It's always difficult to close
an epistle. It's always hard to know exactly
how much of it you should preach. OK, the letter's over. We're
through. I mean, how many of you actually
sort of sit around and look at the ending of a letter? Sincerely, John. I mean, it's
not something we really care about. And if you look at most
preaching, if you look at most sermonizing, you'll see that
there's a strange absence of the preaching of the end of letters. And because of that, they're
usually overlooked. But look at this text for a second.
In verse 16 through 18 of 2 Thessalonians 3, I'm gonna put us back in the
first book, I'll tell you, we're gonna start over. We hear the
words of Paul. Now may the Lord of peace himself
give you peace at all times in every way. The Lord be with you
all. I, Paul, write this greeting
with my own hand. This is the sign of genuineness
in every letter of mine. It is the way I write. The grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Now for some people,
it's sort of like, okay, great. Grace and peace be with you.
It's Paul, see you later. But there's a lot more here than
that. Now, argument would show that there's not a lot of things
that are being argued here. There's not a lot of exposition
in the context of this small two sentences that require a
lot of theological study or require a lot of Greek study. There's
not some things here that are so in-depth. And he didn't close
this letter with five or six paragraphs. He closed it with
two phrases. But yet there are some of the
most powerful things that we see in the letters of Paul. And
it is the sealing, if I could say, the cap of the filling of
the jar that Paul wrote when he filled this letter, when he
penned this letter to these Christians in Thessalonica. You see, don't
forget that the occasion of this letter was what? False teaching. There were false teachers who
were perpetrating a different gospel. There were false teachers
who were saying that the return of Jesus Christ had already taken
place. There were false teachers who
have come into the church and supposedly, as Paul said earlier,
whether it be by anything that you hear, anything that you have
been taught that is different than what we taught you in word
or by letter, it's not true. Don't ignore it. As a matter
of fact, he goes on to say, A couple of weeks ago, as we saw, that
if anyone does not take heed of what we command in this letter,
have nothing more to do with them. Paul would say the same
thing to the church of Corinth. The instructions about the order
of worship and the things that should and should not be allowed
in the context of the assembly. and how all of the practices
and some manifestations of the Spirit Paul prohibited in the
local assembly of the body. He says, and if somebody doesn't
agree with me on this matter, they're not a brother in Christ,
for they deny the very teaching that is given to me by the Lord
Himself. That's a big paraphrase, but that's the intention of what
Paul writes when he holds the letters that he wrote to such
authority. That's why we know that the apostles
or over. The word apostle, apostolos,
if you want to pronounce it like a English-speaking Greek, means
the sent one, the sent one, the messenger. But Jesus Christ sent
these apostles that they may have authority to teach what
he gave them by the Spirit. Then we know what the apostles'
teaching is by the words that God has allowed them to write
in the letters that they sent. I said last week or the week
before, it's one of these things that really overwhelms me at
times, is to write, I mean, to read the writing of Paul and
of Peter and others, but especially Paul, and to read it from the
context in which it was sent, with the heart in which Paul
wrote it, and that his affection for the church was so great that
he labored in his suffering to make sure that they had the information
they needed to stand firm in the faith. He knew that the mind
of humanity would never continually absorb and hold to the teachings
that they gave these churches during the day of their planting. Just like we, even as someone
who has taught both of these letters over the last year, there
are things that I will read a year from now and go, wow, I forgot
about that. I forgot about that. But beloved,
If we aren't paying close attention, we'll forget about why it's even
necessary we study Scripture. Paul wrote this letter because
false teaching and error and problems had invaded the church
of Jesus Christ. And we look at these sometimes
and go, oh man, those were some hard times. These are some times,
man, these apostles, there were a lot of wicked false teachers
back then. Friends, let me say this in as kind a way as I can. There are more false teachers
today alive, breathing air in their lungs than there ever has
been in the history of the world. You hear me? What percentage
shall you put upon that, pastor? I don't know, but I used to love
to make up statistics and debate. And I got called on it years
ago by a professor who said, if you make up another statistic,
I'm going to fail you if you don't cite it. I said, are you
100% sure of that? I don't know! I don't know how
many people in percentage are false teachers, but beloved,
if we are not Bereans in our mindset, if we're not looking
to test the spirit in which things are taught, if we're not looking
to challenge everything we hear, even what I'm saying to you this
very day by the written Word of God, you are a slave to another
man's ideals. And beloved, if we're going to
be a slave to someone else's thoughts, we better be a slave
to Paul's or Peter's or James's, not this one, but the Apostle,
or John, or Luke, or Matthew. We better be a slave to those
men who were guided inherently by the Holy Spirit of God, lest
we become enslaved by false teaching. In our world today, it's profitable
in most circles. It's profitable for the world
at large to make fun of folks. It's profitable to call things
out that you don't like. It seems acceptable in our day
to just make a big deal out of all the wrong stuff, but let
me give you two things to think about as we continue. It is not
proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ to proclaim the not gospel. If all I preach is the not gospel,
then you never hear the gospel. But it is never wrong to say
that's not the gospel. Do you hear me? Apologists and evangelists and
pastors and teachers, are not supposed to make their life's
calling to just say, here's what's wrong. They must also in turn
say, this is what's right. And someone who defends the truth,
the polemicists of our day who defend the truth by calling out
error and then showing why are very, very good for the church. But it's not about just doing
our own thing, is it? See, a lot of times we can say,
okay, we've got our congregation and we've got our set of beliefs
and we're okay and we can sit comfortably and everybody can
just sort of hate us and we'll just do our own thing and maybe
the Lord will bring others into our lives and our fellowship
will grow as it certainly has grown over the years. But it's not okay to just say
we're just gonna do our own thing. And it's not easy to just do
our own thing, is it? I mean, if we were doing our
own thing from a civil point of view, if we were benevolent
type people who just decided instead of a church, we're going
to start a food pantry or a soup kitchen or a clothes closet or
a halfway house, man, the world would love us. The world would
love us. Many churches would join in the
battle. Many churches would stand up. Many worldly people and corporations
would come behind us and say, here's what we believe. We believe
in what you're doing so much. Here's a little bit of money
to help you do what you do. Here's some support. Television
stations would give us free advertising. These people are making a difference
in the world. Well, what difference does it make for someone to go
away no longer thirsty when they're parched in their soul? What difference
does it make for someone's stomach to be full, but they refuse the
bread of life? Or worse, never were given opportunity
to hear it. It's not just about doing our
thing, beloved. The world in which we live today is full of
false teaching and it's full of hatred of truth. And that's
what was happening in Paul's day. And I know that we know
that because we've been going through this letter for weeks.
But What is it, how are we supposed to apply this to our lives this
very moment? Just as a show of hands, how
many of you have been on the internet in the last week? Okay. So there's no Luddites in here
that I know of. Stop pointing. Okay. On the internet, If you are watching anything,
if you are looking in any particular area where other people are,
you will see tens of bazillions of shares. What is that? Not
shares like a stock. Things that people share with
others. You know, sometimes I wish people weren't so generous. I
wish they wouldn't send me things that are going to ruffle my feathers,
or I wish they wouldn't send me things that are absolutely
stupid. I wish they wouldn't send me things that are, and
say, worse, this is a blasphemous false teaching, but I'm gonna
send it to this pastor, because I know he'll be blessed by it,
and I'm going to bust my head against the computer screen.
If you ever seen me slamming my smartphone into my forehead,
that's what's wrong. I have read something that someone has praised
as great and it's not great. Why? Because if you wanna find
free grace preaching, you gotta dig for it. If you wanna find
sovereign grace, you gotta hunt. Because if you look, you might
find some really twisted stuff. But what's going on in our world
today is that it's very easy to find so-called teachers of
so-called Scripture that are twisting the Word of God to such
a degree. Are you hearing me? People are
buying it hook, line, and sinker. And because people love to play
games using Scripture, to placate to the masses, to make people
feel good. Well, friends, that's not a bad
desire, is it? Do you want to feel good when
you leave fellowship today? Do you want to have a spirit
of joy? Absolutely. But that joy is not going to
come from me pulling the best that's in you out. Because if
I dig for the best that's in us, I'm not going to find it.
If I dig for the righteousness that's in us, it's not going
to be there. If I look for the power that's
in us to rise up and to come above our circumstances, it does
not exist. But what does exist is the One
who is all-powerful. What does exist is the One who
has all wisdom. What does exist is the One who
has no corruption. Yet He saw corruption on the
cross. He saw conviction of a crime that He did not commit. He saw
death that He did not deserve. And beloved, if we want to feel
the joy that is eternal, we must reach into ourselves and see
the nothingness that exists there and look into the eyes of God
through the Word of God and see that the fabulous, ineffable
glory of Jesus Christ is all that we have to look at. And
that if anything else gets in the way of that, we are miserable
in our false happiness. It's why so many congregations
continually, I cannot tell you the number of leadership elder
meetings that I've been a part of through the years, where we
sit there and wonder, what are we going to do to get this group
of people over here more involved? What are we going to do to get
this group of people over here from hurting so much? What are
we going to do to get more people in the community in love with
church? And the creativity begins, and
the next thing you know, we've got a whole new chapter of how
we're going to reach bikers, how we're going to reach kite
flyers, how we're going to reach bowlers. How about we reach dead people
with Jesus? And no matter what we love to
do in life, when we get together, we celebrate Christ. Friends, there's a war going
on in our lives today. It's not about the liberty to
just come in here and enjoy a service together and to be taught the
word and to pray and to love each other. There's a trial because
life is life. You and I, all of us, we are
suffering in life because life is just full of suffering. I
mean, I hardly ever have pain in my knees, but this week my
knees are hurt. What the world? Now what? Next thing I know,
my ears are going to start. Are there any bones in your ears?
If there are, I'm going to get arthritis in them. There's trials, because truth
divides. When we live for the truth, when we love the truth,
when we learn the truth, when we enjoy intimacy around the
truth of God, the truth of Scripture, it causes trials. It causes trials
within our own mind and heart. Hebrews 4.12, the Word of God
is a two-edged sword, and it cuts to the soul. It causes trials
in our own home. Why? Because even if we agree
on what the Bible says or we agree on the unity of the Spirit,
when we're studying and we love the Word and the truth of God
is in us, the devil comes in too. And the enemy of God pokes
at our flesh to where that which we probably would have never
noticed or never been bothered with now bothers us. Trials. Truth divides in our
community, in our culture. Truth divides because sometimes
we're asked to do things that are unethical or immoral. And
we say, I will not do that. I will not dishonor my Lord.
And we're mocked or worse, we're fired or we're put on the chopping
block or we're given crazy schedules where we can't be in church.
You think that's, you think that's accidental? No, it's not. There's a trial because people
have made church and Christianity a plan or a program or a purpose. Friends, the church is not a
plan. The church is not a program. The church is a people. Christianity
is not this purpose that we live. It's following after the God
of heaven who became a man and who obeyed and who gave himself
as a righteous sacrifice so that we could have eternal life. Christianity
is an intimate issue. It is the work of God whereby
He reaches into a lost sinner and He brings them to life without
their will, without their ability, without their permission. And
he saves them and then they look and they say, behold, there is
a God who loves me. There is a God who saved me and
I'm worthy of wrath and I'm worthy of judgment and I'm worthy of
death. But in his love for me, he sent his son to die that I
might live. This is good news, beloved. This
is what empowers people to walk. This is what empowers people
to love. This is what empowers people to live for the glory
of God. The gospel of Jesus Christ. There is a tribe because everyone
loves idols, ourselves included. We love stuff. Probably five
times in the last week, I've had a 19th century chess piece
on my mind that my three-year-old and her beloved self decided
to play with and lose. Well, you can't replace those
things, so now I have an incomplete chess set. And every time I walk
into my study, I'm like, you know what I did? I just took
it all down and put another piece up, put a whole nother set up. What in
the world? Why do we care? Why is it important
anyway? Why does it matter in the scope
of eternity? What eternal value has a chess
piece? Nothing. None. Burn the whole thing down. Throw the whole thing away. Because
it doesn't really matter. But see, we love idols. So just
in maybe 15 minutes this week, I have been divided, my Lord
and Savior, chess piece. You think, well, that's a terrible
thing to confess. Come on, guys, quit lying. What has divided
your time this week? A new Netflix show? I know some
of you binge. I see you sign off at 3 AM. What else is dividing our time? We love idols and when the truth
comes in, idols are confronted. Idols are punched in the face.
The Lord says, look at these idols. They're ugly and wicked
and dead. They're not living. Look at me.
See my glory. Bask in the majesty of my being. And we look at that. We look
at the Lord a lot. Thank you, Jesus. But there's a trial. And there's a trial because the
fight is real and it's promised, but here's the good thing, beloved,
and this is what Paul wants to remind his readers as he closes
this out, who are in trial, that Christ is victorious. He's victorious! Nothing, nothing can separate
us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. Nothing can
overcome us. Who shall make a charge against
the elect? No one. For Christ has satisfied
God's judgment against us. We stand perfect before Him because
Christ stands perfect before Him. Paul said to Timothy, people
will not endure sound teaching. Friends, this is a matter at
hand today. The scripture teaches that many will turn away from
the truth. This is the practice at hand today. The scripture
says that many people will run after false truths and be captured
by vain and weird philosophies. This is the power that is at
hand today. People are lost in these things. No matter how Baptist
they may seem, or how Presbyterian they might be, or how evangelical
they appear. Beloved, this is not just the
pagans who are worshipping under blood sacrifices that we're talking
about here. This is not just the world who
hates any concept of theology, or concept of Christianity, or
concept of the Bible. These are those who claim to
be our brothers and sisters in Christ, who sit in evangelical
named congregations. And yet they reject the grace
of God through Jesus Christ because their ability to come to God
and their idolatry of their own ministry stands in opposition
to the Lord of Heaven. And that's what was happening
in Thessalonica, that's what is happening today in Georgia,
that's what is happening in our world. This is the way of Satan. This is the way, the path of
Babylon that is self-destructing. We cannot fix this problem. People
are lost in their unbelief and they grasp onto anything that
might seemingly look like something that they can hold to. whether
it be the faith in their own faith, or the faith in the fruit
of their faith, or the faith in their baptism, or the faith
in their church membership, or the faith in their doctrinal
positions, or their faith in their pastor, or the fact they've
been in church their whole life, or the fact they haven't cursed,
or lied, or been upset in 50 years, or the fact that they
give to the poor, or they serve the community, or they preach
the gospel, or they pastor a church. We cannot hold to these things
in confidence for our sureness. Our assurance and our confidence
is only in the finished work of Jesus Christ alone. Sola fide,
sola, sola, solo, soli. That means alone. These things
are not something that we just hang on our wall and sit in our
documents. It is the promise of God that
we are saved by grace, through faith, through Christ alone. And that there is no work that
we can muster to stand before Him that we might boast and say,
Oh God, I come to you this day because I. We stand before God
and if He even asks, and He won't, we would say, I come and I stand
before you this day because Christ. Christ justified me. Christ is
my righteousness. Christ is my hope. I am not worthy,
but you have saved me. Friends, we are to defend the
truth and we are to delight in the truth. And we cannot fix
the problem, but we are to be light in the darkness. You realize
that, don't you? All of us have superman complexes. What does
that mean? We think we can take on the world and the lostness
of the world. We think that we can correct every person who
has a wrong view of doctrine. We think we can overcome any
of these worldly type beliefs and idols. Well, friends, we
cannot. I had a man say this morning
on my way to church, Hey, brother James, you go save your flock. And I looked at him, I says,
I can't save anybody. And he said, all right, good. See you
later. And just walks off. That's a misunderstanding. Christ
saves his sheep. And beloved, a lost person without
a spiritual gift of God's grace and regeneration would sit in
this service today and go, what am I supposed to do with this?
Where's the six point outline? Where's the skit? Where's the
show? Where's the fire juggling? The
chainsaw bear statue? What's gonna keep my attention?
I'm not coming back next week because there was nothing here.
Beloved, the writing of the New Testament is for the church.
And through the church, the gospel message goes out. We preach the
gospel. We preach the good news that
God has saved us through Jesus Christ. And that through the
hearing of that message, as dumb as it sounds to the world, when
God opens the eyes and the hearts of an unbeliever, they see and
they believe because God has given them life. We're not going to fix the problem,
but we are light and God will fix the problem. Christ will
fix the problem as he sees fit, when he sees fit. 2 Corinthians
chapter 4, I know I refer to this about as much as John, but
the gospel of Jesus is veiled only to the unbelievers who the
God of this world has blinded their eyes so that they cannot
see the glory of God. cannot see the light of the gospel.
But God who said, let light shine out of darkness has shown in
our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Friends, we can only be light. God is the agent of salvation. God is the agent of truth because
Jesus is truth. And this fight is real in our
individual lives, in our homes, in our communities, and at the
world of large. The more exposure that false teaching gets, the
more acceptance it gets. You ever thought about that?
Well, he must be right, he's on the television. He must be
right, he's got a radio show. He must be right, he's got a
big, big, big, big church. He must be right, he's got nine
cars and six houses. The devil owns all that stuff.
Satan owns all of it. Satan offered the world and all
of its treasures to Jesus and Jesus rebuked him and walked
away. Lies and hatred and persecution
will come, but the Lord will sustain us, beloved. Paul's reminding
us of that here in this ending of this letter. Let's read it
again. Now may the Lord of peace himself
give you peace at all times in every way. The Lord be with you
all. I, Paul, write this greeting
with my own hand. This is the sign of genuineness
in every letter of mine. It is the way I write. The grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Let me pray. Lord, that was a rather lengthy
introduction. May our minds not wander, but
focus on the truth of the scripture. We thank you, Lord, for the gospel.
for the truth, for the power that you've given through your
word. Thank you for your spirit, Father,
to bring us to life and to give us wisdom. And as we close this
letter today, I pray that the food and the bread that has come
from it would settle into us, that we might forever be reminded
of its truth. And I pray this in the name of
Jesus. Amen. Let's break this down piece by
piece. Now may the Lord of peace himself. Let's talk about that for a second.
I mean, back in 1 Thessalonians, as he closed that out, he says,
now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely. And
may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless in
the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. But now he says, may
the Lord of peace himself. So here it is, the God of peace,
now the Lord of peace. And who is this Lord of peace?
Jesus, the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus Christ,
who is God, is the Lord of peace, the God of peace. And friends,
this peace, if you want to think about it for a minute as we close,
what is it? See, we often think so worldly, so temporally, so
fleshly, even as believers. Oh, I'm just, that's what I want.
Thank you, pastor. Preach about the peace of God.
I want my life to be better. I want my marriage to be more
at peace. I want my finances to be more
settled. I want my health to be better. That's not the peace
of Christ. As a matter of fact, Timothy
teaches Paul. I mean, excuse me, he didn't
teach Paul anything. Paul teaches Timothy that anyone who desires
to live a godly life will be persecuted. So what part of that
is peace? And he says, just continue to
preach the gospel in and out of season. Preach the word of
God. It is yours and it is profitable and it causes you to be successful,
O man of God. There is no peace in this life.
I have horror in my soul when I talk to pastors and I ask them
what burdens them and how can I pray for them and they say,
no, nothing. Nothing. Really? There's no burden on
your heart? There's no burden on your soul?
There's no burden in your mind? There's nothing that is paining
you? There's nothing that's hurting
you? There's nothing that's causing you to be conflicted and causing
you to exercise your faith in Jesus? There's nothing going
on in the midst of your life or your marriage or your own
heart or your church or your congregation? Are you just like
a single person church? It's just you and you? You preach
to a mirror? That's a deadly thing to have, no burden. Because believers, though the
burden is Christ to carry, I believe that all who are filled with
the Spirit of God are burdened for the lost, are burdened for
the conflict that they see in the world, are burdened for the
hurting of the saints. Doesn't scripture teach us that
we rejoice with those who rejoice and we weep for those who weep?
For a man to say that he has no burden means he's not weeping
over his church. Jesus wept. He's God of peace. See, this
peace is not the world's peace. This peace is not like the world
understand it. This peace surpasses, what is
it Paul says, surpasses all understanding. The peace of God that surpasses
all understanding is yours. So when we even try to explain
this peace to other people, What happens? They go, I just don't
get it. How can you have joy? How can
you be so calm? How can you be okay? What are
you going to do? And we go, I don't know. I don't know how this works.
I don't know how I'm going to handle this. I don't know what
the outcome is going to be, but Christ has it. God has it. And it's foolish to the world.
It's foolish to unbelievers. It's not foolish to us, beloved,
but the peace of God surpasses all understanding. It's beyond
comprehension. Jesus even says in John 14, 27,
Peace I leave with you. My peace. Listen to this, church.
My peace I give to you. What peace did Jesus... Did Jesus
have burdens? Yes, Jesus had burdens. Jesus
prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. before the crucifixion. Oh, Father,
take this cup from me. Let it pass from me. But Your
will be done, not mine. But now Christ has been raised
from the dead. And He knew that troubles and
trials would befall the church forever. It is the plan of God,
beloved, that the church suffer. You hear me? Any man that tells
you that God doesn't want suffering in the lives of His people is
a liar. And he preaches a demonic teaching that is not of God.
God will not say that you who are his beloved will not suffer
in this life. He says the contrary. My peace I give to you, Jesus,
not as the world gives do I give to you. Therefore then, let not
your hearts be troubled, Jesus says. Let not your hearts be
troubled, neither let them be afraid. How do I do that? I'm
fearful of my life. I get a bad report from the doctor.
Things are bad at work. Things are bad at home. I'm doubting
my faith. People are coming against me.
Hatred is happening. The Thessalonians and others
during the first century suffered greatly for their faith. Where
in the world are they going to find the peace that they can
stand and say, my heart is not troubled and I am not afraid.
They cannot find it in themselves. Beloved, you can't find it in
yourself and we're not going to find it in the world and we're
not going to find it through the teaching of others. We can only find it
in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ has given us his
peace. Jesus Christ sits and awaits
and intercedes. He is the high priest who has
satisfied the righteous requirements of the law as a human being and
also for His church. He's given us His righteousness. He's imputed to us. He's credited
to us His righteousness. There is peace there. What's
the worst that happens in this life? What is worth more than
Jesus? What in this world could happen
to us that would cause us to have joylessness in the face
and contrasting Jesus Christ? Nothing. They can take away our
stuff. We have Christ. They can take
away our tongue. We can pray in our hearts and
minds because we have Christ. They can take away our Bibles.
The Word of God is hidden in our hearts. They can take away
our children. But we grieve as those who have
hope. They can take away our life and
we get our reward. See, this peace cannot be bought.
This peace cannot be earned, and sometimes this peace cannot
even be seen in this world. This peace cannot be accepted
by you. It's not on the table. Jesus
did not make a table and say, come get my peace. He did not
say to the disciples in John 14, here's my peace, come get
it. And Paul does not say here, may the God of peace, may the
Lord of peace himself, he didn't say, offer you the option. What
does he say? May the God of peace, may the
Lord of peace himself give you peace. You see that? May the Lord of peace give you
peace. Well, that's rather emphatic.
What are you trying to say there? I'm trying to say quit trying
to find the peace. And believe on Jesus Christ who
is our peace. Hold fast. to Him who gives His
peace to us. Well, how come I still fight?
Beloved, our flesh fights. This world is in conflict. It's
real. But this Lord of peace rules. He's the Lord. He's the master
of peace. He's the king of peace. He's
the one who owns the peace, who is the peace, and He can give
peacefulness and peace to who He wishes. And He gives peace
to you, beloved. He gives peace to you this day. You find it hard to see? Would
you cry to the Lord that He would be your peace? Look what He continues to say
here. not just give you peace and you do what you will with
it, not just give you peace and hope that you hold on to it,
but now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all
times in every way. What does that mean? You know, it's like the marriage
vows. Most of us probably said something similar. Something
about until death, What did we promise to do until death? To
have and to hold, to cherish, to obey, to submit, to surrender,
to love, to keep, all these things. And then all of a sudden, we
say something or some semblance in the good times or in the bad
times, in the richer times or in the poor times, in the healthy
times or in the sick times. Well, beloved, God's peace, the
peace of Christ is yours in the bad, yours in the poor. yours in the broken, yours in
the heartache, yours in death. The peace of God is yours in
sin, yours in temptation, yours in anger, yours in doubt, yours
when you don't even feel like being with the saints, yours
when you find that you've just been apathetic and lazy in your
walk. It's the peace. The peace of
Christ is yours in every way and at all times. The peace of
Christ is yours. What is it? Paul would say the Ephesians
when he said, or the Philippians, when he said that the peace that
surpasses all understanding for the Lord is at hand. And he says
the same thing here. Look now, may the Lord of peace
himself give you peace at all times in every way. The Lord
be with you all. The Lord be with you all. Beloved,
the Lord is with us. The Lord is with us. If we are
in Him, we are in Him. The Lord is with us. Why is that
so difficult? Because when our flesh begins
to look at the temporal, begins to focus on the things of this
world, begins to focus on the temptations that come, and it's
not always temptations of grievous sin, it's temptations to doubt
the promises of God, and it's temptations to worry over that
which God has foreordained supremely and sovereignly in our lives.
The heartache, the suffering, the joys, the pleasantries, all
of it. God is the master over it all.
He is the Lord and King of peace. And God moves in our lives as
He sees fit for our good, beloved. For our good. And this Lord is
with us. He's with us. Some people say,
well, I feel so far from God. Well, that's because you're looking
at your feelings. Sometimes I feel like Superman.
And then I get out of bed. I'm not Superman. Sometimes I
feel really smart and then I open my mouth. Sometimes I feel like I have
the faith of Jesus himself and then I get a phone call or someone
crosses my path or I think about something. Christ. is with us. It is our only hope. When we
find ourselves lacking in peace, it's because we've taken our
eyes off of the one who is peace. How do I see Jesus today? You
see, we often ask that question. How do I see Jesus today? Well,
look at 17. Now remember what these conflicted Christians were
struggling with. Letters and teaching that was
contrary to what Paul and the apostles had taught them. And
so here comes another letter. If you'd gotten 25 emails today
with the subject, greetings, and they were all garbage, and
I sent you one that said, greetings, you would go, uh-huh. Is this
spam? And some of us would open it
with hesitation going, this is a joke. That's what happens in
the first century when people get letter after letter after
letter claiming to be from the apostles, but now are not. So
Paul wants to satisfy them and say, listen, Christ is with you
and I'm telling you the truth. You can trust in it because I'm
telling you. That's a powerful authority. The Word of God is
where we find our hope. The Word of God alone is where
we embrace the peace of Jesus Christ every moment and every
day. It is in the Word of God where we overcome sin, where
we overcome struggle, where we find our joy. It is where we
have intimacy with Christ. It is where we are empowered
to grow and to mature. It is where we are able to endure
and satisfy the flesh against the world. It's where we are
supposed to be mining for the bread that we are to use for
encouraging one another in the faith. It is where we gain the
ability to come and say to one another in the midst of other
people suffering, Christ is with you and His peace is yours. Paul wanted them to understand,
as he did most of his letters, that this was not some forgery.
This was not some fraud. His love for these Christians
was so overwhelmingly true that he took the time out to make
sure that they had confidence to know that he wrote it. He
wrote it and most likely probably signed his name to it in that
line with his own hand to give the authority that this was a
certified letter from him. Why is that a big deal? Because
people didn't write their own letters in that day. Paul would
talk and the scribe would dictate his letter. That's how it worked. Back when I was on staff of churches
and actually had secretaries, they would, I need a letter to
so-and-so, I needed to tell him something like this, and they'd
zip it on up and sign my name to it. Except they signed a little
neater, so I decided, well, no, I would sign my name. You just
write it, I'll sign my name, but it's my words. This is what
I want to say. Paul signs his own letter so
that it will be certain that his recipients can hold it as
authentic. I write this in my own hand. It is the sign of genuineness
in every letter of mine. It is the way I write. Beloved, listen. Why I put that
there? Because they're saying, He just
told us the Lord of Peace will give us His peace. He will give
us His peace and He will be with us forever. How do we know this
isn't a lie? Because Paul said it was his. Remember the little introduction
that I gave about the war we're in? Do you know the greatest
war in our world today is not the cults, It's not unbelief,
it's not atheism, agnosticism, science, scientific revolution
religion, humanism or any of this other kind of stuff. These
aren't the enemies of the gospel as much as people who profess
to be in Christ who preach a twisted gospel are. And they use scripture
as they see fit and ignore scripture as they see fit. But beloved,
you can't believe what I'm saying to you if you don't hold to the
infallibility of this word. You cannot believe anything I've
ever preached to you if you do not believe that the Bible is
inerrant. That means without error. You cannot believe that
Jesus has saved you if you do not believe that the Scripture
is absolutely true, 100%. You cannot believe that God loves
you if you do not hold to the fullness of Sola Scriptura, that
the Word of God alone tells us everything we need to know about
God and that God does not reveal Himself in any way, in any part,
through any human being at all, evermore, except through the
written Word. Well, are you sure? How do you
know what I'm reading this morning is right? If some of it might
not be, I hate to say these types of
things because it really bothers people. But it's the dumbest
thing I've ever heard come out of a believer's mouth is to say
that the scripture is not authoritative. Now, some of us have said that
I've said that before years and years and years ago. Are we sure?
Yes, we're sure. It's one thing for us to say
it in ignorance and immaturity, but it's another thing for those
who have an audience and lead people to destruction. And friends,
there are pastors in this very state with some of the largest
churches that we know who are preaching series on why the Bible
is not necessarily important as they use the Bible. I use the analogy of a restaurant.
You're in a nice restaurant and you see a plate come out and
it had a roach on it. They flick it off. They say,
no, that's the only plate that had a roach on it. Yours is clean,
I promise. And they bring you food. Are you going to eat it? I write this with my own hand.
And in verse 18, see, here's the power of the written word.
How am I supposed to hold fast? to Christ is my peace. Where
am I supposed to find it? In the Word. And how am I supposed
to hold fast? I just feel so inadequate. I
feel so unable to believe this. Because the pain and the pressure
and the burdens are so harsh right now. How am I going to
believe this? Because Paul says in verse 18, he declares the
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. In chapter one, verse two, he
says, grace to you and peace to you from God our Father and
the Lord Jesus Christ. At the close, grace, the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. The grace of God is
given through the word of God. The grace of God for salvation
is given through the word of God, Romans 10. For faith comes through
hearing. Okay, so if I hear what? Hearing
comes through the Word of God. The words of Christ, actually.
The words of Christ. So, we want to hold fast to the
peace that is ours in Jesus, then we must be passionately
disciplined, listen to me, passionately disciplined to seek this grace
and power through the Word of God. And beloved, here is the
wonderful thing. Do not grow weary in doing what
is good, God, God will keep you in the
faith. God will direct your hearts to
the love of God. May Jesus Christ direct your
hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ.
We will stand in the peace of Christ because God draws us to
it. You are here this morning that
God's Word may draw you and that the Spirit may draw you to the
love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ as a perseverance.
It is not up to us to persevere in our strength. It is God's
work in us. He will complete that which He
began. You can count on it. Rest well, beloved. Rest well
in the faith Rest well in Christ. Let's pray. We love you, Father. We thank you, Lord, for this
awesome truth. The grace of Jesus Christ is
ours. The power of Christ is ours.
You've given us by your spirit this gift of salvation and with
it all the reward. Lord, I pray that those who hear
and have heard this message would know this peace. Father, they would seek, to ask,
to run, to strive, to believe, but we know that they cannot
do so. We know that they cannot even see if you do not grant
them sight. if you do not birth them from
above. So I pray, Lord, through the hearing of your word, that
you give life to the dead, hope to the hopeless, that you would
grant eternal life to those who are not yet believers and that
they would rejoice in thanksgiving and glory, glory in your grace. And Father, as your people, as
this church, as this local body who is a family, let the peace
of Christ rule in our hearts as the word of God rules in our
hearts. Do that in us, please, Father,
for your glory. And in the name of your son,
we pray. Amen.