Right, brethren, let's look back
now there at 1 Thessalonians chapter 1. 1 Thessalonians chapter
1. Let's read these verses 2 through
4 again. We give thanks to God always
for you all. Paul is writing here to the Thessalonians,
those who were called by God's grace. He says, making mention
of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing your work of
faith and labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ,
in the sight of God and our Father, knowing, brethren beloved, your
election of God. Now Paul thanked the Lord for
this and he thanked them for this. He commended them for this
labor, this work of faith and this labor of love and this patience
of hope in the Lord Jesus. All of these are in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Now wherever the Spirit has given
life, wherever God the Holy Spirit has given true spiritual life,
God gives the gift of faith and he gives the gift of hope, and
he gives the gift of love. These are graces given of God. And sinners can't produce these
graces. We're by nature dead, unable
to produce these things. They are the fruit of the Spirit. But wherever God gives this life,
He gives these spiritual graces. Every good gift, every perfect
gift comes down from the Father. They're from Him. And where He
gives life, He gives these graces in the heart of the believer.
And He never fails to work these works, and the believer never
fails to work these works by His grace, because God never
fails to do His will, working in His people, that which is
well-pleasing in His sight. Now, I've titled this, Works
of Three Graces. And this will be our divisions.
We're going to just look at each of these works. The first, we'll
look at the work of love. I'm sorry, the work of faith.
And then secondly, we'll look at this labor of love. And thirdly,
at this patience of hope. Now, this is what we're going
to see. The graces of faith and love and hope. always result
in good works in Christ Jesus. They always do. Now the first
thing he mentions here is the work of faith. I'm going to have
you turn to quite a few scriptures. Turn to John 6. You're familiar
with this one, but I think it'll be good to see to start with. We turn to these scriptures.
We've come in here on the midweek service and it's been a long
day, so this helps keep our attention, looking at these scriptures together.
John 6, 28. Now faith's chief work, the first
work of faith, is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. John
6, 28. Then said they unto him, what
shall we do that we might work the works of God? This world's
taken up with wanting to know, what works can we do? Let's work
the works of God. And this is what the Lord Jesus
Christ said to them. He said, this is the work of
God. This is the work of God, that
you believe on Him whom He hath sent. Now that's the first work
of faith. Now how is it Or what is it to
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ? What is that? He said, this is
the work of God, that you believe on Him whom He hath sent. So
what's this work of believing on Him? It's being persuaded,
first of all, that we can't come to God any other way. It's being
persuaded that we are completely, thoroughly undone in sin, and
that God won't receive us any other way but in Christ. But
it's also believing. It's believing that the Lord
Jesus Christ has fully accomplished your atonement. That is, He's
made you at one with God by what He has accomplished by His doing
and His dying on the cross. Full atonement made. Full atonement
made. is to believe that He's justified
us from all things from which we could not be justified by
the works of Moses, by the law of Moses, by our doing. It's
to believe God has, in Christ, completely purged me of all my
sins, justified me before the law of God. And it's to believe
that He's made me the righteousness of God in Him. so that God accepts
me, not based on anything I've done, but on the merits of His
Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. is to believe that right now
I have an advocate with the Father. He's risen and he's at the right
hand of the Father. And I have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous, Jesus Christ, my righteousness,
so that I can come to the Father confessing my sin. Nobody but
a believer confesses their sin. Only a believer truly confesses
their sin to God, opens up their heart, and just bears to God
everything that we are. He already knows what we are,
but He's going to have us tell Him what we are, and we confess
to Him what we are. But faith does that because we
trust that He's faithful, and He's just to forgive us of our
sin. because Christ Jesus, our advocate
there with Him, is the propitiation for our sins. He's the mercy
seat where God will meet with us in Christ and have mercy on
us and forgive us our sins. He's faithful to do it and He's
just to do it because God in Christ is just, and He is the
justifier. He's done everything. When we
come to God confessing our sins, what we're saying is, we trust
God Himself to make us accepted of God Himself. And we trust
that He's done that for us in His Son. That's what it is to
believe on Him. And this faith that God gives,
it's the true senses of the believer. It's where we begin to, it's
our touch and our taste and our hearing and our smelling. It's by faith that we taste and
we see that the Lord is good. It's truly having a, when you
eat something, you really taste it. If you just look at it, it
might look good to you and you might think, that looks real
good. But to really taste it, to really take it and to feed
upon it is to really taste it. And it's by faith that we really
taste and see that the Lord is good. Unto you that believe He
is precious. That means He becomes But we feel something in our
hearts for Him. Do you remember when He walked
the road to Emmaus, when He came to the two walking on the road
to Emmaus, and He came to them after His resurrection, and He
began to open up the Scriptures to them? And they said, did not
our hearts burn within us while He spoke to us? This is, it's
not just to say, well, you know, in all my coldness, yeah, I see
that all logically makes sense, so okay, I'm going to make my
decision for Christ. It's to be consumed with Him.
It's to be, it's to taste Him and touch Him and feel Him and
to have His words alive in us so that we feel what He's done
for us and we cannot live without Him. That's what faith is. Faith
is believing God. It's believing on God. All right, let's look over Galatians
2. Let's see something else about this work of faith. Galatians
chapter 2. Faith's work is to live, to go
on living day by day by faith in His Son. It's not just a You
know, you go and you say, well, I want to be baptized. I believe
the Lord. And you do it and you think,
well, now I got that done. And you go on kicking up your
heels and living like hell the rest of your life. It's living. It's living by faith in Christ. Look. Look at Galatians. Paul
said, the just shall live by faith, but if any man draw back,
my soul shall have no pleasure in him. Where do they draw back
to? Here's what living by faith is. Galatians 2.16. Knowing that
a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the
faith of Jesus Christ, by His faithfulness, by what He has
done. even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be
justified by the faith of Christ, by the faithfulness of Christ
Jesus, and not by the works of the law. For by the works of
the law shall no flesh be justified. But, now watch this, if while
we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners. What kind of sinners is he talking
about? He says, is therefore Christ
the minister of sin? God forbid. For if I build again
the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.
If I go back to the law now and try to say, well, now I'm going
to perfect myself by the works of the law, or if I go back now
to just the world and forsake this one that I claim to be living
upon, I'm building again the things which I said I destroyed,
the things which I said I was rid of and looking to no more. And he says, for I through the
law, he's particularly speaking here about turning again to the
law. And he says, I through the law am dead to the law. God did
this legally. He did this through the law.
He made me dead to it that I might live unto God. How did he make
me dead to it? I'm crucified with Christ. I
died when he died. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me. In the life, the life which I
now live, I live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son
of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." I don't frustrate
the grace of God, he said, because if righteousness comes by the
law, Christ is dead in vain. Now the life I live, I live by
the faith of the Son of God. Christ lives in me. So living
by faith in Christ is living by faith, trusting the faith
of Christ that He's going to keep me. and sustain me, and
provide for me, and lead me, and guide me, and protect me,
and present me to Himself, holy and spotless and without blame."
Living by faith in Christ is living trusting the faithfulness
of the Son of God that He's going to keep me keeping Him. We were
talking last week about about assurance, where do you find
assurance, and talking about sanctification and things like
that. And somebody said something about, and it involved looking
to themselves, you know, and about finding some assurance
in the fact that I don't find assurance in myself. I still
find an assurance in myself. If I find some kind of assurance
in the fact that I'm not looking at myself, I'm really looking
at myself. You see the subtlety of Satan,
the subtlety of sin, the deception of the heart. True faith is looking
to Christ to trust, to keep me. even when I don't look to it,
even when I don't feel like I'm doing anything. Still, all my
assurance is in what He's going to do to keep me from here on. That's living by faith upon the
Son of God. And then look, this work too,
look to your right there at Ephesians. Ephesians chapter 6. There's something else about
this work of faith. It's standing by faith. It's
standing by faith. Look at Ephesians 6 verse 13. Wherefore take unto you the whole
armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the day,
in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. You see that? To stand. Stand therefore. Now how are we going to stand?
Here's the armor. Here's our girdle. The girdle
that goes across the loins. Having your loins girt about
with truth. With truth. No lies of the truth. If it's not according to these
scriptures, it's not true. Having your loins girt about
with truth. Having on the breastplate. Here's the breastplate that covers
the heart of righteousness. This is all God's truth. Christ's
righteousness. and your feet, here's our boots
that we're gonna wear in this battle, having them shod with
the preparation of the gospel of peace, the gospel of Christ,
our peacemaker, who's made peace between us and God. And above
all, he said, above all, taking the shield, here's our shield
now, the shield of faith. Faith wherewith you shall be
able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked you see this
is a battle You see this got fiery darts of the wicked coming
and you got a shield and you girded in this armor Look, he
says and take the helmet of salvation. We're gonna see in a minute That's
the hope of salvation the hope of salvation the helmet of salvation
that covers the head the sword we got a sword of the spirit
which is the Word of God and and praying always with all prayer
and supplication in the Spirit and watching thereunto with perseverance
and supplication for all saints. You see, our believing, our living,
our standing by faith is all in the Lord Jesus Christ so that
It's by God's grace alone that we're going to stand, that we're
going to continue, that we're going to believe. So we have
to continually take this whole armor of God upon ourselves and
continually be asking God for grace, continually be asking
Him for grace for ourselves and for one another. Now, there's
something else about this we just saw here, but let me read
this to you in 1 Timothy 6, in verse 2. 1 Timothy 6, 2. So it's believing, it's living,
it's standing. And here's something else it
is. Look at 1 Timothy 6, verse 2. Verse 12. It's fighting. You see here?
Fight the good fight of faith. Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto
thou art also called and has professed a good profession before
many witnesses. We face a lot of opposition.
Believers, we face a lot of opposition. This thing of faith is not a,
it's not a, I believe and I just, I just go to sleep now. It's I believe, and I live by
faith, and I stand by faith with all this armor on, and I fight
by faith. It's fighting the fight of faith.
We face the opposition and the conflict of our own unbelief
and our own sins. The only thing that's going to
overcome our unbelief is faith. The only thing that's going to
overcome our own sins is faith. We have to fight against the
influence of an ungodly world. We've got to fight against the
subtleties of Satan. But what's our confidence in
this thing? Am I saying that it's my faith that's going to
do this for me? Well, listen to the Scripture.
Whatsoever is born of God overcometh. the world. And this is the victory
that overcometh even our faith. Why is that? The next verse says,
because he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God. Our
faith gives us the victory because of the one we're trusting. All
of this helmet and all of this armor, it's His armor. It's His
gospel. It's His peace. It's His righteousness. It's His doing. And we're standing by faith in
Him. We're trusting Him to keep us
in this fight, to protect us in this fight. And we're more
than conquerors, the Scripture says, through Him that loved
us. Christ is our shield and He's
our defender. And faith is trusting that He
has, that He is, and that He shall save us in every way, in
all spiritual matters and in all temporal matters, so that
not one shall be lost. That's where faith stands. And
every work that's done to believe on Him, to live upon Him, to
stand in Him, and to fight this fight of faith in Him is a good
work. Whatsoever is not of faith is
not a good work. You can be doing all of these
things thinking that by doing these things, this is how I'm
going to be accepted of God and how I'm going to overcome. And
it's not a good work because you're not looking out of ourselves
to him. Faith's putting it all on him,
trusting him. Some have a hard time with faith
because we've been taught all our lives that seeing is believing.
Seeing is believing. And the Scriptures tell us faith
is the substance. It's the reality. It's the spiritual
sense of things that are not seen. It's the evidence of things
hoped for. You think about the sky. The
sky is, there it is, this big arch. in the atmosphere. And it's just held there. It's
held in place. It doesn't fall. It doesn't crumble. It's just held in place. And
you can't see anything holding it up. And faith trusts that
what's holding this whole atmosphere in place around this globe like
this is the Word of God. And to us, we can look at this
whole thing being upheld by the Word of God and say, man, that's
beautiful. It's just beautiful. But if it
had one column, just one column going from the ground up to the
up, holding it all up, it wouldn't be, that's what's holding it
up. We wouldn't have the beauty of
it being held in place by God Almighty. And that's the thing
is there was one visible thing. that you and I could touch or
hold or whatever with carnal fleshly sight and feeling and
touch and doing that made us say, now this is my confidence. The beauty of faith would be
completely gone. It would be just eradicated. That's the beauty
of faith. We're trusting God. We're believing God. We've got
all our confidence in God. That's what faith is. You understand
that? That's what faith is. All right,
let's look now at this second work. This second work is the
labor of love. Let's look at 2 Corinthians,
verse 5. 2 Corinthians, verse 5. Love can only be known one way. That's by being in love. I mean,
how are you going to tell somebody what love is? How are you going
to describe to somebody what love is that never has love? Love is only known by having
love. That's how you know love. But
wherever the love of God is shed abroad in the heart by the Spirit
of God, and that's what He does in His new birth, He sheds abroad
in the heart the love of God. And where He sheds abroad this
love of God, the Lord Jesus Christ becomes the sole object of our
love, of our love. And love labors for one reason. Here it is, 2 Corinthians 5,
verse 14. For the love of Christ constraineth
us." The love of Christ constraineth us. Not law, not guilt, not fear,
not being whipped, not being guilted into something. It's
not the dangling a carrot in front of
us and promising us something we're going to get as a reward
in this life or hereafter. It's none of those things. The
love of Christ, His love for us is what constrains us. It
constrains us. I love the fact that believers
do not have to be, they don't have to be hogtied to get them
to want to worship God. They don't have to be dragged
to the place where God is worshipped. They don't have to be driven
like goats have to be driven to get them to worship God. to labor in love for the Lord. What makes us labor in love?
We're constrained by the love of Christ for us because we thus
judge. This is the spiritual discernment
God's given us in our heart, that if one died for all, he
died for all the elect of God. And if he died for us, there's
only one reason that he died for us, because we were all dead. We were all dead. and we are
all dead because He died for us. He died for us so that now
we're dead, we're crucified with Christ. That old man is put off
and he's crucified now. And that He died for all, what
does this love of Christ constrain us to do? That they which live
should not henceforth, from here forward, live unto themselves,
but unto Him. which died for them and rose
again. True love puts the one it loves
first. That's what true love does. True
love puts the one it loves first. Love doesn't live for self. Love
lives for the one it loves. And love for Christ doesn't live
for self. It lives for Christ who lived
and died for us. He came from heaven's glory to
where we are. Oh, it's just too far for me
to have to get up, get dressed, drive all the way down there
for a Bible study. Well, you're not worthy to come.
You're not worthy to come. Christ came all the way from
glory. Is anything too much for me? Any distance too far for me?
Christ lived in the face of folks who spat in His face and scorned
Him and reviled Him the whole time He walked this earth. Oh,
I'm getting a little bit of lip from this one and that one and
I'm just going to have to do what they want to do. Well, then
you're not worthy to serve God, not this God. He bore the reviling
and the reproach of men to save this sinner from death. Then
He went to the cross and He was made that despicable, despised,
sinful thing on the cursory tree. Oh, that's beneath me to sweep
a floor. That's beneath me to do too much
like that. Some things are beneath me to
do. You know, I'm dignified and I need to have more honor and
more glory. He made himself of no reputation, became obedient
to the death of the cross, that despised, shameful, ignominious
death. And he bore the wrath of God.
And he bore it unto death. He laid down his life. You asking me too much to give? You're not worthy of this Redeemer
then. He gave his life. He gave his life. Nobody asked
for our life yet. We haven't resisted unto blood
yet, striving against sin. And nobody asked us to forsake
our home and forsake our second home, forsake our vacation home,
forsake our second car, our third car, No, no, no. This one right
here forsook everything. He gave it all up for us. Is
anything too much for the Lord? Is anything too much for the
Lord? Love doesn't want the one that
we love to have suspicions about our love for them. We don't want
them to be, we don't want to provoke them to jealousy. That's
what love doesn't want to do that to the one it loves. We
know that God's love is everlasting. We know His love is unchangeable.
We know His love is sovereign love. It wasn't us that first
loved God, it was God that first loved us and sent His Son into
this world for us. And we know His love is unchanging
toward us. But that makes the believer,
that makes the believer want to show Him all the more, even
more, that we love Him. It does. We want the constant
presence of the Lord. We want to hear His voice. We
want the approval of our beloved. Isn't that what you want from
somebody you love? What you strive for, for somebody
you love, is you want their smile. And what you want to avoid more
than anything from somebody you love is their frown. And that's
the case with the believer. We want the smile of our Redeemer. And we don't want the frown of
our Redeemer upon us. His delight toward us, that's
the only reward. That's it. We want Him to be
delighted with us. That's it. The true love lives
to praise and to glorify God who first loved us and who loved
us so exceedingly and so high and deep and broad and wide. So, first of all, this labor
of love, you know what it's against? This old cold, heartless, hateful,
wretched man that I am. That's what it's against first.
I can just sit and read about him
and hear about him and look upon him and what he's done with just
lukewarm coldness. That's what I'm striving against.
That's what I'm fighting against. That's what I hate the most. That's what I hate the most.
It ought to just bring me to tears when I see what He's done
for me. The love that He's shown me ought
to just... It ought to make me just be full of joy and full
of delight and just... Like anything that we have's
not His. Like anything we have doesn't
belong to Him. And we have received it of Him.
Everything. We want to live and show our
love to Him by submission to His will, by adorning the doctrine
of Christ in our walk, by making His glory our supreme aim. That's first. And then here's
secondly. Our love toward Christ labors
in love to our brethren. Look at Hebrews 6 and verse 10.
Hebrews 6, verse 10. When the Scriptures speak of
labor of love, it's primarily speaking of the believers ministering
to the necessities of their fellow believers, trying to help them. Verse 10 says, For God is not
unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love. Man, God's
unlike us, isn't He? We forget His work and His labor
of love. So unmindful of it. But He's
not unrighteous to forget our work and our labor of love which
you've showed toward His name in that you've ministered to
the saints and do minister. Now look at that, that you showed
toward His name. How? In that you've ministered
to the saints and do minister. Now, why do we love Christ? We
love Him because He knows us intimately. Like a husband and
his bride, we've been united to Him in oneness of love. That's how we know Him. That's
how we enter into who He is and how He's loved us because of
that. And knowing this oneness that we have with Him, we know
that all those that are His have this same oneness with Him. Because
we're one with Him. We know how we're one with Him.
Individually. Me. I know how I'm one with Him.
And you know how you're one with Him. Because I know how I'm one
with Him by what He's done. That that's the same with you.
And you. And you. It's the same with all
our brethren. So what we do to our brethren, we're doing it
to the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not as if we're doing it
to Him. He said, as much as you've done it unto one of these, the
least of my brethren, you have done it unto me. That's oneness. That means you're one with Him.
You're one with Him. And therefore, those that are
born of Christ, born of Christ our beloved, we love those that
are begotten of Him. Those that are begotten of God.
You that are born of God, Love those that are begotten of God
because we have the same oneness, the same spirit, the same love
dwelling in us so that we sympathize. Whenever somebody, our fellow
believers in trouble, when they're sorrowing, does it make you sorrowful? Does it make you, does it make
you, does it sadden you when they're sad? Does it sadden you
when your own child is sad? They're your child, aren't they?
So is the believer. The believer brethren are one
with each other. When they rejoice, you rejoice with them. We rejoice
with one another. When they got a burden to bear,
we want to bear that burden with one another. And when they're
being hard to bear, we want to forebear with them. Because what
we're doing to them, we're doing to Christ. It's just that simple. We want to seek their spiritual
benefit and their spiritual profit. And two, because of this, that
makes us want to lay aside all malice, and all guile, and all
envy, and all evil speaking, and all hypocrisy. I hate a two-faced
person. I despise them. I despise somebody
who's telling me one thing, in doing something else, or trying
to say something so they can go around to somebody else later
and say, you know what I told them? I told them so-and-so and
so-and-so. Well, they did tell me that,
but when they told me that, they told it to me as if they loved
me. And so they said it in a double way so they could make me think
they love me and go tell somebody else they really put me in my
place. That's, ah, that's hypocrisy. We want to lay aside. We got
all that in us, don't we? We're just full of it, but we
want to lay aside that. That love makes you want to,
I don't want that. I don't want to deal with the
one I love that way at all. So even though we meet every
kind of opposition from without and within, true God-given love
never fails. You know, the three great graces
that Paul spoke of is faith, hope, and love. And faith and
hope are going to be gone one day because they're going to
turn into sight. But love won't be. Love will
continue. This is the great grace, love. Love just keeps growing and growing
and continues. It goes past the grave. It goes
into glory. Love does. We continue in love. This is why you see the older,
older, older believers. Some of the oldest believers
I know, the most loving I know. Because they've been through
everything we're going through and they've learned all the things
that we deem so vital and so important are so unimportant
and so unvital. And they know what's important. Love is the thing that's important.
All right, let's look at this last thing and I'll be brief
here. It's the patience of hope. The
patience of hope. Now, did you see in our text,
you don't have to turn back, let me turn it to James 5. But
did you see in our text that it's called the work of faith,
the labor of love, and then when it comes to this thing of hope
in the place of work and in the place of labor is the word patience. The work of faith, the labor
of love, the patience of hope. The patience of hope. So patience
means, it includes meekness and quietness and submission and
resignation to the will of God. But in our text, patience means
endurance. That's what it means, endurance.
Let us run with patience, the race set before us. That's the
word patience. It's endurance. Somebody starts
off, we'll run a race this afternoon start off in a race strong, fast,
but it was a half mile race. And Those without endurance start
gradually falling back in the pack. Endurance is steady, steadfastness. The grace of hope is the grace
of endurance. Moses endured seeing Him that's
invisible. Now you think about this. At
Thanksgiving, the father gets ready to go carve a turkey. And
all the family gathers around. You got all the family and all
the in-laws and the outlaws and the and all the families gathered
around and they're all gathered around together and the father's
going to carve the turkey and he starts carving the turkey
and everybody's kids are all gathered around with their plate
they want something to eat but you got to wait you got to wait
on your turn for the father to give you that piece of turkey
and he might he might purposely wait make you wait because you're
stronger but there's a weak one over here, and he's going to
give them something first. So he gives them theirs first.
And there might be somebody who's a favorite, and he's got a special
piece reserved just for them that he's going to give to them.
But they got to sit and wait because he's giving out all these
other pieces first, giving them all out. And they got to sit
there and wait. And their plate's just empty right now. But they're
sitting there waiting. They don't know he's got something
special reserved just for them. But they wait. And so waiting
Each one gets that which he's reserved, the Father's reserved
just for them. That weak one gets what he needs. That strong one gets what he
needs when he needs it. That one that he's reserved something
just special for gets it just when he needs it. But if you
don't wait, Get mad and say, well, I don't want it. You may
end up eating beans and rice. Got to wait. Got to wait. That's
what this word is. Waiting. Waiting. Patiently waiting
upon the Lord. James 5, 7. Be patient therefore,
brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold the husbandman,
the farmer, he waits for the precious fruit of the earth.
He has to wait for it. He has long patience for it until
he receives the early and the latter rain. But be ye also patient. Establish your hearts, for the
coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Grudge not one against another."
In other words, he already got his plate full. Grudge not against one of the
brethren lest you be condemned. Behold, the judge standeth before
the door. Take my brethren the prophets
who've spoken in the name of the Lord for an example of suffering,
affliction, and of patience. Behold, we count them happy which
endure." That's the word, endure. You've heard of the patience
of Job, and you saw the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very
pitiful and of tender mercy. Job endured the loss of all his
children. all his property, the assault
of Satan, reviling from his wife, fleshly pain from head to foot
and in his spirit. But in the end, the Lord crowned
him with the crown of life. The Lord's pitiful and of tender
mercy. It's easy to despair, very easy
to become despondent in this life of faith as we go. But faith
is our helmet. I mean, hope is our helmet in
God's armor. The helmet protects the head.
1 Thessalonians 5, 8 says, putting on the breastplate of faith and
love and the helmet of hope, the hope of salvation. We get
our head, we get all down and despairing and discouraged about
what's going on. Hope is the cure for that. Hope's
the cure for that. Abraham, against hope, believed
in God. When everything looked like there
was nothing to be hopeful about, he still hoped in God. I want
you to turn over to Lamentations 3. Listen, our own carnal reason
and our own carnal sight, everything about natural reason, natural
sight, is totally contrary to all things spiritual. Great is
the mystery of godliness. Without controversy, great is
the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh.
Going to explain that to me? Going to reason that one out
and say, now I can see that, I can see how that is. justified
in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed
on in the world, received up into glory, the Trinity of God,
a mystery. God being made flesh, a mystery.
Christ being made sin, a mystery. Christ raised from the dead,
a mystery. Sinners made the righteousness
of God and made one in Christ. This is a mystery. Christ from
heaven's glory feeding all His sheep right now exactly what
we need, when we need it, using despised things to do it, like
He did when He used those few fish and those few loaves to
feed a multitude. That's a mystery. These are hidden
mysteries of God that have been revealed to us, brethren. But
God said this, didn't He? He said, as the heavens are higher
than the earth, and as my ways are higher than your ways, my
thoughts are higher than your thoughts. The anchor on a boat. You know what the anchor on a
boat does? It works in a hidden unseen place in the heart of
the wave rock. The stronger the opposition,
the more firm that anchor holds. And that's what this hope is
compared to. Hope's compared to an anchor. which hope we have
as an anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast, which enters into
that within the veil where the forerunner, Christ Jesus, has
entered there for us, a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.
He's the one that's holding us in place and is going to keep
this hope steadfast and immovable in Him. Turn to your Lamentations
3. I want you to be sure to get
this right here. The dwelling on past miseries
and past failures is the enemy of hope. It's the enemy of hope. Listen to this now, Lamentations
3.18, And I said, My strength and my hope is perished from
the Lord, remembering mine affliction and my misery, and the wormwood
and the gall. My soul hath them still in remembrance,
and it's humbled in me. It's brought down. but dwelling
on past and present mercies of our God, that's the strength
of hope. What do we think of? What do
we spend our time dwelling on? What do we spend our time thinking
of? Put on the helmet of hope of salvation, not the dwelling
on past miseries and failures and all these negative things.
That's going to make you just be down, down, down, down. But
look at this. This I recall to my mind, verse
21, this I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. It is
of the Lord's mercies that we're not consumed, because His compassions
fail not. They're new every morning. Great
is Thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, saith
my soul, therefore will I hope in Him, in Him. The Lord's good
unto them that wait for Him, to the soul that seeketh Him.
It's good that a man should both hope quietly wait for the salvation
of the Lord. You see? That hope makes us cleave
to Him. We start looking at the miseries,
and the failures, and all of those things, and we'll sure
to draw back, and we'll turn to try to save ourselves some
way, and we'll end up just tangled up in this world. But if we look
to Him, and our hope is in Him, and we say to our soul, soul,
in the Lord I have hope. I'm going to trust in Him. His
mercies are new every morning. He's saving me. then we'll cling
to Him, because this is what hope teaches us. Beloved, now
are we the sons of God. Right now. It doesn't appear
what we shall be, but if a man sees something, why does he yet
hope for it? Paul said, we're hoping for it. But it doesn't
appear what we shall be, but we know this, this is our hope.
When He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we'll see Him
as He is. And every man that had this hope
in himself purifies himself, even as he's pure. You know what
that purifying himself is? Of all those miserable thoughts
and those reckless and careless thoughts of thinking it's all
going to hell in a handbasket. It's hoping in Him and just washing
myself of those things. Trust in Him. Clinging to Him.
Hanging on to Him. Alright, let's go back to our
text now. We'll close with this. These graces are strengthened
by exercise. I don't much like exercise, bodily
exercise. But these, and we don't much
like this kind of exercise either, that the Lord's Spirit's gonna
continually exercise these graces in us to make them grow, to make
them be strengthened. We don't like them, but He's
left us in this flesh for that purpose, He's left us in this
world for that purpose, and He's united us together in a church
family for that purpose, to grow us in these graces, to strengthen
us, to make us be exercised in them. So when your faith is tried,
Instead of looking away and looking to the world and to the waves
and to everything else, look to Christ the faithful. When
our hope is tried, instead of dwelling on the miseries and
looking at the failures and looking at everything and just throwing
up our hands and drawing back and going away into the world,
Look to Christ, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross,
despising the shame, and has that hope set down at the right
hand of God. And He says, I'm going to have
all my people. They're coming to me. I'm not going to lose
one of them. The next time we're tried, when our love is tried,
instead of resorting to hate and guile and malice and all
those things, look to Christ who loved us. and gave himself
for us. And doing so, he said, I gave
my back to the smiters, to them that plucked off the hair. I
gave it to them. And remember that these graces,
you know what they're for? We're so selfish, we think, well,
these are to benefit me. No, they're not. They're to benefit
our fellow brethren. For the benefit of our fellow,
Paul's sitting there saying, oh, I thank God for you on every
remembrance of you. And he said, I'm so encouraged,
I'm so hopeful. That's why he said later, he
said, I sent Timothy to find out about you. And if you stand,
I stand, he said. That's what he said. All these
graces are given to us to encourage our brethren, to help our brethren.
And I can tell you an example. They helped me. Your graces that
the Lord has given you encouraged me and helped me and caused me
to be able to truly say with Paul this right here, verse 2.
I give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you
in my prayer, remembering without ceasing your work of faith and
labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ
in the sight of God and our Father. And it makes me to know, brethren
beloved, your election of God. Amen.