
in Christ, and living for Christ. It's in His name we ask it, Lord.
Amen.